Planning Commission Meeting   11/14/2023

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Albemarle County Planning Commission work session and regular meeting.

Today is November the 4th and you are in the right space if you are here for either one of those two activities.

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.

Participation will include opportunity to comment on those matters, which comments from the public will be received.

Okay, thank you.

Right.

We're hoping you feel better soon.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

Any further discussion?

Yes.

Mr. Murray?

Yes.

All right.

Next on the agenda here are other matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

And as a reminder to those joining us, we will not take comments during the work session.

So if there is something you would like to say, this would be the time to address the matters listed in the work session.

Is there anyone who would like to speak?

Good evening, I'm Tom Olivier from the Samuel Miller district here to speak about economic development proposals for the new comprehensive plan.

According to the World Bank global GDP grew from $1.4 trillion in 1960.

to over 100 trillion in 2022.

This fast expansion of the global economy lifted many residents of developing nations out of poverty and elevated the physical standard of living in developed nations.

However, this prosperity came with a mighty price, a destruction of natural systems so extensive that many species have recently gone extinct and more are going extinct.

and the survival of many human societies is threatened by ecological crises.

The IPCC warns we must transform our societies soon to limit more severe disruptions from climate change.

We've known something like this was coming for a while.

The Club of Rome's 1972 report, The Limits to Growth concluded, we must learn to live without endless economic and population growth

If we don't, the club warned, we face a collapse of global systems, probably in the 21st century.

Nonetheless, mainstream economists still promote ongoing growth as good, apparently oblivious to its biophysical impossibility or toxic consequences.

Fortunately, green economists in a steady state and de-growth schools have been developing economic paradigms for rewarding sustainable societies.

Unfortunately, policy proposals for today's work session do not recognize the need to transform our economy into an ecologically sustainable forum.

To fix this, first, let's shelve project enable.

Second, I propose our new comprehensive plan call for creation of a new county economic development plan, one based on green economic principles.

More narrowly, I propose that our new comprehensive plan requires

wide-ranging environmental impact assessments of large development proposals before approvals are considered.

If the county is serious about environmental protection, it should assess greenhouse gas, water resource, biodiversity, et cetera, consequences before proposals are sent up or considered for decisions.

All right, thank you.

Does anyone else desire to come up and speak?

Good evening.

Very good.

My name is Neil Williamson.

I am with the Free Enterprise Forum, and I will not be quoting the Club of Rome from 1972.

That quote reminds me of the population bomb that was proved to be inert.

Albemarle County needs economic vitality.

We need jobs for our kids and our grandkids.

I'm not asking you to ignore environmental impacts, but I'm asking you to balance those impacts with the positive impacts of business development.

In addition, I am curious if you have reached out to Albemarle County Economic Development Authority for a formal opinion of the economic development goals and objectives that you'll be reviewing tonight.

I hope that this advisory board to the Board of Supervisors will reach out to a partner advisory board to the Board of Supervisors to get their opinions.

All right, thank you.

With that, we will move on to the consent agenda where we have two items, meeting minutes from both October the 10th and the 24th.

Does anyone desire to pull either one of those documents from the consent agenda?

All right, any further discussion?

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Mr. Bivins?

Aye.

All right, thank you.

And with that, we will now move into our work session entitled CCP-2023-00002 AC44 comp plan update, AC44 goals and objectives for both housing and economic development.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Tori Kanalopoulos, principal planner in the Community Development Department, and I'll be presenting this evening with Ben Holt, senior planner two in the Community Development Department.

We're also joined by Dr. Stacey Pethea, housing policy manager, and JT Newberry, interim director of economic development, who will be available as topic experts this evening.

We'll be discussing draft goals and objectives for housing and economic development as part of the AC44 comp plan update.

So we'll start off with a quick recap of where we are and what the current focus is in phase two.

Then we'll share the draft goals and objectives for housing and economic development.

We'll pause after housing for discussion and then again after economic development for discussion, and then we'll wrap up with next steps.

So the purpose of this work session, just like the October 10th work session, is for the Commission's feedback on draft goals and objectives, this time for housing and economic development.

We want to make sure that we're on track before we dive into the action steps and see if anything may be missing so far.

Drafting goals and objectives is informed by community input.

We need to know community priorities to draft recommendations and respond to the challenges and opportunities that we're hearing.

We also use the AC44 framework, which sets overall guidance for the plan and was developed with significant community input.

Plan recommendations are drafted with technical expertise from county staff, partner agencies, county committees, the Planning Commission, and researching best practices.

The board gives the AC44 team direction and makes the final decisions.

As a reminder, each chapter in the comp plan will have goals, objectives, and action steps.

In phase two, we're drafting goals and objectives, and then in phase three, we'll draft action steps.

Goals are the vision for where we want to be as a community in the future, and the objectives are the outcomes or targets to move us in that direction.

And the action steps are how we implement the plan.

We are in the third and final step of AC44 phase two,

We're using the input we heard in step one, which was discovering challenges and opportunities, and step two, which was developing planning toolkits to inform drafting goals and objectives, and we'll continue to use the input heard in step three to refine the draft recommendations.

There are currently questionnaires open for the October 10th Planning Commission work session topics and this evening's topics.

We'll summarize what we've heard so far on housing and economic development.

Since the October 10th work session, the AP44 team has held a virtual open house on all topics with open questionnaires, a housing-focused discussion with Java members and staff, and presented to the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership.

We'll also continue to meet with county committees for their input.

We'll likely be checking in with the ARB later this month.

And as we move into the final round of sharing goals and objectives, we'll continue to hold community advisory committee CAC meetings focused on land use and transportation planning, including the multimodal plan, and we'll schedule rural area meetings on land use and transportation planning.

I'll now cover an overview of the housing chapter in the comp plan, including the draft goals and objectives and then pause for discussion and questions.

So when we talk about housing in the context of the comp plan, we're talking about housing for all community members, which includes both designated affordable housing units and market rate housing.

Having housing choice available in our community is an important aspect of the comp plan.

That refers to having a variety of housing types at a variety of price points.

This allows for more options based on preferences, life stages, household size, and household income.

Housing is considered affordable when a household spends no more than 30% of its gross monthly income on housing costs.

Along with housing choice, recommendations for preventing households from becoming homeless and working to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and one time are another set of key policies in this chapter.

This chapter overlaps with many other plan sections, including land use, transportation, and economic development.

This is partially shown by the data on the right hand side of the slide from the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, which estimates an annual transportation cost per household of $14,756 in the county.

As the AC44 team drafted housing goals and objectives and other chapter recommendations, we've been considering the major themes that we've been hearing through community input.

Many of these themes are strongly interrelated.

We've heard there is a significant need for housing that is affordable for current and future community members, including people employed in Albemarle County that cannot afford to live in the county.

Having a variety of housing options at a variety of price points improves affordability, along with energy efficient housing units and programs to upgrade efficiency and weatherization of existing units.

We've heard that multimodal transportation options connected to housing are needed, which affects affordability, as we saw in the earlier slide, and the opportunities to age in place.

The six draft goals organize the housing chapter into the following major sections, which I'll review in a bit more detail.

Since you all received the draft goals and objectives in your materials, I'll cover them at a high level and leave time for discussion.

To increase the overall housing supply and housing choice, draft recommendations include encouraging a variety of housing types, especially in locations accessible to activity centers, jobs, transit, and amenities, increasing the number of mixed income developments, and increasing energy efficient design.

To increase the supply of affordable and workforce housing options, draft recommendations include reducing barriers to housing development in both policies and ordinances and using community engagement and involvement to support and track this development.

to preserve and maintain

To promote fair housing, draft recommendations include ensuring changes in county policies and ordinances do not negatively impact the supply of or equitable access to affordable housing and evaluating existing programs and projects for how well they serve different demographic groups.

To work to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and one time, draft recommendations include expanding permanent housing opportunities for chronically homeless households, using the best practice of housing first, preventing homelessness when possible, addressing unmet needs for people living unsheltered, and assisting households experiencing homelessness to quickly return to and remain stably housed.

to enable community members to age in place.

Draft recommendations include increasing the supply of housing units that are affordable and accessible to low-income senior and disabled households, supporting housing options, locations, and designs that are accessible, increasing multimodal transportation access, increasing access to assisted living and supportive housing, and reducing housing costs for low-income senior households, homeowners with a total and permanent disability, and veterans with a disability.

Since the 2015 comprehensive plan was adopted, the housing chapter was updated in 2021 with Housing Albemarle, the county's housing policy.

This means that the housing chapter is the most recently updated chapter in the current plan.

Therefore, many of the recommendations from Housing Albemarle will be carried forward, with updates and additions as needed.

This includes ensuring consistency between other plan chapters for the format of goals, objectives, and action steps.

There will also be new recommendations based on updated plan content and connected to other chapters and community input, such as an additional emphasis on energy efficiency and coordinated land use and transportation planning as it relates to housing, including aging in the community and connecting to activity centers.

We have online questionnaires for each plan topic as we share draft goals and objectives.

We anticipate keeping the questionnaires open throughout the calendar year and potentially early next year to allow for continued opportunities for input.

To date, we've heard the following comments through the housing questionnaire.

Feedback includes a need for infrastructure to keep up with growth, regional coordination on housing, more requirements and incentives for affordable units with new development, more market rate units, more affordable real estate taxes, and ways to measure success.

At the November 6 virtual open house, we had two breakout rooms.

One was for environmental stewardship, parks and recreation, and historic resources, and the other was for housing and economic development.

We shared an overview of each topic, summarized the changes from the 2015 plan, reviewed the draft goals and objectives, and then asked participants to share if they felt their top priorities were reflected and if there was anything they would add or change.

At the November 7th Java discussion, we asked questions related to housing needs and preferences, transportation, and spaces for community gathering and accessing resources and programs.

We wanted to note that while we summarize feedback for engagement summaries and presentations, we also share more detailed notes and input with relevant staff across the county and partner agencies.

For example, we shared the more detailed notes from Java with staff in the Office of Equity and Inclusion, Fire Rescue, Climate Protection, and the Health Department.

To summarize the input from both of these events, we heard that there is concern about the limited supply of land in the development areas, that affordable housing in the rural area could be explored, and that community land trusts and county-owned land should be explored for affordable housing.

We also heard that affordable housing specifically planned for seniors is needed with accessibility, walkability, transit, and safe places to gather on site.

We heard significant concern from Jabba staff that they are seeing more seniors experiencing homelessness, including living in vehicles and seniors being unable to keep up with rent and increasing housing costs on fixed incomes.

Transportation was another high priority for seniors, especially as family members are not always able to drive them to appointments, classes, or community centers.

Now we'll turn it over to the commission for discussion and questions.

And we welcome you all to use the questions on the slide to help guide your discussion.

And we're looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Thank you so much.

I would just offer an observation that I went and had an opportunity to look at the work that was being done by the Regional Housing Study, which is referred in here.

It's a smart set of analysis there.

The unfortunate thing is that the data is from 2018.

It goes from 2018 to 2040, which is a fine period.

But if you use a baseline of 2018, it just sort of misses a bunch of stuff that's happened to this community and to the economy at large.

And so I would just sort of ask that if there's a possibility to sort of look at this data, to refresh the data,

Great observation.

I did have one question.

I know the county developed a housing policy back in 2021 that some of these are similar and some seem to be missing from the current recommendations.

Sure.

So we used housing Albemarle as the baseline.

And I think, you know, part of the reason some things might currently not be in there is because they'll fall into the action step level of detail.

And the way that housing Albemarle is organized is a little bit different than the way the updated plan will be organized.

It's not quite in the same goal objective action step format.

So it did require some kind of, you know, shifting, making the language consistent, things like that, making sure everything

Thanks.

We do have two questions that have been put before us and I'll propose one way that we might kind of navigate through this to keep us on schedule but yet get the most pertinent points for staff's consideration.

Maybe there's three points, we just go around the horn and we can all speak to these three things perhaps.

Your initial thoughts and reactions to what you've read and what you've heard.

Maybe highlight the things that you find favorable.

And then three, opportunities for further assessment.

And then if we start seeing multiple of the same topics for opportunities for further assessment, maybe something we elaborate on the conversations that sound like a reasonable approach.

All right, so I'll start to my far right end with Commissioner Moore, and we'll ask initial thoughts and reactions, things you find favorable, opportunities for further assessment or exploration.

Okay, okay.

Sure.

So the initial snap reaction, I do recognize that we've got the goals here are not what I would think of as goals.

They're more the vision bullets.

And so there's definitely and even the objectives, I think, left me feeling like I kept writing down how, how, how, you know, it was a lot of

laudable things in the mix, some just so broad that it was like, what is this saying?

Like prevent homelessness where possible through homelessness prevention.

I mean, okay.

So I think I was yearning for a little bit more things I could sink my teeth into that we're going to really get there.

I do think it's possible.

You know, I was thinking about, you know, in sort of nonprofit planning, using the smart goals where it's specific and measurable and so on.

and we have a few of those.

Cool.

In 2.1, in 1.3, we're going to reduce emissions by this percentage.

It's like, that's cool.

That's very specific and actionable.

In 2.1, same.

We're going to build 10,000 new affordable units by 2040.

That is specific and actual and probably needs an interim goal.

A lot of the others really felt very vague.

It was kind of like, we're going to keep doing what we're doing, but maybe a little more.

And that was something I kind of wanted to think more about.

As far as the good, yes, I think there's a, you know, I've been thinking about how we all think about a good community and it can be walkable and it can be bikeable and it can be environmentally friendly and all that.

but if our baristas and our CNAs and our teachers and our firefighters have to come in from Greene or have to come in from Waynesburg or have to come in from Fluvanna, it's not a community, it's a theme park, you know?

And so being able to have our workforce live in the county where they work is very important and I'm glad this recognizes that and I appreciate it.

I also very much like

1.1, you know, allowing and incentivizing a variety of housing types, fourplexes, ADUs, tiny houses, and so on.

And I like the objective 2.1.

It's a good specific goal just to say, we're going to build 10,000 more affordable and workforce friendly units.

That's cool.

That's good.

I mentioned the kind of vagueness as far as room to grow, perhaps.

The vagueness on this, you know,

A lot just weren't specific enough for my own taste, but maybe they'll get there in the next phase.

I also wanted to think more about blanket upzoning.

which is happening in the city.

It's happened in Minneapolis, it's happening in a few places with decent impacts on stymieing the rapid inflation of housing costs.

I don't know how much that's been addressed.

I don't know how much room there is for that.

I know in the SMART goals, the R stands for realistic and maybe I'm not being realistic, but I also think it's something to, it's a very useful arrow in our quiver that we might consider pulling out.

also just things that I noticed felt like things that I didn't see in the goals and objectives that maybe they will show up later on in the action plans but things out of that 2021 report which I thought was very good you know it was it reminded me of

kind of like the Obamacare of housing policy.

It's not going so far as to make a public option, but it does like all the other things, and it addresses a lot of real problems.

I remember from that plan, I went back and looked it up,

Goal 1, 1.1 on there was developing permanently affordable housing communities on county-owned land, or at least look into it.

I would love to see that more explicit in our goals and objectives here today or in this plan.

Land trusts and shared equity systems was also part of that plan.

They're kind of obliquely referenced, but I think those can be a really

The evidence is there that those can be a very useful way to bring the affordability much further down in the AMI scale.

Again, yeah, Sustainable Housing Trust Fund, I think was was maybe again sort of obliquely referenced here but I think just you know another tool that we can really make explicit here.

There's some other things out there that

Again, in the interest of looking to what's perhaps missing, things that we might consider, I already mentioned upzoning in general, and that could very much fall under 1.1, allowing and incentivizing these types of different types of missing middle homes.

also things that a lot of those things have to do with owning a home.

There are also things for renting that I didn't see much in there, particularly voucher programs and emergency rental assistance.

And the analysis I've read, including the guy who wrote Evicted, you know, he said the quickest way for short and medium term impact with people with a very high ROI is voucher program.

Keep people in the homes, keep people in the homes, you know, and to maybe

think through what that could look like and how we could get there.

And then the last one, I just want to put a plug in for this too.

I mean, we hear a lot from developers who want to change a different zoning or special use permit.

We very rarely proactively look and say, how are we going to do the thing here?

Can we get into that?

Why don't we buy a bunch of land and do it?

I realized that there would need to be a lot of money for that.

I realize this is not SimCity where you just go do it.

But at the same time, what is preventing us from creating new neighborhoods and town centers anchored by good county homes with market rate, market private housing as part of those communities as well and mixed with good quality jobs?

I mean, these are things we could be doing in a more

ambitious mode of thinking that I'd like us to put in the mix.

So here's my monologue.

Thank you for the helpful information.

Yes.

Okay.

First, I'd say I agree about land trusts.

I think they're one of the better ways to encourage affordable housing over the long term.

I would not be a fan of brought up zoning since it can cause speculation they can land in homes even less affordable and also it could remove any incentive for affordable housing if the if you already have the zoning you want there's no reason to proffer affordable housing so and we are seeing you know I'm hearing incidental reports of speculation already occurring in Charlottesville with you know properties selling for enormous amounts of money because

Now there's that potential of additional development.

Under goal two, I see a lot of, you know, in various places, I hear a lot of various references to reducing barriers.

And I just want to acknowledge that there are some barriers that are good barriers.

Not all barriers are bad.

We have barriers that, for example, environmental safeguards or safeguards just to keep people safe.

So I think, you know, there's a difference between barriers and unnecessary barriers.

And so I would encourage that word, injecting that word unnecessary in there, recognize that not all barriers are necessarily bad.

I strongly support the idea of maintaining the county's aging housing stock.

I think the most affordable houses that we have currently in the county are the ones we already have.

And I've seen so many people displaced because they just can't live in their home anymore.

And so the programs that we have like AHIP that can help renovate those houses, keep those houses livable, keep people living in the places that they have, I strongly support.

So goal three is one of the ones that I really support strongly.

and I'm glad that the entire document differentiates between the growth area and the rural area in terms of housing types because I think that is an important distinction.

Although I do think there are some discussions that could be had about the rural area since a lot of our existing affordable housing is in the rural area and I do think the way that we do subdivision in the rural area does make housing less affordable.

So without increasing the development in the rural area, I think there's some things that we could fix.

Right now, we are de facto encouraging farm estates in our rural area.

That harms housing affordability, and it's damaging to natural resources.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

I really heartily agree with what's been said so far

I hope you can hear me, sorry.

I'm sorry, I'm kind of sick.

So I heartily agree with what I heard so far, especially wanna plus one, the comment about community land trusts.

I think that when we make housing affordable over time, it often ends up as unaffordable because it ends up in the free market and just appreciates and gets bought up.

I also really liked the reference in the plan to tiny houses.

I think though that we're going to have to really investigate our zoning because right now there is really no way to build a tiny house community in Albemarle County.

But not everyone wants a patch of lawn that they have to mow.

A lot of people like to have a commons and, you know, a community garden that they can all take care of rather than having a

along and with all the associated setbacks that force us into suburban development pattern.

I also would like to see a little more emphasis on, and perhaps this is again getting into the weeds, but I just think the objectives are still a bit vague for my liking.

I'd like to see more on mortgage down payment assistance for public service sector employees.

So for example, police and fire teachers,

Some communities have really robust programs that help subsidize the down payment that would make it more likely that someone could afford to buy a house in our county.

And then also assisted living was also mentioned.

We have

A number of assisted living places have been built in the last decade, but I would submit to you that most of them are unaffordable for the average middle-class person.

I mean, they're really not a solution for many of us.

So looking to find ways to incentivize subsidies or subsidized assisted living for the middle class and also the lower middle class.

Thank you.

Great presentation, really helpful.

I'll just say a couple of general comments.

I, first of all, agree with many of the good comments that have been shared already.

So let me think just sort of a little bit big picture to be a bit of a contrast to these great comments.

I would just somehow, and I know that you all are doing this, I would encourage us to focus on a balance between aspirational and achievable.

and I feel like, and this is not necessarily always a bad thing, that we should shoot for the stars, right?

I mean, this would be great if we could do this.

These are all amazing ideas and we talk about incentives and we talk about reducing barriers and that type of terminology, which is all great.

I just would want to encourage us to say to ourselves, this is aspirational, that these are the things we can really achieve.

because I think oftentimes we say things that we feel are often right and they are right, but we don't end up having the ability to achieve them.

And I know that, for example, staff has been working for now almost two years or maybe over two years to close this gap on housing Albemarle and incentives that allow the development community to be able to actually implement the housing Albemarle goals.

It's been two years.

We're still seeing applications that are coming in at 15% at 80% AMI for 10 years.

And I know that we all aspire for more.

but it's just and I know it's how really difficult to do to actually achieve those things so I would just I would just highlight that.

The other thing I would mention is just a reminder that we've got a joint work session coming up with the Board of Supervisors, and that's on December 4 for anybody who can attend it would be great to talk about incentives.

and I was in some several conversations today about that and the importance of that with the development community.

So, I think having those tied together is a way to get to actionable items.

I think a lot of correct me if I'm wrong here cuz it's very possible.

Um a lot of what we're talking about in terms of the hows cuz I agree.

I was writing down how how how that's gonna come with action items, right?

That's that is the how.

This is how we think we can achieve it.

So I'm waiting with bated breath to hear how that all comes about.

Underscoring a few things, one is, yes, shout out for AHIP and keeping people in their homes.

AHIP has a great block by block program, which is targeted at not just one home in the middle of a community and then they leave, but thinking about how to advance the entire community within that one area.

So I think that's a really important thing and partnerships with those types of organizations are critical as well as, and I know Albemarle does this, continuing to fund those programs and support them.

I'll underscore also something everybody knows and talks about and that is transportation.

And there was a statement in here, I think it's subjective 1.1 under goal one, which is, let's see,

Wow, it's really the whole thing.

But basically, targeting in areas that are accessible to activity centers, areas with job opportunities, public transit, community amenities, and that promote increased density in the development areas.

So I think targeting those areas is really an important thing, which I know we're doing.

I think I'll stop there.

Thank you, Commissioner Missel.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you.

This is, as you know, this is one of the things that we've gone round and round and hiccuped a lot about on how do we get more affordable housing stock in this community.

So this is certainly a way to sort of help us gel this, and I agree the December meeting

will be an interesting dialogue and hopefully a dialogue that staff comes away with with the supervisors as we move forward on this.

I continue to be in this place, though,

And I am an optimist by nature, but I'm not an optimist on affordable housing in this community.

And one of the reasons is that I sort of look at the fact that if we say that development has to be in the 5%, that's sort of the active place that this is going to happen.

I don't know how you create any program that will change the return on investment the developer looks at.

I don't know how to do that.

And so while we can talk about it, I actually just don't know how to do that if we are committed to only 5% of the development area.

It would be helpful, and you mentioned this in the report, to have an inventory, not just of county and school land, but to have an inventory of what land could possibly hold that kind of project.

And here's where I'm going to pivot to something.

Because I believe, in the same way that the county helped to make it possible for Willow Tree to stay here, that if we look at affordable housing as being one of those opportunities for the community,

that the county has an appropriate role in making sure or advancing as it did in Southwood, as it did in Premier Circle, but advancing a project that would bring more than 12 affordable units, but that would bring a community that was multi-generation.

that would allow people in different stages of their lives to live there and if they desire to sort of live out there.

So the multi-generational piece is something I'd like to see you sort of lift it up.

Because we can speak all we want to about trying to keep rural citizens in rural places, but that also means we're going to be challenged on what does a crossroad community look like.

Because in order to effectively keep someone in a rural part of the county, we've got to give them services.

Otherwise, why should I stay there?

And so you give me my house, you fix my house up, you make sure I have a good well and a good septic system, but I still have to drive into Charlottesville for my doctor's appointment.

And so the wrestling about what do we expect, for instance, if we were to use Esmont as an area, what would happen?

We now have a convenience center, there's a post office, there's a whole host of things.

What would happen if there was an intentional sort of a creative thought process that went on about,

and there's also, I will sort of add, there's also a housing stock in that whole area between, what is that, 20 and six.

There's plenty of housing stock over, yes, of the grand estates, but there's also some housing stock over there that's not the grand estates.

What would it look like if we were to say in the county that these are places that we're going to help the rural residents live and remain in their houses?

That would challenge us on what we think crossword communities are, but I think that's a good challenge for us if in fact we're talking about an equitable approach to this.

And then sort of the third thing, Sharon, and I will be quiet on this matter, is that this is one of these situations where there is an absolute perfect integration with three things.

We can talk about accessible housing, but that is not a stable or a static environment.

You also need to talk about economic development.

because as people have heard me say here, I would prefer to have a job here that allows you to afford whatever house you want to afford and not say that you are now part of the surf class.

And so we're going to make all the little surf huts real good for you, but you're always going to be part of the surf class.

When we get to the EDA part of it, the EDA and I will challenge them to sort of look at this data a bit more.

Well, when we get to page 17, they talk about what are the employment by industry here.

So the weakest employment in the county is the Commonwealth of Virginia.

which means that depending on who's in Richmond, their desire is to shrink the employment of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Not increase it, but to shrink it.

Which means that if that happens, that there will be more and more individuals who will fall deeper and deeper into the greater than 30%.

After that, it's in TerraHealthcare, and then the one that's the big one which we had last, I guess, two weeks ago was the Department of Defense.

If anyone's tried to get clearance, or you know anyone who's tried to get clearance, it is not a easy job and it is not a quick job.

And so that also shrinks down the population of people who can easily move through opportunities.

So my piece is that if we look at accessible housing, we have to look at economic development and then the same with the vice chair said, and we have to look at transportation.

because my sense is that if we are absolutely committed to 5%, then we have to be very creative on how we bring and connect the 5% across the city of Charlottesville so that in fact we have a much broader network.

And that's then when I stopped being optimistic because I said, that's more money, more money, more money.

Well said, and look, I'll follow up with things that have not been said.

That's my hope.

I was surprised not to see anything about

the tracking, the data piece.

I feel like that's something that comes up over and over again.

And I think we've got to put it on paper so we can get there.

Right.

And so whether it's financial resources, staff resources, but we've got to have the data to see how we're doing in any of this.

And it feels like that is a fatal flaw currently within the system that we don't have.

I'm also saying I would expect to see a little bit more about educating the community.

on affordable housing.

There's so many times I sit here on this dais and the comments come before me.

They're dressed very nicely, but essentially it's a great idea.

Please don't put it near me.

Right.

It's not quite said like that, but it's dressed more nicely.

So maybe it's the education of the community of what affordable housing is, what is workforce housing.

So people have a general understanding when different proposals come before us.

and then I would also put a stronger tie a more deliberate tie to other sections of the comp plan where environmental stewardship right I think you start to signal that within here you talk about energy efficiency and so forth but where are there stronger ties or parks and recreation should should everyone have access to green space and parks and how does that impact housing.

Goal four when I read that

I struggle to see what's the difference in that and the law.

And that's a rhetorical question at the moment, but it feels like when I read that, it's the law.

So is that aspirational?

We got to do that the way I read it.

Fair housing.

Yeah, fair housing, essentially.

Goal five.

It's homelessness, right?

So that's a big thing to do by yourself.

And it feels like it's a missed opportunity to not, that's a regional goal, or at least a partnership with the city at the very least.

And so I would expect to see, in my opinion, some kind of language that starts to speak to that.

And then lastly, the aging in place piece.

I'm not sure if it's an exploration of zoning, but

you know, having accessible dwelling units on the same property, right?

So if I have a single family home, can I build something in my backyard to allow my parents to age in place there right with me?

I'm not sure if the infrastructure within the zoning allows for that right now, but if it does, how do we incentivize it?

If not, how do we get there?

Those are some of the comments that I had that don't repeat, I don't think repeat what I've heard, but plus one to a lot of everything.

Sure, I do think that, I mean, what we're hearing and what we've said on a lot of number of items here is that we want to be able to say at the end of at some interim period that there's a success or that there's movement towards something so to encourage you to be able to do that

I think helps to make it a reality and goes to the teachable moment for the people who observe this out in the community and say, oh, look, they said this and look, they're doing this.

Or there's an explanation about why we had to derail or pose it for a moment, which is, again, what I said earlier on, this whole idea of making sure that the data that you have

is as current as it can be.

I didn't know, I couldn't hear if I was recognized, I'm sorry.

Okay, sorry.

Maybe my hearing's gone too.

I just wanted to actually comment back on what Commissioner Missel said a moment ago.

I wanted to heartily agree with the comment that we have a lot of very aspirational objectives in here.

and I also understand that, yes, the devil's in the details or the details will be coming with the action steps.

But I'm not completely convinced that the action steps will magically show us how all these things will get achieved.

And I think that I would, if we can, I would rather lean on the, I guess,

side of closer to reality of what we're actually going to be able to get done.

Because I don't want us to feel like just this sort of this chapter of overly aspirational, you know, goals and objectives that we can't get done.

I'd like us to really drill down hard on the things that we can get done.

So I don't have specific ones I'm suggesting to take out right now, but it did struck me as this was sort of the chapter of if the world were perfect, this was what we would all get done in Albemarle for affordable housing and

I just think it does a disservice to be so optimistic to the point where we can't back it up.

That's a great comment.

I think there's a unanimous consensus around that line of thinking as well.

Let's take a couple more comments before we should move on.

Thanks.

Mine will be just brief and I may have missed this, but the subject of funding, I don't see in here.

It's pretty light if it's in here.

And so under the heading of what might be missing, right, which was one of the questions.

funding a commitment to county funding strategies that are

substantial, but also build on each other.

So it may not be that next year there's $50 million fund that can be used for affordable housing, but there is some sort of goal that is attached to a funding initiative that can be built upon over the years.

And I know enough on this subject to be dangerous.

It's kind of the story of my life on a lot of subjects.

But I would say that in looking at Northern Virginia and looking at other areas, the funding, the commitment of the locality is so strong that I think unless we start really purposely and intentionally growing, that we'll be not able to achieve anything that is not just aspirational, but actually actual.

and Commissioner Moore.

I appreciate Commissioner Firehock and Commissioner Missel both talking about achievable and aspirational.

And again, echoing just plus one, your notion of funding the achievable or the aspirational.

And at the same time, I do.

So, you know, I work in community radio and we do a pledge drive on the air.

We'll say, hey, in this two hour period, we want you to raise fifteen hundred dollars as your stretch goal.

Announce that one on the air.

And then I'll tell the host,

I'd like you to raise a thousand.

So we just did.

My point is having achievable goals and having stretch goals may be the way to go.

I don't want us to stop at small bore because affordable housing is the issue that gets brought up as the number one issue in survey after survey after engagement after survey.

I mean, it's the issue.

And we also have a lot of wealth in this community to do something about it.

We may not have the political will, but we've got the capacity.

And we have a recent history of investing in public goods or things that the Board of Supervisors decides are public goods.

You know, we just bought a whole lot of land around Camp Rivanna to subsidize the military industrial complex.

There's good reasons to do that in the case they did.

But we could do similar with other things.

That's great.

I think it's a great segue to move us forward.

Thank you, first and foremost, for the great discussion and the engagement.

I do.

Thank you.

And, you know, I appreciate too.

I know we start to sometimes get into the action step level, but I think that's still helpful.

And we've got our, you know, topic experts here listening and we're taking notes.

So we're still happy to hear that feedback as well.

All right.

Well, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you, commissioners.

Ben Holt with the long range planning team.

So I'll take over with this section.

A strong economy is a vital component of a thriving and prosperous community.

The County's Economic Development Office continues to utilize Project ENABLE, adopted in 2019, to provide guidance and direction for economic development within the County.

Strategies include support for target industries, primary businesses, as well as recruitment and retention of businesses of all sizes.

Strategic partnerships are utilized for business support and workforce development.

Economic development also overlaps with many other planned topics such as transportation, housing, and land use.

Community input themes for economic development echo many of the priorities within the draft goals and objectives and project enable.

These include continued support for target industries, reduced barriers for development related to economic uses, support for reuse and infill within development areas,

Desired commercial and business tax reduction, improved job trading and workforce development, access to jobs, career growth and livable wages, improved transit and multimodal connections to employment areas, support for employment and commercial uses within activity centers, and adaptive reuse within our crossroads communities.

The four goals for economic development focus on leading growth of target industries and primary businesses, supporting job creation and employment opportunities, supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs, and promoting career pathways and workforce development.

Goal one on leading growth for target industries and primary businesses will continue its primary focus on employment uses within the development areas.

Objectives include ensuring available land suited for business and industry, maintaining a supply of appropriately zoned land, reducing barriers for growth and development, utilizing available infrastructure and an efficient manager, and encouraging infill and redevelopment, especially within activity centers.

Goal two on job creation and employment opportunities include objectives that continue to utilize project-enabled guidance, complimentary land uses adjacent to Rivanna Station, utilizing strategic partnerships, promoting environmentally sustainable practices, expanding and retaining businesses, and supporting tourism that leverages historic, scenic, and cultural resources within the county.

Goal three on supporting startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs includes objectives for provision of workspace, guidance for establishing businesses and supporting entrepreneurs with needed resources.

Goal four on supporting career pathways and economic mobility includes objectives on leveraging a range of partnerships to provide career development and training and promoting workforce participation through aspects like affordable housing, transportation options, childcare, and broadband availability.

The connection to the existing comprehensive plan involves continued support for targeted industries and the primary businesses that generate revenue for the local economy.

Other aspects include support for small business and entrepreneurs and workforce development and utilization of areas effectively for employment uses, while maintaining a supply of adequately zoned land.

Our questionnaire responses suggested enhanced infill and redevelopment, utilizing shared workspaces, partnerships between local schools and employers, leveraging nonprofits for workforce support, addressing school overcrowding and school performance to enhance community profile and employment retention.

also commensurate support for both businesses and affordable housing not allowing one or the other to lag behind and noted concern by one individual that emphasizing reduced restrictions and development density could be detrimental to community character.

Our recent virtual open house feedback suggested continued support for target industries while regularly updating these targets based on market conditions, providing opportunities to live, work and play in the county, enhanced incentives for local businesses that build community character, exploring different models for business support and better utilization of adaptive reuse and infill.

All right, thank you, sir.

So in our last, when we had had the presentation before, one of the things that was brought up was the recreation economy in Albemarle County.

There's a significant number of people who come here for recycling races, for running races, who come here for hiking, people on their way to the Shenandoah National Park.

And I didn't see a mention of that in here, of the recreation economy.

I was just wondering,

Oh, it is?

2.6.

Well, it just says local tourism industry.

I mean, I guess it kind of includes that, but it'd be nice to see it more explicitly mentioned.

I mean, I saw that in there, but tourism is kind of a vague and

I mean, for example, I live in Albemarle County.

I'm not coming here from somewhere else, but I've spent thousands of dollars this year training for a marathon, from shoes and goo packets.

Perhaps explore some further refinement of the language there, perhaps.

I would make the similar comment that I made under the, for the data.

But the data on this one goes, the data and economic development, while measuring all the right things, I would say.

But it starts in 2010 and goes to 21.

And I don't know if that was a single data set or if that is just an accumulation of data.

But in any event, I think we are not serving staff well if we do not allow them to present a data set that includes sort of pre and post

and then also sort of the economic turmoil that some people feel that we're in at the present.

So I think just as you're talking about economic development, I'd rather see some future cast for data than to see this much historic data.

I don't need this much historic data.

I really actually need some future cast on that data.

So that would be the one thing that I would suggest that you see if you can get a data set that would give you that rich.

Cause I think what you've measured is really helpful.

All right, well, maybe we bring it in and Commissioner Bivins, I'll start with you.

So I do think, I mean, these are the goals and I agree with the goals.

Most people, most everyone knows that I'm a market driven kind of guy.

So this is, I can't disagree with these.

And I do understand that when we look at that 95% of the landmass here is classified as rural, then I think that as Commissioner Murray has mentioned, we need to sort of speak to that.

Can that be an economic driver?

and certainly given that we've been named at least for one year sort of the best wine terroir then you know how do we do that in a way that makes sense that in fact lifts that because as I shared with the county staff that everything I see never names Albemarle County something just came out from Barron's and it had nothing to do with

Albemarle County, we just won.

So thinking about how are we intentionally lifting those areas where we can be successful, I think in creating sort of the multiplier effect and not sort of challenging people in their idea that we're a rural community.

I would suggest that we would also want to reevaluate whether or not the targeted industries are still the industries that we would target.

since Project Enable now has some age on it.

Are these still the full range of economic drivers that we would like?

And then that goes to, as I mentioned before, I think it was page 17, page 17 where it has employment by industry, but really helpful to know what does that look like now?

Okay.

And then again, and this is the conversation with economic development and transportation and housing, all those various chapters there and the sort of the environment, what are the employment industries?

What do they look like now?

And what would we really like to, this goes to targeting industries, what would we like to target to support our comp plan?

Because I think that's also the piece that

Thanks.

Yeah, just a few comments.

Thanks for the presentation.

It's really helpful.

One is, I wrote down the word progress exclamation point.

And, you know, having lived here for, I don't know, 35 years or so, it's been really interesting to see the transition from what was really

We don't want economic development to let's think about ways that we can bring economic development to the county so kudos to those that have been working on this for even a short time but also been proactively doing that and I think that as we maybe this is a little bit too

to a point that the chair made earlier, and that is staffing, thinking about resources that we have at the county.

I was looking at the county economic development website, there are two local grant opportunities.

I don't know how that compares to other communities, but thinking about ways that we can study through one of the goals, availability of other grant opportunities or partnerships, and I know that that's probably more tactical than strategic, but thinking through that would be important.

Yes, housing, right?

We've all said that housing, transportation, they all have to go together.

I think as we look at zoning packages that come towards us thinking about what is a full package, if there is an opportunity to think about that in a mixed use way.

I was

I'm encouraged to see that there is a grant, jumping around a little bit, that's building reuse grant.

So I'm going to steal something you're probably going to say, which is thinking about reuse of buildings within the within the area as well.

Let's see.

Staff mentioned that link to a grant opportunity that was tied to infrastructure, tied to smart scale.

And having tier five status is a way that actually can provide points towards achieving a tier five smart scale.

So that's a great way to think about how economic, all economic development initiative ready sites can actually provide the ability to leverage other grant opportunities.

And I think that was pretty much.

Oh, and then just to echo what Commissioner Murray said about the local tourism industry.

I mean, it's hard to overestimate the amount of income that's brought to the county.

And I saw that stat somewhere.

Maybe it was in one of these meetings.

Yeah.

You know, it's a huge, it's a huge industry.

And thinking about ways that the county can partner with.

I forgot the name of the group, but it's the Charlottesville area tourism industry.

Thinking about partnerships there, I just underscore that as a great objective to think through.

Thanks.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll just add briefly.

I mentioned this last time we've talked about this topic, the importance of also focusing on small businesses.

So we, we tend to look at the larger firms, even though some people might think of Willowtree as a smaller business.

Most of the businesses that start up in our state are small businesses.

And I think that the collective of all of these small businesses is what we need to also not forget.

There's not a lot of support in the county right now for some of those startups.

And I think we also need to tie affordable housing to attracting businesses.

So for example, I just hired three new people at my local firm, but none of them could afford to buy a house in our county.

And I pay decent wages.

So I really would like us to think about the fact that there's more small businesses that need space.

And I like the idea of perhaps thinking about assisting with retrofitting buildings.

Like when I recently looked for office space,

there was all kinds of strange, you know, large gyms and former recording studios and retail spaces and all kinds of strange configurations that would have cost an arm and a leg to try to configure for a small business.

Like, you know, so I'll just leave it at that but I just think more support for converting our commercial stock into what we need today.

and then more support by the county for small businesses, startups, and the like.

And of course, linking the affordable housing chapter to this section because the ability to hire people and bring businesses here is directly tied to whether employees can afford to live here or not.

Well said, well said.

Yes, so in goal three and 3.1, it talks about promoting support and adequate supply of diverse spaces for business of all sizes to operate.

But I think it's not just the supply of spaces, but the affordability of spaces.

And we see that as we talk about affordable housing, we also need to talk about affordability of places to start a business.

You can have the space, but if no can afford it, it doesn't help you at all.

And so I think that's a very important consideration.

I really like goal two and supporting that.

I mean, I'd like that it

I mean, I think about Crozet.

I think about the history of that town and how it was once really supported by the Del Monte or I always remember as Morton's industry.

And I think thinking about that as an integral part of how communities develop and having a place where you can live and work and encouraging these business practices

you know, when talking about sustainable practices that promote the climate action plan and resilience planning and really being able to live and work in the same place.

So, you know, getting to a point where in Crozet, we don't, you know, you don't have people just commuting from Crozet to Charlottesville to work where you can have places where you can work in Crozet.

I think that's really important.

I think also going sort of backwards and to goal one,

I like that it, recognizing the different expectation for land uses and development in the development area and the rural area.

I like that we're starting to think about that.

We're starting to think about that there are sustainable uses in the rural area for the economy, that it's not just a big open space.

But I think we can do more.

Thank you, Commissioner Murray.

Sure.

Thank you for the presentation.

And I was just kind of glancing through.

And a lot of this is leaning on Project Enable and just kind of doing it well.

And I appreciate that.

That was a good introduction to that project at last meeting.

I think the ready to go land of the one that was rated four or five it sounded like it was a sort of acute need from our presenter last time and there's not many of those so I'm glad that's in there with 1.1 and 1.2 we could even strengthen the language on those if we want to.

and then, I mean, a lot of, just echoing a lot of what my colleagues have said, the only one I'll sort of add is as I was reading through and I got to the section here at the bottom of the page, said, you know, goal four, Albemarle County will foster opportunity for upward economic mobility.

I was like, oh, great, this is the part where we get to talk about unions and worker rights.

And I flipped the page and there was nothing on there like that.

And because that is where workers get their power and economic security is through organized

Labor.

And so I would encourage there to be resources to make it easier for workers to know their rights and to be able to organize and build that economic security.

Now, I'm coming from a labor left place that not everybody comes from.

But that is something that I would enjoy seeing as a part of our goals.

Yeah, great, great comments.

And I have less comments on this one than the last topic.

But the word equity doesn't show up.

I just did a word search.

Doesn't show up in any of the goals and objectives here.

And I'm not sure if it does in housing.

as well.

Okay.

But wow, out of those two canons, it seems like this would be a spot where we talk about, you know, whether it's a small business or underserved community, some people just need more resources than others, right?

So the equity piece, not equality, but the equity piece, I didn't see anything about that.

Goal 4 caught my attention.

I really like Goal 4.

It's really just the foundation of a healthy community.

It's talking about upward economic mobility and entrepreneurship.

And I'll just kind of put a plug in for something that just starts to mature and you start to have your action plans and so forth.

But understanding that this is a very educated community with a university here, I don't want to lose sight of non-traditional ways

of having upward mobility.

So we have a very good community college and we have trade schools.

And I'll give you an example.

I was just in Chicago not long ago.

I was in a meeting and had one of the CEOs, one of the largest general contracting firms in the country.

It was many CEOs of those types of firms.

And one gentleman said, do you know what I tell these young men and women who's trying to recruit in elementary school, right?

How would you like to make a dollar and 50 cents a minute?

You want to make $1.50 a minute?

Come to this plumbing academy and come out with this credential or mechanical HVAC.

There's people with two PhDs who ain't making $1.50 a minute, right?

So I don't want to shine that path.

I think it's something that should be celebrated and maybe something that's woven into here for upward mobility because there is a significant need in the AEC industry for that line of work.

If you don't believe me, you call a plumber and how much does it cost for them to pull up in your driveway?

It's usually 80 to 120 bucks just to put the car in park, right, to come in your driveway, having to come in your house yet.

So I do want to make note of that and also starting the education piece early.

So this all fits under object four or goal four, like maybe it's an elementary school.

We started talking about upward mobility and it kind of goes hand in hand with safe housing.

I see here in job training and career ladder jobs, like it starts early, like if kids aren't reading,

By the time they're in a certain grade, there's the hope just goes down, right?

So don't want to get too far track on his economic development.

I'm fully aware of that.

But what we're talking about these basic building blocks, I don't want us to lose sight of that as we get deeper in these conversations.

So that's all I had.

So Chair, I don't think you should lose sight of what you just said there.

One of the things in some of the activities I do in the community, one of the things that I'm constantly sort of pushing is that we need to have an educated populace.

And that does not mean

having had more education than I probably ever needed.

You can only have so many degrees and I've got more.

But what we were doing a disservice as, and this is one of the things that we've been pushing is there are options for people to make very good livings that don't require four year education.

Or when they can go on education when it feels right for them.

And so part of the other reason of that is that if we're going to help EDA, if we're going to help the EDA office, when people come here, they need to know a couple of things.

Can I hire people?

I don't need always CEOs.

I always don't need PhDs.

I need people who can come to work on a daily basis and do the kinds of things and want to grow into my company.

and that's why we need high schools that are in fact, that's what we have with center one, we're gonna get center two.

That's what center one and center two are trying to do, they're trying to give young people a different path to think about their futures.

They don't have to leave, they have to live here.

I would just ask one other thing.

So I would ask EDA and staff to think about what's gonna happen when Barnes Lumber Plaza or Barnes Lumber comes online?

What are we looking to put there to help facilitate people in Crozet not having to drive down 250 or whatever, however they come into town?

So are we looking at the natural places?

And what happens when Norfolk, I'll go back to its old name, when Norfolk comes online, or is this current name?

But thank you.

When it comes online, is his staff looking to see what are the opportunities there

to help work with EDA to say we're creating a center of activity.

And what are the other places, you know, we've looked at a bunch of projects here.

One project I'm not gonna mention, I'm a little disappointed out on Avon Street on Fifth Street extended that I thought was gonna have a bunch of businesses out there, but it has a storage place.

I didn't say where that was.

That we are working with people to bring

jobs to the places that come before us for special use permits or for ZMA's.

Two quick additional observations.

One is I know that there are initiatives underway and partnerships underway with

University of Virginia and the county.

You talk about training, you talk about education, we talk about engineering, architecture opportunities so much here.

And I think the university often is focused on sending out.

I think there are opportunities for us to partner within as well, which I know JT is looking at and others as well.

The second thing I'd mentioned for both of these is staff is

I'm very appreciative of your asking our opinion and for our advisor our advice.

I would also think it would be interesting to include in any of these discussions.

I don't know if it's a section or just a sentence that says, hey, Planning Commission, y'all, this is how you can help us.

Great comments.

Great comments.

How can we help you?

Just one more thing.

Commissioner Bivins talked about aging in place and the importance of that will increasingly, as people age, they're not giving up their careers.

They're often reinventing their careers.

and it's one thing to build a transition to a different career when you're young, but as you're older, we need to make sure that there's opportunities to be able to transition to different careers still exist as people age.

I think of friends of mine that were in landscaping and then due to arthritis or other things can't do that anymore and need to do something else.

Anything else?

Commissioner Firehock, I can't see you so I'm going to call on you.

No, I'm fine.

Oh, is that a no?

No?

Okay.

All right.

Staff, do you have what you need from this discussion?

Okay.

Thank you.

Well, thank you.

Oh, got you.

Yes.

Just a couple more slides.

So the final round of sharing the phase two draft plan recommendations are going to include land use, transportation, community facilities.

The next work session with the Planning Commission is scheduled for December 19.

And right now, staff is considering splitting these topics to hold a second work session in early 2024, which would allow more time for community and commission input.

Doing it this way would allow us to discuss more detailed topic content at the first work session.

Things such as land use category updates, draft multimodal planning, and locations for the activity centers and employment districts.

And then the second session would present the draft goals and objectives for these topics.

So in early 2024, following the planning commission work sessions, the board will hold either one or two work sessions to cover all of the draft goals and objectives.

And then the action steps will be drafted and shared in phase three early next year.

And that'll include prioritizing the recommendations and incorporating metrics where applicable and possible for enhanced tracking of the plan targets.

Thank you for that.

It's very informative.

I don't know the question.

Just one quick thing that I'm sure you're doing.

One of the things that came up tonight was how integrated all of these are.

These are not siloed.

Yeah, that's a big part of our discussion and talking about actually fleshing out the chapters.

And I'll just add to that the two canons of climate and equity.

We don't want to guess where those are kind of tucked in there, right?

So bringing that up and that's kind of that common theme, right?

If this is a movie, each one of these chapters is a scene.

And if you remove one of those scenes, the movie is different, right?

So we need them all collectively to kind of speak holistically.

And I think that that's when you know you've been successful with the document.

So, yeah.

All right.

Well, thank you both again, and we really appreciate you.

Would it be the pleasure of the commission to maybe do the first public hearing and then take a break, or take a break now?

What's the pleasure of the commission?

The scene looks straightforward.

That was my thinking.

Let's go ahead and move on to the first one.

We'll go to the public hearing and then we'll take a break after the first one.

Looks like we're okay?

Yep, we're good.

All right, well, first and foremost, welcome and thank you for being here.

We're going to go to the first public hearing, AFD 2023-00001 Evans Kennelock District addition.

And with that, I'll turn the floor over to you.

Good evening commissioners.

Scott Clark, the Conservation Program Manager in Community Development.

This item tonight is a proposed addition to the Agricultural and Forestry District.

So I'll just run through a quick review of what those districts are and a little bit about how they work before we get into the details of this specific item.

The districts are a voluntary conservation program in the county and many other counties in the state.

Right now we have, roughly speaking, 900 parcels or so and 68,000 acres across the rural areas in this program.

So this is

A program being enabled by the state code and you can see here that the four goals, production of food and other ag and forest products, protecting open spaces, strong agricultural and forest economy, and protecting and preserving natural resources.

These are goals established by the state ordinance and by our county code for what these districts are intended to do.

So these districts are unlike conservation units and are not permanent.

They run in cycles.

Every 10 years usually, each district is reviewed for its viability and starts again at that point.

Generally speaking, the districts work by preventing development to a more intensive use.

There's a whole list in the ordinance in Chapter 3 of what does or does not qualify as development to a more intensive use for the purposes of this program.

The main things they affect tend to be about subdivision.

I'll say more about that in a minute.

They also set higher review standards for rural area uses that are permitted by special use permit.

So we give a little bit more scrutiny to a special use permit that's either in or adjacent to one of these districts.

Also for the landowners and for blocks of land like this that are dedicated to this protection for agriculture and forestry is there are limitations in the state's ability to take that land for things like road projects, because the land is, there's been a commitment to keeping that land in the productive rural uses.

So I mentioned that,

A lot of the impact of these districts, it works on subdivisions.

So just to quickly review how subdivisions work in the rural areas, and this is just an illustration I stole out of the comp plan.

Effectively, the rural area zoning district has a 21-acre minimum lot size, but there's an exception to that.

Back in 1980, when this ordinance was adopted, we kind of created two tiers of development.

There's the 21 acre lots.

and then there's the smaller development related lots which can be as small as two acres.

Now those smaller lots are not an unlimited supply.

You don't create new ones.

It was a one-time grant that each parcel that existed in December of 1980 was given five of those rights.

And so they have to be tracked over time.

Every time you subdivide a property in the rural areas, we carefully note where those rights are going because

They're a valuable commodity.

So the way that the AG-4 districts affect this pattern subdivision is they, with one exception, prohibit those smaller lots from happening.

The 21 acre lots are permitted in the districts, but those smaller lots cannot happen except in the case of family subdivisions where you're transferring to someone in the family.

You have to have held the land already for at least four years and the family member you give it to

has to keep it for at least four years afterwards.

So that's the only exception.

So that's the main impact of these districts.

There's those other matters I mentioned about intense, you know, increased scrutiny for special uses, things like that.

But this is, from day to day, this is how the districts mainly affect the land use pattern in the rural areas is through

these limitations on subdivision.

So that's my quick refresher on the districts and how they work.

I wanted to introduce you all to James Felcher, who many of you have not probably met yet, who is coming on board as a natural resources planner and will be over time taken over this Ag 4 district program.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners.

I started with the county in February.

I haven't had the pleasure to present before the Planning Commission.

I appreciate all your efforts.

We received this application earlier in the year from Virginia Evans.

It's an application they submit with parcel information and so forth.

And you'll see the location there at the arrow.

It's just north of Sismont on Turkey Sag Road, if you're familiar with that area.

just to orient you.

The process we go through as the staff is sort of reviews the parcel for its attributes.

One important thing is we look at the soils and we have identified important and prime soils on that property which we find valuable to to preserve going forward.

This is nearly 26 acres.

The other thing we like to look at is what the potential development would be if there were not any protections on that land.

So we have three unused development rights and we

brought this before the Ag Forstrell Committee in October.

And they were supportive of this.

And so the staff is recommending that you approve and you pass that recommendation on to our supervisors at their next meeting in December.

First, I was going to say welcome.

Again, and I also want to thank staff for just giving that overview of development rights.

It's always like a really fuzzy thing for me to kick my arms around.

So thank you for that refresher.

Yes.

Not off hand, no.

The last time we did a family subdivision analysis was at least 10 years ago.

There was a concern at the time that the program was being misused because it is a simpler

Subdivision process is less expensive to go through, that there was concern that people were kind of flipping the land by going through that process quickly.

Turned out that was not the case, but again that was 10 plus years ago that we did that analysis.

I don't have a count on the top of my head on 21 acre lots across the county, but that's something we could easily do.

Yeah, and I met specifically with 101-acre subdivisions that were in Ag 4 districts.

But I think one of my concerns when I bring this up, too, is that

In that decade, since that analysis was done, we've really tightened down the standards for land use.

I get the impression that a lot of people have switched from land use to Ag4 districts.

And so it would be good to know if the number of family subdivisions has increased since that transition took place.

Yeah, we can certainly do that research.

I do want to point out, this is a frequent point of confusion.

I should have mentioned this at the beginning.

The AGFOR districts are a land conservation program.

They are not a taxation program.

The frequent assumption is that the only reason anybody would do this would be to qualify for the open space taxation rate.

And many people do, but a lot of people don't.

We did an analysis, I think the last couple of reviews we had before you all was with the Batesville district and one adjacent to that.

There were parcels in that district in basically every possible tax category.

They weren't all just dropping into the open space category.

So there's a lot of variety there.

And there's a lot of different motivations there.

There can be tax benefits if you qualify for them.

But from my long-term conversations with landowners in these districts, a lot of them are joining because they want to reassure each other that they're not going to develop.

There's a community aspect to it of, yeah, I want to protect my land and you want to protect your land and we're reassuring each other.

Can we just follow up?

Right.

And I don't think if somebody is going to do like widening for a shoulder or something like that, I don't think that really becomes an issue.

Where it becomes an issue is if

But if they wanted to improve, for instance, there are a lot of 600 level roads which are really a car and a half.

So that then becomes default, another sort of tamper on development.

Yeah, and it's, you know, I don't know that this has ever actually happened in Albemarle, and I don't know how often it's happened in other localities.

Generally, when we used to talk about how did the Ag 4 district affect transportation projects, it wasn't about can we slightly widen our gravel road, it's can you build

Right.

I was just thinking because some of those some of those 600 roads, particularly this particular road, which goes past a secret magic, nobody's supposed to know that there's a secret magic place up there.

There's a secret magic place up there.

Part of the road is paved.

And then when you get the secret magic place, it becomes gravel.

Any further questions?

With that, I will open up the public hearing.

I don't have a sign-up sheet, but I will ask if there's anyone present that would like to speak on this issue.

Okay, I see no one rushing to the podium, so we will go online.

All right, thank you, Madam Clerk.

With that, I'll close the public hearing.

All right, I'll bring it back in.

I would just make an observation, Chair, that if we have 68,000 acres over the 464 acres that we have in the county, that means that 14% is in ag and forestal, compared to 5% for development.

DataPoint.

All right, well, is there a motion before us?

I do know that the Albemarle County Agriculture and Forest School District Advisory Committee has recommended approval for this.

You had two motions before us.

I'll make the motion.

OK.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Motion passes unanimously.

She said, I'm staying right here.

All right, she's here.

All right.

So with that, we'll come back.

All right.

Good evening, Ms.

Ragsdale.

Welcome, welcome.

Thank you.

Good evening, Commissioner Clayborne and other commissioners, excuse me, Chair Clayborne and other commissioners.

And thank you, as always, for reading all the zeros so I don't have to.

This is a rezoning

this evening and I'll hit the highlights of it and then of course we'll have ample opportunity for discussion.

It is a rezoning from R1 residential to commercial, which will go into some details, but I did want to orient you to the property for those that aren't familiar.

It is on Stony Point Road, which doesn't have the extra E. I recognize that.

It's across from Riverside Village and adjoining properties to the south are Zone Commercial, to the east residential with Wilton, Albemarle, Cascadia nearby, and of course Darden Tow and the Elks Lodge are directly to the north.

This is an overview of the property in terms of its location and just an aerial so you can see how the surrounding area has been developed.

I mentioned Riverside Village across the street that allows for mixed uses.

County Parkland now.

The stream buffer along the southern edge of the property.

And then there's three existing structures.

There's a garage, storage building, an existing home and a carport.

There are two existing entrances now, but that only one entrance would be proposed when the property develops.

One of the other existing conditions that we'll talk about this evening is the limits of the floodplain when the rezoning for this property was proposed in the past.

The floodplain line, and as it is currently on our official maps, was in the red.

The parcel is outlined in the pie shape.

But those are changing or anticipated to change with new FEMA mapping.

This property would not actually be within the floodplain, but the 100 foot stream buffer for the stream would remain in place.

As I mentioned, the property is zoned R1 surrounding zoning a great deal of commercial and then residential in the brown.

The dark green is the mixed-use development Riverside Village, which has up to 36,000 square feet of commercial that was approved in the buildings along the road.

We know with recent history that there was a minimum and maximum established for that.

The maximum remains, but the minimum was reduced.

With this proposal, it's, as I mentioned, a 3.5 acre parcel that the applicants would like to use initially as religious assembly use of up to 300 seats and then potentially other commercial uses in the future.

And there are some

set back issues that we'll discuss and we outlined in the report.

Excuse me, this is the Pantops master plan, which indicates that this portion in orange is urban density residential, which would anticipate

Some non-residential uses as well.

It's the same designation as Riverside Village across the way.

This is private, open space, green space.

It's not showing up very well in the legend, which in the master plan is following the current limits of the floodplain.

And I'm sure the applicant has a number of illustrative slides and detail about how they anticipate using the site, but what has been offered in terms of the concept plan that they would

This is along the edge of the gray is the required 50 foot

Excuse me, 50-foot building setback line that is required in commercial districts.

There are several encroachments at this time and concurrent special exceptions to allow this structure to be as close as 28.5 feet to the property line and then this one about 47 and a half feet.

The other structure that is in, excuse me, the buff, the setback is to be removed.

And then the tan areas are parking envelopes.

This green area is the 100 foot stream buffer, which there are commitments to replanting that and removing the existing gravel that is located there.

Excuse me.

We have received a lot of feedback about the uses and potential development of the site with concerns related to traffic and the types of uses.

This is a list of the types of uses that would be permitted.

The proffers are kind of written in the reverse where it gives you the list of things that would not be permitted.

These uses are, we believe, consistent with the master plan anticipated uses for non-residential in this area of Pantops, and we compared them to what was approved with Riverside Village, and they're quite similar in terms of what is allowed by Wright.

I just want to make sure that

that it's understood that these proffers only apply to the buy right uses.

They're not limiting special use permit uses.

So potentially, you know, this is allowing not only the religious, excuse me, I'm trying to go too fast, not only the religious assembly use, but allows other buy right options for the church.

For example, if the parcel remained

R1, then there would need to be a special use permit specific for a religious assembly, a special use permit specific to child daycare centers.

Rezoning to commercial allows those to be by right.

The commercial district also allows by special use permit residential uses, so it could, it allows those options in terms of uses.

The initial application was reviewed with the proposal of 13,500 square feet of commercial uses.

That would be in addition to the religious assembly use.

Some initial trip generation was provided and there weren't any concerns regarding traffic and some potential commercial uses.

We know that religious assembly uses typically are off peak hours.

Excuse me.

So as we indicated in the staff report, we were supportive of the request and found it to be consistent with the recommendations of the master plan and the character of the area, particularly with similar development in terms of the commercial across the street.

We indicated the issues that are currently in place in terms of the setback encroachment and the FEMA map has not officially changed and we've noted that we would not support development in the floodplain, parking to be located in the floodplain, which was a major issue with the prior rezoning.

Thank you.

Thank you for a great report.

Any questions for staff?

You know, I'm not an engineer, so I can't speak to the modeling behind it.

But we are, you know, the county engineer has reviewed this and didn't anticipate that any that the FEMA maps would change significantly from the preliminary ones that are out there now.

I've got a quick question, same question.

One question is maybe more of a question for the applicant, but the alignment of you mentioned it would go down to one access point.

Will the alignment I assume will be aligned with the street across the

Right.

Got it, thank you.

I'll just add that typically that is a requirement from VDOT that they align those two.

Just a quick question.

So I noticed in the narrative from the applicant that they talked about a parsonage that they might use the house as a parsonage.

You know, I turned to the zoning administrator because we hadn't gotten that question yet.

Because it would be the minister.

He or she would be there.

Any other questions for staff?

Just some sort of edification questions for my own self, because I'm still relatively new on here.

But just to clarify, because I don't have the buffer amounts memorized yet, on the current residential use, 20-foot buffer is fine, but with commercial, it's baked in for 50.

I can explain that a little further.

It's two things.

There's a 50-foot setback for structures, and then there's a 20-foot, what we refer to in the ordinance as a use buffer, which is to provide that buffer and screening within that 20 feet.

So that will be provided.

Gotcha.

Yeah, and it's an existing building, right?

Yeah, the other was mentioned, and again, this was some years before I was on this commission, but I do remember reading about it in the news at the time, a rezoning request for that spot for a childcare center, which I know is an urgent need around here to have more and affordable childcare that got shot down.

There were a number of distinctions with this proposal than the prior one.

I think that there's more detail with this one and more analysis in terms of the proffers and traffic analysis and the floodplain is a major

factor in terms of that.

Thank you.

I do have one question and maybe this is just for the public knowledge as well.

I remember seeing in the packet a list of the acceptable uses under C1 with some stricken out.

Hypothetically speaking, let's say the church gets blessed with a new building somewhere else and they vacate.

Could you talk a little bit about the checks and balances that are in place

in the event that if one of those uses that were stricken from the docket, were not stricken from the docket, became available and the community was displeased with that.

So that, you know, not checking out, not eliminating the use could potentially allow it in the future.

There is somewhat left undefined with this proposal in terms of, you know, there isn't specificity in terms of the 300 seat church in terms of a

a proffer concept plan.

This concept plan has a little bit less detail, so it will allow ultimately that flexibility in terms of those uses.

So since the community meeting and the review of this rezoning, we've tried to carefully consider what's left on the list and we've gotten some feedback about that.

But if there is uncertainty now with some of the other uses on the list, then that would be the time for the public to express any concerns and we would

Revisit the list with the applicant in terms of the proffers and concept plan before the public hearing with the board.

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff before I invite the applicant up?

This is Commissioner Firehock.

Sorry, I can't see the hand or anything.

Madam Clerk, just alert me if you do see something.

With that, I will ask the applicant to come forth if they do have a presentation.

All right.

First and foremost, welcome.

I'll just ask that you share your name and who you represent.

And if you have a PowerPoint or any kind of presentation, I believe you have 10 minutes.

The light will be green when you start.

And as it gets closer to expiration time, it will turn to yellow.

So if you haven't made your most pertinent points by then, we ask that you do so then and then kindly ask you to stop and it turns red.

So with that, I'll turn it over to you.

So to give you some context, Cornerstone has been in existence since 1933.

They currently have over 100 members and do not have a permanent home.

So they're temporarily hosting their services at the Regal Cinemas movie theater.

So that's why we're here tonight for this rezoning.

They're under contract for this property along Stony Point Road.

It's a great potential property because there's existing infrastructure that they can move into in the near term and renovate.

And then they have opportunity with this C1 rezoning to expand and to include potential future partners to help them fund their expansion.

And the reason that

We chose to go with a rezoning instead of a special use permit is that we're not then having to come back to you guys in three years to ask for a revision or a new special use permit.

So there's an existing metal garage on site that will be the main church building in the near term and be expanded upon.

And as mentioned, the residence may be used as a parsonage in the near term.

So the site is currently R1.

And as you can see by this map and as Rebecca pointed out, the surrounding uses are more intensive, highway commercial and R10 are to the rear.

So it's a bit out of place currently.

So rezoning is really inevitable for this site, especially as the comprehensive plan designates it urban density residential.

and it's within a neighborhood service center.

We believe that the church use is consistent with this as it's a primary use in the urban density residential designation and it also allows for some other primary and secondary uses such as child care offices commercial.

Also important to mention, as this is urban density residential, there's still opportunity for a special use permit up to R-15 in this area or in this parcel.

And the Parks and Greens system, which is half of the site, we anticipate that that will, in the future, comprehensive plans be

truncated to just the stream buffer since it was created to align with sensitive environmental features such as floodplains.

And this is no longer, well, we expect this will no longer be within the floodplain, but we'll touch on that.

So I'd like to describe the details of this rezoning application chronologically, as I think that the history of this project and showing how it has evolved is helpful in understanding the application before you today.

As mentioned, in 2019, there was a rezoning application for a daycare.

And they were preparing to leave all existing structures on site, including the existing parking, which is within the floodplain.

So outlined in blue here is the current floodplain.

So that was the main concern from across the board.

And traffic was also a concern as the child daycare peak traffic coincides with rush hour traffic, whereas a church is mostly on Sundays, so the traffic is not as much of an impact.

Since the previous ZMA, FEMA has released a draft revision of their floodplain limits.

And this is updated just based on both new construction, but also increased accuracy in topography and in modeling systems.

But FEMA remains conservative generally in their floodplain limits.

So the current limit is shown in red.

and then shown in pink is from a field run survey showing the actual elevation that FEMA designates currently.

So it's slightly reduced.

And then the shown in blue is the draft floodplain limits.

So this is expected to happen in 2024, but we don't know exactly when it will be adopted.

Also, since actually the start of this application, the stream on site has been designated as perennial.

And so 100-foot stream buffer has been put in place since we first applied.

So we weren't aware of that condition, which has resulted in a significant loss of usable area on site.

We recognize it's important for the environment, but that's not something we knew going into this.

So you can see our first, initially we had a phase one immediate move-in plan and then a phase two grand dream of what the church and the site can become.

And parking was originally conceived in this area, but now obviously we'll be looking to plan for it elsewhere.

As Rebecca mentioned, there is a special exception coinciding with this application.

We are no longer proposing to keep this carport and this portion of the garage as they encroach the closest to the R10 residential in the rear of the site.

So we're now just proposing to keep these two buildings and

though one will be two and a half feet into the 50 foot setback and one will be 21 and a half feet.

But we are proposing screening behind the garage building to help mitigate any impacts to the residential property.

So now to take a look at what the site can become in the future.

We have the site development diagram, and we don't have any more specific concepts to show because we provided that initially, but didn't want to limit the options on this site, honestly, as they're already pretty limited by the

Geometry of the site, the stream buffer, the setbacks, the use buffer.

There's really not the potential for this to be like crazy built up with parking requirements, especially with something we were running into.

To answer one of staff's questions, we are proposing to close this northern entrance and keep

This southern entrance, approximately where it is shown, it does line up pretty well with the Riverside Village, but like Kevin said, VDOT will make sure that that happens appropriately.

I'll kind of skip over the uses, but I do want to point out as for checks and balances, this is entrance corridor.

So AR the architectural review board will have to review buildings.

So I know there were some concerns in the community meeting for like, flashy vape shops and but I think ARB will handle some of those concerns as well as just the regular site plan process where you know we're required to meet county ordinance.

I guess the last proffer to touch on is the stream buffer mitigation.

We're proposing to replant the stream buffer in areas where it's disturbed.

It is quite a large area, so areas where this proposed gravel parking will be removed we will replant.

and anything else that's disturbed during the site plan process, we'll have to come up with a stream buffer mitigation plan that's reviewed by the county engineer.

So in summary, the church has been very responsive to staff and community members.

And we have made changes as we see appropriate to protect sensitive environmental features, to remain consistent with the comprehensive plan, and ultimately to allow this church to have a permanent home and serve its

members, 100 people plus.

All right, thank you.

I just have one question.

You showed us a couple of outdated concept plans.

That's good.

I was thinking mostly about like to your point that constraints are so I mean such a small site really when you take everything else out.

I was just curious as to whether you thought you could fit the necessary parking and have any green space left.

But you've already got a lot of green space.

Yeah.

We did make sure that before moving forward with this.

Right.

Question.

Yeah.

I don't know if I'll look to counsel for this.

So if we look at the future use table, I would

ask you and ask your client to give some consideration to perhaps revising it so that you remove some items there which would be consistent with the type of traffic that you generate with a church.

For instance, I think the site would be somewhat in

It would be hard to see, given what you just placed, that a food and grocery store could work with traffic on that space.

So that as you think through this, or that I might suggest another one was, where was it?

There was something else that I have to say.

What I'm trying, oh here it is, the visual and audio appliances, I assume that's like a Best Buy in today's world.

That's number 13, I assume that's something like a Best Buy.

That in fact, if you

If you're saying that we've got these constraints as a religious organization, that your future use table would hopefully constrain the property for other entities to have the same kind of light foot or traffic flow that the church might have.

Obviously, you wouldn't have a

A Sunday church, but that you could have sort of a light footprint on that constrained piece of property.

No, I'm not suggesting that, Commissioner Bivins.

I will say that the uses and the restrictions and the limitations that the applicant is willing to proffer

on those uses are part of a proffer.

And so it's obviously up to the applicant to offer what it wishes to do through proffer.

Certainly, it's appropriate for the commission to say what the impacts are that are of concern to the commission.

But ultimately, it'll be up to the applicant what to put in its proffers and decide what it wishes to proffer out, the uses it wishes to proffer out.

But I'm just sort of thinking beyond us.

Very well, thank you.

Any questions for applicants from this side?

Okay.

With that, I'll go ahead and open the public hearing.

I have three that have signed up to speak.

So we'll start with those first and then see if anyone who has not signed up would like to speak.

So I have, I'll call you in order.

Kirk Bowers, Dick Ruffin, Richard Allen.

And as you approach the podium, you'll have three minutes.

And first and foremost, welcome.

With the three minutes, your light will be green.

And as you get closer to the end, it will turn yellow and that red.

Thank you.

My name is Kirk Bowers.

I'm a long term resident of this area.

I have lived over thirty five years, less than half a mile from this location.

My opposition is strong and to resign a parcel.

0780058KO and are stated for the following context and historical perspective.

We've lived, worked and paid taxes here within half a mile of the location of this property for so many years.

That's half my lifetime I've spent here.

And in my profession, I am a civil engineer, licensed professional land development civil engineer.

So I understand the process and the requirements very well.

And I did a lot of work in Northern Virginia.

and a lot of work around here as well.

So when we moved here, the area around this property was wood with a driveway to a large, beautiful house that had a doctor's group office in it.

The house was demolished.

Woods were cleared.

And we saw construction of Fontana, Cascadia, Wilton Farms and other

site development projects.

The changes were accepted.

They were part of the Pantops growth area development plan, part of the 5% reserved for growth areas.

So this is one of the few parcels of land left in this area on Route 2 and near the intersection of 250 and Route 20.

For the following reasons, I urge the Planning Commission to design, to deny

These are rezoning application.

Traffic has increased exponentially over the past 35 years.

Current traffic count at this point at this location is an average annual daily traffic of 8,000 vehicles per day.

Now, even on Sundays, we see a lot of traffic in this area, people traveling to Darndale Park.

to play and recreate there and also to all the different subdivisions in that location.

Secondly, the master plan for Pantops states that it should contain small-scale mixed-use development patterns that are compatible with surrounding uses.

A church at this location is not compatible with surrounding areas.

A mixture of residential and commercial uses would better serve this property.

It just doesn't fit into the existing development pattern of this area.

Parking has shown the entrance to the site needs to be relocated as shown on the concept plan.

It doesn't work as it's shown now.

You could not bring an entrance into the site as it's shown on the concept plan, and it's too vague to really make a decision based on what you see.

It's just too close to Route 20.

The property across the street, Riverside Village, is offset by at least 40 feet.

And I just want to say there's a lot of skepticism about the FEMA plan because, you know, we've seen a lot of changes in policy over the years, criteria, and I'm skeptical, quite frankly, about changes.

Thank you so much.

Good evening.

My name is Dick Ruffin, and I live in Riverside Village.

I use the microphone, sir.

There you go.

Right.

I live in Riverside Village in the Rivanna District.

It's just across the street from the subject property.

While I do serve as chair of the Pantops Community Advisory Committee, which hosted a public

meeting on Cornerstone's initial application.

I'm speaking tonight in a personal capacity.

Many of those in the neighborhood would prefer to keep the single residence with its R1 zoning that it's been for decades.

But this is understandable, not realistic.

Given the vision in the Pantops Master Plan and the market dynamics in the area, is it not inevitable that there will be development on this property?

And with the zoning change going along with that development?

So the question in my view is not whether it will be developed, but what kind of development it will be.

Among potential users, is not a community-oriented church as good an option as we might get?

Is a church not to be preferred to dense housing, high traffic, retail, a school, or crowded offices?

Cornstone, which sees itself as a community builder, avows a particular intention to reach out to the surrounding community and become a vital part of Pantops.

I believe we should welcome such outreach and do what we can to encourage them to assist our ongoing efforts to create in Penthouse a lively, diverse, pedestrian-friendly, and well-connected community.

It's not hard to imagine, for example, they might want at some point to help beautify the promenade along Freebridge Lane.

For those who

For those who worry about traffic, what could be better than a religious institution whose peak usage is when traffic is lowest?

True, some traffic would result from their proposed office space, but given that most of the property will be dedicated to a space for worship, it is unlikely that community will be as significant as it would be with most other options.

No doubt lurking behind such concerns, all concerns, is an unspoken fear that Cornerstone will not be able to meet whatever financial commitment it makes to secure the property and would sell to another potential user.

Such a user taking advantage of C1 might then do things that the neighborhood would find objectionable.

Theoretically, that is certainly possible, but in my view, unlikely.

Consider, Cornerstone, after several moves in recent years, deeply desires a permanent home.

It has every incentive to make it work.

Also, their experience is at zero.

Am I out?

10 more seconds.

OK.

Importantly, that alternative users

would be hard to come by.

And the shops Riverside proved that.

Five years, only half the space.

Other areas are veiled, but cascaded, no interest at all.

So every option has risk.

Cornerstone is not exempt from risk.

There will be risk.

Thank you, sir.

I'm Richard Allen.

Yes, I also live at Riverside Village, Rivanna District, and so forth.

I want to stand on my neighbor Dick Ruffin's final assessment, though.

What happens

if Cornerstone does move on.

And I want to stand with Commissioner Clayborne's remarks at the beginning, speaking earlier, when he expressed concern about thinking beyond the church use of this site.

We know that there's commercial pressure all up and down pan tops, and we know that there's an awful lot of glitzy automobile sales options just around the corner.

This is almost 14,000 square feet that can evolve eventually into exclusively a small and very fancy commercial site.

What I am afraid of, commissioners, is within five years there's going to be a small retail auto sales operation right there adjacent to our Wilton Farms and Riverside Village

almost exclusively residential area.

I urge you to reject this proposal.

All right, thank you.

Does anyone else here in present like to speak to this issue?

OK, Madam Clerk, is anyone online who would like to speak to this issue?

All right.

Would the applicant like to come forth and give any final words based off of what you've heard

And you'll have five minutes.

Well, I'll just take about 30 seconds, but I appreciate everyone who spoke.

So thank you.

The only thing I want to speak to this time is while we understand the concern for future uses, specifically, we have tried to

exclude any that are out of scale or not walkable.

And as we mentioned, this site will naturally constrain how large a facility can be that goes on this site.

And we have specifically excluded automobile service stations, truck repair shops, so nothing, you won't be looking at a small auto shop is

What I believe I heard him say.

So that's all.

All right.

Thank you.

With that, I'll close the public hearing.

I'll bring it into the commission and for this, I'll just work around the horn where you can share your thoughts, reactions and topics you want to discuss in greater detail with your colleagues.

It's actually just a clarification question for staff, which I think was answered, but just to double answer it.

OK.

OK.

That's my question.

Yes, so what happens if the new FEMA maps are released and it doesn't mean it remains floodplain?

Well, as it's presented now, if it's approved, they could develop consistent with this concept plan that they've provided, which could potentially leave some parking area in the floodplain, which we would not encourage.

Yeah, and I guess that's a concern of mine.

So the county, is the county engineer here?

I guess no.

I mean, I guess I was, I know that in the past FEMA has been sometimes a little bit, flooding has occurred well beyond where FEMA has said it will occur.

And I remember back in the past, like just looking at Free Bridge Auto, for example, if you remember when that was underwater, you know, like,

There's been a history of flooding in that area.

Right.

Sure.

I share the question about the FEMA

But I'm also, I think, if I understand this correctly, regardless of what the end result is, if the maps change or not, it will supersede their ability to develop.

If the FEMA, if let's say the floodplain stays as is and it doesn't get amended.

Right, because it's draft right now.

What you're looking at is a draft.

Right.

Parking is allowed in the floodplain, but just not overnight parking.

So this concept plan does reduce the area where parking could be.

So for me, I mean, generally I've sort of looked at the positives and the negatives in a sense.

Starting with the negatives, I was concerned about FEMA, the FEMA draft, the question of, you know, are we relying on that for this?

But that will eventually, I think, supersede anything that goes on the site just by law, essentially.

There was no concept plan, although Ms.

Ragsdale, you mentioned the concept plan.

So the terminology we use is concept plan, but in terms of how the applicant has labeled it, that is the plan with the building envelopes being the major element.

Yeah, so that's a good segue to my positives.

So when I think about that, one is the reality of the limitations on the site.

I mean, the fact is it is a limited site.

The other is it is within a surrounding area that is developed and part of and supported by the Pantops Master Plan.

The checks and balances, to use your term, Mr. Clayborne, I went through.

One is, it's a constraint site.

What I just mentioned is ARB, which this applicant mentioned, it's on the entrance corridor.

That comes with a requirement for street trees.

There are site plan requirements which a tree cannot be related right within the development, within the plant, the parking.

There's access control that will be determined by VDOT.

That's not something that the applicant will really be able to get around, quote unquote, not to think poorly of the applicant, but

There's stormwater management that has to be considered, right?

So, if you're paving the entire parcel, you're going to have to figure out how to deal with the runoff and I think I mentioned street trees.

So, for for me, I would be in supportive.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bivins.

Yes, sir.

Thank you,

I've been waiting for this property to turn over because it feels to me, having lived in this area and used that road for a while, it feels to me that the area has evolved past that single family home there.

And so I've been expecting something to happen there.

I was on the commission when an applicant came through about the daycare center there.

And there was a whole host of things that I think were appropriately addressed when that application came through.

I have to say that balancing the use of this property for it to be primarily a Sunday focused or even Wednesday if they have midweek Bible study is something that I'm quite

Willing to accept and quite supportive of.

I would, however, suggest that the applicant look at those uses that are being proffered and to see if those uses align with such a constrained piece of property and also would send the signal that they're trying if, and I don't believe that anything's going to happen with them.

It is an interesting thing that a church is looking for a structure when lots of churches are looking to get out of their structures.

So good for that.

That the people who it could go to would have a similarly good situation or good seating with the community.

I would just recommend that.

But I don't have, I'm supportive of this.

I think if you look at the community there,

that I'd be hard-pressed to see a car dealer there because it is so far away from what has developed into the Pan Tops car thing.

And in fact, the largest car dealer in Charlottesville now closed the car dealership on the corner and moved it up to the former Brady Boushey.

So I think they would be hard-pressed to put a car lot there.

So I am in support.

And I think it's a hard sight.

Great context.

Yes, thank you.

I am in support of this site concept plan.

I know it's not got all the details we'd like, but it does meet our statute for what's required.

and I'm not concerned with the commercial building encroaching into the buffer because that building is already there and it's simply the changing of the use, the zoning that is making it an encroaching structure.

So it's already there and it seems that the new design will be less impactful than what's there now hopefully.

Thank you, Commissioner Firehock.

For me, I would say when I originally kind of reviewed this, I really grappled.

I feel like whenever you start listing things, there's always this, there is going to be a chance you're going to forget something, right?

I think after having like this conversation, and looking at the context of what's happening across the street and the vacancies that are there,

It's a great restaurant there.

I know that came before us.

I go there a lot.

I should be 1% owner by now.

I go there so much.

I go there on a Friday night and it's still not hustling and bustling like I thought I would, like I thought I would see.

And so like weighing that piece and looking at the site constraints, I think I've moved to a position of support.

I feel like the risk and reward, the reward feels like it's greater than the risk in this particular instance.

So I think overall I am in support of it.

So does anyone else want to add any other words or things to discuss in further detail?

And so, Chair, we're not dealing with the exceptions.

As I understand, we've been made aware of the exceptions.

But we are not ruling on the exceptions.

So, Commissioner Bivins, when you say the exceptions, are you referring to the uses?

The setbacks.

Oh, the special exceptions.

So that would be a matter for the Board of Supervisors to consider.

All right.

All right.

Second.

Any further discussion?

A second.

That's everybody.

There's a trinity there.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Firehock.

Aye.

Mr. Bivins.

Aye.

All right, thank you and wish you the best of luck as you move forward to the next step in the process.

So with that, we'll move to committee reports.

Yes, I have a committee report.

Kevin actually joined us for the Crozet CAC to talk to the community about transportation.

We had a lively discussion about the transportation priorities in Crozet.

I'm sure many of you have already heard about some of the transportation concerns in the area.

Keep it light.

Oh, I was just going to say, as you know,

The amount of, there's been some reassessment of transportation priorities based upon the cost of, there's a key road that goes, that's proposed through Crozet and the cost of the bridge for that road is going to be a lot higher.

So essentially it's not going to, it's not feasible in the short term.

And we've had that discussion before.

So that was one of the big concerns in the community.

That also concerns about sidewalks on Park.

So there's a long list of also concerns about the intersection with 240, 250.

If you think about where Miller School is, so that intersection.

Those are the sort of things we discussed.

But then also one of the things that was talked about when Kevin came was also there's a big discussion.

I mean, he brought about the multimodal plan for Crozet and how and where a lot of the connections for pedestrian cycling and alternative traffic could go in the area.

And there's a lot of really great suggestions talking about like how there's only one spoke leading out of Crozet really in that map.

And really, there should be more spokes going out, for example, like in Jarman's Gap.

There's a lot of people that go from Crozet to the orchard out there because you have

and then also some access to the National Park.

There's access, there's other trail networks and other things.

Hopefully we'll get the three-notch trail at some point.

So there's that, there's Route 76.

So really thinking about like how we can branch out too, but then also being realistic, the maps are showed,

sort of pedestrian connections almost everywhere, but some of the comments were about some of these are not really realistic and maybe prioritizing some of them.

Oh, okay.

I have an anticipatory report.

We had our CAC last night for hydraulic 29 XYZ and we had a presentation by David Benash

who came and talked to us about phase three of the AC44.

It was extremely interesting, I think, not only for me to sit there and say, oh yeah, I know that, but it was also interesting, I think, for the members of the CAC to actually have yet again sort of reinforcement of what might be in phase three, so the prioritization of action steps.

And so I would just say that I think engaging with that segment or that

that arm of what we do is actually quite helpful.

And David did a great job, although it needs to be cut down a little bit.

Thank you, Commissioner Bivins.

I'll just throw out one thing of interest, because maybe it's of interest, but I won't be able to attend this Thursday.

But the 5th and Avon Street CAC will be meeting, and they will be looking at two items.

One is the Grainger development.

which is back because I don't know if you all are familiar with where that is.

It's behind Fontaine, behind Fontaine Research Park as I understand it and they're looking to rezone.

It's about 70 acres from R1 to PRD and that would be 200

units, a mixture of single family detached and single family attached houses at a net density of six dwelling units per acre.

So that'll be interesting to hear about.

So that's something that's an area I've had great interest in for many many years because it's currently a greenway.

It's an area that's highly used by runners and it's also an area of wetlands.

I know there's been people that have been disputed with their natural wetlands.

I can tell you they are natural wetlands because the flora that exist there.

and so the Rivanna Trail goes through there.

There's access with the railroad track being there.

There's quite a bit of, so it should be interesting to see.

The second thing is a biscuit run stream renovation or restoration project.

Awesome.

That would be CAC, so eventually I think it'll come here.

That's it.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

At the November 1st meeting, the public hearing was held for the Covenant School Tennis Courts, which you all had seen and recommended approval for after

Quite a bit of discussion.

They did I think a pretty good job of addressing a lot of the comments that you all had.

adding additional screening, changing some of the elements, the layout, addressing lighting concerns as well.

So that was approved by the board unanimously.

And I think there was good support for that one, mostly because I think they really did a good job of addressing the comments that the PC had.

Great to hear.

Okay, great to hear.

Thank you.

No, just to clarify that the presentations that Commissioner Murray

and Commissioner Bivins are talking about with the same presentation and they will be going to every one of the CACs.

Of course, the CAC, the audience directs it a little bit and Commissioner Murray's went really into the transportation elements of that, but really it's us kind of talking about the multimodal transportation plan and land use changes.

Great, thank you.

Under new business, we have two items.

The first should already be on your calendar, December 4th, 1.30 to 4.30 or 4 o'clock, which is the joint session with the Board of Supervisors.

It is not.

I sent out a revised invite to that.

It is going to be up at North Fork.

So we may have a room reserved up at the North Fork facility.

And mostly because it's going to accommodate the crowd because it's not only the planning commission and the board that will be there, but the

Yeah, I forget what the name is.

Is it Piedmont?

No?

No.

Our local housing, yeah, one of the local housing organizations is also helping to have that discussion.

And so I'll be following up with you all to make sure we're all prepared.

There'll be some materials coming out likely early next week because there's a thick amount of background information that we want to get to you all.

So you're all read up on the UAS.

Can you put it in MP4 format so we can listen to it?

Audio version also?

That'll be helpful for those who are traveling around.

Yeah, get popping in and listen.

Item B, Albemarle Planning Commission, Charlottesville Planning Commission joint meeting.

No, sorry.

I still need to schedule a meeting between the chair, vice chair.

Got it, got it.

I'd like to add one other thing, not to have deep discussion tonight, but to put a pin in it, if we can see it on the agenda to remind us to talk about it next time, is what other niche presentations, like we had economic development to precede our discussion tonight, as we kind of look at our workflow, kind of planning out into the future, were those other topics, I remember at one point we talked about utilities, was the water sewer authority,

I remember at some point of thought, was it transportation?

Did they come up?

But I think you kind of get the gist.

We have these certain topics that we're going to be vetting in great detail.

It might be nice to have the subject matter expert kind of give a presentation to set us up for a stronger and richer discussion.

So I just ask between now and the next meeting to sort of give thought to that.

Maybe we can put it on the agenda and try to track it.

Vice Chair and I will work with staff to see what we can get moving in that way.

So, of course, any old business.

Well, I will say I wanted to just give a warm welcome to Madam Clerk, who is back.

And it's so good to see you in 3D and to see your smiling face and this welcome.

So you were missed.

and the German chocolate cake.

I want to work with Kevin to get that in here.

All right, well, the next Planning Commission meeting will be held on Tuesday, November the 28th, 2023 at six o'clock.

Between now and then, I want you to have a blessed and prosperous Thanksgiving and a safe one, and we'll look forward to seeing you then.

So is there a meeting to adjourn to that reference date?

So moved.

All right.

Second.

All right, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right, any opposed?