Planning Commission Work Session and Regular Meeting   2/10/2026

We're live.

Madam Clerk, will you have the role to establish quorum, please?

Mr. Moore?

Present.

Mr. Murray?

Present.

Mr. Clayborne?

Present.

Mr. Carrazana?

Here.

Thank you.

Staff, can we have the presentation?

Can you hear me?

Mariah, if you don't mind, can you speak a little bit more to the mic there?

So I'm going to hand the mic over to them so that they can introduce themselves.

OK, Joseph, go right ahead.

It's very commendable.

I'm here at my home in Crozet.

Thank you.

So getting to our first group of questions, what are your thoughts?

Could you go back just to the slide for each question that has the...

Anybody want to tackle one of the questions?

I mean, I think, you know, five years is such a short time span, you know, given the scope of a lot of developments, you know, just seems it would be a little too easy.

When they make the application or when do you have a final site plan?

It starts as soon as the site plan is approved the day that it's signed.

I mean, the process could take a lot longer than that, right?

Like that expires after five years.

Yes, that's in our larger zoning ordinance as the final, the expiration date of a final site plan, five years is true across all zoning districts.

But the idea is to try and create some sort of tenure.

It makes a lot of sense and feels pretty reasonable that if somebody's got the site plan, hasn't even put a shovel in the dirt in five years, then they can reset.

And who does that successfully?

They noticed that their client was having a lot of hesitancy and the lack of flexibility to opt out.

I wonder if I could even back up to both.

Go ahead and talk.

It might be better to loosen that up for the long term.

Why can't we just make it the zoning?

Just a softer version.

But yeah, again, I think just the flexibility to, again, if we're going to make it opt in, the flexibility to actually make some things happen would be more beneficial than putting barriers in play or leaving barriers in place that accidentally keep things from happening.

So I actually don't understand

Why have it at all?

Why is there a five year period?

Are you trying to say in all?

But if they just have an approved site plan and then they want to submit, but they haven't built anything.

I think the point was to try and look you've gone through this we need you to you know both you and the county are working on this project together and to try and to give it some time where it has to they're in this district we're working together on that it's I say that that's not as strong of an argument maybe but that was the intent yeah I mean I'm in favor of

So I would be in favor of more flexible.

Did you have any

But I don't, you know, just for point of example.

Moving on to number two.

Is there some consensus that staff could hone in on?

You have a five-year plan, you know, with your site plan, and once that expires, then it can open up again.

Thank you.

I think you heard a couple different voices, but everybody is in agreement with the flexibility.

I think given the clarity that was given about when the five years starts, I'm okay with five years.

Question two or question three can answer both at the same time.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I was just saying we can move on to question two and three if we want to tackle them together or separately.

If we can discuss them jointly, it might save us time.

If there's some conversation we want to have around any particular one, then we can certainly do that.

So offering them that flexibility, I don't see a good reason to not allow people to use buildings by right.

I agree.

So I think in general, allowing that in some way, I think Commissioner Murray might be even more flexible on this than me, but I do think there's a room for a good deal of flexibility.

I think there may be some things that need to be adjusted around the building to make that building work.

So I do like the fact that you have the safety valve, so.

We don't have to.

Not at this time.

And it's, you know, they're going to tear it down and build something bigger, so.

I appreciate it.

Happy to go back to any individual slides.

We can hopefully you were able to either catch up by reading the previous report or we can just go right into the discussion about their value.

Is that a recap versus, or is there something specific that is additional?

Quick summation.

And I think you were talking about the sectional quality of the street, if I recall.

If we wanted to come back later and provide incentives, maybe that would be something we could say, come back and say, well, we have this definition of something, and now we can incentivize that thing that we defined.

Can you go back to the questions, Mariah?

Yes.

The maintenance one is, can you go through that chart where you're showing the, so is A an option?

A is the baseline option written into the code.

Is VDOT going to take care of the

So our hope is to kind of continue to work with VDOT to try and get them to take as much as they possibly can.

So it's not 100% on the applicant.

And so that wasn't advanced as an option in the ordinance.

Because it's going to go up in parity?

But at the end of the day, after we went through the site plan process, they ended up all being privately maintained.

So Bond is a private street, I didn't realize that.

And that was one that VDOT would have had a hard time

Not within a city or town limit.

And so that is a regular course of action, at least with working with VDOT here.

or Commissioner Carrazano's point where there's some kind of shared agreement where the county handles X and the applicant handles Y.

Do you have enough on that one?

So even if, I would say, let's make sure we're not disallowing that kind of investment by the local property owners after the fact.

Respectively.

Okay.

And so are we thinking about allowing some of both, I guess is what I'm...

And there are a few qualifying criteria for that, so it can't be, well, I'll go to it, actually.

Yeah, I think once she's looking for it, the default is to try and make it publicly maintained, but to recognize that there may be certain circumstances either because we're having a hard time getting VDOT taking the maintenance over or because the situation you're, I think, referencing where somebody would want to do the maintenance on it and take it over.

And those would be paired with the criteria that we saw before on the table.

This list on page 10 of our packet, which is the same list as I think what you had on a few slides, would those then be targeted recommendations or requirements?

So it's kind of a combination, but I would view that list as a generalization and not necessarily specific regulations that you'll see reflected in the code.

Are those then requirements or are those things that we can kind of like, again, use some carrots to help them go for?

Well, just go ahead.

Just so that we're encouraging people to push the boundaries a little bit and incorporate more sensible stormwater management in their development.

encouraging solar orientation, right, or shading or materiality and sustainability, energy performance, like any of those things to help strengthen what we're trying to do with the climate action plan.

So how do we start to frame those standards in order to regulate them?

So just reach out to me offline and I'll take care of it.

Commissioner King.

I'm just taking notes.

Nope.

Sorry, following me.

OK.

less than an acre parcel, you know?

Okay.

Does that answer the question you're asking directly, though?

You know, recreation space is a very wrong term.

That's just the term that we settled on.

Then they have that opportunity to opt out.

point seven, where it talks about the recreation spaces and allowing onsite stormwater treatment systems in those spaces, you know, so just trying to sort of visualize what a real world example of that looks like.

So I mean, there's there's examples around the community of things that both like biofilters and also recreation spaces.

So yeah, I don't have any other specific comments about this particular question.

And I would take Commissioner Clayborne up on his offer.

If we are going to, well, is that information that would be best suited for a user guide versus a minimum requirement?

Should we start requiring level of efficiencies in the buildings that we're building?

Is this the opportunity or is it better with the zoning ordinance?

and we should be looking at that and saying, well, can you do 10% better than the energy code, right?

Yeah, I'm with Corey and Corey's folks.

If you build it to code, it's literally the worst, right?

You can't build less than that.

Just stepped over the line.

Yeah, so I guess the question, Joseph, is are you seeing this in other municipalities where they're, in terms of sustainability and certain approaches that they're including in their form-based code that might be separate from other requirements?

Because in case it could be like a win-win or they're happy to do it, or it could be seen as onerous and another reason why they might not want to follow the code.

Just my thought.

Thank you.

If there's any ones that we want to discuss in particular,

Commissioner King, you want to start on your end this time?

I mean, in general, I don't have specific questions about the 25 different ones at the moment, but in general, I am in favor of the recommended approach of allowing some special exceptions that can be agent approved.

None of these flagged as ones that definitely need to stay board approved only.

Yeah, I agree.

I think you have, you have unanimity in that one.

Not hearing a lot of changes, we'll bring it back as a public hearing item to you all.

I know that there's been a lot of effort put into this, so we appreciate it.

Thank you all for your work.

So thank you.

So we've had that in mind when we wrote this as well.

Well, thank you so much.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Hispanic Clerk?

Mr. Moore?

Aye.

Mr. Murray?

Aye.

Thank you.

2025-00007 Wendy Knowles, and it's two separate items for sidewalk and planting waivers.

Thank you.

Two to three?

For Western Albemarle High School, this data is from the Albemarle County Public Schools Long-Range Planning Advisory Committee report, and they estimate approximately two and a half students, so rounding up three students.

But I don't, especially with this one where it's literally three students or fewer, I feel like that's a non factor that I don't even know that I would include.

Questions?

What happens then?

We'll end up at the board with stronger denial.

So, I mean, I guess this is the applicant too, but what is the nature of the, what's the nature of the objections to providing air connectivity?

I'm sorry.

So, I mean, what are the hurdles here in providing the interconnectivity, you know, between Colony Drive and Corey Farm Road, for example?

But like I said, the applicant could probably speak more to it.

How would that construction take place?

They would need to obtain approval from that easement holder in order to make whatever improvements there.

Okay.

Commissioner King.

So I don't think that should be a reason to deny the application.

So you have, is that what the position of the staff is to look for a path for that to happen?

And so the applicant could speak more on what it developed on their end, but that's staff's point of view.

And so I think as we work through the review of the applicant, I think we came to agree that extending Colony Drive over there would be a bit of a challenge to the topography.

Yeah, depends on how you.

That and also, to be honest, there is the easement for what serves Parcel 330 complicates it even further.

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff?

That would be one option, right, that would connect the two sides, at least pedestrian-wise.

Obviously, making that connection is still very important to us and something that's a durable surface.

We'll invite the applicant for a presentation, please.

bring up then just repeating that this is an infill project where even with this we are not getting to the three units an acre in that collective area and we are integrating a different housing types different price points that are available there that cannot happen in sort of a buy right development thus we need the zoning change to achieve those so that's all I had to share I'm happy to answer any questions commissioners questions for the public

Why is that being approached as a private road rather than turning it over to a VDOT road?

Effectively, meeting their public road criteria is a hugely cross-prohibitive or kind of dense development or a townhome type development.

sort of asphalt and substrate, right?

There are no bridges here, though.

Because your line kind of goes right down the middle of that ravine.

Is that what you're speaking of?

Yeah, it's there that going behind those.

I see, there's a ravine right here behind.

That ravine.

And there's various requirements we have to meet to address that.

I mean, it seems to be more

But a crushed stone would be okay also.

A lot of your images were not that, but anyway, just a suggestion on that.

No, I think you would do all native.

The good thing in looking at the townhomes, did you consider making, there seems to be a lot of difference between the contrast between the townhomes and the houses and right behind the, what are the, I had this question for staff, how would we characterize the units that are right behind those townhomes?

They appear to be single-family detached units.

OK. Have you thought about something that's more in that form that could also serve the same purpose, like maybe putting multiple units in something more of that kind of form?

But no, we didn't, we didn't look at doing a different structure than we thought about a townhome as a product, just to make a for sale, different product type in that neighborhood, basically.

Thanks.

So for the HOA, for the Homeowners Association, would they be charged with making sure that it looks something like your picture?

But once we thought about the fact that people will be coming through there, I thought, well, we should make it a little more interesting for them.

Because as you know, when you leave a field untended in this area, it turns into the forest.

The forest will come back eventually, yes.

Is that what you were talking about?

but we could implement some more trees there to kind of separate this area becomes a little more of its own open space so it's not part of this yard it's its own designated space and the trees are both give a little shade and then help designate the zone of where your you know open space path is as you come by the single-family houses.

Have you given any thought to plantings or anything to try to soften that?

It's something that could be done addressed to some additional screening or something like that if that was a concern of folks.

Do you have anything?

We didn't formally plan a structure or anything like that.

or benches or picnic tables or anything.

OK, thank you.

and not going out onto 250 just by a minor improvement to what you have drawn here.

We'll vote either way and take into consideration those for any adjustments we'd make is our thought.

Just tell me, how long is that path, from the development all the way out to Colony Drive?

It's about 800 feet.

Thank you.

Mr. Claireborne, I think you had a follow-up question.

Yeah.

What's the appetite for someone really wanting to walk through something like that?

I may apply a little of my own personal perspective to that of how I would imagine it, but it's probably fair to think through that and maybe it's detailed, maybe it needs to have longer, you know, a mowed path, you know, maybe it's 20 feet of mowing and you have a path in the center, so you have a little more cushion off the... Not intended to be silly or anything like that, but I think Commissioner Firehock kind of leaning towards that side, like is there another way to re-envision

And eventually, if Eastern Avenue comes through, those people would be able to get on the sidewalk on Private Road A and then get onto the path and get over to Clover Lawn without having to go onto 250.

There's just issues of liability and things like that that go with, you know, but doesn't mean that it couldn't be a publicly dedicated, you just have to work with the details and that.

Justin, how are you?

And I'm wondering, what were your limitations on putting that density on the southern section of the property?

So that led us to the four, basically, and the density on that side.

What are the limiting factors of doing that?

But that's essentially why.

Because you don't have room, right?

Where the colony drive right away is to continue cannot continue straight through without going over the neighbor's property.

Why not?

So that added complexity and the nature of this land up here is such that you could put in these houses with really no grading or disturbance, existing trees, nice mature trees on this property line, they can be saved with this approach, whereas they would probably be taken out with a more intense construction.

Please state your name and location of residence.

Please support the microphone, sir.

You guys did a good job.

Can you speak into the microphone?

Thank you.

Julianne Price, and then we have Michael Crenshaw.

R3 is still consistent with the Crozet master plan and is completely reasonable and consistent with the scope of the single family homes around us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Michael Crenshaw and Nadia Anderson-Sondek.

Thank you.

Nadia Anderson and Amanda Young is up next.

Thank you.

Amanda Young and Steve Wolfworth.

So thank you for your consideration.

Steve Woolsworth and then Bill O'Malley.

Thank you.

Bill O'Malley and Michael Monaco, maybe?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Michael Monaco and then Paul Cherine.

Thank you very much.

It's Shireen.

Ben Cowell?

You need to come to speak at the microphone.

Thank you.

If there's any one else in the audience that would like to speak tonight, please come forward.

Thanks.

Anyone else?

Hi, I live in Quarry Farm.