Planning Commission Work Session Meeting   8/26/2025

Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the August 26, 2025 meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission.

I'll read this.

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

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

So I'll begin by calling us to order and establishing a quorum.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Mr. Carrazana?

Mr. Bivins and Mr. Moore are out and Mr. Clayborne is on his way.

Great.

Thank you.

So we do have a quorum.

We are good to go.

Let me first begin by asking, is there a public comment on matters pending before the commission but not listed on this agenda?

All right.

We will move on to our third item of business, the consent agenda on the next sheet.

Consent agenda includes the approval of draft meeting minutes July 8, 2025.

Second.

Any discussion?

And Ms.

Firehock.

Yep.

Mr. Clayborne has arrived.

Good to see you, Corey.

and we will begin with the work session CCP 2021-2 AC44 comp plan final draft document and I guess I'll call attention to that number CCP 2021-2.

This is in 2021 that we all began this effort.

So congratulations on getting us this far and looking forward to conversation tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission.

It's good to be here today.

Ben Holt, Long Range Planning Division.

I'll be presenting on our draft document this evening.

So just look at what we're going to be covering tonight.

I'll do a very brief phase recap of what we did in the previous phases to get to this point.

We'll talk about what this new phase four entails.

We'll take a look at the upcoming schedule.

We'll talk about the draft document and some notable updates, and then we'll have a little discussion about the tracking and reporting, followed by questions for your feedback.

So just a preview of these questions to kick off our discussion.

This slide is again at the end of the presentation, but how we're going to kind of tee this up is what do we get right in this draft plan document and then your feedback on what may be missing or what needs addition or update.

So to look at these previous project phases beginning with phase one as noted in 2021 is when we officially kicked off.

So that phase one included our framework and within that framework we established our guiding principles to define what type of community we'd like to be over the next 20 years and those guiding principles

provide direction for the plan as a whole and then ultimately for the implementation actions and objectives.

So also during phase one, we took a look at our growth management policy and that entailed the 2022 build-out analysis to establish a baseline for growth capacity within our existing development areas and also to provide guidance for future decisions related to our development areas.

We also identified some land use topics that needed further consideration or guidance, such as rural-interstate interchanges, crossroads communities, and rural area uses.

And then in phase two, we drafted the goals and objectives for each topic chapter.

And we also focused on our planning toolkits, which was a way to coordinate land use and transportation planning, which most notably produced our activity centers.

In phase three, we drafted the actions to support the goals and objectives within each topic chapter.

And we also created implementation strategies and we developed those big moves to prioritize plan recommendations and to guide resource allocation.

And that brings us to our current phase four with a focus on final plan document.

So I'll provide a few more details about this phase in later slides.

So I thought it would be helpful to touch on phase three and talk about what preceded this draft document that we now have.

So in phase three, we drafted those actions to support the goals and objectives within the topic chapters.

So each topic chapter was previewed at work session with you all and the board of supervisors.

And that took place from late 2024 through June of this year.

And then in July, we drafted that implementation chapter and the big moves within that chapter.

As far as public engagement, we presented all these topic chapters either at an open house event or virtual meetings.

And so that brings us to phase four.

So this final phase of the project, we've now published a complete draft document of the comprehensive plan.

So that can be reviewed by the public, by the Planning Commission and board for input.

And that input will be used to update and finalize the plan document to be followed by plan adoption.

So regarding the engagement to date for this phase, we've published that draft plan document on the AC44 website.

At last check, we've had over 400 visits to this phase four web page.

And we've had approximately 100 or more downloads for parts one, two, and three of the plan.

And this new web page includes a feedback tool to gauge participants'

We also have a comment tool so folks can share input and make suggestions.

This feedback tool on the website will remain open from now until September 5th.

I'd also like to note in terms of engagement for this phase, we held our final public open house event last Thursday to share this draft plan document with the public.

We had approximately 30 attendees, which included both in-person and online participants.

At the meeting we presented this plan content and we had staff available to answer questions about the various chapters.

We previewed that feedback tool that's on the website.

We shared flyers with QR codes that connect to the website so people can spread the word and know how to access this plan document.

We received a range of comments and that included topics such as transit, development areas expansion, transitional density housing, public schools, and child care.

Looking at our phase four schedule, public input again will be received online through September 5th on the website.

And then our work sessions to review the draft content of the plan are today with you all and with the board on September 10th.

I'd also like to know that in between, we'll have a meeting with the board on September 3rd, where we'll present our updated build out analysis and that will be incorporated within the comprehensive plan as well.

So following these work sessions to review the draft plan, we will present the updated and final version of the plan at public hearings with the Commission on September 23 and with the Board on October 15, which is our projected adoption date.

So to touch on the notable edits or additions to the plan document, we've added a seventh big move that focuses on social connection and building a sense of community.

Within the growth management chapter, we've added content to our development areas utilization review and the criteria for evaluating our development area boundaries.

Within the rural areas chapter, we've added content about supporting agriculture and forestry uses, which includes distribution and aggregation facilities.

The thriving economy chapter has been updated to align with the current economic development strategic plan that's underway and it incorporates language supporting our local agriculture economy and updating that list of target industries.

For cultural resources, we incorporated board feedbacks related to actions that involved incentives and potential funding as well as identifying cultural resources.

And with the community facilities chapter, since it was one of the longer chapters, the content has been consolidated and shortened within that chapter, especially within the narrative portion.

And the transportation chapter includes additional content related to recreation on rural roads.

Regarding tracking and reporting, we will be incorporating metrics with a priority placed on monitoring trends and patterns associated with those big moves.

Example metrics could include population growth and where it occurs, tracking affordable housing units, both preserved and new, tracking cost burden households.

The metrics and tracking

will be incorporated within scorecards that will be included as part of staff reviews for individual applications and also within our regularly scheduled reporting which will likely be conducted on an annual basis.

And so that brings us to our discussion topics.

And you all can address these in whatever order you wish.

But again, what did we get right?

And then some additional feedback on what might be missing or needs updating.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody.

So just to kick us off, I think since this is a work session,

and to reiterate a little bit of what we have on the screen.

I know you all know this.

We've been through the detail.

We've looked at the objectives.

We've looked at the goals.

We've been a part of public hearings and conversations related to this.

So the way I was thinking about tonight is a way to

basically facilitate us being able to get through this material, which is quite a lot.

And also sort of thinking about ways that we can identify strengths, gaps, and priorities.

So maybe thinking about those, that sort of fits with, I think, what you're asking for here.

I would suggest if there are grammatical things, if there are typos, if there are

You know, those types of things that we take that offline and we can share those.

And I know Commissioner Firehock's already done that.

I think I've done a little bit too.

So I tried to share the edits that I made to the document, but it said staff cannot open links.

The document is so large that it only shows up as a link.

And I don't know if the county has instituted new security procedures because of our terrible summer of whatever you want to call it.

So were you able to get it and open it?

I just sent it to Ben, so he doesn't have it already.

But I got this message saying, the recipients will not be able to open a link.

Oh, this is the PDF that you had in your email?

Yes.

The comp plan is a PDF, and it's very large.

Yeah, my take is it's likely due to the file size.

There is a cap, I believe, on the files that we can share by email.

I think I, yeah.

It's interesting, I want to share it with somebody else today.

James Wilkerson, our new staff member, and it wouldn't let me share that.

Okay.

Somebody has it.

All right.

That's, I just wanted to know, cause like, I don't, I, as I said, I don't plan to sit here and be like, this word is wrong.

Okay.

And let me just stick, take one more stab at the editing stuff.

I mean, you know, it was a big document all written in house.

We've got.

Not only writing the document, preparing staff reports.

I'm not trying to apologize.

I'm just trying to explain a lot of stuff going on.

We actually have another version right now that we're going through and

We're passing around a hardline version to make sure we get all of those edits.

You know, it's much easier sometimes to read something as a paper or maybe a condition that way as opposed to online.

So we recognize that there are still some grammatical stuff in it.

We're cleaning that up.

I don't want to take any more time.

I just wanted to highlight one of the points that you made in your email, which I was going to write a similar one.

I don't need to keep piling on this.

So your suggestion about an editor, somebody coming in from the outside.

So we do that at UVA every now and then we'll bring in someone.

It's particularly people that have, and maybe you have it in staff.

I mean, sometimes you have a particular staff person that has a keen eye, but it's also the language.

There's so many voices, but there's so many voices in the document.

and so that's one of the things that I, as I read through this whole draft, you do, so just cleaning that up so it's all in the appropriate passport.

They did just hire a planner whose career was as an editor.

Particularly, they have to get involved with the process, so they have some separation.

Potentially.

You can't see your head over there.

I don't know, I'm not really apologizing, but you ask staff to write a document.

It's a lot of community to have a consultant doing.

We've been doing, it's been a three-ring circus for this team.

And I really want to like give them five-ring circus for this team.

You can imagine all the stiff ways we get pulled.

So appreciate some of those issues with the editing aspect of it.

You know, we've pulled the document together.

No, I appreciate that.

It's not going to prevent us from sharing our comments.

We'll accept that.

No, understood.

Thanks.

Why don't we wait on that?

Well, actually, why don't we do that?

So in my edits, I did flag out some ones where I said, I don't know what this objective is saying.

What is it saying?

I don't understand it.

And if I don't understand it and I'm kind of on the inside a bit, then I'm trying to imagine a member of the public trying to understand what is the county saying it's doing.

So what I'd like you all to do as you do this internal look

is to ask yourself if you read this sentence,

would you, number one, know what it's saying, but number two, could you tell if you did that thing?

It was a little, just don't take this the wrong way.

I'm just being a little bit jokey, but in some way in my head, it reminded me of Mad Libs.

Now I'm dating myself, but it's like sustainability, equity, like just grabbing these words.

And sometimes some of those things turn two words out.

And understanding everyone on staff is not a professional writer.

and it's hard for anyone to write these things, even if you are a professional writer.

So just, if you did that kind of test on each one, do I know what this is saying and would I be able to tell if I did it?

If you can't answer that question, take it back to the staff who wrote it or ask the staff what they were trying to say.

Yeah, I think that if I can piggyback on that a little bit, having as many of us have been part of the original, the last comprehensive plan and working through rezonings and neighborhoods and all those kinds of things, one thing that does strike me as an applicant is that this is much clearer in my mind in terms of the way it's laid out and the way it's structured.

and I'm preaching to the choir.

I know, I feel like sometimes we get our heads into this as planners and your point is well taken in that we need to pull back as applicants, as people who aren't in this every day, right?

So having that set of eyeglasses and just checking through that, I think is helpful.

I do have things, but in general, I think the layout, like graphically, I think it works.

I'll give a couple of thoughts and you can take them as you wish.

I'm sure you're getting a lot of thoughts.

But for the pictures, there was moments where I thought it would have been nice if there was just somewhere that says what this is, like specifically, right?

Like sometimes it says it'll say Darnton Park.

And there's other times where it's just a picture of random structures that I know they're part of our community, but it might be nice if, you know, at the bottom of the page, you know, there's an asterisk that says, okay, top right was, you know, I don't know, grit at Pan Tops or whatever, right, just to show

where it is in our community.

So that's just kind of high level.

And then the other thing that jumped out was just the colors.

And this is me as an architect, right?

Everything has to mean something.

And so as I look through, there's different color texts for captions, different color texts for headings, different text sizes and so forth.

So I would say if you use color, just make sure it means something, right?

We use this color only for chapter two for this reason.

And chapter three is for this reason.

Or this is something that stood out to me just from a presentation standpoint.

But again, nitpicky, that doesn't change the content.

Corey, can I tag onto that too?

Along those lines like with maps, there's the standard colors that we use for various things.

So you had a map of scenic roads, but the roads were blue.

And normally in a road, a river is usually blue.

Yeah, one of the things that struck me is particularly some of the newer editions, there's a lot of tentative language, like maybe, perhaps, you know, and I think that either we should be more definitive in our language, and if we can't be definitive, we should really question the inclusion of that language, those statements at all.

Because it's just, you know, I mean, I much prefer things like,

evidence suggests, or even better, the report that was from such and such date referenced here.

Yeah, I hear you.

I think in some places, there are kind of aspirational goals.

Personally, I'd have to see the context to know whether we should take them out, even though it just says we should try this.

I think aspiration is fine.

I think that there was some predicting of things that were, you know, or like statement.

I'll get to some of that language later when I quote specific sections that I think need some work.

But I think in general, just, you know, so we're talking at a very general level right now.

I'll give you an example, and I'm not going to say this exactly right, but in the Historic Preservation Chapter, it talks about communities that are certified historic.

for historic preservation.

And then it lists all of those.

And then, but when you get to the, so it seems to make a strong case, like we should pursue this.

And I'm like, yeah.

And then when I get to the objective, it's like, we should consider maybe investigating some, you know, like it's, why can't we just say we want to do that?

Let's do it.

Let's say that's, these are all goals, right?

Let's make one of them to become certified.

and maybe every one of them was directed by the board, but there's some areas where I think like metrics, for example, where we're not being specific.

And I was going to get into that a little bit later too.

Why don't we start with part one?

You guys are okay with that.

And just in general, I have just a general question for staff to kind of kick us off.

How did you foresee

constituents, general public, folks who are looking at the comprehensive plan.

Sure.

Yeah, I'm talking about right, the plan policy which starts with the navigating the plan overview comp plan process connection to other county plans, county strategic plan.

Right, right.

Right, and our intention was to provide some history and context and also some understanding for folks who are maybe new to the concept of a comprehensive plan, why we need it, what it's intended to accomplish, and then

Hey, here's our plan.

Here's how it's structured.

Here's how it's applied.

So hopefully it's easier to navigate.

And just as a small side note, I wanted to add that we intend to have a PDF where the table of contents has active links that will jump to other parts of the document.

That's great.

That was kind of what I first saw.

And actually reading through that, I thought was really cool.

It was kind of like a history of Albemarle County's plan.

I mean, it goes back to the 80s.

Yeah, the three-party agreement connects it to the university, connects it to the city.

I thought that it was a really well-written and helpful chapter.

The one thing that, while I'm talking, the one thing that popped out to me, and maybe it's in the right location, just ending with guiding principles seemed a little odd.

Yeah, and it doesn't actually tie to what's just above it.

Yeah.

Either.

Is it trying to tee up the rest of it, though?

Well, it might be.

But then again, do you want this chapter?

So maybe it should have a conclusion or some sort of an overview or some kind of a summary.

It's basically that one page, page 33, right?

I think it's 33.

Yep.

It just seems like you at least want to, if you want to have ending with the guiding principles, that's fine.

But it seems like you want to at least introduce the reader on what are the principles that are guiding this document.

Right.

I had actually flagged the entire table of contents in its order.

I felt like overview might be number one and then guiding principles and equity and climate lens felt like that followed after.

I mean, you could probably debate or argue.

how all of that stuff falls.

I felt like you'd want to kind of set the stage and then kind of work your way.

So maybe go from macro to micro.

So that was the one thing I thought Guiding Principle was so important since it guides the whole document.

I was like, why is that not part of the overview?

Like setting the stage and the climate and equity lens that we hope infiltrates all nine chapters as you continue to read on.

And then everything else kind of seems to be inferior to that.

That's the way I originally read it.

I think all the puzzle pieces are there is the question is, is it in the right order?

I appreciate what's coming.

I thought I'd ask that one question.

It's like, okay, we're thinking about the puzzle pieces to use your terms.

Good one.

You know, I agree.

I mean, I know the history pretty well, but even for myself, I was like, oh, yeah, that's right.

And then, oh, yeah, I thought it was a good layout to bring somebody up to speed who wasn't hanging around Albemarle County.

Yeah, I agree.

I think the puzzle pieces are all there to use your term.

My suggestion and the question of anything missing, again, getting back to is there a concluding section or a summary or here we go.

Like this is just part one.

We're going to summarize part one.

This is what we covered briefly.

And then we springboard out.

And then the other piece of it is, and this is kind of implied, I think, by what you were saying or just reinforcing what you were saying,

is that items like community engagement were so important to this document and it's, I still hear today people complaining that there wasn't enough community input and there weren't enough opportunities and then I see that 30 people out of 120,000 show up for a certain, you know, and not to critique our constituents but the opportunities are there, I would say that out front, right?

And then the last thing is, I know when you guys did this, you were striving for excellence.

And you looked at benchmarking other communities, and you said, how can we be leaders with this document?

So think about where you sell that at the beginning.

This is why this is such a great document.

These are the things that maybe make us stand out or differentiate us from other communities.

Jump into that a little bit, because one of the things, it's a history of Albemarle.

I think what Fred just mentioned.

So what is distinctive about Albemarle?

Some of that, it comes from the history.

And yes, the things that are talked about in that section, obviously it's a brief section because the whole thing is your brief introduction, right?

However, it doesn't really talk about what's unique.

In fact, the two things that are mentioned that really is talked about,

which are not positive are also true about a lot of communities.

They're not specific.

Those things weren't just, those policies were not really just happening here in Albemarle County.

But that's really what the focus on was there.

and so I didn't quite understand that and I think there's an opportunity to talk about the uniqueness and why are we making some of the decisions that we're making that are driven by the history, the location.

So you might want to take a look at that section because I personally I don't think you walk away with understanding any history of Albemarle.

You understand history on

on inequitable practices in land use and policies that were made.

I feel like I should say something on that too.

I mean, I think one of the things that sets us apart from Charlottesville, for example, or some other local communities, is that the big 1980 rezoning, which was not done based upon racial lines or other things, but it was done based around water.

Like when I go to other places, I go to lots of other counties and work with them.

And oftentimes people say, oh, you're an Albemarle.

Like we have a great reputation for trying to plan for growth in a way that protects our rural areas.

We are not like suburban sprawl land like some other counties.

We've worked really hard

to get to where we are.

And it's not perfect, of course not.

And there's like legacy zoning of the past and various things we are trying to overcome.

But we've worked so hard at all this debate about don't expand the development area.

And like, frankly, I haven't heard anyone up here say expand the development area, just for the record.

But

We've done a good job.

And it does talk about that in place.

Like, you know, we changed our policy and there was less development in the rural area and starting to see the growth we wanted to see in the urban area.

And now there's a bit more trickling back to the rural area, but we're kind of holding the line.

But our strong land policies are why we are different.

And that's why we have this beautiful countryside that we can

still protect.

So I don't know, maybe make a stronger case for, we have that reputation in Virginia.

So why not say that upfront?

Yeah, good.

Go ahead.

I was gonna say there are some of the points that you guys are making.

I'm just like doing a paragraph here talking about 1980 and the conference rezoning and basin of the water supply, page 22.

So we sort of did hit on some of those things.

And I appreciate your comment about sort of the racial disparity stuff that was not only unique to our county, but other places.

Here's a simple move that might make sense.

And I'm not saying this is the, and this is your, this was your idea.

So if you read the beginning of this, navigating the plan, AC44 is a policy guide for county staff and officials and a resource for community members.

The plan articulates our community vision for the future and steps we need to take to implement that vision.

That's how you open.

Versus, many attributes define Albemarle's unique character and continue to make it a desirable place to live, work, and play are nationally recognized historic landmarks, university,

scenic beauty, natural environments, and local.

That first up front seems to me to be the grabber.

Like this is why we're unique.

These are our differentiators and why we're special.

And then you move into now we'll navigate the plan and then you move into the comprehensive plan process.

Yeah, yeah, I like that.

And that's a great perspective.

Also, you could just add a section, one of the puzzle pieces could be who we are, or you can call it what you want.

It makes it sound like it's attention grabbing, right?

But who we are and starts to talk about some of that special stuff.

You could talk about demographics, right?

I don't see that in here, right?

Our county consists of X, Y, and Z, and here are the economic drivers and

We're an aging community versus not, right?

There's those kinds of things that help justify some of the decisions that were made in developing the documents.

So it could be just like who we are and what's special about us.

Yeah, and I think what Fred just mentioned, you can start with a bolder statement that is, and again, I think this also ties to the guiding principle, right?

Because of where we are, who we are,

This is what we're trying to do here.

And you just lay out the guiding principles.

So I think that's why they need to be there.

You could still have that graph graphic in page 33.

So reminding everybody again, here they are.

But at least you bring him up in that context of a bolder statement.

I do think that history should reflect some of that as well.

And again, right now, it's important to bring up the items that you bring up.

It's just that, to me, it seems like that really is all that you highlight.

When I read that, that's where you walk away with it.

I'm glad we don't have those policies again, but again, Albemarle was not the only one.

So it's not a differentiator.

It's not a, again, unfortunately, but it's part of our history.

Yeah, and I think some of these policy played out very differently in Albemarle as well because, you know, a lot of places, you know, you dealt with sort of the issue of white flight, right?

You had African American communities that were urban.

Well, you know, you had an urban situation and as African Americans moved into those, then you had, you know, white people that sort of fled those areas out to the suburbs.

That was not the case in Albemarle County because there was no

urban area to flee.

But we may have been the recipient of white flight, right?

So that was the thing that happened.

And meanwhile, there's still no real mention in the comprehensive plan of these areas in Albemarle County that were the first places where slaves were allowed to settle.

And that's still a defining trait of the rural areas, these communities where you have African Americans.

And a lot of these

A lot of these were displaced by white flight.

So it's a very different dynamic than what happened in a lot of urban areas.

Well, you guys have given us a lot to think about.

I think, I mean, for me, honestly, it's like my favorite chapter.

And so, you know, so I think part of it in, in spent a lot of time in the, uh, in, in,

Yeah, I saw it in there.

Yeah, so you've been responsive to our comments, the Board of Supervisors comments and so forth.

And they're there.

And so you can go through it and it's kind of like the nitty gritty of it.

This is really the first time that we see this intro chapter.

Fair enough.

Okay.

Sent to us.

So I take it, you know, we're, we're, it's not that we're being critical.

It's really the first time.

No, please.

I don't take it critically at all.

I think good constructive things.

So thank you for your input.

I'm sorry for saying this is very good, so just want to emphasize that for the record.

I always get nervous when I see a long list of names here, because I'm like, who did we forget?

And so this double, triple, quadruple, sync-tuple checking that everybody who's listed here is supposed to be here, right?

So one person I'd like to see added under planning commission would be our secretary, Carolyn,

Madam Secretary, is there any outside agency partners that not listed that should be, you know, UVA supposed to be on there?

I don't know.

Just throwing it out there.

But I always get super nervous when I see this.

So yeah, because once it's printed, you know, turn it back.

So just ask yourself, are you sure I want to do this?

Maybe that's the question.

Am I sure that I want to do this?

So I'll leave that there.

And then on page

I'm trying to find my notes here.

It's where we started to list out, oh, here we go on page 12.

This might be part of my ignorance, so just correct me if I'm wrong, but it says we have six area plans exist covering sections of the counties designated development areas.

And it goes on to list five bullets.

So is one of those areas having two plans or did we forget a bullet there?

We consider Rio 29 small area plan as being part of the Places 29 plan.

Got it.

All right.

Thanks.

So in page 23, I actually find this really helpful.

Others made the comments just where you outlined the comp plans.

First of all, I think it'll be helpful to have a heading on this graphic, right?

Just some kind of title on it.

Even though you have some description down below, but it's actually more of a disclaimer down below than anything else.

So it would be some kind of heading for it would be helpful.

And then I wonder if there's some takeaways that you may want to add here, because as I see it, I mean, there's been some shifts and then of course there's AC44.

and AC44 in particular.

I mean, one of the things that we're trying to really do is increase density in our development area, right?

Where you can see that the density have actually kind of gone back and forth, but they haven't been very high.

Even in 2015, we're talking about, you know, less than 10% of, you know, the high density residential.

That's part of the issue that we have now, right?

So that we're trying to, so I wonder if there's some takeaways that you may want to include here for AC44.

You know, with AC44, we're targeting certain things.

And again, to build on those guiding principles.

So this is a kind of a way that we're responding in a tangible way to the guiding principles.

and linking it back to past plans.

So I actually found this very interesting just kind of reading it through it.

And in some cases there hasn't, the needle really hasn't moved too much in a few of them they have, but not in others.

And we are trying to move that needle now.

It's actually a good springboard to the next part of the document, which is recent trends.

I mean, in my mind, I kind of want to went back and forth on that.

Do we want to, because obviously this is, you can measure what's, you know, where they had this.

I'm not sure that you have, maybe you do.

I don't know that you have this quantified as what are we anticipating with AC44?

If you do, it would be great.

But if you don't, at least some takeaways.

Or this is the same, and that's OK.

Well, part of it is a timeline question, I guess.

So in 1996, it says residential approximately one to two units per air.

It says 0%.

Sorry, is that is that debt that's land dedicated to each category?

I'm just wondering why that's 0%.

But I guess my point is, is that a snapshot in time, or is that a trend between 89 and 96?

You know, within these plans.

So this is how the plans were allocating land use zoning.

Well, I didn't I didn't understand that.

I thought it was how it was at the time of the plan or something.

What is that?

What's that be?

I mean, just a clarification.

Okay, and then, yeah, that then it would be interesting to know, and then what?

That's a map, but it's not a map of, it's a future map.

Right, right.

It's not necessarily, the way I read it was that this is the intended land use.

How it wound up, it's a different story, right?

I mean, we know that in 2015, we haven't achieved some of the densities, where we're 50% of the densities that we should have been.

What does this plan want?

And I think that then

talks to the point that we've been hammering on since the very beginning of this for three years plus is the measurables, right?

So I think that's an important piece that can tie to I think this is actually can be a very powerful and important You know just double-check with them so what this is is for each of those land-use maps future land-use maps for those plans the area in those maps Equated to that distribution of land it doesn't obviously reflect What was in on actual physical part properties at that time someone could have been vacant you know?

So I think that's about what this table can take us to.

Yeah, like, so for example, mixed use commercial, like let's just, I'm just going to pretend mixed use is more in this plan.

That's the impression I got from reading it.

So then what, but I didn't get the, I couldn't take that mapped.

I don't have it digitally to analyze.

Is it more, is it, are we going for 18% of that or staying the same?

I'm not asking to answer that.

Well, our future land use map does stay the same between 2015 and this plan.

And then also I would assume the strategies to get there because that's what we're talking about is we haven't hit our, we have our desired density and we're not getting it.

Right.

In some respects, I'm listening to you all talk and I'm like, I'm wondering if this thing is, it's not a good heading would help clarify this.

Let's talk to this because maybe we're opening up here more of an issue than I even initially thought.

When you bring up the map that it's not changing, right?

I could see the logic of that potentially.

That we want it.

What are we doing to correct that?

I mean, I know some of the language that we've talked about.

I know we could about infill sites and, and however, I think that it's an important piece because if we don't, if we do not correct, if we keep getting 50%, right.

And actually we want to exceed the densities that we had.

So while we're not changing the maps, maybe we need to think about that.

We need to, we're looking for a higher density.

Hopefully we're getting more than 10%, less than 10% in that higher housing.

Yeah, I think what you maybe would get that line for the 2015 plan, residential 2.6, 2 to 6, 12 units per acre is 30%, and from 6 to 34 is almost 10, right?

And so,

Are we, with this plan, are we taking the stuff in the orange and dropping it from 30 to 15 and for the stuff that's in the higher density residential, are we going from 10 to 25?

Can I take a shot at what you're saying?

So to me, it's two different things.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

One of them is these numbers.

These numbers are the areas within the map.

Yep.

Yep.

They just get combined.

So

One thing is to say, well, let's just simplify it.

Residential is still at, say, 50% overall, the residential uses.

They were in 2015.

They are in 2025.

but we've only achieved 58% of the development that we were anticipating in those.

That doesn't necessarily mean we increased the size of these percentages.

I think there is a conversation of should we be increasing the size of the higher end density?

And I would just say, I think as we've been discussing the plan, as we've sort of been talking with the Board of Supervisors, you know, some of the conversations we've had

It's been more of an emphasis on trying to, you know, let me put it this way.

Holding Cooper Center says we need 31,000, commonly 31,000 people in the future.

I think that the intent is to be trying majority of those people in the activity centers as opposed to some of the lower density areas shown on our plan.

And I think the idea of that those areas

Well, I guess the active word there is significantly.

If anybody's saying significantly, maybe it's if you have 9% of your high end density units, you know, 10%, should that be a 10%?

I'm questioning that now because we need to achieve more density.

We're trying to get it in every, when it seems like we all ask that question when there's an applicant in front of us that's asking for a certain amount and we're saying, have you thought about going higher?

Right?

And so how do we incentivize that?

We had a developer come back in several weeks ago and ask for more residential above commercial because they heard us chatting about this all the time and thought, hey, maybe we should go back and get more and we're like, yeah, great.

but there are things in this plan and the strategies that talk about like incentives and different things you could get more density if you do this for affordable housing or if you do this but it was like nibbling at the edges it was special situations or it it's not a bold move that will

And I've stood up here before.

I'll just be really quick.

I have said we should just pick some areas and rezone them because the development community has told us that part of the reason they don't bother is because of the onerousness of our process.

They just go ahead and go with the current zoning, even though we're saying in the comp plan, future land use map, we could go to 36 units breaker, but you still have to come in and ask for that.

You still have to get a rezoning.

and it takes more effort versus the approach that Charlottesville took.

And don't talk about their current, but 20 years ago they actually did a big rezoning and increased density in certain neighborhoods so that you could just come in and buy right and do these things.

And I would say that I think the intent is to

and these activity centers, to find the boundaries of them as we move forward and looking at ways to not only potentially incentivize, but also to lay that foundation for significant increases of density in those areas.

And to the extent that the stuff, I think, because the point I'm taking, Mr. Carrazana, is the ones in the lower two ends of this graph

Well, I just think that this is a big opportunity for us to stress the fact that in the development areas, right, because we've made a big case of we're going to keep the development area the same size.

It's not going to grow.

So if it's not going to grow, we need to densify.

That is a big move in this plan.

To me, that is the move in this plan.

I mean, there's things that we're doing in the rural areas, but in the development areas, it's a densification.

And we missed that mark last time.

If we don't learn from that, then I think we've missed the mark in AC44.

And this is an opportunity.

It's right in the front.

Use this graph and then use the big takeaways and say this is why, you know, and we didn't hit these marks.

We fell short.

Therefore, here are some of our guiding principles.

We need to be more dense in our development areas.

We have our opportunity zone development.

All the things that we're doing in the plan tie them to how can we be more dense.

To the point of being able to use this table to tell the story, I like that idea immensely.

And certainly we can do that.

Just making sure, you know, that the fine point of when you look at the future land use map,

should we have made, and people call it the ALO areas, because that tends to be the three to six dwelling unit areas, a lot of the single family neighborhoods.

Should we have made that smaller?

Should we have somehow enabled that to be rezoned to higher density, some of those neighborhoods?

We did talk a fair amount about the missing middle, right?

And we looked at those categories and I think we felt comfortable with where that was headed and that that had been

And I think that the opportunity to sort of visit that missing middle and some of those things, potentially the zoning ordinance, we will start talking about how are the regulations going to play out so that you get closer to that higher end of the three to six range.

I think there's opportunities.

There was also

The need to truly emphasize how we achieve the density is also the argument for not changing the map.

If you have a clear path on how we achieve the density, then you can say, well, we're not changing the map because we have a path, we have a way to incentivize more density and actually achieve it and not leave on the table another 42% or whatever it is that we left.

Otherwise, there's a lot of criticism and there will be more criticism, why are we changing the map?

Why are we not achieving the more density, looking at more of the missing middle?

Because we have that in places, like we have it in Crozet maybe, but not in a lot of other places.

So I just think that we really got to hit that home.

Hit it home here.

I think we have it in what we've, as you move into our growth management policies in two and three, they're there.

I still think we need to emphasize them more.

and I hear at the beginning there's an opportunity to do that.

Yeah, 100%.

So kind of one thing that just struck me is that we've been talking about the flume a lot when we're looking at this graphic.

And you've been talking about how you have links in the table of contents, like hotlinks to take you to other sections of the plan.

It might be interesting to have a hotlink that takes you from here

to the flume.

So it's kind of like this is where we've taken, this is where we were, this is where we are now.

If you're interested, you can look at this and it clicks and sends you over to that document.

And then when you get there, there's a section right after, I think this is in part three in page 26, where it talks about future land use interpretation policy.

So it kind of talks about density, it talks about

There's a section here that says density proposed by the new developments above the density range recommended by the relevant land use category.

Following factors may make proposed densities above the recommended densities range suitable.

And then it encourages, you know, the ways that you can do that.

And that should be an entry in our introductory section.

Yeah.

This is what we're trying to achieve.

Yeah.

I mean, it's in our plan.

We have the policy.

Does that make sense to everybody?

OK, great.

Good comments.

All right, let's see.

Now you threw me all off.

I won't say anything else about that.

No, no, no.

That was all good stuff.

No, that was great.

Everybody's good with part one?

All right, let's move on to part two, which I do not have in front of me here.

Any comments on part two?

That's the good segue because that's the, shoot, why is it not coming up?

Okay.

OK, so factor four on page nine, the 2022 land use build-out analysis excluded a significant acreage of properties for redevelopment based upon the criteria which precluded potential redevelopment grants and incentives.

I think we should include here something specifically about evaluating underperforming properties with excessive parking or some of the other properties have been mentioned.

I think that analysis was not adequate in terms of what we can achieve.

I also agree with SCLC that the future development area boundary section be moved to standalone planning document and not be made part of the comprehensive plan at this time.

It really feels like a work in progress.

And it was never really subjected to a review by us as the planning commission and not the same level of review as other sections and still feel, it just really feels like a work in progress.

Nonetheless, if it's to remain,

Hey Lonnie, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

I just want to make sure because I'm tracking with what you're saying.

Where does that start?

You're talking about the development areas utilization review?

Yeah, yeah.

Starting on page seven?

Yes.

I think that's where it starts, I think.

Oh, so I did have the wrong page number?

I don't know.

No, no.

I'm on the right.

We have something on the screen.

Is this what you're looking at, Lonnie?

Yes.

OK.

So I definitely say that, so Kira does talk about the development areas utilization review.

I think that my first comment was definitely related to, was related to this.

Sorry.

Correct.

OK.

Well, I guess before you go on, I don't know.

We can stop.

Yeah, let's pause there for just a second.

It says, when considering potential future changes to the development area boundaries, it's important to note there is no policy that the development area boundaries should remain unchanged.

I don't recall us.

But this is that kind of sentence that alarms people.

And it's like, are we trying to say that we are ready to change the boundaries?

Because we have no policy that we're not, so therefore we are?

I think that statement basically, I mean, I can think of examples of many of the plans we've had where the year's been reduced or slightly tweaked or added on.

The fact that the boundary itself is malleable I think is part of the policy.

Now does it go from 5% to 10%?

But it takes a comprehensive plan to change that under.

So it's saying there's no policy that we're not changing it.

And I get, I don't know if I even just said that right, but I feel like this planning commission was pretty clear that we wanted to try to stay within our boundaries so that we can't, because if we're like, hey, we can expand it.

Yeah, any, you know, we just need some rules and then we can look at it.

I'm not saying,

that we've never expanded.

But the point is that we talked about this extensively, that instead of like, I'm a developer and I think they'll probably expand it soon, so I'm going to buy up Mrs. Smith and Fred and Ted's properties on the outside and just wait.

That's driving that land speculation.

versus us saying, no, really, we're really going to try to stay in our boundaries.

So development community, you really should come to us with infill projects and density inside the boundaries.

But if we're really wishy-washy, then it's going to send the signal.

It sends the signal.

We sound wishy-washy.

It sends a signal.

that we are like, hey, we're open, bring it on.

And I hope no one quotes that, because that's an example.

But yeah, I don't like what that reads.

You could say something more factual like that the county has not currently made a proposal to expand the development boundary.

The sentence says we have no policy.

I mean, it's another example of sort of the wishy-washy language that I was speaking of before.

I mean, I think we want to set the expectations for what we want to see.

And of course, of course it can be changed.

Of course, the supervisors or others can decide that they want to change that.

Yeah, I think we were just talking about this.

So the purpose of this section is to, well, the previous section,

Well, the development areas utilization review is sort of like something we talked with the board about.

It was like guidelines to make sure we understand how we're using the development area and making sure that we're using it to be able to assess that we're how well we're utilizing it.

This next one, the future development area boundaries, we were also sort of tasked with setting a set of criteria that if we do want to change it, or in some respects, reduce it, that we would have a set of criteria.

I think that at this time, AC44, I know that the direction we've been given is we're not expanding the development areas.

and I would just say 2015 I can think of a couple places were actually added to the development area adjacent to the sea property, for example, there was a bit of land there that was added.

The 35 acres, I believe, roughly.

But it was originally proposed to be like 135 acres, I think.

I appreciate that, but I just think that there is an intent in this section

to sort of set some of the rules that would happen in the development area.

So why could we not say at this time there is no plan to expand the development areas?

If they were to be considered for future expansion, these are the types of criteria that should be considered.

And that's fine.

That's not.

Yes.

We're suggesting one thing.

What if you were to just take out that first paragraph and then start with the second paragraph?

The first paragraph to me confuses it.

And it's counter to what we were just talking about.

I mean, there's a sense there that I do like though, but I think it needs to be fixed.

I do think premature boundary revisions, once again, wishy washy language is where it says premature boundary revisions could undermine the growth management policy.

Well, it sort of says that in the second.

If you keep going down there, it does talk a little bit about that.

I think you could end that paragraph with that statement.

Many months ago, since we've been at this for years now, I sent staff the criteria that is used for the growth boundary in the Portland metro region.

They rarely change it, but they have very strict criteria, so everybody knows.

And sometimes it does make sense, and they do tweak it.

But it's all laid out very clear.

You know, as always, appreciate the feedback.

Page six, we sort of talk about the growth management policy there.

The paragraph on the bottom of the left-hand column, development area boundaries remaining unchanged.

We tried to state in that section that this particular comp plan, we're not changing the boundary.

Again, these other two sections, one was to provide guidance for how well we're doing within the development area, and the next one was to try and sort of set what you were saying that you do in Portland.

If you're going to expand it, these are the factors you need to consider.

Well, I like Fred's proposal, Chairman Missel's proposal.

to just take out the first paragraph.

I would end that paragraph, though, with the statement of a premature boundary revision will undermine.

All right.

That was great.

It was being consistent.

We agree with what you said.

Michael, you bring in those points along the way.

I just think we need to be consistent throughout the entire document.

Commissioner Murray, you're on roll.

OK.

So if we move forward, if we go to the next page here,

Okay, so here we have criteria for removing underperforming areas from the development areas.

First, I would take that first bullet and I would strike that completely.

Because if you look at, it looks like what we're saying here is that if an area is not walkable and mixed use, that we should remove it from the development areas.

That's the exact sort of place that we need to put resources into

If we look at Charlottesville, there are many places that were not walkable and were not mixed used, but are now.

And so I think that's a terrible criteria that should be removed.

The other thing that I think is very problematic is this awkward sentence.

If locations in the development areas are designated as rural area, the total acreage that is swapped to the development area should be based in part on the developable acreage of the now rural land.

First, that's some crazy word salad going on there.

I'm not even sure what that means.

But second of all, I think... Oh, sorry.

In the italic few words.

On 12.

At the very bottom.

Got it.

And so my issue with this, and this gets a part of the issue with swaps in general, is that for a swap to actually be effective, something needs to be different about that thing that it swapped before and after.

So let's take you have a riparian buffer of 100 feet in the development area.

It can't be developed now.

If we swap that to the rural area, then what's changed about it?

It couldn't be developed before, still can't be developed, nothing changed.

But if then you're adding some other place, the development area based upon that, it's just an expansion.

It's not really a swap at all.

I see what you mean.

It was undevelopable in the rural area just by swapping acre per acre.

It now makes it developable.

who actually gained more development area.

Is that what you're saying?

Well, what I'm saying is that, is actually the opposite.

and they're just making that rural area.

All you've done is change the color on the map.

And likewise, if you take someplace that already has water and sewer and say, okay, we're gonna change the color on the map and now this is rural area.

Well, all you've done is just create a nonconforming use in the rural area.

You've created a kind of suburban development with water and sewer in the rural area.

You haven't really swapped anything.

Right.

I don't even understand why we have this sentence.

I'm being very basic here, just quickly.

Why would we be taking development area and making it rural?

When would we do that?

Yeah, I think there may be reasons to add land to the world, reasons to move land to the rural area or reasons to expand the development areas, but those are two independent actions.

Yes.

They're not going to tell us a secret example that they used.

Well, I mean, I'm just, I was like, go ahead.

Yeah, right.

And several of the board members were talking about that as an area not very walkable, kind of out there and maybe removing some of that and replacing it either with developable area internal.

We also looked at a few sites that are land that's been purchased for park land sort of around Ragged Mountain that's come out.

There's a place, you're gonna probably hear about it soon on Stillhouse Mountain where somebody wants to, it's, you know, heavily,

encumbered with a lot of environmental features, mountaintop protection and so areas like that were like coming out and I think the thought was if you can take those types of areas out of the development area and put them into the rural area, we should like be able to maintain some of that.

So you would increase, you would take the development, like Rivanna Village is in the development area.

You would move that into the rural area.

that was broadly speaking the rules.

I mean, we didn't, what was it, was there, there wasn't like a, no direct analysis was formed.

No areas were nominated to come in or come out.

But generally we were, as we were talking with the supervisors, there was a lot of discussion about Rivannaville and my hesitancy.

And the more I thought about it, they did talk about it.

So I'm happy to bring that up.

And that was kind of where we were on that.

I'm not sure that that's what this is for the average reader.

So here's one thing I would maybe suggest we think about is that I don't think we're going to, well, I don't think we're going to, or we want to remove, maybe we do, or maybe some of us do, to remove the possibility of adjusting

So if there's a general consensus around that, and I think that's like, now we're talking comprehensive plan level.

We don't know exactly where we're talking about.

We're just saying that there is the possibility that might work somewhere.

And I've said to people, because people have asked me, what do you think about expanding the development?

We're adjusting it and swapping.

And my response has always been, I don't know.

I really need to see.

I think there could be reasonable locations as well, but I think part of the criteria has to be that we're not just changing the color on the map.

So that if there is a, you mentioned a property that is currently in the development area that has a lot of natural resource concerns.

Well, how many development rights does it have practically?

Something like how many houses could, if they just

Maxed out what they could do, how many units could they build there.

I think that that would be a reasonable criteria for determining if you're going to expand based upon that, what that expansion would look like.

Now, if practically they could only put two homes there in the development area because it's so mountainous and there's so many streams.

You know, are you really doing anything to just change the color in the map and now call it rural area?

But that could be a criteria.

It's not really going to achieve... ...blood plain... ...sensitive areas.

So you're not going to achieve the density, but there's someplace else within say some of the borders.

that we could achieve density and there's already growth, then how you create that flexibility on we're trading the acreage remains the same, but here's an opportunity to, and I think this reinforces the density question, right?

Or problem that we have, which is, hey, we can't really achieve the density in this 10 acres, but these 10 acres over here, we could actually achieve quite a bit of density.

Is there, you know, a trade there right now?

I don't know what the process is to do that.

I'm sure he's got to go to the, to us, to the board to, you know, but perhaps there's a, there's a process to achieve that.

And that's probably what you're trying to say that here.

But I would, I mean, I would agree with that.

Yeah.

Cause we have some spots in the growth area that you just can't build on it.

But then the question remains like, this seems like something that requires significant discussion.

This seems like something that's at the very beginning stages.

Is this even the right place for it in the comprehensive plan?

Is this really- I'd say the criteria needs to be fully fleshed out before it could occur and

but it should be done and these are some tenants to consider.

Yeah, even thinking about like the criteria, maybe this is what the SELC was saying, the criteria for removing underperforming areas from the development areas still needs to be defined.

Maybe that's a separate document.

They were suggesting doing a separate document.

I mean, I think some of the things here too, as I said, you can't, I think,

I think the risk here with this is that it could just be a expansion of the development area by another name.

In this plan, it does talk about using gross density instead of net.

So it's trying to push that, like if this property can't be developed, and you're going to swap it, but because it has floodplains and steep slopes and all that, this plan currently says you should use the gross density and nevermind all that, just how many units per acre could you fit.

Net density is less because you have to subtract out the undevelopable land.

This plan is calling for the use of gross density.

So I'm just pointing that out.

And I'm not opposed to that.

No, I'm not either.

I mean, I think we all agree that that's one way to achieve the higher density.

But perhaps, because I see your point,

But let's say that one criteria is that the growth area acreage remains the same, right?

So the development, so that the areas have to remain the same, you're close to it.

But I think the other piece would be a significant gain in density.

Right, so are you now developing an area that you can achieve significant more density than you could have in that other parcel that was, you know, more encumbered for whatever reason?

So I think there's some criteria that we could build to build the case on when you would do that, but it wouldn't be

You know, something that you would do very easily or all the time.

I think there also has to be a tangible conservation benefit of moving that property out of the development area into the rural area as well, so that you have both sides.

I would be very concerned about something like Rivanna Village.

I think we're not going to cut off their water and sewer.

So in all practical sense, there's still development area.

We're not going to say like, well, if someone's robbing your house, we're not going to send the police or if your house is burning down, we're not going to send the fire department.

So in all practical sense,

You know, just calling that rural area does nothing.

So I think that that's a, you know, I think there's got to be a tangible conservation benefit before something like this occurs.

So that there's the, if we think about the big picture, the big picture is, would there be a reasonable, potentially a reasonable timeline?

I'm going to start getting my brain around it.

That we might expand to the development area.

And if the answer seems to be yes, there might be a reasonable opportunity to do that.

I don't know.

But the

That's right.

That's what I meant.

So that was my next thing.

So if we agree with that first part, the swapping piece, then there's the criteria.

And you've been speaking a lot to the criteria, I think.

And that's expanded upon here.

It's expanded on in terms of factors and impacts and standards on the next few pages.

And some of them I think you've covered like water supply, watershed, form of development, natural boundaries.

Seems like some of what you were suggesting is already covered in there.

That's in terms of the receiving.

I'm talking about in terms of the sending.

So in terms of your taking, so I mean, one could say, for example, and I think this was even floated.

Well, we have a lot of development area that's required to be stream buffer.

where there's a lot of land that's already Biscuit Run State Park.

Do we just say, oh, well, we can just swap that land and now create development area?

The problem is that it changes nothing.

We're trying to get more density.

So if you have a property that has like, because of stream buffers, this, that, and the next thing, you could only ever fit 10 units on it.

But there's another piece of property that's flat and unencumbered with steep slopes and stream things.

So you could get 30 units on it.

It would be worth doing.

So what happens to the place that was development area that's now rural area?

What is the conservation benefit for that property?

What changes for it by making it rural area?

It doesn't necessarily it's just it's like a rock formation and still rock formation that you're trying to suggest.

I know what you're suggesting.

You're saying, if I may, that there that this is now like a it's.

It's environmentally unique or special and now it's better protected because we put it in the rural area.

Otherwise, it could just sit in the development area and nobody will develop it anyway.

So it's nix-nox.

I don't have that worry.

No, I'm not saying that at all.

I'm just saying that it can't just be a change in the color in the map.

The benefit is the additional density instead of having, I'll just call it faux development land, land that is in our boundary, but for practical purposes, you really can't build on it.

So, but how is that different from just a straight up expansion?

But you could do that anyway.

You could say, here's an area we're going to designate this development area and we're going to make it high density.

I think that the board, when they were talking about this, recognized that there were portions of the development area that they didn't want to develop.

It could be developed, but they didn't want to develop it.

Rivanna Village was one of the places they talked about.

Or it would be difficult to develop because of some sort of environmental constraints or because they've been

Out in the reservoir, there was a huge tract of land that the city bought and brought into the, out at the Ragged Mountain Park.

So you like lost some acreage there.

And I think the idea here was, I think that the board, I don't want to put too much words in their mouth, but I think that they recognized along with Karen saying is, hey, we still need some land to meet our affordability requirements and other things.

And so

if we're going to take this lands being removed from the development area and we're going to try and stay at five percent we may need to pick up some of these other areas that are maybe more suitable for development because they're not as equally constrained either environmental or political or for other reasons.

I do take your point that if the land is taken out then it's still in the jurisdictional area maybe that's something that we should put in here that maybe the jurisdictional designation should come off that property as well.

I think there should be a tangible reduction in the development potential of that land by being moved from one spot to another.

You know, there should be some change of some kind that occurs.

Otherwise, it's just an expansion.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Maybe the best way to look at it, it was a vehicle for recognizing some parts of the development area maybe aren't suitable for development.

We should take them out.

And if we do that, we probably should add some others.

Yeah, and so that gets me to my previous point that I think these are two separate things.

I think you have, there are needs to take land out of the development area in cases because it's not developable.

And that's legitimate.

And there may be cases to do an expansion.

But I think you get into tricky territory when you try to say, make equivalencies that one is actually related somehow to the other one.

Well, it's complicated because there are also going to be properties.

One comes to mind, in particular, that's 500 acres.

And of that 500 acres, it's in the development area.

It's surrounded by development area.

200 of those acres are not developable.

But you can't take those 200 acres out and put them in the rural area because they're nested in the development area, right?

We're really talking about the borders.

So maybe that's the other thing we should put in this section of something.

Yeah, it's more talk.

Michael O'Neill terms, nip and tucks.

Yeah, you know, we need to add here and out of it there more.

Yeah, because we're talking about identifying strengths, gaps, and priority issues.

I think this is a priority issue that has gaps.

Going back to page 11, and this is another sort of wishy-washy statement, it says,

There's a sentence, however, the current development areas may be unable to accommodate housing and employment needs, an issue already reflected in rising land costs and declining housing affordability.

That conflicts with earlier statements that we have that we have sufficient supply for 10 to 20 years.

It's also not a proven statement that prematurely expanding the development areas would necessarily result in housing affordability.

That's another example of the sort of wishy-washy language that I would just strike out of that.

particularly as SELC pointed out, at the time of the analysis, 14,881 residential units were in the development pipeline, well and above the high end 20 year forecast of future needs of 13,500 units.

So going down.

The other thing I think would be helpful here too is if we're looking at

Criteria for expansion of the development area.

Elsewhere in this plan, we talk about potentially looking at transfer of development rights.

I think it'd be good to have a commitment right now that if an expansion is to occur, that we use transfer of development rights to accomplish it.

What this would do, I think, it would remove the incentive for people to just buy out that land and for that land to inflate in value because we wouldn't be creating development rights out of thin air in that expansion.

They would have to purchase those development rights.

So you wouldn't be just giving a windfall to whoever owns those properties because they would have to participate in the creation of that density that occurs.

Did you all consider TDRs as part of the language?

Why don't we do this, just because we haven't even gotten to part three yet.

Well, just a really quick question.

I know that there's a purchase of development rights program.

Virginia used to have a number of counties partook of it.

There's currently not any funding in it.

Yeah.

So, but Lonnie was just talking about a developer purchasing development rights.

So that was my, that's my question.

In Virginia.

I don't know of a case of that happening.

You can transfer development rights, but you can't, a developer cannot purchase development rights from somewhere and then say, hey, I purchased these 40, they don't exist.

Now I want the county to expand this development area to fit 40 units on the edge or something.

I don't think you can do that.

Yeah, I know, but the way he said it sounded different.

So to be clear, there's a bunch of requirements that have to go into that.

The county has to designate a sending and receiving area.

And there's another part in the rural area section where it goes into more detail about that sort of thing, about some suggested sending areas and suggested receiving areas.

Purchasing rights from ascending area, correct.

Right, and just for you know everyone's memory the county had took this on

like 15, 16 years ago.

And this went on for a couple of years and they didn't succeed in making it work.

Well, why don't we, are we good with, do we still have more comments on part two?

I'm not trying to hurry us, but I was thinking we could take a break after we finish with part two.

How you doing, Commissioner Murray?

Yeah, I don't have any more on.

I think that that's what I have on that section.

Let's hear from Corey.

Yeah, let's do that.

Corey, would you mind pulling your microphone?

Yeah, super brief.

It feels like there might be some value in an image that shows the development areas and those boundaries here.

I'm sure it exists.

I remember seeing it.

and the documents here, but maybe in this section, there may be value to that.

And as I'm listening to this conversation, this might be one of those sections where less is more, like as I'm looking at it.

There are some parts that stand out to me as higher importance.

And it might be worth looking at how can you get this thing a haircut?

So that's some advice.

Well, that may be different, but the content that was put in there was

and, fair enough, there could be ways to better express ourselves or do it more succinctly, but the intent, a lot of that stuff came in through board conversation.

All right, any other comments on part two?

All right, why don't we take a eight minute recess, come back at 7.55.

Convened and we do have a quorum.

We'll continue the conversation.

And we have now moved to our part three section.

Who would like to begin?

Plan implementation.

We'll start with development areas, land use.

I guess it's overarching, Mr. Chairman.

I did agree with Commissioner Firehock's, the sentiment around what we're calling goals versus objectives versus action items.

I know I just spoke, but I only have a few.

On page 26, there's a statement that says, if portions of the property are partially designated with a recreation and open space or green systems land use category, the principal land use designation, e.g.

residential and mixed use, should be applied to the full acreage of the property for the purpose of calculating a suitable density.

Well, in principle, I agree with this in the sense of we talked about the need for additional density in the development areas.

I worry about the unintended effect that this could end up having less land being dedicated to green space by increasing the value of the land.

Absent some other mechanism, like an urban transfer of development rights policy, or as I stated later, the idea of the ability to proffer into a fund for green space,

We may just end up with less green space in the development areas by having that policy.

Because once the property value gets too high, you just remove the incentive to offer any of that back as green space.

Pages 36 through 37 speak of increasing access to nature.

One of the things I noticed in Crozet, it's kind of unique, is that it has a policy of requiring a 50 to 100 foot buffer on intermittent streams.

This resulted in more green space where community trails can be located.

And yet, Crozet still has a significant amount of density compared with other development areas.

I think it's one of the fastest growing development areas, is it not?

I think we should consider adopting research management areas and possibly an urban and transit development rights program that can protect water and provide more green space.

I think there's this idea that we think that providing more protection for streams will result in less density, but I think Crozet proves that wrong.

I think Crozet has done a very good job of creating density and also having green space.

We just need to think about how we do that and do that in a responsible way.

and I want to say an urban transfer of development rights and there's some of the best programs for this have been in places like Arlington and actually these programs work a lot better in urban areas because if you right now we have this situation where if you have an area that's a you know designated green systems you want to get part of it as a park you have to develop you know most of it and then a tiny sliver of that area that you want as a park is proffered back

But some localities have things where they say, well, if a property owner owns two different parcels, the same person owns both, then you can just transfer that.

They can transfer those development rights from the one piece they own to the other piece that they own.

And then they would have the ability to develop by right that piece they've transferred the density to.

Yeah, development areas, land use, correct.

And just kind of because you will get to we'll get to that piece of it but I don't want to skip over a bunch of stuff if there's things so it's good to maybe just restate this so bear with me so starting at the beginning on page two right we've got objectives you talk about the context

Major findings and trends.

I thought those major findings and trends were helpful.

Talks to things like reusing existing parking lots, et cetera, things like that.

And so I'm just going to roll through these.

And if you guys are like, stop there.

I mean, that's a form of development protects the natural environment while supporting our climate action goals.

It's all kind of integrated, tied together.

and then we establish the development areas, zone plan with recommendations for land use, putting the land use tools together, land use categories, community design guidelines, activity centers and employment districts.

Let's talk a minute about activity centers and land use guidance.

Any concerns or comments about activity centers?

Future land use map,

categories and designations.

I did wonder off the bat, we know that there will be links to see things, but it would really be nice to be able to make out some of that.

And I wondered if this is more of a graphic thing, if it could be chopped up into smaller pieces and blown.

I'm just talking about, yeah, the future venues map.

At this format, it's really hard to make out much of that.

I agree.

As a real estate, even better.

Thank you.

Give us a challenge.

Any concerns about any of the land use categories, green space, public land, institutional, industrial?

I probably don't remember where this is right now.

I'm sorry.

I know it's in this chapter.

into my comments somewhere, but when we're talking about office and commercial and stuff with the way I was reading, it still felt like hearkening back to like the old office parks, you know, like Peter Jefferson place where you go there and you can't get a sandwich.

You can't get any errands done.

You have to get in your car and drive, you know, or Fontaine.

Research Park, I used to work there.

It was like 20 minutes just to get down the driveway to the end.

Like, damn, I forgot my lunch.

It still felt like the old model of segregated workers are here, and then conveniences are over here.

And that was the office flex research and development light industrial section.

Page 19.

I was encouraged to see that it had residential.

Non-residential uses such as commercial, retail, and institutional.

That's kind of what you're speaking to, I guess, right?

Industrial does not have a secondary use of residential, right?

Well, light industrial, office flex research and development, light industrial does.

Most of these do.

One thing is talking it up.

Microphone.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Yeah, one of the things that I appreciate about this section is how we put in that mixed use throughout a lot of the categories, you know, not the industrial one, which is appropriate.

And we talk it up and we say the right things.

The question there again is, are we going to see the results, right?

I mean, there's the challenges of getting, that we're seeing now.

trying to get that office space or any kind of commercial space into any kind of residential or mixed use neighborhood plans that we've had that, you know, right now they're reverting back to almost pure residential and the Calada is market driven.

So it's difficult, but we should think through that and how can we help correct that curve?

If I may along those lines, when I was reading

It is emphasizing adaptive reuse or converting, you maybe have residents and you're converting it to a ground floor commercial and upper residential, but then it still brings in that thing about the firewall and all of that stuff that you have to do.

Well, no one built that building like that originally, so now it's cost prohibitive.

So if the county really wants to see that happen, is there like a small business grant or something that made it fun that somebody could do that?

that fireproof separation of floors that they have to do.

Otherwise it's just not going to happen.

Yeah.

I say this.

Yeah.

I think we all have to some degree and I say, so one is complimenting what we've done here, but I think it is a good plan.

but it goes back to, again, the measurables and not only being able to measure it, but also being able to react.

It's okay, if we're not achieving what we want to achieve, how can we curve that?

Yeah, it's an observation of real world.

And when we build in how we're measuring certain outcomes that we want to achieve, like mixed use, like, you know, more low income housing or whatever it might be, when we built in how we're going to measure this,

also be thinking about how we can measure it, but then do we have a plan to curb the outcome if it's not achieving what we want to do, the higher density that we've talked about and so forth?

Maybe related to that, I was trying to remember there was a comment, I think maybe it was by the Board of Supervisors, they were talking about the reality of

Well, I guess it was the study that said there's plenty of capacity in the development area to build out for 20 years, 15 to 20 years, but it depends on efficient and high density development.

So the build-out analysis is based on like the plan, the designations in the conference.

So he comes back and says, yeah, you've got enough to accommodate 20 years of growth.

I think Luis is sort of hammering a little bit of this stuff or coming back to the, okay, great, but how is that actually going to work?

Especially in these areas where you're really trying to create something walkable, something dense, something mixed use.

to help accomplish that.

Yeah, I think it's for everyone as we structure the plan, as we execute the plan and just keeping our eye that, hey, we've squandered a lot of density, right, from the 2015 plan.

I have kind of a parallel question related to all of this.

It's not really in the meat of the document, but it's a question for staff.

How are schools identified and reviewed and discussed within each of these land use categories?

So AC44 doesn't include specific guidance for where to locate schools.

These have been identified over a lot of those sites have been identified by the county over the years.

Sometimes that's been part of a large rezoning project.

One that comes to mind is a

North Point, there was a school site that was identified there and preserved.

I don't think they're still looking at that site in particular.

This question came up recently, we were talking about it internally with some other staff about schools guidance.

What does heavily factor into schools is the development pipeline.

That is the projects that are reviewed and approved but not yet built or are being reviewed because that increase in units

can be calculated and converted to projected student enrollment.

So our schools, they're constantly looking at those numbers to make sure that they're aware of what is coming.

And we've also had some conversations with them about the build-out analysis going back to like phase two, phase three, and what the implications are for the school systems.

Yeah, and that gets to kind of a bigger point that I guess I've been thinking a lot about and that is how are we being proactive?

So whether it's being, you know, if we're talking about how we gotta maximize density and development, are we gonna build, build, build, we gotta go higher, we gotta add square footage, et cetera, et cetera, are we keeping up with that from a transportation standpoint, from a school standpoint, from an infrastructure, water and sewer standpoint?

And how are all of those strategic plans aligned with this plan?

And how does that process come about?

Well, interestingly enough, I remember when a young planner here, the previous conference of plan at the time, had all these types of standards written into the conference of plan, whether it was, you know, how many buck-a-bouts should be on a school playground or

at least by our response times.

The model here is not do that.

These different departments, as they develop their plans, police and rescue for their response times and stuff like that.

Those are in those documents that the board works with on different timeframes than the comp plan.

They're referenced often.

You'll see that in the community facilities section.

And a lot of those are queuing off of the land use plan to sort of generate where and how much

they need to respond whether it's schools or water demand or so they were deriving a population projection from the land use plan that helps serve to sort of

That all makes sense.

I think as we think through this as a county, having the integration of those plans together,

is gonna be some, I don't know, it's not for tonight, but to look at how those are integrated and how those are connected.

So when you're talking to RWSA, you don't have an activity center that's located

That there is some kind of... There was that kind of thought that happened.

Yeah.

Great.

So you do have the transportation challenges section here.

I think that lays out some of the things that you were talking about in terms of

How do we coordinate a line?

There are different entities.

This one talks obviously a lot about VDOT.

But there is an opportunity to discuss how we coordinate and how these plans can inform one another.

So maybe some of that language.

is what perhaps is not there and in some key places, even in the first chapter or the first part, whatever.

Part one.

Part one.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's not really a chapter, it's just part one.

Perhaps some of that in terms of how the various plans, it was a transportation plan or the school plans, how they're informing one another for growth and development.

Because obviously, if we're going

If we're going to create these vibrant centers, we're going to need to have transportation that goes there.

The beauty of the links, the hot links, if there's a way to tie those together,

So you can be looking as an applicant or as a developer, whoever's looking at this, and you're looking at the relationship between centers and transportation on page 29, and you're like, okay, well, here's a connection to VDOT's six-year plan or whatever that ends up being that helps to connect those.

And I'll just say, especially for documents that are internal to the county, that's easier to do.

Documents external to the county, much harder to maintain live links that go to those.

But I will just, you know, to Mr. Carrazano's point,

Obviously you remember when we started writing this we tried to like try and keep these things as discreetly as possible so the issues could be sort of dealt with.

Transportation and land use, I mean they're so linked because the roads are to form the backbone of the land use plan so that one is

A definite integration that we wrestled with mightily if we were writing the document.

Yeah, there's other ones that are more service oriented, the public services, schools, fire, what have you.

Yep, gotcha.

So I'm on page 36, but I don't want to jump ahead.

Any other

I'm just rolling through the whole document.

I mean the one that's written on the page, the one that's in front of us.

You'll notice that the page numbering resets for the sections.

Yeah, so what section are you on?

You're still in the development area.

Development area.

And that's something we've discussed too.

Actually, I'm scrolling back to the table of content.

So.

And that was what I was speaking to just to say is that, you know, it's nice to say when we want to protect and increase access to nature.

But how do you go about that?

Right.

We need some solid methodologies for how we do that.

That's different from what we're doing now, because what we're doing now is not doing that.

So.

I mentioned some of the tools that we could use when we get in the Parks and Rec section.

I think that there's some new items that are proposed there that I think could be very useful.

So part of that is also on page 40, right?

The objectives, page 40 right there.

Yeah, exactly.

All right, moving to rural area land use.

We skipped a couple of things real quick.

I guess it'd be on page 39.

D-A-L-U-2.

I had just a recommendation to put, I'm trying to find my notes here.

Oh, living wage jobs.

So increase the number of living wage jobs for that descriptor.

I said equitably invest.

that put equity in front of that.

And then I think that is the same when it's talking about transportation.

Is that correct?

I'm flipping back and forth.

Is that talking about multimodal transportation?

Or is that D-A-L-U-4?

Sorry, I'm getting there now.

Okay, so I think it's in DALU4.

No, it's three, I'm sorry.

It's talking about multimodal transportation quite a bit and kind of pushing towards that.

It was just a question that we've talked about before around do we think we can actually get there, right?

Like when you have bus service, it takes an hour, right, to get from Point A to Walmart.

How do you actually drive folks in development to encourage or incentivize multimodal if the infrastructure is not really there in place to really support that?

So it's still a looming question.

I know we've talked about many, many times, but the language hasn't really changed.

And so am I taking that as we're just good with the way it is, or is that something that really needs to be explored a little bit deeper before we get to the final?

It puts a heavy dependency on multimodal, which to me, I take that as bus systems and transit and so forth.

And we just don't have it right now.

Well, yes, we hope we are working on that.

I mean, there's the CARTA effort at the MPO, the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority and finding ways to fund that.

Hopefully when we get to the transportation section, I think

Again, this may be the one where we bled the most between chapters, if you will, where some of the transportation stuff sort of wraps into this, because you can't have these centers if you don't have that sort of supporting transportation infrastructure.

A lot more of the details with transportation infrastructure that we hope to provide, you'd find in that latter chapter that we're going to get to in a second.

So maybe we go through that, and if there's something that you want to

It's missing here.

Maybe it's drilling down, going back to the metrics piece.

Maybe it's something there that just says, okay, this is not just a dream.

We're actually going to track it and this is how we're defining success.

I think that's the part that's really missing for that.

I think I read something about, you know, a goal or an action might be to have the ability to eliminate parking for some developments.

That ain't happening.

Not right now, right, until we get to that point.

So what does a baby step look like, right, to say that, hey, we're defining success in that way?

I think if there's ever a point to where that's really important is on being that multimodal part, because it seems so far stretched, where if it seems like it's a fantasy, I'm not even gonna pay attention to it, right?

Yeah, I would say the metrics thing has come up multiple times tonight and so we might as well just have that conversation now.

I think, you know, when we get down to the implementation section and the big moves, our strategy for

tracking whether or not we're achieving what the plan is.

It's really tracking some trends and indicators of the big moves.

The big moves are supposed to reflect the compendium of multiple actions and objectives, as opposed to creating something we track for each objective.

That there are, if you'll look through the document, there are a lot of objectives.

And for us to have

for us to have measurable indicators for each objective.

And how are we doing on that?

Frank, with you, that creates a lot of staff time.

I don't have an analyst on my staff who would just do nothing but track the metrics of stuff.

And maybe it wouldn't be his full time or her full time job, but it would be

More than time that I have allotted for my staff right now.

So we tried to do this with the big moves, sort of represent broadly over 20 years, and we're going to revisit these things, you know, we're rewriting the comp plan or sooner if we need to sort of say, hey, we're moving in the right direction.

One of the other aspects of this plan is trying to tie the

Big moves and these objectives that are in the plan and the actions with them to the Board's strategic plan.

And that has even more detailed metrics.

It's going to have that.

So when the Board says, hey, we're going to try and get these things done, those are going to have and it's been what they've been doing with the strategic plan right now.

And the SPEAR report that's associated with it, hey,

We took on this action.

It's a five-year plan.

We're supposed to be getting it.

And how are we making progress on this?

What are these things that we're working on this year?

So again, I think the strategy is to use a strategic plan where the board's actually putting money on that action to say, hey, we increased x, y, whatever it is, we achieved

and PDQ.

But for the plan itself, for the comp plan, it's the big moves and a celestial collection of vehicle miles traveled.

And are we getting that?

Is that decreasing?

You know, I look at this item here, and I think what would be really useful would be, I don't know what you'd call the multimodal dead zones, like places you cannot reach those areas by multimodal traffic.

I mean, maybe this is more a suggestion for the transportation section, but there are certain areas that you can't really leave those areas or get to those areas, and knowing where those dead zones are would be very helpful.

Can I restate a little bit of what you said, because metrics are a big part of, you know, it's been what we've been talking about, we're going to continue talking about the measurements.

So what you're saying is that from a kind of a sort of a staffing feasibility standpoint, the metrics that are being measured against the comp plan are the seven big moves.

The county is looking into more minutia in the five-year plan, the 2024-2029 plan.

And that measurement tool is partly the SPEAR report.

Yes, sir.

Right?

So just mapping all that out.

And the SPEAR report just came out on Wednesday, right?

And to be able to use this document to help feed the strategic plan is something we've been really working a lot with the Office of

to try and make that happen.

Look, go back to our last plan, 900 pages, so many actions.

You almost have to like, where do you start with something like that?

Yeah.

And so I think, you know, we're trying to actually try to make this more actionable.

I agree.

Yeah, I think that all makes sense and I figured there was a reason behind the 2024-2029 strategic plan tying into the primary year that this was being drafted, right?

There were things that were probably learned from each.

I would suggest that maybe we not lose track of

Even though we're looking at the big moves that we not lose track of other things that we want to measure.

And even if we don't have the capacity, the staffing capacity, at least we have a list.

And on that list, we could prioritize those.

And maybe some of them are already in the strategic plan, and we're good.

But there may be some that pop out that might be worth considering that we're not actually tracking, right?

So they're there.

We're aware of them.

And we've come up with a list of, you know, it's not just one or two things for each big move.

It's a basket of stuff.

We have a list of that.

And I think our real intent is to try it.

Look, first of all, do we agree that these are the seven?

We had a seventh at it, you know, a little bit ago.

So, you know, I don't know if we get to the end of this.

Is there eight now or do we take one away?

Whatever might happen, we need that.

to adopt the plan.

We're there and we're going to work on those metrics to really try and make sure that there are things that are representative of those big moves.

So one that, not to jump his head to the next category of rural area protection, but one that stood out to me was the dark sky.

That's one thing I really appreciate about where we live is the work that's been done by the county and by the university to maintain a dark sky.

here, but there's really no kind of metric that measures like a standard or anything that really kind of helps us identify that here.

Maybe there would be in the zoning ordinance that maybe there would be somewhere else, but just thinking about that as one example, and we don't have to skip all the way down, sorry, Ben or whoever's doing that, but just that's one example in my mind that should be at some point measured, right?

I wanted to share this page.

Dark Skies is mentioned in multiple places, one of those being the cultural resources chapter.

There's an image here that represents the Bortles scale, so that's the brightness of the nighttime sky.

I get your point in talking about metrics.

When it comes to something like dark skies, there are measurements that you can take to evaluate how we're doing in different areas.

You talked about tree cover, which is great.

You can measure tree canopy.

So that could be a future goal to measure.

If we want the development areas to be livable and attractive, then they should have good tree cover.

So we could map the tree cover in those areas and then measure it over time.

Is it gaining?

It's in there.

It's like ragu.

Yeah.

As we were working back and forth on our, I'll have to give you this much.

We're trying to be, we've heard this a lot, and I personally think it's important.

If we don't have metrics, how do we know?

whether or not the goals we put in the plan, we're moving them forward.

So we appreciate that.

And we do appreciate it.

A lot of these things are here because we've been talking about it for a long time and you guys have been incorporating it.

Appreciate that.

I would say, because it can get overwhelming, right?

If you're going to measure everything, how many staff do you have and you got a lot of other stuff to do.

You do have partners that are actually very capable in this community.

So I do think that you should look at that.

I mean, the university is probably, we're doing some of that as well in terms of our dark skies and that can be expanded.

We have students that could do these things.

So there are resources out there and I would just

and these would be some great projects, even student projects.

And so anyway, just something to keep in mind.

It's not all, it doesn't all have to be static.

So moving on to rural area land use, which we've kind of already gotten into.

I was just going to say, starting on page two, I'm OK with all this, all the objectives.

These are fine.

I don't know if anyone had any other issues.

I'm on page four.

So there's a map.

I thought it was on rural area.

Actually, maybe it was page two.

Can you go back to page two?

Did I have it wrong?