Planning Commission Work Session and Regular Meeting   1/23/2024

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

Thank you, Carolyn.

Good evening, everyone.

It is January 23rd, and I am calling to order the Planning Commission for this evening, and I will begin by establishing a quorum.

Yes.

Ms.

Great, thank you.

So we have an interesting evening as always.

I will start by opening up for matters, comments and matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

And I'd like to just make one comment.

for awareness.

Typically, as our first item on the agenda is a work session.

We typically do not have public comment during work sessions.

So I would suggest that if you are interested in commenting on the affordable housing developer initiatives, that you do so at this time.

So I will open it up for any comments from the public not listed on the agenda or the work session.

all right that seems like it's not uh it seems pretty straightforward thank you um so with that mr chair are there any online comments or madam clerk are there any comments online no sir no sir there isn't okay great thanks um we will now move on to the consent agenda and I'll ask if any commissioners would like to pull this item from the consent agenda for further review

The second?

Second.

Any discussion?

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Thank you.

with that we will move on to our work session affordable housing developer incentives

And if I may, Dr. Pethia, if I could ask you a question before we actually start to sort of frame the discussion and help us all to understand our best use of time and how you would like to see our comments provided.

Would you have any recommendations to us knowing that the Board of Supervisors meeting is coming up in about four weeks or so to review this?

Are there areas that you would specifically like us to focus on or ways that you'd like us to react to your information?

I'm sure Stacey Pethia, assistant director of housing.

Excuse me, I think really focusing on the core pieces which will cover tonight, not looking at the entire incentive package itself, but is is the amount of incentive enough is the time period for the incentive enough.

And I think those are those are the two main ones that we are really interested in.

And so I'm that we're happy.

Thanks.

I missed the first one.

You said incentive, time period.

A little more volume on her mic.

Great.

I will try to talk directly into it.

And I'm sorry, my throat's a little scratchy tonight.

So I will do my best.

So again, my name is Stacy Pathy.

I'm assistant director of housing, and we are here tonight to discuss affordable housing developer incentives.

And we're really going to cover a couple of basic areas tonight, so we'll do a little bit of background on how we got here today.

We'll go over the proposed incentive program goals, the type of assistance that will be provided, program eligibility to receive an incentive, and then some of the proposed program requirements, really focusing on the main portions.

This is just a timeline going back to when housing Albemarle the housing policy was adopted in July 2021 at that time the board delayed full implementation of the policy and we will get to which portions were delayed in just a moment but one of those requirements to fully implement the program the policy was to develop a package of developer incentives so after the

policy was adopted.

Staff held a series of meetings with local developers through June and October of 2021.

There have been a number of different proposals brought forward to the Board of Supervisors for review.

And then we did have

An ordinance was adopted in May of 2023 that enables the county to provide grants or loans for affordable rental housing.

And December 4th, which all of you attended a joint work session with the Board of Supervisors, some representatives from the development community to discuss what developer incentives would look like.

The information received during that work session really fed into what we will be discussing tonight.

again looking at housing Albemarle and the rental housing goals specifically the board had asked staff to not fully implement the policy until developer incentives were agreed upon and really we delayed implementation of three sections one was to change the definition of affordable rental housing from serving households at 80 percent of area median income to households at 60 percent of AMI

And then increasing the minimum percentage affordable units in the residential developments from 15% to 20% that 20% is really based on data approximately 20% of the households in the county have incomes that are around 60% AMI.

and extending the affordability period for rental units from 10 years that it is today to 30 years and that really helps ensure that several generations will be able to be served by those units.

Again, in May of 2023, the board adopted ordinance number 23-A21 that enables the county to make grants or loans for the construction of new or the rehabilitation of existing rental housing for persons of low and moderate income.

in order that the enabling legislation does require developers to provide 20% of the total units in their developments as affordable housing defined however the locality defines it and those units must be affordable for at least 10 years in order to take advantage of those loans or grants.

And so based on the enabling legislation and the feedback received from various work sessions, staff created a developer of an affordable rental housing grant program.

The program goals are to support the creation of affordable rental housing, to support the preservation of existing units of affordable rental housing through rehabilitation of those units.

to leverage market activities to advance the goals of the housing policy and to provide transparent and accountable stewardship of public investments in affordable housing.

The type of assistance that will be provided through this program is a rebate of the net increase in real property tax revenue over a 30-year term and the incentive will be equal to 11% of the annual tax increment.

In order to be eligible for the program, the project must be new construction, the expansion of an existing property, conversion of a property to residential rental property, or substantial rehab of an existing residential property.

It would apply to projects with more than 10 units, so 11 or more units, located within the development areas to make sure that the infrastructure is there to serve the property.

The applicant must have control of the project site at the time the grant is awarded and an approved rezoning if that is applicable.

And again, a minimum of 20% of the units must be provided as affordable housing.

Some of the program requirements, and these are really the main ones, in order, there will be an application process at the beginning, just so we have the information to make sure that the project really needs the assistance.

So they will need to demonstrate financial need, so those affordable units can't be built unless we provide the grant.

The maximum affordable gross rent set by housing Albemarle so that we need to demonstrate that those are in the development pro forma.

The affordable units must be dispersed throughout the building or development so we don't want them all clustered onto one floor or into one corner of a property.

The affordable units should be comparable in style and size to market rate units and again they should be affordable for a 30 year period.

And before I move on to questions and comments, I should say that based on feedback and discussions of the December 4th work session, the incentive will really incentivize that jump from the 15% affordable, which are already required to be provided up to that 20%.

Got it.

Wow, that was...

That was a lot quickly.

That's great.

Thank you.

So what I'm going to do is go around and ask folks to have specific questions.

If you don't have any questions for Dr. Pethia, we will have a time to discuss your thoughts and comments.

But let's start with just questions.

Okay, so two questions.

The first one is about the email that we received was a comment from one of the affordable housing providers about grants versus, you know, tax forgiveness or other forms.

Could you comment more on that?

Yes, so I actually brought with us a section of the enabling legislation.

It is very specific in that localities may make grants or loans to the owners of residential rental property.

We are not enabled to do tax abatement, so we need to structure this in a way that it's a grant.

Okay.

And then the other question relates to restricting the affordable, these programs to the development area, if I understood that.

I mean, I understand that we want to push development into the development area.

I get the whole, we don't need a lecture on that, but it's also the most expensive place to build and develop.

So I guess that's my question.

Now, for example, I had a while back

recommended rehabbing some houses in my district, and they were rehabbed, and that allowed people to stay in houses that were on the verge of being condemned.

And so that created affordable housing for people who couldn't fix up their homes.

I think it was like maybe a dozen homes got done, something like that.

So with that kind of program,

That's a substantial rehabilitation under this.

So for this particular incentive, staff does recommend it be limited to the development area since it is related to rental housing, which would mostly be multifamily housing, and that way we make sure that the public infrastructure is there to support the new units.

Okay well I know I'll one last note then in the comprehensive plan workshops that we've been having around the county one thing that came up in Esmont which is a community as you know they talked to several people there talked about wanting to have a diversity of housing types and and brought up the potential for townhomes or apartments or

you know other opportunities for people to not have to move away when say like, for example, they age or the kids leave the house or whatever, and they want to live in a smaller unit.

Yes, absolutely.

There's always going to be room to be flexible in these things.

And if this program does not work, we do have other... Can you guys hear me?

It's weird.

Sorry.

Okay.

Thank you, Commissioner Carrazana Stacy, thank you for the presentation.

So a couple questions.

Is the incentive only for rental affordable?

So not for homes that would be affordable, but for purchase.

Correct.

The enabling legislation is very clear.

We can provide public funds for the construction or rehabilitation of affordable rental housing.

If we wish to do, we can't use it to build home ownership opportunities.

So my next question has to do with a conversation that we started back in that joint meeting.

about what the percentage is actually realized versus what's proposed.

Now, I know that's much more acute under for sale versus rental.

The rentals, I think you get a much higher percentage.

But still, my question is, is the incentive based on what is proposed at 20% or what is actually realized from that development?

So let's say they only realize 15% as affordable.

But what if they're not realized as affordable?

So what if they don't fill them?

I understand.

Sorry, I was misunderstanding your question.

So we are actually, the staff is working on a process that we will have a waiting list for these types of units.

So when the units come online, developers will market those directly to people on the waiting list.

Great question.

Thank you.

Yes, so we currently have one additional housing staff person.

Okay, good.

And then you had a slide up here that said all the different types of construction that are permissible.

any renovation, rehab, new construction.

And then last question, I'm not sure if it's appropriate to incorporate this into this piece of legislation or it's a future thing, but I'm wondering how do we start to tie sustainability as part of an incentive to this?

If you're going into development area, you know, location near a bus stop or using environmentally sensitive materials, things like that, was that discussed?

So I do know the climate action team is looking at several different incentive programs for sustainability issues, and we have been in contact with them.

Good, good.

Pass.

Okay, Commissioner Bivins.

Thank you, Chair.

So if you could, it would be really helpful if you could give me an example.

So if I do a project that's sort of $50 million, and I do the 20% or 30, 20%, I do 100% just so that everybody's clear here, my project would be 100% affordable.

so how much money would I be able to come to you for a grant it would it would um the the grant would cover that difference so we're gonna have to go with 20 percent would be 20 of the 100 million 20 no 20 of the of the units is affordable so if it's 100 affordable we can look at a different uh funding stream so this is really focused on that 20 okay okay so thanks so so it's 20 of whatever the value of the project is I assume

It would be 10%, or sorry, 11% of the tax increment.

It's based on the real property tax.

Okay.

Of the entire property.

So you get the discounted value because you're doing 20%, you're getting a different value because there's a 20% reduction in the prices.

Okay, fine.

So that would be a really good thing to have.

I know you don't have examples, but I think if we're trying to attract, I can envision a time where it's just not a non-for-profit or a for-profit, but there might be a group of people who come together and say,

you know we're just gonna make we're gonna make this happen so in a similar sort of a similar way that a land trust might somebody might say we're gonna give land and we're also gonna build it or the count you know so something like so and so something like that and then I was trying to figure out one of my colleagues mentioned targets do we have any idea or do you have anything idea yet about how many units might be available for renovation

So that would be so in the development area, if we're looking to market this, you know, my whole idea is how do we get how do we get the market?

How do we get the community to know about these things?

So if there was a collection of properties that if renovated,

would qualify for these funds as opposed to having to depend simply on new development.

I don't have a good number, a handle on that number.

What I can speak to are the affordable units that we already have.

So those that would be low income housing tax credits.

I know that right now there are two properties that are coming up to their end of their compliance period.

So between those two, there's 250 to 300 rental units in there.

Okay, so I'm trying to give an example for my colleague at the other end.

Would the Meadows and Crozet, now granted that part of Crozet is in the development area, but it's, you know, sort of rural, wood fields and all that stuff.

Do you know that model?

So that model is something which does have that kind of scale to it, which could in fact be something that we would see in ESMA.

So the other thing for us, when we talk about crossroad communities, let us think about perhaps being that being a place that might be open to

this kind of affordable housing situation.

So if we talk about that, if Esmont becomes one of those places that we identify as a crossroad community, that we think about that being, because that would then help to maintain that kind of housing there.

And so the only other last thing that I had here, a question.

Do we have a sense that within, I think someone spoke to us last, or someone spoke on our commission last week about us really being in a regional housing committee.

Do we have a sense of what's going on among our cohorts with this kind of issue?

Are we leading?

Are we there?

I will say we're more familiar with the city activities than anybody else.

I know most of the other localities within the planning district are also updating the comprehensive plans at this time.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Bivins.

Thank you for the presentation.

Like Commissioner Missel pointed out, there's a lot of good information quickly and efficiently.

So a hypothetical, and this is just to better understand, I think I've got it with the tax incentive on this, but let's say there was a large rental development that had a property tax bill of $100,000 a year if it was all market.

Okay.

I'm not going to say yes or no.

That general idea is what we're after here.

Okay.

And then there's another comment from the affordable housing developer, Sunshine, who I just wanted to also ask.

At the moment, I don't have a good answer for that.

That would really require more discussion with the Finance Department.

The percentage that is included in the program now is really Department of Finance had done a number of calculations, and that's the percentage that they feel comfortable enough saying the county can forgo each year for each project and be able to balance the budget without

cutting any services and having the revenue to attract to serve new households because if it's new construction any new units are going to attract new households.

I looked at some numbers census data before I came here and there's approximately 47,000

units in the county, about 44,000 households, so 44,000 of those units are occupied.

But of the vacant units, only about 580 of those are actually vacant due to being for rent and just nobody rented them yet, or for sale and no one has bought it yet.

All of the rest of them are either rented, not yet occupied, purchased, not yet occupied, or they are seasonal.

properties.

So our actually unused units is like 1%.

I also had one other question and we can get to the discussion.

And this was the minimum of 11 units in a new development to qualify for this program.

And I was thinking about, and not that we have a lot of these, but if there's like small lots

where a developer comes to us and wants to build five townhomes or eight or ten and include affordable units in it.

Probably not.

We could probably find some way to do this, so we can look at it.

We chose the number 11 or more units.

Thinking about through the proffer system, we do ask for 15%.

Thank you.

Great, thanks.

I'm actually going to leapfrog off of that last comment because I had a question that was similar to that.

So if a developer, are we saying essentially that the development community has a choice here?

No, it is my understanding the board fully expects that the housing policy be fully implemented, and this is designed to help them get to that extra 20%.

So continuing on that line of thinking, you had mentioned in here that the board of supervisors reserves the right to set priorities among applications under consideration.

The board may reject an application if it does not provide the information requested or if circumstances change.

So have you thought about impacts of that statement to the development community?

In other words, if this is truly at the discretion of the board and the

The housing policy requires the increase to 20%, which all makes sense.

It seems like as a, you know, the development community might feel like there's no certainty behind these additional incentives.

I had not.

Okay.

So when you, I'll try to expand a little bit on it.

So if you are requiring, if the county is now weed, the county is requiring to go from 15 to 20 percent.

Just keep it at that.

And the incentives are designed to help the developers close the gap that is inevitable with that cost increase and the percentage increase.

Okay, got it.

Dr. Pethi, at the beginning, you asked us to focus on incentive time period and amount of incentives.

I'm curious, with your work, which has been immense over the last couple of years, I'm sure you've looked at other communities, and you've shared a little bit of insight into why 11%, why 11 or more units, and why 30 years?

How do you feel?

Yes, and yes.

We're really trying to fill a gap, and so we're not trying to make a developer whole for providing the 20% affordable units.

So I do feel that the incentive is enough.

And also the affordability period really is in line with low-income housing tax credit and other federal finance programs and the affordability period.

Great, that's helpful.

So the incentives really looked at the calculations we did across several scenarios.

It really looked at the annual rent revenue for a 100% market rate unit.

Then we looked at that same revenue, given 15% affordable housing, what that change would be.

So I guess the implication there is that as costs go up the rents will also go up and that will be incrementally tracking.

Just wondering, you know, circling back, some people have brought up the

the topic of renovation and you know the you know if there's substantial renovation I question you know would you be willing to consider for for renovation not new construction offering for less than 11 units I think that that would be something to think about we can certainly consider that the other thing too is is thinking about

That had not been considered, actually.

So if I can, let's push a little bit about how are the various ways that we can increase the affordable rental stock in Albemarle County.

Let me just see if I'm on this right.

So I could come in and say I'm going to build a project and I don't need the county.

So that's one way.

I just come in, the largest of my heart, I'm going to build some affordable housing.

You're welcome.

I could come in and say, I'm going to build something, but I want some more density and part of getting more density, I have to sort of toe the line on affordable housing.

At that point there, am I still allowed to write a check?

So if you tell me it's 20%

I could put 20% of the units in.

Can I say, County, you know, I only want this to be of liked income people.

Why don't I just write you the check for the rest of the folks?

And I could do that, and I would go to our thing.

Then the piece that we're looking at here is really the incentive piece.

So we've got some we've got some market things where people just come in and do it if that's what their heart desires.

We have some people who can come in and say, I want the density.

Here's your X factor for the density.

You know what?

I'm going to stroke you a check for that.

I stroke that check once and then I go off about my business and build it.

And then here's the piece that we're saying.

If you're somewhere in the middle and you want to do an affordable, you want to do a project and some portion of it, you want some portion of it.

It's not necessarily related to density.

because that's one piece this is just I want to come and I want to see if I can get a grant to do these units however many and it could be the it could be the buy right number of units on the piece of property but I want some piece of that to be affordable that's where this incentive comes in correct or through the rezoning or through a rezoning right so what I'm pushing at is that there are multiple ways to get affordable housing in our community

and some of them, this is one of the arrows in the affordable housing quiver.

I mean, so we've just put out three.

This is the one that the county has sort of said we're gonna put money towards.

And I think what the chair was pushing at, if we hit a period of time where the county's budget takes a dip, these funds aren't coming from revenue per se.

what the county is doing is forgoing funds.

All right, so they're forgoing funds.

And so as long as we're okay forgoing funds, much like we do when we let certain people opt their land into ag and forestal, the county goes, yeah, you knew I was gonna go there.

You should have seen it coming.

You should have seen it coming.

I'm glad you said it.

However, there,

they don't have to go to the finance department to say can I have my land to forest they can just say you know what i'm putting this land in some forest land right here, so my standpoint, this is actually this is actually I think a sound.

is a fiscally more sound project because it's geared towards the finance part of the organization saying this is how much we can afford and this is what the impact is going to be if we allow if assuming we go along with this.

Yeah, no, that's that's a good clarification.

I think the one thing about foregoing the funds that would otherwise come in, it still can impact the developer.

if they choose to say we do not want to forego losing those funds.

And that's where I just think it's a little bit of an art, right?

Where I don't know enough about the timing of this and a potential affordable development that gives me enough information to know how this all plays out, right?

So how far along would the developer actually get before they find out they can get this grant or not and how much money they've sunk into the project before they find that out?

I did have one other question.

I'm sorry.

Part of the requirements for the grant are the provision of financial information?

Yes.

And the first one says development budget with detailed project costs.

Most of the time we're going to have to go and trust that they did their finance their projections correctly right so most all programs like this do ask developers to submit their development pro forma.

Which includes the the projections of what it will cost annually to not just build it but to maintain it.

and manage it.

Got it.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Let's just do a quick round two and go back.

And this time we'll talk about general recommendations and thoughts that you might wish to pass along to the board.

And if you have any comments on incentive time period and amount of incentives this time, where did I start last time?

I think I started there.

I think it's a long process that is an important arrow in the quiver of arrows we have to work toward housing affordability.

I like a lot of things about it.

Again, I think some of the pieces about if we do more than 20% affordable, is there some other increase to that 11% tax, not abatement, but grant?

and also if there's some optional opt-in where a developer wanted to just sort of be a part of this with fewer than 11 units you know is that a possibility as well those are relatively minor questions I think overall it's a really nice idea I do think as the board continues its work I hope that we continue to

put those other arrows in our quiver into the bow and get ready to fire them.

And I think some of the things are pretty big ones, things like strongly considering upzoning the broad swaths of single family home limited units that we have across the development areas where R1 and R2 can only build single family homes, where we might consider upzoning all that to the equivalent of R4, much like the city has.

also looking at our boundaries of the development area, which we've talked about some here and there, and also looking at county land, where we might be able to build some homes for particularly public employees, but again, people who work for a living and make far less than the 123,000 AMI these days.

So that's my broad strokes comments.

Thank you, Chair.

So I am, everyone heard my gentle rant about thinking that the county should put funds behind rental properties and not ownership.

And so I'm very pleased about that, that that's where we're stepping out first, because I do think that's the place where we have the longest impact in making the housing stock affordable in this community is with rental units.

And so I'm glad about that.

One thing I didn't understand is that I think, and I tried to find the note, I have this note here about what happens

at each renewal.

So if I do 30 years and I want to continue for another 30 years, is that a renewal period that allows me to be the 11 of the halves to still take advantage of this?

Yes, we did not put that in there.

The thinking behind the 30-year period is that that's when compliance periods run out.

At 30 years, you're probably going to look to see renovating your units.

So, Chair, I think, you know, yes, there's pieces that can always be sort of

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I do think it'd be great if there'd be a way to weight this to encourage renovation over new construction.

Otherwise, I think a lot of this is great.

I do wonder what happens when this incentive program clashes with other comprehensive goals and incentive programs.

For example, imagine if you had an area in Crozet where you had a historic house or houses that would be, I'd hate to see an incentive given to tear down a historic house in order to build new affordable housing.

So, you know, how does that play?

It could be as simple as a one line in there in the policy saying consistency with the comprehensive plan, you know.

So that's another thing I thought there, you know, I think there's some larger conversations that could be had.

I don't support expanding the growth area, but I think there are some options that, you know, outside of this discussion about are there things that could be done in the rural areas in terms of different kinds of housing?

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I gotta say that everything that I would add has already been said, so I don't want to be repetitive.

I'll just add a plus one on the

looking at renovations and how we can incorporate that into the program, because there's a huge need, and that's about maintaining our current stock, which we know that we're losing current stock, so it's not always a net gain when we have new construction.

Great, thanks.

I agree with my colleagues and as we were talking I was on a more semi-humorous note thinking about my 20s and paying 50% of my income to rent and eating a lot of peanut butter and ramen noodles so I really appreciate anything we can do for our you know our next generation and it is true that student housing really drives up the cost of rentals around here and as someone who's an employer in the area and about to I'm advertising for several new jobs

what I think I've heard from information we got through emails and then also here is just as a recap sort of review the grant loan commitment between now and and the board of supervisors just to try to understand if there's language issues there with Virginia housing and how that all plays out just to make sure we check that box the question of shifting if the if the affordability increases incrementally

from 20 to 30% or to 40% just that issue as well and kind of smoking that out and understanding exactly what and if there are ways to add incremental incentives in that situation.

I think that this is an evergreen process right and just underscoring what I think Commissioner Moore was getting at which is lots of arrows right there's lots this is it feels like and I know you probably want it to feel like you've made a big checkbox here which you really have so congratulations and thanks for all the work I think we also realize this is an ongoing issue that will continue to have focus and I would just encourage us to not lose momentum as much as possible and I know you share that that same thought

and restoration over new construction being priority and then also consistency with the comp plan I think was a great add as well.

I think that's everything.

Any other comments from the Commission?

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ed is here to provide us a report.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Sid Shoff.

I'm a senior planner with the Albemarle County Planning Division and the Community Development Department.

Tonight, I'll be giving staff's presentation for ZMA 2023-114102 Dickerson Road.

This is a proposed rezoning of a 2.22 acre lot from rural areas to light industry.

The subject property of this rezoning is located north of the city of Charlottesville near the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport.

It is located at 4102 Dickerson Road, which is north of Airport Road, south of Chris Green Lake Park, west of US 29 North and east of the airport.

The tax map parcel is 32-9H and the entire parcel is approximately 2.22 acres.

It contains an existing one-story single-family dwelling unit and an existing detached garage.

The property is zoned rural areas and is shown as white on the map.

The parcels to the north and northwest are also zoned rural areas where the properties to the north are mostly single family residential, while the property to the west is the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport.

To the south and southeast, the majority of the properties are zoned light industry.

Lastly, the parcel to the east across Dickerson Road is zoned planned development industrial park and is owned by the University of Virginia Foundation.

And then lastly, the Airport Impact Area Overlay District also affects this property due to its proximity to the airport.

The subject property is located within the community of Hollymead and the PLACES 29 Master Plan.

The future land use designates light industrial, which calls for manufacturing from prepared materials, processing, fabrication, assembly, and distribution of products.

For this application, the applicant is requesting to rezone the entire 2.22 acre property from rural areas to light industry.

If the rezoning were to be approved, this is a concept plan of what the future site could look like.

The applicant's proposing for the existing home and garage to be utilized as office and storage space.

Both structures currently meet the light industry setback requirements for front minimum setback of 10 feet and the side and rear setback of 50 feet if it is adjacent to a parcel that is zoned rural areas.

The ordinance also requires a 30 foot use buffer if it is adjacent to a district that is not commercial or industrial.

The applicant will be required to provide a 30 foot use buffer that consists of landscape screening along its northern property line to meet this requirement.

Additionally, the concept plan illustrates a proposed parking area and proposed one story warehouse.

These would be subject to a site plan review by internal and external staff to ensure all codes and regulations are being met.

Currently the site is one of six parcels in this area that's located in the development area that's not connected to the Albemarle County Service Authority jurisdictional area for water and sewer.

The site is currently served by Well and Septic Systems.

This is a map provided by the Albemarle County Service Authority that illustrates the existing water and sewer connections in the area.

The subject property is highlighted as yellow in the northwest corner of this map.

and the closest connections to water and sewer are approximately 700 feet away.

Per County Code Subsection 18-26.2, a special use permit could be necessary if the site is not served by public sewer or water and it consumes more than 400 gallons of water per site acre per day.

In sum, there are two factors favorable.

The first, the request is consistent with the county's growth management policy and the recommendations in the Places 29 master plan.

The second is that impacts to neighboring properties are not expected.

There's one factor that's unfavorable, and it's that the property is not connected to the Albemarle County Service Authority water and sewer facilities.

With that being said, staff recommends approval of zoning map amendment request ZMA 2023-11-4102 Dickerson Road.

And I'd like to open this up for any questions from the Planning Commission.

Great.

Thanks.

Great presentation.

Expanding the ACSA jurisdictional area?

Is Rebecca here?

Hi, Rebecca Ragsdale, planning manager, and I've been assisting Sid with this review.

apologize for any audio issues.

So the Board of Supervisors would have to amend the jurisdictional area to authorize water and sewer service.

This is a kind of a unique spot in the development area where we have a gap.

Typically, most of the development area is designated for water and sewer service.

So it would be a Board of Supervisors action to update that jurisdictional area map to first authorize the water and sewer service and

That they examine this as an area for expansion of the service area?

Well, the Planning Commission could, but that's not really before the Planning Commission.

I mean, the process, as Ms.

Bragsdale indicated, is really a Board of Supervisors issue rather than a Planning Commission issue.

But the Planning Commission is free to make whatever recommendations it feels appropriate.

Correct.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

I have a question.

In the illustration, it says the setback has to be 50 feet from the property, but then there's this proposed gravel parking lot that goes all the way to the edge.

Yeah, so I can go back to that slide as well.

Yes, that's correct.

I will make sure the applicant does that then.

Any more questions?

So I noticed that there are vehicles on the property in that parking area right now.

And so perhaps when the applicant comes or whoever's representing the applicant, they can tell us what those vehicles that are there now.

And then here's this other piece that just continues to confound me.

And so you've managed to do a really good presentation, but also to confound me.

So nowhere in our ordinances

nowhere in our ordinances is anything that defers or gives legal power or legal standing to Monticello about its viewshed.

Counsel, am I correct on that?

So the only area in which the Monticello viewshed comes up is in the acquisition of development, excuse me, the acquisition of conservation easements program.

It's not a factor in rezoning applications.

So I would appreciate it if we could come to a point where we no longer say, we no longer say that a piece of property is or is not in the Monticello viewshed.

because it does not matter, and nor should it matter at this point.

If it's something that the supervisors would like us to do as a county, then they should go ahead and put that the Monticello viewshare should be part of the county ordinances, just like the water, just like you have to have a certain amount of setbacks from the edge of your property.

But right now it's a thing that has an impact on the development and the built environment in our county that I don't think that an organization that's got over $300 million in assets should be given for free.

When you have $15 million worth of revenue in 2022, you should not be given the right to say what the built environment is for free.

When I lived in Manhattan or in a place that was more urban, if an organization wanted, and you're getting this, but this is not about you.

This is about the text here.

If an organization wanted to deal with an air right, it bought the air right.

Air rights have value.

And an organization that's sitting on over $300 million worth of assets has the opportunity, has the assets to buy viewsheds if that's something that they feel that they should preserve.

So I would ask, as I ask whenever I see this come on here and I have my little push button on this, that we stop saying this is in the Monticello or not in the Monticello viewshed because it is not relevant

when someone comes before us for any kind of special use, ZMA, anything like that.

I think this is appreciate the heads up on that and the comments.

I think it might be a good thing for us to talk about as with staff and continue to have that dialogue.

So thank you.

Any other questions?

No?

Great.

Okay.

Well, with that, I will open up the public hearing and look to the applicant for their presentation, if there is one.

And as you're coming up, just as a reminder, you will have a total of 10 minutes.

The light will stay green.

My name is Darren Jackalone, and I'm one of the partners of

4102.

I also own the property next door 16 years ago that we rezoned to Light Industrial at Rooftop Services Office.

So basically what's happened is the guy next door, there's a family living there, it's all in well and septic just like our property is as well.

He wanted to sell.

We offered to purchase it and that's what we've done and with the intent of trying to rezone it

to expand our business.

Basically, it's, you know, contractor home improvement.

We're not looking to manufacture anything.

We're not looking to, you know, we don't use a lot of water in our, you know, their house has two front doors.

It's really kind of unique.

at this particular point we're basically looking to just convert the house into office space which would probably be four offices the garage use it for storing materials some equipment potentially put a warehouse in the back again for just storing you know it's a contractor whether it's a landscaper or something of that nature

it's been a challenge to stay in Albemarle County I mean everybody else is going outside so it's kind of like I want to kind of stay here it makes sense to okay it's if you rezone it it kind of increases the value of the property I've got to run a business there I'm going to pay taxes there it kind of helps anybody and everybody obviously we you know we have to stay below the airspace for the airport and things of that nature okay it's just a matter of

trying to have more space for I'm going to probably expand our business into solar shingles and the gutter division over there and then potentially expand it, you know, rent out part of the building and warehouse to other contractors that might I can try to keep in the county.

So that's pretty much the long and short of it.

you know I'm on you know it's on well and septic now I mean four people were living in the house um what's the water usage basic on four people living in the house when you have a washer dryer you've got dishwasher you've got showers and then I have three people going to be in office okay even if I went to 10 people in office they're still not going to use the amount of water that you have in a single-family home I mean so that's kind of where we're at at this particular point so great

Thank you.

So I did reach out to the service authority and they basically said, okay, this is what it's involved.

You got to hire an engineer.

This is the drawing.

You're going to have to hire an engineer.

They'll work with the county on getting it approved.

Once it's approved, then you need to get estimates on contractors to do all the work.

You're easily a hundred thousand dollars for me to get water and sewer brought over to my property.

I mean now I have one and a half over there but yes the neighbors would like to have water but once I tell them how much it's going to cost right I'm on my own and why you know do I need to pay the hundred and hundred fifty thousand to get water over there and then other people I mean it's just

so my take is it's almost like if I if I need to do it if I'm if I'm manufacturing product that I need an excess amount of water or I'm going to be using a lot of sewage then it would kind of make sense but I'm not so sure for a hundred thousand dollars so great thank you any other comments no awesome so before you go any questions for the applicant uh yes

Mr. Rivins.

So good to see you.

So the vehicles I saw now behind the property, they had your logo on it, which was what we went, well, this is a different guy than rooftop, but okay.

So that is, you are part of that.

Yeah, we just put a couple vehicles over there.

Okay.

So in your fabrication, for instance, I know you do metal roofs.

Where do you do those?

So my point for that is that anything that you manufacture now, you do it within an enclosed environment.

The answer you're looking for is we take the trailer to the job.

I'm Thomas Martin.

I'm half owner of the property.

I think

We take the trailer to the job site and we don't make the metal, we just roll it into a different form and put it right up on the roof at the homeowner's house.

We get sheets of metal and we fabricate it and make up flashing components for the roof, but besides that, yeah.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the Commission?

All right.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

I'll now open it up for any comments from the public attending in person.

All right, seeing none, Madam Clerk, is anyone online?

so chair can I just clarify with staff so it's just is under on page six and thank you for for paginating your pages that's very helpful thank you for that oh I say I mean we know sometimes the pages on pages is very helpful come on now

man I'm getting old I need a page um so when you say staff has identified the following factors which are unfavorable to this request you're not am I am I correct in saying that you're not suggesting that that's a condition of the of the Planning Commission saying yes to the request that was that's just an observation as opposed to oh okay that's all I was trying to figure out but please I'll listen I'll listen

yes that is correct that gets to your point that this is not a condition of having public sewer public water coming to the place it's a recommendation that it's a recommendation that particularly if if if if Rebecca is saying that there's a bigger project coming there that that may get swept up into it so we can say yes

Great.

I'll make a motion.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Great.

And please know, that was not directed to you.

All right, we will move on to public hearing item B, SP 2023-6, Arbor Life Tree Service.

And could I have the staff report?

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Kevin McCollum.

I'm a senior planner with the Planning Division of Alamar County Community Development.

I'll be giving staff's presentation for SP2023.6 Arbor Life Professional Tree Care.

This is a special use permit for a landscape contractor in the rural areas.

So first, just to give a little background, landscape contractors were added to the rural areas district as a use permitted by special use permit in September of 2020.

I believe this application before us tonight is the first Planning Commission public hearing for this type of use.

What that zoning text amendment did is add landscape services and storage of landscape materials.

in the rural areas on parcels of three acres or more as a use permitted by special use permit.

So landscape contractors who qualify as home occupations are still permitted, but this ZTA gave them an option to expand to a special use permit if they grew beyond what's considered a home occupation.

In that staff report, there were a list of items for us to consider when reviewing new landscape contractors, and that included things such as storage materials, building locations, setbacks, access to the parcel, anticipated traffic, hours of operation, and information on noise and smell.

The subject property is located at 163 Patterson Mill Lane.

It's just outside the Crozet development area.

Properties on the southern side of Interstate 64 across Patterson Mill Lane labeled 71-39 on the image is a VDOT owned maintenance and storage facility.

To the south and east along Patterson Mill Lane, there are some residential properties.

On the screen here is the existing condition sheet that comes from the application materials.

The subject property includes an existing metal farm building with a surrounding gravel parking area.

There's a fence along the front edge of Patterson Mill Lane and to the rear is Interstate 64 and an existing tree line.

Here's a Google Street View.

screenshot to show those existing conditions.

This is from the front edge along Patterson Mill Lane.

You can see that existing fence, the building, the gravel parking area that surrounds the building and 64 is just beyond that tree line in the rear of the property.

Here is the conceptual plan.

The proposal is a landscape contractor business that would use the existing building on the site for equipment and would have on site storage areas for vehicles equipment wood chips mulch and other large wood material.

The existing building will remain and they have added some parking spaces and have identified where those storage areas will be.

The applicant's narrative describes daily use of the property as a location where employees will arrive and park their personal vehicles before leaving the site in company equipment to use during the day.

So the associated equipment and storage materials will be kept on site, but a large majority of the work will actually be done off site.

So the special use permit was reviewed under the factors for consideration as outlined in the zoning ordinance and generally staff believes that the proposed landscape contractor will not be detrimental to adjacent parcels will not change the character of the nearby area is in harmony with the zoning district is consistent with a comp plan.

However, we do think there are a few conditions to ensure that these factors are met.

So we have proposed four total conditions.

I'll just go through them real quickly.

The first is the standard condition we use so that development of the property will be in general accord with the conceptual plan that they have provided.

This condition ensures that the buildings, parking areas, and storage areas will be in the same general location as they have shown on their plan.

The second condition is to ensure that proposed use will not have negative impacts on the abutting property to the south, which is residential.

So staff believes that the proposed landscape contractor use has industrial characteristics, and we believe the industrial use buffer requirements in the ordinance should apply.

So these are the same buffer requirements that Sid talked about in his presentation previously.

So this means a 50-foot building setback, a 30-foot use buffer, and any additional necessary screening along that property line of TMP 71-37J, so that property just to the south.

The concept plan that they have provided demonstrates that compliance with these regulations is feasible.

The last two conditions condition three is based on comments from the Virginia Department of Health and also building inspections and it's to require a bathroom on the property for employees.

The last conditions based on recommendations from our engineering division and it's to require a VSMP plan application that addresses all prior site disturbance that was done on the site incrementally.

So to conclude, staff has found the following positive aspects.

The proposed use is consistent with the comprehensive plan and no detrimental impacts to joining properties are anticipated.

Staff has no additional concerns that weren't addressed by our proposed conditions.

So to conclude, staff's recommending approval of this special use permit with the conditions as recommended in the staff report.

With that, that concludes my presentation.

Are there any questions for staff?

I also have

motions on my last slide.

Great.

Thanks very much.

Great report.

Any questions from the commission?

Thank you, staff.

I have two questions for clarification.

So excuse me if they're silly, but under the planning and zoning history,

The second item, the WPO, I just want to confirm that last sentence that says engineering is recommended, a condition of approval.

That's past history.

That's not for us today.

The recommendation of a new VSMP is how we got to the condition of approval that we're suggesting in the staff report.

Basically, my understanding is that

disturbance has occurred on the site incrementally, and all of those previous disturbances were under 10,000 square feet, so they did not trigger the need for an application.

That WPO plan, I believe, was for fill, but was not for the disturbance.

So

Okay, so it is applicable to right now then.

Yeah, so staff is recommending that there's adequate well and septic on the property for the employees.

The building was permitted as a farm building, so I believe there's no water or sewer connection.

And I agree.

I just didn't see anything.

Did I miss that in the conditions?

I saw septic.

Yeah, it just says septic.

Sure.

We can certainly add that.

Planning Commission feels that's appropriate.

I think, you know, VDH approval will be required.

I think in their comments, they had mentioned alternatives.

And this condition is really to address that we didn't want any half measures when it comes to toilets or, you know, bathroom facilities.

Mr. Ragsdale, did you have a question or comment?

So with conditions for special use permits, we don't want to duplicate anything that's already covered by another code.

So well and septic will be required in this case.

We didn't want any alternative measures for septic.

There aren't really any other alternative measures for

Wells, but we can clarify that.

That sounds great to me.

Thank you.

Can I ask a follow-on to that while she's there?

Like what?

So I think we thought that traditional on-site facilities were appropriate for a use approaching commercial in nature.

We can revisit the composting toilet, but it's not like a recreational use.

No, but like the composting toilets at Ivy Creek serve quite a few people per day and surely no more than what the contractors would be using.

Right.

So these are draft conditions.

And as always, you all have insights, like you said, that we need to consider.

Bart Swoboda, Zoning Administrator, Albemarle County.

So the composting toilets, if we get to that question, it's a disposal system approved by a permanent, approved by Virginia Department of Health.

That would qualify.

That would what?

That would qualify as a permanent system on site.

What we wanted to get away from was a pump and haul

and sure I understand but if we like so if we had composting toilets we don't need a septic field correct that would make sense as a condition right well as the condition so what I'm getting is the language in the conditions as a permanent on-site sewage disposal system which is either septic or composting okay so Lee also leaves them more options or let's say they do some soils work and there's other things that they need to do sure engineered system so that condition I believe covers everything

that you're concerned about.

It gives them the option to do any of those.

No, because we have other codes.

The USBC Health Department codes would require that we have a potable water source.

It's kind of hard to hear.

Great, thank you.

Yes, clarification on the question.

If you can go back, I think it's perhaps condition number two, or is that with the setbacks?

Yeah.

So,

Yeah, that's correct.

Correct.

The 64 is right-of-way, and that right-of-way is kind of along Patterson Mill as well.

So the only abutting rural area lot line is that one immediately adjacent to 7137J.

Okay.

Can I have a follow-up to that question?

Sure.

So the building setback and no parking closer than 50, they could still put piles of mulch closer to those setbacks, right?

Got it.

I don't, I think they can answer that when they come up to present, but we did have a community meeting.

I just want to underscore one thing that's pretty clear in the proposal it reads a landscape contractor that would utilize an existing building on the site so there won't be any additional buildings correct they'll be limited to what's shown on the conceptual plan they do show a smaller building their new 15 by 30 air building in the storage area

Oh, I see it now.

I missed that.

Okay.

Got it.

So that's a small shed.

Yeah.

And on-site storage areas for vehicles, equipment, wood chips, mulch, and larger wood material before transport.

Can you just, just so we're super clear, can you point those areas out?

Yeah, they're mostly on the eastern side of the building.

And in the southern side, there's a few, you know, parking spaces proposed.

Got it.

And then the new wood log, the new log storage area is in the front adjacent.

Yes.

And then the critical slopes are shown with the hatched area on the right, right?

I believe that's correct.

Good evening.

So it's Monica Madison.

Yep.

I have her presentation slides.

So just so you know, when you were looking at the other thing, property 37J is actually owned by the applicant as well.

So he owns that.

So that's the screening is not an issue.

And when the previous tenant was living there, she asked him to remove all bushes because she wanted her site of the mountain and she's 85.

So that's why there was no buffer because she asked for it to be removed.

Great.

So if we can, can we go to the second?

Sorry, Kevin.

So this just shows you the context of the neighborhood.

So you're looking on the first top corner is 250, looking at 64.

And then to the right, you see the little country road, that's Patterson Mill.

Here's the approach up to Patterson Mill for 163.

And then obviously on the right is

164, which is in the picture that you see at the bottom of the screen on the left, that's VDOT's maintenance facility.

And then the little black fence with the driveway, that is 37J.

so this just shows you the context of what's going to be occurring in the neighborhood so the red dot represents the future park and ride that's supposedly a coming and you can see the proximity to 71 slash 37 K so that kind of changes the context there's really only one residence the very first thing when you approach Patterson mill is a church and then there's one house before you ever arrive at 7137 K or 7139

Housing doesn't really start until after that.

And this just shows you if you're not familiar with the park and ride it's going in the little V dot strip and it doesn't have a like tax map parcel thing.

So this shows you the building and aerial view and then the other side the aerial view of the V dot property.

and this gives you a better concept of what's at the building now.

So it really is just a barn that houses the equipment for

Arbor Life and secondly it's it's a barn it has electric but there is a well on site but the reason they're not doing the bathrooms is because it's it's not conducive to put a typical toilet in that facility it's almost cost prohibitive and I had discussed with Commissioner Murray last week about that being one of the obstacles and secondly in looking through all the stuff I reached out to VDH and the BRDH you reached out as well

so in one of the slides you can see the letter but I made copies because it printed out small so they were giving me options on septic

things that I could do being composting toilet or the pit toilet, etc.

But we do have an agricultural well.

Secondly, we only have six employees who actually arrive at the site.

So when you look at the OSHA code for quote unquote mobile workers, it's not required by OSHA to have a bathroom on site.

and their office where they check in is less than a quarter of a mile and then obviously because he owns 37 J if they really needed to that's less than a 10 minute walk it's not even 300 feet so that's an option.

And this is the letter from the Blue Ridge Department of Health and if you want your own copies i'm happy to pass those out which like your copy.

Great.

Thank you.

Can we just get some, because of the microphone going in and out?

Yeah.

Did I hear you say that?

Yes, that's correct.

It's titled under his business name, but it's the same person.

Okay, fine.

37J?

Three structures there.

Three structures.

Okay, there's two driveways.

One driveway goes all the way back to something that's called 37J1.

So there's one section.

And they're all existing structures, so what's your question?

You mentioned that if somebody had to go to the bathroom, which one are they going to?

No, it's not obvious.

Three structures.

Okay, and so, and that's also where you said that the

you're you're hoping not to have to put anything on that property line because the resident of 37 J has asked for not for there not to be any trees correct although now currently the resident is no longer living there because she's 85 she decided to move into a retirement center okay so now it's unoccupied we can go back to putting trees on that insisting that there are trees on that property line right

I don't know that is it required that would be the question that will be that will future right that'll be in the future but right now I'm just trying to figure out if I have to go to the bathroom and I come there where do I go okay because you're asking us you're asking the you're asking the commission to look at some bathroom options correct one of which is just to go a little bit down to the next piece of property and go

one of the staff has said that we should have a facility on the property and you're asking if you check the VDH they gave me options I think one of the options that came from Allen at the Virginia Department of Health was a pit which is like the composting toilet or what's at the public parks that was an option because if you look at the context of what the site was previously it was a dump and fill site before the current occupant bought it right

I'm not I'm not suggesting a septic system.

I'm just trying to I'm trying to sort of sort of bring together what staff is recommending what we had from our zoning administrator director saying that you could have a compostable toilet there.

Yes.

I also might add and I don't know if I don't honestly know if it's our position to determine whether or not a toilet is necessary.

I think that's something that would be determined I would think by code in terms of the requirements for the for the

Guessing.

You mentioned OSHA requirements.

So I did look it up with them because when they're mobile workers, it's been very questionable.

So they said that when they have the option, they can drive or transportation is readily available and long as it's within less than 10 minutes, then it is not required for a mobile crew.

There is no office.

It is merely a barn.

Let me push on another question.

If there's not going to be offices, why do we care about what the parking situation is?

Well, they have to go and leave their car and pick up the equipment.

I guess my point is, I'm just not sure, maybe it is, and maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but I'm not sure it's our responsibility to determine the need for a restroom or not.

What we're saying here is that one of the conditions would be to review and approve a permanent on-site sewage disposal system.

I think, is it

I linked both comments from building inspections and Department of Health in the staff report.

Basically, building inspection comments were

this is going from a farm building use to a commercial use of bathrooms required they're open to whatever VDH can approve got it VDH I think has sent some options that staffs considered but I think staff is going one step further to say you know we think a permanent on-site

well and septic system is appropriate in our eyes.

Got it.

In my opinion, relying on off-site bathroom when you don't know, you know, if that property to be sold, you would no longer have an, you know, available bathroom.

So I think having a bathroom on this property would be appropriate.

Thank you.

So I wonder, I mean, obviously,

You can go and then I'll go.

Okay, so obviously we can't change the scope of this application, but I am kind of curious as to if if this permit was to encompass was encompass J, then don't all these problems go away?

I mean, the buffer goes away, the bathroom situation goes away.

We did consider it after acquisition.

So, but I would leave that up for the owner to discuss.

You're in something really important.

So, yes, we did consider joining 7137J with 7137K, and that would solve a lot of issues.

But that would be for the owner of Arbor Life to make that decision.

You probably would.

It's a reapplication.

Yeah.

Mr. Murray, you good?

It wasn't really a question.

It's just a just a comment.

I just

You know, where I'm sitting, I understand that, okay, I'll just make one quick comment.

We can't really consider the use of the bathroom on the adjacent property because we can't condition an approval of one site on a separate site.

It doesn't matter if they're different owners because the owner could sell one of them and then they would not be in a necessarily favorable to running back and forth.

So I'm not even considering that.

but I would say that I'm also sympathetic to the owner that doesn't seem like a place where people are spending time hanging out they're coming they're getting a piece of equipment and they're leaving so and it's a small business and this isn't you know it can be an expensive overhead item to try to add so where I'm sitting I don't think that we need condition number three

So I'm not in the same boat as this whole conversation has been how to accommodate the bathroom and I don't believe that we need one.

I do.

Great.

Can you talk a little bit about what's being stored?

Yes, sir.

So the office sits on 1146, their office, but they're currently located on 250, and they've been there for over 27 years.

So it's not the German Gap.

It's the 250 lot.

Okay.

Fine.

Great.

Any other questions for the applicant before we go to public comment?

All right, seeing none, thank you.

Appreciate it.

We will now go to public comment, and I have a sign-up sheet that has three names on it.

Forgive me if I mispronounce your name.

We will start with Roger Willits.

And the next person will be, so you can be ready, I believe it's Miles Bernson.

Roger.

Sir, if you could state your name and you'll have three minutes.

That'd be fine.

Members of the commission, I'm Roger Willits.

I'm Mr. Babers, former father-in-law, but he and I remain close friends and business associates.

I think some of you have probably seen the existing lot on 250.

And a couple of things I think are important.

This is an equipment shed only.

He has eight employees, which is a high number, and they will go to the spot, pick up their equipment, and go to the job.

At times they have helpers that are on the truck, but basically they pick up the equipment there.

There's not going to be any chemicals there, and I hadn't thought about the ADA regulations, but I don't know that he...

as a general practice has anybody that would require you know a handicap accessible situation but anyway and this is really a I think the best way to say is basically a tree operation I mean that's kind of landscaping he doesn't do the same sort of thing that say Waynesboro Nursery does and so I guess to the the real point is

if we have to have a restroom facility we did contact the health department and they did say a pit privy would be a acceptable remedy if you didn't have a septic system so that's kind of where we are as a cost item it would

I can't say it's cost prohibitive, but to put in a septic tank, et cetera, et cetera, drain fuel, and so forth, because we're expecting the guys to get to work and get on the job.

And they know that.

And the office facility and that sort of thing is another location.

Thank you.

You got it.

Thank you.

Yeah, Commissioners, Miles Bernson at 243 Patterson Mill Lane in 313 Patterson Mill Lane, which I own under the ACE program.

So I've lived at 243 about 10 years now.

You know, Roger's a great member of the community.

I support everything he's doing there.

And one thing that hasn't been brought up in this is

when I moved in in 2014 to the current property so just below those other buildings we talked about it kind of a historic house right there the lot was kind of a mess Rogers cleaned it up over time he recently put the building in and effectively put a nice fence did some landscaping so the facility looks amazingly different it's a much different

view shed when you drive down the street now.

Much cleaner, much well put together.

He's also kind of put the screws to VDOT because VDOT used to keep their facilities sloppy, and now they see him kind of looking sharp.

They look sharp.

I mean, really, I have no concerns.

I like the residential area between my property and his property.

We share a lot of border area.

You know, the bathroom situation, I work from home a lot.

I actually closed my office here in town during COVID and work remotely.

There's nobody at the site except in the mornings to drop something off.

So the bathroom thing's a non-issue.

You know, I work for a contractor and a developer, a solar energy company, an international company, and like our crews go in and out all the time.

Like that's all they're doing is going, swapping out, picking up cars.

picking up vehicles.

And he's a great neighbor.

He helps out his neighbors.

We had a tree fall in my daughter's playset.

He was the first person to show up and remove it.

So no questions asked.

So thanks again.

Great.

Thanks very much.

Okay.

It's late.

I get 15 minutes, right?

No.

All right, my name is Blair Turner.

I own the property that's directly across the street from Roger or, well, VDOT's directly across the street, but I'm sort of encapsulated around them and touch Patterson Mill Road on the left and the right.

And my property goes to Burchess Creek Road on the west side of the property.

And yes, as the previous speaker just said, the property looks the best now that it's ever looked in my memory anyway.

We're very happy about that.

but I think my understanding of what's going on here is Roger has a business which he's spent most of his life building it's one of the best businesses in the area as you you probably know very well respected person he's also somebody that has helped numerous charities again and again and again in the area and someone that if you have a problem trust me because I've been there

You can call him.

It'll come down and help you no matter what he's doing and what day of the week it is.

So I think there should be some consideration to people like that that have been here in the community their entire lifetime.

And I have too, and I've seen a lot of what I think this special use permit is all about, which is to try to help get some of the commercial

vehicles that are being parked, I guess in the county's words, illegally around the county, various contractors that are parked at their residences, workers come there in the morning, then they take the work vehicles and go to work.

So my understanding is this is one of the first attempts to try to get one of these special use permits in force, and we have a good willing candidate here that wants to do it.

and would seem to me that would set a very good example for the rest of maybe the work committee and help you all get these special permits in force that you obviously want to have.

Just to add a little bit of color to this street, VDOT maintenance facility is directly across from his property, which if any of you have been out there to see that, you know it's not pretty.

On the back side of his property is 64.

So there's really not much use for this little sliver of land.

I think he's found the best use for it.

And then finally, I mean, maybe most importantly, we're going to alleviate some truck traffic off of 250 around Western Albemarle and Brownsville Market, which any of you like me that live there go there in the mornings and afternoons.

It is really bad.

so in my opinion this is certainly a win-win for everybody and I strongly urge you to um to accept this from it thank you great thank you Mr. Turner that 15 minutes flew by by the way um I will open it up now to any additional public comment that might be in the audience all right being none madam clerk are there any online

Okay, great.

Thank you for the reminder.

So let's back up and ask the applicant, would you like to address any of the comments that were shared?

Great.

Thank you.

Now we'll come back to the commission.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

Any thoughts on the next approach to this?

I'll throw one out to consider as we look at the conditions.

The one that everybody seems to be focused on is number three.

So I would, I'm still personally trying to get my head around the role of the Planning Commission as it relates to this comment.

I understand where the county's coming from and the Virginia Department of Health's comments that were included as well.

My question is, is it reasonable to somewhat soften that language so that it's still a consideration, but that it is not an absolute requirement as a condition of site plan approval, but that there is a review of of the situation that's there.

Commissioner Russell, thank you.

I had a similar thought.

You know, could we change that to something like, you know, the review of human waste disposal by VDH, whatever, something like that.

Then I was thinking about, I was like, you know, it's a business who has to comply with VDH regardless.

Well, they are going to have to comply with being a commercial building, having some sort of restroom facility.

I think you've heard staff speaking.

The one thing that they're worried about is Pump and Hall.

It sounds like there's a fairly wide range of what falls into what might be acceptable.

I think they're just really trying to stress that one point.

And of course, you should go all right to liberalize that further.

Yeah, thank you for the clarification.

I did look up also the there's a prohibition on permanent pump and haul situations for employment places.

So I understand that.

I was just thinking about it's almost as if including that clause in here is sort of redundant if it has to happen with VDH anyway.

Excuse me, I was getting distracted.

The question was, please.

I want the answer, though.

I mean, like, the business is going to have to comply with VDH anyway.

I was just wondering, it almost seems like Clause 3 is somewhat redundant.

That sounds like a logical, logical statement there.

All right, sorry.

Bart Swoboda, zoning administrator.

if there's potable water that's required by code then a septic system or disposal of that potable water is going to be required so one of the things to remember is this is going from a farm structure to a commercial building an example would be that's why we're showing that that's why the handicapped space is on there right that's not optional that's part of the building code when that becomes a commercial structure so the other things that apply there would also require

I would have to defer to the building official on whether or not that the bathrooms would be required.

So regardless of what OSHA states, either the health department, the USBC and the zoning ordinance only allows two types of systems, which are conventional and alternative types of facilities for waste disposal and individual lots.

So the way they're defined talks about health department approval.

So the pit privy potentially could be an alternative system.

The system that's at ICNA, the composting facility that's there, it's not really a composting toilet as an individual system, but also point discharge systems are prohibited unless you're a sewage disposal provider like the service authority.

We don't usually enumerate things that are already required in the building code in our conditions.

So why would this be any different?

Mr. McCollum can correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe this came out of discussions with the applicant about a port-a-john, which is not a permitted type, and also a pump and haul, which is used for emergency purposes under VDH regulations.

If it's a permanent pump and haul,

and that is something that the Board of Supervisors is responsible for.

Permanent pumping halls are not issued to individuals.

They're issued to localities.

So I believe that was an attempt to clarify some of the confusion and requests that the applicant may have had regarding whether a system was required and who is the ultimate authority.

Basically, can the county override, say, a state regulation, vice versa?

yes anything great thank you sir I think we have it must be heard Ms.

Well, sir, I just wanted to comment a little bit about this issue a little bit, too.

I mean, you have a park and ride.

This can be nearby, right?

Is the park and ride going to have a bathroom?

I don't know.

I've never seen one.

Well, it seems to me that this is the agricultural, this is the equivalent of a park and ride, right?

Well, I guess because the park and ride is just a parking lot, whereas this is an actual commercial structure.

So it's interesting when you look at the land use value, not that we can determine what's agricultural, obviously someone's already done that, but in the land use valuation regulations, it includes horticulture under agriculture.

Yeah.

And so this is a horticultural enterprise.

So I do question why we're treating this as not agricultural when it is, you know, I talked before about the importance of, you know, when we look at the rural area and the need to have some sort of zoning or at least comprehensive plan designation for agricultural support.

This is a great example of that.

This is an agricultural support industry, right?

So so I think

So I do question, you know, like, should we be treating this?

We're trying to take this and we're trying to put it into a bucket that's sort of like our commercial bucket or industrial bucket.

And it isn't really any of those.

And I think that that's part of the struggle here.

Yeah, I agree.

Well, I think staff struggled a little bit with that too, right?

This really is a, I'd rather see agricultural support in that area.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's a special use permit for a landscape contractor, not just saying a commercial building.

yeah yeah I mean I would like to see more I mean we were really bleeding you know one of the things you're working with the native.

things some of the things with native plants trying to encourage more use of native plants, one of the things we've found is that nurseries are disappearing and the county horticulture is disappearing as a as an occupation in this area because.

and at what point do we want to do we want to encourage sort of light industrial or non sort of service oriented in the financial services kind of thing to leave the county and you know I think that's part of what's being wrestled with yeah this is this is sort of a legacy building a legacy business and you know everyone can speak

can speak glowingly about the owner of the legacy bills.

But speaking glowingly about Roger Baber is not the issue here.

The issue is if this were by somebody who was despicable, would we still want to have this kind of business in this location?

And I think the answer to that, at least to me, is that.

particularly if we're if I'm moving on a little bit if we're also talking about making sure that the setbacks given that there's residential to the further down Patterson Mill Road that there in fact is a is is in fact a delineation between this commercial activity and where that sort of the borderline begins or where where the where the use changes to a residential and then to a more intense residential use after that

I'm buying you time here.

I'm buying you time.

Mr. Consultation is done.

Oh, yes, that's what we wanted to look like.

There's a Western look.

That's your Western view.

So as Commissioner Firehock indicated, it's not staff's practice to put conditions or to restate conditions in special use permits that are already required by other agencies.

And in this case, any sort of restroom facilities would be subject to VDH approval.

Staff does continue to recommend that portable toilets and pump and haul not be on the property.

So that is so prohibition on portable toilets and pump and haul would be above and beyond what VDH would require.

So it's staff's continuing recommendation that at least the second sentence of condition three remain.

Okay, I guess my only comment on that third one is just to make that a complete sentence.

Correct.

I'm sorry.

I'm very tired.

All right, great.

We have a consensus.

And if so, does it?

You're striking the first part of three.

Oh, just, I mean, I think, you know, I think requiring, you know, having a landscape buffer of some kind, that's fine.

But maybe, you know, typically what we're requiring is large trees that block, you know, that could potentially block the view of other things that sort of screening.

I would just leave out there as a recommendation that landscaping, yes, screening, maybe not.

Maybe there's some kind of buffer there, but it may not necessarily, flexibility, that it may not have to be, you know,

I don't know.

And we're not being prescriptive there.

But I mean, once again, it's referencing it's referencing a county code already that's in the

I think it's helped I I would say it's probably helpful to have it as a condition as a reminder for.

Okay.

All right, I find my motion in my report, you can put up there and help me.

Yep.

Especially since I forgot my reading glasses.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Mr. Murray?

Aye.

Great.

All right.

Aye, it's going to go on the record.

Thank you, sir, I apologize.

All right, everybody, stay focused.

I do.

The MPO Tech met today.

We actually had a snow day last week, so they changed it.

So a couple of, I thought, interesting conversations.

One is they presented their needs assessment tool, which evaluates proposed projects that then go into the cap plan.

They also had this heat

they called the heat map which was about comments community comments the interesting thing is that the heat map didn't necessarily connect with the projects that were being proposed so for instance Crozet had a strong heat map but no projects like a lot of desire but a lot of desire but they didn't but with other measures they didn't rank high so so there was a lot of conversations about that and particularly about how do we assess

future development.

We have development zones.

We have projects that we're approving in certain areas.

So it's not just looking at the needs today of what we're forecasting.

And so the comment that was made was that that forecasting tool is part of what's being implemented.

This is a work in progress, what we saw today.

I thought it was promising.

I thought it could be something that we could certainly use to further develop high priority projects for the county.

so that was interesting then we looked at some of the VDOT smart scale projects two of note were which garnered a lot of conversation were the the Fontaine Avenue 250 or Fontaine Avenue 29 interchange which has gone through a lot of iterations

there's a couple of options now being presented but in it in all cases it eliminates the left turn from 29 the one that goes on to 64 64 westbound heading heading heading heading west heading westbound

you're heading north on the bypass on 29 250 bypass and there is that left turn which is very problematic that goes to 64 so all the options would eliminate that and then create a different way for cars to or trucks

Mr. Carrazana, I didn't have the pleasure of going to the meeting today, so I didn't see what you saw there, but I think that a lot of those ones actually are eliminating that.

Yes, but I said all options eliminate that turn.

No, no, no.

Let me rephrase that.

I know it was getting rid of that left turns northbound 29 to westbound 64 we're talking about.

I think what was in the application that was funded does provide that U-turn.

Basically, the traffic would have to go up to the Fontaine intersection.

So U-turn up underneath the bridge and head southbound.

Correct.

But the ones that VDOT is proposing as alternatives right now are actually eliminating that option.

and we continue to keep that northbound.

Yeah, your replacement.

Yes, I was online for the meeting.

Kevin McDermott, Deputy Director of Planning.

So Mr. Barnes is correct about the original proposal included removing that left turn and sending all the traffic up to Fontaine for the U-turn.

most of the items that were presented today they are no longer addressing that left hand turn from northbound 29 they did say there is they proposed one new alternative that said that they could send those vehicles up to Fontaine but in all the options that were presented

I will send you some materials, but the follow-up to the going to Fontaine, which

was problematic for many reasons.

And doing that U-turn on Fontaine versus doing the U-turn under the bypass, if you will.

So there were several options that presented left turns.

One was a dedicated lane under the bypass.

Another one was a signalized left turn.

And so those were clearly presented as an A, B, and a C.

option as alternatives to the Fontaine.

So it's in the document.

Yeah.

But anyway, obviously, it's eliciting conversations here.

Yes, so the CCA, so the CAC, Matt, and then the originally scheduled presentation on the Barnes Lumber project was postponed.

So instead, what we did was there was a discussion about ideas of future topics that occurred.

Great.

Thank you.

I saw another hand.

So it's going to be similar to Commissioner Carrazana's report because I went to the first Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee meeting of the year.

There were two main items.

They somewhat reflect what the other commissioner already talked about.

I think similar topics from the night before.

One was quite clever how they're sort of looking to prioritize or identify places that need attention.

And so first they listed the priorities and the ones that had sort of the highest weighting were

walking accessibility, roadway safety, and bike and pedestrian safety, and then another five or six other categories as well.

And then kind of ran all the current known project needs through that sort of rubric and came up with Route 29 from Greenberg to 250 sucks, which we already knew.

So this is not solutions yet, but it is sort of looking at the needs.

And then there's another tier below that and another tier below that.

So that's kind of cool.

And then also talking about the smart scale projects around six applications are sort of in the works now.

The two that they're planning to submit, one is the interchange at I-64 and Fifth Street Extended, kind of near Wegmans, a little south of there.

They're looking to do that diverging diamond because there's quite a lot of traffic and the crossing left to turn onto the highway is difficult.

Another is a variety of sort of improvements to the Peter Jefferson Parkway, Rolkin Road area on 250 Pantops, including a bunch of sidewalks, which cost a hell of a lot of money, it turns out.

and a park and ride.

Yeah, out there.

So on the north side near where the senior living community is.

So those are the two they're looking at.

And they're hoping to get, if they can get some projects identified in time, something in the barracks corridor at 250.

and then also something at Ivy and Old Ivy at 250 that whole corridor near where I work because it is a mess that intersection of 29 250 and Ivy Road just it's the stuff there's one that they wanted to get going but it turns out it needs an additional layer of review before they can submit it to smart scale this year is to connect Hillsdale so right now we have that new Hillsdale that runs kind of parallel to 29 but terminates at Whole Foods

to actually continue that all the way to 250 and have it intersect there and then, you know, be able to close down or move some other things to basically right now you've got that terrible bottleneck right there at hydraulic where Whole Foods is.

Yeah, the roundabout is already, yeah, that was part of the talk.

The roundabout is funded.

It is going to happen.

It's going to start.

They actually are advertising.

I'll let Mr. McDermott talk about, but the conversation to extend Hillsdale to 250, I sat in on a bunch of conversations about that, lo, these many years ago.

and part of the problem with that is that they just they could not acquire the price to acquire all the right-of-ways was extraordinary because you're going to come through if any if everybody knows where the Albertine barn is they're basically obliterating a section of land there to come to 250 and um now maybe things change

and the meetings that I sat in at that time, this is probably four or five years ago, it never reached that level.

It never reached the level that it got scored high enough

to warrant the amount of money that it would cost to do.

So that's interesting that that still... From what the staff rep from the MPO said, it would rate pretty high on the smart scale criteria.

They would also be impacting the Meadow Creek, right?

So I'm fascinated.

You talked about the discussions about pedestrian and alternative transportation.

Sorry.

If you turn the face that way, your voice isn't going into the mic.

Oh, sorry.

Don't look at us.

Okay, so I was just saying that we have a lot more data on where pedestrians and cyclists actually are going.

Well, they're getting data for existing vehicular traffic.

I can't tell you how much they're in terms of bike pads, how much they're monitoring that.

It seems like that that would be a useful thing.

If we're going to be planning for pedestrians and alternative transportation, we should know what's being used currently.

I know on my way here today, I was afraid to be late because I was driving down our national bike route and there's a cyclist ahead of me.

says having to drive the speed of a cyclist to get here.

And Mr. McGurin might be able to add some to, my understanding is that they're looking at where they can connect existing.

but yeah I think Commissioner Carrazano's right on with that what we typically are using is we're looking at it land use data to determine where people would need to have pedestrian and bike connections we have not

I guess we do not have good data on existing pedestrian usage in areas we do have some places where we put out counters for.

We've worked with Department of Transportation to lay out pedestrian counters and bike counters and a few key locations to try and identify.

if there's increasing pedestrian activity in an area over a period of years.

But we rely a lot on public feedback as to where people wanna go, and then looking at land use data and origin and destination studies to find out, well, where do people need to move to and from?

Yes, it is, although once again that data is not always complete, a lot of pedestrian accidents unless there's some injury

last Thursday, I think it was now.

And among other things, two things, two items of interest, two projects of interest.

One was the expansion of the Kappa Sigma International Headquarters on Route 20.

And it was interesting, there was a lot of, a lot, that's a relative term, I'd say there were probably 10 neighbors that came to the meeting to express their concern about the viewshed.

they're relocating what was previously approved by a special use permit of as a location for the expansion they're relocating it basically about 90 degrees and they're pushing it to the back property line that when it was originally zoned did not have residential in it now it's dense residential townhouses on the back side so those that have been looking out over the top of the existing capacity house will be looking at the back wall of an expansion of the capacity house

so that was the area of concern there and I think we all provided some constructive feedback to the applicant the second thing was 1928 Scottsville Road it was it's a small lot it's a 1.33 acres and the request was to expand it from an R1 residential zoning district to an R10 residential zoning district and they were going to

by proffer they were going to limit it to eight dwelling units and you I don't want to bias anyone but when you see it suffice it to say the site was quite full so there was discussion about interconnecting streets and having to accommodate those as well as the lots on the property it was a pretty tight site and that's coming that's coming that's in the process coming yeah um as you're

the board met last week.

They considered two rezonings and approved both of them that came for you all before.

One was the Arbor Oaks townhouses that were on Hydraulic Road and those passed.

And the second one was for the High School Center 2 at Albemarle High School, reduction of some setbacks.

It's a problem.

And that was approved as well.

but during the day they had a healthy discussion for several hours staff presented to them the the

AC-44 discussion of goals and objectives for the environmental parks and rec, housing, historic resources, and economic development.

Again, you, of course, had your own discussion.

A lot of the way that the staff had sort of set that up was to

we can give you more details if need be but that's pretty much happened at the last meeting great thank you and just one thing to add at the fifth and Avon community advisory committee chair Andrews of the supervisor Andrews mentioned exactly what you said and basically wanted to thank the planning commission for their thoughtful comments and that they actually did really focus on those and consider those in their deliberations

That's right.

Thank you.

So the Pantop CAC had a presentation on AC44 last night, discussion.

There are some rural meetings coming up.

ESMOT, there'll be one there, February 12th.

And then obviously, I think we talked about this in our last meeting, we're working to bring you all some more information on the land use and transportation, the sort of the details, you know, we sort of talked about the higher kind of goals, and we're going to be coming back with some more information to you all.

I believe that's your next meeting, help me out, is that what that's coming back for?

I'm sorry, it's the second meeting in February.

Okay.

Got it.

And I think those are our big things we're working on since the last time we talked about AC44.

Great updates.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

For the transportation discussion that will be upcoming, do you think before then it would be possible to kind of get just an update on the micro transit and how that's performing?

Is it going well?

Has it been worth the investment?

That might be just an important tidbit as we're trying to

Thank you.

We can get something for you.

Sure.

I mean, if we made that presentation at the same time, would that be suitable?

That would be easy.

Yeah, great.

Awesome.

I have a very challenging question.

So the recycling center that was opened at Keene, I enjoy it very much.

But

I don't I don't see any signs on the road saying recycling center this way or it's just like you're just driving down Route 20.

and you have to already know it's there.

And I know it's supposed to also capture people going to the post office, but it's not really, you're not standing at the post office mailing a letter going, oh, look, there's a recycling center.

I just, you know, and I've talked to a lot of people like, wait, what?

There's a recycling center?

So I really, I know I went to the kickoff and the whole event and media, whatever, but I just don't feel like the word has gotten out enough.

And at the very minimum, there's, can we put signage up?

You know, Chair, this goes to this comment that I've made a number of times that I think that our local media is not doing a good job covering the things that happen in the city, in the city, excuse me, in the county.

They do a really good job of stuff that happens in the city.

And so however we can negotiate that, you know, the daily progress has at least four times a week a sports

that leads with a sports story.

And I have to say that while I'm fine that, you know, the local sports and the big local sports down the road there somehow makes it to the front page, I would think some of the issues that in fact are pertinent to our community would be better on the front page and whether or not we're not hitting our three-point shots like we're supposed to be hitting our three-point shots.

who the, you know, who cares?

media outlets to make sure that people know the good news about Albemarle County and not even these these upcoming meetings tomorrow in Batesville and in Esmond I haven't seen I know about our AC44 website and all that good stuff but a lot of people don't go to that website just

So I've had a busy first couple weeks here.

You've got a decent sized staff.

I've made a point to sit down, spend some time talking with them.

It's been, you know, just like to say, really talented.

Bunch of folks.

I think you probably see them coming before you.

I've been very impressed by the talent that we have and the enthusiasm we have with the staff.

I'd also like to sit down and talk with you all.

Hopefully you'll have the same enthusiasm and youthful vigor.

But I would like to reach out to you guys, have Vivian, who's our secretary, try to reach out and make appointments.

If you know

Any other new or old business?

I have one more thing for new business.

I know it's a little early for vacation time, but if you're going to be gone, you need to let me know as well as Michael so that I'd keep track of it.

And I'm not waiting to see if you're going to come or not.

So just if you know when you're going away, if you can let me know.

Thank you.

I have one more coming.

I know we're trying to get out of here.

No rush.

I think we strike letter A.

from the docket.

I think we already did that.

That was the meeting from December.

Just seeking confirmation for that 9A.

Oh, the agenda.

Planning Commission for the Supervisors Joint Work Session, Affordable Housing and Development.

So we strike that, right?

And then just as we're thinking about planning for the future through the comp plan, does it make sense to maybe try to set up

something around schools and long range planning.

I feel like I just don't have a great grasp on that.

So is that a briefing that we might desire as a commission?

Just something to think about as you all are talking.

We have had it in the past.

So it might be an appropriate time at some point in 2024.

So I'll just toss that out there.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you for the suggestion.

Any items for follow up?

Actually, I actually did have a new item that I wanted to bring up.

It was brought up to the Southern Water Conservation District today that there was a recommendation to get a letter of support for the Hardware River as the Scenic River.

And so I suggested to them that they should also probably come forward to Albemarle County and ask the same thing because the Hardware River also comes through Albemarle County is also an important river with scenic qualities and also there's a lot of biodiversity sites along that river.

So just bring that up to you all and see.

I think we are adjourned until Tuesday, February 13, 2024 at 6pm.