Planning Commission Work Session and Regular Meeting   6/25/2024

Welcome to the June 25, 2024 Planning Commission meeting.

I will call the meeting to order and begin by establishing a quorum.

But before I do that, let me read the opportunities for the public to access and participate in the hybrid meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website on the Planning Commission homepage and on the Albemarle County calendar.

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

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Here.

Great.

Thank you.

And with that, having established a quorum, I will open it up for matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

Is there anyone who would like to speak to matters not listed on the agenda?

All right, here's not.

So with that, we will move on to the work session.

ZTA 2022-2, Zoning Modernization Phase 1, wrap up.

Turn it over to staff.

Thank you so much.

Let me get this computer plugged in.

In the meantime, I am Leah Brumfield, Zoning

And we will be reviewing draft, the articles drafted in phase one of the zoning modernization project, all of which have been reviewed by the commission previously.

Yes, our agenda tonight starts with an overview of the project goals and our work on this phase of the zoning modernization project to date.

Leah will move into our article review by highlighting some of the more general edits that were conducted throughout all of the phase one articles, and then we'll dive into the significant changes that we're proposing for each of the articles.

After that, we will talk about our stakeholder input from the drafted articles.

And then finally, we'll talk about the next steps in phase one, briefly discuss phase two of the project and answer any questions the Commission has.

So as a reminder, we began this project in August of 2022.

The goals of the zoning ordinance modernization project are to provide a streamlined and user-friendly regulations, incorporate best practices and code of Virginia requirements, address goals and strategies from the comprehensive plan, and consider community needs and issues.

A graphic depiction of our phase one work shows that we began in the fall of 2022 with our investigation work.

We conducted interviews with staff, with each PC member, and with local development and building stakeholders.

We presented our findings from those interviews and our diagnostic of the ordinance text in December 2022.

The first two articles, articles one and two, were presented to you in March 2023.

We continued with refinement of those two articles and drafting of Articles 3 and 10.

In March of this year, you reviewed and provided feedback for Articles 3 and 10.

Now we're in the investigation phase of the final revisions.

We have conducted stakeholder interviews and edited the text based on all feedback, which includes the stakeholder staff and yourselves.

As a reminder, while the graphic says final revisions, this should be interpreted as final revisions during this phase.

This is a multi-phase project, and the last phase includes a collective look and modification of all text as needed prior to public hearings.

So this is a short bulleted version of our progress.

I won't go through all of that in detail again, but I'll just note and draw your attention that you've had three work sessions on this during this phase one, as well as we've had three sessions with what I'll say is external engagement.

This could be general public and then also identified stakeholders.

Tonight's meeting will focus on a second review of the drafted articles for phase one.

After this session, the drafted articles will be presented to the Board of Supervisors.

The feedback we want to obtain tonight includes are the articles logical and are the points clear.

We will now start the review of the articles.

I want to make one important point.

As we talk about the different articles, we will be using article numbers for the new proposed ordinance.

So to clarify, for example, Article 3 in your current ordinance is definitions, but Article 3 of the proposed ordinance covers applications and permits.

Each of the proposed articles are included in Attachments 1A through 1D.

Additionally, a crosswalk is provided in Attachment 1E.

This crosswalk outlines each section of the existing ordinance with its new proposed location.

If there are regulations in the existing ordinance that you want to compare to the proposed regulations, this crosswalk will direct you to the location of that text.

An example on the screen, article two, section six of the current ordinance contains regulations for nonconformities.

If you wanted to compare 6.2, which is nonconforming uses, you would follow that row across to the column that says new draft section number.

and see it's now located in section 10.2.1, which means it's in article 10, division two and section one.

You can see that we've supplied a note that says we've streamlined the text because it is directed from Virginia Code and does not need to be repeated within the proposed ordinance.

So that should just help you with any orienting to existing language.

Could I ask a really simple question about the crosswalk, just from the standpoint of applicants?

Will that carry into any final versions as a reference point for them, or is that really just during the process?

That's for our internal use to help us keep track of where things are and how much it's changed over time.

Yeah, just a thought.

If people are used to dealing with the code or working with the code and, you know, the ordinance might be interesting to have a simplified version of a crosswalk in the final version that they could reference.

Just a thought.

Well, thank you.

And going into the actual ordinance draft text, as we have mentioned, phase one of the Zoning Autonomization Project has covered the four articles, comprising of mostly foundational and procedural ordinance text.

These four articles have all been reviewed by the Commission previously, and we have discussed them in work sessions.

and following those work sessions, staff in the Berkeley group incorporated the specific feedback and focused on the general guidelines that we received and that we incorporated into our drafting guidelines, specifically avoiding jargon, writing a more brief code and removing unnecessary state code from the ordinance text.

Additionally, we have had staff subject matter experts, oh no, had to pop up.

Staff Subject Matter Experts, and the County Attorney reviewing the drafts to ensure accuracy, user friendliness, and Virginia Code compliance.

So Article 1 lays the legal foundation for the ordinance.

It includes references to enabling legislation for creation of the ordinance and the zoning map and describes the overall purpose and goals of the zoning ordinance.

This section was also Section 1 of our current ordinance in Article 1.

The majority of the changes from the old language are clarifications and shortening unnecessary legalistic language and replacing quotations of Virginia code with references to Virginia code.

And as an example, this slide shows the currently adopted zoning ordinance purpose statement.

which describes that the purposes of the chapter are as enabled by state legislation, promoting public health, safety, convenience, and welfare.

And then we have a long list of objectives that are pulled almost verbatim for Virginia Code.

As the county does not have the authority to change state law, we cannot change this list.

And so having this list in our ordinance does not accomplish any additional purpose.

Instead, the new draft quotes only the foundational ideas, which is promoting public health, safety, convenience and welfare of the community.

And then it references the Virginia Code 15.2-2202 and 15.2-2283.

Moving on to Article Two, it's again a very fundamental foundational section.

It covers instructions for interpreting the ordinance.

It enables the zoning administrator to interpret and enforce the ordinance.

It creates the allowances of the Board of Zoning Appeals and enacts references to the Architectural Review Board.

and it references chapter two where we have outlined the overall goals and duties of the planning commission.

Again, the majority of the changes in this article are removing quoted state code, providing direct links to the state code sections.

All of those references will be live links within Munich code the same way they are now.

and then also we are clarifying the agents powers and duties.

The agent in this situation is the zoning administrator and clarifying and codifying some of the architecture review boards powers and duties as they were previously a little bit inaccurately worded and a little bit confusing.

So bringing that up on the screen, the current text for the powers and duties of the ARB includes language about promulgating design guidelines, which is confusing and as interpreted directly is not actually accurate for the ARB's role in creating design guidelines.

Additionally, we have worked with ARB staff to describe the full role of the architectural review board here, where they also review applications for site plans or any legislative applications within the entrance corridor, regardless of whether a certificate of appropriateness is required.

They give general recommendations for those and they do not issue a certificate of appropriateness that is one of their roles, that is one of the things that they do.

And we wanted to include that in this new ordinance.

We have worked very closely with ARB staff on these descriptions and with the subject matter staff for each of these kinds of sections in the roles that these boards and commissions play in the ordinance and in the county.

So we're very pleased that the new draft captures a much clearer picture of the full role and actually codifies the things that are happening on the ground right now.

Moving to Article 3, we go beyond the foundational.

We begin to outline process.

We're looking to create a much more user-friendly and descriptive picture of the medley of applications and permits that we process.

Currently, the ordinance language describing these processes is either scattered throughout various sections of the ordinance, or it may be omitted entirely, so we're excited to have it all in one place.

A few of the notable changes include renaming zoning clearances and zoning permits.

We have described previously, but where the ordinance currently references zoning permits, it only refers to setback permits, where a building does not require a review of its use and it may or may not require a building permit, but it does still need to be setbacks.

Two primary examples of this are farm buildings and a largest shed.

So we've widened the umbrella of zoning permits to be defining of all of the zoning clearances we process, including the setback only permits, commercial zoning clearances, home occupations, home stays, and other zoning-led actual zoning permits.

in addition to those clarifications, the overall reduction in verbosity, removal of Virginia State Code quotations that we have mentioned before.

We again worked with ARB staff to remove unnecessary language regarding certificates of appropriateness.

One of the substantive changes here is removing the default approval of a certificate of appropriateness after a set period of inaction by the architectural review board.

The current procedure is for either staff or the ARB to do a full review of an application for certificate of appropriateness, usually within 30 days after submission, sometimes up to 60, and send the applicant either an approval or a request for changes.

Currently, if the application is not reviewed and an action is not sent to the applicant within 60 days, the applicant may request a final decision.

and if they hear nothing within an additional 21 days, the certificate of appropriateness is automatically approved similar to a reference of something to the planning commission which you're familiar with.

In discussions with ARB staff, we discovered this provision is obsolete and has not been enacted in living memory.

and at the county attorney's advice to not impose unnecessary constraints on county bodies or staff, we have to move that provision where it was just cluttering up the ordinance previously.

It's also not specifically required by Virginia Code, unlike the Planning Commission automatic recommendation of approval.

So in another section, we have codified the practice of declaring inactive applications withdrawn.

We are hoping to remove stale applications from review timelines, and we want to keep applications moving so that things are actually being built, and we are processing applications under the guidelines that apply at the time that they are being built.

As long as application is being progressed upon, as long as there are changes and there are drafts, there's communication, it will not be deemed voluntarily withdrawn.

But under the proposed draft ordinance, if staff reach out to an applicant for additional clarifications, an additional agency approval, or if they request changes and they hear nothing for six months,

The application is deemed voluntarily withdrawn.

This will greatly aid staff in moving applications through the process and avoid submissions being sent in that are just placeholders where an application is not actually ready for review, but the applicant wants to get it on the page as being submitted at that time.

So those kinds of applications really bog down staff review time and they really eat up a lot of community, county resources in a way that's not productive and does not help the community.

So again, looking at this intimidating list, it is best practice to move non-mandatory requirements for applications out of the ordinance and into forms and documents.

This list here is just a snippet of the legislative applications requirements that are currently in the ordinance.

It continues for probably another two or three slides.

We are moving these requirements out of the ordinance itself and into checklists and into the

Enterprise Permitting and Licensing System, which I will talk about on the next slide.

Here we go.

Our new community development system, Enterprise Permitting and Licensing, EPNL, as we're calling it, is a replacement of our county use system where we track and process applications.

It also has a forward customer-facing side.

which you can see a snapshot of here on this screen.

The applicant portal that we're looking at here walks the applicant through the process of submitting an application.

Each question must be answered, each required item must be uploaded, so an applicant cannot submit a wildly incomplete application.

So we are going to be requiring that list

It will just be submitted here and it will be provided in the pre-application meetings as it currently already is.

So any items that are not wholly mandatory for each and every application and some things which may change over time, it is best practice for these things to live outside of the ordinance.

So we have flexibility and we can be a little bit more nimble with that.

We do want to want to reassure the commission that all of these requirements will not be swept away.

Anything necessary will not be disappearing.

We're just changing where it lives from the ordinance to outside of the ordinance.

Finally, we do want to highlight the lovely process diagrams we've included in the applications process in Article 3 of this draft ordinance.

These illustrations are meant to guide an applicant through the basic process of applying for and following the review of each application type.

Here we have the diagrams for certificates of appropriateness and special use permits.

And as you can see the gold colored actions are the applicants actions.

The navy blue actions are staff.

The maroon is architectural review board.

Purple is the planning commission.

and the TL is Board of Supervisor Actions.

This provides a very clear visual language and allows for an at-a-glance basic understanding of the application process, which is overall working to make the ordinance easier to follow, more user-friendly and simpler to administer.

So our last article today is Article 10, which covers nonconformities.

As we have noted in all the other coordinates, drafts were replaced language quoting Virginia Code references to the Virginia Code sections instead.

And we also made a few additional changes, including updating the language regarding the expansion of nonconforming quarries and cemeteries.

So the expansion of non-performing quarries and cemeteries is frozen on the date that this particular ordinance was previously adopted, June 14, 2000.

Any parcels that it is expanded to must be under identical ownership as of that date.

So following the completion of the first full drafts of these, we presented the drafts to the Charlottesville Area Development Roundtable and the Blue Ridge Home Builders Association, Cadre and BRHBA.

Their feedback was very positive.

They primarily expressed interest.

in furthering simplification of language.

And they did make a few regulation-specific requests that we will be considering later on in the process when we get to the community design guidelines and the supplementary regulations.

So we've also added a feedback link on our Engage website, and we will be accepting feedback from any community member.

anytime throughout the process.

If there's just something that pops up in somebody's head, they read something they want to give feedback on, they are free to submit on that page.

and speaking of future phases, next steps for this project on this phase will be addressing any comments we receive tonight and then presenting the drafted articles to the Board of Supervisors.

We're currently scheduled for the second meeting in August.

As noted previously, the board will not be adopting the ordinance until the entire ordinance is drafted.

We do need to update references as we go along and changes in one section may have implications to other changes that are already drafted.

So our future phases will rely heavily on community feedback.

We are working with the comprehensive plan team, AC44,

We are trying to share all the community input that we get.

We are collaborating on the goals and the action steps that are going into the comprehensive plan because we're trying to create a zoning ordinance that really reflects what is in the comprehensive plan so that we can achieve those visions in the actual community.

So as we are moving forward with the AC44 team, we will be reflecting the updates on their side into phase two.

So we will be determining which phase we'll be moving forward along with the comprehensive plan team.

So we will update the planning commission on that when we get that hopefully in the next two months or so.

So we would welcome any feedback on the two questions we mentioned at the beginning of the presentation.

One is the framework and organization of the draft, logical and comprehensible.

We are hoping the answer is yes.

And two are any ordinance points, any requirements, any regulations unclear if you need additional definitions or clarifications on any of those.

Great.

Thank you.

That was very helpful.

Thank you both.

So can I ask a couple of just quick overview questions before we get into individual questions?

One is a very basic question that I probably should know the answer to, but remind me why we

are, I don't know if the word skipped is right, but four through nine, articles four through nine.

How do they relate to the work that we're doing?

Are they coming in the future?

They will be in future phases, articles four through nine are going to be about the districts, about the uses.

And so we need to lean on that comprehensive plan information to be able to do those.

So we went to these first, allowing the comprehensive plan to move along.

Perfect.

Thank you.

And I assume as you went through the ARB sections of this, you received ARB input from Margaret and so on.

That's all crafted in there.

Okay.

And I had a few specific questions, but before I do that, I will open it up to the group to answer question number one.

Commissioner Bivins.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't know whether or not I'm just becoming much more sort of submerged in all of this, but it was actually this trip down, this work was actually fun.

And so, yeah, turn.

Look in that direction.

And so I sent a bunch of things, comments to staff that I don't need to go over again and they can either respond to it or not respond to it as you seem fit.

But I will say that, you know, you all aren't there yet.

But for those eyes over 60s, this is really a wonderful way to be able to read a document.

having lived in Virginia Code at that sort of mining point size that the Virginia Code is.

This was so refreshing.

And so I want to thank you for taking the time.

I know that sometimes it's a pain.

Thank you for the time that it took to sort of just format it this way.

And I've sent a bunch of stuff forward.

What I will say, Chair, and I don't know how we do this, that the discussion of the nexus between what they're working on on zoning and what might be expected through the AC44 was really quite helpful.

And so to the extent that the public can hear your

You're sort of spiel on that.

I think will help people to sort of put in context the nexus and the joining of these two processes so that they're not sort of saying, why are they doing it?

I thought what you said tonight was really very quite helpful.

Yeah, can I just add to that?

I actually, maybe this exists, but I actually started thinking graphically, like in my brain, like, how do we show that in terms of timeline relative to the two efforts, the, you know, the ordinance and the comp plan?

We have discussed kind of a mapping of that and I think that as we get, well, mostly for our own use internally to understand that as staff, we have discussed about mapping the different sections, the comp plan and how they will translate into the ordinance and some sections of the comprehensive plan don't necessarily make it into the ordinance because they are future

Gold, they're very, they're very visionary.

There's something that we are trying to encourage through our actions, but we can't mandate.

But but that is something that might be useful for the adoption phase, I think, especially for people to understand.

And also, if it's if if you don't mind just kind of to to Commissioner Bivins point, we

We are finding this a very, very helpful process to work with the comprehensive plan team so that they're not trying to suggest things that are not legally possible under Virginia state law and

then we can kind of push the zoning ordinance towards that vision a little bit and try to achieve some of the goals that we've set out because we want to have big goals.

We want to have achievable goals.

Thank you.

I had a follow-up question on that sort of process thing.

Well, actually, first of all, just thank you for the writing.

It's visually clear, as Commissioner Bivins pointed out, but also I was just thinking about, like, when I teach my students how to write for radio or write for podcasts, you take a lot of information and you really kind of consolidate it down so that people can hear it once and it'll stick.

And I feel like this, yeah, it's like instead of a block of 300 words, we've got 70, and it's great.

So thank you for all that.

But also, as far as the process goes, what happens in the next phases?

So we are in phase one right now.

We have four drafting phases and one adoption phase.

So as Rebecca mentioned, we do not have the

and so on.

Family Day Homes must have these approvals from these day agencies and the community guidelines.

So that's going to be a big question.

And if that does happen, it would be in the district phase.

That is something that is up in the air that could definitely happen.

Yeah, I was certainly thinking about that as we

look at the word modernization.

So yes, in terms of making language very readable in plain English, does a fantastic job.

In terms of modernizing zoning to address the problems of the day instead of 1980, I'm not entirely sure we get there.

Can I extend on that question?

So there have been TMAs and tax amendments over this period.

Are those

is the map.

Is the GIS map corrected or modified when those happen?

So the map that we see online reflects what the supervisors and what we've passed there.

Okay, so the question that I think that Commissioner Morris speaking to is that as we wrestle with what and

Commissioner, I can't call him Lonnie.

Commissioner Lonnie has wrestled with the whole idea of doing, thinking more specifically about rural, the rural part of the county, and should there be a specific sort of or an additional breakdown in the county to accommodate different, and I know I don't care if I get yelled at.

Yeah, I think I could add a little bit more on that too.

You know, we have different uses that already exist.

It's not even an issue of like adding uses or changing uses, but acknowledging the differences and uses and qualities of the rural area as they exist.

We have areas that are large quality habitat, large forest blocks.

We know that we have biodiversity in those areas.

We should acknowledge them in our maps.

We know that we have areas that are being used by agriculture that are important to agriculture because they're in prime soils and whatnot.

Those should be recognized on the maps.

And so it's really more about making the maps represent the fact that the ruler is not homogenous.

the way it's currently depicted in terms of our comprehensive plant designations in the rural area.

So that would be one thing.

But I did want to go back to removing a bunch of items out into checklists and forms, which I generally support.

I think that's a good idea.

However, you know, as people come before the planning commission, a lot of, you know, when we have, we have rezonings or, you know, other projects come before us, special use permits, I think one of the big concerns about from the public do concern with, you know, the design guidelines, guidelines and the finer details and having the public more engaged and, and what goes into a checklist.

really I think is, you know, is advantageous for us and the community.

I would say a couple of things.

They're going to be engaging in a preliminary meeting with staff where staff says, here's your checklist, and then they're going to be engaging online to fill out that application and actually submit that application.

And online, as Leah mentioned earlier,

It's going to be a system that they can't progress further until they have provided X, Y, and Z. They can't, you know, skip items and those types of things.

Oh, let me let me provide a little bit clarity.

So I'm not talking about the applicant themselves.

Well, that's that's very good, too.

The applicant should have clarity as to what the guidelines are in checklists.

But I think it's important for, you know, the neighbors surrounding that project, the people that might show up to either support or oppose, you know, something to know what those requirements are as well.

And and so the danger of taking those checklists, if we put them into obscurity location,

I think the intent is basically to have a good application section that's gathering your general information.

Who are you?

What are you trying to do?

The backside of that's going to have all the things that you're required.

and I would envision that way being very well spelled out.

And so if you're an applicant, obviously it's there and if you're somebody in the general public, I mean the application itself I think would be the vehicle to give you all the information so you'd find it in one spot.

And so what would the revision process be like when those

What are they?

So if I understand, I'm not hearing staff say that they're going to change the requirements.

What I hear staff saying is that requirements are going to be crafted and held in a way

that the applicant can, as he or she is going through the process, will know what the requirements are.

So they're not changing the context of what's required of them.

Those are the things that have to either go, they have to, I don't think there's an administrative process for that.

I think when that kind of change occurs, those kinds of, that kind of changed out to the built environment and to what's required during the present, during the formation or as we march to the built environment,

has to be

So I'm wondering if that is actually true, because I'm, so what I'm hearing though is that if we're removing these things out of the code,

and we're putting them in separate documents.

What I'm hearing from staff is a feature of this is they wouldn't have to go through public hearings if they were to change some of these elements.

Yes, if I can explain to the chair the kinds of requirements that are on there are not necessarily items that should have ever been for public hearing.

These are things like the street tree distribution.

We don't necessarily want a

Public hearing on how many street trees need to be on a block because that is something that the experts should really be working on and that staff should be working with to make sure that it is both buildable and also meets community goals.

One of the things that I've used as an example for these kinds of lists is a future potential requirement for electric charging in all parking spaces.

We don't need a public hearing for that.

That's really not something that is on the legislative side.

That's really on the site plan side.

And we want to be able to say, oh, well, you're a parking lot.

But you're a...

Vintage import automobile repair shop.

You don't need electric chargers on this piece of property.

It's kind of allowing us the flexibility by removing it from the ordinance.

And we can change that as we go along.

The sections that we're looking at, that long list of

of the legislative application requirements.

That was something that is in the ordinance right now and is on the back of each pre-application checklist that staff hands out.

So that doesn't change.

When it does change, it is something that is currently intended to be a

Staff Decision.

It's saying, well, this is a modification to an existing site plan.

The only thing you're doing is adding a large playground.

We don't need an additional floodplain

review on this, we don't need a water protection plan for a completely permeable surface that is a grass built playground area, even though that is on the site plan.

And that is something that would be a potential amendment to a special use permit because that has to be reflected on the conceptual plan.

So this is really

things that are on the site plan review level and things that staff are trained to look for that trap staff needs to make judgment calls on and that

Looking at as a community, we are trying as staff to reflect those goals that are stated in the ordinance and to reflect the goals that are stated in the comprehensive plan.

Yeah, so I think I'm going to kind of untangle this a little bit.

So I think that what Lonnie is looking for is just someplace that the public can go and just see what are the things that are required of the applicant.

Because the way that the new portal would be set up is, you know, you're the applicant and you're going through and now you're checking this box and now you're seeing this next list of things.

Just someplace on the website that

They could see all this is what they're being judged against because we we get that a lot like how are they evaluating that or what's required.

I totally understand about taking some of these kind of things out of the code.

It is best practice I know that.

because, and I'm sorry, use the example of number of trees per block, because that's going to be all excited as you would know, but you probably would want to say the number of street trees per block in general that you require.

The list of the species of trees would be an example of something that wouldn't be in the code because new cultivars become available.

This tree we thought grew great, a long pavement turns out to die next to the parking lot.

So we need to take that species out.

So those are the things that become a list that's separate.

So I think that you can honor what Lonnie is after.

There may be some concern on his part because of what happened with the stream buffer ordinance where it got changed.

and to its detriment, it got weakened.

And no one seems to know exactly how and we vaguely know when.

But I think that's what some of the reticence is.

So that will be a push-pull of what belongs in the code and what is better left as a list that can be changed because it is quite onerous.

to take, if we had everything in the code, and then you needed to make a change for a good scientific or technical reason, and you'd have to wait for a public hearing and the board and, you know, eight months later we got to fix it, you know, so, so it provides the staff with the flexibility but I think we could

Yeah, just one time thing to that too.

I think there's also, because there wouldn't be public hearings and so forth, a lot of those items are mentioned, would be appropriate for citizen advisory groups, for example, to weigh in on.

And I think that

Um, making sure that's part of your process.

If you have a relevant citizen advisory group for something like trees, we should have a tree commission, you know, for example, or you're advising native plant lists that would make sense to have run it by the Natural Heritage Committee or other people that know something or, you know, landscape, put together a team of citizen experts that can actually weigh in on that topic so that there continues to be citizen engagement, whether or not there is a public hearing because

Can I ask just a question from the sort of applicant-facing side of things?

Enterprise Licensing, Permitting and Licensing.

And then you can review the process of the reviews and any necessary comments or feedback from staff within that portal.

Yeah.

And so the checklist that's on there that you would follow, and there are currently, obviously, checklists, but this would replace those checklists.

They are currently subject to change.

The checklists that are on the back of the pre-application process, that is something that does get edited right now.

It does largely reflect what's in the ordinance.

Which is actually helpful to the applicant too.

And you learn as you go.

So it's a good process.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

So I just want to get us back to these questions.

Okay, great.

I just had one.

So article three.

I was just curious, and this may be because of the code or something that I'm missing, but Article 3, the order of that, my logic, my internal brain says, why is the certificate of appropriateness first and zoning text amendment last?

It seems like if you put it in the order of how they might appear, you would start with zoning text amendments, then you'd have site plans, then you'd have certificates of appropriateness, then you'd have administrative and enforcement.

Okay.

Yeah, section 30, 31, 32 and 33, articles three, permits and application.

I have section three.

No, we Oh, I'm looking at I'm sorry.

Article three.

Okay, I'm looking at the, sorry, not to throw the consultant under the bus, but I'm looking at the memo, work session number four memo, and I just scroll down to the outline, which is on page four of five.

That is where we're pulling that section from.

Okay.

So the current ordinance sockets appropriateness are in section 30, which covers overlay districts.

And then 31 is our current administration and enforcement.

Yeah, I see that.

I'm just wondering, unless I'm missing something, it seems like.

Yes.

So that's what's in the current ordinance right now.

Oh, got it.

Okay.

So currently in article three, it gives general housekeeping items that applies to all permits.

And then it talks through zoning text amendments, then zoning map amendments, then conditional zoning and proffers.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's great.

Thank you.

And I'm building permits and certificates of occupancy and then appeals.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

That's much better.

That's great.

Thank you.

That was the only non-question I really had for the framework.

There had to be a non-question.

That was my framework question.

So I like the infographics, I love infographics, but I would like a improvement to be made to the two infographics on page 12 section.

Well, I'm doing this backwards, all right, page 83.3.3 and article three.

That diagram.

And then Article 3, Page 12, Section 3.5.3.

So basically, those are the diagrams that list, you know, the process, the applicant comes, the staff reviews, then they have a community meeting, then they go to any revisions and resubmittal, blah, blah, blah, planning commission, blah, blah, blah.

What I would like, if you could maybe just go back to that slide, you have it in your slide deck, you have, you guys were showing, here's an example, yeah.

Yeah, so you could look to the one on the right.

I get this question a lot, so it's not just me.

The public asks, well, what if I didn't go to the community meeting?

Where's the just John Q. Public in this diagram?

And I know you're trying to simplify it.

I know what an infographic is, but I think you could still have another bubble.

where you have general public input going to the staff, you know, so that we so that I can point to this and say this is, you know, you can give your comment to the staff about this application, because they do they you know like Andy here or anybody could tell you all throughout

John, Sarah and Fred are sending comments and then the staff's getting them and they're adding them to the record.

In addition to the community meeting, that becomes the package of comments to the applicant.

And then the applicant, you know, does what they do with them and then incorporates them as they feel appropriate and moves on to the application.

So I know it's just a, and I'm sorry I didn't like come up with a new diagram for you, but I just, one more bubble would make me happy.

Well, they do have a chance to make comments.

At any time, they can comment.

They can comment online.

They can phone staff.

There's many ways they can get their comments in.

I would primarily, in that situation, I would primarily tell the public that that is what the public hearing is for.

is there, you know, and again, I just think it would be helpful to show that comments can come from outside into this process.

I mean, at a certain point, we're not taking those comments anymore, right?

Well, the applicant needs to know that, you know, the staff, because I get that from the applicants too.

They're like, people are telling me they're sending comments to the staff.

Well, there are also, if you think about it, it's almost like you have to map all this because there are other opportunities for public input where the public is notified of those via letter for an adjoining property owner or something like that where it says you can continue to provide.

But in this case, it's not shown.

It's just, it looks like it's just a community meeting.

Like I said, I do get this question in real life.

So you just put it ask Rick's, like he said, at, you know, at community meeting and maybe the planning commission, maybe the board and just

It is accurate.

We don't have to belabor the point.

That's it.

Awesome.

Thank you, Commissioner Bivins.

Yes, sir.

I have one thing I'm just going to bring up because everybody knows that I love proffers.

And so, and I just want, when I get off the Planning Commission, one of these days, I just want the ability to be able to put our own proffers in.

I want the Planning Commission proffer.

Oh good, well let me keep saying that then.

So there was this one piece that I mentioned in my notes today that in Article 1, Section 1.2.1.5 on page 2, it says there that proffers

have the ability to, they just become it once they're there.

And then when we get further into the document, it says the proffers are in addition to that they sit in tandem with the existing code.

And I just wanna have, and I see her nodding, that they really sit in tandem with the code.

They don't, as is mentioned on article one,

to they don't actually trump the code.

So it does depend on, please, Mr. Herrick, at any time direct me if I misspoke, but it does depend on what the proffer is.

The district regulations may say that you can have a car wash and you may proffer out that you cannot have a car wash.

That's the difference.

So I would say that actually they're opting it out.

So it's not this Trump thing.

But that's not trumping the code.

That's exempting.

In other words, you can't add a use via proffer.

And that's what I was seeing in the... So you felt like it was saying?

Yeah, and that's what I was seeing in Article 3, that Article 3 saying that you sit in your companion to the code, but you never can actually exceed the code.

and Commissioner Bivins.

I will say that section one point two point one subsection five of the proposed ordinance right says any condition imposed or proper accepted prevails over the general provisions of this ordinance.

So I think I think that's what Miss Bromfield is getting at is that they do work in tandem with one another.

I understand the parcel specific.

That's not what I'm arguing about.

I'm arguing about whether or not at any point someone would argue that a proffer supersedes the code of which I don't believe it's got the ability to do.

Simply by what I read in section 3.4.3, point E, I hate doing this.

I really don't like doing that.

and we can say we can talk about this where it says all approving this on page 10, all approved proper conditions will apply in addition to all applicable zoning regulations.

So it's apply in addition to and not as I said on one prevails over.

There's a difference in term of either prevails over and in addition to

and I want us to opt for the in addition to and not the prevails over.

I know it's a nuanced thing and I know you'd probably give me a B minus for that on the exam, but I would really be pushing on that because I think there's a clarity there that if I were a mischievous developer, I would be looking to stretch as opposed to what the county says in that last bit is that it's saying no or...

I should have kept my finger there.

I always do that.

Oh, that it's in addition to as opposed to prevails over.

But I will just stop there and I'll let you all wrestle with that.

I think both statements are accurate, but we can certainly take a look at the specific wording that you're bringing up and make sure that it's

Right.

And I just, you know, my whole thing is I don't want the county to lose its jurisdiction on things.

And we do know that sometimes not any developers on this on the diocese, but there are sometimes developers who will try and stretch it and say, no, this is what it said it could do.

I had actually, if I could piggyback off that, we're still in section one point, article one, section one point two point one, number five, conditions imposed or proffers accepted says that a couple times.

This is just a knit, but is it and or proffers accepted?

I mean, you could have a situation where you have conditions imposed and proffers accepted.

The conditions would be to a special use permit and the proffers would be to a zoning map amendment.

Okay.

Okay.

And it's a little bit unclear, but I guess when you get into process, it makes sense.

Actually, I don't have ones that are details, but I do have this is really a basic question that I'm sure the answer is yes.

But just looking through with all the references to points and state code, I'm presuming in the final version, those will be actually linked out to state code.

Great.

And then this is another one where I don't know that it belongs necessarily here, but maybe a companion document of some sort, just for like, like regular people who want to do a smaller scale project, like a granny cottage or duplexed or home or whatever.

Do we have anything in the county sites like how to get started?

And I see the diagrams are great.

And I liked having that in color.

But just wondering if we have something like really kind of like, hey, here's the first thing you do.

I've seen that on other on other communities websites.

and we do have some documents downstairs in the division lobby.

We do have some documents downstairs in the division lobby about if you want to do this, you know, sort of, it's like a by folder.

I don't know what that is.

It's this kind of fold and says if you want to do this and you can do this, if you want to put a garage on, you got to do these things.

If you want to do an addition to your home, you need to do these kinds of things.

But it's a paper, Nathan, it's not a, you know, it's not

It's the only thing that I've seen.

Yeah, but I've seen the paper once.

I've actually given the paper once.

Commissioner Moore?

I just had a couple of things bear with me here, just mostly questions, but I'm in Article 1, Section 1.15, Conformity Required, and I had my hat on.

First of all, it's amazingly simplified and it's great.

I just had my, is it too wordy?

Glasseson, and it sucks says, approval, all land-building structures and or premises within the county may be used, occupied, erected, constructed, moved, enlarged, and or altered in any conformance with this ordinance.

For what it's worth, I'll just throw that out.

We can definitely look at that.

I would hazard a guess that does come from Virginia Code.

I am not certain on that.

I do know that it comes almost directly from our current ordinance, that list.

Just a thought.

And then we talked about number five, so let's see.

There's another reference to that.

And I'm sorry, I'm just not sure it's right.

I'm just not getting my head around this whole conditions proffers thing.

But I understand what you said about that.

But then in section division or division one point three point one B. The zoning map also includes symbols that represent the existence of conditions, including proffers, attaching to the zoning of a parcel on the zoning map.

I don't know.

That's the conditional zoning.

So a proffer is a type of condition as far as currently reflected in our zoning map.

The only conditions that are shown are proffers other than voluntary

Got it.

Okay.

Okay.

Section 1.3.3 talks about, and this maybe gets a little bit to what Commissioner Moore was talking about, which is lot lines on the zoning map that are intended to follow the lot lines on the center lines of streets or alleys as they existed on December 10th, 1980.

And as amended,

and where a district boundary obviously does not follow any lot line or center line and is not depicted on an approved subdivision plan or site plan or described by dimensions on other means.

The district boundary must be determined by measurement using a scale.

We use ArcGIS primarily, but based on

Anything where it is a little bit iffy because computer pixels can only go down so far.

Got it.

Interesting.

Okay.

So now it's division one point four, section one point four point two violations continue.

Any violation of the previous zoning ordinance will continue to be a violation under this ordinance unless or until the subject use structure or sign.

complies with the express terms of this ordinance.

Yes.

Sorry, I had to think about that for a second.

A parcel cannot really be a violation.

Okay, that was it for that.

and then I just had a couple other, the rest of them are pretty straightforward, bear with me.

I had no comments in Article 2, that looked great.

Article 3, some of these have been answered too.

A lot of reference to RIO 29 form-based code.

There's a waivers section, so I'm in section 3.1.4.

C, Community Meeting C3, Other Relevant Factors.

So it's sort of a catch-all phrase.

Waivers, the agent may waive an otherwise required community meeting if the agent determines that one and two are pretty specific and then three other relevant factors based on sound planning and zoning principles would render a community meeting unnecessary.

I'm just curious, does that open, is it, is that, maybe again, it's COVID, does that open up

a level of vagueness to the applicant.

They certainly may argue.

Anyone may argue anything that's in the zoning ordinance, as described in article two, the zoning administrator administers the ordinance and they would make that determination.

The specific type of example that we had when we were discussing this, which is what is used today, is that a

For example, the adding a playground to a concept plan to an already approved special use permit that is not something that necessarily needs a community meeting.

It's not a change in use.

It's not an impact.

That would be the kind of situation when you would have to go through the approval steps to get the special use permit amendment approved.

Got it.

I'm not going to cite specific cases, but there's been a few times where we had a community meeting and it was like, wow, we didn't really need to have that because there was really, there's a nothing burger and no one was concerned.

And a few cases where it turned out we should have had a community meeting because there were other issues that came up that

You know, we were not aware.

Yeah.

And then I'm just, this kind of goes off of Commissioner Firehawk's comments.

I think about the process diagrams, which I love, where you will just use the same one that was on the screen where you don't have to pull it back up.

I am on section 3.3.3.

Just curious, under staff, there's no times included in there.

Like, you know, staff comments within 45 days respond and then going back and those types of things.

How, and maybe this is in here and I just missed it, but how is the, as an applicant, how does the applicant determine timeline between staff reviews, staff comments being provided?

Sure.

So that was something that we considered at the beginning.

And it got very complicated very quickly.

Because each individual application, if we put a number on a simple diagram, then that becomes what sticks in someone's mind.

And the truth of the matter is that, yes, it is 45 days for comments.

if you give us back your changes.

And so that's kind of where we get into trouble with applicants.

And so that is within the text of the ordinance and the actual regulations.

I got you.

Yeah, that's true.

That's a good point.

So I guess I was thinking, for example, if the way these diagrams read, once I get staff comments, I revise the application and I got to go back to the very beginning of the process again.

So that might be something that might need clarification.

Every time an applicant sends back a changed application, that is technically a resubmiddle.

Yeah.

Okay.

The code was very specific.

When I read the code, it was seemed very generous to the applicant that every time the applicant went, oh, I need to add a semicolon.

Well, guess what?

You just got more time.

Yeah.

You didn't have to say that unless you have, because one of my questions was like, what's a substantial violation?

Or what's the substantial change?

If you tell me that there's no substantial change, then it should run.

Well, we do also, just if I may, we get a, that's another critique we hear from the public is, or a question at least, was why didn't they have to have another community meeting?

The applicant had a community meeting,

Yeah, I mean, not to get into what I actually do on a daily basis, but we've had situations like that where Planning Commission Board of Supervisors requested changes in site plan, significant changes like move the parking from the north side to the south side, and all of a sudden we're impacting a different community, but they never had the opportunity to weigh in on that.

So yeah, that's a great point.

I had a couple of questions back on the slides.

It was article three, the certificate of occupancy piece, the default approval.

And so I get why from a staff standpoint.

That's understandable.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but meaning that staff actually does

Respond within that one.

Yes.

It's essentially moot.

So got it.

Okay.

And then the withdrawal by application in action.

after six months, and that's an added one, right?

Okay, so I guess it's just something that the applicant has to be aware of, right?

Well, I think you did.

I said, I mean, I think if the applicant can respond, I think there was something in here that staff will reach out.

If the applicant doesn't respond in six months during the, you know, staff, then it's like, you know, I need help with this or whatever they say.

Which will pause the application, will push us back.

Because remember, we've had a number of, well,

How do I put this?

We've had a number of applicants that have come to us and that the project has laid fallow for 10 years.

Yes.

Years.

Correct.

Right, right, right.

Or they didn't even respond.

But at least they would respond and say, you know, I can't do this.

So I was pleased with this.

Yeah, square one.

And just as a point of clarification, the EPNL system does, this will not come as a surprise to anyone that these six months are coming up, that they have comments that they need to address.

That is something that does make sure that they are aware of the comments that they have received.

whatever contact information they have provided, they will be getting noticed that they have things that they need to address.

So it isn't trying to pull one over on the applicant.

He's reasonable.

and then my last comment is I actually gave these articles to our latest Rockstar intern, also known as RSI.

And I asked her to look at it as if it were somebody just looking at this fresh, because I've stared at this for a lot of years.

And her response was, I found this to be much easier to understand than the current zoning ordinance.

So, job well done.

Thank you.

Any other general comments, questions?

All right.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, with that, I will move us to recess until 6 p.m.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Welcome.

I will reconvene the June 25th meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission, and I will ask again to establish a quorum.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Here.

Great, thank you.

I will reread this.

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

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

and with that, I will move on to other matters not listed on the agenda from the public and ask if there are any matters from the public not listed on tonight's agenda for input.

Yes, ma'am, I do have one.

Is it Janie Holbrook?

Is Holbrook?

Welcome.

And as a reminder, you will have, I think it's three minutes, all right?

Okay, thank you.

Good evening, Janie Holbrook, Prozay and Whitehall.

I spoke to you in April about the demise of the Eastern Avenue connector to 250 in the Prozay.

And since then, I've learned about Project Heron, a clandestine public-private partnership between the county and Riverbend to extend Eastern Avenue.

Riverbend is the developer of over 500 existing homes in the center of East Crozet and of the proposed Oak Bluff.

I would love to be excited about the project here in News, but it sounds really just too good to be true.

And in fact, it may have been tabled due to some legal and procedural issues.

I have no doubt, however, that it will be resurrected in some new form to justify approval of maximum density at Oak Bluff.

So why am I, and most of my neighbors in East Crose, so suspicious?

The plan is to build a road and a bridge at just 43% of last year's VDOT estimate, yes, less than half.

Plans were not approved by VDOT or FEMA.

Environmental issues were not cleared.

The term sheet had no provision for cost overruns, imposed no penalty for delays or failure to complete the project.

It required no cash bond or other security from Riverbend and it capped the county contribution at 17 million.

In the past year, the exit 107 park and ride cost increased 43% and the 250-240 roundabout cost increased 32%.

But somehow the 17 million for Project Heron will be sufficient for years to come.

Something really doesn't smell right here.

If I had taken this deal for approval when I worked in finance, I would have been fired.

No one wants to be associated with a deal with so many holes and unmitigated risks and no known due diligence.

For Project Heron and its successor, 100% of the risk is borne by the residents of Prozé East.

And on this shaky foundation, you will be asked to approve of maximum density development, take green space from West Hall, Liberty Hall and Corey Farm, destroy half of the entrance to Westlake Hills, allow a new access road while an emergency-only road was approved for over twice as many homes at Granger,

and ignore the already pressing safety and traffic concerns in the area.

And what is gained from the project, Herron Roos, six units per acre instead of four units per acre.

At lower density, almost all of the neighborhood issues can be addressed.

And in the context of an existing 20 to 40% cushion in approved and pipeline units needed by 2040 is a secrecy and should raid really worth it.

The Croce community has a lot of questions about Project Heron and its replacement.

And I really hope that you will ask those questions too.

Thank you, Ms.

Holbrook.

Could we be sure that we get a copy of that too?

But if you'll just email it to me, the clerk, yes, for the planning commission.

Are there any other comments from the public?

Not about items listed on the agenda?

All right, well, with that, I will move on to the consent agenda, and there is nothing on that, so we don't have to make a motion there.

And we'll move right into the public hearings beginning with SP 2024-11, the gray.

Could I have the staff report, please?

Well, I'll go ahead and introduce myself while we're waiting for the screen.

I'm Rebecca Ragsdale, Planning Manager with the Planning Division, and I'll be presenting the two public hearing items this evening.

I have trouble getting there.

Gotcha.

So this is a special use permit for a restaurant within an existing commercial structure of about 2,100 square feet.

So I'll go over its location and then summarize the proposal and our findings.

I think everyone's pretty familiar with this site.

It is at the Triangle, if you will, of 250 and Louisa Road.

The building is developed with the American Legion and then I mentioned the existing building space and the surrounding properties are a mix of non-residential uses with the religious assembly, another gas station, convenience store,

Clifton in nearby Stone Robinson in Luckstone.

This is just another view of the site and the existing parking.

There are no site changes proposed and the existing parking and entrance were found to be adequate for the addition of food service, a restaurant within an existing wine and specialty shop.

I should have mentioned that earlier.

Just for context, this is a C1 zone parcel.

next to another C-1 zone parcel and then, of course, surrounded by rural area and natural resource across the road at Luckstone.

There are certain uses that require SPs, and in this case, restaurants are specifically required to, if not served by public water,

get a special use permit.

Now, water is not the only factor that we considered when we reviewed this.

It's subject to all of the usual special use permit criteria, given the size and scale of this use.

No change in the existing buildings or parking.

You know, we found we didn't have any concerns.

We are aware that, you know, C1 is not consistent with the COMP plan, but there were no negative impacts to some of our other goals in the COMP plan.

and we have recommended approval with one condition that limits the gross floor area of the restaurant.

I did want to mention that this, while the proposal

There's a certain business plan with the proposal right now, but we are comfortable given the size of the information that was provided in terms of water usage that 2,100 square feet of a restaurant that may have more food service or if there was more food service added in the future, we were comfortable with just the one condition that didn't limit it further.

Great.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Any questions from the commission?

No questions from the commission.

All right.

Well, with that, I will open the public hearing and call for the applicant.

Okay.

My name is Noelle Gray, and I live in Keswick, 868 Campbell Road.

I need you to talk right into the microphone.

It's hard to hear.

Thank you.

My first time.

That's okay.

Great.

Yeah.

But yeah, I just wanted to introduce myself.

I have a little wine and retail shop and I was hoping to add some limited food service.

Nothing crazy, meat and cheese boards.

Basically, something so that I can do more extended tastings, both beer and wine.

I'm a big believer in agrotourism and the area I'm located in is right in the heart of Monticello.

I have a lot of good friends that are local brewers and local wine makers, mead makers, insider makers, and I would love to be able to promote industry and, you know, all good things so I don't think I'm in any conflict with

Existing Businesses, as far as I kind of feel a niche that isn't fast food to go or really high end dining cuisine.

It's just simple fare, simple, you know, local meats, cheeses that pair well with wine, beer, mead, and cider.

Great.

Do you have any questions?

Yes.

So thanks, I read your application is very good, very well prepared.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So my background is actually fermentation science.

I teach commercial craft brewing at Piedmont Virginia Community College.

And so not just wine, but also beer, all good fermented things.

But yes, education is a big part of what I plan on doing and by being able to serve food, that'll allow me to do more extensive tastings, more comprehensive tastings that actually can continue and really, like let's say you wanted to get the gist of Rio or some region.

You can't really do that with a gourmet license.

You need to be able to taste a little bit more and then do extended classes.

Yeah, I will absolutely be focusing on education.

Thank you.

Great.

So if I could just drill down just a tiny bit.

Currently have two functions.

Okay.

and then in your application where you talk about simple food that pairs well with wine and beer and then the next paragraph talks to you, you speak to, as you just mentioned, the increased flexibility would allow me to focus on promoting wine and beer education.

So if I understand that you're not looking, oh, here it is.

So you're not looking to have a full kitchen.

There is.

Yeah, yeah, there is.

So you have to have in-person dining and consumption of food for ABC regulation.

So yes, there will be meat and cheese boards, toasted sandwiches.

It will be a limited kitchen.

I don't know.

I don't.

I'm fine.

Right.

We won't have like three course meals, things like that.

Yes, yes, there will be sit down.

Yeah, just a little bit.

Yeah, I have a bounce patch if I could.

So I noticed that there was next in your next door neighbor, which is the Legion, as soon as it was the Legion, they had a line across the parking lot that said, basically, don't come over here, don't go out this way.

It is.

It's actually a lot to deter tractor trailers from going through there because everybody uses that parking lot and it takes a lot of abuse.

All right.

Any other questions for the applicant?

Thank you.

Thank you.

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

Are there any comments from the public?

You smiles.

That's it.

All right, that's great.

Nobody online?

Okay, perfect.

All right, so I will then close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission.

So just the one thing I'll say is that a while back we talked about these these sort of legacy commercial areas within the rural area.

And one of the comments that I've made that I think I don't know was well received by some of you, but was the idea that we should strive for some of these commercial areas to bring them

to better compliance with the spirit of the comprehensive plan.

When I said that, I think that this is actually a pretty good example of something that I think is in the spirit of the comprehensive plan.

Here's something that is supporting local agriculture, supporting local food.

And I think it's an excellent example of what I think should be a by-right activity in the rural area for something that's supporting

You know, it's, this is supporting a, supporting a local food agriculture.

So, leave it like that.

Similarly, I think it actually makes a lot of sense to have food available when you're serving alcohol.

Awesome.

Any other closing comments?

I have studied the viticultural regions of the United States and I would say there are other places I've visited where you can have food pairings and it's the normal thing and you can actually appreciate the wine tastes completely different depending on the pairing.

If you're just tasting wine with no food,

Like most of the wineries here, you don't get that pallet understanding of what you're doing.

So it is a nice thing, but I guess I will just say that I am in support of this just because, so far, because it's very low impact.

It's in an existing building.

They're not planning to impact anyone.

I just don't see what the problem would be with the use within the building.

And then as Lonnie said, it is supporting

Right, because they're not, it's not a full service kitchen.

Mr. Bivins?

I also am in support of this because I like the fact that it diversifies the food, the sort of food, that's not the right word I want to say, the meal opportunities in that area.

So right in front of it you've got sort of your typical, although it's good food because you know from the, I think it's the same owners from the Crozet, Whitehall area, so you've got the legacy market,

Thank you.

I agree with what everybody said, and I'm in support of this as well.

I guess I just had one general comment, not necessarily related to this application, but related to water consumption and wells.

I just remember years, a couple years ago, maybe we talked about the county looking at aquifer.

Um, capacities and what if there's a way to study those or not as an in a general sense, because these all kind of come in as one offs and they look great on their own, but combined with a lot of others, we should maybe have a handle on that.

The thing I might offer to us there as an observation chair is that all the surrounding activities there are all they're all

None of them are constant.

So you have across the street, I think the church meets Sundays and Wednesdays.

And then I think the American Legion is like they have bingo on Sunday, and maybe they do something on Saturday.

And so I think what you have there is you may have some uses, but not like where we were looking.

I think we were looking at the other thing that you were talking about was on Black Cat Road, where they were going to put sort of

a gas station there.

The gas station was going to be 24 hours.

And it's going to end.

So the question was, will this impact the communities which are there?

And I think there'd been some some some nervousness about the aquifers on both sides of 60.

Is that 66 or 64?

On both sides of 64.

And so I think that was a different kind of conversation than I think what we're being led to think about here on that piece on that triangle.

Yes, I think there's a capacity issue.

She only has so many, I think it's a capacity and a time issue.

I don't think the time on the door, should they close at six o'clock, which I was a little sort of annoyed by because I was hoping to buy something when I went out there, but it was closed by time I got there.

Oh yeah, and don't forget septic as well.

I do have a question for staff about this.

They have to get the permit from Department of Health.

And also they will come, they have established a retail store now, they will come back through our process if the special use permit is approved.

And I believe she may already have her license with the health department.

Yeah, I assume that.

I didn't know for pre-existing buildings like this what the procedure was, so thank you for clarifying that.

But yeah, I thought too with the water usage, I think a good metric that staff could potentially use that I've advocated for a while is to think about just that, about what would be the average water use if a family was living there?

How many people could have lived there by right?

And how much water would that be?

And that's a good metric to look and compare to get a rational feeling about whether it's too much or too much water that's being used on the site and may require additional review.

Just the overall lens to you about, is this in the spirit of the Comprehensive Plan, supporting the rural area and natural resources and local agriculture?

Thank you.

Alright, well, this is in my district, so I'm happy to make a motion.

Discussion.

Ms.

Firehock.

Hi.

Thank you all.

All right.

Find my agenda here.

Hello, it's Rebecca Magsdale again, Planning Manager with the Planning Division, and I will also take you through this item.

This is a proposed one and a half acre solar facility at a much larger existing orchard operation, part of Crown Orchard's overall operations and properties.

because the definition of a solar facility defines it as one that's over a half acre, even though it's not going to be a utility scale and is solely supporting the orchard, the special use permit is still required.

Though it is located at the very end of Crown Orchard Road in off Plank Road, Craig Store area of the county.

and the solar panels will be tucked on the hillside near the cold storage and other orchard operations and accessed by existing farm orchard access.

So when we looked at it, you know, we looked at the topography and the limited area that they would be occupying.

It didn't have any concerns with visibility.

and it has been reviewed by our rural area planners and engineering and our usual project team for any concerns related to impacts to adjacent properties or consistency with the comprehensive plan.

Obviously, it's supporting an orchard operation by making sure we considered all of the other

the portions of the plan, we did acknowledge it is in the mountain overlay protection area, but based on how it's cited in the limited area, we didn't have any concerns about impacts to that.

So we are recommending approval of this one.

It has a number of conditions.

I don't want to go through each one, but they are the

The package of conditions, if you will, that you typically see for a solar facility adapted to this concept plan, this particular site, but that does include development in general accord with the plan, the increased setbacks, protection of the wooded areas.

Excuse me, the provision for decommissioning and then again the standard conditions that we've added regarding the site and training for fire rescue and all of those typical things.

Great, thank you.

Any questions?

So we're approving that we would be approving if we approved it the use of the solar at the location and and you had the

the general location.

Is there anything in the conditions or in the application that specifies that the number of panels are restricted?

Okay, so they can't they can't like say double the size of the solar.

Excuse me, I'm trying to talk to you fast.

So when we're talking about the solar development envelope, maybe I think I did pull that from another condition.

Maybe we will label that plan and update it.

Okay.

The extent does it.

Yep.

It talks about the number.

Like on the planet, it has the number of modules, right?

So I guess that's, but yeah.

Any other questions for staff?

All right.

I was thinking I had a question, but I guess I know.

Thank you.

So with that, I'll open the public hearing and call for the applicant if you have any

You have a report?

Love to hear it.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Good evening.

My name is Andrew Jenner.

I live in Harrisonburg.

I'm the branch manager of Paradise Energy Solutions.

So we're the contractor here.

I'm on behalf of speaking on behalf of the applicant, which is Crown Orchard Company.

So we're the solar company that is proposing to build this for Crown Orchard.

Do you have the brief slideshow that I sent earlier?

I don't have.

She sent it to us, but I can't do it for mine.

Oh, did you upload it?

I didn't.

I can't.

Okay.

You brought the.

I'm sorry.

I thought that was already taken care of.

You may already know this, but this is a reminder you have 10 minutes.

But is it like when we were talking this afternoon, if there's a delay, 10 minutes keeps extending?

Right now, he's not on his clock.

Yes, we got you.

Just very briefly, I imagine you've seen all the materials that was part of our special use permit application that has all the electrical drawings, I think a project narrative and all sorts of other things.

This is just a quick overview.

It's 491 kilowatts and it's to offset the usage of 16 meters at Crown Lurchard Company.

As it relates to the question about expansion of the array in the future, one of the limiting factors here is that this is

It's essentially net metering.

It's not utility scale solar.

So the size of the array is limited by what the utility will allow.

It's not a power plant just feeding solar onto the grid, which is more typical where you could theoretically want to come back and do more later.

So this usage right here is as large as the utility would allow in this certain circumstance based on the usage on these meters that are owned by Crown Orchard Company.

So it's good being installed next to an existing cold storage facility.

Quite a large property and we're talking about covering about 1.5 acres is the total area that's essentially just solar panels and the steel structure to hold them.

Quite low to the ground, I'm sure you've seen them all before, you know, not very tall.

The tall thing will be a new utility pole.

and once it's built, it sits there, no noise, dust, problems, traffic.

So environmental benefits are one of the major things.

It's produced quite a bit of renewable electricity for in coming decades.

And again, the points been made in the staff report also in our narrative, we tried to highlight that there's several goals of the zoning ordinance and the comprehensive plan that we feel like are

are supported by this project.

Our company, just very briefly, we're a turnkey solar PV company.

We do a lot of commercial and agricultural work.

A little bit of residential founded about 15 years ago in Pennsylvania.

Our branch has been in Virginia out of Harrisonburg since 2017.

We've done a few projects here in Albemarle County.

None of them have been big enough though to bring us here in front of you tonight.

This was the most recent one actually, it's a Spring Valley orchard, which is also owned by the same by Crown Orchard Company.

It's another apple orchard and it's a little bit, it's near Nelson County, further southwest.

This actually just turned on earlier this month.

We built it in the spring and this is about a third of the size, but it just included this picture here to show it's fairly modest just to support agricultural operations there.

This is another one here, actually, for the same customer.

We've been doing a lot for the Crown Richard Company.

This is down in Campbell County at another orchard they have.

That's, again, what we're talking about doing is about three times the size of that.

So it's a little bit bigger, but by modern standards of, you know, large-scale solar, it's fairly modest in size.

Great.

Thank you.

Yes, please.

So, thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for your focus on agribusiness, providing solutions for agribusinesses.

So, and this one here that you brought before us, and you said that there's just like a third and two.

a third larger and then two thirds larger than the first one.

Are you talking about the current proposal?

The current proposal.

Yeah.

So I'll try not to get too technical.

That's OK.

You can get as technical.

You know, we all are smart here now.

It is sized to offset 16 meters that are all owned by Crown Orchard Company on this house.

And off the top of my head, I'm not sure what they all are.

It could be.

Honestly, it's a fairly unusual arrangement with as far as the way that this works typically, what we do is net metering that you can only be behind one meter and offset the usage of that one meter.

Sometimes there's meter aggregation in certain circumstances, certain utilities will allow

This is not technically meter aggregation, but it's behaving the same way.

So we will be interconnected at one new electrical service, but we'll be the size of the array and the production that we're projecting is based on 16 total meters that are all owned by Crown Orchard and are all

sort of contiguous there.

And I don't know what the nature of all those 16 is.

So it could be that some of them are like farm worker housing.

They have a lot of that.

They have a lot of that there.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's just a comment.

I actually used to live near there, within walking distance for many years.

That road there, the Burnt Mountain Road is used highly by runners and cyclists.

So just as your trucks are coming in and out there, just make sure that they go slow and they watch out for pedestrians.

And people take speed limits very seriously in Batesville.

So as you're going through there, just let people know.

I'm off and on the running and cycling and I appreciate the comment.

Take it seriously.

I had a question just about view sheds.

Yes, that was a question that staff raised early on, and I believe Rebecca, my colleague Jared, they're at one point to look, to take a closer look at that in person.

The nature, the way the topography, the road is coming south into the property, and this is on a south-facing slope.

So it really is quite hidden.

Great, yeah, okay.

Thank you.

And, Chair, if you had a topography map, you all, you and Commissioner Carrazano are very good at that.

There really is a change in topography there.

So where you come in on the road, you're significantly below the sort of the terrain where I believe, according to the map, where I believe these are going to be.

Good to know.

Great.

No more questions from the commission.

I just wanted to go back to my earlier question.

So you gave us a somewhat technical answer earlier about how you were already, if I understood it at the maximum, that you could be in terms of the number of solar arrays that would you put on that site for that use?

But I guess I didn't understand.

Are you saying you cannot?

It sounded like a bunch of guidelines or rules, but those could be changed.

Yeah, I guess I never say never.

These regulations are based on what the state corporation commission and the legislature either allows or requires.

Is that by what the uses that they're serving or the size of the facility?

It's based on usage.

So if you in

In a rural co-op, you're allowed to size at 100% of the past 12 months usage.

So if you use 100,000 kilowatt hours, you can build an array that will produce up to 100,000 kilowatt hours.

In Dominion and Appalachian power territory, it's up to 150%.

of that one meter, and then meter aggregation can change that a little bit more.

So it's designed, those regulations are designed to right size the project for the use that it's serving.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

That's very helpful.

Yeah.

And then in terms of, I guess I would say in terms of size of the array, which correlates directly to amount of production.

You know, if there's a condition in there that would limit us to what we've proposed now, then I guess if the owner in the future, either the usage increased or there was some sort of policy change that would allow them to put more production there and they wanted to, I suppose that would require a new special use permit or an amendment to this one or something like that.

Great answer.

All right.

Any other questions?

All right.

With that, I will thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

And I'll call for comments from the public.

Are there any comments from the public?

All right.

Seeing none, are there any online?

No one online.

All right.

That sounds great.

Well, with that then, I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission for discussion.

and or a motion.

But I start at this end.

It makes sense to have off-grid power.

It is probably prone to outages from our electrical suppliers.

So having a way to continue doing that with something other than gas generators makes a lot of sense to me.

Murray.

Oh, good.

My bad.

I will second that.

Central Virginia co-op electrical.

So just one tiny thing for staff.

I would appreciate it when we get things like this that we had the stream buffers delineated.

The solar panels are not in the stream buffer, but there's a stream buffer very close to this.

Yeah, I don't know that I provided one in the packet.

You know, we're always trying to balance.

We'll particularly in the rural area where, you know, stream buffer is important.

Yes, we do.

We do have other plans that they provided.

But in general, I think that this is a good example of there's a huge difference between solar that's meant to support agriculture.

versus agricultural as a secondary use, where someone may maybe toss some sheep out there or some goats.

And so this is something I think could very easily be something that's by right that doesn't have to come before us because it's small scale.

Yeah, as long as it's not industrial.

I think it's a great example of where solar is appropriate in the rural area because it's providing the agricultural, it's supporting our agricultural uses being even more sustainable, right?

They need power to do what they do and they're generating it locally, so they're reducing their footprint.

So I mean, I think it's a great project and it also is not

impactful to neighbors, fortunately.

So that's why I don't think we have anyone coming up to comment this evening.

We certainly have quite a cadre of people who are concerned about our solar policy and the fact that it's still under development and isn't done yet.

So, but I think this is a very straightforward application that's directly supporting the use that's there.

I'm in support of it too, but I'm also for this moment, I'm glad that it came before us because I think the owners of Crown Orchard, the child's family should be commended because I think if we look at most of their orchards in our neighborhood and certainly down 29 and perhaps up on the mountain, they have been one of the few industries, particularly ag industries, to try and have an active solar solution on their properties.

And so for them coming before us, I want to just raise

raised them as an example.

of an ag business that's trying to balance the need for increased energy with a solution that is actually ecologically viable and a benefit to us.

Great.

Thank you.

And I echo that as well.

And the only thing that I'll mention is, first of all, I am really excited about the new solar ordinance.

I think that'll be wonderful.

I also would caution the fact that, you know, even with this, which is a totally appropriate and I'm fully supportive of this,

If you had a hundred of these, you know, then you're starting to think about the visual and impacts to the and other impacts that we know about that we've discussed.

So just keeping that in mind, it's not applicable here.

But if it were this times times a hundred over the next two years, it may be a different issue.

I would, since it's in my district.

Second.

Awesome.

I'll just note that I took to heart the the applicant's clarification of how the how the this extent was determined.

Great.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Aye.

Great.

Thank you all.

All right.

With that, we will move on to committee reports.

Sure, I have a committee report.

So, the CREZ-ACCAC met.

We had a report from the Albemarle County Police Department going over crime statistics.

It was very fascinating.

I mean, it deviated, of course, a little bit, but one of the things that got extensive discussion was

just how many crimes were caused by the same people.

They keep arresting over and over again.

But because they can't keep them in jail, basically, they just keep getting let out.

And so they're just the same people.

So that was a really interesting, create some really interesting discussions about, you know, what do we as a community do about that to keep people from keep committing the same crimes over and over again.

So

Stox.

Thanks.

Where's CAC?

Was that?

Was that Crozet?

Thank you.

So the 5th and Avon CAC met and the bulk of the meeting was to hear a presentation by the Warrant Sewer Authority to talk about their excellent stewardship of our resources.

We also got to see some really scary images of our original dam at Ragon Mountain that was insufficient.

And so it was a combination of technical information about our water supply and our waste treatment and then

Interesting origin stories about how we came to do such a great job.

They also talked about PFA's, also known as Forever Chemicals, that now are being required to be reported by water treatment authorities.

We were sort of congratulated by the staff presenting that our community came together long ago and I remember this guy lived here for a very long time and we demanded that we have activated carbon filtration and so it turns out that in treating the forever chemicals that's really the system that you need to have

and so other communities who did not go what is actually the more expensive route, as we did, are struggling to actually meet that treatment rule.

Fortunately, we don't have any real present, I shouldn't say real, we do not have PFA showing up in our water, but it was really nice to know that all the money and time that we spent on this has paid off in the health, in the

with a health threat that is looming on the horizon.

So then the second thing is the Historic Preservation Committee did meet.

Yes.

And we talked about, we've kind of delayed on the comprehensive plan work because there's just an overarching slowdown in terms of

staff getting organized with the actions and trying to get that sorted before sort of basic subcommittees like the Historic Preservation Committee wrestle with things.

So they kind of pause that, but instead we're working on a few things.

One is there is money in the county budget for one more historic marker currently.

And so we're looking at what would that historic marker be and where would it go?

I don't want to get into the details of that because we didn't really decide the topic yet.

So anyway, and we are hoping to have, as I mentioned last time, a more robust historic marker program where there's a clear process where you could suggest you want a marker, the community group could come forward and say why they wanted it and we would then have a process for vetting it.

So that, but that is being held, that bigger program until we have the comprehensive plan goals established.

And then the other thing we talked about was more educational materials on our website.

A lot of the materials on the county's website are more in the form of like long manuals and reports, and that a lot of people don't digest their information by reading

dozens or hundreds of pages of reports so that you're trying to have more like rolling slideshows and also trying to have different topics that people can learn about the historic resources.

We also I think mentioned last time we wanted to have an award program for people who do a great job at preserving historic resources and not just just plantation houses but you know the every the every day the everyday historic resources also so

Again, that's something we have to wait for the comp plan to finish its process.

But I think that there's a lot of ways to highlight the good things people are doing, because sometimes it feels like it's just a parade of lost places.

And then it's just depressing.

But we actually are doing some great work in renovating and bringing back resources and telling stories that haven't been told.

So somehow we're within the confines of the county's website, we're going to

Sure, why not?

Yeah.

Anyway, so that'll be fun.

Great update.

Any other committee updates?

No.

All right.

With that, I will move on to the review.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So the board of advisors met on June 12th.

They received a presentation of a final draft.

for the Broadway Blueprint Project, which incorporates girls' comments.

And I think that staff, once we get one more time, and then it'll go on their consent agenda for approval.

The board also had a quick presentation on the current status of the smart scale projects that are wrapping up.

Those applications will be submitted to the end of July.

For the public hearing,

Herb one that you might find of interest, I'll bring it up, that the electric charging stations that are outside of the building here, they're gonna be charging fees for those now.

Still reasonable compared to other ones you'll find in town, but it was just interesting they moved that direction.

Can I ask Mr. Barnes a question?

Well, I mean, I think Broadway is still this idea that it's an industrial area.

And I think you're sort of dealing with some of the pressures of the real estate market around it.

trying to push in that direction.

So there was some discussion about some of the residential zoning that's kind of like the old houses that are up by the tracks and are down behind the woolen mills.

and those become residential because there's an industrial now.

So that would be one sort of a change kind of a thing.

And then the other aspect, definitely it was the idea to try to maintain some of the commercial on the street, two other things I bring up.

There's one is the interface with the city and how to best do that.

Primarily it's along Franklin Street.

And if you could picture that when you're on Franklin, there's a really

Pretty big bluff that goes up.

So it was a discussion about how to do that, but I felt like that was real meat of what we're talking about.

The last thing I would say is the service authority is actually replacing sewer line along the street there.

And as part of their policy, when they're doing major work like that, they resurface the road.

and that's going to afford us an opportunity to strike the road to provide a lot of full-on pedestrian facilities on the other side, but at least demarcate the travel lanes and sort of give a little bit more room for that as well as some of the parking that sort of happens in that area.

Great.

Good summary.

All right.

So I promise you guys, we have the PowerPoint presentation is almost finished.

I will be bringing it to you right now.

Very excited.

Got too much delayed at our first meeting in July, which is, I believe, the 9th.

I sort of told you about the three parts that we're trying to work for.

Is that is that session just like a here's where we're at?

So I'm actually glad for your answer.

Yeah, our intent is to sort of like put together a really good draft based on the outline that we're going to present to you in our next meeting.

And then we'll come back with a really pretty good solid first draft of the document and then work our way through it.

Then we have a little bit more context as your sections that you won't be quite reviewing at that individual meeting, you'll get the chance to sort of see where we're at it with us.

Great, thank you.

With that, any new business?

Or old business?

Just one thing, and maybe this is under items for follow-up.

I think we've exhausted our fancy little look ahead schedule.

So we have May and June.

I assume we'll get a new one of those for July and August.

That would be great.

Thank you.

Any other items before we adjourn?

All right, with that, I will adjourn planning commission until next, the next meeting, which is Tuesday, July 9th at 6pm.