Planning Commission Regular Meeting   9/30/2025

Great.

Good evening, everybody.

And welcome to Planning Commission meeting of September 30th, 2025.

and I'll just read a few introductory comments before we establish a quorum.

During the public hearings, the commission will only acknowledge speakers addressing the items listed for the public hearing.

Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes per public hearing item.

Applicants are limited to a 10 minute presentation of the proposal and are allowed a five minute rebuttal of the close of the public hearing.

Speakers are determined on a first come first serve basis.

The speaker may include a visual or audio presentation provided that the presentation is received by the clerk at least 48 hours before

From the public session, which the speaker plans to speak, the time limits set forth herein should not include any time during which applicant or other speakers responded to questions asked by the commission.

Timekeeping is conducted by our amazing clerk.

In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the Planning Commission requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

When called, state your name, address, and magisterial district.

Address comments directly to the Planning Commission as a whole.

If you exceed your allotted time, you'll be asked to end your comments.

If the speaker does not use all allotted time, the unused time may not be shared with another speaker.

All comments are recorded and published on the Albemarle County website.

So with that, let's establish a quorum.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Here.

Great.

Thank you.

So we have a quorum.

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

Would anybody like to speak to a matter not listed on the agenda this evening?

All right, seeing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda.

Would any commissioners like to pull the item from the consent agenda?

The draft meeting minutes September 9th, 2025.

If not, may I hear a motion?

So moved, Chair.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Great.

Any discussion?

Thank you.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Great.

With that, I will open the public hearing.

and we will begin with and actually end with as well since the only public hearing item CPA 2021-2 AC44 comp plan update final document recommendation and if I might before staff rolls just to give us a little bit of a roadmap for this evening

It's a little bit, it's interesting, you know, we've been, as we'll hear from staff, we've been working on this for what, three years now or so?

So there's been lots of, four years, thank you, but who's counting, right?

There's been a lot of opportunity, obviously, for public input and as you can imagine,

In advance of this public hearing, we've received additional public input just over the last day or two.

And so staff has done a great job of assembling those for us in a sort of summary document.

And in addition to reviewing that, we will also have, obviously, open public comment this evening as part of the public hearing.

And we'll be taking into consideration those comments shared this evening as well.

what we'll be doing as a commission is we'll be obviously listening to all of the public comment as we're going forward as we're hearing take notes on those things that really rise to the service surface as items you as a commissioner would like to

would like to champion.

And so we will then, after the closing of the public hearing, go through that list, essentially, your list and then also some of the comments that have come in over the last few days and have an opportunity to summarize briefly what we would like to see in terms of, if any, amendments to the comprehensive plan.

Staff will then take those down and summarize those together.

We'll get our heads together.

We might take a short recess.

We'll get our heads together and then we'll come back and we'll review that list of summary amendment recommendations that will then be forwarded to the Board of Supervisors.

Sound right?

Sound good to everybody?

All right.

So I think I would probably stress brevity but completeness as we do that, but we'll get there in just a minute.

So with that, let's open it up for staff to present the staff report.

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

First of all, Ben Holt, I'm with the Long Range Planning Division, and I'll be presenting tonight.

And we'll keep this pretty brief, this staff presentation, so that we allow plenty of time for public comment and for you all to share your feedback as well.

So we'll be covering, we're going to take a look at the upcoming schedule again and I'll give a brief recap of the project phases for the benefit of our audience just to remind the process to get to this point.

We'll also talk about major points of emphasis with AC44 and some of the differences

between this plan and the 2015 plan.

I'll then review some of the notable changes made to the draft document, followed by some details of plan implementation before we open our discussion period.

So in terms of the schedule, we began this current phase four with an initial draft document that was published in August, shortly followed by an open house to the community members that was held on August 21.

Then we went into our work sessions to review this draft document with both the Planning Commission and the board.

So we met with you all on August 26.

We then took it to the board on September 10th and we did not finish our work session discussion with the board so we're actually having a continued work session tomorrow.

And that brings us to our public hearings, of course, with our Planning Commission hearing today, and then we have one scheduled with the board on October 15, which is our anticipated adoption date.

I'd also like to note that the effective date of this comprehensive plan would be January 1, 2026, and I'll get into that a little bit more later.

So that brings us to the four project phases.

In phase one, we began with public engagement to acquire community priorities for the plan and establish a vision for AC44.

That was captured in our AC44 framework, which included the four guiding principles.

And those were created to provide direction for the rest of the project, as well as the plan content.

In phase one, we also reviewed our existing growth management policy to ascertain what aspects were needed to provide updated guidance for both the development areas and the rural areas of the county.

We also completed our 2022 build-out analysis to establish a baseline for growth capacity within the development areas.

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

And we also developed our planning toolkits to provide coordinated guidance on land use and transportation planning.

And that in turn produced our activity centers.

In phase three, we drafted actions to support topic goals and objectives.

And we also developed our big moves to guide plan implementation.

So now in phase four, we are drafting and refining the plan document as we approach adoption of AC44.

We also recently completed the 2025 build-out analysis that will be incorporated into the plan appendix.

And this phase, of course, will conclude with the public hearings to review and adopt the final plan document.

So throughout the entire project, public engagement has been a critical component of AC44.

We've had more than 40,000 visitors to our AC44 website.

And throughout the four phases, more than 2,700 people have participated in AC44 engagement in the form of online surveys, email comments, chat kit discussions, and attendance through either in-person or virtual events.

So, getting back to the plan itself, some of the notable points of emphasis for AC44 include integrating board priorities of equity and climate action throughout the plan document.

Again, conducting those two build-out analyses to inform our development areas utilization.

We have an increased emphasis on increasing density within our development areas and multi-modal transportation planning.

Also, we've updated our plan for activity centers by reducing the previous total number of centers and we've better defined the location of those identified centers so they're not just a letter C on a map.

We've also consolidated the land use categories that previously had more than 20 categories that's been reduced to 12 categories within the development areas.

And we've also incorporated other county plans, including housing Albemarle, our economic development strategic plan, and our climate action plan.

AC44 also identifies big moves to guide implementation efforts.

And I'd also like to note that we've organized the plan content into a four-part document that we hope is easier to navigate and use.

The overall length of the plan has been reduced to 278 pages in comparison to the previous 406 pages in the 2015 plan, excluding the appendices.

So included in your attachments is a summary of document changes that captures the full list of edits that were made to this latest draft.

And some of those more notable updates include editing the entire document for consistency and tone.

Again, updating that land use build out analysis of the data and narrative for those has been updated throughout.

We've clarified the criteria for assessing the adequacy of land in the development areas in part two.

Within the development areas chapter, we've created more future land use maps.

We now have enlarged areas showing the various neighborhoods within the development areas, so you can see a higher level of detail for the future land use map.

We also removed rural-interstate interchanges within the rural area land use chapter.

And we added an action to address child care within the thriving economy chapter.

We've added actions to promote awareness of affordable housing options and supporting aging in place and housing.

We've updated the existing parks and facilities table to include equestrian and biking trails and also whether the park is accessible by transit.

In the cultural resources chapter, we added a call-out box to clarify what historic resources are.

And for the big moves, we've revised move number seven to strengthen social connection and community wellbeing in the implementation chapter.

So, looking ahead, staff has begun work on an implementation plan to guide AC44 efforts after plan adoption.

Once adopted, the proposed effective date again for AC44 is January 1, 2026.

And this delayed effective date is intended to allow time for staff, partner agencies, applicants, and other plan users to get accustomed to AC44 and its requirements while staff conducts plan education.

Staff's implementation plan will also include a revised process for future comprehensive plan amendment applications.

We will also reinforce the connection between AC44 and the board's strategic plan to better align implementation, policy, and funding.

Staff will also further refine our process for small area plans, including those activity centers and incorporating multimodal transportation plans.

AC44 will also continue to inform the zoning ordinance modernization project as our county code is updated and rewritten.

And last, staff will further develop metrics and tracking process to evaluate and report on plan implementation progress.

And so just to kind of preview how the discussion will go, we'd like, after we hear from the public, to hear from the commissioners about any specific edits that you have to suggest.

And we also have a motion to recommend approval of the comprehensive plan amendment, should you wish to forward this to the board with a recommendation of approval.

Great.

Thank you.

Great presentation.

Any questions for staff?

Not for staff right now.

Awesome.

Commissioner Bivins?

If you could just give us a little bit, thank you.

Well, first of all, thank you again for bringing us up to the state, and also thank you for the work that you've done, and thank you for putting up

with certainly my crankiness over a certain period of time.

I will try to minimize my crankiness tonight in hopes of getting home sooner than later.

And one of your pieces there, you said that there's a citizen initiative for changing the, for updates or modifications to

to the comp plan once it's adopted.

Yes, Mr. Bivins.

Back from my time working here, maybe about 10 years ago, staff made a decision and worked with the board to get that approved to limit or remove actually citizen initiated conference and plan amendments.

It used to be part of the process.

I think it was a workload question and other reasons.

I think we recognize that with the opportunities for somebody to amend the

the future land use map really being set upon when we do master plans for each area that may not be frequent enough to meet existing conditions and things that are changing in the market.

And so we're committed to bringing back a citizen initiated comprehensive plan process, the exact details of how that works.

I would have ideas, I'm not prepared to get into that right this moment, but

We will, this is a priority for us, obviously, we listed it on the slide here, to try and bring that out sooner rather than later.

Great, anything else, Commissioner Bennett?

No, thank you.

Yes, and page 25, action 7.1 was removed, encouraged donations to Elmore County Parks Foundation.

Can you explain what that removal was about?

Action 7.3.

In the actual plan is what you're talking about.

Yeah, so it's page 25 action 7.1.

This is in there.

Your notes about your additions and removals.

It says removed encouraged donations to Albemarle County Parks Foundation.

I believe that was in response to the board that they did not want to confine donations to any one group or organization.

So they didn't want to specify a specific group to submit donations.

And conversely, that wouldn't necessarily exclude that from going to the foundation.

Great.

Thank you for the clarification.

I don't have any questions this time.

Commissioner Firehock?

Okay.

I don't have any questions either.

Thank you.

All right.

With that, let's see.

The applicant has presented.

So we will open it up for public comment.

And I think we have a sign up sheet.

I'm sorry.

No, I don't.

OK.

OK.

All right.

We'll start with number one, Neil Williamson.

Good evening.

My name's Neil Williamson.

I serve as the president of the Free Enterprise Forum, a privately funded public policy organization focused on central Virginia's local governments.

I'm disappointed, not surprised, but disappointed.

Tonight, you will likely advance AC 44, a quote, comprehensive close quote plan to guide future development and infrastructure spending over the next 20 years.

This is a plan for the status quo and will result in further gentrification and less housing affordability across Albemarle County.

Virginia state law mandates that all local governments adopt a comprehensive plan to guide future development and ensure orderly growth as outlined in the Code of Virginia.

Evaluating AC44 on that code criteria, one must find it's a huge missed opportunity.

A failure of this magnitude has many contributors.

The Board of Supervisors, who at the outset determined the development areas, would not be altered prior to hearing anything from the community.

The Planning Commission, who's charged by state code to develop this plan, who unilaterally chose to stick with the binary choice of the development area rural area rather than considering the lasagna model.

The planning staff, who at the outset determined none of the comprehensive plan designations as they existed in the 2020-15 plan, were to be altered beyond consolidated.

And the AC44 public volunteer planners, myself included, who

when staff broke them into three discrete groups, eliminated any institutional memory, and effectively castrated their input.

This concern is not a surprise to the commission.

The Free Enterprise Forum has spoken and written about the plan's pitfalls since the outset.

We have supported and promoted lasagna more than Olive Garden.

The Economic Development Strategic Plan calls out many of these same problems.

With so many warnings and three plus years of public comment, the plan still does so many things that do not alter the status quo.

It feels like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Considering this plan was delivered behind schedule and comprehensive plans are supposed to be reviewed every five years and Albemarle's latest process took more than 36 months, I should perhaps take solace that they're likely hiring planners now to work on AC 49.

Maybe next time the quote comprehensive plan can consider the future instead of perpetuating the status quo.

but I know which way I'm betting.

Thank you, Mr. Williamson.

Rob McGinnis and then Christine Putnam you're on deck.

I'm Rob McGinnis representing the Piedmont Environmental Council.

First, I want to thank the Planning Commission and staff and the board, but particularly the Planning Commission right now for the very important and effective contributions to the AC44 process over the past four years.

It's been a long and challenging process.

Though there is much that PEC supports in the latest draft,

of the comp plan update.

PEC has a remaining major concern, the proposed process for swapping land between development areas and rural areas.

I've submitted some detailed comments before, so I'm not going to go into all those details, but I do want to say that the process for assessing future land swaps should be more effectively addressed when developing development area neighborhood master plans when they're updated and adopted into the comprehensive plans.

And there is the potential for land swaps to be addressed as part of the process for preparing the proposed rural area land use plan.

In addition, PEC strongly supports the revised transfer of development rights program action 2.4.

PEC strongly supports the removal of information on sending and receiving zones.

PEC also strongly supports the removal of the narrative text and the related action item regarding the small area plans for Yancy Mills and Shadwell interstate interchanges.

Land uses at rural interchanges can be addressed as part of the process to prepare the proposed rural area land use plan.

Thank you, Christine Putnam and Doug Holiday.

Hello, my name is Christine Putnam and I live in the Scottsville District.

I'm also a member of the Natural Heritage Committee, which is charged by the Board of Supervisors to advise on matters related to natural resource and biodiversity protection.

I want to first congratulate and extend my gratitude to you and the AC4014 for the work that went into developing the comp plan.

The NHC was able to provide feedback and we've been pleased to see this feedback reflected in the final draft.

At the last NHC meeting, we discussed one important addition, it's a little one, to the environmental stewardship chapter that we hope you might consider.

This is to add a sensible and achievable step to section 4.4 that the county use locally native trees and shrubs

at least 80% of plantings on county owned land.

This is a recommendation from the Biodiversity Action Plan, one that some county departments are already following.

And as you probably are well aware, native plants provide the foundation for a healthy ecosystem, and they are key to protecting biodiversity.

which we can see just outside this building.

Albemarle County has been a leader with its native plant demonstration beds at both the McIntyre and the Street County office buildings.

We also host a webpage and we have a native plant database.

And so I'm also on the steering committee of the plant Northern Piedmont Native.

Plant Steering Committee and I can just tell you that that involves many other counties and we are definitely a leader and people look to us for that.

So I brought you a copy of the plant guide today to share with you and you will see that it includes photos and references to the county office building demonstration sites.

Thank you.

My name is Doug Holliday, and I'm here with my friend and partner, Dick Payne.

Together, we are the owners of the Sweet Spot of Albemarle LLC, which owns property in the Sam Miller district.

Dressing parcel 7548 that is located southwest the interchange of US 64 and 29.

It borders the sea property, which is to the east, and the future Edgero Parkland, which is to the west.

We are here to ask

you to consider recommending a change to the parcel's designation from industrial purple to community mixed use pink on the AC44 future land use map.

We think this change is consistent with the county's vision of having land that supports a variety of desired uses that are more appropriate for this area than the uses supported by the current industrial designation.

By way of background, in 2015, Deschutes Brewery of Bend, Oregon had an interest in purchasing our property to build an East Coast brewery.

At the time, there was a shortage of industrial land in the county.

The land map required a change of our property.

We agreed with the county's request for industrial designation on the land use map.

As events unfolded, Deschutes did not come

to the county, but our parcel is still designated industrial use on the comprehensive plan map.

For the last 10 years, there has not been any interest in our land for industrial purposes.

However, there has been interest in developing the property for other uses.

Our parcel was part of the Sieg rezoning application for two years.

while the seek property developer decided not to purchase our property, they recognized that a mixed use plan was appropriate for the property.

As you can imagine, given the shortage of available and developable land in the remaining development area, interest in this property for uses other than heavy industrial

continues.

With this background, I'd like to introduce my partner, Dick Payne.

Thank you, Doug.

And thank you to all of you all on the Planning Commission for giving us your time tonight.

I'm going to briefly summarize the reasons we believe the future land use map change makes sense.

We do want to emphasize that we are not asking for a zoning change, only a change in the future land use map.

This change from industrial to community mixed use makes sense for the following reasons.

First, I won't go into further detail on what Doug mentioned, but the industrial designation appears to be outdated.

Second, the industrial land supply has increased since 2015 when our land was put into the comprehensive plan and designated industrial.

As you all know, North Fork now has a 14 acre pad ready site within 300 acres zoned planned development industrial park.

Rivanna Futures has 172 acres zoned light industrial.

Sweet Spot site is not competitive with these industrially zoned properties where it is easier to develop with ready access to roads and utilities.

Three, there is a community benefit to community mixed use.

It supports a wide variety of desired uses, including commercial, office, retail, light industrial, R&D, residential, institutional.

In short, everything but heavy industrial, which it is designated for today.

Four, compatibility.

Our property is compatible with the SEAG property.

The Sikh property is designated for community mixed use in the flam and its rezoning application proposes a community mixed use development designating the sweet spot parcel for community mixed use would align with the adjacent land uses.

There are also location advantages to a designation change.

Community mixed use is more appropriate than industrial at the edge of the development area.

It is also adjacent to the future hedgerow park

where potential pedestrian connections with future zoning are possible.

There's also an opportunity to integrate with SEAGS sidewalk and trail network shops and employment centers.

Next, flexibility to develop land more sensitively.

Sensitively, community mixed use supports a future rezoning application for mixed use development with smaller building footprints compared to many heavy industrial uses that require a large flat pad site for a single story facility allowing more flexibility around steep slopes and other sensitive areas.

Finally,

It supports a future rezoning application for compatible mixed-use development within the development area that supports a more diversified tax base.

Thank you.

And last on my list, although that doesn't mean we have to stop, is Carol, I think it's Courtney.

Good evening.

My name is Carol Courtenay, and I'm from the Southern Environmental Law Center.

We appreciate the substantial amount of work that has been undertaken by the commission and county staff over the last few years to get to this point.

There have been significant improvements since the plan's first drafts were released for review, including one change I want to speak in support of tonight, a standalone chapter on the county's growth management policy.

The county has long been looked to as a model statewide for adopting a growth policy that supports more livable and equitable communities, promotes economic development, encourages rural enterprise, and protects the environment.

A strong growth management policy also delivers significant fiscal benefits to the county and its residents by making it easier and less expensive to provide public infrastructure and effective public services like transit, emergency services, and schools.

and it protects the county's invaluable natural areas that, among other things, safeguard the quality of our drinking water, drive economic growth and tourism, and help the county meet its climate goals.

Ultimately, the principles of responsible growth underpin almost every issue in the comprehensive plan.

We strongly support the county's decision to have a standalone growth management chapter to emphasize the foundational nature of this policy in the county's long-term planning.

As part of the Comprehensive Plan update, the Board found that an expansion of the development areas is not needed at this time.

This aligns with the findings of the 2022 build-out analysis and the recent 2025 update.

Both showed significant capacity remaining in our development areas, enough to accommodate projected growth over at least the next 20 years.

Because premature expansion of the development areas would undermine the county's growth policy, we remain concerned about the inclusion of criteria for development area boundary revisions in the comprehensive plan.

Such criteria should instead be developed through a separate planning process in order to give them appropriate attention and to allow for adequate public input.

If the criteria are retained in the update, we urge you to consider modifying the title on page 12 of that chapter to make clear that these are simply the initial criteria for assessing underperforming areas in the development areas for removal.

in making changes to the title of the table on page 13.

So it reads that it is the initial criteria for assessing the adequacy of land in the development areas.

These small changes will emphasize, as the comp plan already states on page 11 of that chapter, that these criteria are simply the starting point for any revisions to the boundaries.

Thank you.

That is the end of my signup list.

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

All right.

OK.

Thank you.

Well, with that, I will close the public hearing and open it up for discussion.

So by my counting,

The comments that we just received were also received via mail, right?

So we didn't really receive any, other than potentially the first one, any really additional comments that would be woven into any amendments that we might want to make.

No problem.

Okay.

So what we'll do is we'll go through what we received from staff just like an hour ago.

So you were on a bus somewhere probably.

Driving.

Yeah, you're driving a bus.

I would just, for Mr. Firehock, what we did is you've been receiving emails from interested parties for several days.

I have read all my emails received before 7 a.m.

So there were some others that came in as you can imagine.

That's part of the challenge that we had was kind of trying to corral all of these and you know acknowledge the fact that this is a relatively short timeline to turn it around for Board of Supervisors.

I just need to state up front that I am going to be resistant to this process right now because I am disappointed that we would, given all of the feedback, all of the interactions we had, that people who took the opportunity to send us an email are going to get a last bite at the apple.

There's something that doesn't feel as a process piece for me, that I'm willing to engage in any serious edits that our staff had not had an opportunity to reflect upon and then provide us feedback.

There's a number of the ideas in here that had over time been just have been put aside for some reasons.

There are some pieces that the supervisors have been very clear about, for instance, about the addition to the development area and how they want to keep their hand on that.

I know there's some members of the commission who have wrestled with that issue.

But I want to be real careful that we're not doing something that we've always said we wouldn't do.

and that's wordsmith at the last moment.

and that's what this feels like it is to me.

It feels like we're wordsmithing because some people took the opportunity either to send group emails because a number of the things that we received over the last 48 hours for all intent and purpose was the exact same email except they changed their name at the top and at the bottom.

And so I need to sort of declare that upfront that I think we're doing something that we said we would never do and that's the wordsmith.

And I'll say since we're just in discussion, I share some of those concerns.

I know we talked a little bit about that.

I think, as I'm looking at the way I'm looking at this, and it may be wrong, totally open to this being the wrong way to look at it, it's a public hearing, right?

So when we hear public hearings for developments, we receive comments from the community, and sometimes those turn into conditions, sometimes they're recorded as, here's how we feel as a planning commission, and we forward those comments onto the board.

So in a sense, yeah, this is a four year,

Thank you for having me.

So my thought was that we're essentially doing that again.

We're looking at this and we're saying, these are comments that have come in.

This is the public hearing.

It's what it's for is to receive comments.

And so we're notifying the board that we have supported these general comments, or they're there for their reference.

And so that was a way that just felt like really the only way and a fair way to get at this moving forward.

And so then take that one more step further.

You're right.

It's like the squeaky wheel, right?

There are some things that have come to us and I scratch my head and I say, why now?

Why not a year ago?

Why not two years ago?

I mean, this has been going on for quite a while and it's been

So that's a little bit of a hard thing for me to get my head around.

But we're in discussion.

What do you all think?

I don't necessarily disagree with what you both said.

I will say, though, that the comments from the Southern Environmental Law Center about the criteria for looking at

the growth area expansion and what that would be.

That wasn't something that was crisply developed a year ago.

And we've just been looking at it all along.

Okay.

But when I read that, so my comment back to them would be that when I read that, I did read it as already initial ideas, that I didn't read what's in the comp plan as the criteria because it really read to me like these are some first thoughts.

And maybe that sounds namby-pamby to people, but I think that it would have to be a

a really specific process that we would have to undergo to develop that criteria and that developing something as robust as it should be like something like you see in the Portland metro region for example that I've already forwarded to staff two years ago I think that that is really complicated and I agree it would be a process to develop that so I didn't read the way that it is worded in the comp plan now as

This is it.

These are some things that we need to consider.

Because it was vague.

Let's be honest.

It was vague.

But that's because it's not fully fleshed out.

And it's a complaint.

All right.

So I was comfortable with the level of detail that's in there.

I didn't see that we would take that and go, OK, we've got it here.

Now let's start monkeying with the growth area boundaries.

I think it would need further fleshing out.

And just to continue that for just a second, I think the key piece in there is that we're not

The Planning Commission, whichever it is in the future, is not the initiator of that issue.

The board, I believe, according to what is laid out, and according to what the board has said, has said that they're going to be the ones that ask us and with staff to do that, but that's not a self-initiated process.

Well, it could be if you wanted it to be.

So I wanted to address that a little bit, because I think that as it stands, that section, if you just read that at its face, particularly the page about properties being removed from the development area and moved to the rural area, it's so vague that almost a majority of our development area currently could meet that criteria.

So I see that as very problematic.

Some of the factors I think we really need to consider

is particularly about taking properties in the development area and moving them to the rural area.

Is the property removed already developed?

Does the property being removed from the development area already have water and sewer?

If it doesn't, would we deny future connections even if it is in the jurisdictional area?

What percentage of tree or native coverage does the property have currently?

What percentage of the site has been graded?

What percentage of the site is in previous surface including lawn?

Most rural area properties are down zoned in 1984 in the rural area.

Would any property removed from the development area also be down zoned to match the surrounding rural area or would we just create a non-conforming area?

How suitable is the property for rural area uses, agricultural, forestry, conservation?

Perhaps we should zone the property to clearly indicate its use, A1 agricultural, C1 conservation, et cetera.

The development area doesn't have protections on intermittent streams except for water supply areas.

Should we disqualify properties for removal from the development area if they've already buried their intermittent streams?

The rural area doesn't have managed slopes.

All critical slopes are preserved.

Would all managed slopes become preserved?

What if they've already been built on or otherwise impaired their managed slopes?

Would the removal from the development area be voluntary with permission of the owners of parcels affected?

How would they be compensated for the significant reduction of their property value?

is the county willing to go to court to defend another down zoning?

Typically rural areas can expect a lower level of service.

In which ways would services be reduced for this property being removed?

No more sidewalks, road improvements.

What happens to places with comp plan designation for greenways and open space?

Do they lose that designation?

So I know I went on a little bit on this, but the point is that there's a lot of factors at play that really aren't being discussed here.

And I think that it needs a lot of work.

While I would propose, as it has been said, moving this off to another process, if it is to remain, I have submitted some suggested language that we can go to later.

If I could jump in on this.

I mean, we know that we're getting close to filling up the development area.

It's not full per se, but we're getting there and we're going to get there.

It's just 5% of the county's land.

I feel like we should be starting these conversations now about, you know, where to expand the development area.

I mean, I feel like sometimes we're living in the movie in Kanto here, like, oh, we don't talk about Bruno, you know, or we ask 60 questions to delay and delay and delay.

And I think, you know, some folks have brought up this idea of a development area swap.

There's the notion in there as well.

I actually want to make a pitch and suggestion that we start with the designated development areas from around 1979.

I'd be in favor of starting with that as our baseline.

That would be a good starting point for how much acreage to move into the development areas because back then we had 10% of our land as development areas and I think we could take those acreages and move them closer to today's development area in a way that would make sense given build-out patterns and water availability and all that.

So let me suggest a way we approach this because this is a subject that's kind of front and center it's one of the main subjects that's come out here right it's also something we could talk about for

a day, I'm sure.

And we've talked about it a lot in previous meetings as well.

So I would suggest maybe looking at GMP 11, that page, if you have that in front of you.

And at the bottom, I'm just going to read the process.

And if you, this is sort of getting to what we've been talking about in terms of the land swaps is talking about the idea of potentially having this be part of a, let's see,

More focused study, substantial public engagement, et cetera, et cetera.

And it says, ideally the need for a development area boundary revision would be identified by a future land planning effort.

The board of supervisors could pursue a boundary, could pursue a boundary revision independently of a future land planning, area land planning effort, and should request that the county executive direct county staff to develop a development areas report.

The report would evaluate a variety of factors, provide information through maps, order of magnitude, cost estimates, and other resources as necessary.

Some things to consider in the future when you go through this more detailed and much more factual and statistically based process.

If there was a way instead of an addendum or some point like that to make a suggestion to the board that they begin that process as soon as possible.

I think that would be helpful, but I don't necessarily- Does people want clarity?

Yeah, exactly.

So I think, and I understand what you're saying, and I agree with much of what you'd said.

I personally think that it sounds like there's agreement here that what we have written

So let's take kind of a straw poll.

What we have written here is sufficient in terms of its coverage to provide the ability in the future to look in more detail at these areas that are essentially being planned and that have these initial criteria.

Is there, so let me just push a little bit on that very briefly.

Absolutely.

So on page 12.

So I think, you know, even as a starting point, and I'm not saying these are the only things, but I think the criteria that I would say, first, I think the first bullet point should just be removed outright because it doesn't make any sense.

So I propose that we replace that section with locations where rural area designation would provide a tangible conservation benefit, including protection of intermittent streams, enhanced protection of critical slopes, or important environmental features or habitats designated the biodiversity action plan, otherwise subject to high density development.

We also include areas designated green systems where the rural area designation would facilitate protection and or public access.

So I think that by itself, that really helps frame like why we would do it.

Also agricultural properties which are more consistent with rural area uses.

There are some farms that are in the development area now that I don't foresee ever being developed in any kind of residential use.

Locations with significant topographic or environmental constraints which reduce an area's potential to meet the recommended densities and intensities of use and the ability to provide an interconnected street network.

Locations with limited public infrastructure and access, capacity and access.

This would include existing road conditions and capacity where development would be contrary to Virginia's Department of Transportation goals and recommendations where connections to existing public roads, water sewer, and infrastructure are challenging.

Locations with existing water and sewer access would be disqualified, absent additional factors that make them more suitable for rural uses.

Current uses and densities should be consistent with neighboring rural area properties and not result in non-conforming uses or uses inconsistent with the goals and recommendations for the rural area.

I think this is important too that so we're not just taking an already developed area and then just moving it to the rural area and just changing the color in the map.

Locations must have limited impervious surfaces and limited grading, which otherwise would prevent the county from serving rural area uses like agricultural, forestry, recreation, and conservation.

It must be contiguous with the rural area and would be down zoned to match neighboring rural area properties and rural area zoning.

So I think that these are ways that if we're going to have this page here, I think these are some great criteria to get us thinking about ways to do it responsibly.

Chair, at this meeting, I don't support any of those changes.

I'm sorry?

At this meeting in particular, where we aren't going to wordsmith everything, I don't support any of those suggested changes.

Well, I said something different, but I'm fine with that too.

I prefer that.

Including, but not limited to.

I mean, if nothing else, if we could strike bullet one, because I feel like the way bullet one is written, it says we haven't met our goals for sidewalks and density, so we're going to just give up and move it to the rural area.

That seems counterintuitive.

It makes it sound like areas where we actually should invest more.

We're just going to give up.

and so I don't really understand that.

So for example, in Crozet, we have an area next to Crozet Park where we've been trying to get sidewalks since forever.

So what I would suggest is what you're saying, I think, and I understand what you're saying, I think you may be, in my opinion, a little bit too far in the weeds.

I think

What the risk of doing that is is that you miss something like you put them all out there and say this is everything but you actually miss it.

I think that if you if we use that wording included but not limited to something to that effect it also means that some of these may not apply and that first bullet may not apply in that sense and that could not be one of the criteria.

It's an imperfect process and it's an imperfect document.

I think we can all agree on that.

But, but there is a lot of good that is in here.

This section in particular.

is problematic.

And I think we all wrestle in with that here today.

There's been comments and also when it came out, this was not, you know, four years ago, we didn't have this three years ago.

We didn't have it two years ago.

We didn't, we didn't have this.

So it is an opportunity for us to make some adjustments as we recommend this for the board.

It's cause they're, you know, we need to, that's what we're doing here today.

We're recommending it for the board of supervisors.

And so there are a couple tweaks or a couple things that we could send it along that I think would improve it.

And I agree with the comments that have been made on this section.

I would be in support of the chair's recommendation because it puts it, what we're signaling to the board is, hey, this is a section that we got to pay attention to.

And we don't think that these criterias are necessarily hitting the mark.

So let's sit down, spend some time and evaluate and come up with a better set of criteria for this section.

When we look, what are factors versus criteria?

Because the factors allow the kinds of things that our colleague is trying to move forward to sort of be integrated in the factors.

And so I think the factors are also something that would be open for a deeper discussion and to sort of draw it down into an explicit sort of how

For instance, when you were talking about the potential impacts on opportunities for near dot by adjacent properties, that's the whole idea of if you were to move something, how would it impact?

Would it remain at the level that it is?

Or would it be down zoned to that level?

I believe the things that you mentioned there could be very strong and important part of the factors.

Criteria to me is like a rule that you would apply.

And I think that's the piece where very few, not very often in our document, are we that prescriptive.

in this document.

We are prescriptive in a lot of other places.

In fact, when we do the zoning, when you all get to do the zoning, you can be as prescriptive as you want to be.

If I may, Mr. Chair, I would be comfortable with just saying potential in front of the word criteria.

If we want, we could add a sentence at the bottom of those or another sentence.

I thought it was clear in the prior page that these were things that we should consider in the future in order to develop these criteria.

And Commissioner Murray, I think we would need, I would need at least a half day's workshop to really go through and drill down and create that.

And so I'm not ready tonight to come up, you know,

come up with the criteria and put it in this document.

I don't think it would do justice to, I just can't, I'm sorry, I can't sit around the dais and just make this up cloth tonight.

and one that outlines what is the community engagement process that will go along with this as well.

I would actually, I was going to the same place you were in terms of community engagement.

So could we at least, as we're looking at this chapter, I know you said potential criteria for removing, perhaps we could add potential criteria for assessing removal under, just add the word assessing in there so that we can make it clear that we're evaluating our options as opposed to a more definitive state.

because I think, you know, we've said before, I mean, you know, the assessment may not lead to removal.

I think that's, I mean, we're wordsmithing, which is what we said we were going to do.

But I think, I think that's, I think we're fine.

Everybody's fine with that.

So maybe rather than saying, again, wordsmithing, potential criteria for assessing, why don't we just say criteria for assessing the removal of underperforming areas from the development areas?

Good.

Good.

Straw poll.

There are 22 homes in here.

Over half are a million dollars or more.

Over half are a million dollars or more.

I'll go into a further explanation of why I'm going to get cranky around that topic.

But that's one of the reasons why at some point, when we've been consistently building under capacity at some point, which is effectively a transfer of development land to rural uses.

It may not be a rural designation, but it's now been used in a way that is more in keeping the way rural land is being used as opposed to development land.

So I would say 50% of our land that was designated for development is now not going to be used in any way that's an effective economic unit.

We've got to figure that out for a whole host of community reasons, but we've got to figure that out.

And so I just think we're now at, I think the last thing I saw that we're now at 5.5% or 0.7% of the land, of our development land is now available.

We're basically done.

and so people start knocking down things.

I just feel as this plan gives us or gives future people a reasonable way to engage with the Planning Commission on how do we sort of continue to bring this community forward.

And it is not locked into where we're only going to be in a

We're only going to be a rural community.

So I'm going to go back on that.

We're three times in the development, our development area is like three times the size of Charlottesville.

That is one of those things that, you know, and there I am going to get in trouble on this.

The boundaries between Albemarle and Charlottesville are false.

And if I could click my fingers, they would be done.

And then you would have your way.

So this whole idea of using Charlottesville, which grew out of the University of Virginia, and I don't need to get into that whole origin there in the 1800s, and how most of the rural area around here promoted an economic basis that excluded most of the people who are sitting on this dais.

Excluded, most of the people who are sitting on the side.

So why don't we

Why don't we, can we put a check mark next to development areas, boundaries, land swapping, any other comments that we want to address there?

I just wanted, I just wanted to clarify on page 11 of the GMP where you wanted to include that the process should include a robust community engagement.

Where specifically did you want that added?

I'm very happy if we just have the general sort of statement if you are counselor just general statement to sort of put that type of a note make sure we're clear in the direction of the note and sort of

Both of the exact language or location.

That's okay.

Under process.

So you have a sub headache there and that page 11 says process.

I would have to say the Board of Supervisors.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You dig it.

Well,

I think I would look at that as the sort of the royal we type of thing.

I mean, obviously, if they're going to do something like this, I'm sure they're going to staff's going to be looking at it.

We're going to be talking with the planning commission and they're the ones taking action.

So I think it's written in that way.

OK, exclude the planning commission that I would recommend the county utilizing a robust community engagement process could pursue a boundary revision independently of blah, blah, blah.

So segueing on to, let's do the affordable housing piece.

Are we going through this based on the comments memo?

That's just what I was using.

You can.

You can do that.

I don't have that document.

I know.

And I don't have it printed out.

No, I do.

Get your copy.

I'll go get your copy.

I mean, Chair, you recall that we were just trying to help keep the thing organized.

I think our take on this thing was that the planning commissioners were going to have suggestions.

Let's hear stuff from the county, from the audience.

No, I agree.

And this is a bit of a challenge at the end to be able to handle.

So I'm going to suggest this.

Commissioner Moore, Commissioner Bivins, do you guys agree with?

I'm going to just sort of speak to the broad topics that are represented as if you don't even need to say you don't even need this to reference.

And then we can talk about those broad topics.

Oh, there you go.

All right.

Well, then we'll go back to this.

Add new objective implement strategies to support low income home buyers with the support of community partners.

I'm sure, you know, I have no problem with, I would like to know more about the community partnerships that the county plays an active role in.

For instance, there's the housing, there's the regional housing partnership, there's the news, the regional transit thing that's being stood up.

And so before I become prescriptive about what the county should do, I'd like to know what the existing

agencies that the county is now a full part of is doing, because they may be doing these things.

Other thoughts?

I mean looking through Emily Dreyfus' comments in general, I think there's a lot of good material there.

Kind of echoing something from before though, like getting up here and wordsmithing on the dais is not my favorite thing when it's been such a long process.

In terms of like adding whole new objectives or requiring inclusionary zoning, things like that are like

pretty big, gnarly topics that are difficult to introduce today.

It's not to say that we shouldn't necessarily.

In fact, I think a lot of these are potentially very important errors in our quiver.

I mean, some of the simpler ones like, you know, adding the subordinate clause and other incentives or, and properly address housing.

I mean, those are straightforward enough.

I agree with you and I feel that our housing, not only our chapter about affordable housing in this document plus the affordable housing strategy that the county has already adopted are very comprehensive and already support working with partners and already support.

That as well.

All right.

Does everybody agree with that?

Chair, will all of this be transmitted to the supervisors too?

Yes.

We are providing a commendium of public comments that basically went to both the Planning Commission and majority and went to the board as well.

Again, the intent was if the Planning Commission heard something that they wanted to pull up and champion, that we would have that as a reference for you all as you were talking about it.

So we could find on the screen.

Thank you.

So I think it's fair from a record standpoint to say that we generally agree with the input from the ASAT-HSG comments.

Yes.

I think a lot of those are covered, but they're going to see them.

Well, I'm moving now to DALU chapter implementation section.

I'm very simple.

Okay, awesome.

Well, let's go through this if that's okay.

There's one major one that I'm saving till the end, which we need to talk more about, which is the added to the future land use map.

So I'm trying to get us through this to get to that.

Yeah, I mean, I think 1.3 is one that intrigues me a lot.

I'd very much like to explore it.

Again, sort of adding a whole new objective at this stage is a little difficult.

The idea of an affordable housing overlay right now is sort of in the same vein as, maybe not, but, you know, what I've suggested before that we just don't have neighborhood residential, but we start with middle.

And Chair, but I would like to understand that in not necessarily in here, but how that would be supportive and how that it would interact with

with the affordable housing or the density bonuses which are now being played out.

Absolutely, the bigger picture.

I imagine at some point that we will and the supervisor will have to wrestle with that once we know whether or not it's working or not, or once we get feedback from developers whether or not they're feeling

Yeah, they're seeing that as an incentive to build those things.

And I think is at that point, then you sort of say, well, how about if we do this?

How does that help, particularly with the I think we're in the process of looking at the Ryle small area plan?

Is that coming back?

Well, and I'll just add that and to continue to beat our drum about measurable outcomes and how we measure goals that we're setting forth in this policy would lead us to that.

And that's why they're so important.

And I know that we have, we've listed how we're going to measure things, but it is important to take them into practice.

Agreed.

So moving us down and anybody can stop me and move us back.

So I'll just mention that that's in our current comprehensive plan.

And so, so if you, if you look in the current comprehensive plan, it says, Baltimore County, sorry, let's see if we can find the exact page on 4.25.

It has a section that talks about using 80% native plants for community development projects.

So I think this is in line with what we're already doing.

And I think it makes sense to go ahead and include this in our current comprehensive plan and expand that scope a little bit to include all county properties.

It's a pretty easy standard to meet.

The county has met it already and almost everything that's done.

Well, the bottom line is the comprehensive plan is a guideline, right?

Yes, yes, I do.

So just one second.

Yeah, I was looking at that.

I just didn't know specifically where. 4.22.

We're catching up with you, sir.

It doesn't really fit in.

It does.

Just a moment, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to point out the language of 4.4.

Yeah, so 4.4 under the environmental stewardship chapter, it's on

using and modeling best practices on public lands, including, and we have a bullet list here, which includes management plant for removal in vases, protect restore habitat areas.

So it could potentially be added as a bullet under 4.4 or a new action 4.5.

I would agree with that.

Yeah, I agree.

OK.

The next one is talking about the land swapping again.

I think we've talked about that.

There are a collection of those.

So those are.

Okay.

Let's go to the request to consider a revision to this future land use map.

Work on that.

That was from Sweet Spot of Albemarle.

Could we have just a bit of history on that?

I was intrigued by the app or not by the owner of the property saying that they changed their

property type at the request of the county.

And so it would be helpful to know what it was prior to that.

I don't know.

I'm asking.

I could assume it was, but I'm asking.

You can tell.

Yeah, so it was part of the 2015 plan.

This was one of the last components.

They enlarged the development area to include this parcel and it was designated as industrial in part because of the

Deschutes Brewery, and there was also a conference and plan amendment that they had a resolution of intent to not only look at, you know, to look at other parcels, sort of, because at the time, my understanding, I was not here, so I don't have all the details in my head, but my understanding is the Deschutes property was going to take more than just one parcel of land, and so I hope I have this right, and so there was a CPA that was

also, you know, they took a resolution of intent to study multiple parcels south of this particular parcel as well for potential inclusion, if Deschutes was going to come.

So I believe that is the correct history.

Here on the Planning Commission during a time, so I do remember.

and this was initiated by the county because of the desire to have the land in appropriate zoning for this potential new use.

I was not in support of that change.

And in fact, at the time, it was proposed to create a much larger area, which Liz Palmer, who was the supervisor at the time and myself as the commissioner, were against.

over enlarging that area and fought it back down to a much smaller area and kind of, you know, took our victory, if you will, that it wasn't much, much larger because it was way more than even what the shoots needed.

And I could go into a really boring and long history about why the Jashoots was never going to work there.

The site was not pad ready.

It did not have all of the things that an industrial user looks for in a construction ready site, not even close to it.

We had a workshop following that about the four or five stages of readiness.

This was at a level one instead of a level five.

I mean, it was just so far off.

Anyway, I understand their difficulty now in trying to market that as an industrial site.

It isn't a good spot for an industrial site.

I don't know that I'm prepared, though, having just seen this request in the last hour and a half or hour to make this change to the future land use map.

But my inclination is that mixed use would be more appropriate.

because of the site sensitivities and all that.

It isn't a good industrial bad site.

And if it were an industrial use that had trucks coming in and out, that's also a bad spot for that.

But I don't know that I can make that.

I feel like that's its own hearing that we would have about that.

I agree with you all hardly.

I don't believe this is the right designation for that area.

I don't think it fits there well at all.

Meaning industrial?

So what it currently is.

I would be in support of making that change.

Right.

It's not a zone change.

I would say for my part, too, we just had a public hearing a few weeks ago for the parcel next door.

Yeah, right, right.

I won't belabor it, I would support it too.

I have some narrative about that, but I would support it too.

Since we know at one point that property was in dialogue, the owners of the properties were in conversation about doing something different there and I'm all for conversation.

And so if we can move this project a little bit, if we can move the project that came to us,

in a way that would allow a more meaningful connection to Hedge Row Park so that we would use some of that property that without that connection, it's going to be more green space, lovely green Albemarle space that it could be useful if we could do something.

While I am also a little bit uncomfortable about this coming to us at this stage and without an in-depth conversation of the implications, particularly for an area that does have topographic challenges, an area that's already forested as well.

You know, we talked and when we talked about the the we talked about the developmentally swaps, we particularly called out areas with topographic challenges and places that were hard to develop as areas that might be candidates to be swapped.

It almost seems like this is one of those areas that almost seems like a candidate be swapped.

Well, I'll just weigh in here.

I think I'm a man on an island here.

I think I'm really concerned.

I may have heard from lots of people in this area, as you can imagine, and Sherwood Farms and others that are very concerned about what's happening across the street and the impacts on the traffic, et cetera, and the infrastructure and the environmental features of the site as well.

I don't feel that there's been, I mean, this is a, you know, we're changing the future land use map if we say that this can be changed.

This is a last minute thing, as we've all sort of said.

I don't think the community's had a chance to weigh in on this.

We got it on getting in under the wire.

It's going right to the Board of Supervisors tomorrow for a conversation and then the 15th of October.

We've been talking about this for four years.

I just don't see why this is happening at this point, to be perfectly honest.

Yeah, and I think what you said is very convincing to me is that point that there's no chance for the public to weigh in.

We didn't advertise this as that kind.

So counter to that, right, is that this is a public hearing and we do make recommendations to the board.

through public hearing process, we can easily make recommendations that we generally support the intention or that you all generally support the intention of this in general, but we're also raising concerns about the process that it's undertaken.

Yeah, I would just say, if I understood it, maybe yourself and maybe Karen were not in favor, but everyone else was amenable to making this change.

Well, I think we were, so we're talking through it.

That's what we do here.

And while I think that the change is appropriate, the land use change is appropriate, the process and how you do that,

And I think what sways me is the chair's point about there is no public hearing on that.

Well, you guys can correct me, I think technically there is a public hearing, but it's the board public hearing, right?

Michael?

Yeah, so just if you wouldn't mind, just one more show of hands, maybe those who are

You're the chair.

Let's show of hands.

Mr. Bivins, all I'm asking this is, I think we were talking about, the chair was talking about earlier on, what we're doing here right now is we're going through and what do you all want to add to the plan?

What do you want to tweak on the KC44?

And if you guys are inclined to

We just did it with the 80% of native species and plant species, right?

And here we're all talking about a land use map change, future land use map change.

If you all are comfortable making that type of change, that's fine.

We're going to, when we get through this discussion period, we're going to ask you guys to take a five minute, 10 minute break.

We're going to make sure we got a good list of the amendments that you want to recommend onto the board.

And if this is one of them, I think it would be helpful to know at this point,

What I heard initially was that there was support for this in general as a land use, which is what we essentially oversee.

It seems like most people are saying, I'm seeing heads nod, as far as process, this is the problem.

And so this is not the venue for this change.

Right.

I think they they've heard that.

I think that's all we need to do on this.

Okay.

Yeah, and I had two.

Good.

Sorry, I had just two changes.

And these were, this one was, one was a word, one was a wording change.

Sorry, I'll tell you the second one was an objective.

I don't know how did this pages work.

DALU 42.

42.

42.

In which paragraph?

I wanted to add a sentence, and now then they'll have a typesetting challenge.

OK, so I'll tell you the concept, and then I'll tell you the sentence.

The thing that I'm concerned about is that several years ago when the state stormwater law was updated, they had a committee to recommend changes to it.

The committee recommended that on-site water quality treatment be required, and that was struck by the legislators when they wrote the bill.

and so an expert panels and recommendations were not followed and what we've seen is a huge decline in bioswales, French drains, all kinds of best management practices on-site to treat water quality.

People are buying off-site credits so your water quality locally declines in your community and somewhere else in the James watershed a stream is restored and that's great but it doesn't help

the local water quality.

So this is the sentence I wanted to add and I'm going to hand this to the staff.

To minimize degradation of local surface waters, on-site best management practices to treat runoff and improve water quality are preferred over the purchase of off-site credits.

So how would that come into play?

We have cajoled several developers to add onsite water quality treatment by simply preaching that up here on the dais.

I would just like to put it in as a county preference that we would like to see that wherever possible.

So it's not a law.

It's just saying that this is what we would like to see.

Any thoughts?

I'm definitely supportive of the concept, since I've watched my colleague cajole and change behavior.

The thing that I'm wondering, is it necessary to confine it to what to credits?

Well, let me... Looking forward.

So saying that we want it to be on site is...

says you don't confine me out.

Yeah, you can still buy outside credits.

But why I wanted to add that sentence was my concern with the preceding sentence that's currently there, which reads, it is also recognized that impacts to some natural resources will occur as new development proposals strive to meet the higher density and intensity goals for the development areas.

So it's an acknowledgment that as we develop and intensify density, we will see decline

in natural resources.

Now, I don't want to just give up.

I would like to say, however, we would really like to see onsite water quality treatment.

It can be done.

I like that.

Yeah.

So, so that when I read that sentence, I just didn't want to be like, leave it with, oh, well, can we, we're just going to decline, but we'll have density.

So I just wanted to add a little plug for hello.

We can onsite improve water quality.

Can, can we change that onsite to local?

Yeah, I'm fine with that if you want to stay local.

I just really am trying to get at, yeah, not... You can buy credits within the same watershed.

We sit in the James watershed, which goes from Highland County to the Chesapeake Bay.

And so anywhere in there, they could fix something.

Torture by verbiage.

No, no, I know.

But saying however it is preferred to have onsite treatment or

Local.

That would be the first line of the first preference.

And just to beat the other side of the same drum.

Correct, but like for as I've talked about, yeah, that I work with local architects to create a zoning for Charlottesville that allowed them to double density as long as they added water quality BMPs.

Exactly, it can be a beautiful garden that is also providing pollinator habitat and cleaning water.

And people want to live next to it.

They don't even know it's a stormwater feature.

Natural features like this, it's something that they can go hand in hand very well with density.

So I don't think we should

We shouldn't just say it's one or the other.

I didn't like the tone that density equals degradation and that's it.

It's like, it does not, you could actually, guys, when you redevelop an area, you can add water quality treatment into it and have a more dense and less runoff, healthier environment.

We have great designers sitting right here.

Okay, I have one more.

I was pointing at you, or you guys can find it out.

I have one more.

It's a totally different.

I think what I'm going to, she just said she was going to give us the language.

Okay.

Give us a second.

We'll use the, we'll get that language.

I wrote it here and I wrote your edit there live.

Excellent.

Okay.

I am a teacher, I write live.

I'm sorry, I find this document hard to navigate.

I was going to ask if we could, when we do finally print it, if there could be tabs or something.

Table of codes.

Even just tabs, this would be so nice.

I'm constantly shifting through this.

Just as a quick sidebar, I would like to point out that we do have active links in the table of contents on the version of the document that's posted to the AC44 website.

So you can click on the chapter title.

So the navigability is improving, at least.

Go ahead.

OK.

Under objective CF10, which is the main object.

I wanted to add an action, excuse me, not an objective.

That topic is improved urban stormwater management, drainage, and flood control.

And so one thing that I thought was lacking, which I work with many communities across Virginia and the South on doing, so it can be done, is I added this action.

I made it 10.4.

Seek opportunities to add stormwater best management practices to older neighborhoods lacking stormwater management.

Yeah.

Well, what I'm trying to get.

Yeah, just for the context for everyone, especially for the audience, the Clean Water Act was passed in 1920, 1920, 1972.

And it feels like a long time ago.

And then we had the stormwater amendments in 1987 that required stormwater management, but may

and many of our neighborhoods are way older than 1987.

And so we have large swaths of the urban area and the county and even the city of Charlottesville that do not have stormwater management.

The water runs off, it goes in the storm drain, it pollutes the Rivanna River, whatever.

So just to add that that was an objective or excuse me, an action retrofitting older neighborhoods, adding BMPs in should be an action within our comprehensive plan.

And I didn't see it anywhere.

in the whole plan.

So it's a minor point.

But later on, when we are applying for grants and things, and they say, you want to retrofit this neighborhood to add infiltration, is it in your policy documents?

We can say, yes, it's right here.

I write a lot of grants too, so believe me, if you have it as a policy and then you want to get funding for it, it helps.

Maybe not under this current federal administration, but there's always hope for the future.

So you better get out of here.

No, I told you I just had two.

OK, I'll make a closing statement.

I was heartened to see how much of our comments and the public's comments have worked their way into the plan.

And so that is why my comments are few and not many like in prior meetings.

I echo those comments, and I thank you.

Thanks to the staff and to my colleagues on the dais.

I know it's been a long road to get here, but there's a lot of good work.

Yeah, I mean, I'll call out to the significant improvements in here, particularly in recognizing multimodal traffic, some great advancements in sustainability, you know, better recognition of the diversity of our county and the importance of that.

I do have some serious concerns, though, about where we ended up on some of this.

And I know I'm an outlier, I suppose.

But since the 1980s, a core principle of our comprehensive plan has been protection of the rural area.

And I fear that the vaguely worded language around swaps opened the doors to significant expansion of the development areas.

Since, as I said, the development, the current definition of underperforming areas could apply to majority of our existing development area.

So I'm just going to register that that is still a significant concern of mine that I think it undermines a fundamental principle that we've had since 1980.

Commissioner Bivins, any thoughts?

And I don't mean to like go down the line if we have other questions.

We all have thoughts.

So it helped me to come to a realization that this is similar to a strategic plan.

This is the idea that we hope for the next X amount of years will guide and send signals to a whole host of people who need guidance and who are looking for signals.

It is not a perfect plan.

It will never be a perfect plan, because if it was, we would probably be having sleepovers for the next 15 years, and I'm not encouraging that.

What I do think it does, I do think it does, when people, remember folks, land is an economic agent.

and we are hopefully facilitating decisions that people do with cash assets, whether or not it's a decision to sell their house or sell their property and go do something else or something for somebody to come invest here and do something.

One of the things that we are called to do is make that decision process easier than it has been.

And I believe that this comprehensive plan is definitely easier than it was.

will it be when you work on the zoning, which will also be as a way of sending a signal to what people can do when they come here.

Hopefully that same sort of spree will take place there.

And perhaps when you do this again, it'll go down to 100 pages or 200 pages, which would be lovely.

But I am pleased at where we are.

Could I be crankier about some stuff?

Of course, that's my nature.

But where we are tonight, I think we

The community and staff and the commission should be pleased with how this is going to end up.

I really do.

Well, I want to

Just say how much I appreciate the amount and the quality of work that's gone into this.

I know at every step I can see how dedicated our staff has been into drafting and redrafting and collecting feedback and creating something that's a very big project to create.

And I missed the last meeting where we talked about the AC44, so I also want to share how much I appreciate adding that seventh big move around social and cultural connection.

And I do hope that opens the doors for more intentionality around, you know, arts and parks and third spaces as we move forward as a county.

I mean, I do have, if I had one overarching critique, it's that AC44 is frankly, I think, too wedded to our current status quo.

You know, across the country, the gateway to the American dream is closing.

You know, this is a great time to already own a home, already be employed, already have a partner.

But if you don't have those things, it's harder and harder and harder to achieve any of them.

and Albemarle County is not the most extreme example of that door closing but we're part of that trend and we've created this place where it's so nice to be already comfortable with good salaries and owned homes but it's becoming more and more difficult for people who are not so comfortable and now they don't live here.

They live in Fluvanna, they live in Waynesboro, they live in Greene County and when they have these long commutes into Charlottesville.

And I do wish we had a comprehensive plan.

And I do think we're headed in the right direction kind of generally, but it's, you know, where the American dream is more achievable for more people in our region.

where we can all be physically safe and economically secure and feel seen and heard and have a sense of belonging and experience beauty.

And I think there's some good things in AC44 that move us sort of in that general direction.

I think it's too slow and too tied to the status quo.

For people who are here and just trying to make it and just trying to pay their rent and who are juggling expensive childcare and elder care and underpaid jobs, I think for those people, and there's a lot of them, we should be moving faster.

Overall,

You know, obviously I support this thing.

We put in a lot of effort.

I think it's great to be working on this as a county and trying to improve the lives of the people who live here and work for wages.

I'm going to resist my speech about how we should rezone to the densities that we want and make it super easy for everyone to redevelop to the density we want.

Because that is what I've said all along, we should just go ahead and do all the rezoning to the development area.

But anyway, that's not what I was going to say, because I've already said that every single meeting on the comp plan.

I wanted to just also reemphasize the importance that we do get to the rural

Chapter or the rural plan for the county because there was a sentiment that the plan does not go far enough and it's acknowledged in here in this document that the rural area is treated like an amorphous blob of ruralness and it's, you know, farming and forestry happens there and some people live there but it's too unspecific and so the promise was made to do a rural plan and later

that looks at the different regions and districts and thinks about their character and gets more into the finer points.

So we were pacified with that promise and I just want the county to be sure to keep that promise and look at you leaders and staff and people

and if we don't move fast enough, I'll just hold my own conference with my friends in the audience and we'll talk about it and push the ball forward.

But I really want to emphasize that we're not going to let that flounder that we, I know we need a break, but we at some point in the near term, I hope we will take that up and get into that important work as well.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Well, more than a couple, but a few thoughts.

First of all, thank you to staff.

I mean, this has been a huge lift and it took longer than we initially anticipated, but I think for all the right reasons, and it's not something that needs to be rushed.

You know, oftentimes we talk about leases that we're writing that are a hundred years.

And this is a lot shorter than that, but it's also not a year.

It's an important document to be thinking about for the next 20 years.

And the fact that it took a little bit longer is I think justified and we've think come out in a good spot.

So also commend the staff for out of box thinking.

I do think there are aspects of this that,

Yeah, it's a little bit status quo, right?

There's also an aspect of don't fix what ain't broke.

And so I think it's a balance that has to be worked on.

And I think through the creative thinking of staff, I think that's been achieved with the understanding and I agree it's not a perfect plan.

It's also a bit of a living document, right?

So there are opportunities.

This is not like it for 20 years.

This is an opportunity for us to continue to think about this and refine it.

It is a milestone, however, and additional miles lie ahead.

Community engagement process, you know, I sometimes scratch my head and I wonder why there aren't more people who get involved, even though there was a fair amount of really good, in some cases, turnout.

In some other cases, it was not a great turnout.

So for whoever's listening and for us just, you know, I think the opportunity to be part of a community to provide feedback is, it's democracy.

It's incredibly important to do.

You know, back to that concept of things not being perfect, some of what we've talked about tonight and throughout this process, you know, it's a lot of land use discussion and land use, if this makes sense, is really not digital, right?

It's analog.

I mean, every site's different.

Every project is different, everything.

And we're trying to create a plan that encompasses all of that and puts it into one area.

And that's part of the reason it could never be perfect, but it's also

I think part of the reason that it's so diverse.

I think it was much simplified.

I've been around here for a long time and I think I've worked with a couple of comprehensive plans and this one I think is not only simplified but also in my opinion emphasizes the right things.

respecting preservation while looking for ways to unlock development in the growth areas and ways to consider that.

And then the last thing I'll mention is this idea of metrics, right?

We've talked about how do we measure progress?

How do we measure how well we're doing on this document?

And so this is our chance to touch this and to have a public hearing and to recommend approval or not.

Not sure how everybody's going to vote, but it is also

You know, an ongoing process that will be something we need to hold ourselves accountable to as a county, not just now, but for the next 20 years.

Right.

And how are we doing and how do we so we may find times and places we need to revisit when we come back to this.

And that's part of that green living document that it's it's going to be.

That clock is wrong.

So it's 7.52, what?

So now it's 7.53.

When are we recessed till eight o'clock?

Thanks, Karen.

All right.

Welcome back.

We're back in session.

Okay.

A little bit after eight o'clock.

I want to rush staff.

You guys okay?

We think so.

Okay.

So we have the motion on the screen, and then we also have the resolution that includes the language that we just went through.

Yes, you have a draft of the resolution, but we've gone ahead and amended that resolution to include the amendments that we just talked about.

And you'll show us those?

Yeah.

Sorry.

We need Russia.

Working between two screens here.

Let me get out of the shore.

We need to read any of this into the record or is this

But if we approve it, it will go into the right by by recommending adoption of the resolution with the amendments that will include that with it.

Got it.

OK, thank you.

So.

I'm just going to read them just for the sake of if there's members of the public can't see this.

So the first one is under page GMP 11 process.

Ideally, the need for development area boundary revision would be identified by a future area planning effort.

The county could pursue a boundary revision with robust community engagement for future area planning effort for a future area planning effort.

and should request that county executive direct staff to develop a development areas report.

What was, where was that?

Oh, that's page GMP 11.

Tabs.

All right, thanks for the remedial help.

So did say, ideally, the need for development area boundary revision would be identified by a future planning effort.

Period.

The county

could pursue a boundary revision independently of a future vision with robust community engagement, inclusive of robust community engagement for a future area.

I guess that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Somehow the way you read it hurt my brain.

I read it fine.

Sorry.

All right.

I believe that.

Page number two.

Everybody good with the first one?

Yes.

Heading, so number two, page GMP 12, heading potential criteria for assessing, removing underperforming areas from the development areas, including but limited to the following.

Good.

Yes.

Number three, page ES18, action 44, add sub-bullet, use a minimum of 80% locally native species in all county projects.

Good?

Yes.

Page GAL U42, add the following sentence to the end of the first paragraph, to minimize degradation of local surface waters on site or nearby best management practices to treat runoff and improve water quality are preferred over the purchase of off-site credits.

Good.

and then page CF20, adding action 10-4, seek opportunities to add stormwater best management practices to neighborhoods lacking.

I might just, I just wonder if there's an opportunity for the last one.

We didn't get to have, I didn't get to make comment on there.

We do have the ACAP program and elsewhere we talk about, you know, encouraging incentives.

I couldn't hear the last part of that.

Yeah, that helps with that.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Too far.

Too far.

There we go.

So I can see that.

Thanks.

Thank you, Tanya.

Very good.

All right, then do we have a motion?

You want to go back to the motion language?

Please.

While he's doing that, I'll also say just to address your supportiveness of the comments in housing, regarding housing, we can pass that along to the board.

Great.

Thank you.

I move to adopt the resolution with amendments attached to recommending approval of CPA 2021-02.

Second.

Any discussion?

All right.

All right.

We have a motion.

We have a second.

Any more discussion?

All right.

Hi.

Mr. Bivins.

Hi.

Ms.

Firehock.

Hi.

All right.

All right, let's move on to committee reports.

Are there any committee reports the commissioners would like to share?

I do have some, but if somebody could go first, I'd like to fetch my notes.

Yes, it goes.

The others?

No?

All right.

Commissioner Moore?

Yeah.

Go ahead, Lonnie.

You got it?

Lonnie has one.

I was very infinite.

So the Carse CAC met, and we talked a lot about

talked a bit about the mission of the organization and how the nature of the committee over time has sort of evolved into being more informative, where staff comes and presents ideas to us.

And we say, you know, we sort of nod or we walk away as, you know, more.

Whereas in the past, it had been much more advisory in nature as in the title with actual recommendations that we would pass along to the Board of Supervisors.

And there was a general consensus that we did actually want to start moving more in the direction of being more advisory and providing recommendations as opposed to just receiving information.

So I thought it was a very interesting conversation that occurred.

The other thing too, and I want to get the name right.

Oh, I'm not going to get it right in here.

So there was a joint MPO meeting talking about the localities and the valley and also on our side and looking at transportation opportunities about, you know, looking at

You know, for example, the idea of future rail opportunities that can exist before.

Yeah.

And then UVA, I didn't know that too, UVA employees could get a pass to ride for free, which that was interesting.

Then also the Virginia Breeze and talking about the future connectivity that would provide sort of east-west connectivity.

And then I was also very, though this is a really long term thing, but the Virginia Statewide Rail Plan, you know, that would provide for more commuter traffic along a rail system.

And I particularly find that

You know, particularly in Crozet, we have this, we've long had this little train station in Crozet that was, for a brief time, the Crozet Library.

And I would love to see that come back again.

How great would it be for, you know, you'd be able to hop on a train and then go to Charlottesville or hop on a train and go to Stanton.

I think that would be an enormous asset to the region.

Great.

Thanks.

All right.

I've got two.

All right.

The RIO 29 community advisory committee went well.

There's a good conversation about the form-based code and the RIO 29 small area plan, which is coming up in line pretty soon for checking it out and updating it.

And then over at the longest committee name I've ever been a member of, the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee of the Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization, or CTAC-CAMPO,

We had several presentations, one about STARS studies, assessing, analyzing safety needs and making recommendations.

Going up 29 North from kind of hydraulic to Woodbrook was currently being studied.

And then also sort of 29-250, that sort of bypass interchange is also being studied.

Also from SeaTac Campo, we talked some about

What a Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee actually does and if it's needed, it's not required by law.

There's only four out of 15 MPOs in the state that have one.

And so do we really need one outside of long range transportation planning processes?

I don't have a particular, I actually don't have a strong opinion on that.

And then the last one was that they did actually seek our review on the projects to submit for SmartScale in the next cycle.

And so the ones coming down the pipe, a couple of obvious ones, a suite of improvements at US 29 and I-64, also a suite of improvements at Fifth Street and I-64.

And then a couple others, basically US 29 northbound and southbound at Barracks and also Ivy Road,

A sweep of improvements at 29 and 64 and 5th Street and 64.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

No more committee reports.

Move on to review the Board of Supervisors meeting from September 10th and 17th.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

The September 10th work session meeting was what we dealt with conference and plan, so you're very much up to speed on what we were talking about with that.

The 17th, there were a couple of things that happened on that meeting.

There was a work session in the afternoon where we talked to the board to try and sort of, there's been issues with the fill section in our ordinance and so staff held a work session with the board to try and gather with their intent.

What are they wanting us to do?

They also talked about, there was something on the transit occupancy tax, which unfortunately I didn't pay attention to.

So I couldn't give you that, but there was a public hearing on that.

The other thing which was sort of land-use related was a utility easement on Huckleberry Hills, the name of this property.

Apparently there was about 3,000 feet of overhead electrical service on that property.

It's got a conservation easement on it.

Walmart Conservation Easement Authority and this new easement would be a 15-foot wide corridor to underground the power and that got approved.

So not a lot of things that you all have seen before on those two meetings.

Yeah, so I mean, you know, this one that we have on the 10th, we went from two o'clock to almost eight o'clock, and we got through a lot of the document, but there was in section part three, they were the last couple chapters.

Board members sort of gave us their individual input afterwards, we tried to integrate that into the document that you all reviewed tonight, and hopefully, we were able to capture that.

But we need to go back and make sure that they

had a chance to see what those changes they were talking about were actually manifested themselves in document review tonight.

So that's the purpose of tomorrow's meeting.

It's slated for about an hour and 20 minutes of discussion.

Then in the evening, the 100-foot height increase, right, for industrial?

Yes, sir.

So yes, there's a zoning text amendment, as you'll recall, for the taller heights, a special exception to allow taller heights for industrial properties to accommodate more modern industrial processes.

Thank you.

May I ask a question?

I noticed, Mr. Barnes, that we've paused conversations around data centers.

whether or not to move forward at all.

I spend some time in another part of the world and it's quite stunning to me that they're talking about putting data centers in very remote places and they're doing off-grid power plants.

for these out of the way places.

And so I'm wondering whether or not what we're experiencing is that when users of data centers find a bit of resistance someplace, they go someplace else with less resistance and put power systems there that only will supply

the data center so that they don't have to navigate whatever it might mean to have to navigate a place like Albemarle County.

I'm just, I'm seeing a lot of that.

And so I thought I should ask my, I should ask Mr. Barnes, what's going on?

All right, any old business, new business, or items for follow-up?

All right, seeing none, I will adjourn us to Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 at 6 p.m.