Planning Commission Work Session (Room 241) and Regular Meeting (Lane)   3/12/2024

Thank you.

Okay, we're ready.

Great.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for your patience.

It's 4.07.

And I will call to order the planning commission for March 12, 2024.

And welcome, everybody.

This evening or this afternoon, I guess it still is before we get started, let's establish a quorum.

Yes, Mr. Moore.

Here, Mr. Murray.

Thank you, Mr. Carrazana and Ms.

Thank you.

Next order of business is I'd like to ask for a motion to amend the agenda.

And in doing so, I would like to ask item number two to be duplicated into item number

I guess it would be four.

Well, actually five.

and Mr. Chair, just to clarify, that would be before the evening, in the evening session before the public hearings.

Is that what you intend?

Correct.

Correct.

So moved.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

Good.

Hi.

Thank you.

And with that, and with the understanding that there will be a second opportunity for items, for public comment on items not listed on the agenda before the public hearing, we will go to that item now.

Are there any public comments on items not listed on the agenda?

Okay, thank you.

Seeing none, I will move on to the consent agenda.

and ask if any commissioners would like to pull any items from the consent agenda for further review.

That is limited to our February 27th meeting minutes.

Second.

Second.

Mr. LaBron.

Sorry, you got me twice.

All right, thank you.

We will now move on to the work session.

And if it's okay, I'll just open up with a couple of comments.

One is, I'd just like to thank everyone that's here and everyone who is listening online for the comments that we've received so far.

We've gotten quite a few and they've all been passed on to staff.

So thank you for that.

We did allow public comment during our last meeting.

That was a little

characteristic of a work session.

Typically, work sessions do not allow public comment before them because there are so many opportunities.

Otherwise, for public comment, we used about 30 minutes of our time last week, and that's part of the reason why we're adding the rural area conversation to this week and adding another work session.

Partly the reason the other part was so that we could make sure we're being thorough.

And so for us to allow

Public Comment would take that time.

I would just want to or take additional time away from this discussion with staff.

But I would like to encourage those of you here this evening and others to continue to share your thoughts via email or directly with staff and also just mention that there have been as many of you already know, I'm sure numerous opportunities, many of whom are many of those opportunities we've been a part of over the last

How long?

Six months or so for public comment on this specific topic.

And there will continue to be opportunities, as I said, via email or directly with us.

I've also been counseled by staff to watch the time and to allow 35 minutes for the rural area transportation topic and goals discussion.

So we'll commit to that.

Last week, we covered rural area land use topics.

Today's primary focus, I guess, will be on rural area transportation, crossroads communities and community resilience hubs and rural interstate interchanges.

with that.

And with one additional reminder, I hope I'm not stealing anybody's thunder, but this is always helpful for me to remind myself that we'll be moving into phase three.

And phase three will essentially see these goals and objectives with several action steps attached.

So at this point, we are not providing input on action items, we are providing input on goals and objectives.

And with that, I will turn it over to our more than capable staff.

Thank you.

There we go.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

My name is Tori Kenelopoulos, and I'm a principal planner in the Community Development Department.

Today we have a work session on draft goals and objectives for rural area land use and transportation.

And as noted, this is a continuation of the February 27th work session on the same topic.

And we wanted to note that we have not made any changes to the draft goals and objectives yet, but we will incorporate the commission's feedback from both work sessions.

and the comments received from the commission via email after holding the upcoming work session with the board on March 20th.

The purpose of the work session is to receive planning commission feedback on draft goals and objectives for the rural area, especially on the following topics, how to proceed with crossroads communities, what land uses that support surrounding rural area community members are most appropriate in the rural area, which will be a continued discussion in phase three, and how the comp plan should consider and prioritize opportunities for transit, walking and biking in the rural area.

As we finalize the goals and objectives, we need to make sure that these higher level plan recommendations are in the right direction before we draft implementation steps.

We also wanted to note that we heard the commission's interest in updated data for this chapter at the last work session, and we will be returning to the commission with updated information and presentations as we move into phase three.

Updated data and information will also be used to inform drafting the action steps and continually monitoring and updating data will be an important way to track plan progress after the plan is adopted.

So after this work session, we will summarize the commission's feedback and share it with the board at that upcoming March 20th work session.

We wanted to highlight the rural area priorities that we have heard during the COMP plan update process and that we are incorporating into the rural area chapter.

Many of these priorities are consistent with the current COMP plan with an overall emphasis on protecting the natural environment and having usable land for agriculture and forestry.

The AC44 team has also been hearing a need to consider appropriate and feasible land uses and multimodal transportation options for rural area community members as approximately 45% of the county's population lives in the rural area.

We need the commission and boards feedback on the land use and transportation topics where there is less consensus before moving into action steps.

During the last work session, we also heard a need for clarity around the rural area land use goals.

And while we're not yet in phase three of AC44, we have started to discuss ways that the goals and objectives could be implemented.

So we wanted to provide a high level overview of general implementation measures that could support each of the land use goals.

So the primary purpose of the first goal is to identify and protect the primary features of the rural area and to reduce the subdivision of rural land to maintain a land base for agriculture and forestry, reduce habitat loss and fragmentation, and avoid the impacts and expenditures related to low density development.

So some of the implementation measures could include updates to the county's land conservation programs, updates to the zoning and subdivision ordinances, implementing the stream health initiative, and developing a rural area plan.

The second goal is related to economic development in the rural area, which should be focused on agriculture and forestry and have support for local food systems and ways to support more sustainable agricultural practices.

So implementation could include local partnerships and the county's land conservation programs and also overlaps with implementation for the first goal, including updates to the zoning and subdivision ordinances.

The third goal is community resilience.

So increasing resilience and providing more equitable access to and distribution of resources and services in the rural area.

There's a lot of overlap with the community facilities chapter as well.

And implementation could include resilience hubs, local partnerships, adaptive reuse of historic structures and future small area planning.

And this is one of the areas that we are asking for the commission's direction on how to proceed.

The fourth goal is to use proactive planning for areas where there is by right non-rural area development potential based on existing zoning.

So that would include properties that are zoned light industrial or highway commercial.

So the first objective is related to regional coordination and is a carryover from the 2015 plan.

And much of that focus is on coordination with

UVA-owned properties called Areas A and B in the rural area, so that would include places like Northridge Medical Center.

And then Objective 4.2 is related to planning for the Shedwell and Yancy Mills Rural Interstate Interchanges.

The Commission and also the Board provided direction to the AC44 team earlier in Phase 2 to include recommendations for future small area plans for those two interchanges.

and those should include recommended land uses, transportation connections and improvements and other public infrastructure and utilities that we should prioritize doing a Shadwell small area plan first and that we should not assume what the land uses will be in advance.

So we also wanted to note where the commission's feedback from the most recent work session overlaps with the community facilities chapter.

We can cross-reference some or all of these topics in the rural area chapter and provide more detailed action steps where needed.

So that includes guidance for the provision of public water and sewer, broadband, and then community risk and resilience, including risk from wildfires.

So the AC44 team is asking for the commission's feedback on policy direction for rural area land uses before drafting action steps.

We also have questions specific to transportation but felt that additional context was needed for land use prior to discussion.

So the current COMP plan focuses recommended uses in the rural area on agriculture and forestry and uses that support those industries.

And then notes that some small scale non residential uses that support surrounding community members could be appropriate, especially in crossroads communities.

There's also the Rural Area Zoning District, and the intent of the district is to preserve land for agriculture and forestry, protect the water supply, have limited service delivery, and protect the natural environment and historic and scenic resources.

And it includes uses that are allowed by right and by special use permit.

These are some of the examples of uses that are allowed by right in the rural area zoning district.

They include some limited residential development, agriculture, forestry, farm winery and breweries, historic country stores, and farm stands and farmer's markets.

There's also a list of uses that are allowed by special use permit in the rural area.

Some of those include private community centers, private schools, daycare, nonhistoric country stores, public garages and day camps.

So for special use permits, those are uses that are allowed in the district, but they may not be appropriate in every location and may have impacts that should be mitigated such as

hours of operation, noise and lighting.

Some of those also have additional restrictions in the rural area.

For example, for restaurants when they're allowed by a special use permit in the rural area, also have to be within a historic structure site that was also historically used as a restaurant or be a previously approved non-conforming use.

So we have four questions for the commission to consider, two for land use and two for transportation.

And as noted, we would encourage the time to be somewhat evenly divided, making sure there's enough time for transportation, since that was not discussed at the previous work session.

And for each set of questions, the Commission can choose to answer one question at a time or provide combined answers for both questions together, whichever seems to work best.

So the purpose of these two land use questions is to hear the Commission's feedback for what other land uses may be appropriate in the rural area and direction on rural area communities.

Building on the feedback that we've heard from community members for allowing some small scale supportive uses in the rural area, prioritizing adaptive reuse of existing buildings.

So we wanted to emphasize, again, that protection of the natural environment and the use of rural area land for agriculture and forestry continue to be priorities.

These questions are the areas where we especially need direction, including to inform the ongoing zoning modernization project.

So the first two questions, are there other small scale and community serving uses such as doctors and dentist offices or professional offices that should be recommended as permitted uses by special use permit for the rural area, specifically in locations with existing businesses and services and prioritizing adaptive reuse?

and should the AC44 update continue to develop the concept of crossroads communities or should it instead focus more specifically on resilience hubs and adaptive reuse of historic structures for community serving uses?

So with that, I'll turn it over to the commission and we're happy to answer any questions.

Great.

Thank you.

Well, I think this is probably a good place to start.

just open it up for comments on these two questions.

And it's okay if we can do this.

Let's try to limit our comments to question number one first.

And then we'll move on to question number two.

So any comments or feedback on item number one?

Start with Christian Murray.

At the last Natural Heritage Committee, one of the things that I brought up was if we expect our rural area to remain rural, we need economically viable uses of that land that are not residential.

Because ultimately over time, land will transition to the use that is most economically viable.

Even if one person decides not to converge to residential use, then the next person might or the next person.

So as long as that's the most

So what we really need to do in the rural areas, I think look at, first of all, I think it's important to recognize our existing uses and protect those existing uses as opposed to promoting new uses of a rural area.

Look at where we already have uses that are in line with the goals and vision of a rural area and seek to encourage and protect those uses.

I think things like, you know, garden centers, you know, we have places like Elzeroth and Thompson, other places, those are consistent uses in my opinion of the rural area.

I think sustainable recreation, you know, campgrounds, other things that provide recreational use to the rural area in a sustainable way with performance standards, I think those are good uses.

I think that there is a need that people have, particularly as they age to be able to access medical services.

I think there may be some good opportunities there for like, and I don't even know that this would require a permit, but like mobile units to deliver medical care.

I think there are, I wouldn't be opposed to adaptive reuse of existing structures for

to provide things like medical care or other essential services to rural residents.

Yeah, I think the short answer for me is yes, such as doctors and dentist offices.

The one question I'd like to bring to the commission for for further discussion is.

When you look at crossroad communities, for example, and they use this term, essential public services and basic service needs, I think that will start to address this first prompt here.

And so I think we need to start to have a conversation and define what is considered essential public service and what's considered a basic service need.

I am convinced that you can still be rural and not desolate, right?

So, so finding that balance around those two definitions is something I'd like to discuss.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Mr. Bivins.

Thank you, Chair.

So I would agree with the first paragraph.

I remember, I'm remembering that in years gone by, there were such things as rural doctors' offices.

There were such things as sort of providing and receiving medical care and you did not have to come to at the time the University of Virginia Hospital that you could go to a clinic that was out on maybe Route 6 or Route 20 or out in Free Union.

And so I would think that that would be a helpful

As there are vet offices in these particular places, it would be helpful to have human offices in these particular places, so I'm supportive of that.

I still struggle with the whole idea that we should only have things in the rural area that support the rural area, because if I take an inventory of the businesses that are there, I'm not sure how a winery supports

The local industry, the local community, nor am I surprised or or try when I ponder how a wedding venue or wedding event venue or an event venue supports the local area or the activity of the local citizens.

So I'm trying to come up with a balance.

of how we balance those particular activities.

For instance, we're going to have a toasty one this evening when we talk about a public garage and there's a public garage, in fact, help the people who have cars and trucks and things like that in that area any better than a winery or a wedding venue.

So I'm going to want to wrestle with that because it's not clear to me what would be an allowable industry

if we use that as the litmus test on allowing something to pop up in the rural area.

I think Commissioner Bivins points out a good thing if I think about the rural areas and the industries that get a lot of opposition versus the ones that don't.

I think a lot of people enjoy having a glass of wine and looking at pretty views and not looking at old cars.

It's probably what it sometimes comes down to.

Anyway, I do support things like doctors and tennis offices in the rural area.

You know, whether it's a preferably, you know, reusing buildings that already exist, certainly.

But I think, again, in places where people live, having services that people need to live there.

And just echoing, I think, what Commissioner Clayborne said, rural does not have to mean remote.

You know, rural is the density of the population in an area, but it is still where people live.

Great, thanks.

or Total.

Got it.

Thank you.

So I'll just weigh in on a couple of things.

Some of these were already said, I won't restate them.

But I would say one, recognizing and protecting, I think is is, you know, obviously, first and foremost, the second thing is considering the definition of compatible.

If we talk about, you know, our dentist's office and professional office is compatible.

I think the first thing I think about is, yeah, probably, but where, right?

And so it's not just about compatibility, but it's about

location, in my opinion, and how that fits into the rural area.

And as you pointed out here, specifically in locations with existing businesses, services, prioritizing adaptive reuse, I think is key.

And I know that slips over into the discussion about crossroads communities as well.

So they do kind of blend a little bit.

The third thing is, I think, defining

Well, actually, I'm going against what I personally said not to do, which is I'm going into the second one.

So I think I'll just keep it at that.

Should the chair.

It's a good second.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll take the opportunity and the segue into the second, but I won't make my comments first.

Question number two, question more than a, I just was wondering, I know we've discussed it at some length, but last time there was, it got a little squishy to me what the difference is between across those community and a resilience hub.

I was wondering if you could

Sure.

So Crossroads communities are communities in the rural area that have, you know, have today or had historically, you know, businesses, services were kind of gathering places for the community.

And then resilience hubs are separate and they can be located in Crossroads communities, but they don't have to be.

They could also be in the development areas.

And so those are places that are more

kind of functioning like ENC Community Center where there's, you know, some limited services that people can get, classes, programming, but also they can serve as emergency shelters.

Can I ask a follow-up question on that?

Because I know there's been some question from the community

is allowing for those two separate, if they're separate, but sometimes combined, I guess.

Yeah, it would definitely be more, you know, the intent would be to serve the community that's already there.

So it's not, you know, if there was a location where there wasn't much going on and there was a resilience hub there, that wouldn't necessarily mean there'd have to be any more added to it.

It could just be this was where the need was identified.

Got it.

Thank you.

Certainly.

Well, so in terms of the either or resilience hubs, I know it was was

pretty much universally appreciated last time we had a meeting.

And I continue to think that's a great idea.

It represents sort of a public investment in making not just the rural areas, but especially the rural areas resilient in case of emergencies and also providing services that I think just about everybody would agree are essential.

Crossroads communities, I don't personally have much of a problem with the idea that a place that already has historic, historically

is a village, is a small town, a hamlet, whatever term we want to use and having it

have certain small businesses that serve mostly the people there, much like the country's store, the community center in the Whitehall, or other versions of that elsewhere, where the Batesville store in Batesville.

These kinds of things don't bother me, if anything, and I don't live there, but at the same time, it does seem to me that having some of those things fairly close at hand would reduce car travel,

Thank you, Chair.

So I want to sort of split up a couple of things in the crossroad communities and the resilience hubs.

And so for me, there's a piece of this that is not a private public investment.

But if I'm looking at sort of what would go into a resilient hub, it should be a thing which, in fact, I would believe there should be something that the county makes an investment in.

and in the event of a tragedy, in the event of a weather condition, in the event of one of those droughts that we had a number of years ago, this is a place that the county can ask people to come to to receive certain services that will help to ease the burden of that particular condition.

maybe that happens at a place like Yancey School, maybe that happens at a place like the new recycling center down in Keen where there's a temporary place that the county can set things up to put water, to put food, to put bandages and things like that or even to give information out because I think that for me is a situation that

If you live away from the Development Center, it's hard for the community to receive issues or receive items that might help them during the course of an emergency.

I know in one of our conversations, people said this should be like in churches and things like that.

Again, I don't know that necessarily the church should be the first line of protection.

I think the churches and public spaces like that or private spaces like that can be part of the solution, but it should not abdicate the county from having a solution that in fact it can control the network and control the information and whether or not they need to put a generator or something like that out there to give people access to information.

I do think that there's a reason that those resiliency hubs, particularly as we have more swings in our weather or have earthquakes, as we've had a number of those recently, that we need to have places where we have wildflowers that people can gather, that the county is in charge of making sure that works.

And so, as far as the crossroad communities, I actually am in agreement that I think, as the supervisors have indicated, that we should do a small area plan on a short pump.

That's Richmond.

Shadwell, thank you.

I've got to show up in my mind for a built environment, but that's a different conversation.

For Shadwell, because I think what that will do is help to identify or help to give people an exercise of thinking about what that might look like other than never getting an olive garden.

It's not going to happen.

So to have a conversation that is not about all of gardens coming off of that highway, or other things, how would we use that or how might we encourage businesses to come to an area, I would suggest that if we look at the other side, if we look at the NCM, we don't have a lot of open space there so it's going to be

It's going to be companies or individuals that come in to redevelop space because we don't have a lot of empty space in the two places.

But I would support that because I also think, and this is the one where a colleague over here has talked about Batesville and they talked about what we saw, what we will probably hear more about this evening about Keen.

Those were places that communities could come to.

They go to the post office.

They go to the recycling center.

They probably go to the vet if they have an animal.

And so you're creating places where people can have community.

and I do believe that it's hard sometimes living outside of the developed area to have a place where you just naturally bump into those people who are part of your community.

And so creating those situations, I think would be helpful both for the people who live there and also for us creating some sort of some reimagining and continue the sense of what it is to be part of Albemarle County.

If I'm being nice to pick, I want to say the resiliency hubs because of what my colleagues are saying, we know disaster is going to happen.

It's not if you're going to get hit, it's when you're going to get hit.

And they're more intense.

And so as I think about the future, perhaps if we're focusing on the resilience hubs, it might lead way to capital improvements and investments that might inform the capital improvements plan, for example.

EOC, Emergency Operations Center, should that be out in the rural area to help with, you know, staging in infrastructure needs after a natural disaster, for example.

So I would say the resilience hubs would be a strong way to go as it might inform the capital improvements plan.

So.

Yes, so in general, I support the resilience hubs.

I would say the big thing about Crossroads communities, you know, having lived near Batesville for quite a while and visited that one extensively.

I think a lot of the public's concern is about new uses of Crossroads communities.

and I think what, you know, if you look at the baseball store as an example, they had to go through a lot of hurdles to stay viable.

There's many times when that storm was closed and they ultimately needed a lot of support from the county and from local citizens and other things and some flexibility to be able to adapt their use to make the store viable and to continue to function for the community.

So I think when we think about Crossroads communities and the purposes that they serve, I think it's to help make that process easier.

Not for new uses, but to help preserve the existing uses that we have to help protect cultural institutions and other things that are that are already part of that community.

I think too, I was surprised when I went to visit Batesville recently that they're developing community trails.

And I think where you have a community that has these, this taking initiative to do things on their own, I think for the county to find ways to support the community.

to say like, you know, can we help you get trail easements to help improve this thing that you're already doing?

You know, can we help with traffic calming?

Can we help with these things that are priorities for your community that you know are problems?

Great, thank you.

So the thing you're going to have to help me wrestle with is how to not to be a literalist.

So I have to balance the fact that people don't want anything to change in these crossroads communities, but yet they want the county to be involved in improving community trails.

And so there wasn't a community trail there.

So why should the county be involved in helping to improve it?

Just using that to key off of that.

At some point,

I think it'll be helpful to have a conversation about when do we freeze change?

Because if we freeze change 10 years ago, or if we freeze change 50 years ago, then that could possibly say things which were in essence happening today should not happen because they didn't happen 50 years ago.

I just to respond to that really quickly.

I'm sorry.

But I think it's not about freezing change because rural uses continue to evolve.

I mean, agriculture now is not the same as agriculture in my grandparents day.

So I think that we do need to accept that things change, but I think there's a lens by which we should see the rural area in terms of supporting natural areas, conservation, supporting agriculture.

I'm in complete accord with that, with the whole idea that things change and we need to look at them through a modern lens.

That's not the language we hear from a number of our people.

Freeze it.

And so if we can look at things through a modern lens, then I think you and I are in a more similar place.

But lots of stuff we get is about let's use the environment

as a green line in the way that we use finances as a red line.

And so I want to be real careful that that's not what we're doing when I hear people say freeze it at this level and then, you know, we'll go on from there.

Absolutely.

So that actually is a good.

I guess segue into my comments which is on this for me it's not an either or it's a both and I think that each of the existing locations whether they are crossroads communities or areas that are

Good potential for resiliency hubs or resilience hubs should be looked at independently and individually.

And that lens should include what infrastructure is available, what is a boundary that we should consider for those specific areas to avoid the camel's nose and the tent thing, which is, you know, the growth is just going to continue unabated.

And I also think in terms of compatible uses, they need to be looked at individually.

I think then the lens, or maybe you move back a level from the small area plans and you think actually more regionally and you say, well, how do these small area plans actually, how do they assist each other?

So you don't have exactly the same resiliency hub in one area as you do just five miles down the road, right?

But you look at these kind of cohesively and I think that is probably

that's probably a good summary of my thoughts.

Actually, one last thought is just identifying and defining uses that would be compatible in a proactive way.

So thinking about, I'm just throwing an idea, you know, if there's a convenience store, you probably don't want a convenience store two doors away, right?

So thinking about in that small area plan, how do you have compatible uses that are complementary as opposed to necessarily maybe competing?

wherever possible.

If we're good.

So the second set of questions are related to transportation.

What would more efficient, effective, and equitable transit service look like for the rural area?

And then what bike and pedestrian infrastructure would best serve the needs of rural residents?

Giving us the easy questions is great.

Alright, who would like to start?

Do we have any insights on demographic data of the rural areas?

maybe related a little bit to that.

Do we know what other communities have done that are similar to Albemarle County in this area?

I know that there are examples of transit that have been attempted in rural areas and just no one uses them.

So I'm just curious if there's their ideas on that.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Jessica Hirsch-Ballering.

I'm a principal planner for Edmont County Community Development.

So it seems like your question is, like, what is the menu of options for transit in the rural areas?

I'm not going to give you, like, the full menu, in part because I don't know the full menu.

I think there's lots of new things that are up and coming.

One thing that I do want to highlight is the microcat transit service that we have in

Currently in the development area of Albemarle County, but it's really intended to serve areas that would not be best served by fixed route transit.

That would be a model that might work effectively for the rural areas as well.

If you would like additional information about other opportunities, I think that was something that we were really looking more towards in our action steps for these goals and objectives.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, because it strikes me, the way this question is worded, what would more efficient, effective and equitable transit look like for the rural area?

Is there any already yet?

I mean, I'm not aware of this.

There's like John.

Like John.

Yeah.

As John does, is one of the vendors there, you know, obviously there's the there, to the extent that there is a private

A Private Solution, there's Uber and Lyft and things like that and some of the commercial taxi hacks that services in town.

But I think if I might just sort of try and expand this a bit.

I think I think what we're talking about here is having a sense of where people going.

Right.

And so if it's where they're coming and where they're going, coming from.

And so there is the whole idea of trying to get a sense.

And again, this is not going to be a static answer to this.

This is going to be something that evolves over time.

Where do people need to go and where are they coming from?

So if we look at population centers, which is possible to do, do I need to have

You know, part of that, we have that through the school system because they're making decisions on schools based on population.

Some of us got to do, do it age, but they're making those kinds of decisions.

But it's so really sort of saying, what's the relationship and this may in fact go with the regional transportation.

Authority, thank you.

Authority that comes up to sort of say, if we put this in place, how is that going to roll out?

And so I don't necessarily, I'm not trying to abdicate responsibility for this, but I think there is a natural set of people, individuals in our community who can make a better set of decisions.

But what I would say is that if we could get the microcat,

out in a more effective way throughout the county.

That might be a first-tier solution.

If we could partner that with John, because John is trying to figure out how to do what it needs to do, you may in fact start to fill in a set of services that we can at least explore if there's any take-up in those services.

before we start looking at what's the integration into a fixed hub or to a fixed service because the piece on the fixed service always remember right now we don't own that service.

we buy some of that service.

So we don't own CAT, we purchase time with CAT and that they can make decisions as they deem it necessary to make decisions about whether or not they service a particular area.

Where we have, I think the most influence right now is with the micro, the micro CAT because we're part of the, we were part of the granting area, the granting solution for that and with John because that is actually playing that kind of regional, original, original solution.

Can I ask you just one question of order?

These are transportation related.

Is this what we were holding 35 minutes for?

It is.

So we are ahead of schedule.

I'd just like to note that.

Okay.

We don't know that.

I wasn't sure if there was any kind of a presentation in advance of the transportation piece.

Okay.

Got it.

Thank you.

All right.

Kind of echoing what others have said when it comes to, you know, we do have these services like jaunt and potentially an expanded microcat, but jaunt already strikes me.

I was just over here kind of looking up numbers, how jaunt is already serving.

I have just like, in one year's report, 83,000 out of 307,000 routes were rural routes, you know, just like pickups.

So, I mean, it's already kind of there.

I'm just wondering, you know, like if there's like an expansion or a better integration or some kind of

Wade to make that, you know, again, just a fuller service for rural residents.

Seems like the simplest way to slice the bread.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

Yeah, we're still in this first question, right?

We're not combined.

We are.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So I think that there, I also support, you know, seeing what we can do with John because it is providing a great service already.

I know when I used to commute to Charlottesville from Batesville,

I found it kind of interesting.

So making my way to 29 and then driving into Charlottesville and then trying to find parking at UVA.

But then it took me as long to get to the bus and then from the bus to get to where to my office as it would have if I just had close end parking.

So what I noticed immediately as just a rural resident that was commuting in, luckily I don't really do that anymore, but is that it would have made way more sense for us to have parking lots on the edge of the city and bus service that went to those as opposed to driving into the city where you're already spending most of your time, you know, is that first section getting into the city?

If you had bus service from those that was effective, that would be a huge time saver.

Likewise, if you had commuter lots where I could meet up with other fellow UVA employees and commute, that would be a benefit to me.

So, you know, for example, you know, have that crossroads, you know, over in North Garden, you know, having an area right there where, you know, it's your, you can meet up with someone and then commute from that spot.

So, I think that that's the sort of thing that I think would be effective additions in terms of transportation.

I think some of the things that have happened in Crozet, you know, Crozet is not rural area, but I know many rural residents who have been using the increased transportation options within Crozet as a way to get to Charlottesville.

And so I think that that's another thing to look at too, is, you know, for me, if that was just a little, hours were just a little bit different, if things, it almost works for me.

Thank you.

For me, I think I'd need to see more demographics.

I think that's such a key part.

So what are the age ranges out there?

What are the jobs that are being held out there, right?

Um, you know, if it's elderly folks, then maybe it's just in time kind of transit, like I need to get to the doctor's office, right?

Versus a professional who is working in the school systems, for example, one of our biggest employers has a different need.

And so I think it's further research in that space will help us inform

this, and I do like what you were saying.

Maybe there's buses that go to the biggest employers, right?

If you know that the schools or the hospital is the biggest employers, we know many of the folks there in the service industry there can't afford to live in the city.

So they are getting pushed out.

So maybe coordinating with the biggest employers that starts to look at that equity piece, right?

And how do we serve?

We can wander if you'd like.

So there's a couple of things there before you go to you.

So there are services that go from Crozet into 10.

Connect, the Crozet Connect.

Thank you.

That, you know, goes into town and comes out of town.

And I will also share to, for my colleague at the end, I actually had someone on my staff who was one of the individuals who had a van from Crozet, who with the Virginia Department of Transportation had a van pool.

So there are options.

But I think what we may be hearing, and this may go to,

Commissioner Clymer saying is that, how do we gather the information and then push the information out in an appropriate way for people to take advantage and make decisions?

So how do we do, and I think that's the piece that you're talking about, are we engaging in creative ways with the employers in the area to sort of come up with community solutions?

so that everyone doesn't have to create their own bespoke solution.

That's part of the issue there.

I mean, I was actually waiting for the White Hall delegate, the commissioner, to say, why aren't we using the train tracks?

to move people back and forth between the western part of the county and the center part of the county as it used to be.

Oh, I wish.

I said that many times.

As it used to be in the early part of the last century, you could live in Crozet and commute to Charlottesville via the train.

There was that much train service that allowed people to do that.

And so since the state owns the tracks now,

Is there an option, instead of putting train tracks up 29, is there an option to bring people in from the west on the existing train tracks?

Awesome.

I have a few comments, but any other comments on question number one?

Just throw out a few comments, some of them echo what's already been said.

I agree with everything that's been said.

One is, I think, you know, identification of the types of needs, right, doing a survey and understanding what that is, and that will drive the service.

I think that would be an important first step.

I think considering alignment with resilience hubs and also with crossroads communities, right, thinking about areas that have the most density and whether they could be pickup locations or drop off locations, maybe that's a way to

sort of strategize and think through that.

I think identifying what is achievable versus just aspirational, right, which I guess goes for the entire complaint, but just thinking in terms of, you know, we can do certain things.

They're within reason.

Other communities have done them.

These are the solutions that we would recommend and here's how we would pay for it, right, as a community potentially.

and then also thinking about what exists and how there might be ways to start with that, sort of stating the obvious here and just grow that type of existing service if some have been identified as successful.

Okay, well, let's move on to the second question.

And while we do that, I'll just mention we will have extra time.

I think what I'd like to do for you all to be thinking about this is, unless, first of all, ask staff, if there are other things that we haven't covered that you would like us to cover, number one.

Number two is we haven't really talked about interchanges.

We haven't really talked about natural areas, historic resources.

Those are all things that I know are in here that we really haven't gotten into.

So if there are particular things that you want to address, I know we'll have other opportunities to do this informally, but I would just offer that as a sort of an open conversation.

Okay.

So when I was a kid, I lived in live in Ivy and the Meriwether Hill subdivision.

And at that time, it was it was safe for me to walk or run to the Ivy store, you know, grab beverage or, you know, grab a snack and then go back to my house.

I could also run or walk up down Owensville Road.

That is not safe to do anymore.

It hasn't been safe for a while.

You know, and I think I look at Route 76.

If that's been there for a long time, if we had been working on trying to make that route safer and protecting that route since I was a kid, then it would now be a safe way to cycle into town.

It would be amazing, but we didn't do that.

We didn't make those incremental improvements that allowed that to be a safe place to bike.

and so I think one of the big things that we need to focus on first of all is making sure that finding ways we can make incremental improvements to the existing transportation networks that already are there.

I think right now we don't really do a lot to recognize where people bike, where people run, where people walk in the rural area and I think that's a big thing that's got to change.

I think, you know, that data does exist.

There are stores that cater to walkers and runners in the area.

There are, you know, there are, you know, there are organizations that work with runners and cyclists.

I think we should be engaging those people.

I mean, every time we have something that affects the rural area,

Always someone has someone from the Farm Bureau.

We explicitly invite someone from the Farm Bureau to be in that room, but we never invite someone that's from the Charlottesville Track Club or from the Charlottesville Area Mountain Biking Club or from... Yeah, literally is running Charlottesville.

Yeah, or the Charlottesville Area Trail Runners.

We're not engaging those organizations, and I think we need to.

So that's a big thing.

The other thing I would say, too, is that there's a big fragmentary effect of a lot of these roads.

As I was running over Fox Mountain recently, and I encourage if any of you have not driven over Fox Mountain or run over it or biked over it, I encourage you to do so, it's very easy to see that if that was paved,

that that's instantly going to be someone's mountaintop views.

That that huge forest block, which is identified as a bio divert, you know, an area of high biodiversity in the county.

It's a very large forest block in the county that very easily that would be developed in a real estate.

The only thing that's keeping that from happening right now is the fact that's a gravel road.

And so understanding that when we pave these gravel roads, that what we're really doing is effectively rezoning.

We're upzoning these areas when we pave them.

And I think that we need to start treating them that way.

It's interesting we mentioned the Rural Rustic Roads Program.

One of the statements that the Board of Supervisors signs when they add something into the Rural Rustic Road Program, it says,

Where's the board is unaware of any pending development that will significantly affect the traffic on this road?

A lot of times, some of these roads are actually proposed to be paved by developers.

We know they're developers, and yet still that statement gets signed.

I think, to me, this is a lie by omission in the sense that we're not really asking that question of what the impact would be of paving a road.

We're not looking at, like, what are the development rights on this road, you know, how many properties in our conservation easement.

I think we need to ask those questions.

I mean, I'd like to see these road paving projects come before the Planning Commission before they go to the Board of Supervisors.

or at least a staff analysis that looks at, you know, what would be the impact?

Are there cyclists and runners that use this road?

You know, one of the things too about rural rustic road paving programs is they're paving place.

They may preserve the sort of

Look and feel of a railroad, but there's no margins.

So that when you do pave those roads, they're instantly unsafe for cyclists and runners.

A good example of that is actually, you know, towards, you know, camp holiday trails.

You know, when, when that was bad.

Try going down that road.

No, it's insanely dangerous.

And so I think, you know, we really need to look at all these things comprehensively, really get a feel, as I said, of where people are walking, running and cycling, because we have existing multimodal traffic right now.

And we're kind of ignoring it.

We're not including a planning decisions.

Just one more thing on that.

You know, we have a special use permit coming up pretty soon about Keen.

We know if you look at the data, that's a highly used walking, cycling and running area.

But that is not in the staff report.

It should be.

I don't have as much as my fellow colleague has to say on this one, but I will say that I grapple with this a little bit because I feel like

The purpose of bike and pedestrian infrastructure is different in the rural area than the development area.

Perhaps the development area is more destination seeking.

I'm walking to an area of commerce.

I'm walking my kids to school.

Here it feels like I might be trying to force something.

I want to be careful how I say this, but it almost feels like it's for leisure, right?

Like in the development area, it could be a three mile walk to get to the convenience store.

And that's just a different context than how we speak about in the development area.

So I wonder how do we best leverage our natural resource areas?

for this infrastructure opposed to multimodal.

I struggle with the multimodal piece in this context and I welcome pushback or agreement or whatever from my colleagues there, but I feel like we're kind of talking about as if it were a development area and I see them as very, very different.

What is the most like destination?

infrastructure versus leisure.

I want to ride my bike, you know, in the countryside, you know, however it may be.

So I did want to address that because that has come up before.

In fact, when the TJ PDC was doing their infrastructure plan, they intentionally excluded running because they said running is not transportation.

And so

It's interesting to me because if I get in my car and I drive to Ridge Road, the car travel to Ridge Road is transportation, but then get out of my car and I'm running and apparently that's not transportation.

But if I get in my car, I can go to a winery and apparently that's not recreation, that's transportation.

where I can get in my car and can drive to a physical therapist.

And we consider that legitimate transportation.

What if my running is physical therapy?

We know there's an obesity epidemic in rural areas.

And access to easy places to run, cycle, or walk is very important to rural people for our health.

I mean, it's very important to my health.

And so, you know, also my daughters, they walk to their friends' houses, they bike to their friends' houses.

Thanks.

Go for it.

I think that would be slightly different.

Okay.

Mr. Bivins.

Thank you, Chair.

So, so we're talking, at the end of the day, we're talking about how do we allocate dollars?

and the allocation of dollars, particularly even in the development area, which does not have their areas, which do not have robust sidewalks or multimodal ways of getting around within the development area, which is where we're saying we expect most of these, not the activities that's being discussed there, but that we expect people to be able to rely less on a vehicle in the development area than they do in the rural area.

And so, as I've said this before, so this is nothing new that if I had to sort of allocate or indicate where I prefer to put these kind of transportation infrastructure, I'd prefer to put it in the development area because I think that's where you get the highest leverage for the return.

You get the highest return for the dollar invested.

I am becoming convinced.

I'm not there yet, but I'm becoming convinced.

that there is an economic benefit to having in certain areas well-defined, sort of pedestrian and well-defined biking infrastructure that would attract people here to do things.

But in order to get there, I would want to see a plan for that.

I would want to see a plan.

So I am not saying or I am not in a position.

I say, yes, we should have a robust ped bike infrastructure in the rural part of the county.

What I do say is that if we think about it as an economic driver, are there locations in the county that make sense while we will never be able to recapture 76?

because that genie's out of the bike path.

We can look at other other ways in which we can do that and maybe there's some, maybe there's some gathering ways that we could do that.

I will say, I will say that as my colleague has said,

There are economic benefits to facilitating biking and pedestrian activities.

And I will always start from, how does this advance an economic goal?

And right now, for us, I think if we will never increase the 5% solution.

I think that's where we have to make the investment for BikePed is to make the 5% solution better.

Because as I've said before, if there was any way to connect the four areas, and this will come to the Crozet, the four areas of the development area, that in fact might be the best solution.

Because right now our four development areas are disconnected.

And so we basically have four isolated development areas.

and I believe that's part of what we wrestle with and I don't know how to get through that without creating or facilitating some way to bring those four areas together and that for me is the big wrestle with that.

Thank you.

A lot of folks have said things that I might already share.

I do appreciate some of what Commissioner Murray was saying about the ability to run on Fox Mountain Road and maintaining gravel in some of these places because you're right, if you pave it, suddenly cars are driving 50 miles an hour, whether it's safe to or not.

That said, and a little tiny back and forth with Commissioner Murray and Commissioner Clayborne, I mean, look, at the end of the day, people walk or bike to destinations more in denser areas.

That's just how it goes.

Not saying it never happens in rural areas, but, and I think, you know, to bounce off of that and Christian Bivins, I do think, you know, some of the bike and pedestrian infrastructure that's really, really needed in the dense areas is still lacking.

Could it be nice to have in the rural areas?

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

I do think, again, like in some hypothetical future, we really need to have a, you know, like a biking area and like that's marketed as such, it's a tourist destination, you know, this kind of thing.

There are places like that.

No, we don't have that plan right now.

It's not in this plan.

But I mean, that could be a thing.

In the meantime, the objective in this section that I liked the most was

Infrastructure Projects with Placemaking Components, that 3.2.

I am all about third places and places where communities actually come together, arts and parks, to use a term that I shared with Michael Barnes a little while ago, that places where community actually forms in this genuine bonds.

That's kind of the key thing to me, far more than another path for people to individually recreate.

So to do that, again, not trying to sort of have this dwell on the western part of the county, but if the barns lumber could, in fact, be one of those places where you drew people from both the purely development area, but towards, I don't know what that, I don't know what German Gap wrote.

Is that Route 76, too?

Or is that just German Gap wrote?

Whatever, sure.

Yeah, so whatever the connection there, that sort of

feels safer, I don't know if it is, but the safer between Old Trail and downtown, with downtown being a place where, as we're looking at what that plaza is going to be, then in fact you do have arts, you do have a natural gathering places that also then has that walkability over to Crozet Park.

So you're beginning to connect and you're beginning to connect some solutions that could then pivot over to the new school.

I believe there are people living in the old Crozet Elementary School now.

I think that's now a place where people live so that you're in correct creating walkable networks or bikeable networks, but bringing them to a place that's got some center that's got something that's looking like community.

In fact,

Well, so a couple of things first.

If you do look at the cycling, you know, running and walking data for Darwin's Gap, you'll see that in the heat map, it's bright white.

So, oh, it's bright white in the sense that it is a highly used.

From Crozet up to Darwin's Gap to the Parkway, that's used a lot.

So, you know, recognizing those areas that do connect our growth area into the rural area, there are these transportation spokes that go outwards.

I think that's very important.

But in terms of, you know, the discussion of investment was brought up.

But I think in the rural area, what we're asking for is not investment in bike lanes and new bike trails and these other things.

That's not what we're asking.

Just don't mess up what we have.

and where there's small improvements that can be made like just taking the margin of the road and increasing it you know to 18 inches or just a few inches just to make a little bit safer or identifying dangerous problem areas where you can do things within the existing right-of-way to make that safer.

I think that's a great cost-effective thing to do because you can

You know, you can take, you know, 17 miles and you can make 17 miles of rural roads safe, whereas, you know, making a, you know, just one mile or half a mile of green, greenway and the growth area is extraordinarily expensive.

Well, thank you.

I'll throw out a couple of comments.

One is, I guess it's four points, really.

One is, what was the quote, my kingdom for a horse?

Is that Shakespeare?

My kingdom for a plan, right?

So I think starting this date again, the obvious, maybe with a plan that looks at multimodal aspects of transportation and how it can be incorporated or how these

These plans can incorporate small area plans as part of that effort.

So in other words, if there's a small area plan, it should include an aspect of pedestrian bike infrastructure, multimodal transportation, right?

I think focusing and prioritizing compatibility and safety.

So one of the items that's in this document is a discussion about moving goods as well as people and cars, et cetera.

So there are especially, you know, you talk about finiers, you talk about sawmills, lumber yards, you know, Plank Road is

is a place that I personally bike and there's two lumber bills right there.

And the trucks that come through there are scary big and really dangerous.

So thinking through how that plays out the compatibility of that piece.

And then I think part of the plan also leveraging existing infrastructure and systems.

So where there are opportunities like the Rivanna trails, right?

Where that's just systematically grown by people contributing

easements or land to that, you know, where are those areas that we can proactively think about how might you connect Walnut Creek?

et cetera.

And then the last thing I'll mention is when you think about the plan, also thinking about, I think too, maybe it was Commissioner Clayborne's comment, you know, you've got different uses, right?

You've got essentially recreation, you've got necessity in some cases for folks moving and the other is choice.

So thinking about how each of those would be compatible as part of that.

I think the only thing I would say is just, I think it's important that we consider all users of the road equally and not prioritize one user of the road over another.

We know that when car traffic increases upon a road that we instantly start providing accommodations to that additional car traffic.

We've seen an issue on Ridge Road, for example, where runner traffic and cycling traffic increased, so the answer was to put up no parking signs to try and discourage that use.

Whereas it's interesting to contrast those two things.

And one side, instead of acknowledging the use, then finding where to accommodate it, you're instead are trying to just scourge it.

And I'm assuming you'll agree with this, too, within the bounds of safety and compatibility, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Any other thoughts?

Okay, well, we've got a little bit under 15 minutes, about 13 minutes left.

Why don't we open it up to a couple of other topics?

And I'm game to open it up to anything in general, but why don't we start with, if it's okay, interchanges?

And maybe that can actually also touch on some of the preexisting zoning that might be in those areas, legacy, et cetera.

And the Chevrolet, thank you.

And the Chevrolet.

And I would expect, or I would expect,

when we really dive into those, that this conversation will sort of drive most of it.

I appreciate your comments.

It was one of the things that Mr. Barnes and I talked about a little bit yesterday.

It's something that they're wrestling with.

I don't know.

and Mr. Beneschke.

We're trying to work on the nation for you.

Well, I thought maybe just be helpful to give you an update to where you are with your discussion.

David Benesch, Development Process Manager.

That'd be great.

Thanks for.

So you want a little bit of maybe discuss our interstate interchange.

So I believe both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors sent us direction already regarding that.

The idea was at this point in time, we were not to pursue those interstate interchanges.

But the board did direct us to provide as an action step, essentially, to recommend that small area planning take place for those two areas and set Shadwell as a priority area.

So I think if there's any conversation point for us, it might be helpful as if you have any further direction about what your expectations, your broader expectations for that might help inform

as we develop our action steps.

Got it.

Thank you.

And then last question I'd have is when we talk about Shadwell, we're talking essentially from the interstate out about the VDOT shed right there.

What we've identified is that in these two areas, we have legacy zoning, stale zoning that basically is

Types of zoning that we expect in our urban areas.

So it's part of our rural area that is developed and zoned in a different way.

and it includes that area from the hotel, which has commercial zoning to the VDOT site.

There are properties in there that are rural area, they're not all developed.

So it sort of builds from the concept that we have these collections of areas and then that small area planning would look at that, that larger area sort of centered around there.

I would direct you to 18 if you have your packet on the rule areas.

Great.

Thank you.

That actually answered a lot of my questions selfishly speaking.

So thank you for that.

Is there any other conversation we'd want to have about interchanges?

This is part of the rural area.

My sense is I think that there's this there's this fear that it's going to turn into sort of like a Route 81 exchange.

And I believe that our supervisor has been really clear that that's not going to happen here.

that we're not going to see sort of a Bucky's truck stop anywhere between our boundaries.

That's just going to happen.

The place that has the most development now is the Fifth Street Station.

Okay.

So everything else that's along there.

which the only two would be, you know, when there's ivy and that was clearly pulled off the table.

And then the one at Yancey Mill which has been paused and then the Shadwell area and that happens to be what we have because we can't do the Fontaine one because, well, you've got a different idea for Fontaine.

That's going to happen over there, you know, the whatever that is, the thing over there that's going to come up.

So I think we really only have two and we really only have one because the supervisors said have directed staff to look at that one.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the only thing that I would add is that we do have, we do have industries that serve the needs of the rural area that are not appropriate for the growth area, that things like, you know, agricultural processing facilities and other things that I think are, that meet the vision of the rural area, but are not rural uses, and not, you know, they are more industrial in nature.

You know, the best example that we have of that now is actually near Crozet.

We have the Nancy Mills, which is in itself very kind of industrial use, but it is supportive of the rural area.

Chair, can I just come back for a couple of things?

I hate to say that I've had a long period on the dice, but I have.

So I can suggest to you that we've seen, I'm looking at Shadwell.

So I can remember on Shadwell, we've seen two things.

We saw one, does everyone know where the UPS thing is?

So someone was coming to us, brothers were coming to us to put a hardware store up there, and then to put a coffee shop that you couldn't sit in the coffee shop.

because it wasn't zoned for people to sit in the coffee shop.

So you'd have to get your coffee and go and sit in the parking lot with your coffee, which was one of the craziest things that I'd ever heard, but you know, whatever.

And it was because of the zoning of that particular area.

So you had, you had individuals coming with what seemed like a viable idea, but they couldn't do the idea because the zoning said kept them from doing the cost effective solution.

So they had to come up with what felt like it, which is why I don't think it's built that, because it's too expensive.

And then you had another set of brothers over there by the ice cream place.

You know, there's an ice cream place over there that every kind of contortion they could do to try and use this land there again.

with some good ideas, but what it was going to have to do to come through the planning commission and eventually get to the supervisors, it was absolutely pushing at the edge of what the zoning would permit there coming off of the 64 bypass.

So the whole idea of being able to look at that area to sort of say, okay,

We really, and you'll remember this from the deer track or whatever, the Ravanna, it's not called Ravanna Station.

Is it called Ravanna Station?

Ravanna Village?

Ravanna Village.

So the whole idea is that that whole area, although it was one of the growth areas, can never grow because the road can't be widened.

So we've designated growth areas without recognizing that the infrastructure, because no one can buy the easements and we can't change the little bridge there, you know, the bridge that's right there.

That can't be expanded because the railroad company is not going to, they've said clearly they're not expanding it.

and then you've got a Corey a little bit further down the road.

And so the whole idea of sort of saying, how can we use this land in a way that makes sense given the uses that are starting to organically place themselves there?

and that it's no longer going to be half a farm, somewhat of a farm, half of something that was in, you know, giant when Elizabeth Taylor was riding along the train, the train coming through Keswick, that's not going to happen again, but we've got that kind of zoning there reminiscent of those days, which I believe is inconsistent to what we're seeing and inconsistent what

Is that helpful?

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's jump in.

I'm just looking at that goal foreign here, which is about the interchanges.

And really, we're talking about the Shadwell interchange, right?

And it's

I appreciate, you know, that there's a bit in here saying like, Hey, look, there's developments already happened.

What are we going to do about it?

It's kind of like there's a goal is a little squishy to say, you know, we're going to see where it doesn't conform and

Look for established patterns that we can do stuff with.

And then some revisions that came from the National Heritage Commission, basically like, actually we want to take it back the way it was.

That's the way the wording.

We're going to retrofit this.

But in that one, what I'm struck by, and this is just, you know, take it for what's worth, I don't know.

What I'm struck by is how, particularly on Chateauville, along 250, we've already got, you know, the storage center, we've already got a hotel, we've already got UPS doing stuff, we've already got, what was that, a kitchen carpet place or something?

Yeah, and high-end stereo.

Okay, yeah, and ice cream, I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, I don't think, and it's between two major highways, like, it's a little silly to me when I look at the map and be like, well, this line right here is sacrosanct.

because we've already got so much going on like right there and right there, but this is going to be like the rural area that we can't touch without anything.

Well, thanks for the additional time and comments.

One thing that I'll just mention before we recess is it would be helpful, you know, as we talk a lot about planning, we talk about plans, we talk about small area plans, whatever they are.

I know that, and I know we've talked about this, the amount of time that staff has to be able to achieve all of these small area plans.

I think it would be helpful to maybe somehow interact to discuss priorities.

to help understand what maybe an area that would be looked at first and second and so on.

Whenever it's convenient to do that or whenever it makes sense to do that.

Great.

So with that, I will recess the planning commission until 6 p.m.

And as a reminder, we will entertain public comment following our establishment of a quorum at 6 o'clock.

So thank you, everybody.

All right, it is six o'clock.

Good evening.

I'll call to order the Planning Commission for March 12, 2024.

Some of you were, I think, here during the work session and you may have heard that we amended the agenda to add, prior to the public hearings and at this time, the opportunity for the public to speak to members not listed on the agenda.

So if you're here to speak to something on the agenda, this is not your time to speak.

That will happen during the public hearing portion of that particular specific item.

But if you are interested in speaking to an item, not on the agenda, and I do realize that the work session rural area plan is on the agenda, but in this case, we'll make the exception.

You may speak to that.

item as well.

So before I call the folks who have signed up to speak to that issue, I just want to read some rules of the road during public hearings.

And at this time as well, the commission will only acknowledge speakers addressing the item listed for the public hearings.

Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes per public hearing item.

Timekeeping is conducted by Madam Clerk.

in order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy of the Planning Commission requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

First, when called, state your name, address, and magisterial district, you know it.

Second, address comments directly to the Planning Commission as a whole.

Third, if you exceed your allotted time, you will be asked to end your comments.

And fourth, if a speaker does not use all the allotted time, the unused time may not be shared with another speaker.

Thank you.

So with that, I will see three folks have signed up for matters not listed on the agenda.

The first one only has a first name and that is Dan appears to not be here.

The second name is Sherry.

I'm not you're going to have to help me with your last name, if you don't mind, but please come up.

And again, please state your name.

Address and Magisterial District, if you know.

My name is Sherry Buttrick.

I live in the Whitehall District on Ballards Mill Road, not far from Free Union and Whitehall.

I've served on a number of these county committees that support agricultural and rural area items over the years.

When I saw the logo for the comprehensive plan revision, I knew we were in trouble.

The sprawl all across the fields and the foreground and houses on every ridge towards the back.

The photographs depict a lot of asphalt and gravel, but no agriculture.

Correspondingly to this statement, we will have thriving farms and working forests sounds more like a regrettable statement of an inevitability than something that you all want to actively encourage, promote, and sustain.

We really need traditional mainstream agriculture, not just niche and boutique agriculture, cattle farming, crop farming, equestrian activities.

The plan should recognize that without agriculture, without forestry, there will be none of the other resources in the rural areas that you wish to promote.

There will be no intact natural systems.

There will be no scenic resources.

There would be no rural character that makes this area very desirable.

No equitable opportunity for people who want to work in the rural areas.

Because in order for the land to remain undeveloped and for you to be able to, as you say, reduce the rate of conversion, there needs to be some viable economic uses for rural land that doesn't convert it to something else.

Things that the county encourages.

And there needs to be attractive options for land conservation.

There are a number of objectives that are so general that it appears that they promote development, but it is hard to tell.

The first thing the rural areas should do is unequivocably protect and promote and sustain land use taxation.

Make no mistake, if you lose the land use tax, the rural areas are toast.

We also need to promote agricultural and forest districts again.

You say you want to promote the effectiveness of conservation areas, of conservation programs, excuse me.

But what has recently happened is that the ACE program has been mothballed.

This was a program that pioneered equitable land protection options for farmers.

We need to protect scenic resources and be more clear and direct about it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And just as a reminder, I think you all know this, but if you do have additional comments, please feel free to share them with staff.

Thank you.

The next person we have on the list is a familiar name, Ms.

Sally Thomas.

I feel very 21st century using my ad here.

You were talking today about things I've had a lot of experience with.

I thought before I... Please state your name.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm Sally Thomas.

I live in the Jack Jewett District.

My surprise.

I thought I knew what it was going to be like to be a member of the Board of Supervisors, but I was not prepared for what rural roads were going to be.

They were the most explosive issue during the time I was on the board.

These are not easy things that you are talking about today.

Sometimes people feel strongly about the dust of the gravel, but always paving was a disaster if what you wanted was the protection of what people enjoy in the rural area.

Alternatives to Transportation and General Uses were talked about, and it just reminded me so much of when Crozet was at, people were asked what they wanted, and they said, we want lots of things.

We want ice cream parlors on every corner, and we want to be able to walk to all of them.

And so the planners said, well, good, what we'll give you is a community of umpteen, umpteen people.

And of course they said, no, no, no, we don't want that.

So lots of good ideas you are finding in Crozet require more people than you are ever going to want in the rural area.

So the effect of wish lists is if you put them in the comp plan, that is the wrong thing to have in the comp plan.

Your job is to be the bad guys.

Based on planning knowledge and higher goals and objectives, you must explain why suburban sprawl throughout the rural area is a bad idea.

And if you don't know, educate yourself.

Ruining the rural area will always be cheaper than creating appropriate infrastructure in the developed area.

Why not ruin the rural area?

It's the comp plans duty to say no.

Many, several times the county made decisions that went to the Court of Appeals.

We were challenged and we prevailed.

And why did we prevail?

We prevailed because we had a strong comprehensive plan that laid out what protection of mountain areas was all about, what protection of our reservoir land watershed was all about.

Because that was in the comp plan, we prevailed.

It is your duty to have a strong comp plan.

Oh, it was very helpful.

Thank you.

That is the last thing I have on my list, but I'll open it up to anyone else who would like to speak again for some of you who came in a little bit late to items not on the agenda this evening.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

And again, I'll just echo what I was reminded.

One of my colleagues said so well, so often, and that is use the system, right?

Is that the... Sure.

To guarantee said, follow the process.

That's right.

So there are opportunities for providing public comment.

Please take those.

And we do take those incredibly seriously as we do our job to steward the rural area of the county.

So thank you very much.

With that,

Great.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Sid Schoff.

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

Tonight I'll be giving staff's presentation for special use permit SP 2023-16 Charlottesville Climbing Gym.

This is a request to amend an existing special use permit for an indoor climbing gym on a 0.94 acre lot in the development area.

The subject property is located west of the Charlottesville City Limits after the Ivy Road and Old Ivy Road fork.

The tax map parcel is 60-46C and the site's address is 2200 Old Ivy Road.

The entire parcel is approximately 0.94 acres and it contains an existing structure.

The site is zoned commercial office and it is affected by the steep slips managed over the district and the entrance corridor.

In the Albemarle Comprehensive Plan it is part of Neighborhood 7 of the Southern and Western Neighborhoods Master Plan.

It is designated as community mix use, which allows residential for up to 34 units per acre, community scale retail, service and office uses, places of worship, schools, public and institutional uses.

The surrounding properties are a mixture of uses and include other office uses, a restaurant, an apartment complex, and some of the University of Virginia's athletic facilities and buildings.

Lastly, the site is bordered by the Buckingham brand railroad to the south and an underpass to the southeast.

As I mentioned in the last slide, there is an existing approximately 13,378 gross square foot area building that is currently mixed use with office space, retail, and a portion of the building site is used for an indoor athletic facility for up to 2,000 square feet that was approved by SP 2012-1

Due to the site's elevation, there are two driveways onto Old Ivy Road and two parking lots.

Between the two parking lots, there are an existing 49 parking spaces.

The Northwestern driveway is a shared driveway with the adjacent parcel to the Northwest.

For this proposal, the special use permit request is to amend existing special use permit SP 2012-1 for an indoor climbing gym.

This proposal includes an expansion of the existing special use permit from 2000 square feet

to $6,125 square feet per indoor athletic facility.

And this includes climbing, bouldering, strength and fitness, yoga space, kid zone, retail space, locker rooms, storage, a group fitness room, and a small office associated with the gym use.

This is a screenshot of the concept plan that was provided as an attachment in the staff report.

The applicant has proposed minimal changes to the site itself.

The proposed building footprint will remain the same.

However, the applicant's proposing to raise the existing two-story building to three stories.

The existing 49 spaces is also compliant with the required parking spaces for the requested recreation use.

Additionally, the applicant's proposed to remodel the bicycle parking area and to add additional landscaping to the site.

As I mentioned in the last slide, the existing footprint of the site will remain the same.

However, the applicant is proposing to raise the existing two-story building from 16 feet, one inch to a three-story building at 32 feet and four inches.

Old Ivy Road is not an entrance corridor.

However, the architectural review board reviewed the proposal due to its potential impacts to Ivy Road, which is an entrance corridor.

The architectural review board had no objections and Albemarle County's fire rescue had no issue with the increased height as well.

The special use permit was reviewed under the Factories for Consideration as outlined in the zoning ordinance.

Staff believes that the proposed special use permit will not be detrimental to adjacent properties, will not change the character of the nearby area, will continue to be in harmony with the commercial office zoning district, and is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

There is one condition that staff is recommending, and that is the indoor athletic facility use shall not exceed 6,125 square feet.

In sum, there are three factors that are favorable.

The first is it's consistent with review criteria for special use permits contained in the zoning ordinance.

The second is the use is consistent with the land use plan.

And third, it provides an additional athletic facility for people who live and work in the area.

There is no factor unfavorable.

With that being said, staff recommends approval with the conditions as recommended in the staff report.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, so that's to limit the amount of indoor recreation space.

And so the 6,125 square feet matches the 49 total parking that's allowed on the site.

And so our ordinance breaks down.

It's one parking space for every 125 square feet of usable recreation space.

Any other questions?

Okay.

With that, I will open the public hearing and invite the applicant to come up.

As a reminder, please state your name and affiliation and then also you have 10 minutes to present.

Thank you.

Magisterial districts too?

I think real quick.

All right.

Good evening.

My name is Eric Woolley with Woolley Engineering.

I'm joined this evening by Mike Kinick.

He's the co-founder of Rock Revolution and also Robert Nichols.

He is an architect with Formwork Design.

We are pleased to present to you the proposal to renovate and remodel the existing office building at 220 Old Ivy from traditional office to an indoor climbing gym.

I forgot to mention that I'm in the Whitehall district, so everybody knows.

For anyone that's not familiar with an indoor climbing gym, this is just a kind of a typical image of what a climbing wall looks like inside.

All those colorful little attachments to the wall are holds and the idea is that recreational users can simulate what it's like to climb a traditional rock inside in a little bit more safer zone.

Mr. Schov did a great job.

He hit on all the highlights, so there's really not a lot that I need to tell you about what we're doing from the existing addition to the proposed.

I did think it was probably appropriate that we spend a touch of time just in case anyone had a question about the fact that we are, so the existing special permit allows for 2,000 square feet.

We're asking for an expansion to 6,000 for indoor athletic use.

The existing square footage of the building is actually being reduced with the remodeling and we'll have a couple slides to show you where that comes from.

Good evening, Mike Kinneck.

I'm not sure the magistrate, I believe it's Ivy Pascua, if that was the district.

So I'm Mike Kinneck, excuse me, co-founder of Rock Revolution.

My wife and I founded Rock Revolution at the beginning of 2020.

Unfortunately, she's not here this evening.

She had to travel for work.

But we developed this concept to bring a modern, clean, and safe indoor rock climbing facility to Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

Primarily because we saw the benefits rock climbing provided to our daughter six and who are six and eight and just for the benefits that we saw first hand from ourselves participating in the sport.

You know, I mentioned our daughters, our youngest who lacks a little bit of confidence and is a little bit more timid.

We watched her over the course of a couple of years while we traveled out to Richmond to visit an indoor gym there just her confidence blossom and it was it was just fun to see as a parent, a very proud moment of that.

So,

So beyond confidence or many other mental and physical benefits of rock climbing, and just to name a few, confidence, like I mentioned, focus, courage, resilience, you feel a lot in climbing, so it certainly builds grit, which I think is a great something to create.

personally trade to have especially in kids.

And then on the mental side, excuse me, on the physical side improves coordination, endurance, and strength.

And so it's our hope to bring all those benefits to the gym and to the space here on Old Ivy Road.

And so with that, I'll turn it over, I believe to Robert for his comments.

Almost.

Thanks, Mike.

So again, getting back to what the building looks like on the outside.

So if you imagine yourself coming from the city, branching off from Ivy Road to Old Ivy, you're coming up this direction.

The first thing you see the south face of the building, you can see it's two stories.

Everything comes in on grade.

Sid did mention that there's a grade change.

Transition of this photograph, you're coming up the hill.

You can see on the north side, you're coming in on the first floor.

So there's two stories on one side, one story and the other.

You can see that the site already has a good amount of parking, 49 paved spaces.

We're not anticipating the need to address or add to that in any way.

There's already quite a few mature pieces of vegetation, trees, shrubs, none of that would be disturbed with this proposal.

Here's our site plan, as Sid mentioned, Old Ivy, sorry, Old Ivy and Ivy Road.

This is in the entrance corridor.

Old Ivy is not.

Again, we have ample parking, no desire to amend or add any impervious surfaces with this proposal.

Each of these gray circles are the existing mature trees.

We intend to leave those.

We will augment with a few more trees so that it matches the county-regulated code for the number of parking spaces.

We do propose a little bit of additional parking for bicycles.

These are the covered spaces, so a secure place to store your bikes, so to try to promote bikes use as well.

Again, this is the building footprint.

The darker red shape shows you the area that will be raised from two story to three story.

So one of the things we wanted to evaluate and present to you is the impact.

We utilize the IT trip manual to try to foretell how much of an impact parking and traffic may have on the area.

The existing use being primarily office basically generates higher peak demand for trips than the gym.

So overall, we shouldn't see any negative impact from traffic.

Getting back to the section.

So this is the north side.

This is the south side.

And you can see you come in, you have an open space.

You come in on the first floor here.

And this would be the existing roof line.

So the idea is we'd be raising the roof line to three stories.

So this space becomes now two stories tall inside.

And on this side, about a third of the square footage of the first floor would be removed, thereby allowing full three stories of potential for climbing inside.

And at this point, I'll hand it over to Robert.

He's like to give you jazz, just a little bit of a background about the architectural design.

I'm Robert Nichols.

The name of my firm is for work design.

We practice in our office here in Charlottesville, practice throughout the area.

I'll just say a few things about the appearance of the building.

The biggest characteristic, the most noteworthy characteristic, and the biggest component of the scope of construction is this increase in height.

So that upper portion

is all new.

And for the most part, the fenestration there, the windows are limited to narrow windows at the top.

That's so we can use those wall surfaces for the climbing.

We're still going to get some daylight in through the top.

And then I think in the evening, it'll have a nice kind of lantern effect and look like an occupied building.

Really, the main thing I think given just a few moments to talk about the building, I think the real difference in the neighborhood to passersby

The current building is perfectly serviceable for its current use, which is office.

There's a limited area that's 2,000 square feet for athletic, but it's primarily office space and it's multi-tenant.

And so as a multi-tenant building, it's got a certain anonymity.

And I think perhaps maybe with some work at home and other changes, it comes across the last few years as kind of lightly occupied.

and we're looking forward to this proposed use, what Mike's bringing to the project is it's going to be a single use, it's going to be a destination for activity and we want the building to present itself as an occupied and active building and as an attractive destination that is

Right on time that concludes our presentation so we're available if you guys have any questions after you have your discussion.

Great.

Thank you.

Any questions for the applicant?

Not at this time.

Okay.

If you could go back.

Thank you, Chair.

If you could go back and sort of share where the other sort of other activity spaces might be, because I understood I have a good feeling from

from your design of where we're going to see a wall.

But you also, at the very beginning, you talked about you're going to have yoga and other types of activities, and I couldn't see where that would take place.

Maybe it's on the east side.

Robert, would you like to jump in here?

Yeah, thanks.

Yeah, that sectional view is mostly to explain the change in the appearance of the week, but it doesn't help answer your questions, which are good ones.

So here we are.

We're looking at the lower level.

This is as you arrive from the west, from the city side.

and then so here's how the space on the ground is divided lower right you've got this yoga and group space these these spaces towards the back of the building because what's going on with the grade those are largely subgrade note no daylight there so we have locker rooms and

Utility, and then also the gym, the kind of strength and machines that are used, the kind of auxiliary to the climbing.

And then this space here, this little more than 25% of it, that is the space above which we're demolishing the existing floor.

So that space is effectively three stories tall.

And then if I go

up.

This is showing in that same position, that kind of missing floor.

So you're, if you're in any of these places, locations, you're looking over into a, to a lower position is where climbers take a break and chat about their feats.

This is, this is still a, you know, a big space.

This is effectively two stories tall.

And what the

in the trade they call bouldering, just a slightly smaller scale, more or less the same kind of activity.

Just as a suggestion, I know a lot of these commercial buildings with flat roofs like that are already designed to handle the weight of a green roof.

So if you haven't thought about that, that's something you could consider.

I would mention it's not much, but new construction can qualify for $30,000 towards a green roof, as long as you've already met your other stonewater requirements.

Thank you.

I just had a couple of quick questions.

One, well, many of us know that this area is really

Dangerous for pedestrians.

And I'm curious, I didn't see it on the site plan.

Maybe I'm missing it.

Will you have any, and you mentioned bikes, bike storage, bike racks a couple of times.

How do you access this on a bike?

So there are no current sidewalks on old Ivy.

We've got, if you go to the west, to the northwest, about a thousand feet.

Yeah.

That's where you encounter your first sidewalk.

So one thing that we didn't address, but

is pertinent, is that currently VDOT in the city and the county are all studying this intersection.

We're right in the middle of it.

So they just completed phase one, which was sending out the surveys to find out what people thought.

And as you can see, we included it in the slide in cases came up.

Yeah, everyone's concerned about safety.

Everyone's concerned because you have a lot of people that want to bike, a lot of people that want to walk.

But the restricting point of the railroad underpass is just so narrow that it makes it too dangerous.

And so that's a huge issue.

It's one that Mike would love to see a great solution come out of this study.

We're kind of at the mercy of what happens on the larger scale.

So I think Mike would like to be reactive.

Like a proffer?

or Condition or Condition to at some point ring online.

Yeah, we can certainly talk to the owner.

So Mike, he's the co-founder of Rock River.

She's not the owner of the parcel.

So that's, you know, he has a lease arrangement.

So we would definitely, the owner has been very supportive of the project.

They're really happy for this use.

They really want to see it come on.

So I'm sure that we can talk to the owner about potential.

So yeah, I'm assuming you'll want us to work with staff and we'd be happy to be with staff and

Thank you.

Thank you.

You mentioned peak hour demand is a little bit less than an office building.

What about overall average daily traffic?

It's probably a little bit more because of the hours of operation.

So it's spread out.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

You got nine, six o'clock till six o'clock in the morning till nine at night.

So it is a longer operational.

I'm sorry.

But the average, you know, that was one of the things we wanted to do is make sure we had, we knew we had enough to meet the county minimum standards for parking, but we wanted to make sure we had enough for the demand that they're actually hoping to achieve with their facility.

Okay, great.

Any other questions for the applicant?

All right.

If not, thank you.

Appreciate it.

I'll now open it up to comments from the public on this item.

I don't have anybody signed up.

but I will open it up to any comments from the public.

Seeing none, I'll ask kind of clerk, anybody online?

No.

Oh, somebody does.

Yes.

If you all want to be on the record for any of this, then you should come up and just state your name, please.

My name is Sean Cosette and I actually own a business which is called Beejust and which is located on the west side.

I think that you're talking about in the Hunter Craig's where the tractor places and I think

that I would love to see this happening over on that side.

I mean the west side has had a really kind of a different vibe that I think it needs to become updated and I feel like this would contribute to the community especially on the west side which is a little bit of a desert unless you're

Farmington, Orr's Head.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Anyone who'd like to come up?

Great.

Double checking online.

We still have none.

All right.

Thank you.

Would the applicant like to make any comments in response to the comment that was just made?

You don't have to just offering that, if you think.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

With that, I'll close the public hearing and open it up to the commission for discussion.

It seems entirely reasonable.

and while the traffic and I'm very familiar with that bottleneck.

I've worked right near it and take it pretty often, but that's beyond the scope of one proposal, obviously.

Hope for the best from that VDOT study and city study.

Otherwise, no, go climb some walls, John.

Thanks, Mr. Bivins.

Thank you, Chair.

I support this effort.

And particularly since we always, we seem to have a lot of conversation about reusing buildings and that that's something that we're very supportive of.

I think this sort of falls into that to that sort of desire that we've stated over the course of many months.

And so I support this.

And I'm glad to see that that piece of property, which used to have a tennis court,

Yeah, Hartford.

Hartford.

And then that went away.

I don't know if they truly went away, but now it has seemed to be sitting kind of fallow there for a few years.

So I'm very excited that there's going to be something there that alive in that area.

Thank you.

Ditto.

Nothing else to add.

All right, awesome.

No, I'm glad to see this use looks great.

Thank you, everyone.

My only comment you heard, which was to encourage consideration of a sidewalk.

I don't know if we need to add that as a as a condition.

I think, you know, if this weren't being currently studied with a great deal of effort on the part of V dot and the county, I think I'd probably feel a bit differently, but I think it's fine to leave it as is just for the record.

Great.

Do I have a

Mr. Murray would like to make a motion.

Any discussion?

Thank you all.

Okay, with that, we will move on to the next, and I think final public hearing item, which is SP 2022-26 Shoe Property.

Maybe we have the staff report.

Okay, good evening, everyone.

Sorry about that brief pause.

Good evening.

My name is Cameron Langell.

I'm a principal planner with the Planning Division of Community Development.

And tonight, I'll be giving you the staff presentation on SP 2022-26, known as the Shawl Property, which is a request for a special use permit to allow a public garage.

So to begin, this is an existing conditions image that shows the location of our parcel.

It is at the southeast corner of the intersection between Scottsville Road and Coles Rolling Road.

It measures 6.41 acres in total.

It's currently undeveloped and consists of mature vegetation, both deciduous and evergreen.

In the comprehensive plan, it's located in rural area four.

There is an interesting mix of surrounding uses adjacent to this parcel.

It's bordered on its west side entirely by Scottsville Road and then Cole's Rolling Road to its north side and northeast side.

and the parcel boundaries actually go to the center of both of those public rights away.

So we'll start by talking about uses to the West.

So immediately West, there's a single family residential home.

Further from that, there's the Keen Post Office, which you can see labeled on this image.

Immediately north of the Keen Post Office on the opposite side of Plank Road, there is the Piedmont Veterinary Service Clinic.

Across this parcel to the north.

I'm going to use my laser pointer.

This might be kind of hard to follow along.

On this property right here is the Green Mountain Country Store.

Then we have some residential properties right here.

And then here we have the V dot keen area headquarters.

To the south, we've got some single-family homes.

Some of these properties don't have structures on them.

Some do.

And there's other undeveloped properties right here.

You can't see it on this image, but the Southern Albemarle Convenience Center is located about 1,000 feet to the southwest.

This is a zoning map.

I'm going to go ahead and just apologize because there's an error on this.

This property is in an overlay zoning district.

It's in the entrance corridor overlay district.

So please forgive me for having none on this slide.

But the primary zoning district that applies to this property and all of these surrounding parcels is noted by that white color, which is the RA Rural Area Zoning District.

One thing I did that we don't normally do on the zoning slide is that since this is in the rural areas, I went ahead and turned on the critical resource layer just to show that there's no 100-year floodplain water protection ordinance stream buffer on this property, but there is some small areas that are orange, and you can see them up here at this northern corner and this southern corner, and that represents critical slopes.

It's not very large in total.

I don't know the exact square feet, but it is in the staff report.

But I did just want to say there is some small areas of critical slopes on the parcel.

So before we get into the specifics of this, the Shell Property SP, I just want to talk a little bit about some definitions here.

So what is a public garage?

I pulled this language directly from the zoning ordinance, section 3.1 is where we have our definitions.

A public garage is a portion of a building or entire building other than a private garage that is designed or used for servicing or repairing motor driven vehicles.

So to clarify that a little bit, the types of repair maintenance activities that could be taking place at a public garage would be things like engine work, battery and fluid replacement, flat tire repair, safety inspections and things of that sort.

A public garage is not a body shop.

A body shop is a specific use in our zoning ordinance.

It's really only allowed by a special use permit in our more intense commercial and light industrial zoning districts.

A body shop is also a business that does perform repair of automobiles, but it's really focusing on like the exterior components and the chassis.

Other things that can happen at body shops is they can be completely dismantling vehicles, crushing vehicles, painting vehicles.

Those types of activities are not what's allowed at a public garage.

So I just wanted to get that out there before we move forward.

So this is the concept plan that the applicant has prepared.

I'm going to go ahead and use my laser pointer again.

What I'll start with, we'll start talking about what they would build with this.

There would be a driveway entrance on Nicole's Rolling Road, which is right here.

And that would come into the site, and then you'd have this parking area that's noted by the gray color.

The building itself is up here, that's the building footprint.

That represents a building that's 4,000 total square feet.

You can see they've drawn in some conceptual parking spaces for employees and customers here.

I hope everyone can see it, but there is a dashed line.

It's a rectangular shape.

And this is the area of this parking travelway area where they would be having vehicles stored that are going to be awaiting repair actually inside the public garage.

They do have some storage containers here where they would have different materials and parts that the business needs to operate.

Those would be stored inside of there.

And then in this area, this is supposed to represent where a septic system drain field could go.

Again, because this is in the rural areas, it's not going to be on public water and sewer utilities.

They would have a well and septic system.

And then this is where a conceptual stormwater management pond would be located.

The applicant has drawn in some grading lines.

That's what these lines are, but that's meant to show what they would be clearing.

Everything else that you see in green is the existing vegetation that would be retained with this project.

It varies in width around the perimeter of the site, but the only break that they would be creating would again be for this driveway entrance.

In terms of the minimum widths along Cole's Rolling Road, it gets at its most narrow up here, it's 40 feet wide.

and then along Scottsville Road, it's about 50 feet right in here, but the majority does get larger and wider than that.

This area, it's 127 feet.

I measured this from this corner to right about here, it's about 110 feet.

But again, that would be retained.

And then let's see, just some other things to talk about.

There would be an opaque fence that surrounds the built portion of this property right here.

There's a detail on the concept plan that shows the types of materials that it could be, would be a minimum of six feet in height.

The applicant could make that taller if this were to be approved and we get to the site plan stage.

One other thing I do want to talk about is that for screening purposes, we've worked with the applicant to get them to commit to providing a gate here.

That would be an opaque gate.

Again, the purpose for that is that really the only break that you would have that's unobstructed, that's being created by this construction would be the driveway entrance.

And so having that gate there would help to screen everything else inside of the site.

These are the evaluation criteria that staff is required to go through in looking at a special use permit.

I go over them in detail on pages four, five, and six of the staff report.

And I'm not going to read everything that I've written, but I guess I will just take a couple of moments to talk about some of the highlight points that we wrote about.

So no substantial detriment to adjacent parcels.

Staff believes that the combination of retaining the extent of existing mature vegetation in conjunction with that privacy fence would limit the visual noise impacts that would be created by this property.

On the concept plan, the applicant actually pulled some information from the Institute of Traffic Engineers, ITE Manual, that shows what would the traffic impact of this use be.

And the combined AM and PM

A peak traffic would generate about 19 vehicle trips, so this really is not going to be creating a huge amount of traffic that would affect the other properties in the area.

For a character of the area is unchanged.

Again, there would be two things here.

With retaining that existing vegetation, it really would help be a visual buffer and try and make this use not be as noticeable as it would be if it was on a property that didn't have any existing vegetation or if they were entirely clear cutting it.

Again, I think we looked at the existing non-residential uses that are in the immediate vicinity.

This is parcel and there's quite a few for anywhere really in the rural area.

So that's another thing.

Harmony with the intent of the zoning ordinance chapter.

In the RA Zoning District specifically, right in the intro, it says that it is expected when development occurs that it be limited, but it still could provide service delivery to rural area residents.

So this is not as big of a auto service repair shop as we would see in the development areas.

It is a smaller scale.

The applicant can go into more detail, but they're only going to be having I think four service bays in that structure.

We've worked with them from their original proposal which showed a much larger area of disturbance and parking lot and they've shrunk that by more than half.

In terms of being consistent with any supplemental regulations that apply, if we need to go over those, I have a slide that's actually after I'm finished talking, but I can pull them up.

There are supplemental regulations that apply to this use, planning, zoning staff, engineering staff.

We've looked at the concept plan.

We think that it would be able to comply with that.

And again, all of those details would be enforced at the time of site plan if this special use permit were to be approved.

Sorry, I did not mean to switch slides yet.

I guess for the last one, consistency with the comprehensive plan, we note in the staff report that this use is not directly supporting agricultural or forestal uses, which is one of the main things that the rural area chapter of the comprehensive plan recommends.

However, in another chapter, which is our natural resources chapter, it does identify that there is some existing good mature tree cover on this property.

It doesn't specifically call it in a conservation focus area, but it does note that that tree canopy could have value.

And so when we were looking at what the level of disturbance would be if this property were developed by right, which they could do three single family detached homes, there would likely be an equivalent if not more amount of clearing occurring on this property, not just for the homes themselves, but for areas for the septic and wells.

and three driveway entrances as opposed to one.

Furthermore, the way that they've designed the concept plan, none of the existing critical slopes would be disturbed at all.

And that is consistent with some things from the rural areas chapter of the comprehensive plan.

So for the factors favorable, we listed, you know, it's consistent with the review criteria for special use permits contained in the zoning ordinance.

And in the nearby vicinity, there is quite a few non-residential uses.

Factors unfavorable, again, doesn't support agricultural or forestal activities.

So staff is recommending approval of the special use permit, but with these following conditions, I'm not gonna read through these one by one.

The first one just talks about any development that would occur is gonna be in general accord with the concept plan that they have put forth and we call out specific features that we would be making sure, not just at the site plan stage, but when they're trying to get a grading permit that they would be meeting all of these conditions.

Number two, these are conditions that

We've used in the past on other public garages that have been approved in the rural areas.

Going back to 1980, we've had about 20 public garages that have been approved in the rural areas.

And many of the conditions are similar between those applications.

And so we have an hours of operation.

We have a condition that talks about, no body work would occur.

There's no sale of gasoline or rental of vehicles that would be happening here.

One thing we called out that's unique to this is they do show those storage containers and we said no more than four would be allowed to be on site.

And then lastly, vehicles awaiting repair can only be stored outside for up to 30 days.

Anything more than that would constitute a zoning violation.

Again, we're trying to mitigate some concerns we've heard from neighbors that this could become a tow yard, which is an entirely separate use that's not actually allowed in the rural areas.

and then finally we have this last one which is also unique and it's just again reiterating that we would need to be getting details of that sliding gate at the entrance at the time of site plan review to make sure that it is opaque and does maintain a visual screen into the site.

Great, thank you.

Great staff report.

Kay, I will open it up to the commission for questions.

Sure.

Can you tell me a little bit about the other garages that have been improved in the rural area in terms of like, how does this compare in terms of size?

Is this about the same size as the others that have been improved?

Sure.

I do have some information on that.

Give me a minute.

I'm going to

So this is not all of them that have been approved.

Again, it's about 20, I think it's 18 that we've approved since 1980.

But I pulled some that we did have like good information for and could actually look at least do, you know, a brief comparison.

And so I think the last three columns here would probably be what we're talking about.

The answer is that there's been a little bit of variation between them.

The largest public garage building special use permit that has occurred is 8,200 square feet, and that was one that was done in 2013.

The column that says approximate footprint acreage, what that means is the area of the property that was built upon so things like the building itself, driveways, parking areas, other physical improvements, not anything that was left in a natural state.

So, you know,

1.8 acres, 2.17 acres.

Then we have the actual total site acreage.

And yes, you'll notice the very first one on the list.

That's a 2,000 square foot building.

The entire parcel is covered with impervious surface.

That's pavement buildings, things like that.

I don't know.

We can talk through these, but that's the information I have.

And again, this is just a few of them.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

Looking at the conditions, particularly number one bullet four, fencing materials and heights.

How do you govern like the upkeep?

Like I saw the detail like it was a wood fence fast forward eight, nine years on the road, starting to decay, missing

Planks and Boards.

What governance?

How do you police that?

It would be two things.

It would be the site plan that would be approved for this site because we get construction details, both in plan and profile view that show the materials, the color, heights, all of that.

That is actually something that's required by the zoning ordinance for screening purposes.

And so anytime a site needs to have screening to comply with that, that's, again, just zoning ordinance requirements.

This is another layer of that.

This would be a special use permit condition as well.

And one of your notes, you say that you were in conversation, I'm trying to find, okay, so it's on page four.

The applicant has since revised the size of the built area to 1.3 acres.

It is what's shown in the plan.

And let me, I'll go and use my laser pointer.

So for 1.3 acres, I'm talking about everything within the, that's the gray area.

And then the driveway, the entire entrance back down.

And so, and this is the conversation that you had that you had with the applicant and they backed down from, which is going to be, they were going to clear, they were intending to clear a significant more than that objective.

So in the, in your condition on containers, are we talking about the kind of containers that, that go on freighters?

Are we talking about those kind of containers?

I'll let the applicant give more details, but from what I know, yes.

Now, there is one thing I want.

Yes, it's a container like you see in Frater.

Yes.

But one thing that we should mention is there is a condition that or a note that our architectural review board staff had the applicant put on the concept plan that says those containers are going to need to be painted in earth or muted color.

So it's like what we see on 250 West at the, well, I don't know the name of the beer hall, but I think it's called Renata or something like that.

Yeah, those are similar containers.

In that example, they've stacked them, which would not be... Was not what's gonna happen.

Mr. Moore.

I was just curious if we have any kind of numbers or stats or figures on kind of how large parking areas tend to be for garages.

The ones I'm most familiar with in the sort of development area closest to where I live, it looks like about five times the parking area compared to the square footage of the garage.

And this looks like more like 10 or 15.

I don't have an answer for you on that.

I didn't go and look exactly at, in the development areas, what the size of those would be.

But I would say that when you measure the area where they could store vehicles awaiting repair here, I think it was about 10,000 square feet.

And in the development areas, I did look at just the general parking lots.

I think all of my questions have also been answered.

I guess the only question that hasn't is relative to the, you refer to here, the existing dense vegetation to be maintained in areas shown.

That's the green areas on here, I assume, right?

When I did my first site visit for this over a year ago, I mean, it looked fairly dense.

It's not just trees.

There's shrubbery, of course, at ground level.

One thing that I can say is that if this special use permit were to be approved, it's evident with these conditions and the concept plan that that's meant to be a visual screen.

And so when I do a lot of site plan review and my role here, as well as these types of applications,

We can require what we call a conservation plan, which we do in situations like this.

And that can mean basically an applicant who's proposing a develop has to go out and hire an arborist and they give us a tree survey that identifies like every single existing thing on site.

And if that, you know, shows an area where it appears there's a hole or whatever a line of site that's

Unobstructed, then we could say this is supposed to be landscaped.

It's supposed to be vegetation.

Okay, got it.

Yes.

We do have staff that are in our natural resources planning teams, and so that would be a case where I would have them look at it as well.

Again, since this is in the entrance corridor, the landscaping and screening is going to be a major consideration of the ARB.

Did the ARB have any other comments?

So going back to the original layouts, which again were much different than this, there was there was plenty of comments that everyone had related to that, but when they, the applicant shrunk what they were proposing to do, and then again sort of showed

And did I hear you correctly mention that the gate needed to be closed at all times?

We don't have a condition saying that it needs to be closed at all times.

I will let the applicant answer whether that is their intention.

I believe at the community meeting, they did say they wouldn't be opposed to that for security reasons.

And if the commission thinks that that would be a wise condition to add, I don't think staff would have an objection to that.

You know, maybe it's one of those weight censored gates if a vehicle pulls up while they're still open, then it could open automatically.

Got it.

Yes, sir.

Could you go back again to the tree condition, what that would be called if it were, because it's not in here now.

Yeah, we said that you would have an obarisk go and do an inventory.

So if this were to go forward, the ordinance will pick up that responsibility.

But the other question I had, that if the hours on here that I saw you have is, you're not open before eight, but you're closed and you're closed at five each day, which is

5 o'clock in the afternoon.

The evening is as hard to get to if you're coming from, particularly if you're coming from working.

So I actually would think if this goes forward, I'd recommend that it's at least like 6 or 6.30.

But you also say that people could drop off cars before 8.

That's a good question.

I think if the commission has an idea about possibly amending that, that staff wouldn't be opposed.

And we could talk through that if need be.

Thank you.

Just something out of curiosity, once again, with the maintenance of vegetation there.

So when you do that assessment, you said that it's currently dense vegetation.

If they do that assessment, they find that the dense vegetation question is multi-floor rows, which is a state-listed nocturus species.

How's that measured?

Never encountered that question before.

I think we would have to evaluate it on a case by case basis with the zoning administrator as well as natural resources staff.

But that's a good point.

I mean, we would likely, I don't want to speculate again.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to find that where it talks about that the vehicles, was it that they would be on site for no more than 48 hours, am I making that up?

30 days, thank you.

30 days and that's right, 30 days, thank you.

All right.

No more questions for staff.

I'll open up the public hearing and ask the applicant to come forward.

Please identify yourself, your address, and if you would choose your Magisterial District.

All right.

Cameron, should we cue this one second?

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Clint Shiflett.

I work at Timmins Group here in our Charlottesville office, working with the applicant, Tommy Shaw.

I have like three or four slides to go through.

I think Cameron did a really good job of detailing the project.

So I'll be brief.

So this is the application plan that Cameron had up before.

Probably no reason to rehash that.

Next slide, Cameron.

So I wanted to give some additional context to the area.

So this is the red dots represent locations where photographs were taken, the arrows and the directions that the photographs were taken.

You can see kind of at the intersection here at the top left, commercial development on the left and right side of the road there.

down on the lower left side, that indicates kind of want to give an idea of the existing vegetation that's there today.

It's a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees there, mostly deciduous, but a little bit of both, some ground cover, some shrubs in the area as well.

Quite thick vegetation.

I drove by a site today as well, even with the leaves falling, it's still quite robust.

Over on the right hand corner, you have coming down poles, rolling road toward the north, on the east side of the road here, we have the VDOT headquarters.

You can kind of see it's a large industrial development, basically across the street from this proposed application.

They store salt.

Their trucks come in during inclement weather, load up dump trucks, things of that nature.

That's the VDOT Keen Virginia headquarters.

Next slide.

Again, just a little additional context from a different view here.

We have an aerial shot of the site.

The area in gray there is the proposed parking area.

A little hard to make out the building in this, but again, showing just kind of the land cover adjacent to the site, the VDOT headquarters, the industrial facility across the street to the east, the Green Mountain Country Store and U-Haul facility, Piedmont Veterinary Service and post office there to the west.

kind of surround the site again as a mix of commercial and industrial uses.

Next slide.

So with this one, what we're trying to address here is, you know, we had the community meeting back in June, 2023 at a robust discussion, heard a lot of criticism of the site as it was currently being proposed at the time.

Tommy and I went back to the drawing board, put a lot of thought, a lot of time into, you know, how can we minimize the impact of the site?

So what you see here on the left side is the first application plan that we submitted.

This is what the community saw back in June of 23.

at the community meeting.

You can see we've got about a 40% reduction in paved area alone in our current application with overall clearing of about a half.

about 50% of what was originally approved.

Again, that was all based on the feedback we heard back from the community.

We want to provide larger buffer areas.

Most of the buffer areas were tripled or quadrupled in width that we're providing with this current application based on what we came in with originally.

I think that's my last slide, isn't it, Kim?

So that's all I've got.

Happy to answer any questions.

Great.

Thank you.

Any questions for the applicant?

Commissioner Bivins.

Can you, you may have heard the question about how do you, how do you, how would you think about managing the eight to five time when in fact, if we, in the condition and the staff report is that no one, the gate has to be, there's, you're operating hours are from eight to five.

And if I assume it's from eight to five, then the gate's locked.

And so how would I drop a car off?

And so are you, would you propose something different from that if this were to go forward?

Again, I'm Tommy Shaw.

Sorry, you might want to adjust the mic so we can hear you.

Thank you.

Tommy Shaw.

I would assume a couple of different things.

Maybe they could call ahead and schedule drop off.

Maybe we could adjust placement of the gate some or maybe a small area for a vehicle to be dropped off or

How about picking up?

Can people get there usually by five o'clock in the afternoon?

Yeah, for repaired vehicles, yeah.

For repaired vehicles, they can.

And then how about for the 30 days?

that doesn't appear to be an issue.

Also, if I might share.

And so I know there was a bunch of conversation about moving an expectation or sort of a concern that that business would be taking, would be locating to this piece of property.

No body work.

No.

No, no, what do they call this?

Oh, unless it was something being repaired.

Then there was a conversation I raised about the containers.

Could you tell us more about the containers?

Will they really be the kind of freight containers that we sort of see places?

We could consider something different if needed be.

40 foot C, so that is okay.

I did one of my colleagues will talk to you about how to maintain the expenses when it comes to him.

But OK, so that for me right now, chair, that's that's that's fine.

I think I just have a handful of questions to that.

And do you anticipate like a partnership with VDOT?

Okay.

I think my last question at this moment is, can you tell us if there's any hazardous materials being stored on a site as classified by the building code for there being any hazardous materials?

No.

No.

Okay.

All right.

Great.

Mr. Murray.

I think those are those are standard size.

I think they're approximately nine feet in height.

Okay.

Also, I just have a few questions.

One, you've probably heard a lot of discussion about the size of, even though you've reduced the size of the paved area, or you've reduced the size of the storage area and made it pavement, can you speak to why it needs to be so large, what types of calculations you went through, how you determined the size of that?

So related to the sizes on the plan today, we ran some auto turns, some vehicle modeling software in our CAD model to make sure that a vehicle can come off of coals rolling road in a safe manner, make the turn, and kind of swing around appropriately.

We don't want a situation where maybe an 18-wheeler is coming in to provide a delivery or something of that nature.

and you know you're backing up in a coals rolling road or things like that so just a lot of it had to do with just the the vehicular circulation within the lock we also wanted to be kind of conservative in a way on the application plan understanding when we go to site plan you know we can always lessen the the parking area as necessary but but asking for additional

Room or additional space is basically going to be a no go as I understand it.

So I guess I mean, I generally understand that concept, you know, I mean, traffic circulates around 24 foot roads and parking lots with 20 foot radii all the time.

And this is about 160 feet wide by who knows, I'm not sure what the entire length of that is, but maybe around 300 feet of solid asphalt.

Sure.

Sure.

Okay.

The location of the storage areas.

The Storage Containers.

You have those located against the entrance corridor.

Is there a consideration?

I'm sorry.

No, it is not.

It's opposite that.

Sorry.

It's flipped.

Got it, got it.

Just to clarify something Commissioner Biven said in and the response that you mentioned said no records will be on site unless something is being repaired.

So does that mean they'll always be records on site specifically to a tow truck if that's what he was, if that's what I may have heard him wrong.

Sorry.

I may have heard him wrong, but he was asking if tow trucks would be stored on the property.

If a tow truck is what, you know, tow trucks need to be repaired as well sometimes.

Possibly if it's, if it's broke down and needs repairing.

Got it.

Can you talk a little bit about, I don't know how to otherwise put this, but, you know, the standard operating procedures that's used

that you undertake.

For example, if the gate needs to be opaque and needs to be closed and you're mitigating visibility from the entrance corridor, those kinds of things, how do you manage that within your site?

No, that's what we're proposing there.

But as far as what we currently have, I thought you were asking how it would be organized.

It would be very similar.

So it opens and closes as the traffic comes in because it's automatic.

Correct.

Got it.

That's the kind of thing I was thinking about.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

We have not had that discussion.

I mean, it's it's really expensive.