Planning Commission Work Session Meeting   8/8/2023

called this meeting.

All right.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the public.

This is a meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission.

Always say that to make sure you know you're in the right spot.

The opportunities for the public to access and participate in the hybrid meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Planning Commission homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Yes, Mr. Murray?

Here.

Mr. Bivins?

Yes.

Sure.

Can you hear us?

And I see Ms.

OK.

I'm here.

Hi there.

I'm sorry.

I can't hear you all.

OK, here you go.

Sure.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

Is there a motion from the floor to admit Commissioner Moore to the meeting?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

All right.

Mr. Clayborne?

Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Just to clarify, Mr. Moore doesn't vote on his own admission, but he has now been admitted.

OK.

Other matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

I do have two individuals that would like to speak.

I'll start with them.

I have three individuals who would like to speak.

I will start with them, and if anyone else desires to speak, you can identify yourself and we'll call you up to the podium.

Good evening, I'm Tom Olivier, a resident of the Samuel Miller district.

We live in demanding times and the next two decades are on track to present us with new, more larger challenges.

We need to develop and install our best innovative thinking in the new comprehensive plan so that it can provide guidance in the troubled and changing times

to this end, yesterday I emailed to you invitations to view the planning commissioners to meet with environmentalists and other members of the public.

This meeting is proposed and sponsored by the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club, the CO-100 Climate Alliance, and 350.org.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Neil Williamson with the Free Enterprise Forum.

Feels like we've been working on AC44 for three years already, but I know we're only into the second year and we're well into the second year because I've had a number of posts describing the capacity analysis that you received last May.

One of the issues there is the planning horizon you're dealing with in the comprehensive plan.

Albemarle County took the idea that AC44 to focus on 44.

That's your planning horizon.

If you utilize the numbers that were provided in the capacity study for what's available in terms of residential units and multiply it by the loss between comprehensive plan and approved plan densities, which I think was 58%,

You are short 1,000 units on the low end.

You're short 3,000 units on the high end.

That's your planning horizon.

And I haven't heard that discussed.

You're short.

Now, you're not short until 44 or maybe 43 or maybe 42.

But you're short.

And if you're planning for 44,

I'm hopeful that as you discuss the development areas that were set down during the Carter administration, that you look at 44 as compared to 79.

And there's a big difference there.

In addition, in your other topics tonight, I encourage you to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Talk about the impacts.

Talk about how you can do things in adaptive reuse in

Crossroads communities that would allow not to have to go to town for the dentist appointment.

Those types of things are critically important to our rural character and to our rural lives.

And that goes to simple things like an oil change.

Should you have to drive 30 miles for an oil change?

My name is Paula Beasley and I live in the Samuel Miller District.

Charlottesville and its growth area currently comprises 20,180 acres, the growth area being 3.5 times the size of Charlottesville.

Even during these times of phenomenal growth, that is enough capacity estimated for the next 10 to 20 years.

If that growth

the concept of sustainability and encouraging more growth, which will be the end result, all these proposals for expanding the growth areas, designating rural villages, rural crossroad communities, and expanding the uses in these areas and at rural interstate exchanges.

And these proposals

For decades, Albemarle County, the state, local, and landowner resources have been to preserve our rural areas.

There has been enormous citizen participation in the 2015 comp plan redraft, which imposed an affirmative obligation on the county to preserve and protect our rural lands.

Preservation enables the county to focus its resources

on Charlottesville where they are needed.

Rural communities provide for themselves.

There is no need to designate additional rural villages or crossroad communities, and the communities don't want them.

Two on the list for consideration are Keene and Esmont, whose residents total 149 and 519 respectively.

not enough to support services economically and unnecessary when a commercial and industrial area provides these services nearly 10 miles to the north or six miles to the south in Scottsville.

What we need is internet for communication and to expand our other options, further expansion of transportation options and more frequency

such as the Jaunt provides will solve most of our needs.

Preserving rural areas is consistent with and promotes the county's objectives, specifically its climate action, biodiversity, and other objectives.

The forests, flora, fauna, open spaces, tree cover, and agricultural lands and wetlands provide carbon sequestration,

Cleanse our air and our water, respectively request that you not expand the development areas or add rural villages, crossroad communities, or expanded uses there or at rural and interstate exchanges, as those will only promote unbridled roads and sprawl.

Okay, we can move on.

So, I'm gonna confirm here in person first.

Seeing none.

Okay.

Um Miss Hosman, please state your name and address and if you're affiliated with a group or organization, when you start talking, your

Ms.

There we go.

I'm terribly sorry.

Okay.

All right.

Sandy Houseman 5577 Hilltop Street in Crozet.

I like that Albemarle County established development zones and put other areas off limits.

And it worries me now that we're already talking about adjusting the boundaries of those areas.

I think if you don't stick to your guns on this, we're going to have the sprawl that local government tried to avoid in establishing development zones in the first place.

I think you have to insist that developers limit their projects to designated areas if that strategy is going to work.

And I think it's the only way we're going to save what's special about Albemarle.

I think you as public officials are not obliged to ensure that everyone who wants to live here can afford to do so.

That might sound callous, but frankly, I think your obligation right now is to current residents and to the land we want you to protect.

If you start expanding the development areas, you'll have broken a contract with the people you represent, the people who bought into different parts of the county with certain expectations.

And along those lines, I want to say that I don't think we have preserved sufficient open space within development areas, specifically Crozet,

I live near Crozet Park and we're seeing deer and bears in places we didn't see them before.

There's a buck living in my backyard.

A doe just gave birth in the park.

We have to make provision for wildlife and for recreation.

So I would suggest that you recommend the county acquire more acreage in areas that are not earmarked for development.

I know the costs of parkland maintenance are a concern, but I think that's something we'll take up in the future.

I think the first thing we have to do

is to ensure sufficient habitat for animals and sufficient space for passive and active recreation around areas where density will only increase.

Thank you.

And I don't have anyone else at this time.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

There are no items on our present agenda.

So with that, we'll move into the formal work session.

Yes, thank you, Kevin McDermott, the Acting Planning Director here at Albemarle County.

I just wanted to give a quick introduction to our work session tonight.

I understand that Tori will be covering some of this, but I just wanted to kind of help set the stage before she begins.

So tonight we'll be going over four very dense and important topics that

in a way really set the direction for everything else we'll be talking about throughout the comp plan.

We are asking for the Planning Commission's direction on these four topics because we are going to be going to the Board of Supervisors in about one month with these same things and we want to be able to provide them with

the thoughtful consideration that we can get from the Planning Commission members.

What I want to just emphasize is that tonight, these topics, we're kind of looking at these from a higher level, and we're hoping that you can help us set the direction.

These topics are going to kind of

filter through all of our other topic areas that we'll be talking about specifically over the next two or three months of this project.

Actually, up until December when we're getting into the goals and objectives.

So tonight what we're doing is trying to set the direction for how our team can get into the details of how the county might want to grow into the future.

So I appreciate everyone's consideration on these areas.

and what we're hoping is that you can provide that direction and we will have a follow up after this to get into the details.

We have three Planning Commission meetings scheduled before the end of the year where we're really going to get into the meat of how we grow.

tonight is really just setting that direction.

So I just wanted to emphasize that going into this.

Awesome.

Thank you, Kevin.

And good evening, commissioners.

My name is Tori Kennelopoulos, principal planner, also joined this evening by Kevin McDermott and Vlad Gavrilovic, principal planner with EPRPC and Celina Cozart with Cozart Consulting, who will be facilitating this meeting and is a project consultant.

So just a quick overview of the agenda will be focused on these four planning toolkit topics as part of AC44.

And since you all received a very detailed staff report and packet, I will plan to briefly cover each topic and then leave most of the time for discussion and input.

And I will pause after going through the first topic and let you all discuss and we'll do the same for for each topic.

Yeah, thank you.

And thank you for having me with you.

What we're thinking about in terms of the meeting format and flow is that you know just to keep in mind even as Kevin said that this is a work session for guidance that there's no formal vote that's going to be taken tonight but we do want to hear your direction so that the staff can present that to the

the board on September 6th.

And so, you know, that's kind of the timeline for this conversation that we're having today, that this input goes to the Board of Supervisors on September 6th.

And there will be continued opportunities for input, even as Kevin said already.

And we just want to hear, I think Kevin covered this already, but just to reemphasize it,

that we need to hear your input for recommendations for these four topics during this meeting.

And so my role here is to help us to move forward smoothly to help facilitate conversation so that we can get to all four topics

and a relatively timely fashion volume, you still get a chance to discuss what direction you want to go.

And then, you know, so that's my task for this evening and I'm hoping that that we're able to get there.

So based on what we've been hearing from the community and then the commission's review, the purpose of the work session is for the commission to give specific recommendations to the board and to staff on how to carry forward each of these topics into goals, objectives, and action steps.

So we're asking for input on which options should be pursued for each of the topics.

And that could be the options as presented or an option with some minor changes.

And more broadly, since these are all topics that are in the current comprehensive plan,

We are asking if updates to the plan are needed or if the current recommendations should be carried forward with no or minimal changes.

And as a reminder, the toolkit started as growth management options in phase one, which were options for how the county could grow in the next 20 years.

They are topics that could support the growth management policy with coordinated land use and transportation planning.

They are also ways the AC44 framework could be applied.

And they are topics that cut across many plan chapters.

This slide shows a workflow for the four phases of the AC44 process, and we wanted to highlight how the four toolkit topics we are discussing this evening feed into the updated plan chapters, including the goals and objectives.

They also help inform some of the upcoming discussions for fall engagement, including land use designations, neighborhood model principles, density calculation recommendations, and natural and cultural resources mapping.

We will need updated goals and objectives for all planned chapters, including these school kit topics before we can move into phase three.

In the most recent round of engagement, which took place from late April through late July, the AC44 team hosted five total open houses with about 86 total attendees.

There were also four online questionnaires for each topic and total responses range from 19 to 52 for each.

Several working group members also hosted four meetings with about 40 total participants.

And we wanted to recognize that the total number of respondents for this round of engagement was lower than the first round of phase two, which could be in part because these topics are more detailed and complex.

So we wanted to emphasize again, there are more opportunities for community input as we move along once we have direction from the commission and board and can draft the relevant goals and objectives.

and we did note there seems to be a significant number of visitors to the website who may have been interested and wanted to learn more but did not provide their input through the questionnaires.

And we did have a lot of very thoughtful discussions at the open houses and reading through the community chats, especially on transportation, housing, natural resource protection, community health and building community resilience.

So moving into the first topic for this evening,

As a reminder, activity centers are locations in the development areas that either now or in the future have a mix of residential, business, and recreational uses and have a higher intensity and concentration of uses than surrounding areas and underlying land uses.

They should be walkable with a variety of destinations to walk to with safe and accessible multimodal transportation options.

They are similar to the current plan recommendations for designated centers.

However, the activity centers use a more focused approach with fewer total centers and standardized center place types applied across the development areas.

During engagement, we heard overall support for the activity centers concept, especially a mix of uses, housing choice, redevelopment, and safely being able to walk and bike.

That barrier should be reduced for small businesses to start.

There was concern a mix of uses may not always be feasible.

Centers need quality amenities to balance the higher intensity of uses.

More frequent and reliable transit is needed.

And centers support having destinations to walk to.

And we also wanted to note that at the Commission's April 25th meeting, the Commission shared comments related to infill development in the development areas, including that incentives are likely needed for infill as it can be more challenging than greenfield development.

and then encouraging efficient use of the existing development areas as needed.

And Commissioner Murray also described the density of services that should be paired with higher density development, such as transit, access to quality open space and access to more amenities and businesses.

The commission also discussed the benefits of using the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit's multimodal street typology guidelines, as these have been reviewed and supported by VDOT.

So there are two options for this topic.

And the first is to have no change to centers during AC44.

The currently identified 50 centers in the master plans would remain.

And a future step could be updating the centers during each master plan update, which could also use the draft activity centers that have been started as a starting point.

The second option is to update all the center locations in the development areas during AC44 using the activity center place types.

Staff is recommending this option as this approach would give a consistent format and terminology for all centers across the development areas, could provide more focused direction for future projects and redevelopment, and would encourage efficient use of land in the development areas.

Given the time it takes to update each master plan one at a time, this option would also provide consistent center types and multimodal transportation planning across the development areas during AC44, with additional recommendations being developed during future master plan updates.

Districts would be used to identify single-use areas of activity, such as employment centers.

With this option, the next steps during AC44 would be continuing to revise the activity centers and district place types and locations, and to draft multimodal street types and networks for centers using the Department of Rail and Public Transit guidelines and coordinating with BDOT.

So we'll now turn it over to the commission for discussion and questions on this first topic.

And we're happy to take any comments, including on center locations, but did want to note that if the commission recommends option two, we will continue to share updated center maps for additional engagement and comments.

If you have high level comments about any of the centers, that's great and we're happy to take them.

But just wanted to note these don't have to be the final ones.

Thanks.

So as we move into the discussions for each one of the topics,

You all have received three colored cards that we're hoping that we'll use as a first round to kind of get us started on the discussion.

And these will be used as kind of a straw poll to kind of get a pulse of giving the information that you've received already and Tori's summary that she just provided for us.

You just kind of say, where are you in relation to the recommendation that has been offered by the staff?

So for instance, for topic one, option two has been recommended by the staff.

So the question that I'll offer is where are you in relation to that recommendation?

Green means I'm in agreement with that recommendation.

Yellow means I'm in agreement, but I have some comment or question about it.

And red means I'm not in agreement with that recommendation.

So we'll do that as a quick pulse, and then I will invite each of the commissioners to speak just for a couple of minutes.

We're thinking that we'd spend around 40 minutes per topic.

So what the invitation is for you to, if there's something that you want to add that's different from what has already been said, that you would add that, or if you just

We'll do that and we'll just kind of go around to each commissioner to hear your comments.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Okay, so, so why don't we go ahead and get that pulse.

Again, the staff for topic one has recommended option two.

So if you are in agreement with that, you put up red.

If you have, you're in agreement, but you have comments, would be yellow.

I mean, I'm sorry, green would be the agreement, green agreement.

Yes, you can consider it that way.

And this is just to kind of see where folks are and you'll get a chance to actually vocalize what you think.

OK, awesome.

Thank you for speaking up.

So Commissioner Firehock, would you?

Sure.

So I like the yes and comment or whatever.

So I wrote little comments on my staff report.

I just wanted to, so I agree with that option too.

But I just wanted to make the caveat that we need to consider the proximity of existing commercial areas and not put centers in the center of neighborhoods adjacent to commercial areas already serving this function.

So, you know, as soon as we have the, this is the planning area and there's a C in the middle of it, but like right next to is a major commercial area.

But we're supposed to pretend that everyone wants to go to the middle of this neighborhood when the major commercial area is a quarter mile away right here.

So, you know, I just want that caveat to be part of the review.

And then there was also in the overview of option two, it talked about updating them.

But I wanted to make the additional comment that we already have, I believe, way too many centers.

There's C's everywhere, Awash in C's.

Where there's all the studier is already adjacent to a major commercial center.

Right, where everyone's already in the habit of going to this spot.

We shouldn't try to artificially make a center in the middle.

Well, there's so many boundaries are arbitrary, like when we're up by Riah Road and we're drawing like this part of, you know, just east, eastern Riah Road.

And we're saying, well, there's there needs to be a center here.

It's not you know, it's just because our map has a sea.

in the middle of this area, but right here is the sea that exists.

So I don't want to make these artificial centers.

And then I was just saying that we have too many already.

So I'm in agreement with this thing, the staff's recommendation with those two caveats.

So the second one was that there's too many.

Got it.

Unless we're going in order, I have very similar, and I just want to maybe build on Karen's, Commissioner Firehock's.

So I was agreeing with caveats or with comments.

I do agree that we need to take a closer look at evaluating these centers and the process that was outlined makes sense.

So similar comment, and I would maybe it's articulating a little bit differently.

I think we dilute what we already have if we start to create all these.

We have too many of these C's already.

So we need to be more intentional about where we're going to have them so that we can think about infill.

We can think about adaptive reuse and densify the ones that we do have.

That's going to be better for our infrastructure.

in places that we don't have the infrastructure.

As you densify, it's going to create the opportunities to then develop that infrastructure.

So I'm concerned about too much dilution instead of trying to densify and make better use of what we do have and be able to connect them better.

Because once you densify, you're able to provide transportation and other means that we don't have in a lot of these areas.

So that's my main

I thought that fit right into it.

So I was agreeing on that also.

And my sort of shade on that would be some of them are not necessarily, no, these reflect a lived in environment that is now a reality.

So these were projected

the predicted way that we were going to live as a community.

And so I'd like us to spend some time validating, in fact, did this happen?

And if it didn't happen, then is that one of the elements that can be used to evaluate whether or not it will function in the future?

So to set up sort of an evaluation matrix to sort of say, this is what we said in the 85 or whatever it was, and how have we lived into this, if at all?

I hear a lot about the sort of dissolution of community.

And so as we build activity centers, one of the things that I'd like us to sort of be cognizant of as we evaluate them is that how do we create community?

How do we let community move among these places that we say

I'm somewhere up here.

Maybe I'm places 29 South.

Is that what I am?

I did know where I was.

Places 29 South?

No, that was our term, sorry.

That would combine the Rio CAC and the hydraulic CAC.

It's hard to get there unless you drive.

But Kevin just found that we're going to have a roundabout at District Avenue, so it's going to make it better.

Take it to the parking lot.

Take it to the parking lot.

That's a whole different thing.

But we can get you there.

We just can't.

We just can't get you to the parking lot afterwards.

So the whole idea is the centers still feel as if they're automobile-centric.

And that can be fine if that's what we want as a community.

But I don't believe that that helps us

Everything's going to be automobile-centric.

Sure.

I'd be happy to.

Is that all right?

Yeah, of course.

So just a few thoughts to both expand and maybe add a couple of additional comments.

I also had a couple of questions, but I guess I'll make my comments more like the questions will be sort of embedded in that.

And so one is, you talked about the expectation to follow the neighborhood model principles and include a variety of housing types, a mix of uses, et cetera.

I think we need to be aware as is tied to sort of this macro versus micro review of these different centers is to be aware of the need for flexibility depending on market influences.

I think to require all mixes of uses within a center can sometimes be not sustainable because of the market, right?

And it just needs to be flexible.

So if we're thinking about a long term comprehensive plan as opposed to just a sort of

Flash in the pan, we need to be thinking more like that.

I would be interested also in understanding developer impacts and responsibilities as we look through these activity centers.

Talk about adding amenities.

There's a talk about adding transportation networks, et cetera.

It all takes money.

So just thinking about how that's factored in relative to

incentives or proffers, et cetera, and then also affordability, right?

So a lot of these centers can be beautiful places to be and live and thrive, but also how do they serve all aspects of our community and not just those that can afford the highest cost homes and therefore those amenities that come with it.

I think, and this was sort of stated a little bit, I'm trying not to restate things,

but having sort of an overall understanding of a concept plan as it relates to these different centers I think is important.

So again, that's the macro micro piece.

Just one thing that Commissioner Vivins said really resonated which was a current assessment of where we are and how we've done and how that informs where we're headed.

How did districts overlays or plays with the activity centers?

Sure.

And so those are designations that we have in the Crozet and Pantops master plans, but not currently in the other ones.

And so they're really intended to highlight areas that are more focused on a single use, but still have a lot of activity.

There's a lot happening there.

Could I ask a quick question, Corey, while we're asking questions?

Under the Recreational District, Employment District, and Institutional District, and under Form and Site Design Guidance, you've sort of picked, you as in collective, we have picked two to four stories up to six for Employment District.

How did we arrive at the densities?

D.R.P.T.

's guidance.

There's actually more detail on that form of site design guidance.

I'll start with the districts and then I'll turn it over to Vlad to talk about the centers.

So the district place types, at least how we have them drafted now, we kept the same recommendations as pros

The DRPT guidelines had a statewide look at different place types and what their actual densities were from Tysons Corner down to a small village.

And so it broke them into six categories.

And then those had FAR density, typical building heights as kind of examples of each place type.

I can maybe respond to that.

So the eight stories are what we had seen in the DRPT guidelines that seem to align with the development that we see in Albemarle County.

Something like increasing those heights, I think those are some of the detailed topics that we can talk about when we get into the goals and objectives related to land use, some of that.

It will be entirely up to you all if you

because it goes back to Richard Missel's flexibility, point of flexibility.

We need to have some of that flexibility, both in terms of the types of mixed use that you may or may not have because of market forces, but also areas that can be densified.

It goes back to how do we incentivize more density in the areas that we can either through mixed use or adaptive reuse or infill.

And you can go 8 or 10.

And so I'd be concerned about reducing them without a lot of CAC involvement and making sure that they are on board with that reduction.

But I appreciate the context and the concepts.

I do also it does seem that we're

I do like Commissioner Bivins.

to comment that the utility of an activity center really depends upon how accessible it is.

That people can, particularly like to access it from a multimodal standpoint.

I think in terms of recreational districts, I think there's, you know, we heard some comments about the desire for more green space in our urban areas.

so that some small percent of that can be proffered back as good space.

We should really consider transfer of development rights as a mechanism for flexibility that allows us to preserve larger areas and shift that development where we want it without the current sacrifice to protect methodology that we have now.

I think also, although there's a lot of discussion about flexibility, I think flexibility is good.

My concern would be, you know, we've seen some proposals where we had mixed-use developments where someone wants to come back and remove all the commercial out of that and take something that was mixed-use and now render it just residential.

I would not be in favor of that.

If that flexibility results in something that's more mixed use, I'd be in favor of it.

If that flexibility is reducing something that's mixed use and making it all residential or all commercial,

I would not be in favor of that.

I understand the desire that when we're in a time like now where there's not as much desire for office space or for commercial space, that some people may want to convert that to residential uses.

But leaving that there as office space or commercial helps the prices go down so that people can afford to be able to find office space or find commercial space.

May I say a couple things?

So if we're going to look at sort of the centers, the town centers, I think what I'm also feeling is if the county has to make a decision to put more green space in the in the developed area, because right now we're ringed with recreation space that you can't get

and so if in fact I think the county wants to send you know the whole thing is about what are we doing we're sending messages to developers so if we're saying a message to a developer and the county comes along to a developer and says if you come here in fact we will put a park here and we'll maintain the park everyone knows that I would have preferred for the library not to be on the western side of 29 but for the library to be on the eastern side of 29

because that's where all the people are.

And they could walk to the library.

And so thinking about what are the signals that we send to the development community when we make investments.

Now, to come alongside of Commissioner Murray, if we don't allow the kind of flexibility, developers will push off investments.

because no one is going to invest if they don't believe that they can either lease it up immediately or that they can lease it up maybe a little bit less than immediately.

And that is not what we've seen.

We've seen a bunch of projects since I've come on the Planning Commission that they were sitting out there for years.

because of 2020.

But it was very interesting to watch developers do the calculus on how we can move this project forward.

That's not about us.

That's about, can I get money?

Can I bring some money to the table to do that?

So I think part of what you're trying to, I hope what perhaps you're trying to suggest is, how do we create a set of regulations that not only is sensitive to the market forces, but also engages with a developer so he or she will come here and take a risk?

Because what you want is you want them to take a risk here.

I mean, there's been discussions about Fashions Court Mall and that space.

Should we allow residential uses by right?

Now, I think if residential use went into the Fashions Court Mall area, that would be great.

If it all became residential, that would be a horrific loss.

The best way to fund our schools and our roads and all this is to have commercial development.

Hi there.

I don't think I'll take up the full five minutes.

I mostly agree with what others have said, particularly Commissioner Bivins, I think, pointing out things about the recreational areas.

If they're not accessible, then what are we doing?

There's something in all this that I don't want to

I mentioned it last time we had a meeting where I know that those who show up or those who we reach out to are those who we hear from.

But also for hearing from fewer than 100 people in person out of a county of 100 and some thousand, it does bother me a little bit.

And so I do want to think about

How do we get more people engaged in this kind of discussion?

All that said, I'm very in favor of activity centers that are mixed use and walkable.

I just want to just sort of plus one the idea that we need to as a county and perhaps put some public infrastructure in some of these places that we want to see become centers.

I've been working with different cities and they've had some successes doing things like wanting to have more families to come into a commercial area so

They put one of those, I don't know what they're called, those spray things that kids run in and out of.

But that made all the families want to come down there.

And so the business district's no longer dead at night.

So that made the restaurants want to come in.

Well, then that made other services want to be there too.

But the infrastructure was invested by the locality.

The developers did not put in the spray pool for the kids.

And they're not going to either.

And they're not going to put in the nice landscaping and all the other things.

But that drew, that's what made those activity centers successful.

And that's just one example.

But if we just say, you know, we'll give you an extra two stories of density.

If you if you put in a bioswale or we need to, we actually as a county need to put some money on the table.

to make these attractive places.

We cannot just incentivize it through proffers.

It hasn't worked.

And to your point about sacrifice, please, sir, please put a little green space in here.

Absolutely.

And to add on that just a little bit, I think one of those areas we really should invest in is structured parking.

You know that structured parking is expensive.

The developers aren't necessarily going to want to build it.

I just have one final thing.

Also, just we're thinking 20 years out, right?

So what does the world look like in 2044?

How does working from home look and how does that intensify activity centers?

I don't have the answer, but like just to pose that question is something to kind of contemplate on as we move through this as well.

How does how we live 20 years from now impact the intensity of these various

Well, not even Wall Street, not even Wall Street.

Even small firms are saying, you know, they've got an investment in office space and they're watching the sort of auxiliary services around offices shrivel up.

So the mom and pop stores that we're trying to sort of encourage, you know, they're saying, ah, I can't, I can't take the risk anymore because I don't have the foot traffic.

I think they did a great job in terms of what we're talking about in terms of like having focal points in the community like a recreational lake or something with a bunch of shops, the ability to walk from here to there, a network of trails.

from scratch.

They said how many hotels were going to be there, where the office parks were going to be, where the big fairgrounds you can go watch concerts.

That's the kind of thing that one big family, well not big family, a small family with a lot of money decided they were going to take a risk.

I sort of contrast that with Greenbelt, Maryland, which was done by the feds.

Greenbelt, Maryland was done by the feds, which is the antithesis of Levittown.

So we have planned communities around the United States.

Most of them are done by commercial people.

I won't even get into the, I won't even spit real hard on their name, Levittown.

But Columbia, Maryland and Greenbelt are places that in fact are planned communities.

And what a different spirit of what it means to be a community.

I mean, Julie, Commissioner Bivins, we just did buy a whole bunch of acres.

So we're rounding out the time that we've been talking about this one.

And just, you know, Vlad has captured, kind of distilled out some of your comments.

Which one is kind of going through what you really felt as where the checkmarks are?

Got you.

My takeaway is substantial agreement, but concerns about can we make this work?

How do we incentivize it?

What is an activity center and the mix of uses?

and then concept of flexibility came up and was discussed.

I mean I could support it if it was in the form of a draft like here's what we would like to do now let's run it through the CACs and the master planning process and see if the community is actually supporting this.

What I heard was that these are not set in stone now.

So when you say they come out of the CAC, is that not what that means?

Well, but the comp plan predates the CICs existing.

There was no comp plan.

There was no CICs formed when the comp plan was created.

There are master planning processes that have gone on since the comp plan.

Yeah, but I'm just saying like the Cs that you see in the comp plan map.

Some of them are new, maybe, I don't know.

I can start, Kevin, if you want to jump into, but if it helps, because Crozet and Pantops were done so much more recently, those centers are, I mean, pretty much unchanged, kind of a one-to-one, recognizing what's there.

and then while Village of Rivanna was done a little bit longer ago, it's still just recognizing one center of the same scale.

Places 29th and Southern and Western are a little different in part because they were updated quite a bit ago and I think even Places 29 was like 12 years ago and so we're hoping to continue to get CAC engagement during the comp plan process but just recognizing that those are fairly outdated and kind of need

We think the most consolidation of centers.

We had quite a few CAC members attend the online open house, because that was also a joint CAC meeting.

Yeah, so I just want to clarify that.

To me, something like a master plan, can it

I guess it's colored by Crozet being the area that I'm most familiar with and that they have been way ahead of the other areas.

I'll just maybe build on that real quick to help.

So for one thing, to your point about what we're going to do in the future, if we decide that activity centers are the way we want to go tonight, the next steps will be

looking at these that we've got some draft areas that we've already identified, but we can refine those in the upcoming months of this plan.

And then the idea is that when we do have a master plan update, primarily for the southern and western and places 29 areas that we would reevaluate

maybe the size and the type of development.

We want to see the function of those centers.

Those are things that we could get into.

To address Commissioner Murray's point, what we did in the Crozet master plan update is really what we're recommending to move forward with throughout the county now.

We're not asking to change what was in Crozet.

What we're doing is taking the Crozet and sort of the pan tops

And so would you all say this slide said that there's substantial

And those will be brought together by staff and presented to the board.

Thank you all.

All right, so topic number two factors for future development areas expansion.

The current plan recommends monitoring development areas' estimated capacity for future residential and business demand with high-level guidance on when an expansion may need to be considered.

While an expansion may not be needed in the near future, as part of long-range planning in the context of uncertain

may at some point no longer have sufficient capacity to accommodate future housing and employment needs is clearly considered in the current comp plan and with AC44.

The current plan does not have guidance on how to identify locations for expansion if an expansion is found to be needed.

The updated plan could include factors for how and where to expand, including infrastructure considerations, protection of natural resources and water supply watersheds, and expectations for future development patterns.

These factors could also be taken a step further during AC44 to be applied to map possible locations for future expansion.

During engagement, we heard that protecting natural resources and water supply watersheds, preserving the rural area, enhancing tree coverage, and addressing transportation impacts are all high priorities when considering expansion.

Infrastructure should be in place or planned before additional growth.

the overall support for using the development areas efficiently and promoting infill and redevelopment and only expanding when necessary for residential and business needs.

However, the already high price of housing and limited housing choice was a significant concern.

During the April commission meeting, the commission asked the AC44 team to consider locations of high quality natural resources in the rural area

including resources identified in the biodiversity action plan.

So the team has provided the following map on the back wall there as a reference to show a series of natural resources in the county.

So green indicates areas that have requirements in place that preclude significant development, including steep slopes, flood plain, stream buffers, and conservation easements.

Orange indicates areas that have temporary restrictions, such as agricultural and forestal districts and open space agreements,

And pink indicates areas that are identified as important resources per county policies, but without requirements that preclude development, such as the forest blocks and the biodiversity action plan, water supply watersheds and scenic streams.

meeting that several commissioners discussed a desire not to expand the growth area if there are remaining developable areas in the current development areas as having more limited land can encourage more efficient use of that land and infill and redevelopment should be prioritized.

So there are three options for this topic and option one is no change to the current plan recommendations with AC 44.

So future steps after the comp plan could include continual updates to the land use build out analysis and monitoring development trends.

Option two is to continue to develop and refine the draft factors that have been shared and do that during the AC44 process, including more detailed descriptions of each factor and potential metrics.

Future steps after AC44 could include continuing to update the build-out analysis, applying the factors for evaluating locations if an expansion is found to be needed in the future, and using small area plans for recommendations in expansion areas.

Option three is to use those draft factors during AC44 to conduct an analysis and identify possible locations for future development areas expansion with possible timeframes for future expansion.

Staff is recommending this option as knowing where future development may occur is important for infrastructure planning needs since agencies such as RWSA plan for infrastructure improvements and extensions years in advance.

Additionally, this option could help address possible gaps or changes in land use capacity by identifying primary land use needs and expansion areas.

The level of detail in mapping could be very

with any option that is pursued for this topic staff wants to emphasize that efficient use of the development areas should continue to be prioritized over expansion while recognizing that at some point it is likely the development areas will need to be expanded to accommodate future housing and business needs.

Staff also wanted to note that with any of these options, there could be some changes to the development area's boundaries with AC44 for minor adjustments and unique circumstances, such as a portion of an existing neighborhood that is just outside of the boundaries or county-owned properties, such as several schools that are just outside of the boundaries but are on public water and sewer.

So we'll turn it over to the commission for discussion.

Thank you, Tori.

for you to kind of get a pulse of where you are right now with recommendation for option three for topic two.

So pick your color and that will be the beginning of our discussion.

Between two and three, is the only difference the overlay of a horizon timeline?

So option two would just be having the factors so both you know the timing considerations like the land use build out but then also

if we expand, these are the things we should consider, but not actually going further than that, just having those in the comp plan.

And can I further clarify that option three is not actually recommending that we expand right now.

It's identifying the areas where expansion would be possible if in the future

the board and PC decide that that's prudent.

Any other clarifying questions before we get the pulse?

Okay, so I invite you to, you know, green being yes with Tabia.

yellow being caution and red being no.

All right.

Thank you.

I would be a green yellow.

I think it's a good idea mostly.

So let's start with green and move toward yellow and then toward red.

So I think it's helpful and not helpful.

I think it's prudent to create a model that can be used by future supervisors and planning commissioners now when we're not under pressure to make the decision.

So I think right now,

But I think it is helpful to be able to say, if that should happen, here's where it could and how the Planning Commission of 2024 and the Supervisors of 2024 suggested that these are the criteria that might be considered by the leaders at that point in time.

decision making.

But I think one of the situations I've found myself in is that there is no way except for passion for me to say the development area cannot be expanded.

It feels like one of those parent may I and the parents said no.

I don't have any intellectual sort of

context in order to say, well, how did they get to know?

How did they get to get to this position that there's no expansion or there's no reshaping of the development community, of the development area?

Super plus one, use the word prudent, or stern I'll say foolish.

And I say that because as I think back to Metro Washington DC, right, so I use as an example, I work in Washington.

There was a point where people were around the table talking about the metro, how far should we extend it?

And somebody said, Gainesville, and they got laughed out of their room.

Today, they will be dying to have Metro in Gainesville, Virginia, right?

And so I just want to caution us as a collective group as we have this discussion, is there something that we're not seeing in foresight?

that will get you laughed out of the room today.

20 years from now, people will be, oh, that was a great idea, right?

There were two things as I looked through the data that was provided.

of amazing jobs and employment.

Are we sacrificing because of that, where people could now buy a house or rent, right?

We're talking about affordable housing, part of that is income as well.

The second one I saw was, well, I think we talked about that.

The rezonings are only hitting 58%.

So we were talking about incentivizing and maximizing that.

Let's come alongside to what the chair said.

So another part of the Metro question was that at one point the Metro was to go about seven.

which is Annandale.

And the good people of Annandale pitched a fit.

And so it didn't go up Route 7.

They diverted it and it went up and I think it's 231 or something like that.

All of a sudden, all the property on Route 7 went completely down because those people couldn't get to Washington, which is where they were.

And so they've now had to come in and get buses and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da to try and get the people on Route

Commissioner Moore, did you want to chime in?

I think just green really.

I think we know that the land in our development area that could be developed

is a small percentage of what's there.

It's like, what, 7%?

I think it makes a lot of sense to me to plan when we might grow that.

Again, I'm not saying, hey, let's pave the county, right?

Nobody's saying that.

But if we want enough land for the people who live here and the people who are going to live here and the people who are going to move here because they need to from

All kinds of things.

We have to think about when that might happen and what might trigger it.

Even looking at our growth area map now, I feel like there are some areas that are

Not in it, but could be.

Just looking at 29, I mean like, you cross the line in Greene County, oh suddenly there's a growth area, but it's not in ours, you know?

Thank you.

I'm on red.

Green yellow.

We're moving into that.

So I'm like, a light greenish yellow?

A light greenish yellow.

One of the things for me that this whole discussion comes down to is timing.

If we were talking about a five to 10 year thing, that's one thing.

If we're talking about 20

and beyond years likely, that's a different story for me.

And I tend to turn closer to a green when I'm thinking about a longer timeline because I think that needs to get pushed out.

I think my gut is always, I'll make sure this is something you can actually write.

My feeling is generally that the idea of expanding development areas first triggers a reaction, which is,

Oh no, we want our county to stay the way it is.

It's beautiful.

This is the camel's nose in the tent.

If we do this, it's just going to be all over, right?

And what I would say is I sort of caution myself to think what this is doing is it's asking us, it's causing us to be very thoughtful about preservation as much as it is about development expansion.

And so thinking about both sides equally, I think is something that is a challenging thing to think about, to equally think about the benefits, the pros of looking at expansion as well as the challenges or the potential impacts to natural resources, et cetera.

I think it's incredibly important that if we move into this discussion, we do so with an understanding of what the infrastructure, and we've all been talking about this,

How is it even possible to give water and sewer to these places?

Is there that financial capacity?

Is there the service capacity?

Do we have the reservoirs that can serve these different areas?

Or if not, what does our 10 to 20-year timeline look like for those?

Where I start to get a little bit more in the yellow-red range is when we start to talk about mapping.

That just gets me a little nervous.

And what I would recommend is rather than parcel identification,

because that starts to get really defined.

We think more about this in a way that's like a heat map, right?

Like these areas are green, these are red, these are yellow, and it's more of a blurred boundary as opposed to a really defined boundary.

And I think the benefit of that would be twofold.

One is if somebody starts seeing their parcels identified as the future development area, it's going to start messing with the market a little bit.

and there may or may not be ways that water and sewer can be extended efficiently that are more topographic than anything else on a certain parcel.

And I think you start to get way into the weeds really quickly when you start thinking about that.

So I'd think more heat map boundary blurred approach than a specific approach.

I will say that, you know,

I'd be a lot greener if we were seeing efficient use of existing development areas.

So I think we're all saying we need to make sure that's absolutely a focus.

And I think staff has underlined that would be an area of focus.

And for very similar reasons as Commissioner Missel, I'm going to try not to repeat, but yes, there's a plus one there.

So I'm not opposed to option three with caveats.

And that's what I think yellow is for.

That's why it was yellow.

It's not that it's a no for me.

It's simply that the

I like your reference of the Campbell's nose and the tent.

So I wouldn't say that it's the Campbell's nose and the tent, but we know there's a tendency of developing the low-hanging fruit.

If it's less cost for me to develop a greenfield, I'm going to develop the greenfield.

So then we're not incentivizing infill density and all the things that we talked about in those other, in those two sheets of paper, we're not incentivizing that by just saying we're going to have more.

or we're going to, and this is where I do think there is a, the cautionary note is if you do start to identify the areas through mapping, developers are gonna buy them.

And if you want to look at what's even more dangerous to our rural communities is, and I'll say it, it's our solar fields.

That's even more so than the school there is because what's happening right now is that people are already buying anything that any land is next to a high distribution because it's getting up in order to be a large solar, they got to be by our distribution lines.

They're not by there.

It's not a suspect being bought out.

Same signal you'll send here.

So we really have to be thinking about how do we.

Yes, 20 years from now, you probably could.

expand, and perhaps we should have an idea how much acres that is, how much additional development we have beyond the 20 years.

Can I add a sort of plus one to that as well?

And one thing that might be interesting to consider is as this plan moves forward, is there a way to build into it?

Maybe it's not in the comp plan, maybe it's another instrument, but a checks and balances approach to things.

So if we're not, if we're 10 years out and we're not doing very well in terms of densifying or existing, then we don't, we push that whole conversation about development areas further out.

Right.

And we know we're not, we're at what, 50% or 58% of our density capacity.

Yeah.

That's what we're building to.

I think there need to be set thresholds for redevelopment.

And also not just redevelopment, but also the form of development.

We want to make sure that we're actually building walkable, livable development.

It wasn't by Charlottesville's choice, but when annexation was stopped, Charlottesville started to become more walkable.

It started to become more livable.

You started to see

Underground parking garages, you start to see more sidewalks, you know, it started to become the place that it wanted to be before.

We say, we put out there on the prize, well, don't worry, if you use this up, we're going to expand the development areas and we're even going to specify where we're going to do it.

You've just removed any chance that people

It's just not going to happen.

But if you set a threshold, like we expect such and such percentage with 75% redevelopment of these underperforming areas or whatever the number is before we're going to go down the route of making heat map, then I could get behind that.

But I think you need to have those set thresholds that need to be reached.

before you even have that discussion because otherwise, as you said, you're going to send the wrong signal.

I can't help myself.

Here's the thing that comes to mind.

It's economics, right?

I mean, it's everything we're talking about.

It's driven by development economics.

You're talking about the phases of development.

First is surface parking, then it's above ground structure parking, then look at Tysons.

Underground parking, right?

And that's all driven by the economics of the land.

It's what that land will support.

So it's the pressure on the development community or on the county from the development community because at some point, who knows, we may say, wow, 75%

full.

This is great.

It's time to go to look at develop, you know, expanded development areas.

But are we full with structured parking or underground parking or surface parking?

Like what is that trigger point?

It's all kind of blurry.

So, so, so let me just sort of come across this.

So, you know, Tyson's is a great, is a great example.

So I don't know what we have here right now that would be the nucleus for a Tyson's type of experience.

You have a couple of things that happened at Tysons.

Well, you had a UVA graduate that bought all the land, so that's one thing.

But you also had the confluence of a bunch of roads that were always going to be there.

And you also had, and this is what's interesting about Tysons now, because it's flipped.

So you had created this sort of economic sort of playground there for some pretty tony people that's flipped back into the district.

So all of the sort of Tony boutiques which sort of made that sort of Tysons intersection, I don't want to be sort of wrong languaged here.

The average income has increased in Tysons, but the goods and services moved into the district.

So if anybody knows where City Center is in the district,

you know, it was going to be some big tech thing and then they decided it's not going to be a tech thing.

All of the Tony boutiques moved there.

There's a Tesla there, there's a blah, blah, blah.

I can't go through the list of things there.

And so what's happened is that Tysons has, it's still very expensive, but it's moved down because the population who needs Tysons needs it for the transportation that we're, you know, they put the metros out there.

that would cause that?

I would say the closest thing is hydraulic and 29 existing roads always going to be there.

If we can have that entire jurisdiction, then I think we have the opportunity to come to sort of having this note.

But I think really where it's going to happen, we're going to see it at Holly.

Holly Meade.

Holly Meade.

I think the other thing that's worth considering as well about a map, there's another really significant downside.

The way revenue sharing is calculated with the city of Charlottesville is based upon the assessed values of property.

If we go and we specify on that map, this is where the future growth area is gonna be, developers are gonna go out there and they're gonna buy it up.

Because it's in the rural area, a whole lot of that is under land use valuation.

So we're not collecting the taxes

And you see that already on 25.

You see areas that are in the rural area but are close enough to the growth area that everyone anticipates that they will be developed.

I mostly agree with Commissioner Missel and Commissioner Carrazana.

I completely agree with you.

So I don't support option three because I don't want to see a map because, you know, it was funny you brought the metro.

I rode the very first metro that drove to the city.

That's how old I am.

But I remember, too, that when those future metro stations were announced, all that land got snatched up

and became extremely unaffordable.

And so, you know, even when we had the Deschutes Brewery proposal here, and that never did come because the site was completely inappropriate and unready, as we already know, but the county felt obliged to expand the development area.

So they rezoned that for, but not the whole thing that was wanted.

So it was only about a quarter of what was requested.

But developers came and gave out slick brochures to people who were even way past that, like a mile past, more than a mile past, saying, hey, I'd like to buy your land.

Because potentially, if they're going to rezone that, well, guess what?

They'll probably do this.

And so they weren't even talking about places we had mapped, but places adjacent and way down the road to what the county was saying they were willing to change the growth density.

My concern is that if we put it on a map, developers will go out and buy up all that stuff, just like you used the example with the solar.

And you talk about an affordable housing problem.

We're not going to get affordable land by putting it on a map and signaling that we are really open to this particular area.

I totally get that the county would love to have, and I would too,

I'm babbling, sorry.

The county would love to have certainty of where they should be investing their funds for wastewater treatment, water supply, future roads, sidewalks, transit, whatever, schools, you name it.

I would love to, too, if I'm in charge of any of those things.

But unfortunately, by putting that on a map, we're going to make it a big speculation problem where people are going to go and

get a hold of that land, even if it hasn't been changed.

So I am in favor of developing the specific factors for consideration.

I wrote way back when we first started talking about this, I wrote off to the folks in Portland Metro and asked for all of their stuff on how they make decisions on how they expand the growth area.

I didn't send it to our consultants because they probably got all that stuff and know all that.

But, you know, just to get they have a very detailed process

and Criteria because they have expanded the metro area, the Portland, Oregon.

They have expanded that growth area over time, but they have a very specific process for how that could happen.

And we could have something like that, but I just don't, you know, I'm not in favor of the map.

I just think it and to living within our means in terms of what makes drives the market,

So that we can have a projection of where to expand the services.

The reality is we have 20 years of need now in terms of expanding our roads, expanding our services.

So I will just sort of share, as we all know, that the speculation is going to take place whether or not there's a map, whether or not there's a map there or not.

And we all, if we go to 29, 29 is really owned by two entities, not excluding

and we know who the entities are.

And so they did the thing that any good business person is going to do.

They took a bird's eye view and said, where do we think there's the least amount of pressure?

And that's where we're going to start buying a plan.

And that's what they did.

And I think if we, and perhaps the

go down the parcel.

But I do think that there is a way, in fact, sort of saying that if we're going to move in a direction, here's a direction that has the least amount of, that has the most options to it.

Because along that has to come with the fact that we've been seeing is that people have been converting industrial and commercial space, land, to residential.

And we can't continue to do that.

Whether or not it's mixed use or not mixed use, we have to have land here that attracts developers

who want to come here and put up some sort of business.

And they're not going to come here if they don't have a sense that either through the economics development or through community development that they know that they're going to have the kind of resources they're going to need.

They're not going to come here for gray zones.

Sorry to interrupt.

Could I ask Commissioner Carrazano, I didn't quite get your

Comment down here.

Backlog.

So every single issue that we have for any SUP development that we have.

Roads, the infrastructure is not there to accommodate the development and the schools.

But they're within the development zones.

They're within our growth zones.

They're in our comp plan.

but we don't have the infrastructure there.

And that's in practically every case.

a criteria for expansion we should have.

I think it would be an irresponsible amount to have, right?

So what is it?

So outlining what we would need to meet in order to have the next expansion.

The other conversation that I'll have with my commissioner to my right here is, do we want to incentivize infill?

and adaptive reuse or not.

So I think that when we tend to talk about expanding the development area, people always tend to sort of focus on the housing piece of it.

and my piece is that it's a bit more holistic and is much more of a mix of land types that are there.

That we also need to be thinking about what kind of commercial or light industrial entities we need to bring here to be able to sustain that kind of housing stock.

Otherwise, my concern is that our housing stock only gets focused on retirement.

from other jurisdictions that they can cash out and buy a four to $600,000 house without having to be significantly cramped by a mortgage.

and then where I was going to come, where I was coming from that, if you look at 58%, we've all, some of us have been on the commission long enough to have where somebody wanted to bring a higher density, higher density project and they got shouted out the room basically.

And so the issue is not sometimes that the developers have a lack of wanting to do something, it's that our community goes after them if they suggest something as sort of close to a 90% density or

People are going to do what people are going to do.

I'm not going to invest my dollars in a place if I feel as if I'm just going to get beat up for this idea.

I can go someplace else and invest my money.

Because remember, I know this is going to offend people.

Albemarle County is not the only place that people can invest money.

And we can make that decision.

The supervisors can make the decision to pull up the roads and say, nobody else is coming here.

I hope they don't do that.

But people can cope with their money someplace else, as we've seen.

Marin County, Louisa.

So what's the balance that we want around how that expands?

We're at 35 minutes of the 40 that we were making.

Crozet, we have a master plan and it densifies Crozet quite a bit.

There's a lot of growth planned for Crozet.

We have nowhere near the infrastructure there.

How many years is it going to take to actually getting the appropriate streets to bring the amount of traffic that's planned for Crozet, the amount of density that's planned for Crozet?

When are we going to get the infrastructure there?

Even if we say yes today, how do we get VDOT to say yes?

Right.

How do we get the Commonwealth to say yes today?

How long is it going to take?

Because they'll say, we don't care.

I just want to go to the last quick point, just classic urban planning 101.

If you if you allow the growth and you make maps and everyone knows like this is where it's going,

You get that leapfrogging, so you get the first suburb and it's nice and everyone likes it, but then they build the next one.

Well, that's a little bit nicer and so on and so forth.

So then you have the deterioration of the inner ring suburbs.

This is well documented.

And if we don't invest in the suburbs we have,

and, you know, maybe we need bigger, better, you know, five story schools, whatever, to create so that you really want to put your, you want to go through the process of identifying and putting in housing.

That's a great school inside the urban.

And so there's plenty for our county to spend their money on.

Commissioner Firehock, I do want to push back just very slightly on the notion of the inner ring suburbs being, you know,

Like, not great now.

Like, I live in one.

They're fine.

But also, and also, I see your point.

I look at the county zoning maps, and I live in an area that's all like R1, R2, and it's like, yeah, this could actually be used much more efficiently than it is.

This is the growth area, and we're not growing in my neighborhood or the next neighborhood over, or the next neighborhood over from that, you know?

And I think we should.

Two and a half.

Can I define what I'm talking about?

So what I would go for is option two with the tweak to after the word factors.

So instead of saying without identifying potential timeframes or locations for future expansion at this time, I would say

both timing and location factors rigorously tied to successfully measuring and achieving density within the existing development areas and defined by general and regional locations.

So that one more time.

So develop a set of factors for consideration of potential future development area expansion to include both timing and location rigorously tied to successfully measuring and achieving density within the current development areas and

Tying it to thresholds within existing development areas.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'll just say, I don't know, now I'll be like everyone else.

I'm still nervous about the map, the heat map.

I mean, I run a mapping firm.

That's all I do all week is make maps.

And I really would have to see what that looked like.

Would that be something that would lead to the speculation that I'm concerned about?

So I like what you did.

and the Gates, right?

You need to meet certain things for development in the current growth areas.

And then you start to evaluate, because the mission of women is absolutely right.

People have already figured out where the next growth area is going to be, and they're already evolving it out.

So they think.

Some of that has been thwarted.

Some of that has come up and been thwarted.

in reality.

Then they turn it into a vineyard and they start.

So they have a backup plan.

So no, I

We need to meet certain expectations.

We have to be at a certain density.

We can't just be at 58% of our development.

I mean, there's got to be these benchmarks.

And they have to be measurable.

And as I said before, I think

If I could just also add to try and address Commissioner Firehock's issue is we proceed with any mapping.

What we can do is start with something that is

so generalized that it's really not taking much of a step further.

It's not telling people anything additional.

And then we can trim that back as the commission would prefer so that we don't go overboard first and identify places.

We can start with a very high level mapping.

I think what you're going to find, as you guys all well know, is that RWSA has a plan.

There are influencing plans that are already looking at where to develop and where to start.

So we're kind of acting like we're going to create this new map and it's going to be a revelation and everybody's going to go buy the stuff.

But the reality is it's already moving there.

And so I think you'll learn a lot from those plans, maybe?

I don't know.

It might be a good time for a bio break, at least for me.

Like a hazard?

I'll use chair privilege.

I'll call this to a recess for seven minutes.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I will turn it back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So topic number two is rural crossroads communities, which are recognized as places in the rural area with a small historic commercial center that may or may not still have active commercial uses or community gathering places.

They can provide businesses and services for surrounding community members and are intended to encourage adaptive reuse and historic preservation.

They can potentially have community resilience hubs or places that can serve as both community gathering spaces and emergency response and preparedness locations.

The current plan identifies seven crossroads communities, though it does not have a clear definition and community input has reinforced the need to look at how these communities are designated.

During engagement, we heard interest in small-scale businesses or services in some crossroads communities, such as medical services and healthcare, country stores, small grocery stores, community centers, post offices, fire rescue stations, and parks.

A general preference to have input on what community members would like to see in their specific crossroads community prior to any changes to underlying zoning and buy-write uses.

Esmont, Scottsville, Northgarden, Earliesville, Keene, and several other communities were asked to be considered for crossroads designation.

Overall support for community resilience hubs with a preference to use existing buildings and to include classes, food access, senior and youth programming, and emergency shelters.

We wanted to note that during the Commission's April meeting, the Commission asked the AC44 team to better define what would be included with services in the rural area.

The service aspect of Crossroads communities would be focused primarily on health, well-being, safety, and emergency preparedness.

Public water and sewer would not be expected in Crossroads communities.

The Commission also discussed the importance of preserving historical and cultural resources.

Even those resources that are not visible from roadways are publicly accessible.

and that support may be needed for adaptive reuse of historic structures such as historic tax credits or other means and that underrepresented histories in the county should be recognized including through the historic markers program.

So there are two options for this topic and the first is no change to the current plan recommendations.

Future steps could include engagement with the seven current crossroads communities to delineate those boundaries and to implement the zoning ordinance updates that are recommended in the current plan.

Option two is to have a clear definition of crossroads communities and apply the definition during AC44 to have an updated list of communities.

This could also include a narrative in the comprehensive plan that highlights the histories of several of the communities.

There would also be recommendations for the community resilience hubs and historic preservation of existing buildings.

Staff is recommending this option as it would provide a clear and consistent definition for crossroads communities across the rural area and would also encourage the resilience hubs.

Community input indicated support for those resilience hubs and staff from Fire Rescue and the Virginia Department of Health are interested in pursuing these hubs in both the development areas and the rural area, especially as they are becoming more common across the country, are important for building resilience to climate change and can provide more equitable access to services and places for gathering.

Future steps after AC44 could include engagement with individuals

So to summarize, this option is intended to be primarily focused on the historic preservation and community resilience aspects of crossroads communities and land use changes do not appear to be needed at this time.

Steve, what your pleasure is and begin a discussion.

So if you want to go ahead and make your distinctions.

Yeah, so my concern with option two is mainly a lot of the uses that are listed here.

And the staff mentions hardware stores, auto, household goods, banking, restaurants.

This would be a pretty significant impact to the rural area.

I mean, we do have some of these uses already in our existing crossroads communities, but I don't see a compelling need to change those.

I don't see a compelling need to do anything except acknowledge that those are already there.

I think some of these are very problematic.

For example, auto.

For example, it may seem like an auto repair shop

I've had those in the past, certainly in the rural area.

But the problem is that when there is a leaking fuel tank, or when someone's dumping oil into a nearby stream, they notice it when it happens in the growth area.

It doesn't get noticed in the rural areas.

So contamination issues don't get addressed.

An example of this, in Crozet, there's

There's been reports of, you know, contamination of a stream next to a gas station in Crozet.

That was noticed.

If that same situation happened in Batesville, it would not have been noticed until it was a serious contamination issue that required, you know, the EPA.

Some of these other things like, you know, restaurants, there's a really high water use situations and anything that really

I think it would drastically change the character of our rural area.

So that's what I have to say in terms of, now I would say there are some things that I would not be opposed to.

You talked about emergency services within reason.

I think I would not be opposed to small family practice or access to some kind of medical, you know, there's a huge need for family practice positions.

I would not be opposed to that myself.

I'd be opposed to a large practice, but a single office somewhere, a single dentist office, I would not be opposed to that.

I think this whole dialogue about providing services in the rural area, it's very important to realize, as I've said in other conversations, the primary use of the rural area is not for residential use.

So in providing services, the past comprehensive plan says pretty explicitly that the way that our primary method of controlling sprawl into the rural areas is by restricting service

Even something that sounds like a good idea like a new fire station.

I don't think we would do that.

But if we were to put like a new fire station in a Crossroads community, you can guarantee that that's going to cause development around where that fire station is going to lower insurance rates.

It's going to make it easier for someone to build houses in that area.

I'll set you up.

Go ahead, push your fire hose.

services out there.

And I think this notion of linking those basic services, right?

If I want to open up a bakery out there in a coffee shop, I should be able to do that.

That's OK.

I think it supports the rural area.

To say that that is a direct connection to keeping a rural area rural, to me, I'm not drawing that connection.

I fundamentally disagree with that.

All right.

So I'll just plus one what you just said.

That's basically what I was going to say.

I think that a lot of people live in the rural area and they're not all farmers.

There are a lot of them.

I live in a community.

If you go down the Harrisville Turnpike from where it starts, you will find many, many people living down that road that are on two acre lots, three acre lots, some are on one acre lots.

They're not, you know,

Families that want to have a home where they can afford to live, tradesmen, teachers, firemen, a lot of these people, they live out in the rural area.

I live out in the rural area.

And the sustainability comments that were made earlier, if I have to drive my car, 45 minutes each direction, spend 90 minutes driving just to get an oil change, that's not necessarily supporting our climate action goals.

I wouldn't say we need more restaurants in the rural area.

But if you look at, I've brought this up before Crossroads.

That's what it's called, Crossroads Store.

But they have a bank.

They have a doctor's office.

They have a pizza place.

I don't have that anymore.

There's the post office there.

There's the fire station there.

There are a number of small businesses operating there that are providing local jobs.

But it still remains relatively compact.

And part of that is because we don't have the zoning around it to allow people to put more stuff.

But they fit a lot of services in a very tight footprint.

And that kind of model, I could support that.

and with more people working at home, too.

Like I know on the list it said, such as dry cleaners.

Nobody goes to dry cleaners anymore.

All the dry cleaners have.

Well, you're the dapper guy.

A number of them have closed.

And I used to use them, too.

I used to take my soap plows into the dry cleaner.

But no, a lot of them have closed down.

It's not a common need necessary on the Royal Air.

But let's not get into that, what uses.

with people working at home.

Like I had to just drive from Scottsville to Charlottesville because I needed to copy a document or a bid and it had to be 80 pages and it had to be scanned.

It wouldn't have been nice if I could have accessed a copy machine closer than a 40 minute drive.

I mean, it was kind of ridiculous.

So there are small, compact things that could go on.

If anyone has been to the doctor's offices at Crossroads, there's three physicians there, nurses, nursing assistants, all this stuff serving lots of people in an incredibly tiny footprint if you've been to that office.

So I think we can, within reason, provide some of these things that allow people who can't afford to just live in Charlottesville area

to be able to access so many services.

I understand your point about gas stations and leaking tanks.

There's a lot tighter restrictions that are used to be on how gas stations dispose of things, how they store things.

But a small scale type shop, I would not have a problem with that.

It's one of my passionate points.

It saved me time.

Thank you.

Can I just do some pluses to hers?

OK, did you want that?

Plus number one was concentrated.

You said the word concentrated.

I think that's key.

We're not talking about the sprawl that goes out beyond this.

Second thing is it is called crossroads for a reason.

There are circulating.

There's crossroads there.

Third thing is, you mentioned this too, the regulations on gas stations and automobile.

Honestly, I've seen so much degradation to streams in rural areas caused by farming.

that it seems to me that there's more regulations on gas stations than there are on farms in some cases.

I think that, or at least maybe there aren't more regulations, but they're at least being followed.

I don't know.

I'm speculating.

But the other thing is potentially working from home.

There are more people working from home.

Having that close by I think is going to be potentially important.

And the last thing, I just have a question.

Because it wasn't historic.

So because Coles Mill has an apple packing plant, the second leg of 29 slicing through it really hurt it.

Yeah, it's interesting to know this.

Howardsville was a crossroads community.

We used to repair bathtows there.

That was a really long time ago.

We still have a great general store.

We still all walk through it.

And we have a little gas station.

But nobody would suggest that that's a crossroads because we're not moving by a bathtow anymore.

So the fact that it's historic is basically irrelevant.

That's why it's not on the list of places to be at Crossroads.

The option does say to refresh the list.

I was not, but I could.

This feels like the least controversial of our four things.

And with all due respect to Commissioner Murielle, and with due respect to notions about any petroleum product, because I know how much ACSA still has to monitor some former gas station sites.

I think this will make just a ton of sense.

So now I will say something.

You know, this community sort of swirls around historic.

That's like a big, big word for us.

Everything's historic here.

The thing is that a number of, not necessarily these, but some of the ones that have been put in like Esmont and places like that are in fact historic crossroad communities.

These were places that at one point in our history as a community, life, people gathered, they went there, they did all of the things that communities did.

because our lives became what they became, those communities have gone small.

If we could say, for instance, Esmond could be reinvigorated because of the key convenience center, the post office, the veterinarian.

There's a big vet down there.

So you've got this this place here that in fact we could be done and we can begin to recreate or put the elements together for community.

That is a really big

of the urban area, we are by subtraction leaving those communities outside of the area that predate all of that stuff, that predate the crossroads of 29 and Hydraulic Road.

They were there being the part of Albemarle County that all these folks got attracted to.

And they've created something else, which happens.

the sort of investment in the crossword community, it's like going home again, not to Walton Mountain, but going home again, where that we can sort of invest in those communities and say, you're a rich part of who we are as a community.

And so for me, I would love to be able to say, I'm going to Esmont and have a lunch out there.

I'd love to be able to do that.

I'd love to be able to sort of say that there are options and this is no offense to those people who are going to, I'd like to have an option that was not wine,

that was not winery-based, you know, that we could do or that's not equestrian-based.

That's a reason.

But that we had, that was about who we were as a community.

And I think for me, this is going back, going forward to Albemarle County.

So I'm full up in this thing here.

Really.

I mean, as a former baseball resident,

I was and am supportive of the changes that happened there that revitalized that store.

There was a lot of challenges they faced, though, in terms of septic and other things to make that possible, parking.

Like the water protection coordinates, for example.

I think that there's been, we've created situations where people can grossly exploit our ordinances to put things that are not appropriate in place they shouldn't be.

And so I guess a lot of my concern is about scale, is about when you say you're going to allow restaurants, well,

You know, what does that mean?

What do we mean by restaurant?

If you say a country store, well, we're a lot of country stores and a lot of restaurants.

Does that mean Cracker Barrel?

A Cracker Barrel will never do that.

That's never going to happen.

But there is a way in which you can say to someone who may be a small entrepreneur, I think you were talking about a bakery.

That was me.

That I am, in fact, in the country store going to sort of reach out to Sally Lou, and Sally Lou is going to have her muffins there.

Yeah, I'm not a person.

And so I think, remember, there really is this thing called the free market forces.

No market force is going to turn Esmond

So I think what I want to hear, Mr. Murray, is how do we define this?

Is there, or are we just saying, and what I, at least the way I understood the option that we're voting for here,

You know, like, Batesville is a great example.

That's in my district.

Batesville, I will tell you, there's no more room to put any stuff in downtown Batesville.

But that store.

And that's fine.

And it creates community.

And that's all there is, folks, as Bugs Bunny said.

So that's it.

That's it for Batesville.

We don't need to anoint that Batesville is a community with a community center to it.

But we're not going to be proposing anything else goes in Batesville.

And there's some angst about Keene.

Yes, we put our community center there.

There's a post office there.

There happens to be a veterinarian in an old building that was adapted or used by the vet.

But I hear a lot from my constituents that they don't want that to be then.

They're like, let's go, Keen, and let's put all this stuff there.

Sorry, I forgot the gas station.

So anyway, there's good little hub of stuff there.

But is that the place where you want to expand just because it's on Route 20?

So we're not getting into stuff tonight.

Oh yeah, the people from Esmont.

I went to the planning meeting in Esmont and there was a lot of support for that and also older people saying things like, why can't we have some apartments here?

I can't keep us here.

Yeah, we want to stay in our community.

I will say one thing I would add to staff's recommendation for this is, unless it's in here and I just didn't see it,

is that any review of a crossroads community or a community hub needs to have some form of traffic study built into it.

Because crossroads, that intersection of 29 and Plank is dangerous.

So as we think about developing those areas, even concentrating those areas, we're going to be concentrating

So let me come alongside you on that.

So I just saw a study that they used cell phone pinging off of towers in a particular area just to determine whether how many people drove through or whether or not people stayed in the area and if people stayed then they looked at what are they staying to do.

It wasn't invasive because you couldn't tell it was all of us.

But what they just said, how many people are actually coming through here?

And are they staying here?

You know, they go to the post office, or they go to the convenience center.

What are they doing?

How long are they staying in this particular area?

Which might be helpful to try and get a sense of, is everybody just driving through?

Is there another way to X, Y, Z place?

Well, I was thinking that, but also traffic calming, you know, the intersection that the turning movement off of 29 South and Northbound at Plank Road has gone from a yield sign to a stop sign, back to a yield sign, and now back to a stop sign.

I mean, if there's not going to be public water, then these are all going to be off the ground.

Yeah, that's a good point.

I mean, I understand that.

I mean, I lived in a house out of a 40-foot hand dug well.

And you figure out how to live with that.

And I'm not running a business out of that, but at least now I'm not running a business out

But you know, you figure out how to change and let's hope that, and I don't have, and this is where I'm looking at Kevin, if someone were to put a business there, I assume that they'd have to get a health department, something or other, oh maybe I'm looking at part, they'd have to get a I see heads movie to be able to see whether or not they've got enough order flow there and it's not just going to be

I know that there's a bunch of stuff in our county that feels like the wild, wild west.

But I don't think the new stuff that will be coming to the county can have that ability anymore.

That there actually are a group of people who are saying, you know, this doesn't work here for you.

Not for you personally, but this idea does not work in this location because you don't perk.

You know, that famous restaurant on going into the Crozet.

It was a famous French restaurant in our area when I first moved here.

They sold it, and it got grandfathered in.

They sold it.

The person who thought it was going to put another great French restaurant in there couldn't get the water to flow.

So it's set empty for I don't know how many years, probably 30 years.

It's still empty.

It's been renovated, but it's still empty because they don't have any water.

They don't have any water or sewage.

Are you all ready to make a recommendation to pass on to the board?

I mean, I'll just say too, as just the last comment, there's a big difference between keeping the special use permit process, which allows some of these things to occur, and saying we're going to do away with the special use permit process and make them viral.

They would still have to go through that.

I would be okay with that, but there were some notes in the staff report that suggested additional by right uses.

And that's what concerns me the most.

If we're talking about special use permits, I'm okay with that.

I'm talking about by right.

So how would you all imagine

Tori, could you clarify what we discussed about buy-write uses in the Stamp Report?

to help clarify this option.

This is really saying to have a clear definition of Crossroads communities and apply that in part to recognize those communities and encourage the historic preservation aspect and kind of lift up some of those underrepresented narratives and then also help identify places that could be community hubs using existing community facilities.

And in the future, possibly doing extra engagement to go to individual communities and say,

Are you interested in changes to land user zoning to allow some of these other uses, but not doing that during the AC44 process?

You brought that up.

And I don't know exactly where it said it.

But in the narrative, it's just talking about checking in with the immediate neighbors.

That's a comment we heard, yeah.

OK.

And I understand.

I'm all for that.

But I want to be careful that we're trying to make a plan for the county.

Thank you.

I think we've noted everyone's concerns.

I don't have substantial concerns.

But I would not want my comments to be put into a category of substantial concerns.

Yeah.

I think it's general consensus, for sure.

And Arby's at every exit, right?

The current plan recommends land uses that support agriculture and forestry at the rural interchanges without public water and sewer available and only identifies Shadwell as being an option for a higher intensity of development.

The Shadwell and Yancy Mills interchanges have existing commercial and industrial development

These rural interchanges also have existing zoning districts that allow for buy right commercial and industrial development, which is not consistent with the current plan's land use recommendations.

Allowing non-residential development at some rural interstate interchanges could provide space for new or expanding businesses in a way that makes efficient use of land and infrastructure by concentrating these uses adjacent to the interstate.

It should be noted that agribusiness and food processing is a target industry identified by the current comp plan for rural interstate interchanges.

During engagement, we heard a variety of comments both in favor of and against possible changes to rural interstate interchange recommendations with a fairly even split among the community members who responded directly to the question of whether or not changes should be made.

Those concerned with changes cited the possibility of additional traffic and pollution, pressure for more growth,

impacts to scenic and historic resources and potential impacts to groundwater supplies.

Those in support of changes identified employment generating industries as a preferred land use with Shadwell as the highest priority for future commercial and industrial development and E&C Mills as the next priority.

At the April commission meeting, several commissioners expressed interest in further discussing the rural interstate interchanges, though there was concern that the board may decide not to move forward with updated recommendations for this topic.

So there are two options for this topic.

And the first is to keep the current plan recommendations with a possible future step of a small area plan for the Shadwell interchange based on the recommended land uses in the current plan.

The second option is during AC 44 to draft high level recommendations for the Shadwell and Yancy Mills interchanges for general land uses, transportation needs, protection of natural resources and infrastructure needs to guide future small area plans.

There would be no changes to land use designations during AC44.

Staff is recommending this option as there is existing development and buy right commercial and industrial development potential at both Shadwell and Yancy Mills.

The land use build out analysis found very few locations in the development areas close to being site ready for newer expanding businesses and allowing some additional development at these interchanges supports efficient use of land and existing infrastructure.

After AC44, future steps can include a small area plan for the Shadwell interchange and a small area plan for the Yancy Mills interchange with Shadwell prioritized.

Future small area plans would allow for a more in-depth study of these interchanges and for additional community commission and board input during the small area plan process.

Thanks, Tori.

So once again, we have our cards.

The option for topic four is option two.

That's the recommendation from the staff.

And use your cards to express where you are with it.

Somebody stole my green card.

It's like we've had enough of him.

All right, so let's start with the yellow bread.

There's a lot of concern in Crozet about the Yancey Mills area.

There's been past proposals to expand the growth area or add some additional uses in that space.

As the comprehensive plan says, we want uses that support agriculture in the rural area.

And that's exactly what Yancey Mills is doing right now.

It's providing a great service that does support the rural area.

And it's great for climate change as well because if you're

If you have to take your trees to be processed in some other locality, you're trucking those trees over in some other place.

So this is a consistent thing.

Now, if we add additional, more profitable uses, it's probably going to drive that lumber mill out of business.

They're probably going to say, you know, it'd be more profitable if we close this and make it something else.

The other concern that Crozet has is that they're really trying to attract businesses to downtown Crozet.

And if we expand a bunch of uses around the interchange, then there's a lot of fear that it's going to pull attention away from Crozet and towards the interchange.

And that's already kind of happening because a lot of the existing uses that are already sort of grandfathered uses that are already there.

I have, you know, as with the cross

concerns about some of the uses that were suggested.

I think the devil's in the details here.

I think there are ways that I could support expanding uses.

I'm actually in support of tourism uses at those crossroads.

I don't know why with the past reservation about not wanting tourism.

I think that's free money.

I don't know why we're turning that away.

It's free money.

It's free money.

I mean, they come here, they spend their money, they leave.

Why do we not want that?

And it's consistent with rural area values in my opinion.

So also anything that supports the rural area in terms of there's a lot of

There's a lot of things I think should be brought by right that are agricultural support light industrial.

And we don't really have a zoning category for this.

I wish we, I don't know if it's possible to create one for it.

It was a really complicated process.

Yeah.

We should, they should be by right, we should encourage them at those places because we want to, you know, I'm in full support of that.

Sure.

I think I'm not opposed to the fact that we have a campground in Crozet.

I mean when you're Crozet, I know there's some controversy with some neighbors around that campground.

I'm not opposed to that as a use.

I'm not opposed to some of the, there's some river accesses not too far from interchanges.

And I think if someone was to rent kayaks or had some sort of use related to the river there, I would not be opposed to that as a great use of our area.

So I think the question for me is, is the use consistent with our rural area values and purposes?

And if it is, then I'm okay with it.

But if it's subverting that primary intention of the rural area, then I'm not for it.

Can I ask you a clarifying question to what you're saying?

Sure.

Because that's why now you held up the yellow and a red.

Most of what I just heard you say was more yellow than red.

And I guess your key concern is in option two, where it talks about

So there's a lot of stuff in there like bioscience and medical devices.

Yeah.

So you're focused more on the specific uses, but you're not against the development of that interchange.

I'm not against the development of interchange.

In fact, I would say that by identifying things that we would want there, proactively.

We may avoid some of the things that may be more concerning coming up in the future.

We may be able to keep some of the uses we want in that area.

But I am concerned about some things that are listed here, bioscience and medical devices.

Where would those uses go in the county?

Where would they be better served?

Well, I think it's a great question.

I think we've had a past history of areas being zoned for light industrial and then converted to residential use.

And to me, it's much like the conversation that we had before, where as we say, we have this growth area, but we've been very wasteful with it.

And now people say, well, since we've been wasteful for it, well now let's talk about expanding the growth area.

I think there's a very similar conversation that we had about light industrial sites, is that we've been very wasteful with our light industrial sites.

And now we've said, oh, we'll use those up.

Let's go ahead and you need to make more of them for us.

Well, maybe we shouldn't.

Maybe we need to hold the line on some of this so that we don't keep losing these sites.

So I would offer some of the light industrials so that the historic light industrial sites were on roads that were major roads.

And then it changed.

You know, Crozet had a wonderful history of canning at the Del Monte plant there that's now a records plant.

and it had some light industrial with Acme files, which I assume the EPA remediation of that's done.

So all of those places were on the natural and then there was the avionics place that was right behind the airport.

So all of those places were on significant travel routes and the travels changed.

And so what we've not been sort of good about

is creating opportunities for different kinds of light industrial to come up in those places.

And so I think this is not about Crozet, but when I looked at the rural interstates, if you look at the one that's got at least the most opportunity, it's the Yancey Mill exit, because I don't know what you could put at Shadwell now that they've

as they've been coming, talking about Coors, not Coors Land, Coors Ice Cream Place, that sort of stuff over there.

They've been wanting to do something.

So there isn't a lot of space there to do things around that exit.

Whereas thoughtfully, as I think what you're saying is that there is perhaps a thoughtful way, in fact, to use an area

East-West corridor, transportation corridor for us, that would at least put something in a way that's not going to compete or overburden the more residential or rural part of the county around it.

I mean, we've got to figure out, I think we're being called to figure out a way to accommodate

It would.

It would if that's part of this.

I thought that was part of option two.

It is part of this because I just think what's going to happen is that

We have allowed a very particular agribusiness to grow up, particularly in that part of the county.

And we don't have a lot of stuff that supports it.

If I look at the other places that I know that have viticulture, there's a whole suite of things that are lined up with them.

Well, there's some lodging, but there's also the people who supply the wineries.

If I don't want my own bottling, I can send it to a different place that will bottle it.

Now, some people are doing that because they can access capacity, but there isn't what I would call the ecosystem around viticulture that you go when you go to other places in the world that they're there.

I mean, I would say, I mean, I'd say if you're if you're going to have if we're going to say grapes are agriculture, which they are, which they are.

Yeah.

And then what are we doing to support that industry of people growing the grapes in Albemarle County?

We're supplying them.

There's no room.

And that's inhumane for the growth of your opinions.

It's inhumane for the cows.

It's bad for climate change.

The whole nine yards.

You know, my grandparents had a feed mill.

We don't even have a place for, you know, so I think, you know,

I think there's all these industries that support agriculture.

OK, I'll follow up since I was in the same group.

So yeah, I look at the list that the county has for the things like business and financial services, defense and security, blah, blah.

This is the very, I could say lazy, I'll just say generalized list.

that came out of the economic planning process that was subpar.

So we didn't get, our county did not receive the kind of economic development plan that I would have liked us to receive.

We didn't get our value out of that.

And so we have this very general list, you know, food processing.

You know, we have this argument about Deschutes is beer, food.

Yes, it was defined as food during the process, so it met a core industry.

and I'll stop harping on that, but I don't believe that just because we have an interchange, every time we see, this is another planning lens, every time you see an interchange, we should have economic development there.

I actually really like it when I get off the highway and there's rural area.

I'm not in, you know, there are other counties that you, every single interchange has got RBEs, this and that, a gas station, you know, and all this stuff.

That just destroys the character.

I don't know why we would want to promote more blobs of development just because we have an interchange.

Yes, it's good for transporting factory goods, but we already have talked about the fact with industries that we don't have enough flat, inexpensive land for them to want to put a lot of those type of businesses in our county.

So it's not an attractive place.

It's not going to realize

the economics we think it is.

I support what you just said about having things there that do help the agricultural areas or the rural area uses, like the lumber mill makes sense there because you can get your truck on and off quickly, you can deliver to the mill, they can get supplies there and workers can get to work.

But unless it's something that actually has to do with supporting the rural area, then I'm not

in favor.

I guess the other thing I'll say is when you look at some of these tech firms, we want the tech firms.

They've got the equipment.

We can tax it.

We can get lots of revenue.

They have high paid jobs.

We can get lots of revenue from that.

They don't want to be out in the middle of nowhere.

That model is dead.

We just approved a, so I don't know, bio something or other facility building that is looking to be built and have tenants.

But where is that?

That is, that is near Charlottesville.

All right.

And again, in Albemarle County, in the southern area, but it's near town because their workers that they want to attract are not going to be excited about jumping on and off the highway as much as they are going to get a beer on the mall after work.

who are going to one of our lovely wineries or whatever they do.

So they're not looking to be out at a highway interchange.

So I guess just to think about the industries we want to attract, what those kind of workers want in their work environment.

But I don't think the answer is highway interchange necessarily.

I mean, a lot of big office parks have been built out in rural areas, not in this county, but in other places.

And guess what?

Those are dead.

Because the workers are like, there's nowhere to get a sandwich.

I can't get my dry cleaning done for my dapper outfit.

You know, whatever it is that they I can't drop my kids off at daycare.

I hate it.

So they're they're having trouble renting these.

And this was predating COVID.

So I'm I'm going to be like more of a mauve like.

Yeah, I thought it'd be different.

I'm not 100 percent red.

I'm saying that there are some things that are appropriate there.

But I don't think this list and from the county's past economic report is the list.

and I also appreciate the fact that we didn't.

We didn't.

We've had this debate in the county many times.

We did not just take every interchange and say, hey, let's put some sprawl there.

So I'm going to step down off my soapbox.

That's pretty hot.

I know.

But this is, you know, for the people who have lived here for decades, this is an argument that comes up time and again.

So we've had this argument over and over and over again.

And I'm not saying that nothing can go there, but I just

Can I ask staff a question, a clarifying question?

So I think this is a question for you.

I'm a little confused because your staff recommendation says option two, add recommendations four, and then it says specifically commercial and or office likes research and development, like industrial uses.

So you're pretty specific there about Shadwell and Yancy Mills.

And then it talks in subsequent paragraphs, talks about the small area plans, where it says, with this option, separate planning efforts, such as small area plans, would be recommended for Shadwell and Yancy Mills.

to provide detailed guidance for land uses and infrastructure needs for future development.

You're not saying their office likes research and development.

That's a general kind of catch-all thing.

And then three paragraphs down, if this option two is pursued, staff would develop comprehensive plan recommendations through AC44 for the general land uses, transportation needs protection led,

So again, it's pretty general.

And then two paragraphs down, small area plans, et cetera.

Is it fair to say that could you still achieve the same option by removing those specific references under option two?

That's a good question.

I think I can answer it.

So the option to, you know, kind of as it stands is, you know, general high level like, yes, we think that commercial and industrial flex type of things could be appropriate here, which we could then through AC44 get into a little more detail on what those could include.

But you all could also, you know, modify that option and say, we think right now only X, Y and Z uses would be more appropriate here.

Through AC44, we wouldn't get into any of the actual parcel specific like this one's purple, this one's red, but it would be more with a small area plan.

And it's potentially true that out of that small area plan, I mean this is an extreme, none of those that you mentioned under Option 2 would fit.

That's right.

That's the beautiful thing about those small area plans.

That's right.

I think we're getting too hung up on the specifics.

I would agree.

And then if we start thinking more generally, like is it worth looking at those two areas for future development?

Let's do it.

Let's focus the lens a little more.

To clarify what you're saying is that we would have a small area plan that may actually say the current uses are actually appropriate.

The recommendation is not to add any additional uses.

That's an outcome, right?

That's right.

Add recommendations, period.

Well, I think there's a lot that's not legit there.

But you won't know it until you... Can I make a recommendation?

Because it's getting late.

I'm sorry, I'm getting tired.

I've been up for a while and flew in from Atlanta.

So not that it's any of your faults, but I want to make sure that we're not just talking in circles.

Is it fair to say that we think

these areas are worthy of exploration for feasibility as presented in the staff report.

So can I propose some language?

There's a reason why I was yellow because I, so it gets to your point.

I agree with the language that was too specific on some of these uses that may not be appropriate for some areas.

And of course,

as we dive into a more careful study of those areas you can identify.

And I agree with that, except if anything tonight I'm consistent.

So the Yancy Mills area in particular, I don't think these are equal.

No, they're not equal.

Completely.

We do have an area in Crozet that

In Crozet.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

Correct.

We have a service station or a mechanic.

We got the mill.

We have a brewery.

Yes, right there.

But you also have a historic neighborhood.

You have a historic cemetery, you have a historic neighborhood, you have a historic church.

So how far does this go and why do we need this?

So I guess back to Karen's point is, every time we have an intersection, we got to do a small area plan.

I mean, I think our staff has a lot to do.

Why are we spending the time in doing this for Yancy Mills, which doesn't need it?

Let me back up on your counterpoint though.

We shouldn't put anything there that challenges its development.

So I'm not aware.

I know it's going through because I've read through some of the ARB or AR whatever that thing's called, ASR or whatever.

So it's going through.

But I'm not convinced that anything's going to be there that's not going to be precious.

And so that's my concern about the square and crozet.

That yes, it's going to get developed out, but are you going to see a boutique hotel?

I think that plant is gone because people don't want to deal with that.

There's some foolishness about that.

I'm not sure that you're, even if we were to say, which, and I was hoping we'd get to this, I'd like to see us do something and look at, even though the government's kicked them aside, some opportunity zones and say, what's the, and this goes to you, what's the economic benefit of this particular location?

Crozet Square would be one of them.

What are we going to do there?

Because everything that I've read over the last few years, it's more of

It's not essential business.

And it may be many small businesses, but you're fine.

I love small businesses.

I was one.

But I don't know that we're going to put anything there that's going to make an impact in people's travel time.

significant in the daily travel time.

And so should we be having an economic discussion about this?

Absolutely.

I agree with that in conversation with infrastructure and the same thing about what to all.

Oh, I agree with that.

And so the lady in the back will say, you know, they'll start doing a prioritization of this.

So that's why I was young.

I do think Shadwell has, there's gotta be, it will benefit

Stuff is there and it would benefit from a plan and there's probably some opportunity to densify that.

Sure.

So for both of the Shadwell and Yancy Mills interchanges, there is, you know, existing industrial and commercial development and then also underlying zoning districts that are not rural area.

But at the same time, recognizing that, you know, it seems like there's more, you know, potential for possible changes at the Shadwell interchange.

And that's also where we've heard more input on.

So

And I would be in favor of that.

The other thing I would add about Yancy Mill, there's a lot of family farms along that stretch that will be lost.

There are multiple farms that are already being lost because they can't pay their taxes.

So this is a continuation of what we've seen in sort of the fragmentation of what was once agricultural land in the county.

And I know someone will say, well, I'm being sort of disrespectful here, but it could possibly be that that business model is no longer going to exist in this particular place.

But it also has a lot to do with how farming is done and what is the ecosystem for farming in a particular place.

Because we go to Augusta County, there's lots of farming in Augusta County right now.

Lots of farming, significant farming in Augusta County.

And my contention is that

aren't farmers per se.

I would encourage you to attend this soil and water conservation meeting sometimes so you can meet people who aren't actively farmers in Albemarle County.

I think that the opportunity that I see for Yancey Mills, and I apologize for my ignorance on this, but is it possible for us to create our own zoning district that sort of customized like a

Light Industrial Agricultural Support.

Yes, absolutely.

We can make an overlay and see.

So I would say that would be the opportunity that I would say, because there are applications that come before the Planning Commission that I've seen in the past or about where people wanted to, had to get a special use permit to set up a canning, so what to do, X or Y. And having an area where that's buy right would be extremely beneficial.

I would say send a signal