Planning Commission Regular Meeting   2/24/2026

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Albemarle County Planning Commission.

Just to note, the public can access and participate in the meeting through information posted on our county website, on the Planning Commission's home page, and the Albemarle County calendar.

And during the meeting, there will be opportunities for public comment.

Yes.

Here.

Here.

And Mr. Carrazana is absent.

All right.

Thank you very much.

The first item on our agenda would be, I'm saying this a little backwards, but is there anyone here who would like to speak to an item tonight that is not on the agenda for this evening?

Anyone want to speak from the public on an item not on this evening's agenda?

No, ma'am.

No one has had their hand up for that.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we'll move on from that to the consent agenda.

Is there a motion?

Oh, there is nothing in the consent agenda, so moving on from that.

That's just flying right along.

So with that, I would like to open the public hearing to ZMA 2025-0001 600 Ryle Road West.

And the first thing we will do is hear from the applicant.

Or sorry, staff report.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Cameron Langell.

I'm a principal planner with the Planning Division of Community Development, and I'll be giving you the staff presentation and recommendation on ZMA 2025-01, which is 600 Rio Road West.

So the specifics of the proposal, it's looking to rezone four parcels of land from commercial office to the neighborhood model zoning district.

Again, 3.2 acres, and if this rezoning were to be approved, development of the property would be subject to the application plan and code of development, which are included in the staff report as attachments two and three.

There are two special exception requests associated with the ZMA.

One of them is to waive the mixture of uses within the neighborhood model district zoning ordinance requirement, and the other is to reduce the minimum area of required amenities.

Both of those special exceptions are actually acted on by the board, and the commission doesn't have to give a recommendation on them, but I will get into more specifics of those later in the presentation.

So this is an aerial view of the properties.

I'm going to use my laser pointer.

Right now, they do have five townhouses, and then there's two other structures that look like single-family homes, one of which was previously used as a daycare.

The other two properties are undeveloped.

They are located on the north side of Rio Road West, and they're between Woodburn Road and Berkmar Drive.

Again, I have those labeled here.

There's a variety of surrounding uses.

On the immediate east, there's some professional offices, medical offices, and then commercial and retail.

To the south is a development that's known as the Berkmar Crossing, which is mostly commercial businesses.

There's some office space in there.

And then this area is known in the county as the Oakley development, but this building itself is actually

an assisted living facility and then these parcels up here are going to be developed with residential uses at some point in the future as you can see they've been cleared but nothing's been built yet.

So this is the zoning map.

Again, our properties are highlighted in teal.

They're zoned CO commercial office, and all the properties adjoining them to the east are also CO. To the west, there's some single-family detached properties that are zoned R4 residential.

To the north is some undeveloped land that's zoned R6.

And then all those commercial uses that are further east or south.

There's a variety of zoning districts that apply, like the neighborhood model district, which is the dark green color.

And then the dark purple is planned development mixed commercial.

The point is, is that there's a wide variety of zoning districts that apply to parcels in this area.

So now we're getting into the application specifics.

This is Sheet 4 of Attachment 2, which is the application plan.

And what it shows is how development would occur.

The five existing townhomes would be retained, and then they would build some new multifamily structures and parking areas and outdoor amenities.

The minimum units that they would have to build is 28 with a maximum of 153.

That density comes out to a maximum of 47.8 and a minimum of 8.7.

They are proposing to be consistent with housing Albemarle and do 20% of their units at 60% AMI.

There's no minimum requirement for commercial, but they do have the option to go up to a maximum of 20,000 square feet commercial.

So some other details.

There'd be vehicular access into the site from Station Lane and Greenfield Terrace.

And then green space would be 20% of their total development.

And then amenities would be 16%.

So the special exceptions, again, neighborhood model district has to have two general land use classifications.

In this case, since they're not required to do a minimum of commercial, they've made the special exception request.

But the ordinance states that this can be waived if there's a variety of uses already existing within a quarter mile.

In this case, as we looked at earlier, there's a lot of different uses in the surrounding area.

So staff felt that they were consistent with the

Finding requirements for this request and therefore we're recommending approval.

The special exception to reduce the required amenities.

Basically, where any properties in the Rio 29 small area plan, the amount of amenities you're required to have in a neighborhood model district defaults to what the small area plan says.

And the small area plan says that any private development should have between

15 and 20 percent of their site acreage as amenities.

So this application is proposing 16 percent amenities and really the purpose of this special exception is just to sort of eliminate any question about whether they're required to have 17, 18, 19 or 20.

Staff is recommending approval of that.

I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have

So the recommendation is consistent with the county's growth management policy.

It's providing new housing in the development area.

It's consistent with all the form and site design standards of the small area plan.

It's providing a new eight-foot sidewalk along the frontage of Rile Road West, which is a transportation improvement that is recommended by the small area plan.

And then within the site, they've actually put forth a proffer to commit to providing an area that could be dedicated to the county upon demand in the future.

to build a connection to that piece of land that we own to the north.

Parks and Recreation may develop that property to an extent to allow it to be used as a public park.

And so this applicant has worked with staff to show that reservation area that could be

Either a vehicular access or both a vehicular and pedestrian bicycle access to the county parcel.

The benefit of that is it would reduce the need for the county to actually build a new entrance along Berkmar Drive into the county parcel.

Doing so would likely require additional right-of-way dedication as well as construction of turn lanes along Berkmar, which would be like a major project for us to undertake.

So Parks and Rec staff have really worked with this applicant to get the appropriate location and size of this reservation area.

And again, that reservation would be in place for 10 years that we could request dedication.

The only concern that we identified is that Agner Elementary is projected to be over capacity in future years.

And this development, if it developed to the maximum density that they're proposing, would contribute an additional 20 elementary students.

But that was the only thing that we identified as an unfavorable factor.

Okay, other questions for staff?

I was just curious, in the application, it said that they're not opting into the small area plan completely, but a lot of the things are fairly consistent with it.

So what they are not doing is opting to develop the property by right under the form-based code zoning district regulations.

Prior to making this ZMA application, they worked quite a bit with our staff who are the dedicated form-based code planners.

and it was just found that some of the code requirements that would be triggered, there was no way to really meet those standards without having to go through a special exception process on probably, I don't know, a half dozen different code requirements.

That said, while staff have been reviewing the zoning map amendment, the long range plan, typically it's a master plan for one of the development areas.

But in this case, the long range plan that applies is the small area plan.

So relatively minor technical differences.

Yeah.

Short version.

Okay.

I don't know that I could say parks is almost certain they're going to be able to build a park there within the next five years, but I do know that recently they were doing a project to build a pocket park somewhere in the county.

This site was one of the sites that they had been considering.

Ultimately, it went down off of Hillsdale.

near the Catholic Church there.

But it's a site that is actively being investigated and looked at.

And based on my interactions with Parks and Rec staff that I mean, pretty close to the top.

So okay.

I do not know the answer to that.

I'd have to ask them directly, but I mean, a pedestrian connection is one of the options that they could do in that area.

So actually I've got, this is, let me use my laser pointer again.

This is actually an image that applicant provided.

So here's our site.

You got the Rio Hill Shopping Center, here's Berkmar Drive.

The potential park is all of these trees right here.

As I recall, this is pretty, there are already pretty good sidewalks in that area already or no?

In the larger area, yes, there's sidewalks.

Yeah, there's sidewalks.

I don't know if you can see it, but all here.

Mine is more of a confirming point.

I have a couple of questions.

But the first one is just kind of following up with Commissioner Murray.

If we're saying that within a quarter mile, roughly, there's access to commercial, which would alleviate the need to commit to commercial within this development, do we feel in generally comfortable that pedestrians could get to Agner Elementary School, to Rio Hill Shopping Center, to the library via sidewalks?

Yeah, I do.

I mean, you know, if I was living there, what I would do is probably either walk down Greenfield Terrace and then get to the sidewalk at the corner there at Berkmar.

And, you know, there's actually two transit stops on either side of Rio right there as well.

There are some gaps in there.

I mean, you know, obviously, people we call,

did an apartment complex.

It was on the other side of Agner Hurte.

They gave money to make a pedestrian crossing at that intersection.

So you're lacking something there.

Across Berkmar, there's a little small section of shared use path.

It's right next to the Volvo dealership.

The county was going to like put a shared use path along that side.

Okay.

So we feel reasonably good about it.

Okay.

Um,

Well, it's hard to say.

So if they, you know, developed under the form-based code zoning regulations, there's no maximum density cap that is established.

So it's hard to say because I wouldn't know what number of students could get built.

I think if they weren't doing a rezoning and they didn't want to do form-based code, they could develop these properties with residential uses, but they would have to get a special use permit and they would only be able to go up to 15 dwelling units and acres.

I'm not sure what that math comes out to.

If you want me to find out, I could probably run the numbers and see.

But if they developed under form-based code, I would say probably.

I'm just trying to reconcile the concern there.

If it was just done by the books, would it still have a negative impact on attendance?

Yeah, I think they, especially part of the issues we were going through this process, I think one of the reasons the form-based code wasn't attracted to them when they started the process because we were rewriting the code.

Yeah.

So obviously we're trying to wrap that up now.

They would have been delayed.

So what I can say the things that could be altered typically

I guess my question is more about inappropriate Bi-Rite uses.

Like, I think I saw like water and sewer treatment or something like that.

And there's these miscellaneous things like, you know, telephone, telecom, infrastructure and utility wires and stuff like that.

I mean, I don't have the code development up in front of me, but some of that stuff I think was like stormwater management facilities.

We typically always have neighborhood model districts list those types of utilities out just so there's no question about whether they're allowed to get done since they're required anyways.

Perhaps the applicant can speak more to like the telecommunications thing, but...

I can ask there.

Thanks.

Okay.

My question relates to the access for the future park.

So the way I see it on the map and I'm kind of I have on my computer the yeah, so I'm assuming that would go through

Greenfield, Terrace and not Station.

Like we would expect traffic for the park to come onto Greenfield and then make a right into the park versus Station Lane and just about capacity for traffic.

Station Lane is going to be a public, is a public, is private.

We'll stay private.

And it looks like on the aerial that there is currently an apron in that circle from Station Lane.

Yeah, so it's interesting.

If you do a site visit, it's almost fully flush, almost, with Greenfield Terrace.

And so that's going to remain.

But right now, there is a sidewalk that's sort of demarked right there where the apron is.

But someone would be able to drive from one to the other.

And the access into the park would be off of Greenfield.

OK, I just had one question.

Did you have any others?

No?

That's it?

OK.

I just had one question.

I was intrigued by the idea of the park next to the elementary school.

Would a child living in this new development, do you think they could make their way through the park all the way to school?

One would hope if we were going to develop the park, there would be a connection.

That would be really a wonderful amenity for the kids.

All right, that would excite me.

I do have one more question.

This was brought up by one of the fellow commissioners.

One of the buy-write uses in the Code of Development is tier one or tier two personal wireless.

Is that like towers?

It has a code number next to it, so I'm not familiar with the numbers yet.

Yeah, I think tier two could be somewhat like a tower.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions from the Commissioner before we go to hear from the applicant?

Everyone good?

Well, I just have one more.

So if we compare this, if this had been done with form-based code, what features would we

So from what I recall, and again, I was not the primary staff member working on that, but there's certain requirements for the design of the streets, for example, that would have required major upgrades and changes to how Station Lane currently exists.

There's also a lot of different architectural requirements like

ground floor uses and transparency of windows and architectural elements that it would just be hard for this applicant to meet all those things and still provide the amount of residential that they're seeking to do.

I would conclude the version that we have is different from what they would have been under in the previous code.

I think there were elements in the, I'll call it the existing code because we adopted a new one that would have been in hindrance to this.

Probably the applicant could speak to that.

They're the ones who decided to do this instead.

All right.

If there's nothing else, then I'd like to welcome the applicant up to make their presentation.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And although I've been before you many times, I had a new thing come up where my presentation became corrupted this afternoon.

So bear with me as I have to go between two slides this evening just so we can kind of talk through some of the graphics.

And I apologize for that.

But good evening, Chair Firehock, members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Kelsey Schlein.

I am a planner with Tattyline Land Planning and Development Services.

I'm working with my friends over at Shimp Engineering to

Hopefully get this application across the finish line.

And here with me tonight from Piedmont Realty Holdings III, the applicant for this project is Drew Holsworth.

He's also available for any questions that you might have.

So since I don't have all of my lovely graphics that I prepared for you all, I think it might be most productive to jump into some of the questions that we heard from you all and kind of talk about how this application came to be and come before you as a neighborhood model application rather than going electing to go through the form-based code.

So I think that this is a really good site image here from our application plan.

And you kind of get a sense for the context of the area subject to the Rio 29 small area plan and form based code.

and that area is kind of roughly the 400 acres that I'm circling here.

It encompasses all of our major shopping centers.

And one stat in the Rio small area plan that really stands out is that 39% of those 400 acres are covered in parking lots.

And so I think that that was

you know a large factor contributing to the county designating this area for something more and something greater and so when the form-based code was adapted we looked at that very closely to see how we could make it work, how this site which is designated within the flex area of the form-based code overlay

could contribute to the county to the goals put forth in the form-based code.

And the main hurdle that we hit with that with moving forward under the form-based code is really this relationship here between Station Lane and Greenfield Terrace.

The form-based code has some very robust street requirements

which I think are great and work for a lot of properties for pedestrian connectivity, multimodal transportation.

It doesn't work for every property.

And there really wasn't a way for us to move forward with that.

We have to build Station Lane to a public standard and to make this connection.

if we were to incorporate a minimum 200 foot center line radius to tie in Greenfield Terrace to Station Lane and upgrade that to a public road, we basically compromised the entire corner of this property to make that radius and to make that public road connection and build a street to the standard as set forth in the form-based code.

So that was a really kind of tough hurdle and we worked with staff.

kind of tirelessly to come up with different solutions for how to make that work and ultimately elected after a year or so of going through the process to develop under neighborhood model district.

And I think that we've done a really good job at coming up with an application that really meets a lot of the goals of the form-based code.

And I made this comparison here.

I think is pretty helpful.

So when we're looking at this site and we're comparing the form-based code requirement to the neighborhood model proposal in this rezoning application, there is no maximum density specified in the form-based code.

Our proposal is for up to 153 units, 48 dwelling units per acre, so we're consistent with that requirement or I should say there's no really

requirement for us to hit, but we're not inconsistent with it is what I should say.

Building height, two to four stories are permitted in the flex designation, which is what this property is subject to.

And five stories are permitted with affordable housing bonus factors.

We're proposing up to five stories.

We also are meeting the housing Albemarle requirement of providing 20% of units at 60% AMI.

So I think we're consistent there.

And Cameron already went over this a little bit, but for the amenity areas in the form-based code, we'd be required to provide a minimum 15% civic space requirement.

We're providing 16%.

So I think that we're consistent with that there.

Also in our code of development, we do provide requirements for transparency.

We do provide, you know, requirement for architectural articulation on the building to, you know, prevent any type of just blank facade for an extended, you know, length of a building.

All of those items are consistent and I think kind of, you know,

speak to or a nod to the intent of the form-based code.

And I think we've really captured a lot of that with this development.

I know that there were a few questions about some particular uses listed in the Code of Development.

All of those uses are listed in

in the code section 26 of the neighborhood model, you know, section of the zoning ordinance.

And so those are kind of all like standard lists uses that then if you expressly provide for them in the code of development, they're permitted, but there's a list in section 28

A6 and that's our list of uses that's proposed is kind of, you know, copy and paste of a lot of those boilerplate uses.

If there's any that cause particular heartburn, I think we can strike those.

The goal here is really to build, you know, a dense urban multifamily development.

And so I think we're comfortable if any of those uses give heartburn to strike those.

But just so you know where they came from, they came directly from.

The Code.

And that is all that I have for you in the presentation.

I think actually one more note I did want to pick up on, and Cameron touched on this, is the proffer commitment to the

The Park Connection.

I really want to commend the applicant for continuing to work with staff on that to figure out a solution.

Parks came to us and said we have this idea and we had a few back and forth and rounds of revision.

I think the proposal that we've put before you is something that's

you know not only beneficial to this project if there was a park next door that future residents could easily access which would be awesome but also incredibly beneficial for the county to be a huge cost savings to provide an entrance from Greenfield Terrace which has significantly less traffic than Berkmar and the entrance requirements per VDOT are much less stringent.

So I just wanted to hit on that point.

And thank you all so much for the opportunity.

Wonderful, thank you.

Sure.

So if I understand you correctly, and again, I know none of us sort of have the complete side by side up, but on page, I think it's six of the code of development, there's a chart talking about architectural standards.

I would say keeping into like the main intent behind the form-based code, which is in urban form, you know, transparency kind of human scale at the streetscape.

I think all of these requirements check those boxes.

I will say, you know, the form-based code requires a 14-foot minimum

height for a first floor.

If you drive by the one application that is currently being built under the form based code, you'll see that it looks interesting for residential development.

We have not proposed that requirement.

Thank you.

This goes before the B.A.R., is that correct?

It's subject to entrance quarter.

So, yes, it will.

OK, I'm good there.

Yeah, so the plan for now is for them to stay.

And so they would be incorporated as part of the development.

And I could bring up a different slide, but we kind of have them shown on the concept plan as remaining here.

Well, we'll have to, I mean, I will say there, you know, this is large, this would be a larger building than the building that's there currently.

And the building envelope, these are also envelopes that we show.

So the final, this is a little generous for how that building will exist.

I will also say that,

These townhomes, this exterior wall probably wasn't fire rated for a building to be super close to it.

And so we're going to have to comply with any building code regulations, especially to comply with the window openings on the side of this building as well.

So this is an envelope, but likely it's not going to be that close.

It just caught my attention for whoever owns that unit.

And so right now it's all common ownership.

So those are not fee simple lots.

And so that is, it's an additional owner in addition to Piedmont Realty Holdings, but they have signed on to the application.

Okay, and then I'll just flag whatever happens in between those two buildings is pretty important.

Right now it's just shown as nothing, right?

So just thinking about that as you move forward, showing what happens in between those two buildings.

Well, we have different parking minimums proposed for different types of uses.

For religious assembly use was proposed, obviously, it would compromise a footprint for a multifamily building.

Okay, so you can accommodate pretty much.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And, you know, the county's code also does afford some options, like if there was, you know, interest or appetite for any commercial uses, if it's complementary to any of the residential uses, for example, you use religious assembly as an example, you know, we might be able to work out something where, you know, if residents aren't

Maybe religious assembly isn't the best use because a lot of residents would be home on Sunday, but I should say an office user where the tenants leave during the day, you know, they're at work doing whatever and then, you know, the whoever is using office space parks in a tenant spot during the day or something like that.

Okay, and then the last and final question.

This is kind of nitpicky.

This is for my own knowledge.

It was on sheet 2 of 10 and talks about the flood zone.

It says, according to FEMA, the flood insurance rate map, yada, yada, yada.

It's not, you know, floodplain overlay, anything like that.

That's just kind of a standard note that we list to demonstrate that it's not in a floodplain.

The 2005 maps are the most recent at most places.

They are currently being updated though.

Thanks.

I think I'm good.

Okay, you have no minimum commercial specified, but you know, just as a comment, I know we, as we look at the mix of uses in our development area, you know, obviously that, you know, if we have too much residential and not a commercial, then it ends up being a tax burden on the county, but also thinking about, you know, people that are living in a place like this, I know that they can walk to some of those other areas, but

Yeah, thank you for that.

And I think, you know, especially on the, you know, amenity note, as far as like a, you know, flex workspace or a gym, something like that, you know, there is going to be an interior amenity component to this multifamily application.

I appreciate this proposal and just to say, you know, I don't have a problem with sort of skipping the commercial requirement here because there's commercial across the street, there's commercial next door to the left, there's commercial, you know, over at Rio Hill it is.

I mean, there's a lot of commercial.

But I mean, certainly places where neighbors can be neighborly, it's always valuable.

I also appreciate that you've got parking underground, so it's not more surface lots.

That seems like a really wise decision here.

I was looking at the, I guess it's the conceptual sections, which was in the presentation.

So it's mostly, both of these buildings are kind of designed to be like a podium parking.

Sure.

All right.

Yeah.

Thanks for the presentation.

Okay.

I don't think we have any more questions from us for now.

So I'll give the public an opportunity to comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

I have one person online.

One person online.

All right.

All right, Dean, could you please, OK. Did you hear the instructions OK?

Can you hear me?

Mr. Winger, we can't hear you.

Can you hear me?

OK, great.

OK, I just had a few questions.

How many students is Agnihurt currently over capacity?

OK, we'll take that under consideration.

What is your other?

I did.

OK, we'll save that for the applicant to answer.

OK, great.

Thank you.

OK, thank you very much.

Seeing as there's no one else online, we'll hear from the applicant.

There are a few questions from the public if you want to come back up.

Sure, yeah, thank you for the opportunity to respond.

Okay.

In the 2026?

The 35-36.

35-36 school year.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

So, a question would be just when would you think this whole thing would come online?

Over the next three to five years, or two to four, we're planning to go straight into site plan permitting and kind of move forward with making this thing happen.

Something that we grapple with on every application.

I think that this one is a little unique, just given that there is the option to elect on the form-based code.

And if we did do that, we could

build largely the same density and wouldn't be here before you asking for approval.

And I think with the types of units and multifamily and potentially one and two is making up a large mix,

doesn't typically lend itself super well.

It might be more working professionals, couples, single folks, older folks who don't want to take care of a yard anymore and live a little closer into the city.

So the projections are tough, but I think this application is unique in that it could build a similar density by right.

Thank you.

Yeah, just to both the staff and the applicant, I really do think that it'd be a great thing to have a safe route to school from this place for whatever students are.

Absolutely.

OK, if there's nothing else for the applicant, thank you very much.

I'll kick it off.

Yeah, it's my district.

It's actually quite close to where I live.

I think it makes a lot of sense.

This has been identified as a place where we want urban style residential construction and it's a key growth area and densification of that part of our community is appropriately located.

I do think it's a clever sort of linking up two roads and also connecting to a park.

I like that the parking is predominantly under the building itself so that we're not just putting in more surface parking lots.

I also

You know, with the schools thing, this is one I harp on a lot of these meetings where, you know, we're a growing county.

We're going to be a growing county.

We don't put anything else on there except schools.

We don't talk about increased police presence or increased fire and rescue or increased health care infrastructure.

You know, these are just things that we have to keep addressing as our county grows.

And that'll be true for schools as well.

We'll have to figure out how to build more classrooms and hire more teachers.

I agree with everything that said, I mean, honestly, I could go with a taller building.

I mean, I think, you know, this is this is a place where, honestly, a little bit more density wouldn't bother me at all.

I think the particularly the nice thing we have, we have the parking underneath.

So I think this is a

It's a pretty good project.

As I said, I mean, establishing those connections, you know, through the park, safe place to walk to school.

Yeah, and that might make it attractive to a family, you know, so that they could have that.

All right.

Anything else?

There's a lot that I like about the proposal.

I can appreciate the density.

I like the units at 60 percent AMI, which I feel like we never get.

So it's good to

Start seeing those come online, the connections to nearby commercial, the land for the park that ties together the school and site.

Lots of nice things about this.

Just as the applicant moves on, I think a couple of things that will truly make this successful and hopefully a catalyst for other developments.

It's just the graphics that will articulate the facades as you move on.

I just think it's so important along Rio Road and

But the sidewalk doesn't be right up against the building and showing how that transparency and the facades really take shape.

I just think it's gonna be super important for the success from a design standpoint.

And also just be really thoughtful about how you treat that space in between that existing building and new.

I think that's pivotal.

Right now, it doesn't do it justice.

But also understand this is just a rough site plan that's rudimentary.

I get it.

But as it matures, just how you treat that space and the facades there as well, I think will be really important.

Hopefully, it's going to be a model for other great projects that come along in that corridor.

All right.

In general, I'm in favor of the application as well as what's been said by other commissioners.

I think that I appreciate most the podium parking, not having

Extra surface parking is a really good use of the space.

And they've also done a nice job of putting stormwater facilities underground where they, you know, won't necessarily be an eyesore.

You're gearing up there.

OK, so I also concur with everything the commissioner said.

I was also really excited by parking under the building.

At first, I thought I was seeing things that I was like, wait a minute.

Is this a progressive development that catches up with the last 40 years?

It's just in Albemarle County, in the past land was cheap and so we have so many surface lots and so much urban heat island as a result.

And this actually makes good use of a tight space.

and I mean I would love to live there.

In college I had an apartment and I rode my bike through a park and arrived at school and I felt refreshed and it turns out that just 15 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes of access to green space for a child before they start school increases their IQ several points.

So they're just walking to school, they'll be smarter by the time they get there.

If you want to make another comment, sure, go ahead.

I just want to make one thing.

I mean, I will say in terms of the underground stormwater, I'd really like to see more

You know, more green roofs and less underground stormwater treatment because those underground stormwater treatments have been notorious in terms of future problems.

Yes, well, if I had my magic wand, I'd put a green roof on top of all the buildings, and they'd be frogging up there and having some amazing views.

But nobody invited me to design this or to have an unlimited budget, so we'll leave it.

Yes, we have our little fantasy moment once a session.

OK, we've done it.

I am.

I move to recommend approval of ZMA 2025

0001 600 Rio Road West for the reasons listed in the staff report.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Is there any further discussion by the Commission?

All right, if not, we'll call for the vote.

Okay, Ms. King.

Ms. Firehock.

Aye.

Mr. Clayborne.

Aye.

All right, great.

The motion passes and moves on to the next stage in the process, which is before the Board of Supervisors.

And I wish you best of luck on your slides and the corruption monster doesn't get you next time.

So we've all we've all been we've all been there.

Do we need separate motions for the special exceptions?

The special exceptions generally handled by the Board of Supervisors.

We do not have to and actually we have no authority over those.

Thank you.

You are freaking escape.

Okay.

With that on the next item we have on our agenda is committee reports.

Yes, I do.

The Crozet Community Advisory Committee met and it's one of the things we had an interesting discussion about naturally occurring affordable housing, which was mentioned in the Crozet Master Plan in terms of the need for a study, the need to identify it.

And so we had a discussion about like, how would we go about doing that?

How would we identify naturally occurring affordable housing

We talked about really the untapped power of GIS, if we could leverage it.

And then also, this is just something exclusively to Crozet, that Crozet needs, that really our entire development area could really use this, or the whole county.

and we talked about ways that we could possibly utilize UVA students to do this as a project.

So for the project you're envisioning, are you talking about and using GIS?

Are you wanting to map out where there's affordable housing?

Sure, yeah, the sort of places that are at risk of flipping into a much higher level of cost.

And there, I mean, there's several places, obviously, in Crozet, you drive around where you can see those those homes, you know, and, you know, making sure that we don't lose the affordable housing that we have, I think is an important goal, you know, you know, and even in the rural area as well, because we have a lot of, you know, naturally occurring affordable housing in the rural area.

So, but yeah,

Corey, any reports?

Nope.

Nope.

And our CAC for 5th and Avon did not meet last week, so they canceled that meeting.

And then I missed my own historic preservation, so much fun as I have with them, always canceling.

I had to cancel myself from that.

I had a medical conflict.

Thank you.

The board met on February 18th and covered two items.

It was a fairly light agenda in the afternoon.

Kevin McDermott made an excellent presentation with the consultant on the Three Notch Trail application or the process with the planning thing.

And then that evening, there were several public hearings, but only one was something that had to do with Community Development Department.

and that was conveyance of some utility easements or permission to have some utility easements in Colony Drive.

That's where U Heights is.

OK, great.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Move on to new business and the commissioners have new business to bring up.

All right.

The only thing was, I don't know if there's a follow-up about a representative to the Natural Heritage Committee.

Yes, we did talk to Claudette about, I think what it is, is the committees that you all are staffed to represent are the ones that we need to have planning commissioners on.

The other ones you're more than welcome to attend, but

A very long time ago, I was the liaison when you were on the, not on this body yet, but we're on that group.

So, but then we were told by the board, we didn't need that anymore.

So that's what happened.

OK.

I responded and said I want to sign up, but I don't know.

exactly how to do that.

Are you wondering if there's funding available for commissioners?

So yeah, I've got a limited amount of funding.

So the question was really, is everyone interested?

And then I need to figure out do I have the funding to send you?

So Mary Katherine King was tied off to respond to her interest and

Several of you all may have a sense of experience on the board and not have interest in taking the training class.

It's something we sent you an email about 10 days ago and it's down at VCU.

They have a virtual one that's coming up in the near term, March or April.

OK, so I think if I mean, if you're interested in learning more, there was an email that went around to all of us already.

You could let Michael know and then he could figure out what the budget implications are for that.

Thank you.

Yes.

And I also mentioned along those lines,

The State Planning Association, the Virginia American Planning Association has their conference in July.

I think it's the third week in July, which is also during this meeting, unfortunately.

I'm going to go to the planning conference.

They do have a

commissioners session that goes kind of all day and you can you can pop in and out so if eight hours of planning commission knowledge is too much you can take a break but I've done it a few times now I did it last year and it was really fun actually to sit with other commissioners from other places and learn what they do

I mean, one of them even goes on a retreat where all the commissioners get to go and talk about planning stuff, anything they want.

It was amazing.

Anything they want related to planning.

But even so, this body is not known for being shy to want to talk about planning topics.

Anyway, it was neat to hear.

And also not only just about some of the perks or things that they did, but challenges that they had.

It was cathartic for me anyway.

It was like a support group.

But the attendance to, obviously it's down down Danville.

So there's some hotel costs obviously with that, but the

The rate for a commissioner is like $50.

And it's for all three days.

So I always go as commissioner of Firehock and get my $50 of amazing education.

So if you want to get more training as a planning commissioner, they have a whole track for you, but you also could attend any of the other professional sessions.

You know, on affordable housing or, you know, innovative architecture, whatever floats your boat.

So I just wanted to put in that plug because I'll be there and that'll be a party.

No, I'm just kidding.

Just kidding.

Don't put that in the minutes, Carolyn.

All right, so I think that's it on training.

I don't know if there's any other old business.

Well, I did want to mention actually that I'll be attending the Annual Active Mobility Summit hosted by PEC on March 5th and 6th.

And I think that one of the speakers that I'm very excited about, you know, you probably heard me talk about the great work that's been done in Roanoke to really

I think I've received that email a bunch of times.

I don't know if everyone has for the mobility summit.

OK, we'll send it around.

So if you're interested,

All right, I think that's it for all of our business, and no items for follow-up that I know of.

If I was the regular chair, maybe I'd have an item, but I don't.

All right, so with that, we will move to adjournment to the next meeting, which will be March 10th at 6 o'clock here in this very room.

All in favor?

All right, be free.

Very efficient.