Planning Commission Work Session and Regular Meeting   12/17/2024

Great.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

I will call to order the December 17th, 2024 meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission.

All right.

Mr. Moore is walking in right now.

Great.

With that, we have more than a quorum.

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

Thank you, Chair.

I am.

Awesome.

Awesome.

It's great to see you.

Um, we, we will thank you.

It's great to see you.

Yeah.

So move.

Any discussion?

Yes.

Mr. Carrazana.

Mr. Missel, Mr. Clayborne, Mr. Murray.

Great, thank you.

With that, we'll move into the work session, and that is CPA 2021-2 AC44, Environmental Stewardship, Policies and Actions, and we'll ask for the staff presentation.

Good afternoon, Tanya Swartzen-Druber, Planning Manager for the Community Development Department.

Here to speak about the environmental stewardship chapter of the comprehensive plan.

I'm joined by several colleagues that will help us answer questions and Scott Clark will be presenting some specific information on the chapter as well.

To get started, the agenda looks like we will summarize your feedback, what we heard from you from our last session just a week ago on the rural area land use actions.

We'll go through the community input themes, through the chapter itself, and some information about stormwater management, biodiversity, and water and groundwater supply, as well as review the upcoming schedule

and public participation opportunities.

So these are the four direction topics that we have for you to consider tonight.

The first focuses on low impact development or what we're calling LID.

Also, the second one focuses on biodiversity protection and demonstration projects.

The third addresses public water supply and groundwater supply.

And then the last is just the general, is there anything that we missed or is additional context needed?

So as far as what we heard from you on rural area land use, this is just a summary and this should be in your packet as well, but these are the things that we did here.

We heard that land conservation doesn't necessarily mean resource conservation and quantified or percentage target may not be the best

Measure.

As far as agricultural and forestry goes, industrial may not be the best classification, and we should look at more by-right farm worker housing.

and then regarding non-residential commercial uses, there was really no decision on special events for historic or heritage properties.

We should consider a resource extraction overlay and areas within the RA should be treated as individual communities, as well as the proposed use of an existing building doesn't necessarily need to be a historic use.

A few of the community input themes that we heard when we presented this a little less than a year ago is we're really centered around protecting waterways and improving water quality, protecting biodiversity and ecosystems, and then improving that habitat connectivity.

Our goal for environmental stewardship chapter is really focused on providing healthy, thriving, resilient ecosystems, prioritizing the connected habitats and natural carbon sinks, and then valuing our natural environment.

And these are the five objectives that were established in that chapter.

These are all overarching

Goals that we have for the actions that fall beneath each one.

So just a quick summary of the changes from the 2015 plan.

We've updated the goal and objectives to reflect all of the community input that we heard, including addressing waterways, drinking water protection, and natural hazard mitigation, et cetera.

We additionally incorporated the county plans and policies that apply to this topic, including stream health initiative and biodiversity action plan, which Scott will go over in more detail in a moment.

So your specific input regarding this topic previously included the topics that are here on the screen, specifically regarding biodiversity and wanting more improved data and supporting more education on biodiversity.

and recommending incentives for green infrastructure for water quality and support for programs on financial assistance regarding failing septic systems.

As well as recommending stronger protections for riparian stream buffers and greater coordination.

and the last one we heard from you all previously was implementing more effective lighting requirements to protect our dark skies while prioritizing safety.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Scott to talk about the different efforts that apply to environmental stewardship.

Good afternoon.

I'm Scott Clark.

I'm the conservation program manager in CDD.

If you all have any trouble hearing me, just kind of raise a hand and I'll try to get closer to the mic.

So as you'll notice, this chapter is titled Environmental Stewardship, but there are some topics that are here as you would expect.

And there's some topics that don't appear in this chapter that you might expect.

This chapter is allegedly focused on water matters, water supply protection, water quality, surface and groundwater, and biodiversity and natural systems.

And those sections, as Tonya mentioned, have been updated to reflect the recommendations of the stream health initiative and the biodiversity action plan, which I'll go over in a bit more detail in a minute.

What about those other environmental topics?

Why aren't they here?

A lot of the other topics are covered in other chapters, and there will need to be cross-references between them.

But as you'll see here, for example, emissions reductions for climate are addressed in several chapters throughout the plan.

Climate resiliency is in the resilient community chapter.

Land Conservation, which is often included in the scope of environmental stewardship, is in the rural area land use chapter.

So it's not so much that those topics have been left out as they just happen to fall more smoothly into another chapter in the same plan.

So to talk about the stream health initiative and how that led into the edits on this particular plan,

The initiative came out of a long history of water resource protection policy in the county going back to the 1970s.

It was a large part of the foundation of the growth management policy.

But more recently in 2017, the board directed staff to work with the community stakeholders, the public in general, on developing recommended measures for improving stream health and water quality throughout the county.

Program was handled by community development through previous natural resource managers.

There was a phase one that was largely on urban and development related issues and then

More recently, the phase two, which was largely focused on the rural area.

There was an extensive public input and stakeholder input process, and there were 14 recommendations presented to the board that came out of that multi-year process.

We have tried our best to reflect all of those in the draft actions that you're seeing today in the plan.

I won't read all of them off to you because there are 14 but you can see here except for the couple that are already underway such as the buffer ordinance that you'll you all have heard about separately in a recent work session we've tried to reflect those recommendations of the stream health initiative in the environmental stewardship actions as the numbers here indicate it takes another slide to get to the other the other seven

just wanted to draw attention to one in particular because this was part of the questions for this particular work session.

Low impact development covers an incredibly broad range of potential measures.

So just to summarize, this is the use of systems that mimic natural processes to improve downstream stream health from development projects and other land uses.

and try to improve the way that we use land in both the development areas and the rural areas to reduce those down as human facts in a more natural fashion.

This probably deserves an entire work session on its own at some point, but that's just a quick summary to give you a rough idea of the kind of things we're talking about in that discussion question.

Another major section of this chapter is the Biodiversity and Natural Systems section.

A lot of this comes out of the Biodiversity Action Plan.

The Comprehensive Plan has included policies regarding biodiversity protection since 1996.

I put 98 here, but that was an amendment.

From that point on, the COMP plan called for development of the county Biodiversity Action Plan and a Biodiversity Protection Program.

In the mid-2000s, we had the Biodiversity Work Group and in the beginnings of the National Heritage Committee, which is an advisory body who helps the commission and the board understand the impacts on biodiversity of our land use policies and recommends measures to act on that.

In 2018, the action plan that had been called for quite some time before in the comprehensive plan was completed

by the Natural Heritage Committee and staff.

And the major recommendations of that action plan were adopted into the Natural Resources Chapter of the previous COMP plan in 2019.

Again, that plan contains a wealth of recommendations.

I don't have time to take you through all of them today.

However, if you look in the executive summary,

of that action plan.

You'll see that the Natural Heritage Committee prioritized nine actions for higher priority action acting on sooner.

Focusing on three particular conservation focus areas, five key ecosystem types, working on habitat fragmentation, connectivity, buffers, and management for biodiversity on county-owned lands.

There's also some education related measures here, promotion of locally native plants.

And then finally, the last one is talking about developing indicators of biodiversity status in the county, which you'll see reflected in all of these.

You'll see reflected in the actions in this draft chapter.

And those indicators would feed back into any future updates of the biodiversity action plan.

just for interest sake.

These are the three focus areas that were mentioned in that action plan.

These are not meant to represent the only areas where biodiversity occurs in the county, of course, but they are intended to be areas for action in the short to medium term.

I believe they said five years originally that these would be the areas of most importance to act on.

So this is the northwestern part of the county at the head end of the Rivanna watershed.

the southwestern part of the county around Hurd's Mountain and Green Mountain and then the Rivanna North and South Forks and the Mainstone.

Scott, just to look at the schedule and remind you the next time that we'll be in front of you will be January 28th, 2025.

So that sounds feels a little weird to say, but we'll be here talking about the Parks and Recreation chapter on the 28th.

We are going to the board with that same chapter on the 19th of February.

In between now and then we will be going to the board to look at the entire rural area land use chapter as well as the environmental stewardship chapter that we're discussing here today and we'll be providing that input back to them.

On the 12th of February, we'll be going to the board to present a revised rural area land use chapter and development area land use chapter.

You all will receive those same revised chapters, but we'll be going to the board to go through basically how it's been revised and

and discuss those chapters.

And just as a reminder for those out there that are wondering how they can get more information or

We'd like to know how to participate.

We encourage you to go to engage.albemarle.org slash ac44, where all of the draft chapters are located in the phase three page.

There are also several opportunities to ask questions on the page, ask a planner, as well as engagement opportunities.

The next one we're looking at is the end of January.

and all those events will be noted on the Phase 3 page.

So please look there for any updates.

Great, thank you.

Very helpful.

Glad we're loading up the Board of Supervisors with work.

So let's start the discussion.

I do have one question.

Is the intention of this chapter only to focus on, you know, streams and not so much the river, the Rivanna River, for example, because I didn't see much of mention in there.

Yeah, I don't think there was any intention to focus only on streams and not the larger rivers, so we can clarify that language as we go back through this.

Sure.

I was thinking more like protection and activation, but we can I'll share more about it as we converse.

I was going to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Any other specific questions?

I have one, but make sure.

Do you mind going back to page 14?

Thanks.

So where it says, for example, number one, riparian buffer protection standard environmental stewardship action already underway.

Will that work continue under this current document?

And if so, how is it identified?

If the other ones have specific numbers, how, for example, is number one included?

if the initiative is underway.

Same with number five.

I think we had not specifically included them because they were underway.

However, if you all prefer that we

include them within that.

And I think there are existing actions that we could mention the phase one stream health initiative and the buffer ordinance.

Yeah, I think that'd be helpful.

I don't know if you all agree.

Mm hmm.

ongoing initiatives, I think need to be continued.

And kind of a general framework question.

If I may.

And it's really very broad, but there's a lot in here about, particularly in the biodiversity parts around protect, preserve, restore.

Well, I mean, maybe I can take that.

So this is something that has been discussed a lot by the National Heritage Committee about climate resiliency, right?

And so, you know, there are certain things we're going to lose.

I mean, if temperatures go above a certain level, there are things on the edge that we're going to lose.

So looking at those species that are most vulnerable to climate change and how we can provide more resiliency.

The interesting thing is, even for some of the most vulnerable species, I mentioned at a previous meeting, Cornus canadensis or a little teeny tiny dwarf dog wet.

There are very simple steps we can provide in that case, in that case a controlled burn that helps provide resiliency for that species.

So even though we do have this overarching threat of climate change, there are still things we can do to provide resiliency for those species.

But obviously we'll want to prioritize those that are

that have the best chance of survival.

But we're also part of the habitat connectivity.

When we talk about cores and corridors and the connectivity of those habitats is to allow for migration.

After last Ice Age, when the glaciers retreated, a lot of species that liked to pull to weather migrated up to the tops of mountains because they had avenues and ways to do that.

So maintaining those corridors allows for that migration of plants and animals to other habitats.

So that's

Yeah, I think it's a great question.

I'm trying to get my head around that, the bigger picture piece, right?

So I was thinking about there's

Prevention, there's adaptability, there's resilience, there's reactivity, there's proactivity, there's all these different things and thinking about, I love your word with what, holistic or something like that, thinking sort of a bigger picture and how is this plan and their resilience work and the climate action plan and all those, how are they

adaptable.

So they were not just taking a moment in time and saying, these are the objectives and actions that we need to have for this moment in time.

But we're also thinking the bigger picture and how do we adapt this time goes forward.

And I know we will redo this in another, was it five years or so or maybe 20.

There have been, there's some bigger conversations that are going on, some of which are controversial, things like assisted migration, for example, of actually, you know, people are talking about in terms of native plants, maybe we should be planting, not the native plants of our region, but thinking about planting plants that are just from slightly south.

So the founding principles that went into the development of the recommendations of the biodiversity action plan were not focused on a reactive model of conservation of, let's just find some hot spots and put a fence around them.

The entire idea was to focus on a landscape approach, just as the state is doing through DCR with core habitats and connectivity at a state scale that we were trying to do

that's mimicking that at a one step down closer scale with our plan so that we're focusing on important habitat areas and the connections between them, which is not only the kind of standing model for how you do landscape scale conservation anyway,

but becomes particularly important when you're dealing with climate change because as species and communities shift across the landscape, having those cores and those connections is all the more vital for those gradual shifts over time of the range of each species and each community.

So I think because we focused on

That's really helpful.

I had kind of, I guess, a related question, and that is if we're thinking about this big picture in the landscape, et cetera, that you're talking about.

And, you know, getting to number one, which talks about, does the commission support prioritizing the implementation of incentives for low impact development?

2.2 talks about developing incentives for low impact development in green infrastructure.

The objective is reduce the amount of unmanaged stormwater and other sources.

Pick one.

So low impact development, you know, three years from now.

How are we doing in terms of developing incentives?

Are we seeing a lot of new rain gardens and green roofs, pervious pavements?

Have things changed?

I wish we had some of our engineers to answer this better than I can.

I know there are other organizations in the community that are repeatedly measuring stream health in multiple points, both in very low impacted streams and very heavily impacted streams across the city and the county.

some of which, of course, are downstream from development projects where LID would be an option that may or may not have been put in place.

So I think that's part of why a lot of these actions refer to working with community partners is to be able to pull in that information.

I don't have an easy answer for you right now.

So I will say that the stormwater conservation district does track all the practices that they implement and they report those to DCR.

So we do have an annual report that we issue every year.

I'll be glad to get the last one we had and distribute to the commission so you can see that.

It talks about the number of the amount of stormwater that were treated, the amount of practices that are implemented.

I think you might find it very helpful.

At the same time, I think there's a real opportunity here

We're missing some basic GIS data that I think would be valuable in terms of the amount of impervious surface in Albemarle County, the amount of streams that are lacking a buffer.

There's an engineer in the room.

Frank Pole, county engineer.

We do the same thing, report all constructed BMPs on a site to DEQ.

Our new system will track that even better.

So we'll be able to report that out down to every single one that's built on site.

That's great.

Yeah, I think it'd be helpful to the extent possible to have like, you know, the action number and then there's the actual action and then have a third column that is measure.

Mr. Chairman, I think that's a good point.

As I was looking at the different action items, I'll draw our attention to 4.11, for example.

Consider establishing grant programs and or other incentives, dot, dot, dot.

What does consider mean?

I thought about it, so I'm done, right?

Yeah.

So that, just speak it to, like, what are we measuring?

What are we really trying to accomplish there?

Getting back to number one, do we support prioritizing the implementation of incentives for low impact development?

Any discussion on that?

Yeah, I mean, I would say that we could say something stronger there, not just incentives.

I mean, I do support incentives, and there are existing incentives, at least at the residential scale.

We don't have incentives right now at the commercial scale for, like, a developer came forward.

There's very few incentives.

We do have some incentives for green roofs if a developer wanted to do that for new construction.

I haven't seen one take it yet, but it's out there.

It's not a lot of money.

But I think we should move from just incentive to also require because particularly you have that map that has all the impaired streams, watersways on it.

I think there's an opportunity there.

There's a tool that we have at the state level called resource management areas and lands under, and that is part of the Chesapeake Bay Act with research management areas, the county can designate areas where low impact development is required.

and there are other parts of Virginia that have low impact development checklists.

I think I might have sent one out, one of those out to the commission before.

I think that having something like that, particularly around those areas that we know are impaired to require areas adjacent to that to practice low impact development, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Now, I will say that a lot of the localities have implemented resource management areas have decided to expand those resource management areas to their entire county because they realized they said, well, you know, if low impact development is a good thing, actually, maybe we should just do it everywhere.

So that's a... Yeah, just to add a little bit to that and both to comment on the question.

So along with

developing incentives.

And I do agree if we identify certain areas that are particularly challenged, then we should move to require.

But I think part of that is also providing information and resources.

I think a lot of people do want to do the right thing if they had understood the resources that they had.

And there are a lot of resources that could be grants and it could be all kinds of other.

And so I do, so that's part of the statement.

Greg.

Hi there, Greg Harper.

I work in facilities and environmental services as the chief of environmental services.

And I think Mr. Murray earlier mentioned a program that the Soil Water Conservation District implements, which is called VCAP, Virginia Conservation Assistance Program.

and we have a county version called ACAP, guess what the A stands for, and that is promoted by the district to property owners, not developers, but property owners.

So if you own a property, a house or even probably mostly residential, not so much commercial

You can do low impact development after the fact and have some of that work paid for by the program.

And that's the incentive.

And I think it is published pretty well.

It's tapped into a lot.

I think Albemarle County residents do a lot more of that sort of thing than surrounding counties.

But it's sort of like what do you do after something's been developed?

I think that the challenges when developers come in, they may not want to do something they don't have to do.

They'll want to do something that might be less expensive.

So instead of a low impact development, because there's no requirement, they'll end up purchasing nutrient credits instead of providing on site stormwater quality treatment.

And so we actually have a situation where we have a lot of new development that doesn't have a lot of new quality treatment.

So we're sort of like taking a step backwards.

So that's that's kind of like the the rub, I guess, but

There's also the tension between wanting to develop urban areas as densely as possible, you know, to save the rural areas from sprawl, et cetera.

So there's, there's some tension.

So I think the question might be mostly oriented around sort of like new development and not so much maybe after the, well, never mind, take that back.

It would be applied.

Low Impact would do well for both new development and existing development that wants to, you know, do good things.

Hope that was helpful.

Yeah, I asked a question because, you know, there's numerous times, and I'm grateful that Commissioner Murray has a lot of this information off the top of his head, but I can't recall how many times, but multiple times there'll be an application and

Commissioner Murray will rattle off a or Commissioner Firehog does as well.

A resource is out there a grant opportunity to, to, you know, for low impact development or improving wetlands or buffer or something that might be on the site from an environmental standpoint.

and most of the time the applicant are not aware of this information.

So I'm just wondering if there's some way particularly as you start developing incentive programs or is there some informational program resources that can be listed as well so that people to raise the awareness that a lot of people may want to do the right thing to begin with.

And I add to that, just sort of as a, from an applicant standpoint, I think what would be helpful, I don't know, maybe this is already being done, but at a pre-application conference, for example, or, you know, early in the process, when an applicant comes and says, I want to develop X, Y, and Z, that staff has as a checkbox, environmental or low impact development opportunities as one of their assessments.

so it's early on and it's like they haven't, applicants haven't gotten too far down the road with their proformas and with their density and with their site plans and spent a lot of money without thinking about that as a fundamental starting place.

I think that'd be helpful.

The other thing to, you're mentioning education, thinking about how, and I'm borrowing from one of the community emails we receive, community emails, is there a way that the county can look at their properties?

and use them as examples of low-impact development, potentially, or, you know, I just, I remember this is years ago, it might have been Tim Patelino, I'm not sure who worked on this, but it was Azalea Park and the re, the stabilization of the stream that runs through Azalea Park.

I mean, that was a great example of

Funds that were spent to provide these types of examples.

And you can point to that as a county and say, look, we're not just asking you to do this.

We got skin in the game.

At that last point, I would just say that

There is, and Greg can talk about this much more about stream stabilization programs, restoration programs.

And I think we're going to cover that in the capital facilities chapter, that one point to that.

There is some stormwater stuff in that chapter.

Mr. Bivins, I know you're there and I have your name written in big bold letters in front of me, so I don't forget you're there.

Any comments, any thoughts?

Thank you, Chair.

The one thing I've actually come back to it, I think, was Commissioner Murray mentioned throughout this whole process, I kept thinking, why don't we just adopt the Chesapeake Bay Act?

Why don't we just do this?

And one of the reasons, and I'll say this at another point, because it seems that from all of the issues that are on all the various pieces, all the various strategies, the sort of 30-some-odd strategies which are there,

It all simply comes down to we're going to put something in place that there's already a sophisticated model in place that's been endorsed by the three jurisdictions, Pennsylvania, I guess the District of Columbia, Maryland, and some ports of Virginia.

And it would just seem that it would bring a lot more sort of push to the process if we were to say we're going to join our neighbors, our jurisdictional neighbors in this.

I also mentioned that because I'm concerned that if the upcoming administration decides that water is not something that they care about or the purity of water is not something that they care about, given some of their conversations about drill baby drill, that funds that some of the funds that were being mentioned outside of the county

Michael Barnes,

Very common.

I don't know.

Does staff want to respond to anything that Commissioner Bivins just said?

So there's some history on this topic.

And we brought this to the board during the stream health initiative.

And it was decided at the time to not pursue that option.

We can always come back and look at that again.

There are staffing issues and implications not only for us, but for the soil district.

So that would have to be discussion with them.

Thanks.

Oh, that's true.

Yeah.

But some of that has actually made its way into here in the cop plan as well.

But I mean, I think one of the things that I mentioned before, I think there are some other pieces of that Bay Act.

I mean, it's not one of the beautiful things is it's not all or none.

The enabling legislation allows us to adopt all or part of the Bay Act.

Correct.

So, I mean, there are some of the provisions like resource management areas that we did not adopt that I think would be something worth considering.

We, you know, are, they have two different kinds of buffers that resource protection areas, which is analogous to our stream buffers in Albemarle County.

or at least the proposed ones that we're talking about adopting.

So there's resource protection areas and there's resource management areas.

And so the Bayhawk counties have both and we only have one.

So I think that's an option that we could really look into is adopting resource management areas.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just noticed, number two, should the actions include more measures for biodiversity protection or related demonstration projects on county-owned lands?

Yeah, I should have read that first.

I like it was unique and creative.

Yes, in my opinion.

I would obviously say yes, but one of the things I would say is, you know, I'd like to pick on Chesterfield County and their horrible solar project that they approved.

They had a massive solar project commission before that was going to threaten a whole list of state critically imperiled species.

and it went through their planning commission and got approved and but before I'm too critical of Chesterfield I have to say if the same project were to come before Albemarle County I'm not sure that we have anything in our comprehensive plan that would have said well based upon the comprehensive plan we shouldn't allow that and so I think we should really think about that when we particularly for

Um, resources, habitats that are listed at the state of, you know, the state has classifications for habitat, you know, be the, you know, and, and species.

I think the question was more focused on a few of these actions.

I think there's a lot of biodiversity preservation and stewardship work already in there.

I mean, I think it's important to provide some clarity and sort of what's already happened.

Some of the things that have already happened at the public schools, for example, is there's areas that they've established.

You may have seen the signs of

The low mowing, the areas that were, they're reducing mowing in those areas.

And these are places often they're difficult to mow anyway, so they could be dangerous and they're using a lot of gas and other resources.

But the thing is, is allowing some of these areas to grow and can provide habitat.

One of the things that may be kind of a given is you know doing these

There haven't been many, but what I really love to see is the VCAP program, individual homeowners can apply, but there have been a couple of circumstances where HOAs have actually applied for the VCAP program to implement something like a wildflower meadow or something else within the middle of their neighborhood.

And I'd love to see the county do more.

I don't know if you know the answer to this or not.

We can table it and come back to it.

But in terms of solar, you mentioned solar.

Generally speaking, it's, I seem to recall that there's some language in the solar ordinance in a sense that talks about conservation, preservation, et cetera, right?

That's, I guess, somehow linked to this document.

Yeah, actually, you guys are going to be receiving a copy of the solo ordinance here in the next couple of days.

We got a public hearing on January 14th.

Indeed, a lot of the performance standards in there are trying to get at some of these issues.

And are there any of these objectives or actions that could be referenced or used?

Maybe not because the document is pretty much done, I guess, right?

To be honest with you, there's so many details floating around.

I know that there's a lot of talk in that section about

Wildlife Corridors.

There's talking there about farm soils.

I believe there's something in there.

You was talking about biodiversity specifically and maybe avoidance of Mr. Murray's idea of something on the state level.

I think that that's in there, but I won't guarantee that that's in the, as a performance standard within the

what's been written for you.

I think there's also some opportunities too.

And then I know that there's one particular project on 29 that you guys might remember.

Volunteers have been monitoring the migration of these spotted salamanders every year from their forest habitat to these vernal pools across the road and even picking them up and carrying them across the road.

And there was a development that occurred up off of Polar Grounds Road that when that was

when that was in process of being approved, some people from the Natural Heritage Committee actually approached the developers and said, hey, there's this need in the public.

There's this species that the public cares about.

There's these vernal pools.

What can you do?

And the developer actually proffered these tunnels that the cell managers could travel underneath the road to get from their forest habitat to the vernal pools.

and so and they they actually even showed up to the to the meeting with the little they even had buttons made like save the salamanders and when they went through the approval process it was kind of maybe perhaps a little bit shameless on their part but you know it it helps their project succeed in many ways to support for the projects but it also helped accomplish a biodiversity goal so I think more things like that are very could be very positive we can find opportunities to work with the development community on ways to

Yeah, if you go, if you're going on 64, you'll see this area where they built all this dispensing across the road.

and before they put that fencing up, there's a lot of deer collisions every year that are very dangerous for motorists, but then also obviously not very good for the deer.

When they put the fencing up that actually channels the deer underneath the road, they went from a large number of deer collisions every year to almost zero.

And so it's a good example of something the public

I should really appreciate if it's been done that we can do more of to actually, you know, because I don't know about you guys, but I've, I've, I've hit a deer before.

It's not great.

And so I mean, it's, you know, that's a dangerous situation.

And a procedural question.

So Commissioner Firehawk did send a number of notes prior to the meeting.

And so, which were very to the point, I think, I know that the staff has that everybody has it, at least in the dias and the staff.

How do we, how do we put that into the formal records?

Because obviously.

So just moving on to number three.

I mean, but I'm just kind of taking us through your list, but I know there's a lot of others too.

Do the actions for objectives one and three sufficiently address protection of public water supplies and groundwater supplies.

Any thoughts on that?

I'll share a thought on that one there and it goes back to the river and it seems like a lot of this chapter or most of it, it's really geared towards the rural area, but I don't want to I want to make sure we don't forget the development area and so I would love for us to be able to

started thinking through like river protection, and especially as we want to activate the river or develop along the river, which also seems to have some inherent conflicts to what we're talking about here.

So I just want to make sure we spend some time discussing that piece as well, how that maybe shows up in this chapter.

Or if it doesn't, let us know.

But I just want to make sure we do address that, just development along the river as we start to plan, but protecting the river, right?

Things that was called up by the Natural Heritage Committee and one of the reasons that Rivanna is highlighted as an area of conservation is that some of our species of county, occurrences of county rare species are actually along the Rivanna River, some right next to Charlottesville.

Just wanted to follow up on that comment about development areas and

Rivers Bestreams in particular, where...

whether we look at ways to incentivize daylighting streams.

Most of the time, we just put a culvert in and I didn't see a lot of that here in terms of how do we look to incentivize protection, but not only protection, but in some cases, perhaps restoration of streams that maybe had been covered up or culverted and that we could bring back and it could be an amenity.

A little bit different than what you're saying, right?

A little difference, a little nuance there.

But as we look at activating the river, it could be for recreation, right?

So I imagine parks and rectives would be some stuff like Mr. Barnes shared about boat ramps and so forth, right?

You're using the river in aspect.

But also as we're thinking about how we use the land, which is part of this exercise for the next 20 years along the river, there could be some inherent conflicts around preservation and stewardship and the land usage that we would like to see.

And so it's making sure

that we just take our time with both of those, right?

It's complex, but sometimes they will be in conflict with each other.

I'm not going to get the name right, but there is a Rivanna River master plan that we're aware of that we no needs to be incorporated into our into our chapters and admittedly, you know, kind of coming into it late with it.

That addresses exactly what you're talking about is my understanding.

Potentially.

Or as we're thinking about how do we use it, right?

We're thinking about AC44s as the next 20 years.

So as we're starting to think about how does that land, how is that land used if it's open now or not?

But how do we use it but still protect or exercise environmental stewardship, right?

and I appreciate and I'm listening to you guys talk about the complexity of the stuff.

I mean, obviously, master planning efforts should probably be paying very close attention to the environmental resources that are along the river or biodiversity hotspots that they exist within the development area.

All this stuff can be floodplain protected, kind of, but it doesn't get to the bluffs that

Mr. Murray was referencing.

And maybe part of what this thing should be is sort of making sure that we don't lose sight of that objective when we're doing the master planning.

I mean, I know Greg had mentioned a minute ago that natural trade-off between trying to get density into the development areas and yet protecting some of these resources.

And I think we're talking about biodiversity in this little lens here.

And I think that may be something we should draw out a little bit more

That sounds good.

Yeah, I mean, it'd be helpful.

I mean, not to beat this in the ground, but like, you know, if we if we had a requirement for low impact development along the Rivanna, which is has a TMDL in process.

Yeah, maybe I missed it, but can you guys speak a little bit to how watersheds, really more reservoirs are being treated in this?

Is there any special consideration for buffers around reservoirs or limitations to recreational use or enhancements to recreational use related to reservoirs?

So we could probably stand to clarify the language a little bit, do more directly address that.

The buffer ordinance that you all saw at a work session a few weeks back has particular standards for lands directly adjacent to the water supply impoundments.

So it's 200 feet, the buffers will be added.

200 feet beyond the Philippine, which is pretty extensive and more extensive for those lands directly adjacent to the impoundments themselves than elsewhere in the watersheds.

Is that what we're talking about?

Yeah, I think if we're thinking about drinking water supplies...

And we're talking about water quality.

Well, obviously on a larger scale, we spend a lot of time.

That'd be one of the fundamental guidelines for the rural land use aspect of it.

Largely handled by the Water and Sewer Authority as they manage the reservoirs themselves.

So they deal with access and the types of boating and fishing recreation that are permitted.

The county doesn't have an ordinance that manages access to reservoirs.

That's more RWSA related.

We'll follow up.

Basically, it's things on the water.

I was also thinking about Commissioner Clayborne's comments relative to the river that feeds the reservoir that then becomes our drinking water and thinking about how that all plays out.

Richard Bivins?

So, so long.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

So long.

That's a whole conversation.

I'm thinking about what has happened at our most recently at the park near the airport, Chris Green Lake, where the water there became it was it was when the labels swimming the water because of off because of flow off from from farms and agricultural places upstream.

And so while we're talking about water, we're also talking about, and the water from Christian Light also does sort of enter the drinking water system, the drinking water system at some point.

But so what I'm hearing, and this was my conflict on, do I believe that we've sufficiently addressed these in one and three, is that I don't know that I have a full enough image in my mind of the network of water

whether or not it comes from farms and then goes to the reservoir and it goes someplace like Chris Green Lake and it goes downstream.

There's this whole network of waterways that I don't know enough.

And I saw, I will say that.

I don't know enough to say whether or not the action items in one and three will sustain and hopefully improve the quality of water that goes through those various areas.

and so it would be helpful for me at least to have some sense of when water flows off of a farm and it goes into a stream and that stream either goes into Chris Green Lake or it comes in as a tributary that comes into the Rivanna and it actually comes through the the war purification system.

How is that all going to be impacted by

the action items and objectives in one and three.

I don't have a sense of that.

I could jump off that just a little bit too.

I think one of the things

So, you know, before this board, I was on the ACSA board.

And so we talked a lot about PFAS and the sort of water quality from the source where we get it and all that.

And there, one thing I don't see in one or three very much, I mean, I know there's some reference to riparian buffers and riparian buffer program, but the degree to which we have

Regulations.

The tree was even empowered to set regulations about the kinds of fertilizers that are used.

If there's like wastewater sludge that's being used as fertilizer, it was read about that at the Virginia Mercury, you know, that often comes with PFAS in it because it's getting everywhere these days.

And so if we have some farms upstream, that stuff is just kind of in the ground now.

We've received several letters from the public, particularly about biosolids, and that we're concerned about that.

And I think it'd be useful to have it as an action item in the comprehensive plan to specifically investigate a program to monitor biosolids.

I think that that would be a good step forward.

to have a program look at requiring monitoring about biosolids.

Several other localities in Virginia have such programs.

They apparently have not taken a lot of staff time after being implemented.

Mr. Herrick shared an email, I believe it was last week, in response to some of the questions about biosolids applications and the degree of limitation from the state on local prohibitions, but also the enabling authority for monitoring and testing programs.

So we could, if you all want that to be included, we could

potentially add that to this chapter as a recommendation.

There are, of course, pretty significant staffing requirements to pursue that.

I mean, it's one thing to have a program or a requirement, another to have one or more people whose time is dedicated to following up with those applications and tracing their impacts.

So it's certainly not that it's not worth doing, but it is a serious commitment to make it work.

I believe there was some comment in one of the public comments recently about communities that had enacted the testing requirements but never fully staffed the monitoring position so that they had their requirements but they didn't have the teeth to do anything about tracking those impacts.

But we can definitely follow up on that.

If I can back up your second, Mr. Missel, you had asked about an ordinance regulating

Recreational use of the reservoirs.

We do in fact have that chapter 11 of the county code regulates recreational use and it's broken into waters that are or are not drinking water reservoirs and the use is very slightly and of course there's a special section as you've heard in the past for

Regan Mountain Natural Area as opposed to other areas and what's allowed.

Yeah, that's helpful.

I mean, it's not just, I think we need to look beyond just Ragged Mountain.

Of course, you know, as you may know, I live in the Sugar Hollow area.

So, I mean, Sugar Hollow is important to me too.

And that's an area that is frequently loved to death.

The amount of cars and people tearing up the side of the road next to the river and, you know, people starting fires and doing other things down there, dumping trash.

Well, a good portion of that land is actually owned by the Sea of Charlottesville and managed by RWSA.

You brought up a good point.

And that point was the idea of resources.

and I don't know how to actually ask this question, but as we look at these different objectives and actions, a lot of them, to your point, come with a requirement, right?

And maybe that staffing in the case of what you mentioned, or maybe it's funding or some other resource.

And I think, unless I'm wrong here, I mean, like, I'll just pull one up.

I'll shoot ahead of people.

Implement the conservatism.

Well, there's a couple in here that that seem like they would require additional staffing or funding.

And I guess we're not really not that we don't care about that.

But I would ask, here's my question.

Has the county considered the necessary resources to actually implement these objectives and actions?

Especially for the stream health initiative,

There was a double evaluation for each of the 14 proposals.

One was how much does this proposal match up with the comp plan?

The Climate Action Plan and the Biodiversity Action Plan, each individually rated.

But then there was a second factor, which is how much of a resource commitment is this.

So that's been identified, at least for those 14 programs, which make up many of the actions in this chapter, whether it hasn't gotten to the point where the board has evaluated that.

and said, yes, we want to do it or no, we don't.

But at least they have been identified.

One example, Mr. Bivins mentioned earlier, trying to get closer to or just adopting the Bay Preservation Act.

A lot of those same measures that are required by that act are have very similar measures in individual actions in this chapter, for example, the septic testing and pump out matters that were recommended through the stream health initiative.

And that was rated as something that had

pretty good impacts or was helpful to reaching our goals, but also was a major commitment of perhaps three or four staff members.

It's a whole new program.

So, whereas some of the others that were very compliant with the plan, such as the land conservation rate for improving funding and assistance for riparian buffers,

Yeah, that makes sense.

You know, like I'm thinking about these, all these objectives and actions and we're all like, oh yeah, this is great.

This is really, this is fantastic.

And then I'm thinking like somewhere there's a heat map

that says, this is really a high priority, and it's also a high expense.

And then there's another section that's like, this is a high priority, but it's really not going to cost much, right?

So if you think about putting these objectives and actions on to something like that,

It's a priority and it's, you know, here's the resource requirements and how does that play out?

I think it'd be a really cool and helpful conversation to think through those priorities and those resources.

Plus you could use that or those resource needs.

Plus you could use that tool to plan, right, moving forward.

I think that question also goes to a bigger view, a large overview for the board and potentially part of their strategic planning process and identifying what those priorities are for the board themselves and then digging down as, I don't know, part of the budget cycle discussions.

What can actually be funded?

So that's a great point.

That's exactly where my head was going.

Like, if I were a supervisor, what would that look like?

And what would be the tool that I could use to then budget?

So I guess the question is, how do we prioritize things?

Is that something?

I think that's something we'd probably have to work with our executive team on how they would like to collect that input.

Yeah, I'll just say it has been discussed.

Yeah, great.

Mr. Chairman, I would say some of it goes back to the measurable outcomes as well to kind of help prioritize.

One comment that I have here, which would maybe help me think about priorities is when I look at this list of actions, there's a lot of them here.

This could be my ignorance to the planning and what you all do.

So forgive me if it is, but it feels like some of these could be just part of someone's job description versus a path to achieving a 20-year vision like AC44.

So like one that stands out to me, there's a few of them, but 4.8, use available data to document occurrences of rare habitat types and species in the county.

I don't know what everybody does on a staff.

It feels like I did a control F with that language.

That probably would pop up in someone's job description.

They're already doing that.

So if there's things like that, that maybe isn't part of the strategic plan.

That might help us also be able to whittle it down in terms of what do we really want to shoot for?

But again, I don't know what everybody does.

And so I don't want to speak out of ignorance, even though I am right now.

Don't want to sound ignorant as I share those comments.

That's something that stood out to me as I was particularly in this chapter, more so than the other ones I reviewed.

So, in the biodiversity action plan, one of the things we've done is we have like a little coding system for what what is done by volunteer effort, what is going to require staff time and what might be done by partners or education.

and I think that, you know, that's not in here about whose responsibility is doing what.

And you cited one that's a good example, where I mean, that particular item is actually currently mainly done by volunteers.

So, but it's not clear in the comprehensive plan that that's done by volunteers, right?

Or in the draft.

When the biodiversity action plan was first included in the comp plan in 1996, 1998, the way it was phrased was the county should develop an action plan through staff.

working with volunteers in the committee, which became the Natural Heritage Committee, eventually developed that.

And I would expect that to be the same now.

It might benefit us to be more clear about that.

I think we were just kind of assuming that staff

in the conservation program and the natural heritage community would work together toward that, but we can make that more clear.

And I think it's 4.1 is the action about updating and improving the biodiversity action plan.

And really that 4.8, that item about improving mapping of what's out there could really move up into 4.1 as part of that.

I mean, there's quite a bit of mapping out there.

Is it thorough and complete?

No.

Yeah, I mean, related to that thinking, it's like, you know, here we've got, and I hope I'm not restating something, sorry, sir, but we've got the action.

Then we identify the resource, then we implement, then we assess, then we repeat.

So when we assess, if we're like, well, that action, we didn't fully achieve the action we'd hoped for, we can rinse and repeat, right?

And come back and circulate through that same process again.

But the, you know, it's interesting the volunteers, it's a great point.

I mean, that's part of your identification of your resources, right?

It's like, oh, well, we got this, we're doing this like to your job description point too, right?

It's already in there.

This is all so easy.

Number four, got a few minutes left.

Are there any topics, especially within the narrative and or actions that need additional context or explanation?

So we really haven't touched on the narrative.

And Commissioner Bivins, I know you're there.

I don't want to cut you off.

I'm assuming if you have thoughts, you'll be raising your hand.

But otherwise, just cut us cut us off.

Mr. Chairman, I'll throw out a couple of things as I'm looking at my notes here and it's more just commentary.

perhaps, you know, land restoration, I just think about, you know, if we're thinking, again, 20 years on the road, not what's in front of us now, but AC44 is 20 years on the road, we're getting, you know, solar projects, and we see like decommissioning, for example, as a requirement.

Is there anything that we should be doing in our thought leadership that will start to influence decommissioning requirements, right?

Like, should we be thinking about that now?

to start to influence proposals that are coming before us.

So when that project is decommissioned, call it 40 years on the road, we've exercised some thought leadership to try to guide that.

And then the last part would be around maybe drought resilience, right?

What are the things that we're starting to think about now that can help prepare us 20 years down the road with climate change?

We saw a presentation, I forget when it was, but all the impacts, I think we're in that room over there, 244, whatever, with all the impacts that we're seeing right now, climate change.

Alright, so what are we going to do as we're looking 20 years on the road?

I was expecting to see that question start to be addressed or wrestled with a little bit.

But just encourage all to think about it as the plan continues to mature.

Those two areas might be beneficial.

Yeah.

And I assume this would be, I hope this be addressed in the climate resiliency, but I just want to say because it does impact this.

I mean, I think that, you know, at some point, to your point, we also, I think we definitely, we have a flood hazard overlay currently with the county.

You know, areas that are high flood risk, for example, if a reservoir dam were to go, I think we also need a fire hazard overlay for the county.

I think there are several places in the county that I've personally seen burn multiple times that have homes in those areas.

And so, actually, one of my daughter's teachers lived in one of those areas and came to the house on this caught fire.

So, I mean, I think we need to identify, I think it'd be very helpful to have something like a fire hazard overlay when we get to that point, whether it be in this section or in the climate resiliency section.

And then I think at the last meeting too, we did, there was, it seemed like there was some support among the, in the last meeting for some minimal standards of protection for intermittent streams.

You know, right now we go from a buffer of, for intermittent streams of 100 feet in the rural area to zero feet in the urban area.

And most frequently those are just erased off the surface of the earth.

I think about,

I think about Stonefield back in the day when my dad worked at Sperry.

I used to go to Picnic there and I used to admire the beautiful little stream that went across that property.

And as a kid, I liked to plan streams.

I was like, oh, that'd be cool to stream to plan.

It was a thought that had.

And so when they came and they buried that stream, it kind of broke my heart a little bit.

And I found out later there was actually an occurrence of a county where a fern that actually was along that stream.

So it was also an area where there was a resource that was there.

And it seems unnecessary.

UVA has demonstrated multiple times that you can integrate streams even if they're highly engineered into your development without losing very much space.

So even if we have to have a highly engineered stream, just something on the surface.

So because once that's in a pipe under the ground and it's just a grate underneath, people are going to dump their trash in there, motor oil is going to get in there.

Other things going to go in there.

It's out of sight, out of mind.

I would just love to see something.

It's not in our stream health initiatives right now.

Great.

Any other topics?

Good.

We're good.

All good.

Staff, anything that we've missed that you'd like us to touch on?

I was just looking through my notes to make sure that we had sort of a general consensus on these different questions.

And so I think it sounds like we do.

I didn't hear any objections for some of the discussions.

Great.

Thanks for all your hard work on this.

It's really helpful.

All right.

With that, I'll put us into recess until 6 p.m.

Thank you.

Great.

Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the December 17th, 2024 meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission.

Yes.

You want to try that again?

Great, thank you.

So with that, I'll just read this statement.

The public can access and participate in the meeting through information posted on the Albemarle County website, specifically on the Planning Commission homepage and on the Albemarle County calendar.

During the meeting, there will be opportunities for public comment on specific agenda items where input is invited.

So with that, I will open it up to public comment on matters pending before the commission, but not listed for a public hearing on this agenda.

I have two names on the sign up list.

We'll start with that.

Stuart Overby.

Hello, everyone.

I need to push a button.

You're going to start my evening.

Okay, I am one of the people who's been sending you emails about biosolids.

I have prepared comments here but first I wanted to pick up on something that Commissioner Clayborne said about thought leadership.

In 20 years, hence, there will be a fund to rescue all the farmland and farmers that have used biosolids because they won't be able to farm and they won't be able to use their land.

And if you think I'm being hyperbolic, you can look at what's happening in Maine and Michigan, it's coming.

So we need to

just put the word biosolids in this document, recommend that there be some addressing of the issue and that may be all the difference 20 years hence as to how we end up.

So I have one of the things I've sent you all and I would really love it if staff would read is a proposal

Information and Background for Potential Albemarle County Biosolids Ordinance.

The crux of it is there's already a model out there.

We don't have to reinvent the wheel.

There's a great ordinance in Rappahattet County that has basically resulted in their biosolids applications dropping to zero.

So it's very clever.

It's just based on the testing and monitoring program freedom that the state has left to localities.

And it just makes it really difficult for landowners to spread biosolids on their land and

The money for it comes from the landowners themselves.

We don't, you know, you don't have to pick up the tab as a county.

He can be more creative than that.

So please everyone look into it.

Thank you.

Bofi Massi?

Just state your name and I'm Sophie Massey.

I live in Southern Albemarle.

These are maps of where biosolids have been applied in the county as well as a map of overlaid the biosolids and the drinking water supply, which is not dashed and with the floodplain.

So

Well, get started.

I've got some ideas that are going to save you all boatloads of money and contaminated soil remediation and well water improvement costs.

It's simple, require better agricultural practices.

As someone who lives next to the county's only industrial scale poultry operation, I would like the AC44 to consider how to better protect surface and groundwater from the outsized impacts industrial agriculture has on the surrounding environment.

Confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, are expanding nationwide, and if you think Albemarle is an unlikely destination for more CAFOs due to perceived high property values, I would say to you, have you ever heard of private equity?

There's good money in owning CAFOs and private equity firms are already operating in this space.

They have a right to do that, but we need to make sure that CAFOs don't outsource the true costs of their operations onto Albemarle County residents and the environment.

Do we want to be like Nebraska where industrial agriculture has so contaminated the groundwater with nitrates that the state now offers a $4,000 rebate for homeowners to install reverse osmosis water treatment systems to avoid blue baby syndrome?

I don't think we want that.

It's very expensive.

I would like to see language in the AC44 that distinguishes between regenerative, resilient, independent farms and industrial agriculture.

One will get us through the next pandemic.

The other one might very well cause the next pandemic.

The AC44 should also explicitly address the crisis in progress of PFAS-contaminated land-applied biosolids.

Compared to the county at large, biosolids are disproportionately spread on farmland and southern Albemarle in the Totier Creek drinking water supply, an area which scores the lowest in the county for Composite American Human Development Index, and has the county's lowest medium income per household, with 29% of the population falling below the self-sufficiency standard.

This is an equity issue.

Rule folks deserve clean water too.

and Biosolids pollute the water.

As an aside, rural folks aren't just farmers, they're also hunters and PFAS-contaminated meat from game that drinks surface water on in your land-applied biosolids is a real problem.

This is another rural food source and way of life under threat.

The AC44 is an aspirational document.

We don't have to constrain our vision to current agricultural policies that have been heavily shaped by the big industrial agricultural companies.

In its 2025 legislative positions and policy statements, Albemarle County has already expressed its support for environmental protections from the land application of biosolids and for better erosion and sediment control standards for agriculture and forestry.

These policy positions belong in the comprehensive plan.

It's not a given that intensive agriculture will forever be permitted by right.

We need to envision a future when intensive agriculture is evaluated for consistency with the comprehensive plan, just as intensive development is today.

This is our opportunity to write the narrative of a future we want to live in, one where agriculture is part of the solution, not a major part of the pollution.

Thank you.

Perfect timing.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak to matters not on the agenda this evening?

Great.

Good evening planning commission members.

My name is Kevin McDermott.

I'm the deputy director of planning and I will be giving staff's presentation on the ZMA 2023 to Oak Bluff public hearing.

The location of this of the properties is that are applying for the rezoning.

It's in Central Crozet, located along Licking Hole Creek.

You can see that in the blue line here.

I have this laser pointer that you'll follow along with.

So located along Licking Hole Creek and the extension of Eastern Avenue.

And this is just south of Westlake Hills Development.

That is this single family development you see here.

and north of Liberty Hall Development, which is this development you see right here.

You can see 250 running across the southern end of this map.

And in this area right here are the Cloverlawn Mixed Use Development and the Blue Ridge Shopping Center where the Harris Teeter is.

The existing conditions of the site, it's approximately just under 33 acres, and it is zoned R1 residential for that's one dwelling unit per acre.

That's the green color that you see on this map.

The surrounding properties are a variety of residentially zoned areas, including other R1, R2, R4, and Liberty Hall, which is a neighborhood model development

Further south on there is where the Cloverlawn development is.

That's planned district shopping, planned district mixed use shopping and highway commercial where Harris Teeter is.

You can also see on this map on the right that the blue line represents the Licking Hole Creek floodplain.

Also within that area is a WPO buffer that follows that creek and the green splotches you see throughout here are preserved slopes.

The 2021 Crosse master plan recommends most of this area

as a neighborhood density residential that allows approximately three to six units per acre.

That is all of the yellow area you see on the screen there.

and the dark green is public land and trails and open space.

That really represents the Lucking Hole Creek Trail and some adjacent open space properties.

And then the light green is recommended for green systems, which usually encompass environmental features such as floodplain, stream buffer, et cetera.

The 2021 master plan also recommends the extension of Eastern Avenue from the corner where

where it currently stubs out at West Hall Drive south to connect Corey Farms Drive and then to US 250.

Additionally, the Licking Hole Creek Trail is recommended through this property approximately where you see that green line there.

The overview of the proposal is that they would like to rezone this property from R1 to planned residential development.

The maximum they are requesting is 134 single-family attached and detached units, which comes in at six dwelling units per acre, and that is the recommended maximum for the comprehensive land-land use.

As you can see, the property is split between block one and the north right here, and block two south of Licking Hole Creek, which runs right through there.

It is all single-family

Detached and attached units and they have also agreed that the units adjacent to West Hall Drive and the existing single-family homes would be all detached units with a 30-foot buffer.

We'll talk a little bit more about that.

The maximum building height throughout the entire development is three stories or 35 feet.

and they have agreed to a 15% of the homes coming in at a affordable at 80% AMI.

That would be 21 units if the maximum buildout occurs.

The special exception request is to reduce the minimum rear setback from 20 feet to 10 feet.

As I said, the application plan proposes a 30 foot buffer between the development West Hall Drive and the development in the homes on Johnna Street.

So staff would support this reduction in those cases where this 30 foot buffer is included or in the areas adjacent to the steep slopes that you can see along here and here.

However, we do not support this across the entire development.

There are some internal areas that they are also requesting that for.

In the staff report, I had stated that a blanket statement about accepting that special use permit.

upon further reading of the request, I recognized it was across the entire area, not just for those areas with the 30-foot buffer.

And so, like I said, we would support that for the areas with the 30-foot buffer, not throughout the entire development.

The Planning Commission does not have to vote on that, but I'm happy to take comments when we bring it to the board.

Related to transportation,

You can see by the red lines here, the entire system is served by public streets.

The project would also construct 500 feet of the Eastern Avenue south from the current stub out down to their first entrance located right about here.

And they would also, they also have agreed to dedicate the necessary right of way throughout the rest of their development, which is this section right through here.

agreeing to construct that portion of Eastern Avenue.

They are only constructing that first 500 feet.

There was a TIA performed for this proposal.

It estimates 270 daily trips and 270 daily trips from block one and 248 from block two.

This only analyzed the operations at Park Ridge and 240.

This is one

The operations analysis showed that this would operate either levels of A, B, or C in one instance for the left turn coming from Park Ridge onto 240.

So the TIA really showed no impacts at that intersection.

Staff did identify that there were additional intersections that we would like to see the operations at.

However, I will point out that based on the traffic generated from this development and the existing Crozet Transportation study, which was completed approximately three or four years ago, it did not show that there were existing problems at the intersections of Taper.

and Crozet Avenue or any others in the area.

And so we did not assume that there were going to be any significant impacts from this development at those other intersections.

It was identified as a concern though.

Their staff also identified the connectivity issues with the lack of completion of Eastern Avenue.

and the fact that there are only one point of access to each of these blocks of development.

So that one point of access, as I pointed out, is right here on Eastern Avenue.

There is an emergency access right here.

And then on the southern end, there is one point of access here onto Radford.

and an additional emergency access located right here.

That meets the fire and rescue requirements with this emergency access.

However, it was found not to meet the neighborhood principle for interconnected streets because of those issues.

Related to schools, the students generated by this development would attend a Crozet Elementary in Brownsville Elementary, Henley Middle School, and Western Albemarle High School.

Western Albemarle is the only one that's currently over capacity.

The construction of High School Center 2 will address some of those overcrowding issues, but likely not completely remove them.

There are trailers at Western to address those.

However, those are not considered in the capacity calculations.

Related to environmental resources, as I mentioned, there is a public greenway dedication of approximately 4.2 acres, which encompasses most of the floodplain.

and WPO Buffer.

That's this area that you see right here that would be dedicated to the county and it would also include the the trail that runs along Wicking Hole Creek.

The remaining water protection ordinance buffers and floodplain areas are located on proposed green space primarily in this area and adjacent to the floodplain.

There are impacts to

approximately .2 acres of preserved slopes for residential lot development.

You can see that located right here on block one and then down along these sections on the edges of the development in block two.

There are four acres of preserved slopes not impacted and preserved in the green space.

It does appear to meet the amenity and open space requirements and provides public trails connecting to the greenway.

This public trail that you see here would also be dedicated to the public to provide access to the existing greenway.

Based on that, you can see in your report that staff identified positive aspects of the request as being consistent with the uses and density recommended by the Crozet Master Plan, mostly consistent with the applicable neighborhood model principles, providing 15% affordable units, which this project did come in prior to the change in policy.

So that does meet our requirements there.

and that the request provides construction of a portion of Eastern Avenue and right away for future construction of the remainder across their parcels.

Staff did identify the concern with the request of the disturbance of the areas of preserved slopes.

Overall, for those reasons outlined in the staff report, we're recommending approval of ZMA 2023 Oak Bluff.

Great, thank you.

Great report.

A lot going on here.

So why don't we open it up for questions from the commission?

Anybody have questions for staff?

Yes, when the traffic analysis was done, was there any look at the pedestrians that are using those roads in those areas?

No, the traffic impact analysis only analyzes impacts on vehicular travel.

That staff does review the pedestrian connections internal to the site.

We found that they were meeting all of our pedestrian connect connectivity needs.

There are sidewalks proposed along all the public streets.

And then there is the trail, which is just a primitive trail, but a trail that does that they would construct that would connect from block one to block two.

That's something I certainly hope that in the future that we can, as we move into the next comp plan that we can start to look at is actually including pedestrians when we look at, you know, projects like this, because as you increase those traffic totals, you know, it does have an impact, you know, on the the kids and other people that are walking to the park.

You know, I've ran on that road with my daughter, myself.

It's it's pretty scary, actually.

Thank you, Mr. McDermott.

In our materials, it says that the construction of Eastern Avenue is a high priority and that funding has been identified.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's a lot going on with Eastern Avenue, so I'll take a few minutes just to explain what all kind of the history there.

So this has been, Eastern Avenue has been a priority for the county for many years.

I know that

Since I've been here in around 2015, 2016, that priority has certainly increased.

And we have been actively pursuing opportunities to get that constructed.

We've made multiple applications for state funding for that.

And at one point, a number of years ago, we hired an engineering firm to do a study to identify the potential alignment

and do 30% design on Eastern Avenue.

We were doing that in hopes that it would help us get additional funding from the state.

That was completed back in, I believe it was around 2018 and at that time we made an application for revenue sharing to the state.

We assumed the cost of that project was

Somewhere around 20 to $24 million.

We did receive funding from the state for that.

However, that was then when COVID hit and we saw that large spike in costs for construction.

The Department of Transportation came back to us and said they no longer believe that we could get this project done.

for the assumed cost at that time.

They raised that cost estimate up to $39 million.

We have continued to evaluate that with an independent

Engineering firm to try and figure out exactly what that cost is.

And recently, based on some of that work we're doing with them, it was determined that the county would like to attempt a public-private transportation act project for the Eastern Avenue Connection.

over the past six months or so.

We have been working with state and private contractor or a private engineering firm to develop a request for proposals that we would like to put out.

Our estimate for releasing that request for proposals is in early 2025.

And essentially that's going to go out where the county has a significant amount of CIP funding.

And we are going to say the county's willing to pay this amount of funding for a contractor that would be willing to come in and build this for us.

So that's how the sort of the very basic way PPTA works.

We expect that to be released, like I said, in early 2025, maybe as late as mid-February 2025.

It'll be on the streets for a number of months, and we would hear back with any proposals beyond that.

So we would know whether or not this PPTA would work for this sometime, probably in early summer time period.

Thank you, Kevin, for the report.

I do have some questions.

So going back to the traffic analysis that was done, you said that was done three years ago, the more comprehensive.

Has there been any conversation of updating that?

At this point, we have not had discussions about that.

The traffic analysis, first it looked at existing conditions, doing traffic counts.

And a lot of those traffic counts happened around the COVID time period.

So there were factors to evaluate how accurate those were done.

So we did do a pretty thorough transportation study at that time.

While there has been some development going on in Crozet,

I don't think that in just the past few years, it would have significantly changed.

In addition, that transportation study looked out into 2045.

And in order to do that, it added in the standard growth factor that we usually use for all traffic.

And it also looked at the master plan, land use,

and assumed the amount of development that we would see between now and 25 if all of that land were developed like we expected to.

So the 2045 estimate is really a full buildout of Crozet, what the traffic would look like with that full buildout.

The other thing it did do was also consider the proposed projects at that time.

So I don't want to say that we can rely

100% on it because it did assume the 2045 did assume that Eastern Avenue would be built by that time.

Yeah, that was my other follow-up.

There were some infrastructure improvements that were also assumed in that study.

I would still encourage that.

We revisit that.

Part one, your point of it was done during COVID three years ago.

And getting real time, you know, what's happening now, I think it's beneficial.

to update it again.

If three years ago doesn't seem like that long, but I think because of what's happened and the situation that was happening at the time, I think warrants another look.

I also wanted to go back to the memorandum.

It was the response to the applicant from March 1, 2024.

And I'll just paraphrase.

Well, I'll read one particular sentence.

I'm not going to go through the whole.

The transportation staff uses infrastructure improvement being the licking hole bridge as critical for the development to be realized and cannot recommend approval of this development without the licking hole bridge because of traffic and safety concerns.

We do still consider the Eastern Avenue to be critical for the overall development of Crozet.

So I think what you're, it sounds like by the time period you're referring to, that was an old comment that was provided to the applicant on a previous version of this application.

It would be hard for me to say for sure, but I know that the unit count

has changed out there.

The development style has changed out there over the subsequent submittals.

So I don't know exactly how that was.

But one of our major issues was that we didn't have anything from a transportation, a traffic engineer that gave us some sort of estimates and analysis

of the impacts of this and the trips generated.

So the difference is, as you see, it was, and I don't

didn't have the applications for it.

Yeah, I believe that the number of units has gone down since the initial submittal.

And furthermore, I think having the TIA coming back and sort of demonstrating that the turning movements, especially at the critical intersection of Park Bridge and 240,

I picked up on most of the process of

I picked up on most of the process for the public-private partnership, but I wanted to find that a little bit more about the sort of current part that was a fairly quick portion of your response.

And I was just, there's X amount of money that the county's got set aside from past CIPs sort of saved up.

No, that is what we are hoping will help.

What we are hoping will complete this road is that the amount that we have, and we're having that, as I said, analyzed by an engineering firm, a road engineering firm, and proposing that they think they can do it for this much.

Is there an over-under on how likely that might be that it's possible to do it for the pot of money we've got?

I mean, I don't know what the... Sorry, I don't think I can provide an over-under on that.

I think there's... We are seeing costs go down for these.

types of projects or estimates go down for these types of projects.

There may be ways to make this work.

I will say that, as I mentioned this, the estimate that we had previously assumed that full construction

There's 500 feet that could be constructed with this.

It also assumed a pretty significant cost to ride away.

So things like that may bring the cost down a little bit from what we think.

But I am not involved enough in the engineering discussions to be able to say whether or not I think this is going to work or what my guess would be.

In the contract, it would be defined what would be allowable expenses if there were something outside of that cost.

If we don't identify those in the contract with this public-private transportation contract, then those costs would not fall back on the county.

Essentially, what we're doing is we are saying there are risks to this, and if you're willing to take those risks, we're willing to give you this money.

It would be defined.

There may be some things that we would say we would pay for, depending on how that contract's structured.

Well, and your contracts would be, you would bond the project, right?

I would assume.

And so payment of performance bonds would be part of the contract, if that's what you're asking.

So I have a few questions.

Some of these may be best for the applicant, but I'll ask a few anyway.

And some have already been asked.

So can I just, well, let me just clarify one thing since we're on the TIA conversation.

It's what we have, right?

It is the source of information that we use to determine basically your findings and whether or not this

These intersections are operating at a suitable level of service at a peak hour, et cetera, et cetera.

It's the document that we use, right?

Yes, so VDOT did review the TIA and agreed with those findings.

The only analysis that was done, as I stated, there's a trip generation model that they have which provides good information for us, tells us how many trips we would expect to come from each of these blocks during peak hours and over the day.

those numbers have been validated.

The only analysis they really performed was a modeled analysis of the Park Ridge 240 intersection.

We did validate those numbers and cross-check them with the transportation study that we performed.

It all appeared to meet the same or to

come with the same results, which are, as I said, a C level of service in the PM peak hour for the left turn from Park Ridge, all other movements, A and B. And then also, I will point out that we did cross-check the trip generation from this

with our TROSA transportation studies to evaluate, to look at the other intersections.

So say Tabor Street right now is also operating in A or B level.

And so we could look and see, well, if you add the peak hour trips to that, what would come of that?

So you also mentioned, thank you, you also mentioned projecting traffic out to 2045.

And or buildout projected to be completed by 2045?

There is not.

There's no way to tell, really.

Yeah, no way to tell.

We continue to observe the intersections.

Of course, we don't see any significant change right now from what was

what is listed as current conditions in this transportation study.

and I think I would just follow up, but that's pretty standard for traffic impact analysis.

Yeah, thanks.

So this is, I don't mean it to be a loaded question, but I'm just, you know, knowing what the track record is for the development of roundabouts and the cost related to the original budgets.

Like, I don't think there's been one that's been on budget as far as I know.

I mean, and part of that's timing, right?

It's just the budgets were set years ago and now it's like 30% higher or whatever it is.

I don't, to editorialize, I'm not so confident that this Eastern connector is going to come in on budget and be able to be built in a timely way.

Let's hope it is.

But if it isn't, taking that out, let's pretend there's no connector there.

What I'm hearing is that the northern part of the development is likely to impact the intersections there.

Those are stressed.

Those are the ones that would be the most stressed.

The southern half of the development is less.

Yeah, probably.

I think there's fewer trips generated.

According to their TIA and their estimates, there's a little fewer trips.

And forgive me if you've already answered this, but that 2045 study, did that assume the existence of the connector?

Yes, it did.

So if you took that out, we don't really have data that says whether or not those intersections will fail or not, right?

Correct.

Okay.

And then I'm sorry to keep rambling on just a few questions.

Sorry, just to clarify, the applicant's study, the applicant's TIA did not assume construction of Eastern Avenue.

He was making sure that we clarified that.

The 2045 analysis is the one that assumed it.

That's helpful.

Thank you.

Just help us.

And you may not know this off top, but just in terms of context, how many other six unit per acre developments are in and around this area?

I'm looking next to him, right?

It doesn't look like it's six units per acre.

I don't know all the details of these.

I will say that you're correct.

Westlake Hills, the development that I pointed out to the north is R1, essentially.

That's one unit per acre over the whole development.

Corey Farms development, which is

on the south side and a little bit west.

That's probably closer to R1.

However, Liberty Hall, which is the neighborhood model, is significantly higher than R6.

West Hall Development, which is north of this development, but on the west side of the existing Eastern Avenue,

That is also, that's probably six units per acre, if not more.

That's a fairly dense development.

Got it.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thank you.

So now buffers.

We can just talk about setbacks and buffers.

You mentioned something, I don't remember what slide it was on, but it was where you were agreeing that the buffers could be reduced in a certain section and not in others.

Yes, sir.

That's the step back.

or I'm sorry, the setback special exception request.

So the applicant has requested to reduce their minimum rear setback from 20 feet to 10 feet.

When we evaluated this, we were looking at these areas where the applicant has proposed a 30 foot buffer between West Hall and the existing development.

The reason they are requesting this special exception is because they want to keep that 30-foot buffer outside of private lots.

Maybe a simpler way to put that is if it was just a normal situation, the house could be 20 feet from the real property line, from adjacent property.

That's helpful.

Yeah, there wouldn't be any other requirement for that buffer that they're providing.

So in the report, I said staff supports the special exception.

Now I'm clarifying that we support the special exception.

in the areas where there's a 30-foot buffer shown and where there's areas where they're using it to possibly protect from preserved slopes.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Then just one last question.

You touched on the affordable housing initiative, but you know, in one of the staff comments or one of the comment letters that was as part of this, the fact that the county's policy has gone from 80 to 60 percent

AMI for 30 years rather than 10 years, et cetera, et cetera, was in there.

And it was said staff recommends revising the application to accommodate 20% of the units as affordable housing units.

I assume the applicant just chose not to do that.

The applicant is not proposing additional affordable housing over the 15% correct.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Could you go back to the slide that shows the school enrollment?

To make sure I understand, so it was like 42, I believe, cumulatively.

The 42 is what this development proposed would generate.

If this were built by right and it's a

If it were R1, we can assume that's approximately 32 units.

That would be, and I don't have the calculator with me, but

but we're replacing those students generated by the 32 by-right homes with those for the 134.

So it doesn't include both.

That's helpful.

So how do we judge the impact for the positive or negative based on this proposal versus by-right development?

How do we find out the delta goes by right?

Would it be 32?

It won't be exact, but you can assume that this is let's say 30 units would be approximately 20% of what they're recommending here.

So 20% of 42.

Eight, roughly eight, yeah, eight students.

Great.

Mr. Bivins, maybe I'll mute.

Thank you.

I've taken myself.

So I just have a couple of sort of a house, just a tiny housekeeping question.

So in the, in the, the project, it says that there'll be a stepping stone creek across, across the across the

Cross Licking Hole Creek.

And I'm assuming that that stepping stone creek will be in the property that the county will have to take over.

And if that's true, then that means that we will have, we'll assume an additional cost because no use in having a stepping stone creek crossing if it's not maintained.

Yes, that's correct.

The stepping stone crossing that the applicant is proposing to build would be within the county, the portion of the parcel dedicated to the county.

So in the future, the county would be responsible for maintenance of

And the crossing.

OK, thank you.

So then I have a couple of things.

So in block one, where you talk about the 500 footer road that goes down to what really feels to me like the second entrance, although you're saying I understand on the illustrious, on the illustrious, it says it's the first.

Why aren't they using that first entrance as a first road or first pathway or first whatever we want to call it?

as an additional road.

Why is it just being used for emergency?

I'll make a statement about it and then I'll say that we might want to check with the applicant's engineer.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

That doesn't make sense.

So then when we come to block two, so we've talked a lot about block one and going and connecting up the Eastern Avenue, but block two is really pushing a lot of traffic, 52 units through Liberty Hall.

And if we look at sort of the combined Liberty Hall plus the 52, these 52 units, we start hitting up against the same level in block one coming in the Eastern Avenue.

The difference is that Block 1 will have 500 feet, so 500, a new road that will then connect to Eastern Avenue, which is a road that was built to assume some of this traffic.

And coming through Liberty, they don't have anything.

You're basically dropping it into their neighborhood.

and has there been any conversation or any thinking by staff about the impact of that, of what it would mean to take 52 units and then push through basically a very dense community, much like we had on Avon Avenue when we were looking at that community that was being built within pushing all of that.

Well, that was a less, that was actually a less dense development.

This seems feels like it's not less than the density is higher.

Yeah, that staff recognizes that, well, we would like to see an analysis of what is going on at Radford and 250.

The traffic impact analysis does include the peak hour trips generated by each development, and it shows that

It would generate, the most it would generate during peak hour, or I guess the exiting peak hour in the AM is 27 trips during that peak hour.

So fewer than one trip every two minutes on average, of course, that's how, you know, TIAs are, it's tough to sometimes recognize that this is an average over an hour.

And again, if you would, would you tell me sort of that critical period during the AM critical period?

The AM peak hour, I don't have the number for the exact time that is, but it's, you know, assumed to be between seven, sometime between seven and nine.

I think all times you see it's like 745 to 845.

That's helpful.

Thank you very much.

And then if you could just give me, unpack this for me a little bit, we're on the staff report, it says on page nine.

Staff recognizes that the value of this proposal is a significant contribution to the necessary transportation infrastructure in Crozet.

However, it should also be noted that the Oak Bluff development does further strain the transportation network in the area.

So could you unpack both of those?

So at the first bit, it says it is a significant contribution to the necessary transportation infrastructure.

We talk about the 500 feet plus the plus the

the 1200 linear foot right away.

Yes, that's correct.

The contribution the staff recognized was the 500 feet of construction and the right of way.

particularly the right-of-way because that's often where we get we get we certainly we often that's where the cost escalates quick quickly there on the right-of-way okay and then if you could I did and maybe this you know I'm asking a question they're also a massive sort of so you can signal to the applicant I saw the stone water management piece on block one

I did not see a stormwater panzer, please, on block two.

I did see an existing pond, but I saw existing ponds on both, on both blocks.

Is, to your knowledge, is there a stormwater manager?

I actually got it right because I wrote it in big letters this time, because usually I get confused when I say those things.

But is there a stormwater manager on block two?

That's correct.

We did identify that there was not stormwater management shown on the application plan for block two.

We reached out to the applicant and they had a number of proposals of ways they could deal with stormwater.

They do have green space and amenity space.

I think that's available for that.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions?

Wonderful.

Good evening, everyone.

Great to see you again.

My name is Ashley Davies with Riverbend Development.

And tonight I'm joined by Alan Taylor, also Riverbend.

But you need to speak in, instead of turning around.

Sorry, Scott Collins, Collins Engineering and Carl Hultgren, our traffic engineer.

And yes, we're excited to talk about the left neighborhood with you.

Building a community is not something that any of us do on our own.

Community is something we come together and create collaboratively.

You, along with the citizens of the county, created the long-term vision and goals for Corset back in 2021.

We as applicants are your team members to help implement that vision.

River Bend and Greenwood have a strong track record of community creation in Crozet.

We hope you've been able to visit our nearby neighborhood, Glenbrook, to get a feel for the high quality homes and trailside living.

In fact, many of the people that you'll likely hear from tonight may live in houses or neighborhoods that we designed.

I don't know if it's going to let me click.

There we go.

Thanks.

Specifically, the Crozet Master Plan calls attention to the broad topic areas of conservation, transportation, and land use.

The Oak Bluff development meets key goals in these three highlighted areas while also adhering to the principles of the neighborhood model.

Oak Bluff will be one of the last new neighborhoods in Crozet, an area where families truly love to live with only 5% of the county in development areas

It's essential that we develop those areas wisely and effectively in relation to the comprehensive planning goals.

There are many things that make Crozet magical, and the extensive trail network and natural systems are high on the list.

Licking Hall Creek is at the heart of the Oak Bluff neighborhood, and it's truly an amenity to be protected and enjoyed.

Families of Oak Bluff will connect with nature and recreate along this corridor.

The existing trail running through the property is well utilized by the community, but has no formal easement in place.

Our plan proposes over 10 acres in open space and 4.2 acres dedicated for a public greenway, inclusive of this trail and a creek crossing.

Sensitive natural areas are protected, but the closest house in block one approximately 500 feet from the stream.

And you can see in this picture how that compares with the houses in the neighboring community.

Over the past year and a half with an engaged citizenry, the Oak Bluff Plan has evolved extensively and for the better to address this community input.

As you see on the screen, you can see the comparison of April 2023 to this fall.

We've done a lot of work to maximize the buffer areas between the neighborhoods as Kevin was explaining earlier.

We've removed the road connection and driveways that were previously on West Hall Drive.

We reduced building heights from 65 feet, which was the PRD standard down to 35 feet, a more reasonable three stories next to adjacent neighborhoods.

And we also committed to only single family units on the edges of our neighborhood, making a harmonious transition to the West Hall neighborhood.

We also minimized all impacts to preserve slopes and moved homes further from the creek.

As mentioned earlier, Carl Hultgren from our team is here to address any questions you may have about transportation, and I know you do.

Even though Oak Bluff does not generate enough trips to require an official traffic study, we did provide one with the targeted study with the county to address their specific questions about this development.

and what we found is, as Kevin alluded to, with so few cars leaving the development even on the peak hours, it doesn't have an impact to those surrounding neighborhood streets that was

anything discernible in the traffic study and no improvements were required.

However, the proposed rezoning does significantly contribute to the county's goal of completing the Eastern Avenue connector road, and it eases the burden to the county as they move forward with the Eastern Avenue RFP in February 2025.

Specifically, the applicant is constructing 500 feet of the remaining section of road per the proposed design while also dedicating 1,400 feet of future roadway area or 1.5 acres of the project site, saving the county several million dollars and providing the necessary land early in the process for an efficient road construction timeline.

Rupert Bend Development and Greenwood Homes are at the forefront of creating new housing that is available to families at a variety of price points, ensuring that Crozet can remain diverse and inclusive for all.

We understand that housing is needed now,

more than ever, and Oak Bluff is a perfect place for infill housing.

Our team is proud to say that we will deliver 108 total affordable units to this area in 2025, including the 20 to 21 that are projected here.

That's not in 2025, but the 108, sorry.

We are uniquely poised to build for sale affordable units that we can match with the extensive list of families who would love to live in Crozet, including the existing list of interested county employees.

We join you in solving this very important community issue, creating more affordable housing than any other private developer in the region.

I'll leave you with these key project statistics.

You can see the open space is over a third of the site, and what we're dedicating to public use is over approximately one fifth of the site.

Over the past year and a half, our team has worked extensively with the community and Albemarle County staff members to ensure the plan that you see before you tonight fulfills the key goals of the Crozet Master Plan, while also being responsive to neighborhood input.

Thank you for your consideration of the Oak Bluff Resoning application.

We ask for your approval of this new neighborhood that so clearly benefits the public and the pressing needs of the community.

And I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Very helpful.

Thank you for your presentation.

I did have a question.

But so the original, you mentioned you reduced the height of some of the housing.

So I think we've always had a pretty consistent number of units within the development, but what changed was that the unit types changed.

That's been relatively consistent.

And can you go to your illustrative plan looking up at block two

Yeah, thank you.

So is the intent that with the Eastern Avenue, the Future Eastern Avenue connection, you would have your entrance into block two off of the Eastern Avenue?

Yes, there would be an entrance from Eastern Avenue as well.

But that section of Eastern Avenue would be a future section.

Correct.

So we've planned for both our entrance and our emergency entrance as it stands with this illustrative and that would be a future connection.

and just also wanted to note that Liberty Hall was designed with this development in mind as well.

Next.

Yes, the question was raised about block two and how stormwater management would be done.

Sure.

I think right now we're imagining underground detention where you see the amenity areas noted.

Thank you, Scott Collins with College of Engineering.

Yes, Block 2 would handle it one or a couple of different ways.

We do actually have that existing pond as well that a portion of the site does drain to.

That's on our site.

So that does handle some more management on that block too.

We are looking at the bill of day to do underground underneath the amenity area.

And we have this large area and another pond on the far right side of the

of the development.

So some of the drainage goes that way as well.

And then we have the ability to do some forest and open space buffers as well.

So we have a number of different things we're looking at.

And then any overflow could be underground detention.

And I seem to recall hearing from some of the neighbors there that during recent storm events, they've had some quite expensive problems with their underground detention.

So I know that the county allows those systems to exist.

And we may not be able to prohibit them, I don't know, but they definitely can have problems that can be very expensive.

And then it falls in the neighborhood association to pay to fix those problems, right?

at least half the site goes to.

So that other portion of potential underground tension in that many area would only handle a small portion of the site, about half of that block too.

There's also the ability that other somewhere management pond on block one, it's sized to handle this area as well as well as portions of Eastern Avenue.

So if Eastern Avenue is in

it could go that way as well.

So there's lots of options and that's all sort of evolve Azure as things are being developed.

Thanks.

And then I guess I'm also just sort of questioning the timing of the project too.

I wonder, you know, given that there are these discussions about moving Eastern Avenue, this connector forward,

I think that's a great question, and there are a couple of reasons.

Reason one is we need housing now, if not yesterday.

Reason two is we have looked at the traffic that's generated from the development as is, and it's not stressing the intersections.

They're performing at the exact same level that they are right now, so there's no reason

that we have to have that connection to build these homes and I think reason three is that it is really helpful if we go actually slightly forward of the road development process that is proceeding at this point if we go ahead of it then we're able

to go ahead and get the construction of sections of the roadway in and already have the land dedicated in advance of the additional roadway construction.

Thanks.

And you're, you're, you also call out a couple of slides before you talk about walkability.

And one of the things you talk about, it says, says, you know, walkability, great location of proximity to commercial trails, parks and downtown Crozet.

Well, I know along Eastern Avenue, there are sidewalks and we also have great trail systems.

So, I mean, can I go down every single road and talk about that?

Thank you for the presentation, Ms.

Davies.

First question is more clarifying, what makes you understand, Rose, a 15% affordable housing, did you say only for sale units or are they rental and for sale?

Sure, sure.

I think as a company, we're really trying to turn the page and

Focus on For Sale, more than for rent affordable units because in a lot of our other developments we have a plethora of for rent units and that tends to be the go-to solution for developers because it's actually easier to meet those rental prices than it is to find

People to buy and live in the for sale units.

But as a company, Greenwood Homes has a really good marketing department and an excellent pipeline of families that want units in these locations.

So and we're also partnering with the county.

We've had meetings recently with Miss Pethia and really getting coordinated with her growing list of county employees that specifically want to buy

affordable units.

So we think that that really distinguishes the project and is a good, a good fact.

Okay.

Thank you for sharing that because I was looking at the materials before us and it says that they would be available for a period of 10 years.

I'm thinking that was probably a rental.

So how long are your for sale units available?

So the way the policy of the county works currently is it's affordable to the first home buyer.

I think we had this conversation recently with another one of our applications, just how I think we're also looking into community land trust models and other options to make them affordable for more long-term and future turnovers.

It's just the first sale is the county policy.

So it's not, for a for sale unit, it doesn't.

It's just sold at the affordable price.

I have a question for Steph.

How is that working for us?

Are we converting a lot of these for sale units to actually folks who are interested in buying affordable units or are they going back to stock?

Could you talk a little bit?

I see a lot of boasting, if you will, about how many affordable units will come on the market, which I think is a positive thing for the county.

But I am curious a little bit about knowing the direction we're trying to go, which is 20%, and understanding you submitted this before that policy took effect.

But knowing where we're trying to go,

talked to us a little bit about, you know, why can't we do that?

Yeah, I think we, you know, we've submitted a lot of these rezonings a long time ago.

And we've been through several years of review.

And each time we put it in, we get different feedback about, you know, what we should be doing or should not be doing.

But I think in general, as a company, we're interested in really helping the county to fulfill that policy.

And

You know, quite honestly, I think on our part, it's like we just want consistent feedback about what we're supposed to be, you know, what we should be doing, what we're supposed to be doing.

And so, you know, for certain applications, we're following old policy, certain applications we're adapting.

And I just follow up on that because I am interested in

So, was there any conversations with staff about, because there is the incentives available now to get to the 20%?

Was that evaluator, did those conversations happen, or was that an evaluation that happened with your performer?

That has not really been presented to us.

Yeah, I'm just wondering if the incentives wouldn't

Is it an incentive or is it an incentive?

If it is an incentive, then maybe, you know, think it would be the benefit of everyone to go to the 20%.

But if people aren't even running the performer, does that work?

Is it an incentive or is it an incentive?

Because that feedback would be helpful, I think, for staff and for the county to understand if those are actually incentives that are

Sure.

I mean, I can't answer that question right now, but I would maybe look to what applications you are or are not receiving under the new policy to see how that's going.

Yeah.

Sure, I'm going to bring Chris back up to talk through his items.

Hello, Chris Scully with Greenwood Homes.

I was not prepared to answer that question, but I'll do my best.

Greenwood Homes was built in 2020, 2021.

And as we set our specs for every home that we build, we establish effectively what used to be known as Earthcraft Standards for all of the homes.

Now, a lot of those have been built into almost all production homes these days.

So you'll see a lot of 2x6 framing.

We have a significant upgrade with appliances and our HVAC units.

And it's not just for our high-end homes, it's for all the townhouses.

And it would be the same for the affordable houses here.

there's a significant amount of that that we have found that the market expects these days and I think you really should see it across the board for many other builders is that these are the standards today and I think we are fortunate especially at Albemarle County

that the market really expects that because it's made a significant difference if you look at all the homes that have been built within this community over the last 10 or 15 years.

I was involved with the first Lead for Neighborhood project in Elmer County in 2005.

It was a pilot program.

We spent a significant amount of time in D.C.

learning what that process looked like.

And a lot of those standards are, it just happens these days.

And I think we're very fortunate to see that.

I'll tell you one of my frustrations walking around Crosse is still seeing new buildings going up or new neighborhoods that have Nandina or burning bush planted.

I'm a landscape architect by training.

No Nandina, no burning bush.

We will proffer that.

That is not a problem.

They're awful shrubs if we would prefer not to include them.

No Bradford parents?

Yeah, definitely no Bradford parents.

Well, fantastic.

Okay.

You all have covered questions I had.

Thank you.

Okay.

Really?

Okay, have a few.

You haven't brought Carl up yet, come on.

I know, that's what I was about to say.

I have some questions for your traffic engineer.

So let's start with, before you come up, let's start with just this question of the special exception.

in there, and I'm trying to get my head around these buffers.

I think I understand them, but there's a note in here that says the reduction in rear yard setback.

So I mean Scott may want to speak to this but I think that's our that is our primary intention because we did as staff alluded there's no buffer requirement between two residential residential zone districts but just that was something that we heard loud and clear from those neighbors that they want to preserve

as much of the landscape in between the two developments as possible.

And along Westfield Drive, there are some really nice mature trees along that firm.

So that was a design change midway through the process.

So you mentioned the neighbors.

I think there may be a question as to whether or not they expected a 30 foot additional buffer, including the 20 foot setback.

Right.

So the very first plan, you'll see here, it showed a 10-foot landscape buffer in between the two.

So we did increase that another 20 feet.

So on the left, you would have had 30 on the right.

We have 40.

We have 40.

Okay.

It also says in your special exceptions, the reduction in the rear-end setback shall also allow for the construction of decks on the rear of the units adjacent to any private alleys or open space areas.

Yeah, with some of the changes we've been made with some of the changes we've made with the design as it's developed over the last year and a half, those allies moved away.

That's sort of a standard exception that's been done for alleyways when you have the driveways.

with units being served from the alleyways and sometimes the decks extend over that setback, that 20-foot setback.

So that's been a typical special exception that we've been requesting.

And we did this special exception way back when we had that.

But as you see, it's been kind of evolved to this, which is a much better layout ultimately.

That's what's come through this process, which is great.

Okay, thank you.

And then it says that these decks overhang the driveways and the reduction of the rear setback will allow the decks to be installed along the rear of the units.

and yet you still want that reduction.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

Let's see.

I'm not sure how to ask this question, but it's about Eastern Avenue.

Got it.

I don't think we own that land, right?

Got it.

Who controls that section of right-of-way, do you know?

I think that's probably a question for the county, but we would treat it the same way as, you know, we've built all the other sections of the Eastern Avenue connector.

So we would just view this as an extension of that roadway.

And then, you know, as you can see initially,

that road, the connector road was going to go straight down to Licking Hole Creek and, you know, through the process of design, they determined that was not the best location of it because of the way the creek is bending down in that area created a much, much more expensive

Project.

And so that's why you see the roadway actually coming onto our property and, you know, eating up some pretty major sections of it.

No, that's helpful.

I guess I'm, you know, my mind is like divided.

I'm on one side.

I'm like, what if the Eastern connector Eastern Avenue wasn't there?

Is this a reasonable development?

And then

Well, how reasonable is it that that Eastern connector will be built?

So if you're saying, we're coming to the table with this 500 feet of road, that's great.

It's a portion of Eastern Avenue, which is getting us closer, even though probably costs are increasing on the other side, hopefully not more than the value of that 500 feet.

But my question is that land that that's built on, is that controlled by you as the applicant?

I think the county would have to comment, but my understanding is that that land was specifically proffered for the construction of Eastern Avenue.

So the county should have the right for Eastern Avenue to be built on that land, that's certainly

I'll just say that we did look at that.

It was not actually a proffer.

It was dedicated as part of a subdivision upon demand, I believe, of the county.

Nothing that would require that.

And just, I think you'll see in the design on the illustrative plan that it's quite extensive.

The roadway section that we're building would be different than if it were just something that's serving as a driveway.

So, and then you're dedicating the remainder of the right of way that's on your property.

If you go, I don't know if you have a slide for this, but if you go to the southern, I guess that's phase, not phase two, but what did you block to block to so there's a section of the road that maybe this is a question for the county to there's a section of the road that

Is that also in dedicated right of way?

Yes, that piece is actually proffered.

and that can be called by Karen.

You can call that up too.

Well, technically as it stands today, all of the right of way except for where the road is shown on the applicant's property.

That's part of the value of the applicants.

I think initially the concept was the road

in the Corey Farms Open Space and this strip we've been talking about for reasons of making it great out there.

The alignment studies that were done by Kimley Horne showed that there was three different alignments.

The second alignment, the middle one, where the road shown now is the most cost-effective alignment.

I get all that.

There would likely, according to our 30% designs, it does look like there are still some permanent easements that are not within that existing right-of-way that we may need, but it's pretty minor compared to the overall right-of-way necessary.

OK, so that's a no.

Got it.

The TIA.

So I'm just curious, we've talked a little bit about block A and B one and two.

I just like to understand a little more about how those were addressed, how they were in terms of phasing and in terms of impacts to levels of service at the intersections.

and I know we heard some of that from the staff.

So this may be a little bit redundant, but that's okay.

And I just wanted to give a tiny bit of background that kind of takes us back to when we first submitted the application.

We were working under the assumption at that time this overall traffic study that the county had just produced was very fresh.

And we're like, well, you know, this certainly covers what we had proposed on the property.

And then as we've gone along through time,

Staff was like, you know what, let's, let's study some things very, like more specifically to your development.

And so that's when we brought Carl on and wanted to show, okay, what's the worst case scenario to the northern neighborhoods if everything was going north and going out onto Route 240.

And so, and then now Carl's looking at some other components as well, but

That's kind of how it progressed.

There was like no traffic study required.

And then they're like, well, you know, we we both felt like it was a good idea.

Got it.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission.

My name is Carl Holtgren with Grove Slate Associates, we're a traffic engineering firm.

based in Fairfax.

I manage our Richmond office and I've worked with River Bend for over a decade on a number of projects in and around the county.

and you all have asked some actually very good questions about the traffic study.

And Mr. Barnes and Mr. McDermott, I agree with all the answers they provided.

You guys nailed it.

I just wanted to say I agree with everything that they said.

So your question about the block one and block two trips, the traffic study that we've done is focused on the block one trips.

and their impact to two intersections, Route 240 and Park Ridge was the original intersection that we looked at.

So we did a traffic count at that intersection during both peak hours back in August of this year, a few months ago.

And to be conservative, we assumed that 100% of the block one trips would travel through that intersection and found that there are no

that the intersection would still function acceptably, you know, pretty much as it is today.

In response to some questions that were raised by the neighbors, we've also taken a look at the intersection of Crozet Ave and Tabor.

Northwest of the site.

We did some traffic counts there as well.

And just looking at the roadway network, we think that roughly half the trips from block one would probably take Park Ridge out to 240 and half would probably wind through the intersection and go through the Tabor-Crosse intersection.

and what we found is that the trip impact of block one, if you take the trips in and out of block one that hit those two intersections, it's going to increase the traffic volume at those two intersections by two to three percent in the peak hours, a very small impact that really will not affect the level of service at either intersection.

Yeah, that's helpful.

Just a quick question.

I'm a little confused by the time.

We did our own study.

We did not do the long range 2045 plan, another firm.

We did not use that study.

We did our own study that's just focused on what you see on the screen, block one and block two.

So like I said, we did fresh traffic counts.

at the 240 Parkridge intersection.

Those were done in August of this year, just a few months ago.

And then at Crozet and Tabor, those are more recent.

Those were last week that we did those counts.

So those are brand new.

And we've added that to the report.

We have not submitted that yet to staff.

So Kevin and Michael have not seen that yet.

I'm just kind of giving you a preview of what we found at that intersection.

So to put