Planning Commission Work Session (4:00 pm) and Regular Meeting (6:00 pm)   5/27/2025

We are ready and live.

Is that what I heard you say?

Yes, sir.

All right, great.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Welcome to the May 27, 2025 Planning Commission meeting.

We'll begin by, I guess, I think the first thing I should do is establish a quorum.

Yes.

Mr.

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

Great.

We are all in attendance.

And I think with that, I'll open up the work session with CCP 2021-2 AC44 comp plan cultural resources.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

Ben Holt with the county's Long Range Planning Division.

So I'll be presenting on our two topics this afternoon.

And I'm also joined by Margaret Malyszewski, and she'll present some of our cultural resources content.

Just a quick look at our agenda for today.

We'll provide a snapshot of where we are in the AC44 schedule.

And then for each of the topics we'll be discussing, we're going to provide a summary of previous commission feedback, followed by community feedback, and then we'll get into a topic overview.

and we'll follow that up with a Q&A session so you can ask questions and share your feedback.

It'll be pretty brief.

I would say five minutes probably.

Yes.

Cool.

So with our schedule, what we just finished was earlier this month, May 6, we presented the transportation session to you all.

And we'll be bringing that transportation content to the board tomorrow at work session.

And we also hosted a in-person community check-in meeting last week on Thursday.

So with this current topic of cultural resources and resilient community we'll be taking this content to the board on June 4th and then after that we'll be done with each of the topic chapters so we'll move on to other sections of the plan and we'll be discussing plan implementation with you all on June 24th and with the board on July 16th.

And just a reminder to the public that our Engage AC44 website is the best place to go to review the content.

We've published all of our draft chapters at this location and we share our upcoming schedule so we have the work sessions and upcoming outreach engagements on that website.

So with that, I'll move into the cultural resources topic.

And just a quick side note, I wanted to mention that we as staff are incorporating the request that we heard from both the commission and the board to include captions for all of the images within the chapter draft.

So you may have noticed that we had that included for the cultural content.

And we'll be updating that for all the other chapters as we complete those drafts and update them for later this year.

So with cultural resources, this topic also encompasses historic and scenic resources.

In terms of the previous feedback we heard from you all, support for strength and protection for our resources, protective measures beyond voluntary preservation compliance,

Support for a Preservation Ordinance, which has been considered at multiple times in the past, and as well maintaining and utilizing an up-to-date inventory of our resources.

In terms of equity, it's important to provide an inclusive history and narratives, and that would include things like historic Freetown communities and resources built by enslaved labor and displaced peoples, which would include both Native and African American communities.

Other themes were leveraging adaptive reuse to preserve buildings, utilizing greater incentives and requirements to prevent demolition of structures, and promoting and supporting cultural tourism, arts, crafts and music.

The major themes that we heard with our public feedback to a large degree mirrored the Planning Commission feedback, enhanced historic preservation and requirements and incentives, continued preservation of our entrance corridors, expanding the county's historic marker program, and telling those inclusive histories as well as leveraging cultural tourism.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

Nice to see you.

Margaret Malyshevsky with the planning division.

Before I get into just a brief summary of the topic here, I would like to mention that in addition to the AC44 team, I had a lot of assistance with this chapter.

I'd like to thank Chris Taggart, Mariah Gleason, Scott Clark, and James Van Vranken from our team who contributed to the text.

So in this chapter, we tried to make the point that cultural resources are really what make Albemarle the unique county that it is.

Cultural resources establish community character.

They contribute significantly to our quality of life.

and they support climate action goals.

But with all those positive attributes come some significant challenges.

There are thousands of historic resources have been surveyed.

And when I say survey, I mean a systematic technical documentation of physical attributes of a resource, not like a door to door questionnaire.

So thousands of historic resources have been surveyed, but many of those surveys are just way out of date.

Many of the early surveys of historic resources were focused on high style architecture.

They often overlooked the more modest buildings that really make up most of the county.

They often overlooked the relationship between the building and the landscape that it sits in.

And they also overlooked some of the social context in which those properties were developed.

Another challenge is the varying degree of protection that's in place for the various resources.

Many resources do have some level of designation or recognition, but many of those designations offer no protection.

For example, historic resources and some scenic roads.

In other cases, protections that are in place could be refined to achieve better results, and our entrance quarters are one of those resources.

And then other resources are just challenging in themselves, like our scenic view sheds, just because of the vast size of the resource.

So the goal, objectives, and actions in this chapter outline some ways to try to tackle these challenges.

Just as a reminder, the cultural resources goal says that Albemarle County will recognize, celebrate, and promote awareness of our resources and that we will actively work to identify, preserve, and protect those resources.

This chapter has six objectives.

They address maintaining accurate surveys of our resources, educating about the resources, increasing protection through local regulations, increasing incentives,

and protecting scenic resources.

Now, one of the themes that comes through in this chapter, I think you've all probably recognized it, is that we've got a lot of resources out there.

Many of the resources overlap.

For example, there might be a historic house on rolling farmland that might be part of a historic district, might be situated along an entrance corridor or along a scenic stream, and there might be some land nearby in conservation easement.

while protecting all of our resources might not be practical.

We could look at these abundant resources more holistically and study how they're layered and see where those overlapping resources can help set priorities for what might be protected and for what sort of regulations might be most efficient.

We have a couple of specific questions for you.

One, does the commission support the concept of that overlay study?

to help set protection priorities and identify methods of protection.

Question two, does the commission support establishing regulations to protect cultural resources?

And then just generally questions on your feedback and any questions that you might have.

I think we're going to stop here and get your feedback.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

I think the first note that I took was something about could not agree more with this chapter.

It differentiates and is what makes Albemarle special and unique.

So I think all the work that you've done here I think is really helpful.

So thank you.

So why don't we start with any general questions for staff?

OK.

I'm on the committee, so we already wrestled with a lot of this stuff.

But one question I had when I was looking, I know this is objectives, but we were taught it says objective 5.3, evaluate and consider establishing a local scenic highway overlay with design standards.

And in my understanding of scenic highways in Virginia is that long ago, I think the original intent was for them to have more protections and that all got weakened a long time ago.

So that's my question is like, what can we do in terms of scenic highways?

So what this action is talking about is a local scenic highway, not a state scenic highway.

And so if we were to pursue that, we would establish local regulations.

We had local scenic highways before we had the entrance quarters.

When we put the entrance quarters in place, the scenic highway designation went away.

The thinking then was that the entrance quarter regulations would do more than the scenic highway did.

Right, because we thought we had more entrance corridors and then VDOT came and said, no, you can't have these other, you have to take the roads off your roads.

Right, that's part of it.

I'm excited.

It's a great chapter.

I really appreciate it.

I did have a question.

It was a conversation we started the first time we talked about this and that is adaptive reuse as a strategy to not only preserve but revitalize historic resources.

Didn't really see much of that in here.

I know that there was potentially some conflict with what the board might have suggested.

on adaptive reuse.

But I do think that we should consider incorporating some of that as a strategy because there's plenty of examples where you can take even a home and they turn into restaurants.

In fact, I was in Pennsylvania at a conference in Penn State and

We had dinner in an 1819 home.

Actually, it dates further back than that, but the section that we were in was 1819.

It wasn't a very fancy place.

You could tell it was historic.

It had its quarks and wasn't handicap accessible in most places, but it did have an area that could be handicap accessible.

You can certainly consider that, you know, we have great examples here of similar, Woodland Mills, obviously of an industrial historic that has been revitalized.

I couldn't agree more with my fellow commissioner with that last statement, but I do want to congratulate staff.

As I was reading through this, I thought you all did an excellent job in incorporating that past feedback and kind of rolling it up into this draft that we have in front of us here.

To answer your questions at the end, I think absolutely yes, and I think it will become increasingly important as we look at the competing priorities when you think about how does solar

play into this?

How do data centers play into this, right?

So I think those competing priorities will necessitate some kind of regulations and some parameters for us as we move to continue to protect our cultural resources.

One question I did have around

the support cultural and historic tourism.

I didn't see anything in the document around partnerships, particularly with the city or the university.

I know that probably can be a sensitive thing, but I was wondering if you could just maybe respond to that.

Definitely not on purpose.

Okay.

And then a historic preservation ordinance, and so forth.

Would that be done internally or through a consultant?

To be determined.

Yep.

And then one thing I saw was the Carl Elefante quote and just maybe provide some context on who that individual is.

Like I know who he is, but like in the in the report here, he's actually a great friend of mine, past president of the AIA.

So that was included.

And if he's a great friend of yours, you'll be able to do much better description of who he is.

But I wanted to include that quote just to get at the climate action aspect of it and just the buildings that are existing to get at the adaptive reuse issue as well.

It's a great place to start.

Sure or not, that's great.

That wasn't meaning to put you on the spot.

He's one of our past presidents.

I have to look at what year.

No problem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So,

So one of the things that occurs to me, first of all, as everyone else has said, I think this is great work.

I appreciate everything that's been done on this.

But you spoke about layers of different resources that occur in the landscape.

One of the things that when this was brought for the Natural Heritage Committee, and we had a peek at it, was that there's often an overlay also between biodiversity,

and some of these historic sites.

Some of the historic properties in Albemarle County are also some of the only sites in the county for rare plants or rare natural communities.

Yeah, I think it's definitely very closely related.

I think they should be done simultaneously if one is not a subset of the other.

I'll have more specific things later when we get into the items.

Well, you know, at this point of the day, I never know whether or not it's a clarifying question.

Well, it's a leading question, or it's a rhetorical question.

They're all that and above, right?

They're all that and above.

So we'll go on from there.

I will say that it was helpful to understand to see the history of the preservation ordinance.

But when I got to the end, I was waiting for the punch.

And so I'm assuming that it doesn't exist.

at this point.

We don't have a full-fledged.

Correct.

OK.

You're talking about the implementation part of it?

Oh, I see.

I probably have lots to say about that.

And then there was one thing that I was sort of trying to just get a better clue on is that when on page, I think it's 14, you list the certain things that have happened in our community or where they happened, where they happened,

Let me get back to the cultural resources today.

I didn't see the through line to the objective.

Well, I think there's a connection to tourism, but you're right.

So if it's to tourism, I would ask that we look broader than that, because it really is about the quality of life here.

And I don't want to do things for people who drive through here.

I want to do things for people who make their homes here.

And so that's the kind of the piece here that we're talking about is sort of what are the cultural resources that make up this place that everyone says is so grand.

And that's for us.

That's for us.

And so I like that.

I was appreciative of it, but I wanted to see how we could hang out.

Maybe this isn't the place to do it.

Maybe there's someplace else in the comp plan.

I was glad to see it, and I was struggling with where I might.

how I might be able to, in another life, speak publicly to this if I was so called to at another time in my time here.

And so there was that.

And then there's also this balance that I have to say.

So I also always come back to, and you'll help me with this, the county, so staff often has to either deal with existing ordinances,

And that's where the work that you do with the ARB is, because there's this body of ordinances that you sort of do work.

Or they often have to deal with the fact that someone's, there's a proposed or an alleged violation.

Okay, and that's how we get engaged and stuff.

And so I'm trying to figure out

if we're going to sort of go along the lines of shaping or embracing some of the historic resources here.

And I should say, I was thankful for the way you laid out the tension between some of our structures and the reasons that those structures exist.

I'm taking back to my colleague's comment about a piece we're going to see tonight.

And he talks about sort of the community that was on Morgantown Road.

and the person responded, well, you know, slavery's just always been a part of the Virginia vernacular.

Well, that's like, whoa, okay, so that's how we're gonna deal with this now.

I was like, I'm trying my best to just stay there, but that was offensive.

And so the idea of what are the cultural resources that are here, that are absolutely worthy for what they are, but they also sit here in context of something.

that we need to continue to struggle with, or continue to wrestle with, and that's all.

And so that's why I was pleased to see what you had on 14, but I was trying to figure out how do you lay that in?

And so your narrative coming into this, I thought if you can capture that somehow from the notes, I think that's a wonderful pretext about the tension that I think Albemarle County sits in.

That we have, you know, I'm thinking about the solar thing on Secretary Road where the people there didn't want their view interrupted, and their view was from a plantation house.

It's like, hello.

If you'd been here 200 years before, you would have seen people in the valley there.

Robin, and doing stuff.

And so it's just the context and the time in which these historic contexts, these historic resources sit today, I think is important for us, is important for staff and for us to deal with.

And I have some other things here, but that was, I was struck by page 14.

I was glad to see it, didn't know how we would do it.

And then I was struck by, I was particularly struck by the opening comments and sort of openly acknowledging

that this is something that we're going to have to sort of figure out how to wrestle with.

Kind of a broad scope question.

My background, bachelor's and master's degrees are in anthropology and archaeology.

So I have both an interest in kind of the current cultural, that was my main focus, but also did a little digging work over the years to make a few bucks and, you know, make sure there wasn't like a burial mound where somebody wanted to build a pipeline.

But the reason I bring that up is there's this lovely page about cultural resources today, and it's got, you know, Juneteenth and the Festival of the Book and the Film Fest and the Arts and Crafts Festival and the Ivy Creek Naturally and, you know, all these things that

In my day job, we actually are kind of help with and I'm really glad to be a part of that cultural institution around here, but there's a disconnect with the goals.

There's a disconnect between these cultural resources today and all the goals.

All the goals are just about preserving historical structures and land and I don't

know that at this late stage, there's a lot we can do about that.

But I feel like if we're talking about cultural resources, there's like literally nothing in any of the actions and objectives about sort of like helping support that sort of like the cultural things that are on this page.

And I was sort of sad about that.

And then I think the rest of my, the rest will be more discussion.

Awesome.

I just had a couple of quick questions.

One is, and I'm on page 16, you mentioned investigate legal tools for historic preservation, including a demolition ordinance.

Sure.

Some historic preservation ordinances include demolition regulations, but you could consider just doing a demolition ordinance without everything else that would be in a standard ordinance and that would give

An opportunity to, at the very least, require documentation of the resource before it's demolished, possibly charge fines for

structures that are demolished without permits and without the documentation.

It could also be something that requires the property owner to try to sell the building, to sell the property so that the resource can stay in place.

We don't have any requirements, no regulations.

It is the Historic Preservation Committee's policy to request access to the property so that committee members can document it.

4.1 mentions real estate tax incentives to encourage retention of historic structures.

Is that something that has been talked about beyond this goal or this action?

I'm just curious.

I think at this point, it's more aspirational.

OK.

4.4, establish and make available a toolbox for restoration and reuse.

Kind of getting to what, I guess, Commissioner Carrazana mentioned as well.

Do you have a framework for that?

Have you seen that used in other areas?

Grant opportunities, tax credits, things like that.

I got you.

I think it's a great idea.

Just need a place to start.

Yeah, absolutely.

I 100% agree.

I wonder if toolbox is the right word.

I'm not sure if that's definitive enough.

You may want to consider tweaking that.

Underscoring, this isn't a question, I guess, as much as just underscoring Commissioner Clayborne's comments about partnership.

On my day job, we've been working a lot on

on the Birdwood Mansion.

It's really been the partnerships with the descendants of enslaved communities, with genealogists, with Monticello, with Highland, with Ashland.

It used to be Ashland, but all those other resources have really

have been helpful.

And I don't know if there's an objective in here, maybe it's already in here, or an action that talks about building a database, some sort of a combined, you know, maybe even the county becomes a convener of these groups.

So there's an opportunity to leverage the horsepower, the work that's already been done in this area.

but that somebody is retaining that information in a central database.

And we've been using the university, so that could be an area that we could partner on as well.

It's a great question, sorry.

It was mostly a genealogical database.

Can I just add to that?

So I think it can go beyond that.

In 1.3, you talk about a GIS layer and create.

So I think that there's a lot of opportunities to also collaborate with UVA and perhaps others that have information, and you can help to build on it.

Yeah.

Great point.

And then the last question I had is on 5.6.

It talks about revising the entrance corridor design guidelines to elevate the quality of design and include corridor specific criteria.

The elevating the quality of the design piece, I mean, you know, I'm all in on it.

I just wondering how we define that and how we don't just add cost, right?

But that is, we're considering kind of

Good comment.

Great.

But aligning them with districts, I think, is a really great idea.

Yeah.

All right.

Do you mind putting your slide up with the questions that you want us to tackle?

And we can start with the first one, which is, I think, does the Commission support the concept of an overlay study of cultural resources to help protect?

How do we want to do this?

Do we want to just kind of go around and answer all of these at once?

Why don't we do that?

You're welcome.

You know, I think, again, just kind of echoing what some of the folks said earlier, I am glad to hear of the interest in focusing on modest buildings and workers' homes and the relationship with those homes and the land.

I think as far as the first one, this is kind of the objective one kind of question, you know, taking an inventory gap.

Yeah, I think it'd be great to have an inventory that's more updated.

That makes a lot of sense when it comes to historic preservation or just historical awareness of what we've got.

and educational programs too, all the parts that are in objective two, the sort of broadly speaking, letting people know what's here, having like impactful interpretive events and programs and public sites that we can visit to do all that.

We get into objective three, which is kind of the second question here, establishing regulations to protect cultural resources.

I think there for me, it's a big depends and

Given the way that some other places that look like us have weaponized historic preservation to preserve everything in amber and let nothing happen ever, I am skeptical.

You know, yeah, I do support some regulations that protect certain sites, for sure.

Yeah, narrowly tailored if it serves people today.

You know, would I support those, say, turning over 83,000 acres of the Southern Albemarle Historic District just to wholesale preservation in 83,000 acres?

I'm not so sure about that.

What I kind of see here maybe, I don't know, maybe it's just that skepticism that I'm bringing but it feels like another, like we're preserving a particular aesthetic in Amber through some of this and on top of that with 4.1 like giving tax breaks to landowners with means along the way and so that's

The sort of rough question I kind of come around to is, what are we preserving?

And a lot of it functionally is going to be that white people with means have tended to fetishize a particular aesthetic.

And what I'm reading kind of, is that here or is that something else, you know, that's actually more impactful for how people live today?

And so I think for me, fundamentally, it's this question, like, do we do we have a county that evolves and grows and serve people's needs today?

Or is it is it just going to like, put it all in?

And we can learn from our history, we can absolutely preserve certain things, and tell those stories, the good and the bad and the ugly, and we can maintain a certain

you know, pool of meaningful public historic sites, things that people actually visit and learn from and incorporate those historical understandings into the lessons and how we build a better future where the people of today can thrive.

I just don't know if that means though that like everything has to be preserved in amber.

Okay.

Awesome.

Commissioner Bivins.

So I won't, I won't, I won't, um, I will extend a bit because I think really let's start from the narrative that people have heard me over my time on the, um, on the commission, my pushback about Monticello's ability to control what's in front of it.

So we gave to Monticello, while it's not in the ordinance, but we gave the bully pulpit to Monticello to control what's seen from the mountain without extracting any taxes for it.

And that's offensive to me.

Because as I shared the numbers, if you look at Monticello's, and I'm sure people are freaking out, but it is offensive to me.

Look at their 990.

Look how much money they bring in on an annual basis.

Look at the intent of their endowment and then tell me that they should not have some obligation to be engaged with what the views and what the development of this community is besides saying we want your roof this color, we don't want you this tall, and we don't want any reflection that comes through the magnificent, the two magnificent magnolia trees that block the view anyhow when you go up there.

So for me, the piece is, when I look at this, does the commission support the concept and overlay of study and cultural resources help to protect the priorities and identify targeted methods of protection?

The answer, of course, is yes.

But then when I go to the subtext on that is, who's on the committee?

How broadly do we reach in and what are we looking at as we try to evolve and try to continue to do what we need to do?

I have said it quietly to people, but we are in the present transportation situation because Eastern and Western bypasses were blocked by very wealthy people.

A whole host of reasons are there, good, bad, or indifferent.

Today is not my time to go back and relitigate that.

But because of a certain group who made decisions based on their lifestyle, and I need to add, the western bypass would have come 200 yards from my property.

But it was OK, because it would have preserved a main street in Albemarle County.

And people wouldn't have driven down there, so they wouldn't have known I was down there.

So that would have been good.

And so my question is, at the end of the day, what are we doing?

This sort of echoes off of my colleague to my right.

What are we doing with our historic preservation?

I will say if it is in amber, we should auction it because then you can sell it as jewelry and do all kinds of things like that.

But the pieces is that we need, if we're going to sort of engage in this, I think there needs to be a reevaluation of what our shared history is.

because today it feels like our history was determined at another time and by another set of people.

And that does not feel sustainable going forward.

Those of us who remember what happened in 2017, part of what happened in 2017 in August was there was a deep conflict with what is history and what needs to be prepared and what needs to be preserved.

I don't believe that's going to go away.

And so I would like Albemarle County to be in a position to think about how we're going to have those conversations of what is our shared history.

and many of these action items do that, but my piece is not with the action items.

My piece is with the agendas that go with the action items.

Who's involved in those conversations?

How are we lifting those things up to people so that people can be involved in those and we can draw people into those and have a robust conversation?

I would say we have a couple of things that I can speak more further and more closely to, but I think for right now,

I'm good on that.

I agree that we should do this.

Can I just kind of riff off that for one second?

I mean, I completely agree.

For me, I think the definition or the

The special consideration that some of our historic resources have will

the almost, I guess there'll be more of a level playing field with this approach, which I think is the goal.

That would be good.

So you're not like looking at the president's homes and saying, okay, they're gonna get extra special treatment because you're bringing subjectivity into it, right?

You're saying they're more important for these reasons, but to your point, which was a great point, this is much more, what's the word that you used here?

comprehensive and so the in objective or I guess it's objective one

You know, the words that give me a bit of peace and I think will help with what you're saying, Commissioner Bivins, is that idea of a comprehensive inventory and then those things that are listed.

And then below that, an action one, one including but not limited to.

Right.

I mean, I will share with you that I actually shared with a number of other institutions the work that you and the Foundation have done on Birdwood.

because I was involved with Birdwood when it was just like, oh, this is still, it's a lovely place, but it's scary.

I can't even think how much money you'd have to put in this.

And so seeing that presentation, seeing a presentation about Birdwood and the adaptive use of the mansion,

and the sort of genealogical survey of the people who live there and the people who this was the place that they lived, died, were born, lived and died.

I shared that with a number of people that this is a way in which you can do, you can take a place that has to turn a profit at some point.

This is not a nonprofit thing.

This is a business that's got to turn a profit, but you can tell a story, a narrative about it that feels as if you're releasy.

some of that, you're releasing some of that burden as opposed to creating another level of burden because I was saying as we go into this, the piece for me about increasing another level of ordinances is I don't want the ordinances or I don't want, it's not for me to want or not want, I would be uncomfortable with ordinances becoming millstones around property owners.

Next.

Yeah.

That, to me, feels as if we're doing the same thing.

I'm recalling the farmer that wanted to put a cell tower out on his farm out there in Whitehall, but the people who wanted to sip wine didn't want to see the cell tower.

Well, you know, I'm real sorry.

I want that guy to be a farmer.

If we are so wedded to agriculture, I want that farm to be able to be there at the end of the day.

And so blink real hard when you sip your wine.

Yeah, and just the last thing I'll mention on that, I think it's a value proposition, I think in a sense, right?

Which is we're trying to identify the value of historic resources and what are they and how they're diverse.

And so I think that's cultural two, right?

Which is you've got cultural one, which is we're gonna document this, we're gonna think through it, we're gonna make this comprehensive.

And then you've got cultural, too, which is we're going to educate.

This is why it's important.

These are why these things are critical.

And it's not just the president's homes.

It's all of those other resources.

I think they pair up really well.

That's OK.

So first, looking at action 1.2, and I'm saying that we call out specifically black African-American cemeteries for being inventoried and protected.

And it strikes me that it's, although I think that's a very important thing, it's a noble goal, that why are we just limiting ourselves to cemeteries?

because we have these black communities.

And as you called out early in the presentation, we have these communities of living people that are equally worthy of protection and support.

And I think one of the reasons this is important is if you look at the history of what's happened to a lot of communities is that black Americans are 75% more likely to live near hazardous waste facilities compared to other racial groups.

So if we don't classify where these communities are, and we don't give them the same accord as we do other historic resources, then there's a real danger that next time there is a new chemical factory, you know where this would be a great place to put it?

Let's put it here.

I think we should put it in Whitehall.

In fact, this is not a hypothetical.

If you look at Greenwood, Greenwood has a significant population of African Americans that live in Greenwood, and there was indeed a chemical plant there that did explode and contaminate that community.

So this is something that we have dealt with as communities.

I think there should be some action items specifically in here about engaging our historic African-American communities in the rural area and asking them what their needs are.

but also taking them into consideration during things like special permit processes.

I think we often give that consideration to other historic properties.

So I think we should give that same consideration to African-American communities when they come before us.

So can I ask staff a question on that?

You specifically called out county cemeteries as an action item.

Historic Preservation Committee has been interested in

creating a database or a GIS layer of cemeteries.

And it's just been an important thing for a long time that we haven't been able to get to.

Got it.

So it's kind of an action item thing.

I think that we could find a way to emphasize that more.

Chair, I would suggest that we also put the last one in there because it would seem that 1.4, but really we're talking about what are the people who are landed here.

And so what are we doing?

I mean, I'm not trying to dismiss the work on cemetery, which there has been a lot of discussion about that across time, but also you're trying to say there's a group of peoples here that have been forgotten.

Yeah.

Yeah, I had the same thought when I just saw that one line item with the cemetery.

which is great.

There's a lot we can learn from cemeteries.

And actually I moved my church.

I'm actually in the cemetery commission.

I am.

It's really a committee, not a commission.

But it occurred to me because where I live used to be a free bend.

It's by Morgantown.

near that.

And so there was an old black schoolhouse there.

It was almost like a single room schoolhouse.

And I'm sure those are scattered all over Albemarle County.

And so we're losing those and as well as free men, all the free men buildings that there's one near where I live.

And it's in really bad state, but we're also losing

the people that had the history there.

So they can't afford to live there or pay the property taxes and they're moving.

And so we're losing that and you're gonna lose that culture.

So I would say that there is a urgency to getting this done and starting that survey, the study, the GIS mapping, and more importantly,

documenting the conversations that you have and recorded history of those that still actually have a memory of going to the schoolhouse and what some of these houses meant and their ancestors that were working in those houses, which are still there, but they're in really bad shape, some of these pre-men houses.

Thanks.

Mr. Murray, you want to keep going?

So, and then also, you know, under the second of your time belts, current cultural resources, so yeah, cultural resources today.

I think it's important to call out.

Corey, where are you?

Oh, so sorry.

It's where they have cultural resources today.

Page 14.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah, sorry.

I should have given it.

So I think one of the important things to call out are I think about Batesville, and I think about the Apple Butter Festival.

There's several, some of those that occur throughout the community about the, we have these agricultural events that still occur in our community that are very important.

and so I think that that's something that should be referenced there, you know, the importance of the Ruritans and other community organizations that, you know, host these important community events around the county.

I think that's an important thing that we should recognize.

And then jumping down to objective five, four.

So we have this thing about preserving

the scenic, the roadsides and has the appearance of county roads by establishing programs to reduce litter, which is good like that.

But there's this to maintain landscape and other vegetation.

I think we need to be very specific there.

And I think we need to, I would change that to preserve native vegetation.

because there's a real risk there that someone at some point is going to interpret that as that we need to herbicide our roadways as some other localities do.

And we do have important resources, some of which my wife and I just discovered on our roadsides that it could be wiped out if someone changes their policy about how we see roadsides.

So recognize that these are roadsides can be very important refuges for native plants and natural communities.

And then I think I mean actually the thing I'll circle back to just going back to the thing about the cultural events and these you know even things like we have the peach orchards like Charles and Henley Peach Orchard

I think it's important, you know, a lot of these communities in order to support these cultural events, they do take county resources.

Sometimes they'll need the support of police to manage traffic or they'll need other things.

I think stating up front that we're supportive of those events and maintaining those cultural traditions helps set it so when they come forward and say, hey, here's something we need, we can justify those expenses to help support the community when they need it.

I had offered most of my comments earlier in the conversation, but I'm curious around the common sense of urgency.

and with our budget that was just passed at the county, do we have a sense of how much money was allocated to some of the items that are in here?

Like, do you think we could start some of this stuff next year or is this a 2027 or we're kicking the can down the road?

Just do we have a sense that could tell us the priority level, right?

The money talks.

Okay.

You put the questions back up there.

So my comments really were focused around one and just at the study.

And yes, I agree that we should.

And as I mentioned earlier, I think there's also resources where you can partner with.

Yes to two.

I think that's

And so the only other questions that I had, I've already asked several questions that I had from reading the chapter.

I did have a question on 3.1.

establish a historic preservation ordinance with a broad view of eligibility criteria.

Can you explain that a little bit?

Yeah, that's just getting at the idea that at one point in time the focus really was on those high style architecture

Got it, got it.

But that's a good point.

An inclusive look, rich and varied.

Not the wordsmith from the dais here, but that broad view is actually kind of what freaked me out a little bit.

Well, we've had that conversation, you know, when the cell phone, cell tower overlay or whatever that was done, that Bill was doing before the supervisor, there was a lot of conversation about are we excluding, just because it's a historic district, are we just going to exclude a tower there because of title?

because this area is titled a historic resource, or we're gonna do some analysis to see whether or not, what would the impact be if a tower went in here?

So what would the, what was sort of the impact on the historic district be if we put a tower there?

I think that's the same kind of issue.

Coming alongside of that, that comes to my piece about given we have,

Given that the majority of the county's resources, financial resources, comes from residential property, from property.

Many of you have heard about the degree that I'm uncomfortable about giving tax breaks to entities that really are engaged in other kinds of behavior.

So that I would not want to minimize or I would not like to minimize the amount of funds that the county derives from its limited resources until other people are elected supervisors who will bring all kinds of economic development here.

And then when that happens, I'll sort of mitigate this.

What we're doing every time we provide tax breaks to something, we're making a decision that I don't know that's necessarily shared by the bulk of the community.

And so while I think that's a way to do it, I don't necessarily know that.

And I'm not looking at why I do believe in democracy.

I don't believe in polls.

I don't think we should poll our way through government.

And that I think that some of this, it feels, particularly in today's world, where the tax code is very complicated.

the typical person is not going to know how he or she should navigate the tax code to be able to get the appropriate level of rebates so they can do whatever it is they want to do to their farmhouse, or they can do it to their cabin.

And so I want to be real careful that we don't use the tax code to, again, give people a leg up.

You know?

So you're largely talking about action four one.

Correct.

And I'm wondering, I totally get your point, I'm wondering if even that wording is limiting

that it talks about real estate taxes.

And I think retention is fine, but revitalization is even better, and particularly if it's actually being put to

a use that's, particularly if it's a commercial use, so you're getting even more benefit from it, right?

And that, to me, that's where the adaptive reuse could potentially come in.

So you're bringing new life into the place, and you're bringing more people in there, and you're actually utilizing it for something other than a museum.

So anyway, to answer the two questions are up, yes.

Okay.

I did want to just say a couple more words about ordinance, though, and then I did actually have an additional action to suggest.

So just to just remind you all, I've said this before up here, the Historic Preservation Committee, one of the tasks we do each month is to look at the list of demolition permits.

And then we also discuss which, if any, of the resources we're going to be allowed to go and document before it's destroyed.

And that's it.

It is very disheartening.

It's like a depressing funeral march of just watching things disappear.

And I almost wish I bought my copy of Lost Virginia, that book of all the lost general stores and schools and buildings that have gone away in Virginia.

And, you know, I don't want to preserve the county in amber, but I do like amber as well.

But I just think that we have to have some way to have a little bit more teeth.

I've worked in, you know, in Charlottesville, when I was on that commission, I presided over the creation of five

I did deal with people who would say, well, I can't protect this historic structure and it's just going to fall down and it's already so far gone after we let the hole in the roof

Rain through for years on purpose.

And then in saying no, you cannot take that down.

Magically, magically, they were able to find the resources to restore it.

And today are like, look at my beautiful historic site that I had as a developer had the vision

to see the beauty of this place.

So we need some teeth in this county.

Now there are lots of different tools and different varieties of ordinance, whether it's just like a demolition permit or whether it's onto a code that requires some conservation.

In Charlottesville, we ran into the issue with where you have low income neighborhoods and people can't afford to say like a standing seam metal roof,

or gosh forbid, Slate was the historic vernacular of that.

Therefore, that's what you have to put back.

Instead, we created sort of conservation light where you could put a roof on.

Yeah, and that's great.

And you couldn't rip the front porch off, but you could modify it.

So it really relaxed a lot of the traditional Historic Preservation District standards to make it affordable and practical.

But at the end of the day, you have structures remaining, you have structures standing.

Because we will hear time and again, that can't be saved.

There's no way to make it work.

And we've heard it up here.

If I have to save that manor house or that school building or that church, it'll ruin my entire development plan.

There's no way to do it.

I disagree.

I think a lot of times there's a way to do it.

It's just not the way they want to.

I'd like to be able to tell a living history of our community by having in 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

I mean, I won't be alive in 50 years, but maybe my ghost will visit.

I'd like to be able to still understand that I'm in Albemarle County.

You know that this place has a story and to your concerns about the like the Preservation Committee and dialogues that we've had there.

We talk about historic schools and Rosenwald schools and everyday structures and even like traveler motels that you know people used to stay in when

You can only get one car ride going 25 miles an hour, and that was where the next motel was found.

And we've lost a lot of those.

So we are very comprehensive in our consideration.

So anyway, those are some of my thoughts on that.

I wanted to suggest a new additional action for the dark skies part.

which some people might wonder, why is that in there?

Well, part of our lived experience is the fact that we're not lit up.

It's so bright that we have an ordinance that does need updating.

So thank goodness, maybe we'll finally get that done.

But I also wanted to suggest we add an objective which you can word however you like, but create a community education program to discourage excessive outdoor lighting and promote dark sky friendly lighting fixtures.

because the only way that we get to talk about these fixtures is when a new development comes forward.

But most of the properties in Albemarle County are like Ted's house and Sue's store and they're not asking to redesign it or get a zoning change or a site variance.

So that lighting ordinance isn't going to come into play.

And I think people just don't know.

And I have seen, you know, where people put like a spotlight all over their house and shine it up into the sky.

You know, we have sports fields, not county owned, but that I see when I fly home at night that are brightly lit and no game is happening.

It's nine o'clock at night and the whole field's lit up all night long.

And you know, that's just awful.

So I think we need a whole campaign to get individuals to voluntarily do the right thing.

And then maybe we look for grants for

You know, helping people get better lights or whatever.

We can look at that later.

But just something that is about the private sector that wouldn't be ever coming under this new and improved ordinance.

So can we add to that, Commissioner, the idea under 6.1 that it's not just the community partners which feels like sort of that amorphous group of individuals who always say, I'll write it, I'll write it, but that there are some entities that need to be involved when you particularly, you give, you're calling out Scott Stadium when you fly home.

and that what we're really talking about is that the three jurisdictions in addition to the community partners but that the three jurisdictions should engage in sort of a vibrant way to address

The Preservation of Night Sky.

And I would also ask, could we then also include this in the, I'm afraid, but you'll know, Lonnie, what it is, the bio something chapter, because that's also talking about this, how are we shifting?

You've spoken to this elegantly before.

What are the lights, what is our lighting patterns doing to our natural wildlife?

environmental stewardship.

It's definitely for both reasons, for environmental health of our wildlife and insects and

for our enjoyment.

So we are also animals.

I mean, there's been a precipitous decline in bird populations, and particularly a lot of birds that depend on large forest blocks.

So recently, I've been hearing a whippoorwill in the mornings at my house, which is

Yeah, it was one of those birds that is in precipitous decline.

And I am absolutely sure the reason that we still have whippoorwills in Sugar Hollow is because we don't have a lot of excess lighting.

So to that point, you're in 6.1 is including LED lights.

So there's a lot of research now about how LED lights are impacting birds.

So UVA has got some research on that.

Helen Wilson in the Office of the Architect can

can provide you with some of her research on what they've been doing at UVA and what they have found because we had gone to LEDs and now we're finding that there's, and she's also very involved with bird preservation.

And also point out that we're very fortunate here, partly because we have the observatory at UVA and the experts retired and present associated with that.

But we have all these experts volunteering to bring this expertise to us for free.

So unlike a solar ordinances around solar or cell towers or data centers,

I would just note real quick, like the, you know, the ordinance or this plan, we've tried to like sort of segregate things into different chapters and not mentioned them multiple times.

Yeah.

The lighting thing does show up in the environmental section already.

And we've also mentioned it a little bit in the urban area of trying to have

A little bit more lighting, if you will, in some of these activity centers for people to be walking around.

Yeah, I think the nice part about having that is that it gets people to look at other chapters.

So, yeah, exactly.

I just want to make sure we're allowing enough time because I know we have one more piece that you guys have five minutes for.

I just want to mention a couple quick things.

One is we talked a lot about partnerships and I don't know how or where that should be in here and whether that should be in action or not, but I think it just, I can't even,

highlight that enough, the importance of that.

The other is arts.

Is there anything in here that talks about the arts?

2.7 on page 16 is where we're at here.

I think they've gone to, at the top of the page.

So, a placement program including that limit to an arts public space program.

This is unrelated to that.

But I wanted to ask if we have this picture of Finn Dowry on page eight.

And Finn Dowry is actually one of our county success stories.

working the Historic Preservation Committee, working with the owner, learning that they had this resource, new owner cajoled them, because we have no ordinance, cajoled them into restoring it to an amazing job.

So this is a case, I know you already typeset this, but there's a couple pictures maybe you could lose instead.

Vindari as it was, and Vindari as it was restored.

And that is a great argument for education, because there's an owner who's like, I don't know, what do you want me to do?

But that is actually, I think, as we were talking, that's what I was wrestling with.

There are people who would normally, let me do this properly.

If we were in other parts of the country,

There is a network of craftspeople and materials which have been, not refurbished, but that have been taken back.

I forget what that's called.

We claim that it's part of the natural part of how you do your house.

The natural part of how you do your house is not going to get something new.

The natural part of how you do your house is to find something that's a bit older.

And I can sort of share from, I live in a house that's approaching 100 years old.

The stuff that I had when I first moved into it, I can't buy anymore.

They don't, and I even go out to Crozet to the old hardware store in Crozet to try and find it.

And they laugh, they say, we don't have that anymore.

So I think part of what we're talking about is do we have the ecosystem to make it easy for people to make decisions about how they renovate their houses or how they update their houses?

Are we now being forced into a situation where we always have to go find a solution on a big box?

I think that's all part of education.

If we had a robust program, you could also have artisans and craftspersons.

They exist in this community, but you have to go digging.

But you don't know where they are.

Yeah.

I mean, I just had some brickwork done on my 1740 house.

And the first question was, do you have any old bricks already?

Thank God, yes, I do.

I have piles of old bricks.

And you would appreciate that.

My spouse says, what are we doing with the old bricks from the former fire in the fireplace?

It's like, I'm just saving them.

Yeah.

So we'd only got about 15 minutes left.

And just real quick, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to do a rewind.

I missed the narrative on this slide when we did the handoff, but I wanted to touch on these related chapters, some of which you all mentioned for the cultural resources.

So overlaps with thriving economy and our recreation tourism economy, transportation as we discussed with the roads, rural area land use, environmental stewardship as we noted with the dark skies,

as well as Parks, Recreation and Open Space because we do have some public land that preserves certain historic resources like the ivy natural area.

So I think that was really good feedback that we look to those cross chapter items and we do a good job of highlighting those.

So moving on to resilient communities, this topic, we found that there was less content in this draft chapter than other chapters.

And there was a strong overlap with other chapters, particularly the environmental stewardship chapter and the community facilities and services chapter.

So what we've done is we've taken this content and we're going to relocate it to those two chapters and that's what this crosswalk does that we provided for you.

So it explains where the content is being moved to for these subtopics.

So for this topic, the previous feedback that we've heard from you all is utilizing community hubs for disaster relief, and that would include weather-related events, leveraging FEMA funding for disaster relief, setting carbon sequestration targets as related to climate action, addressing wildfire threats, and evaluating the potential use of a fire risk overlay.

protecting trees for carbon capture and as well as flood buffers and supporting local agriculture and community gardens.

Feedback we've heard from the community that includes coordination with regional and state agencies for climate resilience which isn't you know

Confined to boundaries.

Improving disaster preparedness, utilizing those community hubs for emergency relief and disaster response.

Protection against severe weather events and droughts, flooding, wildfires.

support for local food systems and community gardens, reduction of waste and energy consumption.

So in terms of these subtopics, community resilience hubs and local food systems, these are going to be moved to our community facilities chapter.

So the relevant objectives are services and programs that benefit community health and wellbeing, as well as healthy and affordable local food systems.

And then for the content that's being moved to the environmental stewardship chapter, we have the subtopics of environmental resilience, climate adaptation and mitigation, findings and trends that detail risks and vulnerabilities, climate change and natural hazards, as well as renewable energy and solar.

And the related objective is for the preparation and recovery from natural man-made disasters,

and impacts of climate change.

So the related chapters to this topic, transportation, especially as relates to providing different modes of transportation, reducing vehicle emissions, land use, both within the development areas and rural area in terms of

Limiting sprawl, supporting rural and environmental resources, protecting those resources and utilizing efficient use of infrastructure.

Parks, recreation, open space, preservation of these natural areas and green spaces.

And for housing, locating housing in proximity to employment areas and services so that we're reducing vehicle miles traveled.

So our focus questions for this topic.

First, do you support expanding urban agriculture as a shared resource with a focus on public land?

or focusing on what is allowed on private property.

And I suppose that could be an and and not an or.

So just, you know, yeah, I just wanted your input and feedback on those aspects of urban agriculture.

Great.

Anybody want to kick us off?

I actually was just thrilled to see all of these things in here.

I can weigh in a little.

First, echoing Commissioner Firehock, I like the crosswalk and the way things have moved around.

I think including a lot of those resilience sections and environmental stewardship makes a ton of sense to me because that's sort of the new

That chapter is now not just the preservation and the carbon neutral, but actually, how do we deal with what's coming?

So I really appreciate that.

The question on urban agriculture, I like the idea.

Urban agriculture is one of those things that's cool in theory, but when land is at such a premium, it's actually not particularly efficient most of the time.

Where it's been really dynamic and robust is some

sort of marginal like floodable places like the Azalea Park Community Gardens, some other community gardens or in cities that just like have large swaths of sort of abandoned buildings and so there's a lot of land just kind of sitting there.

I don't know that where most of our development area is going to be the best candidate for this.

Let me just push back on that a little bit.

Just using our neighbor Charlottesville as an example.

And I'm probably going to get their name wrong.

I think it's the Urban Agricultural Collective.

They do some incredible work, particularly working with lower income communities that otherwise might not have access to fresh vegetables.

And so I think that that sort of effort, I think, would be very valuable in Albemarle County.

And I think, too,

On the other side, I feel like Charlottesville has really shirked its opportunity for a farmer's market, a permanent farmer's market in Charlottesville.

And if Charlottesville doesn't want it, we should consider it an Albemarle.

Because that is, you know, you look at other towns.

Once again, I'm going to cite Roanoke.

But, you know, there's other places that do have permanent farmer's markets.

And you see the economic activity that comes out of that, just sheerly the number of people it brings in.

But plus, it's a great way to

A lot of businesses start up as a little stall or a little shop in a farmer's market, so it's sort of a great incubator for the kind of, you know, startups would like to see that employ local people, that encourage local agriculture.

In the rural area, we have enough space, as you say, to have our own farm, to grow some tomatoes or corn or whatever.

But in the urban area, you don't have that space.

And I want to clarify too, I think you're right about the urban agriculture program, the nonprofit in Charlottesville.

That's also delivering a social good and an educational good, which is different from just delivering food.

If we wanted to do it more efficiently, we'd go to the store and buy a bunch of tomatoes and give them to people that wouldn't otherwise have tomatoes.

The investment is what I was talking about with the efficiency part.

But that said, the social and educational priority, yeah, that's a great good.

And if I could just extend that a bit.

So at some point, we're going to be looking at what is the programming that's going to take place around community centers.

And we're also hopefully going to have a more robust and sort of a less structured definition about what a community center is in spite of some of the uncomfortableness that that word makes from the community among our citizens.

So thinking about is that a place that not only do you do,

sort of after school sessions, or that you do this kind of thing there, or you do a plot of land that can be a community, but you start to program those in ways in which they become natural magnets to the people who are with easy distance to there.

So I would hope that we'd start thinking about that.

You know, I was trying to give some sense to, you start on page three of the previous one where you talk about green spaces.

And so I went quickly and sort of did some sort of just summing up some rough sums.

We have about 4,500 acres of parkland.

That's not including, that's not including the Hayward Track.

That's not including Buck Island.

And that's not including Arrowhead.

So if we were to include those other things, we'd have something like 5,000 acres, over 5,000 acres of parkland.

And so you're talking about how do we program those in ways?

We had some advocates for horse riding about here that came and said, we want a horse right here, we want a horse back there.

What would happen if we had advocates for gardeners?

are advocates for those types of things that came here to say, we would like to, if you could prepare something for us.

And I know this is my district, and I know this area is Sacrosanct, but also if we were to carve out a bit in sort of the Charlotte Humphries part, which sits right across the street from a bunch of people.

to say, we're going to carve out a little bit here.

If you want to do a, we want to make it a center and we want to do a garden over there, there's a bit over here for you to do a garden.

Because I think that's really in a time where we're trying to figure out where is our CPI?

How flexible is our CPI?

We're going to need to look for solutions or be able to, supervisors are going to need to look for solutions that multiply assets.

as opposed to sort of being additive to assets because of the funds.

And then the other thing if I can put onto this is, and I'm not trying to be a doogie downer, but I think we also need to think about, so when we talk about resilience, we need to also talk about discord.

Discord, discord.

I would not like us to have to do it on the sly what happened in August, 2017.

we need to be figuring out when those things start happening that we are not sort of making it up on the fly.

I had just a general question.

I don't know if it fits here or not, but when I was looking through objective one, and these are the actions to be added to the environmental stewardship chapter just made me think this is something I think Commissioner Carrazana said a while ago after an application that we saw that tapped into rural groundwater.

Remember that?

Yeah.

We had asked, since there's technology to do this, is there a way to determine the aquifers in the county so that, in fact, we're providing that kind of information?

Because it was also along the line of, given the new technology about steep slopes, because remember, we often have applicants that come to us with

Yeah.

And I think I was looking at 1.15, just in general.

It's talking about Albemarle service authority, ACSA and RWSA.

Just again, rural water resources, aquifers, mapping, those kinds of things.

All right, we are at 5 30.

Any other comments, questions on this chapter?

Anything staff would like to ask that we've missed?

Around the farm is picking up on what my colleagues are talking about in terms of community gardens and so forth.

Is there a way that we could incentivize that through just residential development, right?

Talk about tot lots and nobody uses those, what happens if?

A community garden like my neighborhood has a community garden and it's a lottery that everybody wants one there's a lottery there's not enough to go around and so you have to put your name in the hat if you're drawn you get it for three years or whatever it may be but instead of you know having requirements for top lots could that be replaced with a community garden as an option or

I'm going to put us into recess until six o'clock.

We'll reconvene at six o'clock.

Good evening, everyone.

I'll call back into session the May 27, 2025 Planning Commission meeting.

And let's, I guess we don't have to reestablish a quorum.

We have already established a quorum.

Certainly, I'd be happy to.

So Mr. Chair, as I've introduced individually to you, I'd like to introduce to the board as a whole, Jenny Tevendale.

She is our newest attorney, at least for the next week.

She may be new to our office, but she is not new to the practice of law.

She started out in James City County like I did and worked there some with the Planning Commission.

and then she's been in Albemarle County for six years before being on an extended maternity leave.

So she joined our office in April and we will be transitioning not only the planning commission, but the community development department to Jenny here in the coming weeks and months.

Great.

Thank you.

Welcome.

We're glad to have you.

All right.

So with that, I'll open it up for public comment on matters pending before the commission, but not listed on the public hearing.

And I have one on the sign-up sheet, and that is Ms.

Diane Brown-Townes.

And you probably know this, but you'll have three minutes.

When the light goes yellow, you'll have one minute left.

All right, thank you, and welcome.

Okay, I'm Diane Brown-Towns.

I reside in Albemarle County, Virginia.

Can you bring the microphone just a little closer to your face?

It's a little hard to hear you.

Move.

I am Diane Brown-Towns and I reside in Albemarle County, Virginia's Rivanna district.

I served on the county's historic preservation committee's cultural heritage and educational subcommittee from 2019 to 2022, at which time we contributed to phase one of the county's AC44 comprehensive plan.

Since my time of service on the Historic Preservation Committee, I have been conducting research studies on free and enslaved families' migratory patterns during antebellum and post-bellum American history.

I have been able to better understand more about how they contributed to the economic growth of Albemarle County since approximately 17...

64.

I return to Lane High School Auditorium today, my alma mater, to speak to you, with you, about the need for repository to highlight and preserve the history of free and enslaved people through an antebellum in post-Albemarle County and Central Virginia.

The UNESCO-rated

Museum would serve to support biodiversity by joining together historic preservation and environmental conservation.

I have a full plan outlined for the museum and prepared, quite prepared to fully engage the Rivanna planning commissions, commissioners in the planning process in its entirety.

Thank you for your time and allowing me to speak with you today.

Thank you.

All right.

Appreciate you coming.

Is there anyone else here tonight who would like to speak to matters not on the agenda?

All right.

Seeing none, I'll move on to the consent agenda.

Are there any commissioners who would like to pull any items from the consent agenda?

Second.

Any discussion?

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Aye.

Mr. Clayborne.

Aye.

Awesome.

All right.

We are cruising.

So with that, I'll move on to the first public hearing item, SP 2024-24, Spring Hill Farm Subdivision.

All right, thank you.

I'm Rebecca Ragsdale, a planning manager with the planning development review team, and I will go over this item for you this evening.

It's the Springhill Farm subdivision request, and you have seen it before in March, so I will do a little bit more of abbreviated presentation than I did and highlight the changes since then and staff's updated recommendation.

As a reminder, this property is west of Charlottesville and it's near the Ivey Interstate interchange off Dick Woods Road.

The property is over 340 acres and there are multiple access points.

That includes Grasmere Road, Dick Woods Road, and then you can see here that there are sections of Spring Hill Village that were already developed.

That includes Loblolly Lane and Spring Lane, one of which will be providing access to new lots.

There is a great deal of history associated with this parcel, but the main thing to emphasize is that the original special use permit was approved in 1981, which was a different comp plan, different ordinance back then, but the restriction on the property that has carried forward today limits the development of the remainder of the

the tract without special use permit approval.

So primarily we are focused on how it gets developed based on this unique provision of the ordinance.

There was some special use permit activity in 2000 and 2002 but those

expired in 2022.

There was a special use permit approval to allow the development of two lots, which are those lots that are off of Dick Woods Road.

So that's where those are on that portion of the track.

And the boundaries of the parcel are such as they are because of open space along Dick Woods Road and Ivy Creek.

So more specifically in terms of the natural resources of the property which has been our primary focus with the review of the concept plan was to make sure that as much area as possible was left in the conservation areas or areas that would not be developed such as the critical slopes and then again Little Ivy Creek is to the north along Grasmere and then Ivy Creek along Dick Woods Road and it

currently is primarily or entirely wooded.

This is the previous concept plan, which when we had the public hearing in March, staff had concerns about the length of driveways, the number of driveways, and the location of building sites.

We also had some discussion about how much acreage was in residential lots versus

would be under common ownership in conservation areas.

So the applicant took those concerns into consideration and has reduced the length of driveways, shifted some lots around, reduced the acreage and residential tracks, and has responded to those concerns.

Now, you can see this is not a site plan level plan, and we acknowledged in the staff report.

We don't think that will impact critical slopes, but if they should, then that would have to go through a separate process, and then we will also

formally review and act on the waiver to a single point of access.

We know a single point of access doesn't make sense given the size and the configuration of this parcel, but that was noted in the staff report.

The applicant provided a summary.

They have reduced the number of lots in residential, the total acreage from 263,

0.77 down to about 193, 194 if we're rounding up and then they have reduced the driveway links which were our primary concerns and that led to some shifting around of the lots and the building sites on the concept plan which I'll be happy to go back to if we need to

We talked in more detail about the criteria.

This is the criteria we show every time we review a special use permit because this is our focus of that review.

We don't believe there would be any substantial detriment to abutting lots.

The folks that came to the community meeting were happy with the layout and general approach to it.

There's only six residential lots that are proposed.

or Trax, if you will.

And then given the lot pattern and the character of the area, it will not, we didn't believe that would change.

We didn't identify any public health, safety or welfare issues, but we did point out that our primary goal in the rural area is not further residential development, but we believe they are

with their revised concept plan and our refined conditions of approval that I can go into in more detail that they have addressed the concerns and we're now recommending approval.

Quickly, I know these are very detailed conditions because it is residential development in the rural area.

One through five were conditions that were previously included with those two lots that I mentioned that were approved in 2022.

We added a condition that makes sure that we can review grading, we can review erosion and sediment control.

We wanted to make sure we would be able to review it regardless of whether there were any exemptions that they qualified for.

And we also

added a condition regarding driveway length.

The ordinance covers the design of driveways, but when we reviewed it with the fire marshal, they wanted to make sure that we had the ability to make sure there was adequate emergency vehicle turnaround at the end of the driveways.

With those conditions and the revised concept plan, we have recommended approval.

I think we've already noted the features of the plan in terms of the consistency with the lot patterns and addressing conservation or critical resources and increasing conservation areas.

Thank you.

That was a great refresher.

I just have a small clarification.

On condition two, when we say only one dwelling unit is permitted on each new track, does that include or exclude accessory units?

One dwelling unit.

That's why I'm asking.

It does not address accessory apartments.

Okay, okay.

That's what I wanted to find.

Yes, so in your item about stream buffers, you say that the stream buffers may be protected consistent with the county's ordinance for stream buffers.

Currently in our ordinance, we allow people to remove streams wholesale, after which we no longer enforce the stream buffers.

I assume that would not be allowed.

There are some conditions that are in addition to our ordinance in terms of what's allowed in riparian buffers and mitigation plantings and where agriculture would be, you know, additional regulations on agriculture.

I'm not, so stream buffers, I think that would be condition three.

I don't think these are streams that could be piped, but we can, before this goes to the board, we can make sure that that scenario is not

possible.

Great.

Any other questions?

All right.

Thank you.

I'm Ethan Miller.

This is my wife, Diane.

We're the owners of this property through our company, Blue Springs Land Corporation.

I'll skip most of the history you people have heard before.

Just a general 19, this property was acquired by my grandmother, Nettie Marie Jones, in 1980.

It was originally 695 acres.

She applied for, was granted special use permits in 1981, remarkably 40 plus years ago.

to divide the property into 33 lots containing approximately 153 acres plus 10 acres of roads and residue parcel approximately 531 acres.

One of the most important features of the plan was that it preserved the original Spring Hill farmhouse which dated back to the 1830s and also the acreage around the farms.

Essentially what it did, it kept the farm in the middle and put the residential building lots around the edges.

And

Mrs. Jones passed away in 1991 and my wife and I acquired the property two years later.

So we held the residue of 500 plus acres for about almost 30 years.

That's kind of remarkable.

And in 2022, as Rebecca has pointed out, we subdivided off the Southern 100 acres, which was topographically different or removed from the Springhill Farm and entered on Dick Woods Road across from Bloomfield Road.

And now in 2024, we submitted this.

which you folks saw on March 27th.

So we created a plan that had six new lots, approximately 264 acres with average lot size of 44 acres.

And the total driveway length to serve the lots was approximately 8,400 linear feet, which included 2,200 feet of existing farm road.

But in response to the, we deferred the response to the concern by the staff, as Rebecca has pointed out, we've reduced the amount of acreage in the lots by 70 acres.

So the average is now about 32 acres.

And as in the staff report, there is a requirement that the lots be at least 21 acres.

So we didn't have the flexibility to make them smaller than 21.

The other constraint that we had is that we're going to allow the residents to, since the property is mostly forested and the minimum amount of acreage for forest to qualify for land use taxation is 20 acres.

That way the residents will be able to preserve the forest if they choose to.

In any case, so we've also reduced the driveway lengths by 2,500 feet by using joint driveways.

I don't know if you put the plan on the proposed plan.

Okay, I can't see what mine is.

Okay, so what we've done is we've made a joint driveway for lots two and three from the top of Loblolly Lane.

and then a joint drive before it's now called Lots 4 and 6 from Grasmere Road.

Lot number 5 will use the, there's been an existing farm road that's been there 50 plus years, so that's not new driveway construction.

And Lot 1 will access on a right of way left on Spring Lane to the right there, in that case.

The other difference is that unlike the last plan, we've included as to the new driveway construction, which is the construction for everything except lot five, we've included the restriction on residential clearing of the two acre restriction to include the driveways.

So the total amount of driveways is going to be about one acre.

out of the total.

In sum, what this is, we think that the original plan we submitted to folks was a good plan.

We think this is a good plan too.

One of the most important things here is the resident support, as Rebecca pointed out in the staff report.

The residents of Spring Hill are, I think, overwhelmingly supportive of this plan for a number of reasons.

One is that it will preserve essentially the property the way it is now.

Of the 342 acres that remains, we're only going to use 12 acres for residential purposes.

The rest will be forest or agricultural use.

The other thing, of course, that it does is it creates hiking trails and grants ownership of the parcels around the streams, Little Ivy Creek and Ivy Creek, to the homeowners.

In response to the question of whether we would eliminate the streams, I think that's going to happen here, but well, clearly it won't.

So in any case, I don't think that's an issue.

There's no intention to do that, nor would we.

So in sum, the plan results in residential clearing of only 12 acres of the 342 acre resident parcel, leaving 96.5% of the property in forest use.

In our view, the plan balances the

the preservation of the rural character of the area, but allow some economic return from its ownership.

And of course we were happy to address the staff concerns and of course are willing to address any other concerns that the planning commission members may have tonight.

Thank you very much.

Chair, Mr. Miller, could you please come just for clarification, because I couldn't hear all of what you said.

So when you said that there's two acres, the two acres that are going to be preserved or be allowed for each lot?

Yes.

And you said one acre would be for the driveway, so that means the dwelling would be on another acre?

No, no, no.

Separate on it.

I apologize.

OK.

So what we've done is we've, I apologize, wasn't clear.

So as revised, the total length of the new driveway construction will be 3,600 feet, which is approximately one acre.

And that will serve five of the lots, one, two, three, four, and six.

I get it now.

I thought it was per lot.

It's essentially average 0.2 acres per lot.

The only distinction is lot five, which there's an existing road.

So it's not in the council.

In other words, but what I'm saying is that to the extent that you restricted the use of each of the lots to two acres then, for example, lot one,

It will count the length of the driveway.

The amount of new construction on lot one will be included in that two acres.

That makes much more sense.

Just what this does, too, again, it reduces, because it's joint driveways, it reduces to a large extent the amount of new driver construction.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Yes, sir.

I was looking at the map and thank you for the revisions.

I think it sounds like some of the concerns I heard back in March seems to do some things with them.

I was wondering about Area 1, Area 1A, Conservation Area A, Conservation Area B, sort of fair amount of acreage there.

Sure, the trails will, the areas which are, I can't see up there.

Okay, there are three areas, one and one, well area one is the area

that goes along Dick Woods Road and Ivy Creek.

And that's going to be deeded to the Spring Hill phase one lot owners, or two phases.

Phase one are the lots on Spring Lane, phase two are the lots that come off Lavoie Lane.

So the homeowners for Spring Hill phase one will own, have title two, the land along, which essentially borders their lot.

The section which is to the south of

of those lots will either be owned by them or else the two adjoining owners, probably the two adjoining owners who took the lots that are on the south, Lots 1 and 2 Uptick, one of them, presumably, will own that.

It won't be us.

In terms of the area, which I think we call it Tract 2, I think, which goes along Little Ivy Creek, that will be owned by the Phase 2 Homeowners Association.

Then there are these little conservation areas and initially they will they will be owned by by us but I think that the question for me will be which presumably would in the future will be one of these lot owners will assume ownership of those so that's our long-term plan which of those lot owners are you know maybe they'll maybe we'll create it and we decide exactly how to do it but the plan here is that that for the future only you know that the conservation areas will be owned by the lot owners.

Any other questions for the applicant?

All right.

Thank you.

And we'll open it up to the public.

Is there anyone here this evening who would like to speak to this project?

Bill, state your name and general location of residence.

We appreciate it.

I'm, excuse me, I'm John Hedges.

I'm one of the owners of the original Spring Hill farmhouse out of which the farm was developed for that phase one and phase two lots 40 years ago.

The initial plan I thought was a good one by Mr. and Mrs. Miller.

This plan before you today is also a good one.

Our property is arguably the most affected by any development.

We fully support the,

applicant, and what they're doing.

They put together a thoughtful plan.

They consulted all of us, and they've been very responsive.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else here who would like to speak to this?

All right.

All right.

With that, we will close the public hearing.

and open it up for discussion.

Thank you.

I was hesitant to offer because I figured you'd probably.

Thank you.

All right.

Well done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

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

So I'll just bring up concern I brought up last time.

So the reason with a conservation easement, for example, that the easement is held by another party is to ensure that that conservation actually happens.

So when, you know, there is actually a situation in Albemarle County, I remember PEC talking to Albemarle County and saying there was a,

a piece of park property that there was a county easement on, and then Albemarle County acquired the property.

And one of the discussions was, well, really a third party should now own that easement because now the county, the property owner and the easement owner are the same, which nullifies the easement, right?

So in this situation, if we're going to say these conservation areas are truly conservation areas, for them to be,

for them to be owned by the people that... Sorry, I'm not speaking clearly.

The ownership of the conservation areas is an issue because you don't have another party ensuring the conservation.

So effectively, they're just other lots.

There's nothing that makes them special or any different that really makes them conservation.

I assumed that the

when they eventually work this out that they'll have a deeded easement across the properties for the trail.

I heard explicitly they weren't going to be conservation easements.

And that was my concern.

Now, if there was a deeded trail easement that was owned by the HOA or by the community, that would make a lot more sense.

But it seems like without that sort of work in place, you're not really creating open space here.

Well, they are zones, if you will, set aside specifically for people to recreate on and enjoy the natural area.

So they're not just someone's lot.

But who ensures that?

Who's the party that ensures that?

Well, I would imagine all of the people who have access to those lots have a vested interest in making sure that they can continue to access those.

So if one owner decided to be naughty and put a fence up or something like that, that they would have their own

No, because it would be a deed of easement.

I mean, point taken.

Yeah.

No, Chair, I was only going to say, remember, we're not creating public space.

Right.

Right.

We're creating private community space.

Yeah.

And so at that 12th night party, the person who put the fence up is going to be really awkward when nobody talks to them.

And in a community like that, I can imagine that they do awkward really well.

Just say that I'm pleased with the changes.

I think that they work hard to address it.

And I think staff probably worked hard to try to work with them.

So I think this was a good outcome.

And I know that the applicant was a little frustrated by how long it takes and just takes in general in this county.

But I think that we got to a better outcome.

I think it's a better design.

and it uses less, it's less impactful and it will allow enough landscape for birds and butterflies and bears and people to coexist.

Although I would just sort of share in this sort of fantasy world I live in, I just had hope with the creativeness that the Millers come forward with.

It wouldn't have been nice to see these nice little, even expensive cottages there.

I would certainly sign up for that tomorrow.

That's too far.

Commissioner Firehock, in lieu of Kumbaya, would you like to make a motion?

Second.

Any discussion?

Further discussion?

All right.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Thank you all.

Appreciate it.

And we will move on now.

Just to say, I'm happy to talk to you afterwards about, I think that the issues that you raised, we can address the issue of the conservation, so we can discuss that later.

Thank you.

All right, we'll move on to SVP 2025-1, Field School.

Thank you.

It's me again, Rebecca Ragsdale, a planning manager.

How you been?

This special use permit.

So this is a very focused special use permit request and it is an amendment to one condition associated with the already approved field school on Barracks Road and the proposal is for a one-year extension to condition nine and that is the there are nine conditions associated with the special use permit that we included in your packet and those would all remain in place

and the only change is to extend the deadline from August 28, 2025 to August 28, 2026 if they need that in terms of what we heard referred to as an insurance policy.

As a reminder, the field school is approved for a site that is located west of town on Barracks Road, very close to the development area.

and the city.

It is located in the rural area and is designated rural areas in the comprehensive plan and is within an area that has a mix of agricultural open properties but also a great deal of residential in terms of either rural lot or development area residential because it's so close to the development area.

It's currently open, undeveloped with a pond and then wooded areas around the edges.

Special use permit history again, because this one not quite as long as the other one, but this special use permit was originally approved as a private school.

The school was approved in 2017 for 150 students.

and their original deadline for construction was February 2022.

They have been back to amend the special use permit condition a couple times.

The number of students has remained the same as far as maximum enrollment as 150 students as it will be as proposed with this most recent amendment.

or the one under review, the most recent amendment that was approved was approved in November of 2021 and extended the deadline to August 28th, 2025.

Again, the enrollment would remain a hundred and.

50 students.

Since then the applicant submitted a site plan in April of 2024 and that was approved in February of 2025.

They have submitted, our site plan process is two steps, so they submitted their initial which is approved and they've been actively working to seek approval of their final and their final site plan has been submitted as well.

This particular special use permit, as we said, is limited to an amendment to Condition 9 only and to extend it for one year only.

We have not found any change in character, change in circumstance, change in traffic on Barracks Road to be concerned about the one-year extension and all of the

Conditions will remain in place in terms of development in accord with the concept plan.

The site plan, initial site plan was approved and included improvements to, or excuse me, the special use permit was approved contemplating the need for turn lanes on Barracks Road and the site plan has been

demonstrated consistency with that so there hasn't been any change that's happened and we can refer to these special use permit conditions if we need to but those are all the same as are currently in place except for the change to number nine as we mentioned to extend it for one year

The conditions address not only enrollment but buffers, hours of operation, lighting, and a number of other things that address public health, safety, and welfare.

Great, thank you.

Any questions for staff?

I just had one question.

Okay, then I do have a question.

Thank you for answering, you're asking that.

So if you would help me and then those who may be listening to us tonight.

So we know you've mentioned that they have the final, they've submitted a final site plan.

I believe you have Ms.

And that also.

So let's do that.

It's a matter of months.

So there's a problem.

Let me put it another way then.

And I know we don't like to do this.

Okay, that's all.

That's all I wanted to know.

Yeah, so I'm just actually zeroing in.

Unless I heard you wrong, the end of August 2026 is what you're saying, right?

I know the applicant will come up here and will give us the explanation of life, but right now I'm trying to figure out if

If the final is in, it needs to be reviewed.

And if there's enough time given staff's obligations, if they could meet the deadline.

Because the deadline just says you need to just begin.

It doesn't even have to be finished.

Well, you know, we don't have that deadline in front of us.

And I think that this, you know, amendment is requested not only, you know, it allows them enough time so that it can become an issue.

And, you know, it doesn't, you know, it allows the review process to, you know, ample time for the review process.

But I don't, I think it, you know, we're not certain, we can't guarantee that it would happen by August 2025.

Any other questions for staff?

All right.

With that, I'll open the public hearing and ask for the applicant.

Hello.

Hello.

Just as a reminder, if you could state your name and general location of residence, that would be great.

We're very technology light school.

Thank you.

My name is Beau Perriello.

I am approaching the end of my second year as the head of field school.

We are here this evening asking for a brief extension in our existing SP as we push as fast as we can to start the building process while ensuring that we meet any and all necessary regulations.

We've had a very busy year, albeit with some setbacks, but remain committed to opening the campus for the 2027-28 school year while doing things the right way as outlined by our SUP.

For those who don't know us, Field is not a typical school.

We're only boys, only middle school, grades five through eight, making us one of only three all-boys middle schools in the country.

We have always focused just on boys middle school and will continue to do so moving forward.

We are small.

only four grades and currently 86 boys.

Natural outdoor spaces are part of the school ethos and very important to our student experience.

Our goal is to maintain as much of the natural beauty and topography of the site as possible with long-term goals of both biking and hiking trails for the boys and community.

We plan to build in phases with the first initial phase to include one building with plans for up to 95 boys with limited potential growth.

We remain committed to being good partners.

Just last week, we were able to bring our design team to the Coldhurst Homeowners Association meeting and give an update and hear concerns.

It was a very positive meeting, and the neighbors seemed overall pleased with the project, the widening of the road, the left-hand turn lane improvements, while asking us to consider additional safety improvements.

We agreed that we want the safest possible travel for our families in the community.

I want to say that we are working closely with VDOT and will follow any and all recommendations for traffic safety and flow.

We just received the data from a recently completed traffic study we had done and are happy to provide copies of the study and have already done so to VDOT and the Coldhurst homeowners.

Finally, we just want to clarify that we are not asking for anything new in this SP, just a little more time.

I do realize this project has had a long shelf life but can only speak to my time in this position and I can assure you that we have been moving with speed and purpose to get on this campus.

Over the last 12 to 18 months, we have generated a lot of momentum and continue to move forward as quickly as possible.

As an educator, we always preach lifelong learning and jumping into a building project like this has highlighted just how much I don't know.

which is why we have a great group of professionals working with us.

They include Daniel Heyer and Kendra Moon from Line and Grade, our civil engineers, Kevin Shaffer from Design Develop, our architects, along with Pete Morris from Faulkner Construction.

We also have a great group of committed volunteers running our building committee, including Wick Knox, a current parent and principal at VMDO downtown, Jay McNeely from Eagle Corps, Matt Wilkinson from Beck Cohen, along with our board chair, Will Sowers.

This building committee meets every two weeks to make sure we are consistently moving the ball forward and have been doing so for over a year now.

I also want to thank the county staff for their help in expediting the process for us.

We currently have our final site plan and Virginia stormwater management plan in for review with the initial building plan to follow in the coming weeks.

We have a potential path to completion by our sunset clause, but also know things don't always work as planned.

And this extension request is to ensure that we can stay full steam ahead on the project.

Ultimately, we are looking to start by building a one building school to house up to 95 kids on this beautiful piece of land.

We are currently in a building that is over 100 years old that we rent from Albemarle County and share with Crozet Arts.

Every time we get heavy rains, we lose a third of our classroom space, displacing faculty and students.

Technology is spotty at best, and large parts of the building are inaccessible due to asbestos.

That combined with the fact that the overwhelming majority of our families come from town make this move to Barracks Road crucial for our school community.

We are desperate to give these boys a permanent space to learn and grow.

There is no shortage of news out there highlighting that boys are falling behind educationally, so the need for a place like Field School has never been greater.

and this move will allow us to have an even larger impact on the local area.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

If you could give us if it sounds like you're making a lot of progress and that's good.

Congratulations on your tenure and the success you've had during that time.

And it seems to me that you should be able to do this at least by September, if not by December, January 1 and so I'm struggling with

I'm personally struggling with a year extension.

I'm struggling less to the end of the year.

I should just say that to you because it sounds like you're really ready to go pull a permit.

And so let's keep the pressure on you and your donors so that they get you to pull a permit.

And so I need something more than I'm having.

Well, you've not shared tonight.

why you need more time.

And so I guess that's really what I need to hear.

So I need to hear something about that.

I'm happy to take a stab at it.

Although I will quickly defer to the professionals if they pull me off the mic.

Most of this has been through conversation with the county.

We had a meeting where originally we all put our heads together.

They were trying to be very creative with us to help us.

get toward the deadline.

But we came out of that meeting having batted a lot of things around with the under the impression or feeling like the we needed to at least ask for the extension to kind of protect ourselves or hedge ourselves.

Since then, we've had an additional meeting.

They've allowed us to go into expedited review, which is helpful.

That was not the case originally.

So now we will be meeting every couple of weeks with them.

But having

I am a little new to this, but in my two years, I have found that timelines don't always hit.

And so at some level, yes, I think we have a path, but this was really just to protect the project and make sure that we can get there.

But we are.

Yes, we've got our permits in.

I know our architects are very close to submitting the foundations and footing plan, which should be in in the next week to two weeks, I believe.

So we are full steam ahead in that regard.

All right.

I actually have a question, but this may actually be more for staff.

So route 76 goes right in front of this, doesn't it?

And we don't very often get special use permits or things along that bike route.

And certainly I wouldn't want to impose a condition at this point about that.

But I don't know if that route 76 will maintain that route, but right now it is used by a cyclist.

Yeah, it's crazy that they put some national bike route down that road.

But that's where it is right now.

I know that we already have

Road widening site, widening we're adding with the turn lane additional widening there.

I also know that biking is an incredibly important part of our school and mountain biking is our biggest program.

All right.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

I will now look to the audience to see.

I have two signups to speak.

First is Robert Humphreys Jr.

and then John Hedges.

You would please come up to the mic and state your name again.

For the record, that would be great.

and you'll have three minutes to speak and when the light goes yellow, you'll have one minute left.

I'm Robert Humfors, Jr.

I live at 109 Falcon Drive in the Jack Jewett District and my property joins the school.

Good evening commissioners.

My name is Robert Humphries Jr.

and I live at 109 Falcon Drive.

My family has lived there since 1970.

I'm here tonight to respectfully but firmly urge you to deny the field school request for yet another extension on their mandatory construction start deadline for the property on Barracks Road.

This project has had more than enough time and more than enough chances.

Since purchasing the land in 2019, the school has cycled through at least three hits of school, at least two engineering firms, and has already missed two previous deadlines to begin construction.

In other words, six years and there's been little to show except turnover and delay.

When they last asked for more time, they blamed COVID and said they couldn't raise the funds.

But they had no visible fundraising effort, not even a page on their website.

Meanwhile, other local organizations like the Boys and Girls Club successfully raised millions and completed a 52,000 square foot facility during the same period.

the difference in follow through and commitment, which the field school simply has not demonstrated.

Now their latest site plan moves the entrance halfway up the eastbound hill on Diercks Road, no longer across from Magnolia Ridge, but in a more dangerous location.

Because of that, VDOT is requiring a commercial entrance, which means both a right turn and a left turn lane, expanding Diercks Road to four lanes at that spot.

That's exactly where the westbound traffic picks up speed after clearing city congestion.

This new layout introduces a hazardous traffic situation, and it's not hard to predict a future request for a school zone and a 25 mile an hour speed limit, which would significantly impact thousands of daily drivers.

Enough is enough.

This project has stalled for years.

It's already had multiple opportunities to move forward and fail.

Now it brings added safety concerns to a major traffic corridor.

I ask you not to reward inaction with yet another extension.

Please deny this request.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Thank you.

OK, we don't have John Hedges.

All right.

Would anybody else like to speak to this issue this evening?

All right.

Well, would the applicant like to come up?

I certainly want to be respectful of Mr. Humphrey's comments and concerns while highlighting that we did just complete a recent traffic study that we're happy to share.

If you all haven't seen a copy, I know the staff does.

as well as, just to reference, the amount of work that we have done in the last year to show that we have not been resting on trying to get an extension, that we are working as fast as we can on this, as evident by our site plan and our Virginia stormwater management plan.

and also just highlight what a wonderful meeting we had with the Coldhurst folks, including an email exchange I've had with Sabina Martin, the head of their homeowners association, highlighting that they felt very positive about our presentation last week and that most of the neighbors seemed very positive about us being future neighbors.

Thank you.

All right.

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

I'd like to kick us off.

Chair, I'm supportive.

I understand the condition that they've been in.

I'm struggling with a year.

I would like to offer for consideration that this process be wrapped up, since it's now an expedited review, if I heard correctly, be wrapped up by the end of this year, by January 1st, this be wrapped up.

And that gives everyone the opportunity to expedited review is a big thing for staff to go to.

So I would be

I would be amazed if this couldn't get to permits being pulled by that time, given where the applicant has told us that they are right now.

And if I could just mention something too, just for some background, I guess.

I was thinking the same thing.

So having been through this many times as an applicant, I think the intent is really what I'm looking for.

And the intent seems to be clear that the goal is to get this done sooner than later.

I think the reality is not clear.

The reality of what we've seen in applications is that not just in this county, but in other locations is that it takes much longer than you expect.

And so the other issue that's kind of a wild card from an applicant standpoint is the budget.

So as we know now, right, I mean, it seems like the faster you go, the better you're going to be able to lock down numbers quickly.

But you also might run into the situation where something comes out of left field and you can't afford it.

And so you have to value engineer it or value manage it.

So as someone who's been in that world, the value engineering should take place after you've posted your permits.

After, I'm sorry, you posted your permit.

Right.

So that's a piece of the process that I completely understand, having been somewhat involved in those kinds of entities.

I think as the condition is mentioned, it's just they need to start building.

Well, the other reality is building permits are taking a lot longer than they used to now.

And we're actually using third party reviewers to supplement.

No, we're paying for third party reviewers to supplement.

They basically review our documents, they stamp them, and then they come to the county and the county turns them around.

Because there's challenges with the timeline in terms of getting permits approved.

Oh, it's just the reality.

It used to take a month.

It takes months to get some, but that would still then I'm still deferring to letting, letting staff fit.

That's still, that still seems reasonable by the end of the year.

Well, you know, in terms of the overall process and all of the other people that are involved, you know, expedited doesn't mean we can guarantee a certain timeframe.

We have VDOT and the health department that need to review this.

They can take

You know, we can ask, but they can take the full extent that they can.

And this isn't just the site plan, there is the building permit process.

So I just don't see a reason, you know, from our perspective, a one year is

is reasonable and there's nothing that would change in a year that gives staff concern in terms of extending the special use permit one more year.

I wouldn't want to extend it for too little time and then we're back in the same position due to unforeseen circumstances.

Any other discussion?

I'll just say I'm definitely comfortable with the request.

Just looking at the slide that we have before us here, there is no reason that I see the applicant wanting to drag their feet when you look at the four bullets that are before us today.

I'll just note, I feel much more comfortable having heard from the applicant because I was concerned when I saw the applications like another year and then another year and maybe they really don't have the money for this.

So it sounds like more that it's just being, creating a safety net in case VDOT takes a long time or health department takes a long time rather than them not really being able to pull it off.

I have to agree that I was too, because I mean, there was nothing in the document that told me while.

And I have to say, I have to be honest and say, if it's about them not having the money, that's not enough to say yes for me.

Because that's not what we do.

That's what you do.

That's not what we do.

We do.

You came to us two years ago, we said, we'll give you to this date.

And so hearing from the applicant that they're trying to move ahead and that in two weeks you're gonna have all the various properties.

I mean, I would hope that this is done by this year.

I struggle and this is a big parentheses right now.

So one of the things that we hear in the community is it takes too long to get things done.

So we need to figure out

the big corporate way, how we can mitigate that language because we, the corporate we, should not be the people who say, we're going to give you more time.

That should be the applicant who is failing to be able to meet the deadlines.

The deadline should not become an anchor or a drag because we are not staffed well enough.

and so I'm saying that for the people who will hear this after we're finished that it's not it just should not be a staff liability in getting this done.

Chair, I move

So I move that we accept the recommendations as presented in the staff report and that we extend until August 26th with the sincere hope that this is finished shortly.

Yes, with a sincere hope.

With a sincere hope.

Some sincere hope in there.

All right.

We have a motion.

Great.

Any discussion?

All right.

Yes.

Here.

Yes.

Yeah, we.

Let's see.

Mr. Murray?

Clayborne, Mr. Missel, Mr. Carrazana, Ms.

Firehock, Mr. Moore.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

Appreciate your coming.

Thank you.

All right.

We will move on to item number seven, committee reports.

Yes, yes.

There's a CAC, Matt, and we had a nice little workshop actually about the, sorry, I was going to get the name wrong, the

There's a little toolkit for the sustainability action plan.

What are those things called?

But anyways, you come up with an idea about sustainability.

There's like a little grid and you break into groups.

And it was interesting to hear that everyone's ideas about different ways that we could make our community more resilient.

Oh, yeah.

Any others?

Yes, sir.

One is the CTAC MPO, the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee of the Metropolitan Planning Organization for Charlottesville and Albemarle, which is the long badge for many names.

Go with the acronym.

There's a lot of interest in the CTAC, the Citizens Advisory Committee, to actually provide feedback that's meaningful and solutions-oriented.

I think there's been a feeling the last year, year and a half, that we just kind of hear staff reports and say, oh, seems nice, or not.

And so, yeah, look at the bylaws.

You know, sort of what's the real purpose and function and looking to be a source of deeper engagement, which was really a robust, interesting discussion to be a part of.

Also quite a cool thing under the Safe Streets and Roads for All initiative that's going on applying for four and a half million dollar

Grant from the US Department of Transportation that has not had the chainsaw guy come after it.

Wow.

And it's essentially the chainsaw.

But I learned a new jargon term, VRUs, which is a vulnerable road user.

So pedestrians, bicyclists, people on scooters, whatever.

and so it would be a really cool combination of UVA engineering, applied biomechanics, UVA health and several other big key stakeholders coming together to study kind of like how to make the roads safer for all these VRUs and in turn inform our overall plan.

So that was neat to hear about.

The Rio 29, Places 29 CAC also met.

The big conversation was really around Lackland Commons, which is colloquially known as the Rio Eco-Village.

Rio who?

Well, so some of the principles behind the original Eco-Village concept are no longer with us.

And so there's a new buyer, it's a guy out in Crozet who's looking to develop it.

They came and presented about sort of a new plan for 75, I want to say, units on that sort of how many acres that is, six and a half acres.

The old school railroad, the kind of like where that big curve, if you cross Meadow Creek and the kind of big curve going uphill, it's in the curve.

That's Park Street there.

That's Park Street.

You know, there's that period home that sits well below grade.

It's right about from there.

First lot in the county, actually, yeah.

And so that would be an interesting, so basically it's a, what they're proposing is kind of a townhouse form where you kind of enter on the southern side of the lot, kind of come back around.

It also kind of curves up the hill with sort of townhouses and sort of park and native plants.

They're very, very big on native plant details and solar farm on rooftops details, a little lighter on things like road connections, but that may come to us at some point.

How far away do you think they are from coming to us?

It is not scheduled and I'm not sure.

I know the northern exit that would drop off near Stonehenge, that's kind of new developments there on Rio.

that intersection VDOT definitely did come back and say like that ain't gonna work and so that I don't know.

They also got some feedback from some of the neighbors of course that had you know things to say.

They do though have among the developer team is a very very talented sort of landscape architect who seemed to really know stuff with water.

You remember who that was?

Just a quick question on the VRUs.

Who presented that?

Not necessarily a name, but who were they with?

It was a guy with, I want to say from Applied Mechanics.

It's okay.

I can look it up.

No worries.

I think one interesting thing about that grant is that I think it's

$4.6 million with 20% local match.

And of that 20%, half of it's coming from UVA and the other half is coming from Honda.

It's coming from here, please.

From Honda, the car dealership.

That's a sort of a look at trying to deal with vulnerable users in our community.

I think there was like 80 some people between the last five years that they've classified as vulnerable users who've been in accidents.

Chair, if I could, yes, I was just asked, since we're talking about transportation and monies that have not been pulled yet, there was a public setting.

I don't know, it's not necessarily a hearing, Mr. Barnes, but there was a public gathering with VDOT last week, last Wednesday or Thursday, I can't remember, where they laid out the various projects that are either on their, that are definitely

funded and that will be completed within some x amount of time.

And I will say that as they come forward from things like the the the roundabout at District Avenue, which is if you know where Stonefield is, it's the that roundabout right there.

Another roundabout set up down 20, the reconfiguration of Fontaine Avenue.

There's a whole host of projects that I don't think we the community knows about, but that are still funded and that will move forward.

And that's just

I will just share, I was so pleased to see that level of work that will make a significant difference in the way people move around that didn't have the dollars.

So thank you very much for taking these and putting them back in our pocket.

So I do want to mention one other thing.

So before this meeting, I was able to get a tour of Albemarle County's green roof.

And one of the interesting thing is years ago, I did a native plant trial project on the green roof.

Working with county staff, we chose a bunch of plants that were native to Albemarle County that were chosen because they live in very xeric, extreme environments.

and then we put them up on trays on the county green roof and just went to see how they did.

And very interestingly, a bunch of them are still live up there.

So we have now pretty good data about which ones work the best and which ones don't.

And so that's data that if anyone else is planting a green roof, Nathan, I think you said someone's talking about green roof.

Is it going to be published on the county's website where they talk about the green roof?

Um, I don't know that.

Um, but that's a great, that's a great idea.

That is a really great idea.

Um, but I'm definitely going to compile the photographs I took today.

To answer your question earlier, I think it was a Rob Tierman.

And probably, I think Rob Timren is a local, he's at the university, yeah, but a transportation researcher.

Transportation researcher with the council there.

Yes, sir, thank you.

As far as Board of Supervisors meetings, we've had two since we last met.

One was a special session with the town of Scottsville, where they were going over the town in Scottsville and dealt with sort of

five different aspects that were pertinent to the town, including AC44, sort of the new economic development strategies plan that's being released right now, the infrastructure updates from the service authorities, both Rivanna and Albemarle, and then finally discussion of some of the fire and rescue operations there in the town.

The board also held a meeting on May 21st.

There were three presentations in the afternoon.

The first was a cost of community services study discussing sort of different types of land uses in rural areas and the relative tax rate to cost services that those types of land uses would

typically generate or cost, depending on how you look at it.

There was also a presentation of the economic development strategies plan that's being worked up right now, and a discussion of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Finally, they held two public hearings.

The first was on the county secondary six-year plan, aka the rural rustic paving program.

And the last one was an item that came in front of you all, which was the 400 Rio Road West.

That was the old telecommunications building that's being switched over for Ferguson's.

to plumbing supply.

Thank you.

Sorry, did they say yes to it?

Yeah, the meeting with the town of Scottsville was interesting if you have a chance to listen to it.

One of the questions I thought was interesting was how does the board see the town of Scottsville?

What is their relationship?

What is the board?

How do they view them?

How do they work with them?

And one of the areas that came up was tourism.

I thought it was interesting.