Planning Commission Regular Meeting   12/12/2023

Are we live?

Now you are.

OK, great.

Good evening, everyone.

I'd like to call the Albemarle County Planning Commission to order.

And let's start by establishing a quorum.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Present.

Great.

Thank you.

We'll now turn to other matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

Are there any other matters that are not listed on the agenda from the public tonight?

Okay, seeing none, that makes that agenda item easy and we'll move on to the public hearings.

And we'll begin with SP 2023-12, Kenridge Landscaping Amendment.

Thank you.

I'm Rebecca Ragsdale and I'll be giving the staff presentation for this item.

It is a special use permit amendment that is specific to one condition only, and I'll give you a little bit of background and then we'll go over the specifics of the condition amendment.

It's associated with Ken Ridge, which many may be familiar with the project out 250 West across from Birdwood.

It's bordered to the

I'm not plugged into the right place apparently.

Thank you.

Sorry about that little technical snafu.

And we should be good to go.

Okay, sorry about that.

So we've done our introductions.

Sorry, we are not live here.

This should be over there.

This should be over there.

I just don't know what to use.

You hear what we're talking about?

Okay, no worries.

We can turn around.

Ms.

Ragsdale, you can go ahead.

We'll turn around.

All right, sorry about that.

So jumping into the proposal, it is associated with Kenridge, which is a residential development between what is known as Boxwood Estate and White Gables across from Birdwood on 250 West.

This is an area of the county where White Gables and Kenridge and Boxwood are located, that's zoned commercial.

And then the general area has Birdwood, as I mentioned, and then down a little further.

And then the bright green areas along the perimeter of the property are those that are subject to this special use permit amendment, which is entirely related to landscaping.

The applicant has provided an updated concept plan, which is in your packet, which shows the general buffer areas and the depth and the concept plan includes species information.

But the goal of this special use permit is to make it more workable and flexible based on some experience since this special use permit was originally approved.

several years ago.

So the proposal is entirely related to the perimeter landscaping condition, which I know this is a lot of text, but what we've done is reworded it in a way that is consistent with our modern language, easier to administer, and focuses on the location and width of the buffers and not specific species.

and provides for the characteristics of the buffers and screening in terms of whether it's a single row in some locations or a double staggered row.

This is based on the applicant's detailed experience and report in their narrative in terms of what they've experienced since the landscaping went in and what's a little bit overly specific with the condition and what's not.

So it's not taking away any of the major elements in terms of screening, but it's allowing a more

Flexible condition that works for the applicant to make sure that they're maintaining a healthy buffer and also it's easier to administer.

So we are supportive of this landscaping amendment.

In this case, because it was such a narrowly focused special use permit condition amendment, there was not a community meeting, but we've heard from some of the adjacent owners that has some questions about who would be maintaining it.

This condition is establishing the what in terms of what the requirements are.

If they make any landscape changes, it will be subject to a site plan amendment that will be

You know, part of the zoning that runs with the land.

And I think you heard from some of the White Gables, adjacent property owners that may have a private agreement, so it's not going to affect that.

So with that, I have, I'll just pause for any questions that you may have.

Great, thank you.

Are there questions from the commission?

I'm sure staff will tell me that this is something that we should ask the applicant about.

But in the previous document, it said that they would have a sprinkler system.

And then in this document, they said there would be no sprinkler system.

And so I'm also telegraphing to the applicant if the applicant will tell me how these things are going to stay alive or there's not going to be a sprinkler system and who's going to be responsible for maintaining them.

No concerns from them, from the bots, from the people on the west.

That's correct.

I'm sorry, ma'am.

We'll open it up for public comment in just a few minutes.

Thanks for your patience.

Any other comments or questions from the commission?

Okay, great.

Great, thank you.

With that, I will open the public hearing, and I will ask the applicant to present their report.

Just as a reminder, you'll have 10 minutes.

When the lights go yellow, move on to your final closing comments.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

Thank you very much.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

I can't hear.

You need to speak.

Good evening.

My name is Scott Collins.

I'm representing the Kenny Ridge Home Owners Association for this special use permit application.

I'm not going to take the entire 10 minutes.

Don't worry about that.

We tried to sort of outline sort of the whole history of this project and the narrative and all the information we gave you.

It was actually somewhat simple for me because I was, this was one of the first projects I worked on when I started working in Albemarle County back in 2005, 2006.

I've kind of had the pleasure of working throughout this entire evolution of Kenridge.

And I kind of remember a lot of these elements and what was kind of going on at the time when the project was approved.

Originally, the buffer landscaping plan was developed by a local architect, a local landscape architect, Charles Stick.

He did a great job kind of putting together the concept plan of how the buffering should be.

Well, what I think what happened ultimately during kind of morphed through the special use permit process was that, you know, Kenridge was going to be it was sort of a infill development surrounded by a couple a lot of others established

neighborhoods.

And there was a lot of concern about the project being under construction.

So while the special use permit was being reviewed and approved through the process, the buffer tree plantings got bigger and the spacing got smaller.

And what you ultimately ended up with was a very intense construction buffering for the project, which actually did its job.

It was effective.

It's been in place for going on almost 15, 20 years, and it's helped screen the project from these neighborhoods during the construction process.

But what's happened now is you start to see that transition from construction to sort of viability and now we start to see the problems of what was actually approved.

The spacing is too tight and the species was all harmonious and you're starting to see disease.

and the roots and the type of species that was specified is not doing great with the topography of the site.

You have some hills, these Leland disciples just have shallow roots and so you see a lot of, we've seen, we've lost a lot of trees due to weather blowing over because they're pretty full as well with some high wind during some of the storms.

and then disease and dying and just spacing too much.

So that's caused a lot of the sort of

of the existing buffer.

And so instead of coming back and replanting that, then we know it's not the correct way.

We've tried to look at this project and say, well, what we really should be doing is going back to the original buffer exhibit that was sort of prepared at the beginning of this whole project in 2005 and try to sort of

conform back to that if somebody wants to change the landscaping that's currently on their property and or if they need to replace it and that's what we're here tonight to talk about.

The other interesting thing about this neighborhood is a little bit different from

One of the recent projects that you see in front of me all the time is that there is no sort of common open space.

There's not a lot of common open space.

All their lots run to the property lines and so the landscaping buffering is on the individual lots.

Now, a lot of people would sit there and say, well, if the landscaping is on somebody's individual lot, then they own that landscaping and they're in charge of it and they could do whatever they want.

Well, we all know from our experiences with HOAs, there's covenants and restrictions and guidelines and

Landscaping is a definite aspect of the cuttings and restrictions of Kenridge.

They can't go out and plant anything they can want.

They have to get it reviewed and approved by the HOA.

And that is what the HOA board is here tonight in order to do is to get a viable landscape plan reviewed and approved by

ultimately board supervisors that they can then implement that will be viable and will be able to work and give the residents a little bit of flexibility as well with the existing terrain because it is very, y'all probably went out there and looked at it, it does vary from lot to lot so it's not just consistent all the way through for each person's lot.

So again, that, you know, as far as the landscaping itself, it is overseen by the HOA.

So it is, but it in essence is controlled by the HOA and they'll be implemented.

And we've spent, I think, four or five months reviewing all these plans and all these concepts with the neighborhood through the HOA board and through homeowners issues

with the residents so that they're all in support or behind it and understand what it all entails because that's what they have to implement.

Or if they don't want to implement it, they can continue to have what they have if that Leland Cypress buffer still exists in the property.

Now, if it doesn't, then they have to conform to the new one.

So that's where we're at right now.

And as far as the irrigation, you know, we're trying to look at species that are

that are natural to Virginia so that they don't need that type of irrigation.

That irrigation was more set up for construction purposes to ensure that those 10 to 12 foot high Leland cyphers as they were planning to begin the construction would survive and would grow and would thrive.

And that was the whole reason for that underground sprinkler system, which has not been active for probably 12 years, ever since construction stopped at least.

That's why for the removal of the underground sprinkler system.

And I know the HOA board has spoken with their neighbors, both White Gables and Boxwood Estates.

They've been constant communication with them and we're gonna continue to be communicating with them as we work through it and as we implement this.

Great, thanks very much.

Let's go around and see if there are any questions.

Commissioner Moore, any questions for the applicant?

No, I don't.

Okay absolutely that's a good point.

Commissioner Firehock?

And Commissioner Bivins, I do not have any questions either.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We will now open it up to comments from the public.

I have two on the signup list, Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Wells.

And we'll start with Mr. Sullivan.

And following this, I'll open it up to the rest of the group to see if there are any additional comments that are not on the signup list.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

If you could state your name and general place of residence.

Good evening.

My name is Paul Sullivan and I'm a resident of Kenridge and I'm also the president of the HOA.

And first I want to thank you all for listening to our proposal and reading it and getting involved in it.

Trust me, I've lived in Kenridge now since 2009, and we love our community.

It's very small, and believe me, nobody but the owners want it to look good.

And it's dense back, obviously, with white cables on one side and boxwoods on the other side, and of course, 250.

And so we made an attempt to say, hey, this plan that was developed when it was just a

Commercial Zoned, Let's Go Build This Place is not working as stated previously.

So what we did was we hired Scott and we worked with him to make something that would work for us.

has already alluded to some of these lots.

The topography is different.

The sun exposure is totally different because it's obviously in a U shape there.

And some things grow great, some things don't.

And plus, all majority of the trees, I think it's about 80% of them, are on private property.

And to ensure that it's done in keeping with the county's special use permit,

When you change or want to put another tree or whatever, it has to go through our HOA review board.

And we approve it as the governing body of Kenridge, and you have to follow it.

So believe me, we are going to follow this and ensure it is done correctly.

And I'll just finish up with,

You know, I think this has been a great effort for our community.

We have great relationships with our neighbors.

Great, thank you very much.

Mr. Wells?

Okay, great, thank you.

Are there other members in the, I'm sorry, are there folks online?

Are there other members of the audience that would like to speak on this issue?

No?

Okay seeing none I'll go to oh you are okay I'm sorry

I'm Cindy Hewitt, my husband Richard and I own Boxwood Estate next to Kindredge and it is a wonderful community.

Unfortunately for us, the Leland Cyprus, which was on the original Charles Stick plan, I have the original plan that was dated May 12, 2005, called for a continuous evergreen hedge on both the east side and the west side of Kindredge.

of Leland Cypress.

It did not specify how far apart, how many, that kind of thing, the size.

And they were very large trees that were planted.

My concern that over the last two years that 66 of the trees were taken down.

Some were leaning, some were diseased, but I'm sure 66 were not.

I understand the wanting to change.

I understand there's different hillsides, different topographies.

Some get more sun than others.

My concern is the trees that are put back.

And we worked with Kindredge and gave them our, what we thought was reasonable compromises to make changes.

And

I think that we did come up with some compromises, not as many trees further apart, spacing not as tall.

My concern though with that and that they be evergreen trees and I'm the original plan did call for deciduous trees in front of the Leland Cypress which were never planted but

The original plan did.

My concern is that the trees that they're going to plant are not going to be what I think what they're calling for 8 to 10 foot trees is what I've seen in the next plan, which is fine.

Some that have already been replanted in sections 57 and 58

are emerald green abortives, which don't get more than 12 feet tall or four feet wide.

And right presently now, they're about five feet tall.

So to me, that doesn't make that agreement.

But I think you have to look at, if you increase the spacing and decrease the size of the tree, you have to look at the species of the tree to still provide screening.

Great.

Thank you very much.

And we'll move to online.

All right.

Thank you.

My name is Doug Brooks.

I am the managing agent for White Gables Condominium Unit Owners Association.

As previously mentioned, we are a neighboring development on the eastern boundary of Kenridge referred to as buffer area three in the application.

And for the commission, I'd like to add that

The nature of our condominium, we have 30 units, half of which face to the rear of our buildings, immediately adjacent to the property on and with Kenridge.

So essentially the buffer area in question is a front yard for these homes in our community.

As shared with the commission and our friends at Kenridge, we have an existing agreement signed by the developers of both neighborhoods that runs with the land.

whereby Kenridge HOA is responsible for maintaining the plant screening between our properties.

Obviously, the current boards of Kenridge and White Gables were not around when the original agreement was signed, nor when the developer of Kenridge planted this soldier line of Leyland cypresses along this shady narrow area, which essentially doomed the trees to becoming too tall, too crowded, fragile, and mostly unattractive.

So regarding this application, White Gables supports and applauds Kenridge for incorporating very sound and acceptable plans and alternative plantings to replace the Leylands.

We really love the concepts and we look forward to working together with Paul and Kenridge to coordinate our respective planning projects.

As shared previously via email, our only concern was with language in the application before gaining a better understanding from commission staff.

Thank you, Rebecca.

That word choice in the narrative as we read it relates more to the applicant attempting to more fully describe the design versus establishing

a record or foundation of legal responsibility that could give rise to a variety of issues with other agreements, et cetera.

So we stand confident now in our better understanding of the narrative and what it really means.

So in closing, I want to thank the staff and the commission for your patience in working with us as we reviewed the application.

And I want to thank Ken Ridge for proposing an excellent design.

Scott Collins is a phenomenal engineer and has done great work.

All this we embrace.

And again, in closing, we do wish to reiterate our understanding for the record, which is that the narrative accompanying the application does not in any way establish responsibilities or anything that would affect our existing recorded agreement.

Thank you, Mr. Brooks.

It's it.

Madam Clerk, we're done.

Great.

Hey, thank you.

With that, I will ask the applicant, if you would like to come up, I'll give you this opportunity to respond to any of the comments.

Thank you.

Just one clarification.

The landscaping that's been reinstalled along the Boxwood property line, that was done before we were even engaged to start this process.

That was just kind of done by the homeowners as sort of a

understanding that those trees were taken down or died or fell over and they wanted to they needed to replace them and they started that process that's why we were engaged and that's why that board kind of started this whole process they're like well when we need to get a hold of this and they figure out a you know somehow to some way to sort of organize everybody and to get this back on the same page and that's why and so

That is our intent to plant 8 to 10 foot trees in the space as specified in the plans and along the Boxwood Estates proper line.

Thank you.

Okay, with that, I'll close the public hearing and I'll open it up to members of the commission.

Chair Bivins?

Chair, thank you.

So I'm supportive of this effort.

I'm particularly, I feel certainly, hopefully assured that the property to the west will be in dialogue with Kenridge to assure that they have the kinds of plannings over there that will both replace what was there and also provide the amount of

buffering that was established when this was thought about in the mid-2000s.

Thanks.

This is in my district, of course, and I just wanted to commend the applicant for actually, as you said, getting together and getting control of the situation and trying to put in a cohesive plan.

I'm sorry that it did say in the narrative that somehow it got converted to being only Leyland Cypress.

And I just want to, for the benefit of the public, just to read a note from the United States Extension Service about Leyland Cypress.

added as the landscape screen in development projects because they're considered relatively pest-free.

However, because of their relatively shallow root system, because they are often planted too close together in poorly drained soils, they are prone to root rot and severe damaging canker diseases, especially during periods of prolonged drought, such as the drought that we're in right now.

So I don't subscribe to that ever being

a sole type of vegetation for screening and very much in support of putting in some hardwoods and different types of species.

You know, certainly native is great and I do trust them to do the right kind of consulting.

You know, just in general, I hope we don't see proposals

coming down the pike in the future that are just Leyland cypress, because it isn't really a good choice for the long term at all.

They often die.

And then we can't police all of these landscape buffers.

We don't have the buffer police going around and looking at all these.

And so sometimes they fail and we don't know about it.

So with that, that's really all I have.

I am supportive of this proposal.

Thanks, Commissioner Murray.

Plus two.

Yeah.

Well, I echo the comments that were shared.

I could say plus three, I guess.

And also having worked with the applicant on many occasions, I would echo that I have ultimate trust that they will do the right thing.

And thank you for the thoughtful approach that you've taken to this.

Sure, I will.

I move to recommend approval of SP-2023-00012, Kenridge Landscaping Amendment, for the reasons stated in the staff report.

Great.

Is there any additional discussion?

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Mr. Murray?

Aye.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

We will move on to our second public hearing of the night, CCP 2023-3, Secretary Sande Solar Facility.

Thank you.

It's me again, Rebecca Ragsdale.

I'll be leading the presentation here on this item, which is a little bit different.

And then Bill Fritz is here as well, our development process manager who is working on the solar consideration of amendments to

our ordinance related to solar energy systems.

So it's going to give a little bit of a background in terms of how we got to this type of application for a solar facility because it is a little bit different than what you've seen before.

Typically you've reviewed them all in one with a special use permit.

So we've had the solar energy systems as a use category by special use permit in the rural areas since 2017, recognizing they are a type of facility that would need a bit of land area.

And so it was added by special use permit, recognizing with all special use permits, they are used to be considered, but they may not be appropriate in all locations.

Since that time, we'll go over the four that have been approved, but we have approved four by special use permit, and now this is the fifth under consideration with the first step being the compliance with the comprehensive plan review.

Since September 2022, the board has initiated a study for possible ordinance amendments.

As I mentioned, Mr. Fritz primarily working on that.

You had a work session in February, and then the board more recently

Well, as recent as the history goes, in June had a work session where we've been looking at best practices and recommendations from the consultant and out of that process was that we should consider reviewing the compliance with the comprehensive plan as a first step in considering these projects.

And we'll go over a little bit more focus on that.

I mentioned the four that have been approved.

This is just a little summary of those projects that you're well familiar with that were approved with the special use permit process and that analysis did include

The compliance with the comprehensive plan review, which is required by state code for these types of uses.

This one is 33 acres.

Well, approximately 33 acres out of a 366 acre site you've seen, they've ranged a little bit from 15 to 660 acres.

So we don't, we've had a little bit of experience, but it has, of course, ranged in terms of the size and scale and the location of them.

What you're used to seeing is that the comprehensive plan discussion happens concurrently with the special use permit factors, which include a very detailed analysis in terms of substantial detriment to abutting property owners, character of the district, the area, the historic district.

Is it in harmony?

Are there any impacts to general health, safety, and welfare?

But in this case,

Taking this two step approach, which doesn't mean we're not going to analyze the other factors if it moves forward, we're solely focusing on what is part of the, what is often referred to as the 2232 review in our state code.

which is a requirement for public uses and certain utilities that you consider it in terms of your comprehensive plan, whether or not the general location, character, and extent of the proposed facility are in substantial accord with the comprehensive plan.

What you typically see with this type of application compliance with the comprehensive plan reviews

They are public facilities that are by right in all districts, so there isn't a next step in terms of a public hearing or community meeting process.

So with this particular type of review, we have sent the abutting owner notices and advertised it in

or the legal ad in the paper as we would typically do for a public hearing.

We haven't been advised to do otherwise because the next step would be the special use permit process where community meetings are required.

We did not staff require the applicant to conduct one although they will go over the public outreach that they have done to date which included a meeting last week.

So while the special use permit is very specific and we get all of those plan details with that, this is a more generalized review.

So moving to the specifics of the request, it is in total of 366 acre parcel down near Esmont at the corner of Alberin and Secretary Sand Road.

It does include areas that have been, that are wooded, areas that have been previously timbered where pine trees have been reestablished.

It is located in the southern Albemarle rural historic district with

properties primarily to the east that are contributing to the district.

And it is within the area of the Green Mountain Agricultural and Forestal District.

More specifically, this is just an aerial view of the property that shows you the general area where the solar facility would be located is in this portion, whereas the rest of the property would remain in its current state or in agricultural uses.

Now the applicant has a very detailed presentation so I'm focusing solely on the criteria for your review this evening and the basics of the proposal and how staff looked at it in terms of the comprehensive plan which is consistent with the other four projects that we mentioned.

There would be a fenced area and they've indicated

roughly what the fenced area would be and what the panel area would be, about 26 acres.

The total project area with stormwater and things that are necessary for the facility would be about 85 acres, again now in the area that was previously forested but includes pine trees that have progressed.

There has been

information included in the narrative about potentially allowing for grazing within the fenced area and the remainder of the property, as I mentioned, remaining for rural area uses.

Preliminarily, the maximum height of the solar panels would be 12 feet.

I say subject to change because obviously we haven't gotten down into the level of detail we would with the special use permit, but they have obviously started looking at buffers and screening.

and indicated some of that information on the concept plan in terms of buffers that are or setbacks that are over 200 feet, more in some cases and then beginning to consider the vegetative buffer in terms of existing landscaping and of course we don't have a landscape plan at this point, a detailed planting plan that would come later with the special use permit but screening is obviously an expectation.

So with this type of facility, we know that the rural areas section of the comprehensive plan doesn't place a certain priority on solar installations or speak specifically to it.

So when we're reviewing against those fundamental principles of our rural areas plan, we're looking to make sure that these types of facilities are not causing any detriment to surrounding or not counter to

or inconsistent to our goals that we have in the comprehensive plan related to agriculture, conservation, preservation uses, making sure that we're carefully considering biodiversity and protection of our streams.

and Prime Agricultural Soils.

So at a first look, you know, it's within an area that has been previously forested and is not in an area that we initially had concerns about in terms of not being able to return to agriculture.

or given the size and scale of this one, considering that it could probably be screened, although we do need that visibility analysis with the special use permit.

There are other goals and strategies within our comprehensive plan that do speak to clean energy and the efficient use of energy resources and promoting

Solar Energy in particular.

So, like I mentioned, somewhat consistent with how we've done the comprehensive plan analysis, solely looking at the comprehensive plan analysis, we found that solar, the other solar facilities, and including this one, are not at this level appearing to be

inconsistent with those conservation and agricultural goals of the comprehensive plan, but cautiously making findings that make sure that we are tracking what needs to be considered down the road more specifically with the special use permit in terms of decommissioning and making sure that noise concerns are addressed and that it's not detrimental to abutting properties or

So again, we're focused solely on that aspect of it, somewhat general in nature, which we're not used to seeing with these proposals, and we recognize that in terms of what would be analyzed at this level, but what, of course, will happen if it does move forward to the next steps.

So we did recommend in the report that a finding be made that it is in substantial accord.

And we've noted with this, just making sure that everyone understands that all of the concerns that we've heard and all of the questions and analysis that needs to be done if it were to move forward will be done with a special use permit process.

And we recognize some of those things that we typically see.

with these type of requests and in this area of course it would include review by the Agricultural and Forestal District since it is within that area.

So we wanted to make sure that that was of course noted and

You know, a finding of consistency or substantial accord with the comprehensive plan doesn't mean that we have to approve this special use permit is one aspect of the review.

And we have to consider all of the other aspects that we typically would and go through the special use permit process, but it does

Taking the first look at it does have some benefit in terms of kind of initial look at any of those sensitive areas or concerns we would have related to our rural area and also an opportunity for the public with the advertisement early on to start weighing in and getting those concerns documented.

The applicant did provide some information that

We have some handouts.

There was additional information provided by the applicant that they'll go over in terms of already starting to respond to that, but that will be part of their presentation in terms of the public concerns and how they're planning to do outreach that is in addition to our minimum process.

Great.

Thanks.

Great staff report.

I'll call, open it up to the commission for questions for staff.

Okay, thank you.

Great.

Yes, because sheep are proposed to be on this property when you have an agricultural use and an industrial use at the same time like this.

OK, so this is a solar project.

This is functionally a light industrial use.

So if when you have a light industrial use and an agricultural use occurring at the same time on the same property, which use is used to determine what ordinances, county ordinances, apply on the property?

So the industrial sections of the ordinance would not apply.

This is a use that is not not subject to those industrial zoning district regulations.

The special use permit would establish what specifically applies to the solar energy facility and then the rural area zoning district would regulate the remainder of the site.

So the solar special use permit is on top of

So that's something we would get into with the special use permit.

So fencing is on our list of things to consider with the more detailed special use permit review.

Okay.

And then, um, the last, last thing is, as just noticing, um, on the, there's appears to be some streams that are undocumented on here, um, that are on the, that are not on the county GIS, but are clearly visible on the map.

So I assume that the, I assume that those will be updated.

Thank you.

Yes, I have a process question for staff.

I'm just curious, and this is new to me to see the finding in accord with the comprehensive plan coming separately from the site planner from the SUP application.

Can you explain why that was proposed to be done this way and why it is a good idea?

Right.

You mean for considering solar facilities?

Yes.

And as I mentioned, you could find it in accord or not.

And also, the applicant has indicated

They would also be willing to defer or take more time for the review, but they'll probably address that in their presentation.

But it allows the first look at it, like I said, in terms of these things that we're looking at in terms of our comprehensive plan, if we were to find some major concern that could not be addressed or

that we thought, for lack of a better term, was a non-starter with a specific site somewhere, with factors that we maybe haven't seen before that we would make a different finding.

And then I have a hypothetical follow on.

I'm not going to give you like a scenario or anything.

But since we're in the middle of doing our new comprehensive plan, will we be having, and I know we're in the process of working on a solar ordinance, and we don't have that done yet.

So that's unfortunate.

But are you anticipating that the comp plan will speak to solar farms in the rural areas so that theoretically going forward we would have more guidance?

Because I know you cited the objective and the comp plan to promote conservation and efficient use of energy resources.

So you found that this was in accord in the staff report.

But would we have more to go on in the future comprehensive plan?

Absolutely, I can take that for you, Commissioner Firehock.

Kevin McDermott, I'm the Deputy Director of Planning, and I'm also working on the comprehensive plan update.

So we do expect that we're going to have quite a bit more direction in the comprehensive plan about where and how these facilities might be sited throughout the rural area.

That was one of the goals that we have is

trying to update the comprehensive plan to address things like our climate action planning process that's going on, the ones that once been approved already and then one that we're working on currently.

Okay, and hopefully more will be set in the comp plan because even in the climate plan, which I reread for fun, for looking at this application, it doesn't really get to solar panels in the rural area.

It does not.

Great, thank you.

Commissioner Bivins?

Thank you, Chair.

I've just got a couple of clarifying questions if I could.

Let me go back to Commissioner Murray for a second.

It's my understanding that we do not have any setbacks for livestock.

Livestock can wander into the stream, they can wander out of the stream, they can

do things which we do in streams.

And so the idea that there would be an additional level of scrutiny or restrictiveness for livestock to date, I've not heard us, I've not understood that we had the ability to do that.

Would you like me to respond?

Please.

Well, you may recall the special use permit we had a few months ago.

Well, it's probably been more than a few months where there was the additional development right authorization to be utilized in the rural area and we

It was along Ivy Creek and there were some additional regulations imposed or recommended to mitigate those impacts of more residential development in a watershed area that included fencing and best management practices and imposed the stream buffer management regulations that would not otherwise have applied in terms of maintaining the buffer in a natural state and replantings and those sort of things.

You know, it's too soon to say exactly what would be recommended and what we'll see in the special use permit process, but it's not inappropriate for us to look at that.

But typically in agricultural areas, we don't get involved with where the livestock roam.

That's correct.

In my mind, I'm still uncertain about whether or not the property we're speaking of here is in the Green Mountain Agricultural and Forest District.

And the other thing is whether or not it's in the two conservation easement parcels.

Right.

The parcel is not on a conservation easement.

There was a mapping error.

Our GIS was not showing this parcel as in the Agricultural and Forestal District.

It is, in fact, in the Agricultural and Forestal District.

And the applicant's narrative was correct.

It wasn't showing up in GIS in the district.

Yes.

then.

I'll get to that later.

So if today what you're asking us that you're asking the commission to do is to consider whether or not this project is substantially in accord with the adopted comprehensive plan.

I think that's what we're doing here today.

I want to be real clear.

I'm not suggesting that I am saying no or yes.

Understood.

The applicant has a right of appeal to the Board of Supervisors, but the project cannot proceed unless and until it gets a finding either from this commission or from the Board of Supervisors that it's in compliance with the comprehensive plan.

Good question.

Great, thank you.

I just have a couple of comments and if you'll allow me just a little bit of guidance for procedures as we move forward.

Number one, I know that it was a little misleading to some to see in the staff report that the acreage is 366.6 acres.

We did get some public input that was concerned with that size and scale.

Again, this is a 33 acre parcel that is actually impacted by the solar.

That is what I understand.

The other is just to highlight a couple things from the staff report.

One is the Commission's action is only related to the consistency of proposal with the comp plan and is not an action or recommendation on whether the facility should be constructed.

Solar energy facilities are only permitted by special use permit in the RA district.

As I see it, and we've talked a little bit about this, we have three options for action.

One is

in substantial accord, two is not in substantial accord, and then three, the applicant may choose to defer if they wish to do so.

So I just want to suggest to the commission, to others, that as we think about this, we keep that set of eyeglasses on as we review this proposal, that set of eyeglasses being we are looking at this as a comp plan, appropriate project or not, not as a site plan, we're not in the details yet, we just don't have that information.

So with that, I will open the public hearing and I'll call for the applicant.

And just as a reminder, if you could state your name and general location of residence and you'll have 10 minutes when you see the yellow light, if you could begin to wrap up, we'd appreciate it.

Hi, thanks for y'all's time today.

Jesse Robinson.

I'm from Durham, North Carolina.

I'm a project developer with New Leaf Energy and then Quentin Wood is our project engineer.

And like Rebecca said, we're here for the comp plan review of a proposed solar project, 4.5 megawatts off Secretary Sands Road.

So just a little background on our company.

New Leaf Energy was formed originally known as Burego, formed by three brothers in 1980.

And we've developed about a gigawatt of solar projects across the country, including in California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and now Virginia.

Last year, we used to be like O&M, operational maintenance, construction and development.

Our development arm split off and now we're now called New Leaf Energy.

but same team, same experience, same leadership.

A picture here just shows what the tracking system looks like that we would be proposing for this project just to give an idea.

It would go east to west following the path of the sun and the rocking system is elevated off of the ground.

And like Rebecca said, I won't go into the details here, but this is where the project is located.

And we are siting it on an area of the parcel that has been timbered since the 1960s.

And these pictures just show what the site looks like at the moment, or at least, you know, in the summer when there was vegetation.

But the far left photo shows where the proposed access road would be using an existing road that was used for timbering.

And then this, I think someone asked, you know, what is the property being used for now?

So it was cleared about like five years ago and then replanted with plop lollipines.

And those are on site right now.

And the far right photo just shows you some of the state of the property.

This was a landing area for the timber company.

A couple of reasons we chose this site.

The Van Cleef family is interested in supplementing their income with a solar project in addition to maintaining their ag uses on property such as cattle and hay.

Also, for these smaller projects, we interconnect to the distribution lines that run along primarily roads.

and go to a substation.

And that infrastructure is here located off Secretary Sand Road so we can interconnect there for the project.

We don't need to rezone to apply for special use permit.

And like we said, the area of this project, it's not old growth forest.

It's been timbered for quite some time and a lot of lollipines.

Just a general project overview.

Sorry, it's really hard to hear.

I apologize.

So for the project overview, the site's 4.5 megawatts.

It is a single access tracker, so it's generally oriented north to south, and the panels will then kind of rotate in an east-west direction following the sun.

The panels and the equipment is going to be contained within 33 acres of fenced in area and I'll get to the sheep grazing question that you did have as well.

In addition to that, we have 37 acres that we're looking to reserve for landscaping.

And in addition to that, we have approximately 15 acres that we're going to utilize for stormwater and also for the access to come down into the facility.

The landscaping buffer, as previously noted, generally ranges from 135 to 200 feet.

That 100 foot is primarily along the southeast side where it runs along Epps Creek, which kind of falls in line with the resource protection area.

And as part of that landscaping buffer, because of the mature trees and things of that nature, we're looking to as part of the site plan review process, enhance the landscape buffer with some more lower growth shrubs and trees and conifers.

Objective one, so this is going to focus in on the comprehensive plan.

So objective one is, you know, supporting the strong agricultural and forest economy.

As previously noted, this will help the landowner diversify his income so he can keep maintaining his estate without having to do any type of extensive development.

Again, we are pursuing sheep grazing, and this would be contained within the actual fence facility.

So the 33 acres that want to be outside of the landscaping area.

and the landscaped area associated with this project would be similar to that of conservation easement within the Ag and Forestals where we would protect that area from being further deforested and would also kind of allow for natural re-establishment.

And of course, you know, at the end of the project life, the site would be decommissioned.

It would be revegetated with native vegetation and turned back over to the landowner so he can kind of determine what he wants to do as his next step.

The second objective in the comprehensive plan focuses on preservation of natural resources.

So as previously noted, the site was previously tempered.

We did conduct some wetland and stream delineations as part of our initial due diligence.

So we had identified wetland streams and also identified the resource protection area.

So we positioned our project conceptually to avoid impacts to those.

And in addition to the delineation, we also conducted a T&E report, which focuses on a species of concern, threatened and endangered species within the project area and the associated buffers, which they did not, they found bats and things of that nature, which kind of blankets the states.

So we would be coordinating with those agencies to select the appropriate time of year for clearing.

And then finally, as part of the site plan and land disturbance of stormwater permitting, we'd be working with DEQ in the county to appropriate to design appropriate BMPs, downgrading of the facility in order to address any type of stormwater as a result of the panels and changing over from more of a forested to more of a meadow type land condition.

Objective three focuses in on the county's historic and archaeological

Resources.

And we had an initial walkthrough done by a third party vendor.

And basically, they don't feel that there's going to be any likelihood of artifacts found within the logging area just because of the logging activities that had occurred.

And they didn't find any type of architectural structures that would contribute to the historic district within the site.

And then as also as part of the site plan process and SUP process, we would continue with the more in depth archaeological and architectural studies.

Objective four is kind of focusing on the rural and historic view sheds.

And as noted, you know, we did enhance the landscape buffer and the setback for this project.

And we're also working with the neighbors to provide additional visual simulations of what the project would look like, say from neighboring properties, and also from the public street as part of our SUP application.

Objective five focuses in on really the support of the Crossroads community.

So this kind of goes back to the real resiliency of us upgrading the distribution line out to the site and substation to provide that additional and reliability of the electric line within the community.

And then objective six focuses on distinction between the rural area and the developed areas.

As previously noted, you know, we are looking to utilize the existing natural vegetation surrounding the site.

We're not looking to do any type of extensive development with large parking lots, any type of massive signs or anything like that.

The entrance would be similar to that of a residential.

And in addition to that, we'd be removing a lot of the excess gravel associated with the previous logging activities and re-vegetating that with a native species.

Objective seven is more or less like we're not looking to do any type of extensive development within here.

The site will be decommissioned and turned back to the landowner for agricultural use or whatever he deems fit.

And then objective eight of the comprehensive plan focuses in on area B, which our project is not located in.

As previously noted, the project is within the Ag and Forest District, so what we have done to help

with that is that we're looking to minimize our impervious surface, which is focusing in on solely the access road and really the concrete pad.

DEQ requires us to consider the panels to be impervious.

However, with the elevation, we are able to establish native vegetation underneath the panels to help with that.

So really the impervious panels help us with the stormwater design to ensure that we have some type of best management practice for the collection of stormwater downgrading of the site in order to manage any type of rate and water quality that comes off of there.

In addition to that, we're looking to do the multi use, which is using sheep on site within the fenced area, which will help with the ongoing maintenance, and also kind of promote that agricultural use within the area as well.

and we're also looking to reserve that 37 acres during the life cycle of the project, similar to like a conservation easement or an ag and forestal district to where it's gonna limit the ability of somebody to come in and actually clear cut that for timber or things of that nature.

It'd be more so maintenance just to ensure that we have that buffer set.

And then finally, the construction time for this, I believe the ag and forestal district, this may actually be outside of the window for that.

So the next couple slides is just a couple conceptual plans of our landscaping.

Sure.

Yeah, that would be fine.

So here's just a real quick conceptual landscape plan.

So the orange lines kind of indicate the 37 acres that we have reserved.

And there is going to be some areas outside of there that we want to be timbering, we also want to be capturing.

Here's just an oblique.

This is looking in general northwest direction.

So you can kind of see the facility laid out within there, some distances from Secretary Sand Road, which is to the upper left.

And at the bottom right hand corner above our logo is the Van Cleef's residence.

Another thing to note is that there's already previously tempered track that's abutting our project to the north and our facility where our inverters or transformers are at is approximately 600 feet away from the property.

And again, just another oblique.

Secretary Sanders on the right.

That shows her access going on in through.

We didn't make sure it wasn't a straight shot back in through there.

She had some screening to help further shield the facility.

Appreciate it.

If you'll stay there for just a moment, we'll go around and ask questions.

I'll start.

I don't remember where I went last.

Let's start with Commissioner Bivins.

Mr. Bivins, can you?

Thank you, Chair.

I did have questions, but I was taking so many notes.

Sorry, we can come back.

Would you?

Oh, no.

I know my first one.

So I didn't understand.

I didn't quite hear you when you said, how will the panels, oh, I should maybe back up.

So the panels will move.

So they will track the sun.

OK, they're not stationary.

So I won't even begin to say what happens if a little lamb gets caught up in the panel.

So the height of these are actually set up to about 48 inches off of the

How far, did you say 48?

About 48 inches or so off.

Okay.

So that's, that's, that's, you know, but we grow our lambs big here on Albemarle County.

We do everything big here.

Um, my other question was, Oh, I don't have to ask that question because we're not there yet.

Right.

Great.

So during construction, you will have some loads coming in for your gravel, you'll have deliveries for the panels, you have deliveries for the foundational posts and electrical wires and things like that.

So typically, what we like to do is put together a transportation plan that shows the routes in and out to the facility.

I also like to coordinate with the county and also the school districts in order to schedule those deliveries outside of say the bus routes.

No, it is asphalt, yeah.

Great.

And then just on the sort of current existing uses, I think that's sort of part of what this hinges on as far as it's, you know, conformity with the comprehensive plan.

Okay, thanks.

Great, thanks.

I just had a couple quick questions since you guys kind of opened up this.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what you've typically done in terms of landscape maintenance plans?

After you've installed the solar arrays and the sheep are grazing, do you have a long-term maintenance plan typically associated with these?

So in general, the operation and maintenance of the landscaping is going to be worked on as with the county as part of our site plan process.

Got it.

Okay.

Got it.

Thank you.

And so you mentioned that there'd be upgrades to the transmission lines that are, I guess, coming to the site and leaving the site.

Yeah, so it's the distribution lines, not transmission.

Yeah, I mean, APCO is studying the project and they're going to be telling us basically what needs to happen for the line to be capable for us to interconnect and then bring power to the substation.

Usually that means sometimes the circuit can handle the voltage as is, or sometimes we have to upgrade the voltage.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

And last question.

Will this power be used?

Yeah.

So, um, I mean, when it comes to like the local grid, it's kind of like, where does it go?

It's sort of like when you put a bucket of water into a pond, it's hard to say exactly, but, um, folks, you can assume folks along the circuit could be pulling from it.

Got it.

Great.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

I have two bounce backs.

So I believe in your report, you mentioned that unlike a number of the projects we've seen where they have distribution centers or they have, so I can't remember because I'm not going to read it right now, but they have facilities on the property to be able to step up or step down the power before it hits.

And I think the one in Woodridge that actually can, I believe the connection to Dominion

to Dominion is actually on the project land, so they're going to the Dominion prop, they're going to Dominion equipment, and then they're pushing it into the grid.

Okay, so that's one thing.

So the other thing that I've always asked like who's going to own this is after it's over.

So you're basically just coming in leasing some land leasing some land from the from the landowner saying I'm going to come in here and do this development.

Yep, so you're right, New Leaf, we just develop projects and then we have a small pool of buyers we work with to own and build and own the project long-term.

So what we try to do is really make sure that we propose conditions that sort of capture feedback from the community or the county so it's tied to the permit because that is going to transfer over to the owner

and then same thing with anything that's put into the lease agreement with the landowner would also directly transfer over to them.

Great, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Okay, I will now open it up for comments from the public and if I could just add a little bit of a recommendation on this.

If you are sharing

And you want to echo what's been said by a previous person speaking.

A show of hands is very helpful.

And that will not only save some time, but also help us understand how many are in agreement in the audience.

So thank you, keep that in mind.

Also, just thank you for the numerous, I don't know if it's, I'm sure some of you have sent us emails.

Thank you for the numerous feedback and emails that you've sent.

I have read them and learned quite a bit from them.

So I'm grateful for those as well.

I have a list of eight signed up here and then we'll go to general.

Someone else hasn't signed up, they have an opportunity to speak and then we'll go to online.

So I'll start with Alan Van Cleef.

And as a reminder, you'll have three minutes total to speak and when the light shifts to, I'll just say this once for everybody, when the light shifts to yellow, you'll know to wrap up your comments.

Good evening.

I'm Alan Van Cleef.

I'd like to thank planning commission and staff for your thoughtful consideration of this project and also our neighbors for their engagement.

My family has lived here for five generations.

I can personally account for close on 70 years of South Albemarle history.

We delight in our rural lifestyle on our farm and want this to continue for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.

When we moved full time to the farm, it needed work and attention, and this continues to be the case.

We have planted hundreds of fruit and nut trees and specimen native species as well.

and also have encouraged existing native plants.

We have consulted with stream experts and created buffers and enhanced the stream quality.

We have established meadows.

Our kids tease me saying, yeah, dad retired to go do backbreaking farm labor.

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do enjoy it.

And we are serious about farming and producing healthy products.

Our son and daughter-in-law and I have established a growing cattle herd.

We also raise chickens and have our own hive of bees.

We want to maintain and enhance our land.

The solar project is on a timber track.

It is not an old growth forest.

The solar project will generate clean energy and provide us an income stream that will enhance our ability to continue to farm and use best practices to preserve the land.

The buffers around the project will grow and not be harvested, as would trees in a timber tract.

The pollinator species that will be growing in this enclosure will be beneficial as well.

I would be proud

to have this project in my backyard.

Thank you.

Before I say anything, I'd like to invite all of you to come drive around Southern Albemarle between Scottsville and North Garden.

please come and visit the Esmont area.

It's quite beautiful.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Nick Duke.

I reside at 6265 Alberine Road in the village of Esmont.

I wish to state my opposition to the near industrial solar installation proposed by Syndra and Alan Van Cleve and New Leaf Energy along Secretary Sand Road in Esmont.

You've heard the planning staff report summary by Ms.

Ragsdale, where she concludes she has no concerns about this project.

My numerous concerns are in the email I sent each of you last Sunday.

In my humble opinion, the location, character, and extent of this proposed facility is not in accord with the county's comprehensive plan.

The Van Cleef property is situated within the Southern Albemarle rural historic district, where the diverse, natural, scenic, and historic cultural assets of this area have been well-documented.

The importance of this rural landscape cannot be overstated here.

The proposed facility will consume 85 acres of forested land.

Then, 33 acres will be bulldozed and surrounded by a 7-foot barbed wire fence devoted to 11,592 solar panels.

No matter how expertly it might be situated, designed, buffered, screened with setbacks, or eventually decommissioned, I submit to you that a solar factory of this nature, which New Leaf Energy has slyly labeled small scale, in this residential, forested, and agricultural corner of Albemarle County, will negatively impact the landscape,

Property Values, Wildlife Habitat, and the Character of Esmond.

My neighbors and I have had several meetings with New Leaf and we've seen their sugar-coated presentation containing highly suspicious and misleading claims.

We've outlined many of these claims for you in greater detail over the last several days.

I submit

that this is an inappropriate application trying to jump on the sustainability bandwagon for purely economic and financial reasons with absolutely no benefits to the Esmond community whatsoever.

Despite what your staff has stated, this proposed site can never and will never be returned to agricultural or forested use.

Please don't allow this project to go any further, or this precious and scenic historic land will be lost forever.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Ana Beschon Stein.

I'm a local landscape architect registered in the state of Virginia, practicing in Albemarle County.

I also live on Secretary Sands nearby to the facility.

First of all, I want to state I'm pro solar.

I'm pro green energy.

I support the environment.

I'm really, really concerned with this type of facility.

It's flying in this in-between zone between, like I think one of you said, light industrial and rural, and it's putting our rural lands in Albemarle County in real jeopardy.

I would encourage the Planning Commission to not make any decisions

until your solar regulation, your solar ordinance has been drafted, approved, and in place.

I also have read your comprehensive print plan and the biodiversity action plan this week.

Not how I was planning on spending a couple weeks before Christmas, but here we are.

And it was informative.

I'd like to remind you all that it states,

Your objectives and goals are to support local businesses and industry.

This is an outside company coming in to take advantage of financial incentives and make money at our expense.

Protect and enhance natural resources.

This facility will have a little over a mile of chain link fencing seven feet high to the ground with barbed wire or razor wire at the top.

I don't think you can say that that's protecting wildlife corridors and it also will have the equivalent of 9.25 Walmart roofs, that's runoff.

Again, I think you need to think about that.

The stormwater implications, 15 acres of stormwater detention ponds.

So I would, I think my time's almost up, but I would encourage you all to create, from the biodiversity action plan, to create ordinances aimed at protecting natural resources.

And also to remind you that your definition of open space is, and note there, is that open space should not be heavily disturbed, and in your own words, i.e.

impacted by human activity.

I think if you look at,

It's actually the pine plantation is six to seven years in.

They're about 10 to 12 feet high now.

Scraping that pine plantation and putting in 33 acres of impervious solar panels is truly frightening.

Please think long and hard about this.

Thank you.

Jesse Beah.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Sorry about that.

Bjar, got it.

Thank you for your time this evening.

I appreciate it.

My name is Jesse Behar.

I am a resident of Esmont as well.

I'm about a half a mile to the north of this site, which seems like a long distance, but in the country that's a hop and a skip.

I would like to say that I do believe this project is in conflict with the rural area designation of the area and that the site and also in conflict with some of the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan and the climate action plan.

Both of these plans clearly state that they aim at maintaining valleys, creeks, watersheds, forested land, forestry, and agriculture.

The site of this plan is, or the site of this location is in a valley, at the rim of that valley, adjacent to some significant historic properties.

And there is a creek running through the bottom of that valley that feeds into the hardware river, which I believe is an important watershed.

The site probably will involve the removal of several millions of cubic feet of soil.

It is I think much more disruptive than the current forestry that is taking place there.

And this I think will make it more difficult to reclaim that soil and make it, return it to its current condition.

It does have a rich history with the presence of the Coles family.

And as I said, numerous homes from the 18th and 19th centuries do exist on the opposite side of that valley.

The view shed for all of us that live down there is probably the key resource.

We didn't move to Esmond to look at a concrete, steel and glass structure.

of a light industrial scale.

And in our case, the adjacent property is forested.

It does currently have

eight to 10, 10 to 12 foot trees.

We can see from our second story bedroom, the Van Cleef residence.

And I believe that we will have no issue viewing this solar plantation from that site.

It is Loblolly Pines.

They do not offer any lower coverage.

The underlying coverage is deciduous.

It is gone for much of the year, easily six months out of the year.

I do find it interesting that

New Leaf in wanting to clear the site says it's loblollies, but in demonstrating that it will not impact views, claims that there's hardwoods there.

We can clearly see all the way to the west from the Secretary Sand Road to the state mill property, which is located behind the Van Cleave residence.

Thank you for your time.

Peter Baratone?

And if the next person wants to come up and be on deck, it's Jeremy.

Can't read that writing.

Beasley?

Hello, and thank you for your time and your consideration.

My name is Peter Bertone and I live at 5888 Green Mountain Road.

and as my property sits on a ridge to the east of the subject property and overlooks the proposed site.

And I'm here today to object to the proposed solar facility.

The proposed site falls within one of the most scenic areas of Albemarle County.

It's characterized by beautiful valleys,

nestled between parallel ridges.

And from this area of the county, you can look 10 miles to the north or past wintergreen 30 miles to the south or to the Allegheny Mountains more than 50 miles away.

In addition to being one of the most scenic areas in the county is by far one of the most historic.

Within a mile, you'll find many historic properties.

Within two miles, even more.

I submit to the Planning Commission that when you think about solar facilities in rural historic areas, you really need to think about three things.

The scenic impact, the environmental impact, and the cultural historic impact.

And unfortunately,

this proposed site fails all three.

Not because I'm against solar, I like the others here, I'm an environmentalist and a proponent of solar, but it fails dramatically because of the specific location of the site, as well as the topography of the site and the topography of the surrounding countryside.

The site sits on an eastward facing slope at an elevation that changes from 530 feet to six at Epps River, Epps Creek, to 650 feet at Secretary Sands.

The solar facility, the solar panels, will run from an elevation of 550 to about 630.

With that kind of elevation difference, it's impossible to screen the impact of the site to the west.

The site will be seen from 10 miles away easily.

And when you do an unconstrained view shed analysis, and by unconstrained, I mean don't constrain it to a half mile radius or a mile radius, go all the way out.

You'll find that this site will be visible from thousands of acres within the county.

housing some of the most important historic sites.

I don't have much time remaining, but I wanted to share with you one conversation I had with Rex Linville from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I put my farm under conservation easement.

And when doing so, I was walking along Green Mountain Road with him.

and he said to me, Peter, we need to protect this viewshed.

And so I worked with the Piedmont Environmental Council and we placed a no-build zone adjacent essentially to the site that's being proposed now.

and it gives me great pleasure when people stop along Green Mountain Road, get off their bikes, walk onto my property and take pictures of that view shed or when professional photographers stop, set up their cameras at five o'clock to see the sunset over the mountains and they take pictures.

I hope the committee is as sensitive to those scenic issues as Rex and PEC were 10 years ago.

Thank you.

Jerome Beasley, and then I think it looks like another Beasley, but I can't read the first name.

We'll be on deck.

I apologize.

Happy holidays.

You too.

My name is Jerome Beasley, and my wife and I lived 30 years at Cozum, diagonally across from the proposed solar facility overlooking one of the largest rural landscapes in the county of more than eight mountain ranges.

bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, red-headed and red-bellied woodpeckers, snowy owls, bats, monarch butterflies, bears, bobcats, coyotes, and all kinds of roaming animals roam down from the mountains through the wondrous valley that we have geese, among my favorite to watch, land on the pond surrounding

to this parcel, fly over it and across the sky, passing across the historic homes of Tallwood built in 1803, Coastwood 1901, and the granddaddy of them all, Enniskorthy, built sometime in 1700.

33 acres, 11,592 solar panels, utility poles, transformers, inverters,

concrete paths, electric lines throughout the subsurface.

Just try to picture that in this landscape.

No amount of sprinkling of few wildflowers, grazing over a few livestock for a month or two would change that disruption to the wildlife and birds that live among us and hide this iron curtain from the viewshed

of the homes east and west of this facility.

This is likely the most precious connected rural landscape in the county.

It is what precious

about this is what is precious about our county.

And this is frankly is why we bought Coleswood 30 years ago.

If we didn't buy the Coleswood, the house, we didn't buy the house, we bought the landscape.

It's precious, if you ever go out there.

The sun, June 21st, sits directly in front of our house.

It's magnificent.

Folks park their cars to walk, hike,

and ride horses along the serene ridges of Green Mountain in the valleys below.

The proposed land, solar land and the surrounding properties are important historically, culturally, architecturally, and significant.

And let's see, I have to scribble with this.

And as well, there are several hundred-acre conservation easement lands surrounding the property.

Whether or not the solar concept is a good project that may belong somewhere, it does not belong in this important environmental

It is your responsibility to preserve and help us protect this site.

Thank you very much.

Next, I know it's another Beasley, but I just don't know your first name.

I'm sorry.

Before I start my remarks, I apologize.

My printer did not cooperate with me.

So in my written comments I submitted, I talked about pictures.

Well, this is what you see.

This land is right down here.

And in fact, this is what you see.

I'm getting there for my written comments.

This is what you see.

There's five pictures in the Albemarle book of this landscape.

My name is Paula Beasley, and I live on Green Mountain overlooking the proposed solar facility.

The current comprehensive plan for the rural areas states, your job is to preserve and protect agricultural, forestal, open space, and natural, historic, and scenic resources.

That really says it all.

Residents in 1996-2015 and now continue to say this is of prime importance.

The plan does not say if it conflicts with another objective of the county.

You don't have to protect it.

It is possible to honor both, but not a solar facility here.

Be mindful of what you give up, as it can never be recovered.

We moved to Southern Albemarle, not really for the house, but for the land.

This is not an envy.

It is of something far greater than any one of us.

The proposed facility is in the middle of the largest interconnected rural landscape in the state and one of the largest in the country, with national significance reflected in the NRHP and Virginia landmark registry listings.

Notably, significantly, and uniquely,

It meets all four criteria of significance, ethnic, migratory, and African-American assets.

Persons, including Ed Coles, the abolitionist who freed his slave and gifted them land, was raised in Coles' homes, three of which are within a half mile, five in total, less than a mile from this parcel.

Architecturally, Tallwood, said to be the finest example of federal architecture in the state, and multiple sandstone quarry workers in other homes on Secretary Sand Road.

The solar company doesn't care or see any of this.

It doesn't look up.

It flashes a little money at parcels close to transmission lines and sells off the project to the highest bidder.

This near utility solar project will fragment the landscape.

It will not qualify as agricultural forester with less than one tenth of the land and a few wildflowers or grazers.

It doesn't care about fragmenting this pristine landscape.

It's about money to them.

For us, it's about losing what is precious and unique to Albemarle.

Once destroyed and fragmented, you can't put it back.

Minimally, within a half century, this is a 40 year lease, VPI research says never.

The job of preserving what is precious in our country is up to you and the comprehensive plan places that obligation on you.

We urge you to thoughtfully and very, very carefully consider the unique, vast, and unfragmented nationally significant rural landscape, the vistas at the foot of more than eight mountain ranges, and the most unique,

the Blue Ridge Mountains in clear view.

Thank you.

Yes, absolutely.

Good evening.

I'm Rob McGinnis and I'm here representing the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I'm here to address the apparent conflicts between the county's climate action policy goals for zero carbon energy generation and the no net loss of forest and reforestation.

This is directly related to the question of whether the Secretary Sands Solar Project is in substantial accord with the county's comprehensive plan.

The county has a goal of achieving 60% grid electricity produced by zero carbon generation by 2030.

However, the county also has a goal of reducing annual forest conversion to other land uses to no more than 578 acres per year by 2030.

The total acres of forest removal for all approved solar facility projects, some are under construction, others are not, include the acreage of all managed forest proposed to be removed for the secretary sand and you'll see soon the Buck Island project, which is coming this way, is nearly 900 acres.

The county has estimated that forests and trees throughout the rural and urban areas of the county, including managed forests, removed approximately 946,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year between 2008 and 2016.

The county should advance a strong policy for solar facilities to be sited to avoid loss of forests, including managed forests.

Such a policy would go a long way towards supporting the county's climate action policy regarding carbon sequestration through forest protection and retention.

And if forest loss cannot be avoided, the county should require robust and meaningful mitigation through conservation easement programs.

Given the lack of formal solar facility policies in the current comp plan, the county should consider pausing reviews of the solar projects until the solar energy facility ordinance is approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Thank you very much.

Great.

Appreciate all the comments.

Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak that has not signed up?

Yes, ma'am, please come forward.

I'm not a good speaker, so I'm going to try.

No problem.

I'm very passionate.

My name is Debbie Roberts, and we just moved here from Virginia Beach.

We live on Green Creek Lane, right down the street from this intersection.

The main reason we moved here is the open space, and we have some grandkids.

The one thing I want to emphasize is I love this area for the way they care about their people.

They care about animals.

They care about any living thing that is here.

They love their environment.

I can't talk good enough about this area.

I moved from Virginia Beach where it was not like that.

My parents lived in North Carolina and we had solar panels everywhere down in North Carolina.

You drove by, they were broken, they leaked stuff into the groundwater, and she can say that it will not get in that groundwater.

But I can tell you, we lived on a street

where carcinogens got into our groundwater and it wiped out everyone on our street except for us because our mortgage company required us.

They knew there was carcinogens in our water.

We have ground.

We had well water just like we have here.

There was carcinogens in our water and our mortgage company required us to get a water test.

I'm sorry, to filter out all, I told you I was passionate, I'm sorry, to filter out all the carcinogens out of our water.

We survived, but almost everyone in our street died, including my parents.

I lost my parents and my grandmother all from cancers because of the carcinogens.

I'm begging you to think about all the people that live here.

There are children.

There are adults.

I ride home behind the school bus and watch people, their grandparents, get their kids off the bus.

This is not a good match.

Beauty aside, this is a health issue.

And one other thing, so I'll hurry.

You cannot control sheep.

We raise sheep.

Sheep will jump.

Anything that flashes in their face, they're going to jump.

They're going to break the glass.

They're going to have an issue, as well as deer and the bears that we've met, the things that they've done to our property and tore up.

You have some real issues here that are not just beauty.

You do have beauty.

You should ride out there.

It's beautiful.

Thank you.

Anybody else from the audience like to speak?

Okay, great.

Well, thank you, everybody.

With that, I will open it up to the applicant and provide you all an opportunity to speak or respond to any of the comments you may have heard, if you wish.

This go around, you'll have five minutes.

So thank you for all the comments that we did receive from the local community.

Yeah, sure.

So my name is Quentin Wood.

I reside in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

So I just wanted to thank the community for all the comments that we did receive tonight and I'm sure Jesse will cover what we've done as far as community outreach in order to further address some of those questions and concerns.

We are currently working on the screening and visibility.

As part of our previous community meeting with the residents, we're looking to do additional visual symbolizations, not only of the property, from the roads and things of that nature, we also had a sign up sheet to where we would go out to their property and take photos and also drop that in with our model.

So we can simulate what that would look like from their perspective.

So that's something that we would look to continue to do, you know, provided we move forward with the comprehensive plan into the SCP process.

As far as the historical view shed and things of that nature, like I said previously, we did conduct some initial due diligence with a third party vendor that came out on site.

They walked the site.

They also observed what they would qualify as an architectural structure, which is anything older than 45 years.

And it was their opinion.

And this report was also provided to these residents.

But they don't feel that they don't foresee it being an adverse effect, this project on the historic aspect of this project.

not only the immediate area but also the historic district that it resides in.

Additionally, as we cited this project, we did evaluate the critical slopes.

We have the site positioned outside of those critical slope areas.

We have it positioned outside of the delineated streams of wetlands and resource protection areas.

So we do take that into consideration with the preservation of the natural resources

and then around there and working with DEQ in order to provide adequate stormwater control.

You know, unlike equestrian farms, which is typically larger areas of mowed grass and manicured grass with very little stormwater control for pollutant runoffs, that's something that we have to account for.

when we do this conversion from forested over to a meadow area is we have to account for those additional nitrogen and phosphorus loads as part of our stormwater design in addition to rate and water quality which typically becomes unobserved as part of these agricultural activities which oftentimes causes erosion to the local streams.

And I just wanted to add that we have done some initial meetings, conversations with neighbors about this project, not the official community meeting that the county will help organize.

But we are totally open to putting conditions on the project, getting feedback on the vegetative screening for the site to work with neighbors and address their concerns.

We feel like

We could adapt the design in the SUP process to address those issues, which seem primarily about visibility and the visual simulation should hopefully assist us on where homes may or may not be able to see the project and what we could do in addition to screen it.

And I guess I'll just finish with staff finds the project in compliance with the comprehensive plan and we

We plan to bring more in front of the county and neighbors for the SUP process if we make it there.

Great.

Thank you both.

With that, I will close the public hearing and I'll turn back to the commission.

Why don't we start with Mr. Moore?

Sorry, Commissioner Moore.

Thoughts?

Yes.

Thoughts?

Discussion?

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, I appreciate everybody's sharing, sharing their thoughts, appreciate the proposal, and from both staff and from the developer and also the landowner and also all of you who live nearby.

It's kind

There's a lot of passion in the room and I can hear that and feel that.

I also was just thinking about how these rural areas have a very long history of harvesting forests and timbering and of agriculture and essentially harvesting energy from the sun and converting it into food.

and converting it into trees and using those products for the benefit of Albemarle County people to have those things make life work for us here.

And solar panels, I realize, are a different thing.

They are physical objects rather than in the ground.

It's harvesting the energy of the sun to make life work for people in Albemarle County.

To me, it's on the very limited question we have of can this be compatible with the comprehensive plan?

It feels like yes.

I realize that there's a number of conditions that need to be thought of.

And again, there's like three other major parts of this review that would come down the pike.

I do hear those things about visibility that are of concern.

I heard the word scenic a whole lot.

Aesthetic objections are not, I think my aesthetic sensibilities are a little different from some people's, but nonetheless, that'll all be part of, could all be part of a future review.

But for the time being though, I mean, you know,

We're also talking about protecting and preserving, and I think there's different ways to interpret what protect and preserve means.

Is it to put something in amber so that it literally never changes, or is it to use the land for people and for things that people need?

And if this isn't going to, if we can reasonably hope that, and renewable energy, there's lots of solar places we can look at and find this information,

If we can reasonably hope that the soils will be still farmable in the future, if we can reasonably hope that the waters aren't going to be terribly damaged, which from other installations we can hopefully learn, then to me it's consistent with the conference of plan to install this kind of thing potentially.

Again, with the permits and special reviews that would have to be part of the process for prior to implementation.

That's where I'm at.

Commissioner Murray?

I'd say a real flaw in our current comprehensive plan is that we were treating the entire rural area as the same.

And it struck me that we had another solar project in front of us where there was widespread support for that project.

And here you see a room where there's obviously not.

and so it strikes me that not all areas are the same but we're treating all areas the same and it would be really fantastic in our new comprehensive plan if we could actually map out those differences and demonstrate areas where solar should or should not go.

It makes it really hard to make a determination at this point about whether this is or is not consistent with

Well, I can't say what our new comprehensive plan is going to say.

If we had the new comprehensive plan in front of us right now, we might have a much clearer decision to make than what we're hearing with our current comprehensive plan.

One of the things that really troubles me, though, is that this isn't a property that's in an ag-forested district, and we haven't heard from the ag-forested district committee yet.

I feel like I can't really support this right now without hearing their opinion first.

It would have also been nice to, I think the viewshed analysis and seeing what this property actually looks like from the perspective of neighbors I think would help a whole lot.

So those are my main comments on that.

I will say there are some positive features of this.

I obviously appreciate the inclusion of native plants, the consideration of pollinator habitat, the buffering of streams.

I hope all those things become part of our

our overall standards for solar when those are passed.

The lack of current that we have had several solar projects come through here and we still have a policy that is problematic.

I hope we don't have yet another one come before there's a policy on the funds.

Great.

Thank you.

Commissioner Firehock.

OK.

I'll try to be somewhat brief.

I'm not good at that.

So I do want to address a general comment about the idea that agriculture can be returned as a use in the future.

It takes many decades for soils to form, particularly topsoils.

And when you do the kind of grading that's required for a solar site, you are removing those soils.

Now, so in general, I don't support

the idea that we can simply return it to agriculture by taking the panels off.

Now I voted in favor of that other site that was flashed briefly on the screen of 660 acres, much larger than this site.

But I also visited that site.

Each site is contextual.

I also visited the site we're talking about tonight and walked the land

The site that I voted yes for on the 660 acres was a very disturbed site.

The soils were in terrible shape.

There were huge erosion gullies on that site.

It was not, while it was timbered and then returned to timber over various cycles, it was not well taken care of.

And so I felt that that site was actually going to be better stabilized by restoring the soils and planting them as a solar site.

So each site is different.

Each site is contextual.

Each site, I also voted for a smaller site in the Sam Miller district.

But that site was also similar to this on a forestry site that had been timbered extensively.

But it was also tucked away.

I stood on that site, and I couldn't see neighbors.

And I didn't have the level of objection to that site that we'd seem to have with this one.

I don't have enough information to judge the other section of the comprehensive plan to judge whether this site is currently comporting with our comprehensive plan.

So while I understand that the staff report said,

and point number two that it promoted conservation and efficient use of energy resources and that yes, our county has a climate plan and yes, we want to promote renewable energy.

The other sections of the comprehensive plan that deal with scenic, natural and historic resources, I cannot fully evaluate the impact of this site at this time because the site

Plan is not before us, the fully developed concept plan.

Now, I know that the applicant has plans to do things.

I don't want to put words in their mouth, but something akin to a viewshed analysis, more detailed analysis of what can and can't be seen, or to fully flesh out how much screening they need to put and where.

We don't have that tonight.

So I cannot evaluate whether this site is currently in accord with our comprehensive plan because it conflicts with other sections until I have further information to make that judgment call.

Now, I will say for the audience's benefit, it is not uncommon for one section of the comprehensive plan to conflict with a proposal and another one to support it.

So we wrestle with this all the time.

But I think that

The scenic historic context is very important for this particular landscape.

This is the southern Albemarle rural historic district.

And I don't want to stand on a soapbox, but I live down there.

I live in the very tippy tip of Albemarle County in Howardville.

And I go through Esmond all the time.

I try not to speed.

I do.

I am the weirdo who takes pictures occasionally of the sunsets.

Amazing.

But the point is that I cannot make a judgment call on this one tonight.

I cannot make a call whether it is or is not in accord.

So I would be much more comfortable with the deferral until such time as we have a full application before us.

I understand that we're following best practices in the state of Virginia.

You mentioned that of finding is it or is it not in accord with the comp plan.

Then

knowing whether it's a go or a no-go potential before the applicant does further work.

That's great.

Somebody in Virginia decided that was a good policy.

I don't agree.

Each site is unique.

This site is quite unique.

And there's so many different angles from which to view it.

So even if this were to come back as a site plan, I would hope some of the neighbors might invite me over so I can stare from their porch

and understand what it looks like.

So at this point, I can't make that judgment.

Great, thank you.

So if I could ask Rebecca if she could put up the one of her first two screens where she had the list of the

the projects which we've thought about over the last, I guess, three or four years.

There was a list of projects that you put up that talked about.

I think it was either your first, your second slide.

There it is.

Thank you.

So these are some of the projects under review or approved.

So I will go and say that Albemarle County is beautiful.

Yes, it's beautiful.

Yes, it's beautiful.

I will also go on and say, most like any person who lives here, I would have a tremendously difficult time determining which of the projects there is more beautiful or less beautiful.

So therefore, the beauty and the historic piece, which I will also share with you, I try to become passionate about a plantation.

And most of the houses that we're speaking about were plantations, not me leaving that aside.

And so the historic nature of it, while appropriate and helpful for Southern Albemarle, is not the thing that's going to get me to say yes or maybe.

The thing that's going to get me to say yes is because that would mean the conversation we're having tonight means we got those other four wrong.

And the reason I'm going to say I feel we have got those other four wrong is because we had passionate people who came out in each one of those, except for the one on Dick Woods Road, which I think is the one that's with the, the Ivy landfill place where most people couldn't see that.

Although I can tell you there is an Episcopal congregation right next to that that can see that.

that can see that particular property.

But everyone came out and they did.

They were very passionate about how this particular project was somehow or another going to alter their lifestyle, their use of their property, except for that one.

That's because the church didn't realize that I believe that it was happening at that time.

But subsequently, they did make some comment about that.

But that's neither here nor there.

And so my piece is, I don't know how to differentiate between those projects in this location.

I don't know how to do that.

Because each of them, at this particular point in time, I do not have a full project in front of me, a full project, a SUP in front of me.

What I have is the ability to distinguish if this is a location that could have this project.

and frankly, I have been, just to be clear, I've been in and out of Esmont for 30 years.

I've been in and out of the town, I've been out in and out of Porter's, Porter's now by Yangtze's Mills, I've been in and out of the Esmont Manor, which has changed hands as most of you know down there for a number of times.

And so I know the area, I appreciate the beauty of that area, but I also appreciate the beauty

of some of the other areas, the Milton area, which I think has actually got a lovely sense, it sort of passes down to the, it's not the James area, it passes down whatever the river is.

No, it is the James, isn't it?

No, the Rivanna, as it passes down to the Rivanna over there in Milton.

And so I want to see the entire project come before us.

I want the applicant to listen to the people who are here tonight.

and have to respond to that and have to bring a project that challenges us to review it, that gives, as you said, the opportunity, Commissioner Firehock, to go and stand on people's land or like they did in Woodbridge to invite all of us down to walk across the land in Wood, I guess it's Woodridge.

And so for me, I can't say no because I don't see the difference between any of these.

That's my personal view on this, okay?

Otherwise, I would have said no on a lot of these because of the passion that came forward on that.

So Chair, on this particular one, as I would have on many of those, I will support the fact that this is a project that could be in this location, but I am not saying

that if they bring the project to us, if they decide to go forward with this, that this is a project that I would vote yes for because I still need to see more.

Thank you.

Can I just get one clarification since we're in discussion?

Please.

In other words, I'm if what we're here today is saying is this project in compliance with the comp plan.

Okay, what I'm saying here is I have a hard time saying no, because we did not bifurcate the project, but this process for all the rest of these.

And we got to a yes.

Some of us didn't get to a yes, but it got to a yes to go to the supervisor.

Right now, I don't have enough, given what we've done here, even though this is...

It influences us.

It is not dictum.

Got it.

Thanks.

And I know we're doing this kind of linearly, but we are in discussion.

So if there's any feedback, just yell.

I'll just offer a few comments.

I do have a question for Mr. Fritz, though, if I could ask this question.

And that question is maybe an unfair one, but I'll give it a shot.

I know you'll tell me that.

I expect nothing less.

It was mentioned that we should be thinking about this in a delayed, we should delay this until the solar ordinance is drafted, improved, and in place.

Sure.

First, let me say Bill Fritz worked with the community development office.

It's important to note that the work that I'm associated with right now, which is the development of an ordinance to address solar, would not impact the question that's before you today in any meaningful way, I don't think.

Because what you're being asked to do is find it in its consistency with the comprehensive plan and what the work I'm associated with is the zoning ordinance.

The work that Mr. McDermott talked about with the work on the comprehensive plan, which is a separate project, that will be the component that could provide the additional information in the comprehensive plan.

Special use permit process will help to address many of the questions you have about visibility.

Does it change the character of the district?

And you can, through the zoning ordinance, come up with better ways to determine how do you determine change in the character of the district or whether or not it's consistent with the purpose and intent of the district.

So those, which is the majority of the review, and especially is permit in my mind, that's what's going to change, but not the consistency with the conference plan.

Got it.

That does help.

Yeah, and I actually have one follow-up too.

Okay, so this is for counsel.

So counsel, a number of times we've heard about pausing and I've taken that this is no different than when people come to us and say, please pause consideration of XYZ project until you have better roads.

And so I'm assuming, and I'll listen to you, that we're in a similar situation here.

Well, this is a little different than some of the other projects that we've discussed, because with those projects that would have been at the rezoning phase or the special use permit phase.

As Mr. Fritz points out, the objective tonight is to judge its compliance with a comprehensive plan.

And so you're left, for better or for worse, with a comprehensive plan that you have in front of you.

I'd also like to point out there's been talk about a deferral but under state law failure of the commission to act within 60 days of a submission unless the time is extended by the governing body shall be deemed approval.

So there's been talk of a deferral.

Yes, got it.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

One quick follow-up.

I think it was Commissioner Murray who brilliantly mentioned, let's see, it would be helpful to have a county-wide proactive look at strategic locations for these facilities.

Where is that going to be?

Is that in the comp plan?

That could be in both.

And the way we've listened to you and to the Board of Supervisors in crafting the criteria to review a special use permit, you can say things like,

I was working on that project too.

Solar facilities should not be located in areas that exhibit characteristic X. They should be located in areas that exhibit characteristic Y. So you can put that in the zoning ordinance and have that be criteria that helps you determine whether or not it's consistent with purpose and intent of the ordinance and all those other things.

You could have the same or similar language in the comprehensive plan also.

Got it.

Right.

And that's the plan is to have that review criteria.

Yeah.

Chair, I would caution us as we think about that since we were not really comfortable with saying where the development, if there was an expansion in the development community and the development land mass, where that should happen because of speculation.

That's a great point.

I think and also we can learn from other communities that are doing this as well and how they may have handled those types of sensitivity analyses.

Great.

A couple other thoughts and then we can just keep chatting or close it out.

So I appreciate that.

This is a really challenging spot to be in because I really feel aligned with a lot of the comments that we heard from the community.

I also know that many of those comments were mentioned and in some cases

verbally addressed, both in the comprehensive plan analysis that staff provided for us, as well as from the applicant.

I heard these things, and they were from both sides.

So I heard the applicant saying, we're going to handle this.

This is positive.

We've got this.

Don't worry about it.

It's buffered.

We've got it's appropriate, et cetera.

Heard that from staff, et cetera.

Heard from the community, the opposite.

and so the issues that came up, and this is just a few of them, view sheds, so doing a visibility analysis.

I really appreciated the comment about looking beyond the boundaries of this site, really thinking big picture in terms of what's visible.

Grading impacts, somebody mentioned bulldozers will be running all over the site, pushing dirt around.

I don't know what level of impacts will be on the grading.

We haven't really heard that, right?

It's been more

Historic sensitivities.

So thinking about sort of align more with what Commissioner Bivins was saying on that, but I think it is still an issue because it's, but I also believe that the size and scale of this is small enough to not really be impactful to the historic resources.

Water management, water quality, stormwater management, hazardous materials, safety, leaching, landscape plans, buffers, noise, local ownership, agricultural and forestal district.

What do they have to say?

And an opportunity, which we haven't seen, for the public to interact with the applicant to provide ways to mitigate some of these issues.

I also agree with the need for us to get to a point, and I know everybody's working diligently on that.

It's not meant as a critique, but to get to a point where we can be more proactive when things like this come before us as opposed to reactive.

And we're not there yet.

And so it's a learning curve.

So my tendency is to be more aligned with

I just don't know a lot of these things and I would like to have more information whether that more information comes through a special use permit or whether it's just provided some other way as part of the process moving forward.

I don't know how that looks or what the applicant would wish to do there.

My recommendation would be for a deferral to

or for the applicant to consider a deferral.

Got it.

Yeah, please.

I guess I just also want, I don't know if this is helpful, but if I have to just go on staff's finding in accord with the comp plan because it promotes our energy goals, then basically all solar facilities everywhere in Amar County should be found in accordance.

That's the logic that follows from that statement.

but that is not the case in my opinion.

And so therefore I have to consider the context of every single site.

I've also gone on record from this dais that I will never support a solar facility that takes away mature hardwood forests because the purpose is to help sequester carbon, which a forest does much better than a bunch of solar panels.

So, you know, this has going for it.

It is already disturbed forestry site.

The soils have already been highly disturbed.

Not as bad as that 660-acre site.

It actually looks pretty good in comparison to that.

And I didn't take any soil samples today, so I can't really say anything expert in that line.

But

I also want to mention that I am not saying that talking about rural and scenic character as a way to defend that plantation landscapes are my desired aesthetic.

I am making absolutely no judgment tonight about what is the proper rural landscape to gaze upon.

But I do know that people moved to this particular area of the county because they thought that they would have a certain agrarian view.

And I did too.

And I would be really sad if I had to stare at a lot of solar panels.

So again, it's all a context.

The site, I've only voted on two sites.

And I voted yes for both of them.

So I'm not against solar in rural areas.

But in both of those cases, there were compelling reasons why I felt that was a good use, and they were screened, and they were not

changing people's character of their landscape.

I don't know if this one is yet.

I can see there's some good screening on the site, but I just don't have enough information.

And I think, to your point, you used the word bifurcated, right?

And I think that the difference is, I'm sorry, the difference is that this is bifurcated, the other is, we're not.

But we've had to make the same determination in each vote.

Right, but we had all the information.

We had more information.

Right.

Yes.

Well, I was just going to say that I do also very much feel what you're saying in terms of this doesn't feel like enough information to say, sure, let's go ahead with the project.

This is my first time going through a solar proposal and the two-step process.

But my understanding of this process is that basically,

Do we want to consider this site at all and get some of those reports and some of those analyses and some of that information that we could then look at?

And if we've had other solar facilities and you know like it's sort of like saying is solar in the

county possible anywhere is sort of basically what we're asked tonight.

My understanding.

I don't think so.

Yeah, and I don't want to speak for everyone, but I don't disagree with that.

What I'm saying is if deferral were not an option, I don't have enough to say that that is a green light, that we would do that.

Here's my piece on the historic.

Everybody knows where I stand on that.

So if you're going to say about why you want something just because it's a house that was built after or it's managed to survive during the Civil War, that's not good enough.

having lived, as most of you know, in places that, you know, that like are hundreds of years old, not, you know, so from the 1300s.

That has a bit of a push up for me, but a house that just managed to survive the civil war, I'm not feeling too hippie-skippy about that.

But when you tell me that you found, for instance, there's that wonderful community, it's not there for a reasonable reason, if you tell me that what we're doing is we're impacting quality row,

Quality what?

I'm sorry.

Quality row.

If you haven't seen it, you need to go see it.

Now you're talking to me about a group of people who worked hard on the quarry that was there, and we're going to preserve their homes.

Same thing.

Then we get a little bit to Esmont too, because that was sort of the commercial area of that whole thing.

But telling me that we're talking about a house that's now a wedding venue, I'm having a real hard time seeing how that's something that should stop adding power to the grid.

I'll just add one thing too that may be helpful for context moving forward.

I fully support solar in rural areas.

I do believe that with proper mitigation, this site would likely be a good site for solar.

And if we say that we're gonna be really super restrictive for reasons that are more subjective,

That might be the case, but I would probably lean towards, you know, with appropriate buffers, et cetera, et cetera, and with the goal to pursue renewable energy that we look favorably on these types of projects, assuming the information is there for us to understand it.

Less qualitative, more quantitative.

Can I just tag on real quick?

I know that a feeling of a landscape or an aesthetic is highly subjective, but you can do a viewshed analysis where you take a, this is what I do for a living, from this point, and you can shoot that way using GIS and spatial analyst and all these cool tools, and you can see whether or not from this point you would be able to see that.

So we can get

If you will, quantitative or actual measured indication of what could be seen.

And so it's not just going to be up to, I feel like I could see through that.

I'm actually very supportive of that.

So when a site comes, I think part of when we start talking about zoning that we say we want to see a site review.

We want to see that kind of site review.

We've talked about having a conversation about slopes and what's a

What was a manufactured slope?

What was truly a critical slope?

And that some of the things that we've had to wrestle with over the years is it really isn't a critical slope.

When we finally dig in on it, it really is a managed slope that came because VDOT went and did something to the road.

It's a pile of rubble from a railroad construction.

Right, exactly.

But somehow or another, it's sort of mysteriously become

the precious slope.

And so I agree, exactly what you're saying is let's be consistent with these kinds of projects, whether or not it's in Southern Albemarle, it's in Western Albemarle, or as we had one of our dear commissioners, whether or not it's from Seminole Square.

Right.

I think what you're saying too, not in disagreement with that, but that it might be a great tool for this site, right?

Yes.

Yes.

I mean, there's some sites you can stand on and say, no, no one can see this, but this one is tricky.

The applicant did indicate they would like to request a deferral, and I believe we'll go with the direction from Mr. Herrick in terms of how we should properly do that if the commission wishes to make that motion.

Thank you.

Would anybody like to make a motion?

I'll make that since it's in my district.

Do I have a second?

I second.

Madam Clerk, would you follow the roll, please?

Yes.

Oh, sorry.

Now, would you call the roll?

OK.

Mr. Bivins?

Mr. Missell?

Aye.

Firehock?

Aye.

Mr. Murray?

Mr. Moore?

Aye.

Thank you, staff.

I think there was a question.

That was all my, enclosed in my be ready.

Great, thank you everyone.

We'll move on to committee reports.

The Rio CAC met last week and mostly talked about the, just got feedback on the multimodal development and land use proposals as part of AC44.

That was a large majority of the meeting.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other reports?

We didn't meet since the last meeting.

Mr. McDermott, thank you for being here.

Yes, I do.

The Board of Supervisors meeting on December 6th was primarily a work session on the budget with the schools, but in the evening, we did have some public hearings, two that were related to land use matters.

Excuse me.

Could you all take your conversations outside, please?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, no, thank you.

The first item was the addition to the Kinloch Ag Forestal District, which the Planning Commission had seen.

That was unanimously recommended for approval by the board.

And the other one was the fees, the fees, improvements or

fees updating and that was also approved by the board.

We will be going back to the board because unfortunately the with the approval it made that immediately applicable but we are trying to keep that to actually begin at the beginning in the next fiscal year so we have to go back to the board to make sure that that was correctly intended so there will be a follow-up on that one but

Great.

Yes, the AC44, as you heard, the team is continuing to go around and visit all the CACs to talk about these land use issues.

And at our next meeting on December 19th, there will be a work session to do some background information on the implementation of the land use and multimodal plan.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, they're up.

Those of us who are mailbox kids.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else on AC44?

No, I think that covers where we are right now.

Great, thank you.

I just wanted to say that I personally used the micro cat the other day.

Oh, great.

And very much enjoyed it.

I had to drop my craft mechanic and rather than walk home, take my life into my hands crossing 29.

Yeah, no, it's great.

It's great.

It worked like lifter Uber and it was free and the people who drove it and my co part of the fellow rider were friendly.

It's awesome.

Keep doing it.

Let's talk the city into expanding it.

I engaged in a little social media exchange afterward too and a lot of folks in the city were like, is this ever coming to the city?

We really want it.

I'd love to know at some point, I mean, I know it's really early, but I'd love to know how much ridership there is.

You and the chair, can I have that comment?

We have an update meeting scheduled with the, uh, with the contractor coming up, I believe it's next week, but very soon, maybe even later this week.

So once I get the, uh, an update on the ridership data, I can,

Great.

Well, thanks.

It was nice to know you had company because it's being used, right?

Yeah.

Great.

I want to say that we got together with our supervisors, what was it, last week?

Was it last week?

It seems like a long time ago.

I just want to sort of thank everyone for making that happen, even though I'm a mixed

Mixed intellect.

OK, well, that hurt.

That's just part of Julian's malapropisms.

The meetings don't go like this with Corey's chair.

I just want to say that.

No, I agree with you.

I think it was a great meeting.

It was very helpful.

Actually, one of the things that I asked about was, what's the timeline?

Correct.

Even January.

We are tentatively scheduled for the second meeting in January for Khaki and Stacy to come back and present on what their recommendations are for the developer incentives.

And then one month after that, so at the end of February, they would go to the board.

I don't know if this is the right, I mean we're just discussing it.

I will say I heard some compliments from the development community on that meeting and the appreciation of being engaged in that way.

And I found it really helpful to have them right there to respond.

I learned a lot.

And I mean, some of those comments I wanted to like say, tell me more, but it wasn't a tutorial for me.

Great.

Thank you.

I need to go have my birthday drink with myself.

All right.

No items for follow-up.