Planning Commission Work Session (4:00 PM) and Regular Meeting (6:00 PM)   4/8/2025

Welcome, and we're calling to order the April 8, 2025 work session and regular meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission.

I have Ms.

Yes, but we do have a quorum.

Hello.

Hello.

So it's home.

Oh yeah.

In Whitehall.

OK.

I know I'm in Sun Valley.

Chair, I would move that we allow Commissioner Murray to join our meeting remotely.

Mr. Moore.

OK.

All right.

All right, welcome.

And now we're opening up with our work session, CCP-2021-00002, AC44 compound plan housing chapter.

Good afternoon commissioners.

My name is Tori Kanalopoulos.

I'm a principal planner on the long range planning team, also joined today by Dr. Stacey Pethia, assistant director of housing.

So we'll be talking about the housing chapter today, and we'll be sharing a few of the slides in this presentation.

So we'll start with a summary of previous Planning Commission feedback on this topic, review the community input themes that we heard through community engagement, share a brief overview of the chapter and how it overlaps with Housing Albemarle, look at the upcoming schedule for the comp plan, and then have a few focus topics for the commission to discuss.

So I'll start with a quick overview of those and then return to them at the end of the presentation.

We have two focus topic questions for the commission.

So we're also happy to have feedback on the objectives and the actions, but wanted to include these questions given the significant overlap with land use and the need to focus on that topic.

And then also some recent development applications that have come in and these questions could help guide updates to the chapter to provide more guidance for future projects.

So the first question related to land use is along with activity centers and mixed use areas, what factors should we use to analyze other locations to allow more housing when we do future area plan updates?

So thinking about what type of guidance we could put in the comp plan to help guide the future development area plan updates, such as southern and western and places 29 and the other area plans.

when we do future land use map updates.

And then the second one, given recent development applications, what factors should we consider for reviewing affordable housing proposals that are outside of the development areas, such as some of the manufactured home park requests that we've seen come in?

Is there other guidance that we should have in the comp plan update to help guide review of those types of applications?

So a summary of previous Planning Commission feedback on this topic from phase two, the comment to have more strategies to encourage missing middle housing in the comp plan, encouraging housing and activity centers and employment districts, and then having partnerships to support aging in the community, which overlaps with other chapters like transportation.

The commission also highlighted the need to preserve existing units and help people remain in their homes, that we should look at options for implementation that could include community land trusts, housing trust fund, regional collaboration, and using county-owned land, and then highlighting the overlap with other chapters, which I will talk a little bit more about.

So from community input, we've heard the strong need for a variety of housing types at a variety of price points.

That includes housing for smaller household sizes, first time home buyers and aging community members, a need for more multifamily housing, and looking at housing affordability in the rural area, which is mainly focused on maintaining existing units.

We've also heard from some community members interested in other types of small scale housing.

and then coordinated planning for housing, land use, transportation, economic development and parks and rec, and looking at the overlap with walkability and housing.

Also heard about the importance to maintain existing homes and support aging in place, including one-story homes and smaller units, the need for more assisted living facilities, ideally in walkable places, and then weatherization, energy efficiency, and home repair programs.

For energy efficiency, we've also heard interest in requirements and incentives and housing location and proximity to daily destinations and how the overlap with transportation is key for climate change related to housing.

So looking at the goal for this chapter, wanted to know the overlap with the AC 44 framework and how it overlaps with all four of those sections, including the overlap with the chapters, as I mentioned, like transportation, parks, and economic development.

And then noting that the goal talks about housing as a foundational community need.

There are seven objectives.

I won't read through all of them, but a lot of them are focused on land use and increasing the overall housing supply, also preserving and maintaining aging housing that we already have, addressing energy cost burdens, and addressing unmet needs for people that are unsheltered.

Good evening.

Stacey Pathea, Assistant Director of Housing.

The AC44 housing chapter really aligns with the housing Albemarle, the housing policy.

Staff from housing worked with staff from planning and the long range planning team to really condense what is in that large housing policy document and make it more land use oriented.

So the goals are still the same.

The objectives are still the same, expanded some in many places.

And some of those objectives have been condensed just to make it a little more readable.

Housing Albemarle, when it was adopted in July of 2021, replaced the housing chapter from the 2015 comprehensive plan.

And the housing policy will be adopted as an appendix into AC44.

So it's not going anywhere.

It's just being presented in a different light through the housing chapter and will continue to move forward as an appendix.

Excuse me.

Next slide.

Priority actions from the housing policy.

If some of you were here when that was discussed in the work sessions, it really looked at if there were

several priorities.

One was exploring options for using county-owned land for affordable housing that obviously is included in AC44 draft chapter, providing incentives to increase the production of affordable housing, looking at possibly implementing and adopting an affordable dwelling unit ordinance, creating a housing trust fund along with a housing advisory committee to help the county track progress towards reaching goals

and expanding permanent supportive housing opportunities for chronically homeless households.

That final bullet point we are very happy to say has been achieved.

That would be the premier circle now known as VISTA 29 80 unit development for permanent supportive housing.

A lot of the recommendations in housing Albemarle will also sort of helping to influence what can be done through a zoning code modernization.

Some of the new things that are brought in that were left out of the housing policy is really looking at activity centers and focusing housing around those areas.

More detailed guidance for area plan updates, specifically including middle housing types.

Looking at encouraging adaptive reuse of existing buildings and a greater emphasis on climate action.

The climate action plan had not yet been adopted writing the housing policy.

So this allows to break it can bring the climate action part into the housing policy.

And this is really just a continuum of housing needs to show really what the housing policy, Housing Albemarle, really covers.

It looks at housing for the county's most vulnerable community members, so those experiencing homelessness, all the way up to the least vulnerable community members, which workforce housing for households earning up to 120% of area median income.

which keeps getting higher every year.

Just a little point of reference, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development updated the area median income for the Charlottesville Metropolitan Statistical Area this month.

Thank you, Stacy.

So again, just to highlight the significant overlap with other chapters, transportation, which will be coming out very soon, connecting housing to daily destinations and daily needs, land use, how we designate the future land use categories on the future land use map and how those encourage different housing types.

thriving economy if we're going to encourage more jobs, having places for employees to live in the community, community facilities, having the public facilities and services needed to support growth and development, and then resilient community, having housing and transportation choice, nature as green infrastructure with development, and then looking at community health and well-being, and also local food systems.

So just a quick overview of the schedule for housing that will be going to the Board of Supervisors in about a month on May 7th.

We will also have a lunch and learn for both housing and the community facilities chapter on April 24th at noon.

And these are also all posted on the website or will be shortly.

For Thriving Economy and Community Facilities, those have both come to the planning commission.

So those will be going to the board on April 16th for a work session.

And then transportation coming to the commission on May 6th and the board on May 28th.

And then there will be an in-person community meeting on May 22nd.

So just a quick highlight of some of the engagement opportunities that are on our website.

And also just wanted to note that the housing chapter is now posted on the phase three page.

So we encourage folks to visit that and share their feedback on the actions if they're interested and take a look at the chapters as we post them.

So again, these are the two focus topics for the commission today.

We're also happy to take questions and comments on the objectives and the actions, but are looking for some additional guidance on these land use areas.

So with that, I'll turn it over to the commission for questions and feedback.

Commissioner Murray?

There he is.

I did have a couple question questions, not fake questions that are actually statements.

And they were just about the parts of the chapter, if that's all right.

Sure.

Okay.

You want to go first then?

Sure.

No, I mean, you know, you can jump in.

I'll just start with the general statement.

I think that this chapter is very much going in the right direction.

And I think, you know, we can get into some of the details later.

But I think, if anything, we can go a little bit farther in some of these areas.

But we'll give them specifics later.

I'll let you.

I had a question on objective 3.3.

Just the language there is develop and implement a sustainable housing trust fund for adoption by the Board of Supervisors.

And I don't know that I'd seen sustainable quite in that context before.

That really just means that it is

It's not relying on annual allocations from the budget.

Yeah, like a dedicated automatic.

Thank you for that.

And then a question that actually is really just a legit question because I don't know the answer at all is objective 4.2, examine the need for and feasibility of implementing a rental inspection district program to ensure safe, decent, and sanitary living conditions for tenants.

And I was just curious, what happens now?

What do we do if there are fair rental homes that have complaints, that have issues?

I know there have been.

That's a good question.

That's a question for community development stuff.

That's actually a question for Zoni.

So, you know, part of this is that the, and I don't know where we are in this legislation, maybe our council knows where this is, but certainly in Richmond, there was a bunch of sort of tumbling around about putting in force or putting forward some legislation that would apply to landlords owning a certain number of houses.

Okay, frankly, and I know it's sort of natural for me to be snarky, but in this case, I don't know what happened because there was just so much stuff going in and out of the governor's desk and back and forth.

So I don't know where they landed on that, but that was one of the issues that was being pushed forward to say, it is mandatory if you're a landlord with this number of units.

Then they have to be inspected and then the jurisdiction can come in and say, the jurisdiction that is given the authority to set up something to come in to inspect those number of units or to respond, or perhaps to respond, as many things are, to respond if there's a, if their attention is called to a potential violation.

Well, I do know that the Virginia maintenance code is optional for localities.

Thanks.

I have a couple, I don't want to hog the floor, but one of the things I know we've always grappled with is this notion of infrastructure and whether we have enough of it, like the appropriate infrastructure to accommodate the development that we're asking for.

I think I read in the chapter, maybe we needed 10,000, you'd have to find it, maybe 10,000 units more.

by 2040 to get to where we need to be.

So I guess my question is, how do we start to address those infrastructure needs in this document somewhere to make sure that if someone waved a wand and said, here's your 10,000 units tomorrow I got for you?

that we can actually take them, right?

I think we always grapple with roads, schools, all that stuff.

It's almost like a chicken and an egg thing, but I haven't seen where that's really addressed in this chapter or throughout the document yet.

Things that would be impacted by the housing development, right?

I mean, I think in some respects, the other chapters are certainly gearing up to try and provide that.

There's always that tricky balance between what comes first, you know, does the use that demands the service come first?

What are the services that support the use come first?

And it sometimes get applied both ways.

So, I mean, if your specific question is, can we accommodate another

Yeah, the response to that is a very nuanced question.

Part of it is like, we're in town, is it?

Yeah, certain parts of town are going to be more acceptable than others.

Generally speaking, I would say that

We're always planning to accommodate the future growth within the community and working to get the infrastructure in place.

Yeah, and I get that.

Maybe rephrasing my question a different way.

Should we be more explicit in our objectives and goals

No, no, I just wanted to add on that.

I think it's a great question, and I think it's one of those things, you know, opportunities to link to other chapters.

I think part of this is the need to make sure that as you know we're thinking about housing here but I think also as we're increasing the supply of housing we need to make sure that we're also increasing the supply of commercial properties as well and

and other properties that can provide revenue.

Otherwise, we end up with an infrastructure deficit.

We don't have a way to fund those additional houses.

And I would suggest that

Commissioner Clayborne, you just got into your first question to some degree.

Yeah, I'll do one more and then I'll let other people speak.

But so he was planting a flag on that.

Commissioner Bivins didn't have much today.

I wrote all mine down.

So for that one, this flag in going from, do we need to move from implied or implicit to explicit?

And the second piece is for Dr. Pathia.

I know we've always talked about how many units we kind of lose that come up that, hey, if you can buy these within a certain amount of time, you can have them, but if not, they go back to market rate.

I didn't see anything in here about improving or technology or whatever the barriers are to strengthen that process for us.

I didn't see anything in here.

I was wondering if you just comment on that.

Is that reconciled?

So first I want to go back to the first question you asked in the 10,000 units.

I just want to clarify that doesn't mean we need to build 10,000 units.

It's really creating 10,000 additional affordable housing units in some way.

So some of that will be new construction.

Some of that could be working with existing rental property owners to make some of their units affordable.

So I just wanted to put out there that the housing policy doesn't suggest like throwing 10,000 units of affordable housing only in the county.

To the question you just asked, we are working on ways to get better.

We did create a list of, it's kind of like a waiting list for affordable units.

We are working to expand that in the future.

Part of the problem with that list is proffer units are not constantly coming online.

It's hard to convince people to sign up for something to potentially purchase a house that we don't know when it's going to be built.

We know how many proffer units are in the pipeline.

There's about 3,000-ish, 2,000-ish in the pipeline, but we don't know when they'll get built.

So it's kind of hard to advertise that and get people excited.

But that is one of the methods we're using.

The Housing Albemarle also recommends looking at other ways that we can do that.

So working with developers to connect them to nonprofits like the Piedmont Community Land Trust, who would then purchase those proffer units from the developer.

and then they will be affordable in perpetuity.

They go under 90 year ground leases every time it's sold.

Thank you.

Commissioner Burns.

First of all, I want to thank you for putting it on legal side, for putting it on big pieces of paper.

So you can read it without grimacing.

So one could read it without grimacing.

which I compliment people when they make it easy to understand the information because that in fact is at the essence of what we're talking about.

How do we prepare AC44 and in particular this particular chapter so we make it easier for people to understand?

And I can say that I have plenty of things here that we can talk about, but as far as I agree with my colleagues that this feels like

that you've heard our conversations over the past few months and that you're doing your best to incorporate them.

What I would at some point, maybe we'll get to this perhaps down in one or two there, is the fact that we've had a tremendous shock to the system in the last two weeks.

Well, some might say since November.

But in the last two weeks in particular, we've had a shock to the system.

And many of those shocks will go against our public partners.

For instance, the project that you mentioned up on 29,

The principle on that project is trying to figure out if the money is ever going to come because of some of the messages that's been sent to them from up there in Washington.

So the whole idea is what does, given that we've got a population that now that you tell me that

80% of the local thing is $100,000 and $100,640.

That's 80% of the new AMI.

Having been someone who hired a whole heck of a lot of people, I couldn't tell you the people who are in my organization of well close to 400 people who would have had $100,000 or $8,300 a month.

Gross, that's probably a gross number to be able to spend.

I mean, I don't even know where those jobs.

are for non-certificate or graduate type degree people.

So that's the piece for me here is I don't know how you get, I don't know how we, I think we are being hurt by the affluence of our community on how we sort of manifest sort of a quality of life for the rest of the community.

And that's stunning.

That's $100,640 is 80%.

Do you mind if I just follow on some questions to build on that?

Because I want to understand that number a little bit better.

And so the number we had in here with 97,000 and change, I can't see it now, 97,000 and change was at 80% in 2024.

That's gone to just over a hundred thousand.

There's about a little bit more than 3%, 4%, three and a half percent increase.

But it's, it's, it's some of this.

So one is, okay, well, there's absolutely people living here.

That's driving that up.

But how much of that is people of lower income who can no longer afford to live here leave?

And that's being backed by people with higher income.

So I'm just wondering how much data do you have in terms of the exodus that's happening?

You have some charts here.

You can keep going with your question.

I just wanted to see how much information, because you do have some charts that talks about how many percentage of our workforce is coming from other places.

Well, some of these people might have lived here in the last few years and can no longer afford, so they're in Nelson, they're over the mountain in Augusta.

You know, they're in green.

They're in other places, but they're not in Albemarle.

And I don't think they're in Charlottesville either.

So it seems like it's more than half of a workforce that's no longer living here.

So you have some data.

I'm just wondering, do you have some awareness of what is the exodus?

I mean, what is the percentage of people that are leaving?

And what is their income?

It's fine to say no, but I think it might be interesting if we can begin to understand that demographic because that has a lot to do with a continual increase.

And we may actually, it's not just that there's good salaries in Albemarle County and people that have wealth in Albemarle County, but is that the lower end is leaving.

So it may be a double,

But the data that's presented to us is in fact leaning in that direction.

Because if you're starting to see increases in the AMI, then what you're also saying is that the pool that that AMI is being developed as being derived from, that there are fewer in the lower side of that.

So it's starting to skew higher.

And so that really, so it either says that, you know, we have this, we have a couple of things that are going on here.

We have people who are underemployed, which is significant.

And we have in this community a bit larger than I would have normally expected.

We have a bunch of people that work off the economy.

Okay.

We have lots of people who work off the economy.

I mean, away from the economy.

They're not in the economy.

Can you clarify that?

What does that mean?

That means that people who do work, but who aren't necessarily, what I would say, part of the known economic agents here.

So they work, but they don't get paid.

They get paid in cash, or they work, and they don't declare their income.

And we have a good number of people, a good-sized economy here that is off the books.

and so I think what we're seeing, and I think some of that gets driven because people say I can't be fully employed so I'm gonna go do this.

And so I think what we're seeing here is we're seeing the realization that the makeup of the economic agents or the people who work here is changing to such a degree that it's starting to pitch towards wealth, it's starting to pitch towards retirement with assets that come with those kinds of retirement people and it's starting to pitch towards people who

who could work anyplace else, but they just happen to be working here, whether or not it's at the university or to the extent that they're small entrepreneurs, what they're making is not a function of Albemarle County.

What they're making is a function of someplace else in the world.

And I would also add, tying back to economic development, we're now in a world where

You don't have to, your headquarters doesn't have to be here, right?

So you can make a San Francisco salary on New York or DC or whatever, and live here.

I do recall, and I see Commissioner Murray has a hand, but I'm glad you bring this up.

But I've got a direct reply, and I think we could safely say it's not just a mite that this might be happening, but it is happening.

Even a year and a half ago when Sunshine-Mathon talked with us up at the UVA spot up there,

that that level of increase in AMI was 70% over seven years, six, seven years, cannot be explained just by wage increases, salary increases, and it cannot be explained just by wealthy people moving to town.

It has to be inclusive of displacement.

There's no other way to go up that high that fast.

I think if you take a minute to think about a college town with a growing tech sector, it's got a cool factor.

There's a good music scene.

There's a favorable climate.

There's a lot of people moving there.

There's a lot of college towns that kind of fit that bill, right?

Us, Austin, Madison, Wisconsin, Boulder, they're all out there.

All those saw huge spikes in housing costs during the pandemic.

They all did.

Only one of them actually reduced their rents in the last couple of years, and that was Austin.

And the way they did it was their housing ecosystem, their policies and favorable financing, let them build 50,000 units in 22 and 23.

Combined, that is, not both years, but now that's a city of a million people, right?

But 50,000 units actually brought their rents back down to where they were in 2019, 2020.

Even if we scale that down to say 4,500 or 5,000 units, we're nowhere near that in terms of new units that came on in the last two years to address the spike in rents, to address the spike in housing costs.

And so the spike remains and keeps going up.

and I think, you know, supply and demand is not the only thing.

It's not a perfect sort of econ textbook curve, but supply matters a lot on these things and we have not been using all the quivers in our, rather all the arrows in our quiver to increase that supply.

Yes, this discussion about median income, I think first in regards to the influx of folks from Northern Virginia, it'd be nice in other areas, it'd be nice to have some data on that.

And particularly since we would look at Northern Virginia, we're talking about just back in the napkin math that

Their median income is $30,000, $40,000 more than ours.

So for someone from Northern Virginia to buy a home over here, it's greatly at a discount.

Even though we see things here as

as expensive, they see it as a steal.

So I think that that's one thing that'd be good to have some data on and how that's affecting our economy.

The other thing is I think that we need to think really in terms of two economies.

There's a great presentation, I mentioned it several times, it was done for the Board of Supervisors.

They talk between the difference between wage earners and people who earn their income from investments.

And I think a lot of people that are coming, relocating to Albemarle County from some of these other areas are not coming here necessarily for employment, but are retirees.

They're coming from other places like Northern Virginia with a substantial investment income.

and that delta of those folks versus wage earners, they're coming with a lot more money than our wage earners are.

So when we talk about the median income to afford a house, we're basing it right now on a mix of those two of people are coming with this big pot of money and investments and those folks, they're wage earners.

And I'm just wondering as a question,

Can I just ask because it is not Northern Virginia, folks.

The people who I wish we could get out of that posture.

Northern Virginia is not the boogeyman on the other side of the road.

They're not the people who are moving here.

If you look at where people come from, they're coming from all over the world.

And so just stop slapping Northern Virginia around because that's not where folks are coming to Albemarle County.

I mean, yeah, there's some coming from up there, but many of them, because I'll give you the reason for that.

Because if you've got a low interest rate and you're living in Northern Virginia, you're not going to move here because you're not going to get that low, which is why some of the reasons we send the resistance to move.

So why we're not seeing inventory turnover because people say, why am I going to give up a 2% mortgage rate to take on?

Six or seven percent.

I'm not going to do it.

I'm going to stay where I am.

Part of that is the inherent problem with why we're not seeing some of this inventory turnover in ways that we used to see a turnover.

So I had a couple questions from the document.

I will say, I think it's already been stated, but it's a very digestible document.

I think it's there's a lot of data, but there's a lot of background.

And I

also would agree that you've heard a lot of the dialogue that's happened in this IS through the years on housing and we see it incorporated.

So appreciate all that work.

I'm on page six, where you're talking about the affordable housing units currently, this is kind of our stock.

And then what's in the pipeline, you have a chart and

So I had a couple questions about the specifics of that chart.

So when we say preserved units, you got 101 preserved units.

What do you mean by that?

So those are primarily the units that are receiving services from Albemarle Housing Improvement Program.

So they are primarily homeownership units, although some of them could be rental properties as well.

So they are part of a program that helps them but we could have additional low-income housing

That's not part of any program, but they're still part of our low income stock, but it's not being captured here.

That's correct.

It's difficult to identify individual houses or individual properties that are affordable just because they happen to be older or smaller.

Right, without doing a survey of some kind.

Yeah, I was just trying to, so there's, so there's additional, there's more than 2200 affordable houses in the county.

There are just some that are just not captured because they're not.

And then when I moved to the, to the, in the pipeline, proffer units, 2113,

That's difficult to determine.

In the proffers, developers will often proffer both.

And are you seeing a trend?

No, I don't think so.

It just depends on the developer.

Developers are fairly consistent.

We know that certain ones are going to build multifamily housing usually, and they will be for rent and other ones who primarily build single family housing, those will be proper units for sale.

And then you have larger developments, say Old Trail, that can be a mixture of both.

Just depends.

I have a couple others, but I think I can roll them into our, well, I think they actually can fit into our one and two.

I would just like, I'd like to lift something up to my commissioner more because I think this is in essence what the problem is.

The only thing we have that's even close to that are the two hospitals.

So right out the bat, when you're talking about, often you talk about how do we generate the income to be able to do some of these things?

Well, and you go back to my sort of fried chicken speech here, you need to have more people working here and jobs that pay them something, which means you need to attract people here

companies that can afford to pay people positions that are not looking to be sold to somebody else and then take the money and run, which we have a lot of taking the money and running around here.

And that's cool.

I get it.

That's the American way.

But it would be helpful if you could have some of those sort of top, I'll even take two of those top 10 here.

It would make a significant difference in the type of tax income that would come into the county.

just that alone.

So you wouldn't be so dependent.

Lonnie talks about that a lot.

And I just to echo what you're saying, while this is housing and that was economic development chapter, I definitely am with you on that, as far as the economic development portion of this.

I mean, it can't just be university health system and NJIC and hope that we do better.

The part, I think, before we get into these two specific questions that I did want to bring up

and I do appreciate that how staff has added things that reflect the conversations here.

I just wanted to go kind of push back a little bit on some of what I see as like the Weasley words in some of the objectives in the section one or the clauses that would enable us to just not do much and I'm thinking about 1.2, 1.3, 1.5, 1.7

1.2, for example, in single-family neighborhoods achieve greater housing supply and diversity by allowing small-scale residential structures such as duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes.

Let's put a period there instead of that align with the scale of the existing neighborhoods.

The whole idea is we want to add homes to the existing neighborhoods, not align with what's there.

That's giving veto power to people that already live there.

I think actually, sort of, if I may, it's kind of the opposite.

It's the idea that you can have homes like that in a single family neighborhood that can fit into it.

Am I speaking?

Yeah.

I'm happy to take it out.

Okay.

I mean, that's great.

Yeah, I think maybe it's my skeptic in me that has read a lot of strategic plans over the years and sees clauses that soften things.

Fair enough.

The other one that's kind of similar, and this is the only other one I'll pull for today, is just

that first section of 1.7, evaluate which county owned properties would be most suitable for affordable housing development.

I would rather write something like, commit to developing affordable housing on current and future county owned land.

You know, like make it an action step, rather than just sort of a soft, we're gonna take a look.

But that's me.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A specific question about Objective 6 and some of those actions we were talking about our unsheltered brothers and sisters in the community.

When I read this, it struck me as there's probably a difference.

being unhoused because of job or economic reasons versus mental illness.

And maybe those solutions are different in terms of our actions.

And so I just wanted to flag that because right now, so they kind of lumped everyone together, right?

And I don't think that's really the most reductive way, right?

As we are looking at how we might reconcile what we're trying to do here.

So I just wanted to flag that, you know, we can put all the housing up in the world, but

Mental health, for example, is not going to cure that.

That's a good point.

That struck me when I read it as well.

Well, we got to deal with the underlying issues.

So if everyone is in agreement, let's move to the specific topics or questions that were raised.

And actually, I would like to ask

Commissioner Clayborne to extrapolate on the point that he was making on infrastructure because I think part of this is at least in my mind is an answer to

Question one, what are some factors that we should be looking for?

Well, affordable housing, if you don't have certain things like transit and other amenities or a person who needs to work commercial, it's kind of hard if you don't have a car to move around or you're forcing

to get a car, which then adds more cost to living.

Sure.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just kind of recapping, when we talk about infrastructure, the things that we have often kind of grappled with was roads and traffic.

We can't put this development here because the roads can handle it.

It's a dangerous intersection.

How does that start to bleed into the CIP as we start to move forward?

I know we've always depended on, I can't think of the name of the program that's run by VDOT right now, Smart Scale, but I think that's almost a decade turnaround, right?

By the time you identify a project and get the funding, get it built, it's probably about a decade.

Schools, how does that start to play a role in that?

And I know that we have a couple of new schools coming online, but

As we look 20 years on the road, is that sufficient, right?

How does that start to play?

And then I guess the utilities piece to it was the last thing I was thinking of as well in terms of, you know, the water, the sewer, the broadband, all of that stuff that kind of starts to play together to make a safe community.

And I would just add, or it's really, it was already stated by Commissioner Clarewell, but the walkability, right, so maybe just another way of saying it, if there's walkability to community resources, whether it's jobs,

and other amenities, groceries, and so forth.

That makes it, to me, that makes it a more ideal place to locate housing, low-income housing in particular.

So at least from my standpoint, that's one that I would add to that conversation, Commissioner Bivens.

Yes, I do.

So first of all,

I would like to acknowledge the points that Nathan made.

I think that those are very good points.

I think we could do more.

Crozet went first in missing middle.

And I think it's time for the other development areas to also get missing middle as well.

So I think really prioritizing that is one area where we could improve the amount of housing in our development areas.

The other point that you've heard me talk about a lot is we have a lot of empty parking lots in the development area.

And a lot of these are currently zoned in such a way that residential uses are not even allowed in those areas.

So I think identifying those areas where we do have these vast unused underutilized spaces that are just creating stormwater and polluting streams,

that we can provide incentives and specifically make sure that residential is not only allowed in those areas, but encouraged in those areas.

Now, to be clear, I don't want to eliminate the commercial that already exists there, but we have these big parking laws that are doing nothing for us.

You know, offering TIF, offering other incentives to make that better for people to develop there, I think it is very important.

But when we get to the infrastructure and we talk about the infrastructure necessary to support new homes, the best places that have that infrastructure already are those spots.

They already have water.

They already have sewer.

You know, you drop an apartment complex in the middle of that parking lot in Fashion Square or Albemarle Square or Rile Hill.

and they can walk to a grocery store or they can walk to the services they need.

You've made something walkable instantaneously.

In that place where Nirvana is, I agree with what everyone is saying.

But all of this is private property.

And each of these individuals that own the private property have their own, they have their own pro formas of what makes them say yes to a project or not yes to a project.

And I don't know necessarily that

a reduction in property taxes is going to be the thing that's going to tell somebody that they're going to take on several tens of millions of expenses to put an apartment there.

I could be wrong about that, but having dealt with some of the stuff somewhere, I just don't believe that that's going to be the thing that's going to connect it.

Then my concern is I started looking at,

I started looking at some of the apartments, the newer apartments around our community.

And their rents are real rents.

These are places that are getting $1,700, $1,800 for a studio and a one bedroom.

If you get to a three bedroom apartment, you're talking about $3,500, $4,000.

And so if you look at something that's close to, for instance, a business place, then you're also going to pay a premium for being close to the business place.

I looked at the new apartments up there by Santana.

Santana, no, not Santana.

That's a combination between Santana and a hospital.

That's an interesting flip.

Yeah, up there on the hill up there.

They're very nice.

It's not a big footprint, but their apartments start at just under 2,000 and go just over 3,000.

Because when you say, remember the whole property adage, location, location, location.

unless the county is willing, and this is the piece that I've always been pro about on some of this, unless the county is willing to be the primary agent on a project, which I would say is an interesting thing for supervisors and for the community to think about, that's how we're gonna get this.

You're not gonna get it from the free market, because the free market can't afford to go into that project at the price point that allows it to be accessible.

And that's the piece that I find somehow or another we've got to wrestle with that.

I also just, I mean, I would take transit off that list because CAT is in a rebuilding process right now.

I am not sure that CAT's going to have the types of

routes that we would need to get to the places that our colleague talks about those parking lots.

Remember, they don't go to all of those places, first of all, where the big parking lots are that we have right now.

And if they do go, they go with 30-minute intervals.

I don't know about many of us, but 30 minutes does not feel like a convenient way to get anyplace.

if you've got to tag on 30 minutes to get someplace.

I just would say maybe the walkability and close to centers of employment, but to rely on the CAT system is not, it doesn't feel reasonable to me.

Go on.

I'll put another side to that coin because my wife works in a nonprofit and a lot of the clients that go there rely on the mass transit.

I mean, a lot of them walk, but most of them it's a combination.

of the transit with the walking.

And it's a high percentage.

And so- How many live outside of the, live out sort of in the circle around the county, not- So the majority, these are majority of, in the county, they're in the county.

I mean, there are some others because they have three locations, but these are, majority are coming from the county.

They're not coming outside of the county.

and so there's actually quite a bit and I'm sure there's data on it on our ridership and so forth but I still think that transit is an important part of how we think about low-income housing because there's a lot of and even if they have a car they may just have one car and if there's someone that's leaving to work there's others in that family that don't have access to

to the vehicles.

And I'm not, I'm just sort of saying like, I'd like transit not to be the first one.

You know, because as we look at sort of how are we ordering these things, if I had to say the first one, I would say that the county plays a more active role in putting in long term, a long term excess income accessible house income, because if we, you know, because as the answer that you got, Corey, from the from the private sector is the private sector will decide, I'll put it up, it used to be for like,

90 days or something like that.

I forget what it was.

And if it didn't convert in 90 days, then we were free to push it to market.

And so I would like it not to be able to go to market.

Oh, sir.

Along that line of thinking, I was wondering if staff could share a little bit more about the housing trust in terms of feasibility.

And I know this is kind of crystal balling it, but is that two decades away, you think, from fruition in my lifetime?

Or your children's lifetime.

Right?

I think it's much more closer to earth than you think.

I wanted to zoom out a little bit on question number one, which I assume is just about the development areas.

If we're talking about activity centers, mixed use areas, and other locations, so just the development areas.

In terms of factors used to analyze other locations for allowing more housing, for me, the factors are yes, and that's it.

We don't need to have other factors.

If it's the development area, we allow more housing.

and then I think we adjust our systems and our infrastructure and our transit as the population grows.

The one thing I would come alongside of that was there's a piece in here that talks about limiting sort of making the areas smaller so the footprint of the house can be smaller.

My only concern, that's something that we've talked about here as a commission, is that we balance

the shrinking of parcels with the increasing of the quality of life that comes along with that.

So that we don't put so many houses in one location that the individuals don't have, they have no green space or they have no way to sort of interact with each other.

And so, you know, I always throw back at how do you create

instead of the three houses here having, and you had a photograph in here, instead of the four houses having their own sort of 10 by 10 piece of green space that those four houses shared, you know, a green space that they could do things together so that you're in fact

creating intentional community, you know, something like that, which we all used to have intentional community before we could afford our piece of property in the country.

We had intentional community.

And how do we go back to that place?

So just density for the sake of having density in the development area is not, I'd want that to be also sort of clothed and enhancing the quality of life with that density, which I think would be helpful.

and I think if I could go alongside what Commissioner Moore was talking about in the neighborhoods, the scale of existing neighborhoods, that to me also said, how do we have conversations with HOAs so that HOAs understand that it's beneficial to them to have flexibility in their communities?

So how do you make it a positive that the HOA says, well, if I could keep Family Y in this community and give them an option to sort of move out of their big house into a more smaller house,

without having to disrupt their life in a way, then the family Y might say, well, yeah, I'm willing to do that if I don't have to sort of go through this onerous process of finding out where my next live because I've lived here all this time.

So thinking about having a rethinking about what does community look like multigenerational since we're gone, we're there.

I mean, we're functionally there.

If you look at what our fastest growing demographic year, it's over 55.

Yeah.

You got enough for one?

Oh, yeah.

And then I can jump in.

I could jump into question two as well.

But just in response to Commissioner Bivins, I think there's two things that we can do to help improve the quality of some of these places.

First, we need a mechanism right now where if it's

to provide an option that a green space requirements cannot be met on site or it's impractical that those can be, that donation can occur to a fund, an optional fund, so that we can use those funds for larger green space opportunities.

I think that's one way to accomplish that.

So we don't just end up with a bunch of like pocket parks and dog parks that are impractical and no one really uses.

I think too, we also need to take into account for sensitive areas, particularly long streams or riparian areas, along the Rivanna, the concept of footprint.

So if we have like 20 acres, sorry, 20 units, then in areas that are sensitive, limit the footprint of buildings, but increase the height so that we can encourage things to buildings to be taller.

So those are things specifically around that increase in the quality of life in those areas.

But moving on to question two and the rural area,

I think the big guiding factor should be, well first, do no harm.

And you've heard me say that a lot about the rural area.

I think there's opportunities for

For allowing more housing in the rural area that is affordable, we, you know, we had this application that came before us just recently in Ivy, where the only thing that could be built there were, you know, million dollar homes, you know, on 21 acres or more.

And that kind of breaks my heart as someone that grew up in Ivy that even if the developer wanted to, there was no other option except that.

So I think the 21-acre rule needs to be revisited.

And particularly, I think there's the other comment that was made that there is no option for bonus density with clustering the rural area.

I think we need to rethink that.

and I think the guiding principle that I think that we should look at for this is, is the footprint of the houses that would be built the same or less?

If so, I think that we should consider allowing some additional units to be built as bonus density.

If you're talking about two trailer homes versus one large mansion, obviously I think that's okay.

But if we're talking about a number of homes that would be greater in their footprint than the density that's allowed by Wright, that I would not be supportive of.

So I think we need to look at what is the impact on the landscape?

Is this ultimately meeting with the goal of protecting the rural area?

or is this going to cause a larger impact than would have occurred otherwise?

As long as I think we use that as a guiding principle, I think there's ways that we can provide for more density in the rural area.

I also think we shouldn't create arbitrary winners and losers.

I think anything should be a consistent policy that we apply across the board, not

unfairly awarding some people over other people.

So I think that if we, you know, for example, you know, trailer parks, if we wanted to say for every, you know, have a policy for every, you know, every development rights, you know, could equal two trailer homes, some policy like that I could agree with.

arbitrarily deciding on just granting development rights that someone doesn't have to build trailer homes because they say it's affordable.

I'm not in favor of that.

I think that's a terrible idea.

Obviously, I think in terms of we need to consider water usage.

Infamously, Ivy was removed as a development area because it ran out of water.

And I think that that's something we need to keep in mind, too.

That's a good point.

Commissioner Bivins, can I start with you?

Thank you.

So I'm glad that Commissioner Murray brought up the position, the

Project that was, I think, spring form or something of that nature last week.

Because one of the things that I was, spring hill, spring hill of last week, because one of the things I was sort of pondering about is like,

Why, again, my whole comment about you've got these two very sort of established communities out there.

Why couldn't we have figured out a way to put, or why couldn't he have figured out a way to put some small sort of cluster, they still could be a gazillion dollars, but

Cluster Housing.

I was being called up.

I'm hearing music.

It's finally over.

I'm hearing music as the stairway comes down.

The Oscars Orchestra.

How come we couldn't figure that out?

You know, why is it that, you know, I'm familiar of the counties in Northern Virginia where they said you have to have 25 acres to build a house here.

You don't have 25 acres to build a house here.

Well, we don't want you.

Go to Culpeper.

We don't want you out here in Rappahannock.

We don't want you out here in Fubana.

And while everyone's going to think, oh, Julian's just trying to take away the rural character of Albemarle County.

No, what I'm saying is, if you say, as Lonnie said, that you have to put one house on 25 acres

as opposed to those six houses across there or maybe 12 houses in a smaller footprint that would have created a very expensive, because those can be very expensive houses, but they would have created a way that sort of said, here's a different way of living here.

So that one for me is,

I was just sort of looking around the county when I was trying to figure out what would affordable houses look like outside of the development area, because certainly we've kicked the development area around a lot.

I looked at things like Emerson Commons in Crozet, which is a co-housing.

So how do you facilitate co-housing, so multi-generational co-housing?

How could we do that?

When I looked at sort of offsite manufacturing,

So that you'd have a lighter footprint on that.

I was struck by a number of people that we've seen over the years have talked about putting floating platforms in so that they don't actually, you told me about this and now I'm going to mess it up.

They don't actually dig into the ground, but they have some sort of technology that they put it on top of the ground and it can,

It can withstand a significant, or not, it can withstand a good size structure, but yet it's got a soft footprint on the ground.

Those kinds of things which sort of say, how do we do something like that?

I looked at my, one of my favorite ones is Quality Road, Office Secretary Road, where this was a community that was built to support the quarry that was there.

and you have this wonderful, it could use a bit of perhaps some refreshing, but you have this collection of houses there that all speak to each other and they're right off of Secretary Ron.

So thinking about not necessarily how do we eliminate that, but remember before 1980,

There were lots of places in the county that were around certain centers, Esmont being the one that's been before us the most saying, don't forget us here in Esmont.

And it was after 80 when we sort of moved into this preserve, preserve it all, that we started backing away from a history that was about small

There's all these wonderfully individual and modestly sized houses that are close to one another, that have neighbors that you can walk to if you need to, in your neighborhood.

over there on Morgantown Road.

Again, a community in the rural part of the county that has different types of houses.

There's some bigger houses there since now because some of the land's been turned over, but they were modest communities.

So why are we so wedded to

This recent history, so post 1980, and forgetting about the history when people gathered together in small communities in our county and put modest housing.

And I'd like to know how we can get back to that.

Because that I think is how you start thinking about the different aspects of housing.

If it's not always the

the exclusionary zoning, which some of this is actually, when you tell somebody they can only have 25 acres, they have to have 25 acres in the rural part of the county to build a housing, let me help you folks, that's exclusionary, unless it's inherited land, that's exclusionary.

And so if we can back away from that kind of posture, and I know I'll get hit about this, but please, that if we can come back to that pre-time,

when people, just look at the maps.

I'll send you a whole list of areas that you can see that these are areas that actually included people in them, as opposed to what I think some of our zoning now is exclusive.

And so that's really my, on this number two, how do we come back to things that's both honors the desire to be green, but also also honors the fact that we were something else before 1980.

Before moving across, I actually think that Commissioner Bivins has a phenomenal point here.

We lose sight of history and then we try to build on just current knowledge.

and we forget about things that were working because not only were those homes that were affordable, but they built community.

I think that was an excellent point.

So I would recommend that staff study a number of these communities that we have that are still vibrant.

And these homes are 13, 1500 square feet.

They may be on a two acre lot because they're rural.

but that actually allows you to farm as well instead of building a 5,000 square foot home in a long driveway.

And so it would be an interesting study that you look at what makes this, what made this an affordable community to begin with and are they still affordable?

No, they're calling you.

See, that was a good point.

So it's calling you up.

Well, I have a daughter that's traveling, and she's trying to call me back.

Anyway, my apologies again.

Small structures in the rural area.

We're talking about 16 structures, 16 communities that are in the rural area that you can learn about their size or scale and the size of the properties that they're on.

So we don't have to build 25 acre lots, but we can still build communities on smaller lots.

I mean, again, they're still going to probably a couple acre lots, but they're also close to each other and they're serviced by it.

So they don't all have this, you know,

along driveway, they're off of roads, VDOT roads, and they just have a pretty small driveway coming into the house, and it's a 1,200, 1,500 square foot house.

But just to be clear, we're talking about, we're not talking about,

We're talking about learning from the existing communities and trying to replicate those small laws.

If you study it, if you intentionally go into it and say, hey, what can we still learn from these communities?

Are there things that we can apply?

There may be things you don't.

that maybe they're not applicable today, but I would venture to guess that there's a lot of things that we can, that we could apply.

Now I will say to add to Luis, if you look at that, if you can find them, there were often some sort of small sort of a post office or a community store that was within easy striking distance.

So when we talk about some of our

Yeah, everybody gets sort of, they get crossroad communities if you start talking that, you know, everybody starts jumping up and down about, you're gonna put a racetrack out there.

So if I could just add a little bit more to that.

I mean, staff brought forward a proposal earlier talking about, you know, just as a reminder in the rural area, we have two kinds of sort of division, you know, subdivision.

So you have your development rights and then you have the 21 acre rule that allows you to make as many 21 acre parcels as you'd like.

and so separate for the proposal for the development right parcels, which I think is a good move in the right direction.

But it also still leaves those 21 acres.

And there's a proliferation of sort of what I call McMansion farm estates throughout the rural area.

And these are bad for the environment.

They're rarely legitimate agriculture in any way, shape, or form.

Often they're mowed front to back with no kind of stream buffers or anything.

and they're terrible for affordable housing.

So they're not really achieving for us in any kind of way.

So I think looking at ways that we can rethink that 21 acre rule as well as the development rights so that we're not greatly increasing the development of the rural area, particularly not the development, most particularly not the footprint of development of the rural area, but we're considering ways that we can encourage clustering

and even if we have to offer some sort of bonus density, something along with that.

But what could we learn to look at ways of encouraging smaller parcels?

Because if you have a 21 acre parcel, there's no way that any home there is ever going to be affordable.

Yeah, I'm very supportive of just about everything my colleagues have said.

Certainly agree with the 21 acre rule.

I'm not sure who can even afford that.

I mean, that's kind of crazy, but another discussion for another day.

But going back to the neighborhoods you all were describing, I grew up in one of those and I think it works beautifully and it doesn't destroy the rural fabric, if you will, of that area.

But going back to, I guess, factors, some of the things that I jotted down, of course, were scale development.

So we've been hearing about that.

You know, that even goes to the quantity of homes in a given development or the amount of site disturbance, for example.

If you had a location, being located near public safety facilities might be an incentive, right?

So if you're near the rescue squad, maybe, or the fire station, maybe that's a signal that, hey, we could put a little bit more development in that area.

One of the things I do want to share is I don't think I'm a fan of just putting all of a single type of home in one area.

To me, it's like an income scarlet letter, if you will.

So we shouldn't have 30 mobile homes in the middle of the rural area, in my mind, right?

I'd much rather see a mix, right?

You can have some duplexes there and, you know, single family, whatever it may be, but just flagging that because if a proposal comes with, you know,

Those types of homes are usually purchased by those who are more economically disadvantaged.

You just put them out in the middle of nowhere and you have to fend for yourself, right?

So I think the more we can welcome all, if you will, in those developments, I think the better.

So are you saying that, I'm not even going to use the mobile home because I want to use off-site manufacture.

Because off-site manufacture gets to what you're talking about.

I could have a 900 foot off-site manufacture, we could have a 1300 or even a bigger house.

I've been challenging Commissioner Moore to look at some projects that they're really, really smart looking.

You often see them in Scandinavian countries where they have these just wonderful natural woods.

It's an offsite production.

They come in, they put it in, and they leave.

And so I think that's one of the things that if we can watch our language,

and come away from some of the words that people say are boogeyman words.

And so, because if we look at some of the new kinds of ways and the ways that houses are being constructed today or dwellings are being constructed today, the footprints can be absolutely brilliant.

I don't know necessarily that we, except for a small time of year, could do funneled concrete, but I've been looking at some of the funneled concrete houses that have been taking place in Texas and in Arizona and places like that.

Stunning.

I'd live in one in a second.

And it's a quick way to make a house.

And it's a safe way to make a house.

And it's environmentally sound to the extent that you'll allow me to say that concrete is sound.

Just real quick, I'll say that in my neighborhood, there is that kind of mix.

Like there are manufactured homes.

There's very large, expensive homes.

There's middle-class homes all along my street.

So that is a natural pattern that you will find in areas of the rural area right now.

And I don't know how we get back to that.

But most importantly, I don't want to lose that.

I think that, you know, I think really strongly supporting our programs like AHIP that preserve that existing housing is critical.

So I guess I'll go last, and it might be least, but just in the parlance we sometimes use plus one, what some others have said, particularly Commissioner Bivins, about both history and sort of the history of this community, this county, this place, and the various villages around it, as well as plus one-ing the trigger words that sometimes prevent progress on certain kinds of development.

Before, just to echo what Commissioner Bivins said and what Commissioner Murray too, I've learned a lot from over the years.

It's just that before 1980, we built affordable homes in the rural area all over.

We built villages for people who worked for a living.

That's Quality Row, Porters, Whitehall, that unnamed cluster of homes on Scottsville Road just a little bit past Biscuit Run.

They're villages that grew organically.

They grew for good reasons.

People lived there.

People went to jobs.

and then we decided to preserve things in amber and I mean every stakeholder I've come across and talked with has been in favor of preserving the affordable homes in the rural area.

Nobody's saying no get rid of those.

I mean everybody wants to preserve those but it's also about sort of then preventing anything else like them and so

Effectively what we've done is make it so that the only new things in the rural area are things that are very expensive because the money talks.

There's a lot of stakeholders that I come across who are opposed to achieving any more affordable homes in the rural area.

I hear that often under the banner of environmentalism.

I personally

You know, like it's a type of weaponized environmentalism that's serving certain people but not others.

And it's an environmentalism that to me sometimes boils down to, we don't want more of certain kinds of people here.

And that's a real thing that I think we need to get past and get through.

So as far as the factors we should consider for reviewing affordable housing proposals that are outside the development area, I mean for me the most important things are is there enough water in SEPIC and is this going to adversely impact the water quality in the watershed that feeds ACSA.

Yeah, that's an interesting sort of, if you look at the watershed question, that's interesting.

ACSA's water, the feed from there is largely the western and northwestern part of the county.

So how do you do that in a way, yes, that you don't impact?

My whole piece is let's not limit it to one variable.

So there's the Western parts, yes, we don't want to impinge upon the water supply.

But the bigger point is how are we good stewards of the earth?

how do we do the things that don't, that sort of perpetuate sort of damage, but in fact enhances livability in a particular location.

And some of that is a smaller footprint.

Some of that is a much smaller, and some of it is not sort of green lawns that have to be maintained by, you know, by talented people who do that kind of thing.

And so that's the piece that I struggle with when we see

I shouldn't use that term.

When we see a sameness or a limited footprint in some of our new developments and that we're not really being offered the variety that I think replicates life or replicates where we live, replicates our history.

I think I've given you quite a bit.

However, before we... Mr. Murray, sorry, my apologies.

Oh, sorry.

I was just going to say that the question was raised about what watershed that was on that side of the county.

And I believe that's the hardware watershed.

And just because it's not our

our water supply, it's someone's water supply.

Well, before I do put us on recess until six, I, and of course we have the pleasure of having Ms.

Patia here in a while.

So I did want to ask you on our current policies and incentives.

Can you give us an update on where are we?

How is it performing?

Have we had any takers in our incentive policies?

I know that here we've asked a question on multiple times of applicants.

Why haven't you taking advantage?

And they all have the reasons why.

I just wanted to get your thoughts.

Where are we?

I hear that maybe there was a few now in the pipeline that might be interested.

Absolutely.

There have been conversations with a few developers about the incentive program.

At least one of the projects is most likely going to be 100% affordable housing, but located along 29.

So they will need that extra funding.

And it's a good way for the county to be able to invest in that project without having to have one lump sum up front.

There's a couple other developers that we are in discussion with as well.

Well, the housing policy was not fully in effect until March 1st of last year.

So it's only been a year that the housing, that 20% affordable housing has really been active.

And so it's been, it's taken some time for developers to figure out how to make it work.

That's fair.

With that, I will put us into recess until 6 PM.

to reconvene the Planning Commission for April 8, 2025.

Okay.

So we're going to

Public comments on matters pending before the Commission but not listed for public hearing on these agendas?

Nobody online?

Right, Commissioners, the consent agenda?

Looks like there isn't one.

And we do not have one.

That's what you were showing me.

All right, so we're in the public hearing.

Yes.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Chris Taggart, Senior Planner with the Planning Division of Albemarle County Community Development.

Also here tonight is Margaret Malaschese who assisted with the review.

I'll be giving staff's presentation for the special use permit application.

The subject property is located at 400 Ryle Road West in zone light industrial.

The surrounding area is mostly residential with an additional light industrial parcel adjacent to the west.

As a reminder, Ryle Road is an entrance quarter.

The site consists of two parcels which are mostly paved with chain link fencing surrounding much of the paved area.

At the front of the property is a brick face office building and at the rear is a large metal shed.

The special permit request is for outdoor storage display and sales of plumbing material and equipment in the EC overlay district.

I'll refer to this as outdoor storage.

The proposal includes a storage area to the north and west of the existing brick face building, which is highlighted in orange on the concept plan.

There is also an existing storage area at the rear of the site indicated in blue.

A berm landscaping a metal picket fence, replacing the chain link fencing along the rile side of the storage area to minimize visual impact.

Additional landscaping is also proposed along the employee parking lot east side of the main building or to the east of the main building.

and in the southwest corner of the site to further limit visibility of the storage area.

In between the main building and the street to screen existing equipment and coordinate the landscaping proposed along the storage area.

The proposed use is by right in the zoning district, but outdoor storage is a special use in the EC.

SPs for outdoor storage are reviewed under section 30.6, which limits the factors to be considered to determining whether the outdoor storage is consistent with the EC design guidelines.

ARB and Site Review Committee reviewed this proposal in January and requested revisions focused on screening of the proposed and existing storage areas from the view of the EC.

At its March 3rd meeting, the ARB reviewed an updated plan that included revisions to show the existing vegetation along the eastern and western perimeters sites will remain and adding screen shrubs along the portion of the western perimeter of the site directly east of the building.

and a planting area along the front and east of the entrance to the employee parking line.

The ARB considered the revised plan unanimously voted to recommend approval with conditions.

The conditions are listed here and we can bring them back up if needed.

On February 10th, the required community meeting was held at the Places 29 Hydraulic CAC meeting.

There were questions on the development of the site but no comments on the special use permit.

Staff did not identify any unfavorable factors, and the favorable factor for this request is that outdoor storage use would be consistent with the EC design guidelines if the ARB's recommended conditions are upheld.

For this reason, staff recommends approval of the special permit for outdoor storage.

Commissioner Murray, do you have any questions?

Sorry.

So thank you, Chair.

And I also do not have any questions for staff.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission.

I'm Valerie Long with the law firm of Williams Mullen.

We are representing the applicant, which is now the landowner of this property.

And joining me tonight virtually are members of the applicant team.

I think they're all virtual.

We also have someone from Ferguson Enterprises here who might be able to answer questions on a more operational level that might come up.

But there's also others from Ferguson attending.

Thank you from staff for their presentation.

I think that covered most of the issues.

I'm going to run through some of these really quickly.

Please do not hesitate when I'm finished to ask me to go back to any of these slides.

I imagine many of you are fairly familiar with this location, which was owned by the phone company.

literally since the 1970s.

It is zoned light industrial.

As Mr. Taggart mentioned, their proposed use for Ferguson as a wholesale waterworks distributor is a buy-write use in the light industrial zoning district.

The reason we're here tonight is that because any materials stored outside

Materials for sale or display stored outside on property along an entrance corridor requires a special use permit to determine whether the proposed screening would bring the site into compliance with the ARB guidelines.

We have some aerial photographs that we were able to pull from UVA's wonderful aerial photo database demonstrating, it was really interesting to me to note that the site has remained largely unchanged since the early 1970s.

and you can see back from the days when it was again owned and used by the phone company you had their trucks out there all the time stored and even the back of the property looks very similar to the now as it does in that 2013 photo.

The existing conditions, again, I imagine many of you are familiar with it, but just in case you haven't been by lately, because it was developed in the 1970s when the requirements were much, much different.

Obviously, there was no architectural review board or entrance quarter regulations, minimal screening.

The site is not great from a visual aesthetic perspective.

The chain link fencing obviously easily reveals the materials and wouldn't reveal materials and equipment stored on site.

Very few plantings.

There are a handful of trees, but they don't show up well.

Lots of things stored.

These are all obviously from Google Street View, but I just wanted to

show those conditions for reference.

We also have, these are some representative photographs of the types of materials that Ferguson would use at the site, just for reference in terms of what we're talking about.

It's piping, again, wholesale waterworks.

These are fire hydrants, part of facilities, obviously, for waterworks.

More piping.

Again, just sort of what that might look like.

This is the existing conditions plan.

Mr. Taggart walked through it, but really just Ferguson would use the existing paved parking area for storing their materials.

The area in the back that's shown in kind of a purple shade

The zoning staff had determined that the storage of materials had existed there since before there were regulations against it.

So that is legal non-conforming, but we're pulling that area into the special use permit application so it would then become conforming along with the rest of the site.

So we're proposing to replace the chain link fence.

You can see those handful of trees there and the gate.

There's also mechanical equipment right in the front of the building with no screening that we're going to screen.

This is the conceptual plan that would be

informative or binding on the site plan amendment when that is brought forward, proposing to replace the chain link fence with a new aluminum picket fence, and most importantly, a new landscape plan that includes a berm along the front.

And I should mention, by the way, that Timmons Group is the civil engineers we're working with and their landscape architect to design this plan.

So there's a berm and a pretty robust screening plan.

New plantings all around.

These are new screens, screening plantings that we added at the request of the Architectural Review Board.

We also added this line that is 50 feet from the entrance corridor.

And we are agreeing to a condition that says anything taller than the eight foot fence that's stored has to be beyond that line.

The topography of the site is that the terrain slopes down as you move away from Rio Road.

but the fence is eight feet tall.

Most everything else will stay the same including the existing employee parking lot.

We are adding additional screening here and here and then also here.

This is an old sort of driveway that won't be used anymore so they're going to close that off and add more landscaping to help screen the back of the site.

and this is just an enlargement obviously of that same area.

I would note, and I have some photos, this is new landscaping we're proposing along the front of the building.

It's not actually required to screen the materials that are being stored, but we thought that it was appropriate to extend the plantings to the front of the building as well.

And most importantly, to screen that outdoor equipment.

This is obviously just a section view of how the landscape plan would function with the berm to help provide some density and variety of plantings and elevation to help screen.

And then you can see a representative of how the pipe might be stored on a rack.

This is a sample of the type of fence that is envisioned and some aerial views of how that would look, the new planting plan would look on site.

I will notice that

There's also the new screening which is not shown here because of the existing vegetation but we do have some additional screening there.

The ARB determined that there was a need for that to help screen that view.

That mechanical equipment will be screened and these are the renderings, conceptual renderings that Tim and his group prepared for showing how over time the planting plan

will develop and substantially improve the views, both the views of the property from the entrance corridor as well as screen the outdoor materials that are being stored.

And I'm of course happy to come back to any of these.

This is the one image that's not from Google Street View.

This is just taken, as you can tell, it was right around that second snowstorm we had this year.

to demonstrate from that particular vantage point how that new screening both along the front and then also along that former travelway will help screen the storage from that vantage point.

And that, hopefully you would agree, is a substantial improvement over existing conditions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Moore, do you have any questions for the audience?

Thank you for the presentation.

Just one confirming question that all the materials, I guess they're inert materials, like they're not chemicals or anything like that.

Commissioner Bivin?

Do you want to go?

Do you want Commissioner Murray?

Sure.

Um, so obviously this property existed way before, you know, our stormwater ordinance.

I know they're working through some of the issues.

There will be a site plan amendment that will be required.

So we're not at that stage yet.

Frankly, our client and Ferguson didn't want to invest the funds in preparing a site plan until they knew if the special use permit would be approved.

I'll just mention that because there is existing, there's existing parking lot there, it would qualify for some of the county incentive programs for impervious surface removal if they did want to apply for those.

Great.

Thank you.

I will look into that with our clients.

And I'm sure Timmons Group is aware of that.

Areas of it are.

Portions of it, not all of it, but probably most of it is.

Thank you, sir.

Good to see you, Ms.

Long.

So could we go back to the, over to the sort of the macro piece there, the bird's eye view of the, could we just go back to that for a second?

I think it would be helpful for you to share with the commission and the community just in general.

There's actually two pieces of property there, one which is not going to be developed that might be helpful for people to appreciate that.

I'm not trying to lead the applicant folks.

Thank you.

I appreciate the reminder.

Mr. Bivins is correct.

This area in the middle

So first, there's two tax map parcels.

The first one is this rectangular one along the frontage.

The second one is essentially everything else inside this circle in this area, and also this area in the back.

This area, the four acres in the middle, is owned by the state.

The state acquired that land from the phone company for the Western Bypass Project.

and unlike many landowners, perhaps most landowners who either sold or lost their land to the state for that project, apparently the phone company elected not to repurchase it.

Possibly because there's not a lot to do with it.

You don't really need it.

The rest of the site is nice and large, but the rest of the tax mat parcel does extend to the back, but the applicant is not preparing to use this site at all.

Thank you.

And so I know that one of my commissioner colleagues asked you about water management.

Not in connection with the special use permit.

As part of the site plan application, there may be stormwater management regulations that will apply and other things like that.

Because there is a house.

4525A, I believe that's a single-family residence.

Oh, that's comfort source.

It is, okay.

So I know having, this is sort of part of my drive home,

And so there's lights over there that blink and I recognize that there's sort of the 4511, 4511, I, J, K, all of those.

They also have that blinking light over there.

Yes, thank you.

I worked with our client who's now the property owner and they worked with electricians and those lights have all been disconnected, removed.

And I can attest that they aren't now, but I assume given that you're gonna have several million dollars worth of inventory over there, I wouldn't want my inventory dark on that road.

Presumably there'll be some site lighting for the reasons you noted.

Any new light fixtures will be subject to the, obviously the site plan regulations, as well as the architecture review board guidelines, including the requirement that light fixtures be full cutoff fixtures and not spill over, that sort of thing.

They're not planning any site lighting for more traditional purposes.

Their hours of operation are, you know, in the range of like 7.30 to four or 4.30.

Thank you.

Well, I don't think we have many, but we'll open it for any public comments if we have any.

Not online.

I was at the CIC meeting for this and I support what was said by the applicant that there was really much more question.

It was very interesting because I don't think anybody really realized that the telephone company has sort of vacated the premises for a while now and just because there's this sort of these random trucks that are sort of scared

across the parking lot.

So if anybody wants a random truck, talk to this telephone company because I think they probably have something for you.

And so the really big thing was that group of housing that I think is Squirrel Run or squirrel something over there, that as you go down Earliesville Road and you take a right there, you take a right into that, there was concern because there was, and I can attest to coming on Royal Road, there was just this sort of light that had this sort of non-disco beat to it that was disturbing to people over there.

and I can attest that that's been gone, but that whole idea, that'd be okay.

We weren't doing parties over there.

I can guarantee you that, but it didn't say, you know, whatever.

And so that is better.

And I think I will say having this being one of my routes every day that, and I know I'm going to get in trouble with the ARB on this.

Isn't it interesting how pipes have to have, can't be seen below an eight foot

an eight-foot fence, but trucks on parking lots that are selling trucks can be seen without any sort of impediment to their view.

So I thought that that was a nice way to hide some waterworks when it'd be nice to hide some Mack trucks too.

Any other comments?

Nope.

I'll just say it seems like an improvement.

Oh, sorry.

No comments really.

There's a brand new large apartment complex.

So you really are, that corridor is actually going to, is getting a significant upgrade there.

So thank you.

I agree.

I think there's definitely an improvement from what's there now.

There's no other conversations.

Is there any commissioner that would like to entertain a motion?

Oh, yeah.

It's my district.

Sure.

Well, you're the one.

Yes, your CAC is my district.

That's true.

That's true.

I move to recommend approval of SP 2024-00025, 400 railroad West outdoor storage display and sales with the conditions as recommended in the staff report.

Mr. Carrazana?

Aye.

Mr. Bivins?

Aye.

Right.

Well, thank you for the nice presentation.

All right.

Back to committee reports.

Committee reports.

You know, I think lots of people are preparing for these budget meetings, so that might be, so I would encourage people, if you haven't heard a budget meeting, go hear a budget meeting, because I think that'll answer a number of the questions we have about CIPs and things like that.

Yes, correct.

Where is this coming from?

Where is that?

The gentleman there, the guy behind the seals.

All right.

Moving on.

Barnes.

It's been a long day.

You know, my day job sometimes bleeds over, too.

But it's not a POB meeting.

Two items the board considered at the April 2nd meeting that you all had reviewed.

The first one was, you'll recall we had two tranches of AFDs that had come through.

The second one went through most of the issues that we were sort of wrestling with.

The first one was resolved with the first tranche of AFDs.

So this one went through very quickly at the board and they approved.

The other thing that they considered was data centers.

Again, you'll recall we did that sort of phase one interim

set of regulations to ZTA to allow for some regulations of data centers and staff are already working on a more in-depth, nuanced zoning text amendment that we'll probably be bringing to you all next year or so, within the next year.

So those are the two major items that they considered.

They both were approved by the board.

New business?

No new business, right?

Is there old business?

Well, I would like to, if there is, but I'd like for a gentleman to stay in the room before I say something.

But everyone knows how I've been just absolutely annoyed and fed up by the Rio Route 29 overpass plantings.

Over the years, I have referred to them as zombie plants.

I need to compliment everyone involved.

It is lovely at the moment.

They have fresh plantings, and they're well kept, and it is a welcome sight to see something that nice at that location when it was that scary at that location for many years.

I'd like to.

Well, if you would please extend that because the look there is completely, it's more welcoming and with Home Depot coming across the street, I think that's a good way to present us.

And if you haven't seen the Home Depot

construction gentlemen and gentleladies, I would suggest you go see it.

It looks like a Home Depot.

Yeah, I received a report.

You guys might remember the Montclair rezoning to allow where there was a stream involved of much controversy.

Well, we got a report that the

that the developer has applied for an Army Corps of Engineer permit to remove the stream, which raises all kinds of questions that I'm still trying to get answers to, and I think Supervisor Malek is trying to get answers to, because I assume this would invalidate the site plan if they removed that stream, because as usually one of our conditions is that in general accordance with the site plan, if the stream's not there, that seems like it's no longer in accordance.

but then also what kind of mitigation requirements would be required for the buffer that's not going to be there and so forth.

So I don't know if there's any details that staff has at this time.

So my knowledge about this is limited to what I received by email, which is that there's been approval of the permit that is handled by somebody other than the county.

I can't address the site development plan.

Obviously, the site development plan is something that's administratively addressed rather than something that comes before the Planning Commission.

Yeah, they're going through a site plan review now, and it was the permitting agencies was Department of Environmental Quality,

So one of the conditions that when we approve rezoning like this is, and I would have to look at the general text of that, doesn't it say something about general accordance with the site plan?

Oh, application plan.

Sorry.

Yeah, just a small point.

I take what you're trying to say.

You know, it's in process right now.

And to get you the exact answers that you're looking for, I am hesitant to give them to you now.

I know enough to generally what's going on, but not the specifics.

I think what you're probably looking for.

Just I know this is a very heated issue in Crozet and has been for quite a while.

And I would just say I know that members of our current development team as well as the zoning team have been discussing this.

All right.

With that, uh, we are, so we're adjourned the planning commission until April 22nd at 6 PM.