Central Virginia
Albemarle County
Planning Commission Regular Meeting 3/10/2026
Auto-scroll
Planning Commission Regular Meeting
3/10/2026
Attachments
Agenda.pdf
Minutes.pdf
Action Memo.pdf
ZMA-2025-12 Parham Circle Staff Report.pdf
Attach. 1 ZMA-2025-12 Parham Circle Location Map.pdf
Attach. 2 -ZMA-2025-12 Parham Circle Narrative.pdf
Attach. 3 ZMA-2025-12 Parham Circle Conceptual Plan.pdf
Attach. 4 ZMA-2025-12 Parham Circle Public Comments Received via Email.pdf
Attach. 5 SE-2025-31 Parham Circle Stepback Waiver Request.pdf
Attach. 6 SE-2026-3 Parham Circle Setback Modification Request.pdf
ZMA2023-7 & SP2023-9 North Pointe Amendment Staff Report.pdf
Attach. 1 ZMA2023-7 & SP2023-9 North Pointe Applicant Narrative.pdf
Attach. 2 ZMA2023-7 & SP2023-9 North Pointe Existing Conditions Exhibit.pdf
Attach. 3 ZMA2023-7 & SP2023-9 North Pointe Application Plan.pdf
Attach. 4- ZMA2023-7 & SP2023-9 North Pointe Proposed Proffers 1.29.2026.pdf
Attach. 5 ZMA2023-7 & SP2023-9 North Pointe Traffic Impact Anaysis.pdf
Draft PC Minutes 02_10_2026.pdf
Draft PC Minutes 02_24_2026.pdf
1. Call to order and establish quorum.
▶︎
0:26
2. Public Comment on matters pending before the Commission but not listed for a Public Hearing on this agenda.
▶︎
1:08
3. Consent Agenda.
▶︎
1:25
4. Public Hearing.
▶︎
2:00
a. ZMA-2025-00012 Parham Circle Self Storage
▶︎
2:00
ZMA-2025-00012 Parham Circle Self Storage.pdf
b. ZMA202300007 and SP202300009 North Pointe Amendment
▶︎
41:18
ZMA202300007 and SP202300009 North Pointe Amendment.pdf
5. Committee Reports.
▶︎
2:30:16
6. Review of Board of Supervisors Meeting: February 25, 2026 and March 4, 2026
▶︎
2:30:30
7. New Business.
▶︎
2:35:07
8. Old Business.
▶︎
2:36:03
9. Items for follow-up.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:00:04
The meeting and only the public can access and participate in the meeting through information posted in the Albemarle County website, specifically on the Planning Commission homepage and the Albemarle County calendar.
00:00:17
During the meeting, there will be opportunities for the public to comment on specific agendas, items where input is invited.
00:00:26
And since it is six o'clock, we will call the March 10th, 2026 Planning Commission to order.
00:00:38
Madam Clerk, I get the role to establish a quorum.
SPEAKER_06
00:00:42
Sir.
00:00:42
Mr. Murray.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:00:45
Here.
SPEAKER_06
00:00:46
Mr. Clayburn.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:00:47
Here.
SPEAKER_06
00:00:48
Mr. Carrazana.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:00:49
Here.
SPEAKER_06
00:00:50
Ms. King.
00:00:51
Here.
00:00:52
Mr. Moore and Ms. Firehock are both absent today.
00:00:57
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:00:58
Thank you.
00:01:06
So we do have a quorum.
00:01:08
And we would like to invite the public, if there's matters that are pending in front of the Commission but are not in the agenda today that anybody would like to speak on, now would be the time.
00:01:25
Seeing none, we're going to move to the consent agenda.
00:01:31
Commissioners, is there any item in the consent agenda or the item in the consent agenda that you would like to pull?
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:01:38
No, I move to adopt the consent agenda as presented.
SPEAKER_06
00:01:41
Second.
00:01:47
Ms. King.
00:01:48
Aye.
00:01:49
Mr. Carrazana.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:01:50
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
00:01:51
Mr. Clayburn.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:01:52
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
00:01:52
Mr. Murray.
SPEAKER_10
00:01:53
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
00:01:54
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:01:58
And now for the staff report.
00:02:00
in the public hearing, and we have a staff report for CMA 2025-00012, Parham Circle self-storage.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:02:14
Good evening and thank you.
00:02:16
I'm Rebecca Ragsdale and I'll be giving this presentation for this item.
00:02:21
It is a rezoning to amend a prior plan development district and it's focused on an amendment to a plan development shopping center to allow a self-storage facility
00:02:37
When this was rezoned in 1996, there were some uses that were prohibited at the time, and those uses will continue to be prohibited, so this request is solely focused on the self-service storage facility, as we call it now.
00:02:52
We actually used to call it light warehousing.
00:02:55
There are also some special exceptions associated with this request.
00:02:59
The Commission's not required to act on the special exceptions, but we will touch on those.
00:03:03
This site is on Piram Circle, which goes around behind the bank there on Mill Creek.
00:03:14
The site is in blue on the map, sort of towards the upper center.
00:03:19
And this is
00:03:21
Part of the Mill Creek Shopping Center, PDSC, Planned Development Shopping Center that was approved in 96.
00:03:28
And it is near some county owned properties, including the fire station and it's near Albemarle,
00:03:37
Rehab and some ACSA facilities in the area.
00:03:42
And it's about a 1.73 acre parcel.
00:03:45
This is with the star is the location of the site.
00:03:49
There is some adjacent residential zoning with R-15 and R-1, which are actually used for more industrial type uses with ACSA and then, or public uses rather, and then vacant county property.
00:04:05
The comprehensive plan, which the effective or applicable comprehensive plan based on when this was submitted, is the 2015 plan designates this as a commercial mixed use area with the center where the shopping center is.
00:04:20
We think that self-storage is one of those mix of commercial uses that is consistent with that district.
00:04:29
The master plan doesn't suggest any uses, doesn't suggest that use be prohibited.
00:04:38
So we think it's consistent with the comprehensive plan.
00:04:43
This is the application plan zooming way in.
00:04:46
This is the parcel, which is, as I said, at the back of Perham Circle and behind the bank.
00:04:54
It is intended to be one of those multi-story self-storage buildings that you may have seen in the community instead of the, you know, single story
00:05:07
facilities that we've seen before.
00:05:09
The concept plan and the application does request a reduction to the 50 foot commercial setback.
00:05:18
They will still maintain the 20 foot buffer, which applies to parking areas and requires screening to adjacent properties because of those adjacent properties, although they are used for non-residential uses, the zoning districts are still residential.
00:05:39
So I will pause for any questions that you may have.
00:05:43
Like I said, it's limited to that change primarily with the proffers to allow soft storage.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:05:50
Can you tell me a little bit more about the ACSA facility and what it's used for?
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:05:55
ACSA facility?
00:05:58
Yeah.
00:05:59
I think it's more like a maintenance facility and there's a cell tower back there.
00:06:06
I'm not sure if there's some storage as well of some other uses.
00:06:14
Is there something in particular you...
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
00:06:15
I think initially it was a water tank there and recently they've added some other uses.
00:06:22
I think I don't specifically know, but I think Rebecca is pretty much on the maintenance issues and other things they're doing to facilitate the ACSA's operations.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:06:33
Thanks.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:06:39
I'm trying to get a sense, excuse me, of topography as you're driving up Mill Creek Drive.
00:06:43
I know it goes uphill, like you'll pass Monticello High School on the right, start coming uphill as you approach the traffic light to Avon Extended, I believe.
00:06:52
And if I recall, this is a four-story building.
00:06:54
Can you talk a little bit about the views?
00:06:56
Is it towering over things?
00:06:58
I think it's four stories, correct?
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:07:01
Yes, so the applicant submitted some site sections and actually a photo simulation in the packet.
00:07:08
They may have that in their presentation.
00:07:10
I had it in here.
00:07:14
But this is what they provided in terms of the building height and massing and what that might
00:07:18
look like.
00:07:20
It is subject to entrance corridor review with the ARB.
00:07:23
They're only proposing four studies, four stories, but they have asked not to comply with the step back requirements, which is a pretty common special exception that we've seen.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:07:37
Could you tell me where that attachment is if you know?
00:07:40
I must have missed that in my review of the documents.
00:07:42
I apologize.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:07:48
I did not.
00:07:49
I think it was with the special exception modification request, the step back or the step back waiver request.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:07:56
Thank you.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:08:06
I do not have any questions.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:08:10
There's no other questions for staff.
00:08:13
Invite the applicant presentation.
00:08:17
reminder, you have 10 minutes.
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:08:20
Thank you.
00:08:21
Good evening, Mr.
00:08:22
Chair, members of the commission.
00:08:23
I'm Lori Schweller, attorney with Williams Mullen, representing the applicant.
00:08:29
And with us tonight are several representatives from Live Oak Capital Partners.
00:08:38
I have my presentation up.
00:08:39
Thank you.
00:08:43
As well as representative from Timmons Group for your engineering questions.
00:08:51
So we are requesting your recommendation of approval of an amendment to the zoning for this parcel.
00:08:56
And the reason for the request is solely for a proffer amendment.
00:09:01
It's the proffer text amendment.
00:09:03
So you can see here the location of the site.
00:09:06
and to the southeast you can see the extra acreage associated with the fire station which is forested and then to the south you can see the service authority property.
00:09:20
There's a cell tower on that property as well.
00:09:23
Mill Creek Drive of course to the north and to the west you can see Mill Creek subdivision.
00:09:30
I'll show you the entire Mill Creek Shopping Center in the zoning map, but you can see here the rectangular Mill Creek Shopping Center, which is
00:09:42
has Mill Creek Drive running through it.
00:09:46
So the property is zoned Plan District Shopping Center.
00:09:51
That's the entire area in pink is Plan District Shopping Center.
00:09:55
That's the Mill Creek Shopping Center.
00:09:57
And all of that has been developed.
00:09:59
This site is the last parcel.
00:10:01
It's been on the market over a year.
00:10:03
and as you can see it has very few steep slopes.
00:10:09
The managed slopes will not be disturbed.
00:10:12
The R1 property to the south again is ACSA and the R15 property to the southeast belongs to the county.
00:10:25
Again, our request is to amend the 1996 proffers for the shopping center.
00:10:30
This is the original plan submitted in 1995 for the Mill Creek Shopping Center and when it was developed, Mill Creek Drive was constructed, of course, and the area outlined in red is the site, the subject site.
00:10:45
This lot is the property at issue and what we're requesting
00:10:51
is to strike one of the prohibited uses.
00:10:54
So when the property was rezoned in 1996, this list of 15 uses was accepted out and so none of these uses may be developed on this parcel.
00:11:06
and our request is to strike from this list light warehousing.
00:11:11
At the time, you may recall in the 90s, self storage facilities look more like this.
00:11:18
They were large.
00:11:19
They were one story.
00:11:20
They were spread out.
00:11:22
This is a nearby example.
00:11:24
And so that was called light warehousing.
00:11:26
Now self storage facilities look like apartment buildings.
00:11:30
And so we think it's quite appropriate for this small infill site.
00:11:34
The application plan
00:11:36
As you can see here shows a four-story building with a maximum of 48 feet.
00:11:41
There would be pedestrian facilities that could connect to the sidewalk that's already in place along Parham.
00:11:50
What you're seeing to the right is an existing bank and there's a car wash to the top of the screen that's associated with the gas station and shop up to the top right.
00:12:02
And I believe I can use this.
00:12:06
Okay.
00:12:08
The parking is here and here on the subject property.
00:12:14
Loading is within the building and there's an office within the building.
00:12:19
The property can be accessed by Parham Circle here and here.
00:12:25
Parham Circle is a private road that's used by the four parcels that comprise the car wash, gas station, Carter Bank, and this property.
00:12:33
So there is an agreement that's been in place for many years
00:12:38
for cost sharing and maintenance.
00:12:43
This is the view.
00:12:45
Looking at the site, you can see it's simply a grassy area, very little slope there.
00:12:55
When you're entering from Parham, you can see the bank to the left.
00:12:59
Here, we're entering from Parham.
00:13:01
You can see the gas station and the car wash to the right, the bank to the left, and the properties behind the bank here.
00:13:11
This is the other entrance, and so we're entering on this side, banks on this side, and the properties behind the bank.
00:13:21
This is your view if you're sitting at the intersection of Avon Street and Mill Creek Drive.
00:13:27
And so as you're sitting at this view, if you look over in this direction, here's the gas station, here's the bank, and the property would be behind the bank in front of those trees.
00:13:39
And we do have elevations if you want to see in more detail.
00:13:44
So the property is in the southern and western neighborhoods and the area here.
00:13:53
It's designated as a center in community mixed use.
00:13:58
Community centers are intended to serve nearby residential neighborhoods, which is exactly what this proposal would do.
00:14:06
Most of the customers for a self-storage facility like this come within three miles of the facility.
00:14:13
So moms and dads taking their kids to school nearby will see this facility and it would be very convenient to use for the closest neighborhoods.
00:14:25
This project aligns with the comprehensive plan.
00:14:29
Centers are supposed to have a higher density of use, higher intensity of use, and taller buildings are encouraged.
00:14:35
Also, another objective of the comprehensive plan is to use those infill lots with higher density development.
00:14:47
And finally, the project would provide a more diversified tax base to lessen the burden on residential property payers, residential taxpayers.
00:14:57
This is a summary of conformance of the project with a comprehensive plan.
00:15:01
So the land use expectation for this area is a mixture of residential and retail uses that serve the community.
00:15:08
This is a self-storage facility to serve the community.
00:15:12
The footprint is under the 60,000 maximum.
00:15:15
This is 29,000 square foot with four-story maximum height.
00:15:20
The height called for by the comprehensive plan is one to four stories.
00:15:24
No steep slopes will be disturbed.
00:15:26
There will be pedestrian and bicycle facilities included.
00:15:29
Parham Circle is an interconnected street subject to an access easement agreement and the project would develop a long vacant shopping center parcel for use that serves the community.
00:15:44
As Ms. Ragdale mentioned, we are requesting from the board a step-back waiver.
00:15:48
As you know, step-backs typically avoid that sense of canyon effect when you have properties close together and pedestrians passing through those properties.
00:16:01
In this case, the site, the closest building, the bank is 88 feet away and the market and the gas station, excuse me, car wash are over 110 feet away.
00:16:13
You're not going to have a lot of pedestrians passing through those areas to have a canyoning effect.
00:16:18
So the real interest, I think, in having that step back would be just for visuals and that can be handled with architectural elements.
00:16:30
We're also requesting a special exception for setback.
00:16:33
For commercial properties that abut residential properties, that setback is 50 feet and we're asking for a reduction of 20 feet because the properties that are zoned residential to the south, as we mentioned earlier, are used for public or institutional purposes.
00:16:49
So it allows the site to use the full acreage, which is needed to avoid the steep slopes and provide for stormwater management.
00:16:59
And you can see here the Monticello Fire and Rescue Station and the Albemarle County Service Authority properties that abut.
00:17:09
So as I mentioned, we have representatives of Live Oak Capital Partners here.
00:17:14
We have Kevin Flynn with Timmons Group, and we're happy to take any questions you might have.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:17:19
Thank you.
00:17:20
To my left, Commissioner.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:17:23
Would you would you go back to the last slide?
00:17:26
Just I want to just get my bearings on that second picture there with the disturbed land that is next to the assist rehab.
00:17:42
Thank you.
00:17:46
So
00:17:49
The water tower's in the background.
00:17:53
Is that the school?
00:17:54
Is that the land disturbed by the school?
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
00:17:59
Yeah, the land that you're looking at is disturbed.
00:18:01
That's the service authority's property.
00:18:05
And then this site plan predates my time here, but I've looked at it once.
00:18:10
Again, they've added a couple buildings coming down the hill between where we're looking in the water tank.
00:18:16
And all the disturbance on there, I'm not completely sure
00:18:20
What was the utilities?
00:18:21
What may have been other aspects that they were working on the site, but that's a that looks like it is associated with when the service already did their expansion.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:18:30
Thank you.
00:18:40
With the respect to the road,
00:18:44
On the conceptual plan, are there any proposed improvements to Param Circle different from how it currently exists?
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:18:55
So the road will remain as it is.
00:19:01
You can see here that it has a sidewalk, it has gutter, but there will be
00:19:09
A new crosswalk.
00:19:12
Our conceptual location is here.
00:19:14
And the reason for that is there's already a ramp on this side, the bank side.
00:19:20
And so it will connect that crosswalk from the facility will connect to the existing sidewalk.
00:19:30
And so, sorry, so this already exists.
00:19:36
This road is here and then parking will be off of this road, drive-in parking here and parallel parking here.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:19:45
And so there'll be a, I guess, a curb cut added where those parking spaces are because there's currently curb.
00:19:52
So, and my only reason for asking is having, being someone that utilizes that gas station regularly.
00:20:00
If you want to make a left onto Mill Creek Drive, you have to take Parham Circle around.
00:20:07
So I anticipate
00:20:08
that there's a fair amount of traffic that's going to continue in that direction, but you don't see any issues with that.
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:20:13
I don't.
00:20:14
That's a great point.
00:20:15
I'm aware of what you're talking about, that traffic pattern.
00:20:20
Fortunately, this use, it has so little traffic that it's probably the best thing to have there, not to add to what you're describing.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:20:34
And you're not narrowing the roadway or anything like that?
00:20:36
No.
00:20:38
Will it be striped?
00:20:39
I think now it's not striped.
00:20:40
Do you anticipate it'll get markings?
00:20:43
I assume so.
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:20:44
We're not showing any.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:20:51
That's all my questions.
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:20:52
Thank you.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:20:58
Ms. Schweller, it's always good to see you.
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:21:00
Thank you.
00:21:01
Good to see you.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:21:02
Quick question on the height.
00:21:04
Is there any other structure around an eyesight that's remotely close to this scale?
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:21:09
Not to my knowledge.
00:21:12
I don't think there are other four story structures in this area.
00:21:17
Of course, there's the water tower and there's the cell tower behind it, but no buildings in this area.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:21:23
All right.
00:21:23
Thank you.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:21:26
Yes, so while I know you'll be handling stormwater at the site plan phase, do you anticipate being able to treat all stormwater on site or do you foresee purchasing stormwater credits?
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:21:38
I should probably defer to Kevin.
00:21:39
We do show a conceptual stormwater management facility here behind the building.
00:21:46
I can speak to that.
SPEAKER_04
00:21:48
Yeah, so the conceptual stormwater management facility that we have there.
00:21:51
Oh, I'm sorry, Kevin Flynn with Timmons Group.
00:21:54
So we have the conceptual stormwater management facility in the back.
00:21:58
This was originally designed as a dry pond, so that would be for quantity only.
00:22:02
For water quality, we could either convert that to a wet pond using the same footprint, which should be able to treat most or all of it on site, or we may use offsite nutrient credit purchases as well to supplement that.
00:22:16
that's something that would be handled in more detail at the site plan level.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:22:20
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, one of the nice things about some of these facilities is, you know, you can have this sort of unattractive thing that, as you say, just treats stormwater quantity or you can have something that treats quality and is actually quite attractive and adds to your site.
00:22:33
So to the degree that if you are considering doing that, doing something that adds, you know, adds quality, then I think anything you can do to highlight that would be great.
SPEAKER_04
00:22:43
Okay, yeah, that's definitely something we can look into in the site plan process.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:22:48
Well, I have Timmons, right?
00:22:49
Yes.
00:22:52
I had some questions in terms of the parking.
SPEAKER_04
00:22:54
Yeah.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:22:55
And I realize it's conceptual and it's not your formal site plan.
00:22:58
I'm just questioning the parking right by a curb.
00:23:03
And have you guys studied that?
00:23:05
And is this, and it's the park, so you have the parking that looks like it's under the building.
SPEAKER_04
00:23:10
Yes, these are three loading spaces.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:23:12
There's parking next to that.
SPEAKER_04
00:23:14
Is that right?
00:23:16
So we have standard parking spaces over here.
00:23:18
We have on street parking along here and then loading spaces within the building themselves.
00:23:22
So
00:23:23
We sort of envision that if people are coming to drop off furniture or load up things that they've left behind, they'd mostly be using the loading spaces within the building for the U-Haul truck or whatever.
00:23:33
If they have an additional vehicle or for staff who work at the facility, they would be parking out on the street or in the pull-in spaces here.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:23:44
So sort of a mix.
00:23:46
They will be backing out into that curb.
SPEAKER_04
00:23:49
Yeah, or conversely, they could back into the spaces and then pull forward out.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:23:54
I mean, I could see potentially they'll be backing in to unload something.
00:23:59
I don't know.
00:23:59
Is there like a loading?
SPEAKER_04
00:24:02
There's like a loading bay in this area.
00:24:04
I think it'd probably be about a two-story space undercover that you could go into with the trucks or a personal vehicle if you wanted.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:24:12
Yeah, I would just recommend that study a little bit more from a sacred standpoint and lines of sight.
00:24:18
And are you really, you know, particularly if they front end into that covered area, coming out on that curve, to me just seems like that's potentially problematic.
SPEAKER_04
00:24:32
Yeah, we can take a look at that.
00:24:34
Just sort of eyeballing it, I wouldn't first see an issue with that, especially because the speeds on such a tight curve should be relatively low.
00:24:42
So people coming from either direction shouldn't be going 60 miles an hour, but we all know how everyone drives.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:24:49
Speaking of that, it looks like possibly there's a nine-foot parking lane in front of the building.
00:24:58
Is that what that is there?
SPEAKER_04
00:25:00
So yeah, we have five on-street parallel spots along here and then four pull-in spots down around the curb over here.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:25:06
And the parallel spots are unrestricted.
00:25:09
I'm thinking, you know, the semi-Atlas moving van.
00:25:14
Where's that gonna go while it's loading and unloading?
SPEAKER_04
00:25:17
It could take the on-street parking spaces, those parallel spots.
00:25:22
Realistically, just again, knowing how people drive, no one wants to park in the on-street parking spots, so those will generally be available.
00:25:29
So that would probably be a great place to park something like a tractor trailer.
00:25:34
If they needed to pull in, I don't know if we run the turning movement on it, but we could probably take a look at having something that can also back into the loading bay itself.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:25:45
My experience personal with the Fifth Street one is that you don't typically have two of three of those at one time.
00:25:53
So as long as you have space for them to get off a pair without blocking flow of traffic, I think that's important.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:26:02
Another quick question on your setback request.
00:26:05
So I thought I was just in two, is it in two sides or in three sides of the property?
00:26:11
Because it looks like the 20 feet, you have that.
SPEAKER_04
00:26:14
I guess we do have it labeled on the third side.
00:26:17
Oh, Lord, you know.
00:26:20
Is the 20-foot setback on just the two sides facing the residential?
00:26:24
Is this in this label on the side next to the carwalk?
SPEAKER_15
00:26:27
Yeah, it's on the two sides facing the residential.
00:26:30
Okay.
00:26:30
It's, yeah.
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:26:33
Excuse me, 50 feet is only required abutting residential properties.
00:26:37
So we're only requesting the setback, a special exception for the two sides abutting residential, which are on your left and on the bottom in this
00:26:50
on this map.
00:26:52
So this one here, this would otherwise be 50 feet, and this would otherwise be 50 feet, because they have that residential.
00:26:59
This would be 20 feet anyway.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:27:01
OK, I saw that 20 feet there.
00:27:04
So that's 20 feet regardless, because it's not on the residential.
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:27:08
Right, right.
00:27:09
It's 20 feet regardless.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:27:10
OK. Well, I have any other questions, commissioner?
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:27:14
I have one more.
00:27:16
You mentioned that the property had been on the market for a year, but obviously the rezoning was, you know, quite a long time ago.
00:27:24
So I'm assuming it's been marketed throughout that time in different ways.
00:27:28
Or do you have any knowledge of that?
Lori Schweller
Attorney
00:27:31
The only knowledge I have of this property is through the land use submittals.
00:27:36
I don't have that knowledge and perhaps the applicant's representative does, but I know that there was a submission for our self-storage back in 2020 from another, an entirely different entity that was withdrawn and
00:27:51
You know, a lot of things happened in 2020 because of COVID.
00:27:54
A lot of projects came and went.
00:27:55
So I don't know the history of that.
00:27:57
But because of that, I know that it has been marketed.
00:28:03
Thank you.
00:28:05
Thank you.
00:28:06
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:28:09
We'll open it for public comments this time.
00:28:12
And just as a reminder, you have three minutes for your comments.
00:28:18
And when the yellow light comes on, you'll have one minute left.
00:28:22
Also some ground rules.
00:28:25
When called, please state your name, address, and magisterial district.
00:28:30
Comments must be addressed to the commission.
00:28:34
If you exceed your allotted time,
00:28:37
You will be asked to end your comments.
00:28:41
I have one person listed, Robert Finley.
SPEAKER_10
00:28:53
Good evening, members of the Commission.
00:28:55
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Robert Finley.
00:28:58
I am the President of the Board of Directors of the Mill Creek Homeowners Association.
00:29:02
I live at 1268 Timber Branch Court in Mill Creek.
00:29:07
Following the presentation of the applicants at the 5th and Avon CAC, we invited the applicant to appear at our HOA board meeting in December, and we had a very in-depth discussion at that time.
00:29:21
Some of the things we
00:29:22
talked about were the appearance of the structure, operating hours, lighting, signage, and traffic.
00:29:29
And one of the things that was apparent to us is when we went back to the original proffer and the development of the shopping center, there are a large number of
00:29:38
by right options that could be exercised on this property, many of which would create a great deal more traffic than this particular application.
00:29:49
So we considered that as something fairly important to us in the neighborhood because we got a lot of comments about traffic and as you know Avon Street extended is quite a busy thoroughfare.
00:30:02
So the bottom line after about two hours of discussion and presentation is that the Mill Creek HOA is not opposed to this amendment.
00:30:11
We did have some other preferences.
00:30:14
We do prefer that the step back requirement be adhered to, or that there be some architectural element that probably ameliorates the mass and the size of the structure in some way.
00:30:26
You saw the picture from 5th and Avon, you saw that it does not obscure the ridge top of Carter Mountain, which was something that was important to us.
00:30:35
but nevertheless we feel that the step back will work to address the appearance and the mass of the structure in a way that could be helpful.
00:30:44
I know that may be something that goes more to the Board of Supervisors but nevertheless that's obviously important.
00:30:52
We also talked about the preferences of the appearance of the structure.
00:30:59
We prefer that the side facing Mill Creek Drive be brick
00:31:04
It would be consistent with the general architectural appearance of many structures in Albemarle County and also be coherent with the appearance of the shopping center itself.
00:31:17
Other than that, we know that the ARB will look at signage.
00:31:22
There's already some standards that have been developed for the shopping center for signage.
00:31:27
And we expect the applicant to work with the neighborhood and with us in particular
00:31:32
to address both the appearance and the impact of the visual impact of the structure.
00:31:38
So with that, those are the comments and be happy to answer any questions you may have with regard to the preferences of our board.
00:31:48
Thanks.
SPEAKER_13
00:31:48
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:31:51
Is there anyone else?
00:31:53
Thank you.
00:31:54
Okay.
00:31:54
Appreciate it.
00:31:55
Anyone else would like to speak to this matter?
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:32:08
Good evening.
SPEAKER_16
00:32:09
I'm Terry McGrath and I live at 43 Creekside Circle in Charlottesville and that's Mill Creek along the Avon Extended Street actually.
00:32:19
And we were at the previous meeting, sorry we were late, we were down at the other county building.
00:32:23
Anyway, so we had a couple questions for the people.
00:32:27
One was we had talked about our issue with the nature.
00:32:31
We've had a black bear in our neighborhood, we've had deer, we've had fox, and we're concerned that it's really been built up.
00:32:38
Behind the area is actually ASCA.
00:32:41
Now I see there's a big school building that's been built back there and the fire department.
00:32:45
So there's really no property.
00:32:48
So my one thought was, and that's up to you guys, the person who has the property could possibly
00:32:55
sell it to the ACSA as a good measure for ACSA to do that or maybe they could use it as a tax write-off.
00:33:03
That was one thought for nature because we're concerned of where all these things are going to go.
00:33:08
The other is I have been looking at storage facilities recently and if they're doing a climate control, the best climate, only place they could guarantee me climate control is in a basement.
00:33:19
They've talked about putting it on a slab.
00:33:21
My kind of question is first off, if you're putting a four story building, you're going to have to have heavy duty footers in there.
00:33:27
Second off, if you want really good climate control,
00:33:30
with only a basement you're gonna have to go underground.
00:33:33
So I understand there's bedrock under there and the concern is if you break into bedrock you get a lot of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, radon gases, benzene, hydrogen, sulfate, and different things that could cause illness.
00:33:48
And with all the construction going on there right now I'd like to know what the levels are anyway.
00:33:53
So I don't think there should be a breaking of the zoning because maybe if you have a one-story or two-story building
00:33:59
You can actually do it on a slab like you're supposed to be.
00:34:04
I think there's a reason it was made not to do that.
00:34:08
So I just wanted to kind of throw that out that there are some big concerns.
00:34:12
And you can't do climate control.
00:34:15
I was actually told the floors above the basement, they could not guarantee it.
00:34:19
You don't have climate control.
00:34:20
You can lose your paintings, wood, furniture, paper.
00:34:24
And actually the fifth street I found out is not full because they only have 15% humidity control.
00:34:30
You have to have 35 to 50 and
00:34:34
You can have damage there and they are not full.
00:34:37
So maybe they can buy that through the proper humidity and they might be able to help that fill up.
00:34:44
instead, that's an option too.
00:34:46
So maybe preserve the property, do that, or at least put on a one story thing that doesn't require blowing it up.
00:34:53
And also there was damage from ACSA, just, you know, the local homes from the explosions that they were using.
00:35:00
And I have to believe they were doing blowing bedrock up.
00:35:04
That's, they say that's the quick way of getting rid of bedrock is to blow it up.
00:35:07
I looked that up also.
00:35:09
So just some considerations.
00:35:12
Thank you.
00:35:13
Any questions or?
00:35:15
All right, thanks.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:35:16
Anyone else?
SPEAKER_01
00:35:17
My name is Beth Rader and I live at 3rd.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:35:31
Can you, can you, yeah, you can, you can move them down closer.
00:35:35
Yeah.
00:35:35
So you can speak into, yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_01
00:35:37
My name is Beth Rader and I live at 39 Creek Side Circle and my property backs up onto Avon Street and during the blasting that happened at ACSA throughout the past year changed my house.
00:36:02
the doors don't align there are cracks in places and I'm worried about the value of my home so I don't want blasting and if somebody's talking about parking underneath a building that means they might have to blast through the bedrock I don't know
00:36:29
Yes, I missed the first 10 minutes of the meeting, but I don't want my house ruined.
00:36:37
The value of my house is extremely important to me.
00:36:43
And if things crack and move, then the value of my house goes down.
00:36:48
And I do not want that.
00:36:52
If something needs to be built there, I want to know that there's going to be no more blasting.
00:37:01
And that is extremely important to me.
00:37:07
That movement of my house
00:37:11
and we did call the county.
00:37:15
They said it was within limits of what was supposedly okay.
00:37:22
But those okay limits changed my home, changed the structure of my home.
00:37:33
And I don't want that to happen again.
00:37:37
I would like there to be limits on what happens structurally to the bedrock so that my home isn't damaged anymore.
00:37:49
Thank you for listening to me.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:37:52
Thank you.
00:37:53
Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this matter?
00:37:59
Madam Clerk, is there anyone online?
SPEAKER_06
00:38:01
No, sir.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:38:03
OK, then we will ask the applicant if you'd like to respond to some of the comments you've heard.
00:38:15
All right, then we will close the public hearing and bring it back to the commissioners for deliberation.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:38:29
From what I see, it seems like an acceptable use.
00:38:32
It's low traffic.
00:38:34
It has the support of the community nearby.
00:38:36
I support it.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:38:43
I would say for me, the use certainly feels appropriate.
00:38:47
I do have concerns about the size and the scale, and I know that goes before the ARB, so I'll put faith in the system there, but it seems terribly out of scale to me.
00:38:56
But I'm okay with the use, which is what we're being asked to support or vote on.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:39:04
I agree with the use and the special exceptions.
00:39:10
I think a thought that I want to speak about is there aren't other commercial areas in the plan right there and
00:39:26
Ideally, I think people that live in that area would love to see a different use.
00:39:32
Obviously, the market is not providing that.
00:39:35
And that's not not our concern overall.
00:39:39
But you know, putting a storage facility there is what's being called for by the market, which is understandable.
00:39:46
I'd love to have seen it been a restaurant or something.
00:39:49
But in general, I'm in favor of the application.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:39:53
You know, it's an interesting point.
00:39:54
I wish there's a way that things like this were built, that there could be adaptability, that that could be taken as a consideration so that they could be easily converted to another use later on if the market does change.
00:40:07
But certainly that's not something good.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:40:12
I agree.
00:40:12
I think it's an appropriate
00:40:15
application.
00:40:17
I would say we're not going to obviously dictate means and methods.
00:40:21
If you are going into bedrock and you are blasting, which is common, there's proper precautions and investigations on nearby properties.
00:40:30
So I would assume that the developer will take all that into consideration and the contractor when they do that.
00:40:38
So I have faith that they would follow the requirements for those actions.
00:40:46
With that, do I hear a motion?
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:40:52
I move that we recommend the application for approval.
SPEAKER_06
00:41:00
Madam Clerk?
00:41:03
Mr. Murray?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:41:03
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
00:41:05
Mr. Clayborne?
00:41:06
Aye.
00:41:07
Mr. Carrazana?
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:41:08
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
00:41:08
Ms. King?
00:41:09
Aye.
00:41:10
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:41:18
With that, we will move on to CMA 2023-7 and SP 2023-9 North Point Amendment.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:41:32
Good evening.
00:41:33
Rebecca Ragsdale again.
00:41:35
I'll be presenting this item.
00:41:37
I do have a little bit longer presentation for this one.
00:41:40
It is a rezoning and an associated special use permit.
00:41:46
A little bit about North Point.
00:41:49
It was actually rezoned in 2006, 20 years ago, and they made their application in 2000.
00:41:56
And we know a lot has changed since then.
00:41:59
So part of this update is to simplify the application plan and proffers so that they only include what we need them to now that our ordinance is updated.
00:42:14
The request will include those updates to the application plan and proffers and amending the residential special use permit which is for R-15 uses.
00:42:25
Backing up a little bit, the property zone plan development makes commercial so a special use permit is required to allow residential the way that our ordinance still works.
00:42:34
The approximate acreage that is included is 152 acres.
00:42:42
That is a portion of the overall 269 acres that was originally approved.
00:42:48
So we've got a comparison table below in terms of what was approved with the
00:42:51
existing zoning that was in place for the residential and the commercial.
00:42:56
So there with this request, which is focused on the changes, it's for 707 additional units and then a reduction in the commercial to 250,000.
00:43:09
As far as the background, there were also some stream crossing special use permits associated with the requests that were approved.
00:43:17
A little bit about the site location.
00:43:20
It's primarily between Prophet Road along 29 North and then behind North Point is Pritchett Lane.
00:43:34
So it includes most all of that property up to the intersection or where Lewis and Clark Drive is, except there are just a couple properties there in the middle.
00:43:45
And you'll see that on the plants.
00:43:47
It is near Forest Lakes and the Forest Lake Shopping Center, Holly Meade Town Center, Airport Acres, and then of course, the UVA Research Park across 29.
00:44:08
seems to be a glitch with PowerPoint, not advancing my slide.
00:44:16
There we go.
00:44:16
This is the zoning.
00:44:18
I mentioned it was planned development mixed commercial.
00:44:20
That is the dark purple and that underlying zoning is not proposed.
00:44:25
There's no changes proposed with that.
00:44:28
The all of the white on the map is the rural area zoning district.
00:44:32
This development is on the edge.
00:44:34
I mentioned Pritchett Lane is the boundary with the rural area and then we have a mix of industrial and planned development industrial park
00:44:42
across 29 and in the green colors some other residential districts and then the red over in commercial at the intersection with airport and going towards Sporus Lakes and Hollymede Town Center.
00:44:57
This was submitted in 2023 before our new comprehensive plan.
00:45:05
So, as I said with the last one, the 2015 plan is applicable.
00:45:09
The Places 29 Master Plan is displayed on your screen and includes a mix of uses primarily urban density residential, neighborhood density residential,
00:45:21
and then commercial mixed use, which is in the pink striped there.
00:45:28
The Places 29 master plan was adopted after the North Point rezoning and the land use designations are somewhat reflective of the application plan that was approved at the time.
00:45:41
and in this case we'll talk a little bit about the density but the density as well with below the recommendations of the master plan in the commercial areas while the square footage will be reduced are within the general locations that are shown in the pink on the map.
00:46:01
The plan
00:46:03
switching gears here to orient you towards their application plan.
00:46:08
There were a number of sheets provided, but this orients you with the outline in red to the parcels that are subject to the rezoning.
00:46:19
Again, this is only a portion of North Point, so it's those parcels
00:46:24
that are the northernmost piece along the Rivanna River and then what, as I said, was intended to be the commercial area.
00:46:39
I think that PowerPoint doesn't like has been so many slides with this presentation.
00:46:44
It's really slow.
00:46:46
There we go.
00:46:46
Sorry about that.
00:46:48
So this is the new application plan.
00:46:50
This is primarily establishing, as you're familiar, more of blocks.
00:46:55
The existing street network will essentially remain the same.
00:47:00
There are major streets already built with Cliffstone Boulevard.
00:47:04
A major change in addition to the residential and commercial changes are the relocation of the school site, which was originally over in this purple area in the middle, to what is in yellow, which is a site which will work much better for the school purposes and includes some a little bit of additional acreage.
00:47:22
Again, the commercial areas will remain in the same place on the application plan and then the residential is shown in purple.
00:47:32
There are a number of application plan sheets that we included in your packet.
00:47:39
There are a couple that show the parks and open space system.
00:47:43
This proposal will continue to offer greenway dedication along the Rivanna River.
00:47:48
There is a great deal of open space that has been adjusted to reflect what they've learned over the course of 20 years with wetlands and permits with streams and areas that cannot be impacted.
00:48:01
This shows the minimum.
00:48:04
This doesn't show what will be required at site plan, the full extent of it that will have to be met at the time of ordinance.
00:48:12
but this generally shows you the layout within each sections of where parks will be located.
00:48:19
The next slide shows you in the purple some of those trail connections or they may actually end up being shared use paths in some spots.
00:48:30
We discussed in the report and the applicant is going to clarify on the application plan.
00:48:35
These arrows are not meant to be part of the application plan, but we do want to establish some connection points and make sure that's clear on the plan for public access to the Greenway.
00:48:49
The application continues to provide a number of proffers to address the impacts that are specific to the request with the relocation of the school site.
00:49:00
They'll continue to provide the proffer along the entrance corridor buffer, which has identified some unique characteristics that the ARB wanted to see when this was originally approved and it will continue and the ARB of course will review the architecture.
00:49:17
The affordable housing proffers have been updated and of course the transportation proffers continue to address the off-site impacts.
00:49:28
The transit proffer is maintained that will include future bus pull-offs and then $25,000 towards the bus stop improvements and then five payments of $25,000 towards transit.
00:49:40
So I'm going to go into a little bit
00:49:41
More detail on a couple of these.
00:49:45
North Point, when it was approved, had a proffer schedule in terms that it required a lot of cash proffers.
00:49:54
Two in particular, one was $300,000 for affordable housing and then $100,000 for a transportation study.
00:49:59
that were satisfied around 2006 or 2007 when it was originally approved.
00:50:06
So the school site is increasing from about 12.7 or 8 acres to 13.5 acres.
00:50:12
The proffer continues to require that dedication occur within 270 days from the county's request.
00:50:19
This is for the Northern Elementary School which has been identified as a priority for schools and they'd like to have the site as soon as they can.
00:50:28
They will deliver the site working within that 270 or before that 270 day deadline.
00:50:34
They'll deliver a site that's graded and compacted pad ready with utilities and then fine graded to accommodate athletic fields which we
00:50:45
reference in the proper, they reference in the proper akin to something that Baker Butler has.
00:50:52
Affordable housing.
00:50:55
is reviewed under the pre-2024 policy.
00:51:00
That's the affordable housing proffer that is applicable for affordable housing, not our new housing Albemarle policy.
00:51:09
So under that policy, we are focused on the new units and what is proposed with this rezoning.
00:51:16
And this table compares the proposed proffers with the applicable policy, which they are
00:51:24
compliant with the applicable policy for everything related to the number of units, the percentage of units.
00:51:32
But one area that we noted that was not in compliance was the period of affordability for rent units.
00:51:41
Switching to transportation and others will certainly be helping me answer questions and with this presentation, but this rezoning has been under review since 2023 and has included a traffic impact analysis, which looked at the capacity of the existing roads that are planned or built in North Point and also key intersections and offsite improvements to see if there was anything that needed to be adjusted.
00:52:11
related to the change in uses and increase in residential and decrease in commercial.
00:52:16
So we're happy to answer any specific questions about that, but this map shows you those intersections along 29 where we would expect lane improvements.
00:52:28
The studies found that the existing intersections will still function at a level of service.
00:52:36
that is acceptable.
00:52:38
One notable change which you've heard a lot about in the public comment is the that this no longer requires and the proffered improvements on the application plan the northernmost entrance and that was there's a couple of reasons for that the applicant will of course speak to that the traffic study was analyzed in terms of the
00:53:01
access points into North Point.
00:53:03
As a reminder, there is the existing entrance, which we refer to as the middle entrance.
00:53:08
There is the future southern entrance, and then there will be a connection eventually over to Prophet Road.
00:53:15
And then there are also two emergency access points provided from Pritchett Lane.
00:53:24
but again we we note that this is not a required improvement or a phased in improvement if you will concurrent with trips but as you saw in the proffers there are they will need to submit a traffic study with each site plan or trip generation figures to make sure they were staying within thresholds of the TIA and the proffers that were identified.
00:53:48
They will continue the shared use path along Cliffstone to Prophet Road and they will also provide opportunities for additional shared use paths along the middle entrance and possibly the northern most entrance.
00:54:04
That covers my summary of the request.
00:54:11
We did identify several positive aspects that it is contributing to additional affordable housing in line with the applicable 15%.
00:54:20
remains to be consistent with the land use recommendations and density of the place of 29 master plan.
00:54:28
We did identify, as I noted, the terms of affordability for the four rent units is not consistent with the applicable 2015 policy.
00:54:36
So I will pause there for any questions and then happy to refer back to anything that we went over.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:54:42
Sure, King, you'd like to start?
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:54:50
There is a lot to take in here, especially with respect to the changes.
00:54:55
I am at this time going to hold my questions until after the applicant speaks, as I'd like to understand a little bit better about the transportation changes.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:55:12
Murray?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:55:13
Yeah, could you go back?
00:55:14
I think it's like slide nine.
00:55:25
Yes, okay.
00:55:26
So in the upper left corner of that, there shows a stream that's actually underneath some of the lots that are being built.
00:55:36
Is the staff characterized that as intermittent?
00:55:41
Is someone testing that for perennial flow?
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:55:46
I believe you're referring to, well,
00:55:49
Let me get my laser pointed.
00:55:51
But yes, some of the blue line streams that you see that don't have buffers or where development might be shown are intermittent.
00:55:57
That would not require a buffer.
00:55:59
Have I got the wrong one?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:56:01
You said where the lots were shown.
00:56:03
That was the right one.
00:56:04
You had it before.
00:56:04
OK, thanks.
00:56:08
And then also where you have the trail system shown, trying to see where the road would be.
00:56:16
Well, there's a little line, a little arrow that says trail system.
00:56:19
There's a stream right there, too, going north, north, south.
00:56:22
Is that also an intermittent stream?
00:56:24
It's further, yeah.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:56:26
In here?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:56:27
No, up, up, up, right?
00:56:31
There's a little arrow that says trail system, plenty to say.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:56:33
Right here?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:56:34
Yeah.
00:56:34
Oh, well, no, sorry, above that.
00:56:37
There's a stream like, yeah, to the left.
00:56:39
It says shared use patterns.
00:56:40
Oh, in here.
00:56:41
Yes, sir.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:56:41
So anything that is correct, anything that's not shown with the buffer or in OpenSpace is intermittent or will need to comply with the applicable buffer requirements if it is perennial.
00:56:55
But that one's not.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:56:57
OK. And staff have done a site survey that's specifically gone out there and checked that these are intermittent streams.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:57:05
Yes, where you see that the site plan has been approved.
00:57:08
And this is where there's an existing amenity area.
00:57:12
And so, yes.
00:57:14
And then the applicant has provided some information over the course of review of the proposal.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
00:57:21
My other question is regarding the conservation areas and green space.
00:57:28
Is the total amount of green space consistent between the two applications?
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:57:34
Yes.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:57:44
Thank you for the presentation.
00:57:47
I do want to clarify the extension of the road, the northern connector or the northern entrance that would tie into Lewis and Clark.
00:58:00
So that was an original street.
00:58:04
So now they're only doing that small portion that stops at the, I forget the name of that parcel there, but
00:58:15
So that extension is still there for a future connection, is that correct?
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
00:58:20
Yes, this parcel would certainly be served by existing streets and extension of this.
00:58:30
Those streets would be reviewed at the time of site plan.
00:58:34
The streets that are shown are those that are existing or are the major
00:58:41
streets within the development and then within the blocks of development, if you will, there will be streets that would be established.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
00:58:50
Just wondering why we're seeing some future connections, but we're not seeing that one as a future connection.
00:58:57
No one on the left.
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
00:58:59
And to be clear, I think you're talking about, is the question, will that road be extended to 29 at the intersection of
00:59:08
Louis and Clark across the way.
00:59:11
The intent this time is not to do that.
00:59:13
There's several issues with making that connection.
00:59:16
One of them is Flat Branch is right next to 29 in that area.
00:59:21
It's been quite difficult to build the turn lane that would be required in the northbound.
00:59:26
If you northbound traffic would require a turn lane.
00:59:29
and getting that turn lane built in there next to that creek is quite problematic as well as a significant amount of grade getting up the hill to
00:59:39
it's a fairly large ridge there.
00:59:41
And the final aspect of this has been looking at the traffic study demonstrated these two entrances on Seminole would support the development and that from a regional transportation standpoint we're sort of working with VDOT and the corridor there and I think trying to reduce the amount of entrances and friction along that stretch of 29.
01:00:09
And I take your point.
01:00:11
I recognize it would be nice to be able to have a road that intersected with the North Fork.
01:00:21
Just a lot of issues of trying to get that road built.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:00:27
In that particular alignment, right.
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
01:00:30
So, well, I think one of the major
01:00:33
factors driving that has been flat branch.
01:00:36
I've let the applicant speak a little bit more to some of the.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:00:38
Yeah, we'd love to hear more about that.
01:00:40
So we'll let the.
01:00:43
So the other question I had in terms of the traffic study, did that take into account the future school?
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
01:00:51
Yes, it did.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:00:54
Thank you.
01:00:57
We'll invite the applicant to present.
01:01:00
I know you have 10 minutes for your presentation.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:01:05
I need to remove this previous one here somehow.
01:01:14
Not letting me get over there to the X.
SPEAKER_00
01:01:26
Right there.
01:01:27
Top one.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:01:35
OK. All right.
01:01:38
My name is David Mitchell.
01:01:39
I work for Great Eastern Management.
01:01:41
We are the master developer of this project.
01:01:45
We have owned it since, well, actually the 80s, the company, not me.
01:01:49
And it was rezoned in 2006, back when things were different.
01:01:58
And I'll go through that.
01:01:59
So big picture, as Rebecca said, we are asking for a reduction in commercial and an increase in residential.
01:02:05
And I'm going to go through why that, why our logic is for asking for that.
01:02:11
And then afterwards, we can ask any questions.
01:02:16
First of all, why are we here?
01:02:18
There's four main reasons we're here.
01:02:20
Regulations related to DEQ and streams have changed.
01:02:26
We cannot fill everything you used to be able to fill like they did at Stonefield.
01:02:31
So we have to respect the new regulations and that's part of why we're here.
01:02:38
The markets obviously change, the markets always change, COVID and
01:02:44
and Amazon have done a doozy on what the market now needs.
01:02:49
And our community needs more housing.
01:02:51
I think everybody understands that across the board.
01:02:55
There's been code changes.
01:02:57
We had a zoning that was about yay thick that basically attempted to create an entire zoning ordinance, design criteria, everything down to the number of trees.
01:03:09
along the street, which is now a design requirement and also staying away from streams.
01:03:16
Back in 06, these regulations did not exist.
01:03:19
They exist now.
01:03:20
We are happy to just live with whatever the existing regulations are.
01:03:24
If they change, they change.
01:03:27
Our engineers understand them.
01:03:29
Our clients understand them.
01:03:32
This is not something we need to like
01:03:34
negotiate and argue about it's what the rules are and we're just going to follow them.
01:03:39
So that's part of the simplification Rebecca was talking about.
01:03:44
And then the last thing, and we'll get to this on the traffic, we do have a decrease in traffic, and I'll show you why and how.
01:03:51
So these are the parcels you've already seen, these are the ones that we are asking to make the changes to.
01:03:57
And the reason
01:03:58
that we're not asking for the other ones is because they're already out the door.
01:04:02
Everything you see that is light.
01:04:04
The apartments here are 279.
01:04:07
and then 107 single family and then 263, I believe, single family.
01:04:14
So those projects have been built.
01:04:17
The road and infrastructure, the stormwater facilities, quality and quantity are part of this project.
01:04:25
We are not buying credits.
01:04:26
We have to buy credits for the streams that we impact, the DEQ and the core allow us to, but we are treating everything on site.
01:04:35
Further regulations.
01:04:38
This is a little confusing, but I wanted this up here to explain the DEQ regulations and why we're here for the southern half and the areas that aren't built on yet.
01:04:48
You can see the parts that are already built.
01:04:53
Respect, for lack of a better term, the streams and the topography because that's actually where the old farm used to be.
01:05:00
So we
01:05:03
We have a stream here that is a perennial stream and it stayed where it was.
01:05:08
This is a perennial stream, this is a perennial stream, and as Mr. Murray noted, there was one up here, but that's where the perennial streams stopped there.
01:05:19
the intermittent picked up after that.
01:05:21
Same with here, same with here.
01:05:25
And then obviously the core does allow you, DEQ in the core allows you to cross streams at as close to 90 degree angle as you can because you've got to be able to get from one side to the other and that's what's going on here.
01:05:37
So I want you to pay attention over here.
01:05:39
This is where we have lots of streams.
01:05:42
Now all of these are not perennial and some of them are intermittent.
01:05:46
The ones that are, this is our point of
01:05:49
where our perennial streams start.
01:05:51
So this is perennial, this is perennial, this is perennial, and then everything going back that way.
01:05:57
These are not, these are basically ditches coming off of 29.
01:06:00
That's a ditch coming off of this little road here.
01:06:04
And we do have a core permit.
01:06:05
We've already permitted this with the Corps of Engineers.
01:06:08
I have a federal permit that is allowing the impacts that our zoning contemplates.
01:06:15
And the county has been given a copy of that and we will respect those delineations as we work our way through our site plan.
01:06:24
This is just an example of the impacted areas because of the perennial streams.
01:06:30
The one that the school system is concerned about is this one right here.
01:06:33
There was a stream, you'll see right there, kind of looping up with a little snake look.
01:06:39
And it basically just cut that site, not quite in half, but maybe in a third.
01:06:43
So it's not usable for a school site anymore.
01:06:48
And then you can see what happened over here.
01:06:50
We have basically just a big red swath right through the middle and then these two perennial streams going up there.
01:06:56
This is just an example of impacted areas.
01:06:57
There are some things that can be built in those impacted areas like stormwater facilities offline of the streams within a 50 foot or 100 feet.
01:07:05
Again, county regulations that will follow as we go through the site plan.
01:07:09
This is kind of the big overall reduction in commercial square footage.
01:07:16
The difference here from Rebecca's 924 and our 849 is the school footprint.
01:07:23
So I just want to clarify that if y'all look at the number.
01:07:26
Why is that different?
01:07:27
And then this over here, this was used for a traffic account, which is the number down here.
01:07:34
We actually have a parcel that fronts out on
01:07:38
right here on Pritchett.
01:07:40
That was just a little finger left over.
01:07:42
And we're going to put two townhomes, duplexes, something on there.
01:07:47
But it doesn't feed into the traffic study, but it is a count.
01:07:53
It's just a weird little finger that's sitting out there.
01:07:56
So we are asking for 1,600.
01:07:58
But from a traffic standpoint, it's 1,598.
01:08:02
And this is maybe a little counterintuitive to some people.
01:08:06
Commercial square footage, commercial acreage, commercial area is more intensive when it comes to traffic than residential.
01:08:14
That's just the way it is.
01:08:16
Town homes generate about 6.7 trips per day, single families around nine.
01:08:22
So if you swap those two out, we actually end up with a 27, almost 28% reduction.
01:08:28
in traffic, and that is basically the crux of the argument for not installing that other entrance.
01:08:34
We have reduced our traffic generation by 30%.
01:08:37
On the side, these entrances here, originally, they were planned to be lights, stop lights, a standard eight-way stop sign, just stop light, just like you see up at Airport Road.
01:08:54
We designed those, we submitted those, and VDOT said no.
01:08:57
We have what's called an R cut now.
01:09:00
The bad thing about it is R cut is it's new and people don't like new things.
01:09:05
The good thing about an R cut is it
01:09:09
can handle 20-ish percent more traffic than a light.
01:09:14
And that's because it de-conflicts the left-hand turn lanes of the lower, smaller movements, i.e.
01:09:22
people that are trying to cross 29 or get into our site or across the street.
01:09:27
They do it when
01:09:29
there are opportunities to cross without having a light that actually stops the north-south traffic.
01:09:35
So if you don't stop the north-south traffic, you can actually feed in more traffic into that pattern.
01:09:42
And the consequences of that is you have some longer queuing lanes, we have longer turn lanes than a typical intersection would see.
01:09:53
I'm running out of time.
01:09:58
So we can talk about that if you have more questions.
01:09:59
This is our zoning map, which you've already seen.
01:10:02
Our parks and trails.
01:10:07
We built about 75% of it already.
01:10:10
I'm gonna show you some pictures of the parks already.
01:10:12
Basically everything from here that way has been constructed, even though we haven't built, but maybe 15 to 20% of the single family residential units.
01:10:23
This is our pool and clubhouse.
01:10:25
It's very nice.
01:10:26
This is our pool and our playground, which I personally love.
01:10:30
It's got stump jumps, rock climbs.
01:10:32
It's got places where your child can scratch their knee and, you know, become tougher.
01:10:40
These are our parks and trails.
01:10:41
We have two of these basketball multi-use courts now.
01:10:46
Pickleball, of course, tennis, volleyball, whatnot.
01:10:51
Trails, I want to talk about this.
01:10:53
We are going to add some trails.
01:10:55
This multi-use path that runs the complete distance of this property and then ties in to an existing one at this town home site, we're going to extend it down here.
01:11:05
And there is a walkable area, which I personally walk, down to the creek right here off of that public right of way and extension of that multi-use path.
01:11:16
And we will take that multi-use path through this project
01:11:20
and connect to 29.
01:11:22
So there will be a multi-use path, which is the 10 foot wide bike trail walkable one that will connect all the way from here through the site, all the way over and up into here.
01:11:33
And right now we also have bike paths everywhere.
01:11:35
Every single one of these main roads, these big trunk roads has a lined out bike path.
01:11:40
I'll shut up now.
01:11:42
So that's about it.
01:11:45
I think I've covered everything.
01:11:46
I think your questions will probably ferret out a whole lot more of the questions.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:12:08
Tell me if I'm seeing this incorrectly, but the residential density of the new proposal is going to be what looks like townhouses,
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:12:18
Yeah, I can speak to that.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:12:20
Pondos and apartments, so not single family, no more single family detached.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:12:28
Yes, and that is not because that's what I want to do or anything like that.
01:12:32
This is a simple topography issue.
01:12:34
Because of the stream and because of the shape of this land and the topography of this land, I do not have 20, 30, 40 acres of relatively flat rolling areas
01:12:48
quarter acre, eighth of an acre lots.
01:12:50
They just don't exist.
01:12:51
So the only thing going forward that will fit on a site now, suppose somebody could pay lots of money for five acres, I don't think I'd sell it to them.
01:13:02
But the rest of this property is really only conducive to attached housing, townhomes, duplexes, apartments, condos, that type of thing.
01:13:14
And then we do have some condos
01:13:17
If y'all been out to Short Pump, where they have the commercial in the front 250 feet, and then the back 250 feet, they have some residential.
01:13:29
I mean, they've got some stuff that just doesn't work here yet.
01:13:32
But you could build two and three-story townhomes directly behind.
01:13:36
And that's what we're showing on the rear of these.
01:13:40
These are condos, condo buildings or townhomes.
01:13:44
These are footprints that I've found on other developers.
01:13:48
This is just a town-owned footprint, but it could be, I mean, there's lots of options here.
01:13:52
But the idea is we get commercial on the front, you know, restaurants, that type of use.
01:13:57
I can't guarantee that.
01:13:59
Office buildings, medical, dental, you know, that kind of thing.
01:14:02
And then directly behind that,
01:14:05
and the reason for that is you've got it like you come in and you go about 250 feet and you turn into the commercial site and the 250 is defined by VDOT's requirement of separation between entrances with the deconflicting thing and once you get right there it's about halfway through our commercial site and then you put the commercial on 29 obviously and you can put some residential on the back structured I mean it
01:14:34
We're going to be, I call it structured.
01:14:36
People call it lots of different things, but townhomes, duplexes, condos, multi apartments, you know, multifamily.
01:14:43
But that's the reason you're seeing that.
01:14:48
Go ahead.
01:14:49
Sorry, go ahead.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:14:49
I may have missed it.
01:14:50
Is there a sheet that you could point us to that shows what the existing layout of what's approved?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:14:59
Oh, yeah, right.
01:15:00
This is the red one.
01:15:02
So what I did was I had the engineers take the areas we knew we couldn't build on because of the streams, or to be fair, were impacted.
01:15:15
Like there's a stream that runs right here, but I have to build stormwater facilities and a road in that particular case.
01:15:25
So that's why even though the stream is here,
01:15:28
The unusable area is more than just a stream.
01:15:32
So I'm trying to paint a picture here on the issues, the constraints that we have in this southern section.
01:15:41
So this is the overlay, and it had a stormwater pond that was here that you cannot get permitted anymore.
01:15:50
CORE will not allow you to impound existing streams.
01:15:54
So all of our stormwater facilities, our proposed stormwater facilities, are all going to have to be offline.
01:16:01
You can see there's one here.
01:16:03
We've got one next to the school.
01:16:04
We've got one here.
01:16:06
We're going to have to do some underground out here, because that's just the nature of it.
01:16:10
There's one over here.
01:16:11
Again, these are our engineers taking their best guess.
01:16:15
But we understand that we're going to have to treat on site.
01:16:19
And there are areas that are now
01:16:23
we can't build product on because we have to and because we can't fill the streams and we can't impound the streams.
01:16:30
So that's what that red is trying to show.
01:16:34
So you can see the areas that it kind of just whacked out of use over here at the school in between these apartments.
01:16:43
This is a stormwater facility we had to build offline because I couldn't impound and do a big one.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:16:54
So part of my curiosity about the application is that, you know, oftentimes we'll see specific blocks being mentioned.
01:17:06
You haven't proposed this in blocks.
01:17:10
I mean, they are, but they aren't labeled that way, basically, on this particular drawing.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:17:16
Honestly, it's because when I block A or B or 1 or 2 and then I don't do it in that order,
01:17:24
It just causes a lot of friction, and I don't need to.
01:17:29
The only thing that we are phasing is the traffic, because you have to.
01:17:33
And that is on this slide here, where the first thing we build is the purple, which is all this is built, which is the traffic, the same Cliffstone Road, you know, with the shared use path goes to here, another traffic circle,
01:17:54
Keeps on going, goes over here.
01:17:56
This will be a traffic circle.
01:17:58
We've already cleared that with VDOT.
01:18:00
And we add an additional lane here.
01:18:03
And then because we are taking additional traffic onto Pritchett to go, that would be east, but up Page, we're going to have to do a little turn lane.
01:18:15
If asphalt's actually already there, we're just going to have to clean it up, put a curb on it, and paint it.
01:18:21
So the purple is the first thing we do, and we need to do that in order to get before we get to 15,000 trips per day.
01:18:29
And that's one of those that the county will watch our, you know, as each site plan is approved, we will create a chart of this is the amount of traffic we're generating.
01:18:42
And then I can't go to 20 until I build.
01:18:45
this commercial connection right here.
01:18:47
And then the last one is the 25K, which is full build out.
01:18:53
And that is this third lane essentially along this entire frontage.
01:19:00
So that's the, that's the only phasing like in order of, but you know, we'll build this and it'll open up, you know, uses along that road.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:19:13
I think this is my last question.
01:19:17
It was mentioned that there are some issues with the UVA property at Lewis and Clark Drive and making that connection that made it unattainable for you.
01:19:30
Maybe it's a cost factor.
01:19:31
Can you talk a little bit more about the decision not to do that?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:19:35
The main decision is it's not necessary to handle our traffic.
01:19:39
You know, this is something important to understand too.
01:19:44
This development and this internal road structure that we're building is going to help solve the problem, quote unquote, at airport and 29.
01:19:55
Because people that are either coming out of, what's that, Forest Lakes?
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:20:00
Worth Crossing.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:20:01
What's the name?
01:20:01
Worth Crossing, thank you.
01:20:03
And then, or coming from Route 20 and all ways that way, and want to go north, are now going to be able to come through here
01:20:10
get to our middle entrance and keep going north without having to negotiate that traffic light right there.
01:20:23
And there's other connections too.
01:20:26
People that are coming south will be able to turn here, get to here and go that way again without impacting getting into this particular traffic circle.
01:20:37
This follows the county's overall plan, except for the Lewis and Clark Road, in that it provides a parallel road network and a way to alleviate pressure on Airport Road.
01:20:49
And again, we have more than enough infrastructure and connections to deal with our traffic and the traffic that's going to run through our site.
01:21:03
The issue, the constructability issue over here is Lickinghole runs about, I don't know, 50 feet off of the road.
01:21:17
It is also about 40 to 45 feet below the road grade.
01:21:22
If you build on that, you're going to have to fill, you know, it would be a similar width here, which is pushing
01:21:36
It's pushing 75 to 100 feet wide of right-of-way.
01:21:39
And then from that right-of-way at 45 feet above the stream, you're going to have to go down into two to one slope.
01:21:45
You're going to eat up hundreds of feet of stream.
01:21:49
You're also going to be building the additional turn lane that would go right there, literally within feet of the stream bed for that turn lane.
01:22:00
and would require a wall, you have to dig footings because you can't fill it.
01:22:05
DEQ doesn't care if it costs too much or not, if you can build it another way.
01:22:09
And what that means is a VDOT road, a VDOT wall.
01:22:12
And you build that closer to the stream, you're at risk of something happening.
01:22:18
You get a big old storm, I don't care how good your contractor is, they're going to be cleaning up a mess.
01:22:24
So that is the reason for it.
01:22:27
We are happy.
01:22:30
If there's a connection that's going to be required for emergency, just like we have these two up here on Pritchett, that site plan is going to have to do that.
01:22:39
And we're also going to be bringing the multi-use path through there.
01:22:42
So there's going to be a, I mean, it'll have to be a public right of way, I guess, because the multi-use paths are usually in the public right of way.
01:22:52
We don't have an opinion on that.
01:22:53
It's fine.
01:22:54
You can own it.
01:22:56
So that's the reason.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:23:01
So what is the tallest height of any building that you're proposing?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:23:11
Rebecca, what did we put?
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
01:23:13
Well, the zoning district allows up to 65 feet.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:23:17
Yeah, that's the kind of the point here is
01:23:21
We are happy with the uses that are allowed and we will design them site plan, height, ARB, landscaping, all the bells and whistles based on what the county currently has as their design standards.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:23:38
Is that 65 feet adequate for you?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:23:41
I mean, if you want to give me more, sure, but it's fine.
01:23:44
We're not we're not New York City.
01:23:48
We're not downtown Charlottesville.
01:23:50
There's not enough population out here, there's not enough density.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:23:54
One thing I'm noticing here is you're putting all the commercial along 29.
01:23:57
A lot of the comments I've heard is a desire for a commercial that serves the neighborhood.
01:24:03
You know, I live fairly close to Old Trail and one of the things that
01:24:10
that I admire about that neighborhood is the way that commercial that exists in Old Trail really serves the neighborhood, but it also serves people from outside the neighborhood too.
01:24:20
Have you considered, particularly since you are limiting the commercial that you have, have you considered moving some of that commercial into the development working used by the- Yeah, I'd be open to a flexibility standard.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:24:33
So I did do the math on this too.
01:24:36
A single residential unit generates approximately the same traffic as 1,000 square feet of general commercial use.
01:24:49
I'd love to have that flexibility.
01:24:51
I'm not going to promise you it'll go there, but I think that's a flexibility that you never know.
01:24:59
especially in the far southern end of that where we are a lot more commercial and the stream is no longer cutting the site in half, I think that that's a possibility out there, sure.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:25:12
I mean, I know I'd like to see some commercial in here, you know, maybe along Cliffstone Boulevard or some of these places that get- You wanna do a coffee shop?
01:25:23
Yeah, I mean, yeah, something like, I mean, something that, you know, like a coffee shop or something that you can be, you know,
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:25:28
I think a service industry would be better.
01:25:31
I mean, from a survivability.
01:25:35
Frankly, we're on the wrong side of the coffee shop business because people are going south in the morning predominantly.
01:25:44
The good coffee shops and the ones that actually make money are going to be on the west side of 29.
01:25:48
We are on the good side of the grocery store because we're going to be on the side that people can just pull out.
01:25:56
It's amazing that
01:25:58
you'll just pass up because you don't want to cross the traffic.
01:26:00
I mean, we have had tenants and, you know, operators, we can cut them the best deal in the world and have a lower rent.
01:26:11
And they just will not, if they know the traffic pattern, they know what their business needs.
01:26:17
We can beg them to change, to take a chance, but it's a lot of, you know, a lot of money to take a chance on.
01:26:23
So I mean, there are just realities to this.
01:26:28
I mean, I'm happy to take the flexibility, but I'd be lying to you if I promised you that you'd get something in the middle.
01:26:34
But it could be an option, sure.
01:26:37
Thank you.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:26:42
I think most of my questions on transportation have been answered.
01:26:45
I do want to spend some time on the housing piece, just knowing how important that is to the county and their vision.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:26:50
Yep, go ahead.
01:26:51
We did make a mistake.
01:26:53
It will be 10 years.
01:26:55
We'll change it from five to 10.
01:26:58
That was one of my questions.
01:26:59
You're not perfect, much as I'd like to think I am.
01:27:03
But yeah, we'll
01:27:06
make that a lot.
01:27:07
The only thing, let's also be clear about this, the apartments are already operational and they have on the old zoning, they have 42 units that are currently being provided at the affordable level, but they're at five years.
01:27:23
I can't, I don't own those apartments anymore.
01:27:25
We sold that land.
01:27:27
I can't retroactively go after that, but everything going forward.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:27:32
That was one of my questions, so you beat me to that one.
01:27:36
I want to highlight those in the staff report in the housing section and it reads, however, based on current marketing conditions, housing staff under proposed sales price structure may result in little to no difference in affordable units in the market rate units.
01:27:50
The sales price structure is in accordance with prior standards.
01:27:53
However, the structure at this point in time does little to achieve the intended depth of affordability in today's market conditions.
01:28:00
Just curious, how do you respond to that?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:28:02
Sure, absolutely.
01:28:03
I respond to it that all housing helps with affordable housing.
01:28:09
Today's new housing is tomorrow's affordable housing.
01:28:13
The new construction, just to tell you somebody who's trying to do it, it's impossible without subsidies from the government in some form or a nonprofit that doesn't have to make a profit, whereas gifted land or whatever.
01:28:31
New construction is just too much of a lift to make it affordable to the levels.
01:28:39
I can do the 80%, but the 60% or lower that y'all have had a goal of, in my humble opinion, as a developer and somebody that does this and looks at the numbers, I don't think that's an achievable goal.
01:28:57
But what we're doing is providing
01:29:00
1,600 total, 707 more units, another 107 units that I would consider affordable.
01:29:11
I mean, those townhomes and those apartments, especially, I mean, we're going to be, we're not building a single family anymore.
01:29:17
We're going to be building attached housing.
01:29:20
That necessarily is going to have a lower price point than the average home in Albemarle County.
01:29:26
So I think we are contributing to it.
01:29:28
I understand what you're saying.
01:29:30
I just think that what we have proposed is what we can support and what we can provide and it's substantial.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:29:39
We've seen proposals that kind of mix and match different levels.
01:29:44
Did you all look at that?
01:29:45
I've seen proposals come through that, you know, X amount of 60 and X amount of 80.
01:29:50
And did you all look at that or just kind of say the math just doesn't work?
01:29:55
We don't see your pro forma, but I do want to dig a little bit on this because it's really important to the county.
01:29:59
So talk to me about that.
01:30:01
I, I hear you.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:30:02
I mean, this is, this is a completely different conversation, frankly, than our subdivision, than our rezoning.
01:30:06
I understand it's peripheral, but you know,
01:30:09
I don't want to speak for all of my developers.
01:30:11
They'll have a fit.
01:30:12
I'll get yelled at next gathering.
01:30:16
But I think anything below 80% as a percentage of the current AMI, and we need to understand that the AMI is slowly growing.
01:30:31
But it's growing because we're not building enough housing across the board in this community.
01:30:37
And there's so much demand in this community.
01:30:40
And it's not going away.
01:30:42
UVA's not going away.
01:30:43
Research Park's not going away.
01:30:45
New businesses are coming.
01:30:47
People move here from somewhere else that are retiring to this community.
01:30:50
It's got nothing to do with jobs.
01:30:53
And it's great.
01:30:54
I mean, we all like to live here.
01:30:57
The thing that we can do more than anything else that a developer can do, when I say we, the community that I'm in, is to build as much as we can in efficient manners like the rest of our project is going to be at the lower price point.
01:31:12
And we can make the 80% work, but I just don't see us being able to make it less without subsidies.
01:31:22
And I think your policy speaks to that.
01:31:26
And the city,
01:31:27
There's a little bit ahead of y'all in this.
01:31:28
They've done some studies and they've put out some reports that pretty much says what I just said.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:31:34
I mean, I hear you.
01:31:35
I think more units is good.
01:31:37
This is a beer conversation.
01:31:40
More units is good, but I will also push back on your point that
01:31:45
the only people that, let me back up, the AMI is going up, actually it's pretty rapidly, right?
01:31:51
You look at the last five years pretty rapidly, and it only moves that fast as people are moving out, they can't afford it, right?
01:31:56
So that is one piece, one piece to it.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:31:59
Yeah, I think there's people coming in that are, I mean, look, I'm not gonna call this free money, but when interest rates are low, and there's lots of capital in the market, people, because people's human nature is such,
01:32:15
will pay a little bit more for the same thing that they could have gotten a little less last year.
01:32:19
And that builds.
01:32:20
And what we have is a lot of people coming into this community that are wealthy enough to pay a little bit more, and it builds on itself.
01:32:28
And then when there's not enough housing, and it's not enough across the board, that compounds the problem.
01:32:35
I hear what you're saying about, you know, people moving out.
01:32:39
They're moving out because they're being forced out.
01:32:42
because we don't build enough house.
01:32:43
I mean, I'll go to my grave on this one.
01:32:46
We don't have to agree on it.
01:32:48
I'm just saying that's my opinion.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:32:49
I hear you.
01:32:50
We're going to move on.
01:32:51
OK. What's the build out?
01:32:53
What's the build out time period for your project?
01:32:55
10, 12 years at least.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:32:59
OK. All right, I'm good for that.
01:33:03
Continue down that road of affordability and also maybe point out why it's relevant to your application.
01:33:11
Sure.
01:33:13
So, large development, you're a large developer, so this is not a small parcel and it's being developed over many years.
01:33:24
You were under previous housing guidelines.
01:33:30
The county has changed that.
01:33:32
Many developers are making that work and taking advantage of the subsidies that are available.
01:33:39
This development isn't doing that, so you are coming back,
01:33:43
or a request, but you're not changing your housing.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:33:48
I am meeting the 2023 that was there when we when we applied.
01:33:53
Correct.
01:33:54
So I don't think that that's a fair statement that we're not meeting.
01:33:58
We're meeting the requirements.
01:34:00
No, no, no.
01:34:00
Oh, OK.
01:34:01
I didn't say that.
01:34:01
I want to interrupt.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:34:02
I didn't say you're not meeting it.
01:34:03
Did I say that?
01:34:04
I don't know.
01:34:05
No, I didn't say that.
01:34:06
I said you're not changing your housing.
01:34:09
Right?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:34:10
No, no.
01:34:11
We are bringing up every, so our original zoning from 06 was 12.6% affordable housing in 06.
01:34:22
We have provided 61 of those units under that zoning, under that agreement from 06.
01:34:32
everything going forward, including the things we haven't built, we are bringing up to 15%.
01:34:38
So we're taking some things that some units that we're at 12 and a half and we're bringing them to 15.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:34:45
To the previous housing policy, not the current housing policy.
01:34:50
I think we've all said 2023.
01:34:52
Yes.
01:34:53
Right.
01:34:54
But we have a new one now, which most developments that are coming in front of us are meeting.
01:35:01
So, and again, it's a big developer, so you're not doing that.
01:35:05
I am glad to hear that the tenure, because the tenure actually went back to the old one.
01:35:10
So I guess one question I have for staff is, the comment that was made by the applicant was the current homes that are built only have a five-year.
01:35:22
That's correct.
01:35:23
Can you explain that?
01:35:24
Because I thought the tenure dates back to that application.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
01:35:31
I would need to look back at the old proffers.
01:35:34
I believe that that's what he said he was consistent with the proffers that are in place now.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:35:39
Yeah, the old proffer is written specifically for this project before there were any affordable housing goals that the county come up with.
01:35:49
We provided 12 and a half percent in five years.
01:35:52
And I am saying we are going to bring
01:35:55
the things that are not built, so we built 500 some units out of 893.
01:35:59
Everything, that delta of 400 plus the 707 will be at 15% at 80% AMI for 10 years.
01:36:14
But I think I should be given credit that we are taking 400 units and the percentage of those at 12.5% and moving it up to 15.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:36:27
I appreciate that.
01:36:28
Okay.
01:36:30
And I appreciate the clarification from the 5 to 10, because I think that's what I was thinking for here.
01:36:34
That was just a clerical error.
01:36:37
I also want to clarify the road, the northern road, the Lewis and Clark.
01:36:42
So I didn't see a topography map.
01:36:46
I don't know if you have one in your presentation anywhere.
01:36:49
I can just tell you.
01:36:51
Right, so there's that issue of, so that happens at that intersection of Lewis and Clark, but there is what, half a mile or more?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:36:58
Right, this elevation point here to this elevation point here is over 120 feet.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:37:08
Lower, so it's lower on?
01:37:09
Yes, right.
01:37:10
And so is that the case as you move south?
01:37:16
As you move south.
01:37:18
This way?
01:37:20
What are you talking about?
01:37:21
South along 29.
01:37:21
Oh, okay.
01:37:23
Two different things.
01:37:24
Once you get away from the... Oh, that stream bed?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:37:28
No, that stream bed until right there is the same elevation than a flood.
01:37:36
And then it diverts away from 29.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:37:39
That's my point.
01:37:40
So you keep on going south from that point right there.
01:37:43
You mean like this way?
01:37:44
Right.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:37:46
That line picks up.
01:37:49
That land picks up, yes.
01:37:50
That's a flat.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:37:52
So there's still, there's at least half a mile, if not more between the two intersections.
01:37:59
So we'd have to cross the creek right here.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:38:02
Right.
01:38:03
And again, if this is 120 feet from here to the roadbed,
01:38:12
and that creek is another 40 feet below the road bed.
01:38:15
You're talking about from this point to this point, pushing 150 to 160 feet.
01:38:20
It's a cliff.
01:38:23
The buildable area on this particular parcel is what I'm kind of, it's a finger.
01:38:29
It's kind of a knoll right here.
01:38:32
And it drops off heavily right and left.
01:38:35
I think this might help you get a visual on that.
01:38:42
right here.
01:38:45
It's a rough layout.
01:38:48
I had to put something in there, but this is basically the ridge.
01:38:55
This is where that connection would happen and go into this townhome community, whatever design it comes out.
01:39:01
But this is essentially the area that is buildable.
01:39:05
And this is with some significant walls, retaining walls having to be built here because this elevation change is significant.
01:39:17
So yeah, we pulled up a total.
01:39:19
You got it?
01:39:20
Yeah.
01:39:20
Not close?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:39:21
So a question about that.
01:39:23
So while a road is not practical there, have you considered any way to get a pedestrian, like bicycle connection there?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:39:30
We're going to do that.
01:39:31
So we're going to take the multi-use path that's up here in this traffic circle.
01:39:36
That's where it stops right now.
01:39:38
This is a change I'm going to make after the parks people ask for it.
01:39:43
We take that multi-use path, which right now ends here,
01:39:47
and we're going to run it all the way through this project.
01:39:50
How, where, I don't know, but somewhere in the project because it depends on what that site plan looks like.
01:39:56
And it will come across this existing, I mean, old farm road culvert that is, needs to be repaired.
01:40:08
It's about top of that road beds, 10 feet wide.
01:40:10
It's an old farm road, right?
01:40:12
Like filled it up just wide enough to drive a tractor.
01:40:14
And then they went down at a one-to-one slope.
01:40:17
So that crossing is there, and I think we can get a multi-use path across there without impacting those streams.
01:40:24
Repairing the culvert, fixing the erosion, but without having to, you know, run all up in the stream.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:40:33
Yeah, I think a multi-use path there would be...
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:40:35
I'm going to put that on.
01:40:37
We'll change the profit going forward.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:40:39
That potentially cross 29 then at that traffic signal?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:40:45
I mean, there's a light there, but I'm not going to promise you what VDOT's going to let you do.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:40:51
I mean, I'm assuming, where are we going to, right?
01:40:54
I mean, why put it there if you're not going somewhere?
01:40:55
I'm assuming people want to get annoyed.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:40:57
It was requested by the staff, so I'm happy to do it.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:41:03
Well, it's sketchy right now.
01:41:05
We have seen other places where people do cross 29, for better or worse.
01:41:09
And if you do have that, I mean, I could see some UVA employees taking advantage of that.
01:41:15
Then it's a discussion with VDOT about how you make that intersection safer so that people can actually use it for that purpose.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:41:21
I mean, you know, the drill on this.
01:41:24
You get a bunch of people that are using it and then the problem gets solved.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:41:30
Well, that's kind of what happened on 29, right?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:41:32
Well, that's the nature of government, you know, improvements.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:41:47
I don't want to go back to it too much, but it's still a little bit hard for me to visualize because I haven't seen enough the old plan and where the commercial, I know you showed that red drawing, which was helpful, but what I want to talk a little bit about is which, for lack of a better term, blocks were commercial in this plan versus how you're changing it, where commercial, is there a lot of change in what was commercial versus what will be residential?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:42:14
Yeah, I think
01:42:16
Well, there's this plan, but that's the, this might be, so this was always commercial plans, but we are asking that we can slip in some residential in this if we can.
01:42:31
And then this was residential.
01:42:33
That was a big townhome type residential section right there.
01:42:43
Okay.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:42:43
and the school site was on the other side.
01:42:47
I'm sorry, I'm having to flip back and forth here.
01:42:50
So this was residential.
01:42:51
This was commercial and there was a little bit of a residential area kind of just cozied up to where that stream is.
01:43:02
And then, yes, the school was over here.
01:43:05
This was residential.
01:43:07
This was residential.
01:43:08
So, you know, the reason we're losing
01:43:14
If it didn't have a stream there, I wouldn't have as much commercial going away.
01:43:23
But significant portions of the commercial area are now unusable due to the core regulations.
01:43:30
And you know, the county's perennial stream regulations too.
01:43:33
So that's why you normally, if I could actually use all of this, I probably would be, you know,
01:43:44
instead of 250,000, maybe it was pushing 400, but that's just a guess.
01:43:49
I mean, it's relevant.
01:43:51
I can't build on it, but that's, that's why it's, that's the kind of how we got to those numbers.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:43:58
As opposed to what's proposed here, where, you know, you have commercial and residential or just in these front blocks, would you have any opposition to, um, all the blocks being commercial and residential?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:44:11
I mean,
01:44:12
if I had the same usage, which I kind of need to, because the traffic study ties into the uses, right?
01:44:17
I mean, we do the uses, we figure out what the residential, we figure out what the commercial is, and that's really the cap.
01:44:24
That's the number.
01:44:27
If you're asking me if everything was open and I could put apartments up on 29, but knowing that I would run out of residential and have to put commercial on the back,
01:44:39
I mean, I'll let the market decide what people want to rent.
01:44:43
This is just what we think they would want.
01:44:46
But if everything was blue, and everything could have either commercial or residential on it, and the commercial and residential numbers were the same, I'm not sure.
01:44:58
It would provide an opportunity for what you want, but
01:45:03
I would be surprised if I got commercial on the east side of that primary road.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:45:10
It would provide you flexibility.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:45:12
No.
01:45:13
You're not going to argue it would provide you flexibility.
01:45:15
I just don't want to lead you down a primrose path and say it's going to happen.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:45:20
I want to make a comment and then a follow-up question.
01:45:22
So there was a lot of feedback that we got from the community about safety and about having the Lewis and Clark Road.
01:45:33
My thoughts on the current layout, the way you have it, is that the new road, the new commercial road that connects over to profit is going to provide, as you said, that parallel option.
01:45:48
And it's going to put commercial traffic back on 229 without taking it, in my mind, into the residential area.
01:45:59
So personally, I feel differently
01:46:03
then my fellow commissioner about having commercial space in the residential area because then you're taking, then you have a Belvedere situation with Soka, you know what I mean?
01:46:12
You've got traffic, cars, people going into what the neighborhood has said is where my kid is playing.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:46:20
I think the other, if you were to have a connection here, you're going to have a lot more people driving past this traffic circle and going to the middle entrance.
01:46:30
They're going to, I mean,
01:46:31
We all want to get the best jump we can.
01:46:33
We're going to go as far north as possible before you jump back on 29.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:46:37
Exactly.
01:46:38
So the, what you have is actually keeping the traffic contained to the commercial areas and not overflowing into, in my mind, the residential.
01:46:49
But one of the other comments I heard that I think is important is about the commercial uses.
01:46:55
and you know, we saw in the prior application today that there can be proffers for restriction on commercial uses.
01:47:01
Is that something that you have?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:47:03
I will not put strip clubs in.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
01:47:05
I saw that on the YouTube.
01:47:07
But have you, after getting comments from both community meetings that you've had, thought about a proffer on a restriction on commercial uses?
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
01:47:18
You know, I think now I think the commercial uses that are laid out in the county have been vetted for the last 20 years.
01:47:26
And, you know, they have it's been decided by y'all and the elected officials that those are uses that are allowed in commercial zoned areas.
01:47:37
There are if there if there are uses that the county has decided are
01:47:45
might have negative impacts and they need to have a special use permit for them, you go through the process of mitigating those impacts through either the Planning Commission, an SUP, or an ARB submittal.
01:47:58
So, you know, yes, I will not do an adult club, but I think all the other uses should be, you know, available.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:48:12
Thank you.
01:48:15
The commission is going to recess for five minutes.
01:48:22
We are calling the Albemarle Planning Commission back to order.
01:48:35
And with that, we're also going to open it
01:48:39
for public comments.
01:48:41
So members of the public like to speak to this matter.
01:48:45
You have three minutes.
01:48:46
I have a few names on the list.
01:48:50
I will call you in order and then there'll be opportunities for others to speak if needed.
01:48:56
Mara DiCaprio and Steven Tyler is on deck.
SPEAKER_19
01:49:08
Are these at an okay level?
01:49:09
Yeah, sounds great.
01:49:11
My name is Mara DiCapua.
01:49:12
It's okay.
01:49:13
I get it all the time.
01:49:14
And I live at 4013 Cliffview Court, which actually butts up directly to some of the new development.
01:49:22
I'm going to share a few thoughts that people had.
01:49:24
I actually have a letter signed by over 100 of the residents in our community.
01:49:28
that are some of the summaries of things that you probably had gotten public comment on.
01:49:33
First, I want to be clear that the residents in North Point support the continued growth of our neighborhood.
01:49:39
A lot of us chose to call North Point home because of its thoughtful planning and the vision of a growing community that welcomes new families of all types and the opportunities given to them.
01:49:49
At the same time we believe that responsible growth must be paired with infrastructure and safety planning that matches the scale of that growth.
01:49:56
These concerns are particularly relevant given the plan for a new elementary school within the development and the proposed significant increase in residential density.
01:50:05
I do want to point out that when Mr. Mitchell shared his plans,
01:50:08
He talked about the 27% decrease in traffic part of the study.
01:50:13
I do want to make sure that we realize that that's in the commercial area up at the front.
01:50:17
So that decrease in traffic would not be in the residential area, which is great, except that now with this large addition of residential units of urban density, all of that traffic will now be adding into the residential area.
01:50:32
Under that proposal, all that traffic would then be funneled onto Cliffstone Boulevard, which will be the only way out to the entrances or the exits at the southern end of the neighborhood.
01:50:44
This is particularly concerning to us because Cliffstone Boulevard is also the location of many of the amenities that he showed that are beautiful amenities in our community, but are all the places that people walk dogs and specifically that small children go.
01:50:57
That boulevard houses a playground, our community pool, the neighborhood clubhouse, multiple school bus stops and a green space, as well as the sports courts.
01:51:09
Once a new school opens, students in the neighborhood will also be walking to school given the distance from the school and they will be walking along that main road that will be the only way for traffic to flow out of the neighborhood.
01:51:18
This raises legitimate safety concerns for current and future residents that should seriously be considered.
01:51:25
When North Point was originally approved, as we talked about, the development plan included an access point at Lewis and Clark.
01:51:31
The connection was intended to distribute traffic more evenly and provide direct access to 29 through a signalized intersection.
01:51:38
This would reduce a lot of congestion and provide another way out of the neighborhood besides that one main road through.
01:51:44
It would also provide a way out that's located exactly where the bulk of the new housing will be.
01:51:53
We understand the developer has indicated this connection is no longer feasible, but we believe it's reasonable to revisit the importance of it.
01:52:01
Finally, because a new elementary school will sit within this family centered community, we also encourage what we were discussing before the recess was thoughtful consideration of the types of businesses permitted in commercial footprint.
01:52:13
Specifically, we're asking the commission to consider excluding establishments such as adult only bars, as well as gun stores, tobacco or vape shops, 24 hour gyms and storage facilities.
01:52:24
In closing, North Point residents support thoughtful growth.
01:52:28
Our request is simple, that growth be accompanied by infrastructure and safety planning that protects the families who live here today and those who will call this community home in the future.
01:52:39
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:52:41
Thank you.
01:52:43
See Taylor and Roger Hahn is on deck.
SPEAKER_02
01:52:50
Alright, if only Steven Tyler, that would be a pretty fun life.
01:52:54
All right, good evening.
01:52:55
My name is Steven Taylor.
01:52:56
I live at 4019 Cliffview Court in the North Point Development.
01:53:01
I want to start by saying that I am not opposed to the proposed growth in our community and to additional higher density housing units.
01:53:11
Our region needs more moderately priced housing.
01:53:14
I get that.
01:53:16
And increasing the supply in the right places is important to keeping our community vibrant, accessible, and economic.
01:53:23
economically competitive.
01:53:25
I also want to be clear that my comments tonight are not about NIMBYism.
01:53:29
This is not about turning people away or closing off our community.
01:53:33
The concerns that I have are truly about traffic and safety.
01:53:38
As we've seen in cities across the country, Houston, Minneapolis, who have taken steps in the same direction to create careful sort of curated high density unit neighborhoods and incorporate those into other existing neighborhoods in their cities.
01:53:53
They have done so with extreme care and attention to traffic and safety.
01:53:59
My concern here is specifically that we've got a number of children in our neighborhood who will be walking to the proposed school when that's in and it's going to create this new increasing the density will inevitably increase the number of daily vehicle trips coming in and out of this area including an increase in wear and tear from heavier delivery vehicles.
01:54:22
Right now, we already see traffic congestion during peak times.
01:54:25
On Northside Drive, it's common to see backups of a dozen or more cars waiting just to pull out under Route 29.
01:54:31
That existing congestion already creates challenges.
01:54:36
If we add more housing without improving traffic flow, those conditions will only get worse, and that raises real safety concerns for the residents, families, and children.
01:54:45
Fortunately, there is a practical solution here that's already been vetted, envisioned, and was in the earlier planning process.
01:54:52
It was in some of the documents that the developer shared earlier, and that's Lewis and Clark Drive extending through Route 29.
01:55:00
Completing that connection would help disperse traffic, reduce congestion, and improve overall safety in the neighborhood.
01:55:07
It's worth noting that, you know, Lewis and Clark Drive would directly abut behind my house.
01:55:13
So I'm one of the residents who is probably most impacted by a busier road being put into the community.
01:55:21
But I think it's a necessary component of the growth plan for the community.
01:55:26
So I think that the developer should, in this Planning Commission, should entertain a requirement that Lewis and Clark Drive
01:55:34
go through all the way to 29 to ease some of the traffic concerns, especially in the northernmost part of the community.
01:55:41
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:55:43
Thank you.
01:55:45
If you could just raise your hand in agreement, that'll be fine.
01:55:49
Thank you.
SPEAKER_13
01:55:53
Hi, I'm Roger Hahn.
01:55:54
I live at 3272 Thicket Run Drive in the North Point neighborhood.
01:55:58
I did submit my letter.
01:56:00
I shared it via email.
01:56:01
So I'm not necessarily going to read this verbatim because you guys can read that offline.
01:56:06
But I just wanted to kind of share some of the things that I'm kind of seeing and hearing like in this room right now.
01:56:12
It seems to be, you know, and I support, you know, Mara and Steven with regard to, we have no concern with regard to, you know, higher density housing making
01:56:20
housing more available within our community, all great.
01:56:24
I personally actually feel like there's enough shopping centers on Route 29, so changing more commercial property over to residential property, I think is a positive thing.
01:56:35
But I'm seeing really kind of from a traffic perspective and I guess from a safety perspective, a bit of a, I'll say perfect storm based on kind of the things that have kind of happened here of eliminating the Lewis and Clark connection.
01:56:47
VDOT saying that we can't add any more traffic lights onto 29.
01:56:52
So effectively, most of the traffic coming out of this space, as we see in our neighborhood already, wants to go south, right?
01:57:01
Because that's where most people live, where most people are coming from, right?
01:57:05
And that's the way probably 80% of the traffic is going to flow going south.
01:57:09
And so the only way to go south coming out of both the residential as well as the commercial spaces
01:57:15
is right in front of the elementary school.
01:57:18
And so it's just sort of creating a perfect storm and it's just like, it's all bottled up and is forcing all that traffic through a single bottleneck, which is also kind of like the place where all of our kids are gonna be walking to school each morning to and from.
01:57:34
All of the students in this entire neighborhood will be walkers.
01:57:39
And I expect there'll also be like a lot of kids dropped off that are probably close by.
01:57:45
So, you know, in summary, this is really all about safety.
01:57:49
And I think that there are options and opportunities.
01:57:53
I think, you know, going, reinstating the Lewis-Clark connection, which I appreciate.
01:57:59
Look, it's really, it's about money, right?
01:58:02
And I appreciate that.
01:58:04
But money should not be put in front of safety, safety of our children.
01:58:12
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:58:13
Thank you.
01:58:18
That's all the people that has signed up.
01:58:20
Was there any other, anyone else that would like to speak to this matter from the audience?
01:58:29
Yes, you may.
SPEAKER_15
01:58:32
My name is Susan Pfeffer and I live at 4012 Cliffview.
01:58:41
My concern is where the north extension
01:58:46
comes down, that big block of purple right there was never there before.
01:58:51
And so I listened to Mary Catherine very carefully because if you overlay what was, what was, and what now is being proposed, that wasn't there.
01:59:02
That's now going to be 350 residential units going into the circle right where all the houses are.
01:59:12
So every day you're talking six, 700 cars a day.
01:59:16
multiple times a day going around that circle because the only way out is to go the current way out.
01:59:24
We really need the exit at the end.
01:59:25
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
01:59:27
Thank you.
01:59:31
Anyone else?
SPEAKER_18
01:59:44
Hi, I'm Melissa Lessonberry.
01:59:46
I live at 3218 Cliffstone Boulevard.
01:59:50
So my comments will echo the concerns that you've had primarily traffic.
01:59:55
We support the development, we understand the interests of the developer and the county to include more housing, and that's fine.
02:00:03
But it's in no one's interest to create a bad situation.
02:00:06
And as we've been trying to
02:00:09
I want to point out this evening, the proposed development is a bad accident waiting to happen.
02:00:16
Right now, only a fraction of the development is occupied, and even under the old plan,
02:00:25
The county recognized that there were going to be traffic issues and warned of it.
02:00:30
We are already seeing that.
02:00:32
So as was mentioned, most of the traffic is going south on 29.
02:00:36
There are backups.
02:00:37
So what is going to happen in backups?
02:00:40
People start doing things that they normally wouldn't do.
02:00:43
So you have people cutting across
02:00:45
29 North in shorter timeframes than are acceptable and safe.
02:00:52
In the turnaround, you know how people forming two lanes and have two lanes turning south.
02:00:58
All of these things is a bad accident waiting to happen.
02:01:01
And then you
02:01:06
look into the future and traffic in the development is going to be more than fourfold and even more when you include visitors and contracts and people coming in and the schools.
02:01:18
So the problem has been noted for a long time, it's noted today, it's going to get worse in the future and now is the time to do something about it.
02:01:26
And if we don't, when an accident does happen, we're all going to be saying like, well that wasn't it.
02:01:32
very clear that was going to happen and no one did anything about it and maybe it costs money and maybe there's a collective way to find money to make the development safe or maybe the housing needs to be reduced but it's a great concern and particularly
02:01:48
around the school, school pickup times.
02:01:52
You know, if you go to other schools in the county, it's hard to get in and out.
02:01:56
And now you're asking that basically all the community traffic get funneled through that.
02:02:00
That's really not workable.
02:02:01
And then when the developer made his presentation earlier, he said, oh, isn't this going to be great?
02:02:07
This is going to be a great cut through for people.
02:02:09
to alleviate some of the traffic on profit.
02:02:14
So all the traffic is going to get into the neighborhood.
02:02:16
Where is it going to get out?
02:02:17
I mean, that's just adding to the congestion like this.
02:02:22
Development cannot support the traffic that is being proposed and I really ask you to do something about it now before there is a bad accident and someone loses a life or, you know, we can't even get out of our community in an emergency or fire vehicles can't get into our community because they don't know where these emergency exits are.
02:02:44
Now's the time to act.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:02:46
Thank you.
02:02:49
Anyone else?
02:02:53
Madam Clerk, is anyone online?
SPEAKER_06
02:02:54
I don't have anyone online with their hand raised.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:03:00
The applicant can have five minutes to answer any questions or any of the comments that you heard if you want to
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
02:03:09
Sure, I just want to correct a few things.
02:03:13
The school has always been there.
02:03:17
That's somebody I thought I heard say that the school's new.
02:03:20
The school's always been on the sites, simply in a different location, a location it can actually function on.
02:03:29
When it comes to kids walking to the school, I mean, that's why we have a 10-foot shared use path right down the middle of this project.
02:03:39
There's no way in this world that we're not going to have conflicts between cars and pedestrians, but this is the best way to handle that inevitable conflict.
02:03:51
The traffic study was holistic.
02:03:53
It was all of the project, not just the part we're redoing.
02:03:57
We looked at all traffic in the entire project with the TIA.
02:04:02
and the Northwest residential, that's where the Lewis and Clark connection used to be.
02:04:08
That's always been a residential area.
02:04:11
It's not new.
02:04:13
It is increased by 166 townhome units, but that has always been a residential section.
02:04:23
Our cuts, which is what's out there, are safer than lights.
02:04:27
They have more capacity.
02:04:30
They're what VDOT is basically is the standard unless there's already a light there maybe, but even then they are limiting access points.
02:04:41
And we do have emergency access points.
02:04:43
There's several in the existing area.
02:04:46
There will be others that will be added.
02:04:48
The fire department reviews all site plans and any
02:04:52
anything that they see that they need in the way of emergency access is going to be built.
02:04:57
Again, goes back to the design standards that this community has come up with in the last 20 years.
02:05:02
And, you know, I'm still going to go back to the traffic thing.
02:05:07
If you put in the Lewis and Clark connection, you are going to drive even more traffic through this project, past the apartments and the middle traffic circle and into
02:05:21
where most of the residential neighborhood is.
02:05:24
Most of the housing is going to be north of that main traffic circle and middle entrance.
02:05:30
And if you create a parallel road network, traffic is like water, and it will follow the path of least resistance.
02:05:37
And at the end of the day, as I've said several times, it is not a necessary improvement to handle our project and the traffic we're generating.
02:05:49
I think that's my list.
02:05:50
If you've got any more questions, I'm happy to answer them.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:05:56
Yeah, one question.
02:05:58
Can you share for the community what is R-cut versus, I think everybody knows what a traffic signal is, but I'm not sure if everybody knows what R-cut is.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
02:06:04
I can attempt.
02:06:05
So an R-cut, an R-cut, I like to describe as this.
02:06:10
An R-cut is very simply a traffic circle that has been squished to be elongated.
02:06:17
When you come to a traffic circle, you can only go right.
02:06:20
And the idea there is you're not stopping traffic for somebody to feed in.
02:06:26
An R cut, in our case, you cannot come out of our property, go straight across or turn left.
02:06:36
Because again, the reason for these R cuts is going straight across or turning left requires a light to stop the traffic to allow that movement to happen.
02:06:48
So you take a right, you go a certain distance.
02:06:51
There's a design standard for the distance.
02:06:54
And then you merge over and you do a U-turn if you want to go south.
02:06:58
And again, that U-turn movement can be done without stopping the traffic on the main thoroughfare.
02:07:07
And so you just merge into traffic when the point, when the time opens.
02:07:12
It eliminates conflicts.
02:07:15
Maybe Kevin could explain it better than me.
02:07:18
I encourage you to Google it.
02:07:21
There are videos on YouTube that show the movements.
02:07:25
It's safer because, you know, I'm gonna give you my psychological, you know, the class I never took, what I think the problem with are cuts and other things.
02:07:37
One, they're new, but mainly when you come up to a light, you know that in one minute, two minutes, three minutes, it's a really bad light.
02:07:47
that light's going to turn green and you're going to get to move forward.
02:07:50
That's a known fact.
02:07:51
There's a time period in your head and you are confident that that's going to happen.
02:07:55
But when you come up to an R cut, you've got to sit there and wait for traffic to open up.
02:08:01
And that's an unknown and you don't know how long that'll be.
02:08:04
And you know, you just, you're sitting there going, am I ever going to get out?
02:08:08
Am I ever going to get out?
02:08:11
But nine times out of 10,
02:08:14
Every study VDOT's ever done on these or any traffic engineer, you get out quicker than if you had a light during hot peaks.
02:08:23
Now look, I'm not going to tell you that there's not in the afternoon a freight train of traffic coming down 29.
02:08:29
But keep in mind that freight train of traffic is released on regular intervals from the light up at airport or from the light down at Lewis and Clark if you're coming the other way.
02:08:39
So they call it platooning.
02:08:41
where everybody starts off, but then there's a stop.
02:08:45
So when a light stops a car, the one that's going to turn in doesn't turn in just like that.
02:08:53
Our stop light turns green, red, or your light turns green, that light turns red.
02:08:58
You're like, okay, I'm going to go, but I'm going to look first and then I'm going to go.
02:09:02
and there are these gaps that naturally happen.
02:09:04
And that's how an R cut can function in high traffic volumes.
02:09:09
For that, you know, twice a day, generally, one hour a day, peak time.
02:09:15
I mean, all roads are designed for peak, not for, you know, that's just the nature of the business.
02:09:20
It's like, you know, your sewer pipe is built to handle the flushes in the morning, not spread out over the whole day.
02:09:26
So that's what an ARCA is.
02:09:28
I don't know if I've answered your question, but the concept is a squished, in my opinion, a squished down traffic circle that eliminates stopping of the traffic of like the main thoroughfare.
02:09:40
29 is the main thoroughfare.
02:09:43
People can get in and out without stopping that traffic.
02:09:46
That's the concept.
02:09:48
And you don't have t-bones that you have in a light, which are much more dangerous or deadly.
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
02:09:54
The only thing I would add, in the interest of brevity, the only thing I'd add is that you can also signalize our cuts.
02:10:05
But in this particular application, part of the proffers are that they can signalize, they will signalize these our cuts when warrants are met and warrants are enough traffic that warrants the use of signal.
02:10:19
So I think that other than that, I think you gave a very good explanation for it.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
02:10:23
Yeah, it's in our proffer that
02:10:25
If VDOT decides we need to put a light in, we put a light in.
02:10:28
But that light only stops the north-south traffic to allow a crossing movement.
02:10:37
There's not going to be a light at the intersections coming out of our property or the people across the street.
02:10:45
It's just a platooning light.
02:10:50
That's my understanding.
02:10:52
Tell me I'm wrong, Mike.
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
02:10:53
I think what it does is it, for those people who are traveling, say, southbound who want to turn into the site, it would stop the northbound traffic, you know, and let them in.
02:11:04
It will also help with the U-turn movement farther down the stream.
02:11:08
But anyhow.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:11:11
Vidya, it's a thousand words, right?
02:11:15
So what is the timeline for the other intersection development for the south intersection?
02:11:22
Hold on, let me just get there.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
02:11:28
So the first thing is the purple.
02:11:30
And as soon as we get a rezoning within 60 days, we're going to turn that in.
02:11:36
And that'll be a site plan for all of that.
02:11:40
The simple fact of the matter is I am going to have to build the blue.
02:11:45
the 20,000 vehicle trips per day because the site I don't want to move the door twice so we're gonna we're gonna submit this improvements and we're gonna immediately submit that so I mean look I'm gonna guess here this is probably open in two years if I were to start right this minute I mean that this is a lot of we're moving
02:12:12
three, four hundred thousand yards of dirt.
02:12:15
We're filling areas and it's a lot of utilities, sewer, water, roads, curb, gutter, all that stuff.
02:12:22
But, you know, soup to nuts two years and this will be like right with it.
02:12:27
And I should point out this intersection here is complete.
02:12:31
All of the work in 29 for that we already did because I didn't want to get into 29 again.
02:12:38
So even though this isn't actually being used, except maybe by Airport Road, it's there.
02:12:45
So we don't all have to, the only thing we have to do to make this intersection function is create, is build this little section of road, which I'm gonna have to do anyway, because I gotta put the dirt somewhere.
02:12:59
And then the third one, the commercial improvements is basically when you get to 25,000 a day, that's gonna be when the grocery store shows up.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:13:12
Thank you.
02:13:14
Any other questions for you?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:13:17
Yeah, I'm just going to bring this back up again, because I don't want you to have to come back and ask for a special use permit later if you decide to change how you're doing this.
02:13:26
You have the two purple areas above the residential area.
02:13:31
And I would just strongly encourage you to work with staff to make sure that community scale commercial is allowed in those two purple blocks.
02:13:41
Community, I'm sorry, community.
02:13:43
Community scale commercial.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
02:13:45
Okay.
02:13:46
So I mean, look, that corner right here has a shot, because it's going to be taking traffic off of profit, or I never say it right, profit.
02:13:58
And it's kind of like Hillsdale, you know, that that could that could, especially up on the road, that there's a shot there.
02:14:07
Yes.
02:14:08
So what we could do, Justin,
02:14:12
Rebecca, we can basically just have one color, two colors.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
02:14:20
I think we can take that comment and figure out a way to update this to allow for, I think what you said, neighborhood scale commercial in those two purple areas.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
02:14:31
I mean, you're right.
02:14:32
Well, we'd still have three colors because I'm assuming we're not talking about commercial here.
02:14:37
Northern Residential, and we're talking these two, is that what you're talking about?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:14:42
Yeah, I don't think the other two make as much sense.
David Mitchell
Construction and Development Manager
02:14:44
Okay.
02:14:44
Well, you know, I'm happy to do that.
02:14:48
It's, you know, the point could be made that in 10 years, I don't know what the market's going to be.
02:14:54
So yes, I don't want to come back here.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:15:02
Right.
02:15:02
I'm going to close public hearing.
02:15:06
Bringing back to the commissioners, actually, I would like to ask Mr. McDermott if he could answer a question about some of the improvements along 29 northbound.
Kevin McDermott
02:15:23
Sure.
02:15:23
Thank you, Kevin McDermott, Deputy Director of Planning.
02:15:28
What was the question?
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:15:30
So what are some of the improvements along 29 and to know that there was an orange line that was shown on the development plan?
Kevin McDermott
02:15:38
That is a third northbound lane that he has going up there.
02:15:44
That is VDOT improvement, correct?
02:15:47
No, that is something that the developer is proposing to build.
02:15:51
That's proffered?
02:15:53
Yes.
02:15:54
I'm using his presentation here.
02:16:02
Other way.
02:16:02
All right.
02:16:03
Transportation was at the end.
02:16:07
Yep.
02:16:08
Yeah.
02:16:09
Yeah.
02:16:09
So this third northbound lane is a proffer that the developer is offering to build.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:16:18
Is there a date on that one?
02:16:20
I thought it was Vida.
02:16:21
That's why I didn't ask him.
Kevin McDermott
02:16:23
No, he is required by his proffer to build it before he gets to the 25,000 vehicles per day.
02:16:34
It sounds like they're thinking they may need to build that earlier, but that's the requirement is by 25,000 vehicles per day.
02:16:42
Currently, VDOT has no proposals for any improvements in this section of 29.
02:16:51
We do have a future study that we're looking at for Airport Road, which North Fork
02:17:00
on the other side of the highways, put some money in.
02:17:03
We may have some improvements in the future on that.
02:17:05
And the developer has enough flexibility that we wouldn't have conflicting improvements down there where profit and 29 meet.
02:17:14
Does that cover it?
02:17:17
Anything else?
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:17:18
That's all I have.
02:17:19
Anything else for Mr. McDermott?
02:17:23
Thank you.
02:17:26
Right.
02:17:27
Commissioners, back to us.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:17:33
So, with respect to the applicant's proposals relating to
02:17:49
the ingress and egress of this development and the time period that we all know that the original Lewis and Clark connection road was included versus now.
02:18:02
The things that I understand the applicant to say that have changed are first DEQ requirements related to streams.
02:18:11
Second, the thing that we all know that has changed is the 29 corridor.
02:18:16
So just like the improvements that happened at Ryer Road, part of that is a statewide improvement process to keep traffic moving along 29 through our regional area.
02:18:30
Those developments, I think, are very important to what VDOT has changed here, right?
02:18:38
They've said, we're not putting more stoplights on 29.
02:18:41
That's not the intention of this commercial and this development.
02:18:47
We're going to provide for access to the commercial through the secondary parallel roads to 29.
02:18:54
So the R cut makes perfect sense to me in light of that.
02:18:59
I think not having additional traffic at a Lewis and Clark stoplight that's been there for decades makes perfect sense to me in light of that.
02:19:06
We don't want to increase stopped vehicles waiting to turn left onto 29.
02:19:12
if we're trying to keep traffic moving through 29.
02:19:17
The fact that this developer is including a proffer to include a third lane from Airport Road through the property I think is helpful and will continue to help increase traffic flow in that area.
02:19:27
I have no questions or problems at all with the traffic concerns.
02:19:34
I think the neighborhood is built in such a way to B. standards with
02:19:40
roundabouts, crosswalks, sidewalks, shared use paths that make it perfectly safe for this amount of units and this amount of trips.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:19:56
I'm in general agreement.
02:19:57
I think I hear the concerns.
02:20:00
It sounds like if the road could have been built, I would have advocated for it to be built.
02:20:05
More connectivity is always valuable.
02:20:07
But it sounds like from an engineering standpoint, it's not practical.
02:20:11
And in this circumstance, I don't see it as necessary.
02:20:19
I think this is the development area.
02:20:21
We've decided we want density in the development area.
02:20:25
I think this makes sense.
02:20:28
As I said, I'm not
02:20:31
I don't love the commercial along the 29.
02:20:34
If we're talking about long-term improving the health of 29, having commercial lined up, up and down 29 as a strip mall is not ideal.
02:20:44
I think we really want to get to, you know, what we talk, you know, the ideal of sort of places 29.
02:20:50
What we really want to do is integrate more commercial into our neighborhoods so that people can walk to the commercial.
02:20:55
So I hope some of that can happen.
SPEAKER_04
02:21:02
Otherwise, I mean, I'm okay with this.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:21:06
I would call out that in the staff notes, there was discussion about clarifying the public access to the Greenway.
02:21:15
And so I hope that that could be clarified in the designs as well.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:21:29
I think there's lots of good with the proposal, and I think there's areas for improvement, honestly.
02:21:36
I'm very okay with reducing the amount of commercial and increasing housing.
02:21:41
I'm very far from confident that the applicant is putting their best foot forward on housing, so to be straight up with you.
02:21:48
I've seen smaller projects move the needle more.
02:21:51
I think it's really a shame to bring this amount of housing here and that for our housing experts on staff to say in quote, however, based on current marketing conditions, housing staff find the proposed sales price structure may result in little to no difference in the affordable units and the market rate units.
02:22:12
I think that's a crying shame for a project this size.
02:22:15
And I look at what's being proposed here.
02:22:18
I don't know if it's about the means, right?
02:22:20
And so I can't see pro forma, so I can't really speak intelligently on that, but it doesn't feel like it's about the means, is what I'll say.
02:22:27
Also, I think it might be a little disappointing that there's no willingness to restrict some of the commercial uses being next to a school, right?
02:22:36
And so at the moment, I'm kind of undecided at the moment, but I'd love to hear what my commissioner's response is to that.
02:22:44
And Commissioner Carrazana, I know you have to speak as well, so.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:22:49
Well, I don't disagree with your disappointment.
02:22:53
I hold it as well.
02:22:56
I think this is an opportunity to take a better step forward in terms of housing, appreciate what's being done in terms of schools.
02:23:02
We don't get that, obviously.
02:23:07
with other developments necessarily.
02:23:09
I mean, there are some recently that have done that.
02:23:12
And this is, it's important because it's an important resource that we need.
02:23:17
And it's a great location as well for that school.
02:23:20
So while we appreciate that, I think there's still the size of this development could have done more for housing.
02:23:29
I am very glad because it would have been very difficult for me if this was not at 10 years because that, again, it's not even meeting the previous requirements that we had or guidelines that we had for a housing policy.
02:23:47
I am in agreement.
02:23:49
It took me a while to get there because I do feel that more connections are better and what I would ask staff and others to look at
02:23:58
Is there ways to not limit that in some future?
02:24:03
Can we think about how that could potentially connect in some future date?
02:24:09
Because we don't know what's ultimately going to develop.
02:24:13
And just cutting it off with the development and making it impossible in the future may not be the most forward thinking planning that we can do.
02:24:30
While I am disappointed on the housing, I do think there are more positives and negatives on this.
02:24:38
I appreciate the additional lane.
02:24:41
I do think that's going to help at least northbound 29, and we'll see what Vida does on southbound, but I do think that's a positive on this as well.
02:24:52
I would echo Commissioner Murray's comments about a little bit more flexibility on where
02:25:00
the commercial is located.
02:25:03
I think that would be a positive.
02:25:05
There's certainly some towards on the southern side that would potentially make some sense to have some commercial.
02:25:12
I would also encourage the developer to look at the mix of housing.
02:25:15
Are you thinking of having truly mixed where you have residential above commercial and so forth?
02:25:22
And I think there's, we should be a little bit more creative with some of our housing stock.
02:25:29
So you might want to think about that as well.
02:25:32
but I am, I would be in favor of this application.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:25:44
Well, I might make one more comment.
02:25:46
I mean, I think, you know, one thing, you know, it's a shame that we can't, you know, have, you know, we're locked into the sort of thing of, you know, saying, well, affordable housing for so many years, you know,
02:26:00
You know, I think, you know, what would be really valuable in a place like this is if there was, you know, if something was going into a housing trust or something like that, it'd be way more, you know, that would be more valuable than, you know, I think that that's the thing that I think about in situations like that.
02:26:20
It's a shame.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:26:24
I think it's important to note that that that tool is not limited by this application and certainly has worked in other areas of the county.
02:26:32
So, you know, recently there have been other developers who have worked with community land trusts to put permanent affordable housing in place in townhouse developments because it was difficult for them to provide what was approved by the proffers.
02:26:48
And so certainly that would be still an option here.
02:26:53
and so you know might be something that we don't require but that we suggest to the applicant as an option.
02:27:00
I'd be happy to talk with you all more about those details but I think in general my opinion on housing and the affordability is that we need to provide all types of housing at all types of levels so
02:27:20
I think that increasing the inventory to this degree is very beneficial to affordability overall and will continue to help us have both market rate and affordable housing units, but the market rate will be somewhat lower because we have inventory.
02:27:42
And I think that's an important factor in this particular application.
02:27:46
I don't know if that helps address
02:27:50
My thoughts on kind of what you were saying.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:27:53
Yeah, I mean, yes, I agree.
02:27:55
More housing is better.
02:27:56
I certainly agree.
02:27:59
I have a problem with seeing other developers push the envelope more.
02:28:05
Right.
02:28:05
I'm looking for a good partner.
02:28:07
Right.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:28:08
And it certainly puts a higher cost burden on a smaller development.
02:28:13
I understand that point as well.
02:28:14
It's a good point.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:28:15
The median household, median house right now is probably about a half million dollars here.
02:28:21
In my neighborhood, I don't live in a really big, fancy neighborhood.
02:28:26
You'd be hard-pressed to find something less than 600.
02:28:29
We're just normal people.
02:28:31
So 80% of that.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:28:32
Yeah, I was just talking to my wife recently that the stuff that we're calling affordable housing would be barely affordable to us.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:28:41
So I'm looking for a good partner and didn't necessarily feel it here on this issue.
02:28:45
So, but I'm ready to get to the motion if that's it.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:28:50
And I will entertain one
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:28:58
Well, I move that we recommend approval of the application as presented.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:29:04
Do I have a second?
02:29:05
Second.
02:29:07
Madam Clerk?
SPEAKER_06
02:29:09
Ms. King?
02:29:09
Aye.
02:29:11
Mr. Carrazana?
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:29:12
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
02:29:13
Mr. Clayburn?
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:29:14
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
02:29:14
Mr. Murray?
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:29:16
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
02:29:16
Thank you.
Rebecca Ragsdale
Planning Manager
02:29:18
Now there's two motions, y'all.
02:29:21
One for the ZMA and then one for the special use permit.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:29:27
Do I have a second motion?
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:29:37
Sure.
02:29:38
I move that we recommend approval of the special use permit, SP-2023-00009.
02:29:45
Second.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:29:48
Madam Clerk, can we hit the roll on that as well?
SPEAKER_06
02:29:54
Mr. Murray?
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:29:55
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
02:29:56
Mr. Clayborne?
02:29:57
Aye.
02:29:58
Mr. Carrazana?
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:29:59
Aye.
SPEAKER_06
02:29:59
Ms. King?
02:30:00
Aye.
02:30:01
Thank you.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:30:03
Right.
02:30:06
Mr. Barnes.
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
02:30:11
Thank you, sir.
02:30:16
Committee reports, or do you want to go straight to the Board of Supervisors meeting?
02:30:20
OK.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:30:21
I did have a report, but.
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
02:30:25
We've had two meetings since the last time we met.
02:30:30
The first one was a board meeting on February 25th.
02:30:34
The county executive presented his recommended budget.
02:30:39
That was the only item on that particular agenda.
02:30:43
The other one was on March 4th, and there were a couple of presentations in the afternoon that have gone to the board.
02:30:51
The first was a presentation on the zoning modernization process that is being spearheaded by our zoning department.
02:31:00
The second was a presentation of the current SmartScale applications that are being considered this year for submittals of the SmartScale program.
02:31:13
they also held that evening a public hearing on the proposed budget and those are the items on which which project the public hearing is on the proposed budget we have any
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:31:36
Where's my committee reports here?
02:31:37
I missed committee reports.
02:31:40
Actually commissioners, do we have any committee reports which I overlooked?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:31:46
So it's not a committee report per se, but I attended the active mobility summit.
02:31:51
And there's a lot of interesting information in there.
02:31:54
We had a presentation that talked about some of the work that was being done in Roanoke and also the outdoor recreation economy.
02:32:03
It's interesting to hear how Roanoke's program really started from their economic development authority.
02:32:11
and when they did this analysis, they realized that they had been ignoring, they had been leaving aside this idea that they were surrounded by mountains and these natural features.
02:32:23
They were treating it like wallpaper when really it was this great natural asset, not only for driving economy in terms of those recreational uses themselves, but when companies wanted to locate to their area is one of the things that they were looking at most.
02:32:39
was do their employees have a place?
02:32:42
Do they have connectivity?
02:32:43
Do they have parks and other things to visit?
02:32:47
So, and it was really driven and they can cite, they've done a good job sort of quantifying the economic impact of some of these things on the community.
02:32:58
But some of the, one of the numbers that stood out to me too was just in Virginia.
02:33:03
It's now, the active recreation economy is now 14.4 billion in Virginia.
02:33:11
And also, they called out locally in Roanoke, the quality of life helped attract Wells Fargo to Roanoke.
02:33:21
So really looking at, you know, what that might mean for Albemarle County and thinking about, you know, what we're doing to, you know, with our parks and our greenways and with our, you know, looking at the three-notch trail and the impact of that and, you know, our connection to the Shenandoah and the Blue Ridge.
02:33:40
It's a, it was an interesting presentation.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:33:46
Great to get that view, looking forward.
02:33:50
Do you have, is there a link?
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:33:53
Yeah, I mean I think the presentation was recorded, wasn't it Michael?
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
02:33:57
Yeah, I get it to you.
02:33:58
There was a follow-up email that had the presentation and I could send it to the Commission.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:34:02
Yeah, particularly the Friday presentation was really worth seeing.
02:34:08
Great.
Mary Katherine King
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:34:10
Yeah, I attended the
02:34:13
Places 29 Hydraulic CAC meeting.
02:34:16
They did not have a community meeting this month, but they did hear a transportation update.
02:34:22
It's very interesting.
02:34:24
Lots of feedback.
02:34:27
Some cool things coming along Hydraulic.
02:34:29
Most notably would be the roundabout at District Avenue and Hydraulic, which will be starting
02:34:38
I think they hope for the fall of 2027, it's going to bid soon, so.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:34:46
Yeah, that would really help out.
02:34:51
You can't make that left turn there anymore, but everybody has to make a U-turn and say illegal.
02:34:59
Yeah, illegal.
02:35:00
Yeah.
02:35:01
Yeah.
02:35:04
Any other committee reports?
02:35:07
and then we can jump to new business.
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:35:12
No new business.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:35:13
Mr. Chairman, any new business?
Corey Clayborne
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:35:16
Mr. Chairman, I had one quick question just around budget.
02:35:20
If I recall last year, like these outreach meetings to the CACs on budget, do you have a sense of that schedule?
02:35:27
I haven't looked hard, I have to admit I haven't looked for it, but do you have a sense of that schedule might be or where we could find that?
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
02:35:32
Yeah, I can also pass that along to you.
02:35:34
I think the first one starts on the 19th at the Senior Center.
02:35:39
There's six total of them, so they're starting soon, and I can pass that information along to you as well.
02:35:45
Oh, that'd be awesome.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:35:46
Yeah, and are they all calendared already?
02:35:49
Do you have them?
02:35:49
Yes, sir.
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
02:35:50
They're all calendared.
02:35:51
There's, again, six of them.
02:35:53
Unfortunately, I don't have...
02:35:54
I know the first one because I only do it.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:35:56
No, you can just send it to us.
02:35:58
I'll get that to you.
02:35:59
Yeah, thank you that we can get it in our calendars.
02:36:03
Hey, old business.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:36:04
I was wondering, when is the riparian buffer ordinance before the Board of Supervisors?
Michael Barnes
Director of Planning
02:36:13
I should know that, Lonnie, off the top of my head.
02:36:16
I do not know that.
02:36:17
It is scheduled for the next couple of months.
02:36:23
I will find out that date and get it to you.
Lonnie Murray
Commissioner, Planning Commission
02:36:26
Yeah, that'd be great.
Luis Carrazana
Chair, Planning Commission
02:36:32
OK, then we are adjourned until Tuesday, March 24th, 2026 at 6 p.m.