Planning Commission Regular Meeting   6/23/2026

Can we get the, it is 6 PM and we're calling to order the Albemarle County Planning Commission for June 23rd, 2026.

As always, 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.

during the meeting there will be the opportunity for the public comment on specific agenda items where input is invited.

Yes.

Ms. Firehock?

Here.

Mr. Moore?

Here.

All right.

We've established quorum.

Okay.

Seeing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda.

Is there any commissioner that would like to pull an item from the consent agenda for further consideration?

Who seconded?

Corey.

Aye.

Mr. Moore.

Aye.

Ms. Brown.

Aye.

Ms. Firehock.

Aye.

Ms. King.

Aye.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair, members of the commission.

My name is Ben Lopacker and I'm a planner with the Department of Community Development.

I'll be providing the staff presentation tonight for the James River Runners SP amendment, which is filed under the case number SP

dash 2025 dash nine.

As you can see on this map, the proposal for the special use permit amendment is located at the end of Hatton Ferry Road along the James River in the southern portion of the county.

Some specifics of the proposal entail amending the existing special use permit for the property.

to expand primitive camping onto a portion of TMP 13613C, which is shown on the slide.

The parcel is zoned rural areas and is designated rural areas on the AC44 comprehensive plan.

The property is currently occupied or the property is currently occupied by

the boating canoe livery and recreational activities use which has been active since the 1970s with the original special use permit being approved in 1978 which allowed for up to nine primitive campsites.

In 2018, an additional special use permit approved five additional campsites, bringing the total operated by James River Runners to 14 campsites.

With this proposal, the applicant is seeking to amend the existing special use permit to allow an additional six primitive campsites, creating a total of 20 primitive campsites on the site.

Here's a look at the applicant's conceptual plan, which shows the six new campsites kind of on the eastern edge of the property.

The sites shown are specifically envelopes.

There wouldn't be any permanent structures that would be proposed within these campsites.

It also shows three new restroom facilities that would be portable restroom facilities that would be there on a seasonal basis when the campsites were occupied.

It also is located within close proximity to the James River Runners staff buildings, which are located on the immediate other side of the railroad crossing from these campsites.

As such, all special use permits are evaluated with the four factors that are shown on screen.

Pages three to six of the staff report contain staff's analysis on each of these individual factors.

and staff is determined with a few recommended conditions a positive finding could be made for each of the factors listed.

The aforementioned conditions include several of the element or several things discussed tonight such as development must be in accord with the concept plan that is attachment three which regulates the location of the proposed campsites, the number of campsites and disturbance of wooded and vegetated areas being prohibited.

Other factors that are included are the

that accessory structures must be constructed in accordance with county code.

Fireworks are prohibited, quiet hours are established and maintained, and that a staff member must be present on the premises at all times while individuals are using the campsites.

With these conditions, staff finds two possible or two positive aspects to the proposal or three positive aspects to the proposal.

The proposal is consistent with the review criteria for special use permits.

The proposal provides expanded recreation and camping options for community members who live in the area as well as potential tourists.

and no detrimental impacts to adjoining properties are anticipated.

No staff concerns have been identified at this time.

As such, staff recommends approval of the request after finding three positive aspects and identifying no concerns, and staff has provided recommended motions on this side.

Thank you.

So if you could go back to slide five, please.

Okay, on item number two, three structures within the float panel were constructed and secured.

in accordance with County Code 18.3.15.

Yes.

So the only structures that there would be no permanent structures proposed under this special use permit.

The temporary restroom facilities would have to meet all applicable building codes in order to, prior to operation and installation of those, including meeting the regulations that are listed in the building code for how those must be secured, especially within the floodplain.

The applicant is present, so they might be able to provide some information on how those would be installed.

But yeah, I know the applicant has mentioned that they would

potentially be able to answer any questions should you all have some, but it would be as listed in county code 183315 that would regulate it.

The question, two questions I'll just put out there together.

One is I'm just wondering what the surface of the access path is and if access path is the surface and if you foresee any impacts to the riparian zone around from that vehicular access.

My second question is,

Yes.

So on the concept plan, they do already show primary access that would run right to the campsites.

This wouldn't be a permanent improvement.

And this access way has been reviewed by the fire department.

And they had no objection to the proposal.

There wouldn't be any gravel or anything that would be laid down.

It would be

the ground there too is largely semi-solid and I know the fire department has issued that they have no objections to the proposal and they thought they could access it.

And then the second part of your question, yes, the 2017 special use permit that was approved in early 2018

already has the condition that a staff member be present from James River Runners while the campsites are occupied.

Thanks.

So I guess I can't speak to the outdoor music.

That was one that typically has been added for campsites.

I know for other campgrounds in the county, that has been a condition that has been used.

I would like to, that was actually my question, it was more about can you define outdoor music as it's used in this context.

You know, is that a little Bluetooth speaker at an individual site I can't use or

Just wondering if you had any more clarity, that would be very helpful.

That was my one question.

OK.

I'm just curious how

how this seems that there would be no disturbance of woody vegetation.

It's in the existing riparian buffer that would be covered by the buffer ordinance.

The entire site is actually inside the buffer protection ordinance area.

And so if you know basics of trees, if you stop mowing around there, trees will sprout up.

so they're prohibiting the growing of trees by consistently mowing it.

Now they have parking in that overflow field, but they park on the grass, but now we're saying it's okay to continue to disturb the area right next to the river, which is the area of sort of greatest impact.

And so I'm just curious why staff is just kind of saying no disturbance is happening.

There would be no permit structures constructed as part of this proposal either.

That tends to be how disturbance is defined regarding mowing.

That's not necessarily something that staff regulates from the planning or from planning.

We don't typically

Yes, ma'am.

No trees would be removed.

Yeah, I'm reading the buffer ordinance and interpreting it differently than you are, but that's OK for now.

Mine was just again echoing the fifth recommendation about outdoor music, partly as an outdoor music enthusiast, but also just because we already have a sort of comprehensive zoning code around how many decibels at the edge of a property.

So I think that's something that we can look on, but we are trying to be consistent with how we regulate outdoor amplified music as is defined in the ordinance for other rural area activities.

I think that when we reviewed this and we saw the condition language that said quiet hours, the concern is how do we standardize that and make it an enforceable condition?

So that's why the outdoor music or the outdoor amplified music condition was suggested as a draft for discussion as this moves forward.

But if

As you pointed out, we can look back and see if it's being more restrictive than another use and if it is necessary to be more restrictive.

Yeah, I didn't mean to belabor the point.

Just if we already have a decibel meter rule for all properties in the rural area, do we need to call out music in particular?

That was really kind of my question.

And that's just not for this one.

My question would be, would it be helpful for other commissioners to maybe hear a little bit more about what the actual

There's no other question for staff.

We'll ask the applicant if you would like to come up and address the commission.

You don't have to.

Perfectly fine.

Do you guys have any specific questions for the applicant?

Would the applicant like to come up and answer a couple questions from the Commission?

Thank you.

Please just state your name.

My name is Tom Paquette.

Yes, okay.

So for starters, could you characterize, so it was said there's going to be no permanent structures.

And, you know, we talked about the vegetative buffer there.

So, you know, from my experience of other primitive sites in the National Forest, a lot of the sites are denuded.

They end up with bare soil there where the tents are.

Great.

OK, so they're not going to be foraging firewood from those areas.

And then talk to me about, we've had some issues in the past.

I mean, we approved some sites along the river from Misty Mountain.

And then it was maybe not even a year afterwards after that happened.

I don't know how it happened.

people had to come and be rescued from those sites because there were campers floating down the river and some people could have lost their lives in that incident.

What is your rescue plan for if there is a flood?

What do you do when there is, for example, weather warnings about flooding?

Do you prohibit camping?

How do you manage the safety on these sites?

No, that's a totally fair question.

So we

In order to camp at our site, you have to book a water activity because we're a livery and not a campground.

So we cap it at five.

The average elevation of the James River in Scottsville is at about four feet.

Right now it's two and a half feet.

We need some rain.

We need to get these tubers moving along.

We cap it at five feet for tubes.

The rivers we deem too dangerous.

We're the only ones down there that deem it, that don't put people on the river at five feet.

and we don't put the people on boats at six feet.

That area floods at about 17 and a half feet is when my front fields start to take on water and they take on water from the creek that runs in and then it runs on, kind of runs onto those fields from the backside.

So I'm constantly checking the river levels and especially with a big weather event coming,

There's a website that gives a projected, based on the storms and based on the readings upstream, the projections of the river.

If the projections start to get in that, you know, over 10 feet, then I start to check it every five minutes.

and like last year in February, it went up to 21.8 feet, which is massive.

And so standing in that field, I'm still, the water was still close to 10 feet over my head.

So we've moved all of our, all of our picnic tables.

We moved all of our Porta Johns.

We moved all of our buses, everything that was in the low ground.

We, we then take up to high ground.

Um, it,

I'm not sure of a weather event that could be possible that could come in and catch us off guard or go from four feet to over 17 feet without enough time for me to get people out of there.

And the fact that we're there when they are there gives us a chance to let them know that it's time to evacuate.

And in a massive rain event,

I can't imagine people are going to be camping in a primitive tent.

When we get storms, even like the one we had today, we had people canceled.

So I'm not sure if that's answering your question, but we're monitoring the weather.

We're monitoring the river level on an hourly basis and in rain events more often.

Okay, so you're notifying people before the rain starts.

Oh yeah.

Sure, yeah, we'd be beholden to the train.

Right.

A significant amount of traffic is a long shot.

I mean, the grass is standing on our sites that we have now and nothing has been eroded.

So there's not going to be a significant amount of traffic on these fields.

Okay, and then my final question is, you know, we have a lot of mown grass here, you know, and our standard, what we'd like to see in vegetative buffers, you know, in our riparian areas, particularly in flooded areas, you know, is native vegetation, not grass.

Because, you know, one of the things that happens, even if you're driving vehicles over grass, or even walking over grass, it becomes an impervious surface, right?

So you're increasing the flow of water from that grass into the river.

And obviously, as someone who, you know, your livelihood is dependent upon the quality of the river.

I don't feel like people walking across the grass is going to

prevent water from infiltrating the grass in those areas.

This area is under 10, 15 feet of water at some points.

I mean, new soil is being distributed to these floodplains every season.

I just think he's asking if there are ways you could thicken up that buffer with additional vegetation that would help.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think I think he's answered your question to what he's doing.

There's a couple, I think they're clarifying questions more than anything.

I was looking into materials and just wanted to confirm, I thought I saw, you know, you guys apply with all burn bans and so forth, just confirming that, like for trouts and so forth.

Okay.

It's just cars and tents.

I'm good.

Good.

Thanks, man.

Any other questions?

Okay.

All right.

With that, we will open for public hearing.

and we have one person signed up, Sean.

I only have one person signed up right now.

So, and just from reminder that you have three minutes and when you go from green to yellow, you have one minute.

My name is Shawn Cosette.

I live on Langhorne Road in Scottsville between Route 20 and 6.

So I'm going off topic a little bit, but it does relate to the showman's request to add camping sites to

James River Runners.

So I live definitely in a small historic farm in Scottsville, and I live on the way.

A lot of people on the weekends, we see them with their tubes and their kayaks going to enjoy the river, which we're very excited about.

Scottsville is a beautiful part of the county, and it's a cherished part of the county and one that's pretty unique

and pretty I think it's what attracted us when we moved there over 20 years ago was how beautiful it was and how it hadn't changed as opposed to Keswick or the western part of the county and it felt really rural and real and so I 100% support adding to tourism that already exists on the river so I'm

supporting this guy over here.

What's happening now, especially in that specific area, is we have large farms that have been sold.

We already have one industrial CAFO farm within a mile of us that we frequently are smelling very noxious odor when they're spreading the

litter, poultry litter from the farm and right now we for the last three days and that's why I'm here and I feel like I'm not a hundred percent prepared because this has just kind of happened for the last three days we have been unindicted with a horrible noxious smell

coming from a farm of chicken litter that's coming in from Harrison and I just think we're making a mistake by allowing these CAFO farms not to be regulated with some sort of regulation to help

people in our area to help our tourism.

Albemarle County is a beautiful place to come and visit.

I own two businesses that are dependent on tourism and my own personal self.

I want to keep living the life that I have been living for the last 20 years without

Being forced to be inside because I have a headache and I feel like I'm going to throw up from the smells.

And as well as there's huge trucks coming down Langhorne Road.

And this is not a road that supports large vehicles is a one lane bridge.

Just today we had five trucks coming down.

Big huge trucks that downgrade and make a lot of noise and they're going entirely too fast So I think it's unsafe and I also worry about the effects to the water system But I have more to say but that's all I'm gonna say today.

Take your name in my just your district Sean ribbon

live at 9969 Hatton Ferry Road, otherwise known as 13617A and 13617F up there.

So actually, I've been very impressed with Tom as a neighbor.

They've been, since taking over the company, have done a really good job of actually engaging the community.

I think he has all her phone numbers, so it's actually nothing to sort of stop any of this.

What I will say is that the county needs to resume trash pickup down there immediately.

I apologize.

There was trash pickup around the time when the ferry was running.

And I think that there may have been a misconception that because the ferry was not going to be running anymore, that somehow there was going to actually be less people going down there and it wasn't worth bothering with the trash pickup.

It's actually probably the opposite.

The ferry was kind of in the way.

So now you have way more people going down there to swim, including my family.

I mean, virtually every evening,

when the weather is good in the summer, like we'll be down there swimming or kind of walking up and down the river.

What is going on is that the trash that people cannot throw out in a reasonable spot down there is winding up on my property and on my neighbor's property.

And so I'm trying to throw something out to get the mail with my dog and I've got to pull her away from

biohazard stuff, I don't know, it's just things that I need to go get gloves in order to pick up.

So effectively, the county's not doing it and it's sort of falling to private citizens.

And you know, other people's trash is dangerous.

And there's a reason why if they were not willing to leave it in their car to drive it all the way back up to town or whatever, they want to get rid of it quick.

Six campsites, great.

What collectively we're doing is we're going to be increasing the amount of traffic that's coming down there.

That just means there's going to be more waste.

So there needs to actually be a plan to deal with that or else you're going to wind up with.

Is it a massive environmental problem?

Probably not.

I don't want to overstate the case here, but it's certainly an annoyance.

And it's also kind of not fair to the people who live down there.

So that's it.

What else would you like to speak to this matter?

Would the applicant like to address any of the comments that you heard?

No, sir.

Just asking, could you talk a little bit about what was just said and your materials that says trash pickup is daily?

Sure, yeah.

Albemarle has said we are no longer picking up the trash at Hatton.

They said that four or five years ago, and then they said it just this year that they're no longer picking up the trash at Warren, which

There's nothing I can do if you guys are saying you're not going to pick it up, then I'll pick it up because I want the place to look nice.

It matters to me, it matters to my business, it matters to my neighbors that the place doesn't look like garbage.

No, no, it's not true.

No?

The Hatton Ferry is VDOT's property.

It's Albemarle's property.

The actual landing.

So where they drive the people up and put them in the river, the Warren Ferry, that is your property.

Yes, ma'am.

So the county has said, we're not coming there to pick up trash.

No.

You hand your trash there.

But at the Hatton Ferry, which is, in essence, public property of some kind, it belongs to the Historical Society.

People don't need your permission to go down to Hatton Ferry and get in the river.

Anyone can do that.

That's a public access.

And so it might also be from some of your users.

Sure.

But at some point in time, the county was responsible for doing, what did they do?

Yeah, they would come in and weed eat and pick up the trash.

Thank you.

Right.

We will close the public hearing.

Bring it back to the commission.

Any questions for, I have a question for staff actually.

Can you respond to, is there a reason why the county stopped picking up trash in that area?

I'm not aware that the county ever picked up, that the county ever picked up trash out there.

Bart Sobota, Director of Community Development.

So back in the day, back in my old days, I actually dumped the trash cans at Hatton and Moore when I was working for parks.

So that was a program that we had back before we had all the parks that we have.

So

Partly I think it's a resource question.

Partly with the state not running the fair anymore, there was an agreement with that as a recreation space.

So it's not customary that on private property that we normally would dump trash without some kind of agreement.

So how that came about or when that started, probably most of the folks, even the retired ones from Parks and Rec would tell you they always remember that we used to do it.

That was before Walnut Creek.

You know, we had the boat landing even before Scottsville Park, which is down in town, right where the old school is.

So I think it was a resource questions or

putting our resources towards county facilities decision.

Not necessarily had anything to do with anything else.

So we can dig up an answer from Parks and Rec specifically, but I'm pretty sure that's that's probably what was going on.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

I'll go first.

I'm going to start by saying I was born in Nelson County, but I've spent the majority of my life in Albemarle County.

And I have traveled the portion of the river from the Warren Ferry to the Hatton Ferry on an inner tube dozens of times, more times than I would ever be able to count.

I'm a strong believer that the two services that run those recreations in that part of our county are instrumental to the culture that we have, the history that we have, the recreation that we provide.

It brings a ton of tourism.

I was actually personally very, very, very sad to see the ferry get finally retired.

I think that the application should be approved.

I do not think that we should have any restrictions on outdoor music besides what's in the zoning code.

And I would simply ask, friendly, not in the requirements, that the applicant consider better signage related to trash.

I think that could be done in a very creative way.

I know there are signs when you get out of the river.

that say it, but you know, extra bins with big signs that say, help us protect our neighbors, please put your trash here.

And then as you're driving off the property over the tracks, another big bin that somebody can throw the stuff out of their car in, and with a big sign that says, please don't litter my neighbor's front yard.

Something really creative like that could, I think, help your

clientele, be better stewards of the community and help your neighbor and would be a simple solution to that problem.

Primitive camping is a tent on a piece of dirt or a piece of grass.

That makes perfect sense to me.

It's the perfect use for this.

We should be allowing our residents and people who visit the county to use this specific site for this specific reason.

It's the most appropriate thing possible.

Okay, I'll be the contrarian.

I think James River Runners is a great company.

You do a great service and you take pretty good care of the area.

I've certainly been there many times and a great benefit to the tourism and just getting people on the river.

A lot of novices get on the river through your efforts.

My heartburn is in, I will say, I've been on the commission for 400 years now.

and I'm kidding, but I voted for this the first time they wanted to have camping on the river.

So in my mind, that was OK.

I don't like this location because it isn't in a flood zone.

It is also in the buffer protection zone that we should be reforesting rather than mowing because, yes, you will not cut down any trees, but you will also prevent them from growing.

And I sympathize.

I live in a parcel.

My entire parcel is in the flood area.

That's where I live.

I live in the flood zone.

But I live in a structure that was built hundreds of years ago.

The point is that I don't see why we should, with just having adopted the buffer protection ordinance, that we should be facilitating the continued keeping clear of vegetation on this stream bank.

right where the most impact would happen to the river.

In other words, yes, I understand that tent camping is a light footprint.

It's not a change, but it's continuing to keep it in a state that is not in a healthy state for the river.

But that's not a part of the buffer zone.

This is in the buffer protection ordinance zone.

Whatever you are doing currently on your land, I completely understand that, but I don't think we should be facilitating campsites in the buffer zone.

and so I'm leaning against this.

Again, I voted for it the first time because I thought it was contained and now it seems to be expanding and so I'm kind of just drawing a line in the sand.

So I'm camping okay because they want to enjoy the river but I don't want to keep expanding that use in this zone.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a couple of thoughts.

I think overall I'm certainly supportive of this.

Listening to the various perspectives is always healthy and helpful for me.

I would say in this particular instance, I would say I'd hate to

looking at existing use and how it's being used and then cap an entrepreneur's growth within that same stretch, right?

So I think it is a case-by-case basis.

I do want us to talk a little bit more about the sound piece.

I'm not sure if I'm in, I think it is more clarity, right?

That's what I'm looking for.

I don't think I'm in favor of no outdoor music, but this is also sensitive to, there's another locality.

Right across the river where they don't have a say so right and I don't know where those residences are in Buckingham as it relates to this and some people say doesn't matter it's not your county doesn't matter but I do think just being a good neighbor it's something to talk about right and so I don't know

So I don't get too down in the weeds with the

There's data about how much pollution comes from turf grass and from compacted soils, 100 to 500 pounds of sediment per acre per year, depending on soil compaction slope and so forth.

If we were thinking about this as a residential use and the requirements that we place upon there, we wouldn't allow a road to go through the stream buffer.

We may have some vegetation requirements in these areas.

I think to the degree that this is creating an impervious surface, and that is objectively true, whether you put gravel on it or not, scientifically speaking, you can, you know, as someone who's spent, you know, a long time on the Soil and Water Conservation District, and you spend a lot of time looking at the Bay model, when you drive a car over turf grass, you are creating impervious surface where water does not infiltrate.

I would at a minimum like to see some some kind of

um some some kind of repair you know something you know to mitigate that and improve the surface that's that's been created whether it's tree planting or native grasses or wildflowers or something i mean they um this is currently under um it looks like this is currently under land use this property they could very easily apply for equip um they could get that that paid for um to install something you know so there are programs that apply

So EQIP is a program that's a federal program that helps pay people to do things like establishing quail habitat or pollinator habitat or

take non-productive agricultural lands out of production.

And so they get annual payments for doing that.

And then also there's cost share for implementing the practice in the first place.

And that's all done with assistance through the Southern Water Conservation District and NRCS and other agencies.

So I guess I'm not understanding, what is your concern with runoff in this exact location?

If it's pervious, then the water's gonna go down into the soil, right?

and then come out in the river.

That is correct.

I don't either, but it's camping.

We're not building a road and we're not building a resident.

When you have

I have a civil engineering degree.

So as water with sediment and contaminants goes through soil, it becomes purified.

And you don't actually need all that much soil to flow through to actually purify water.

When water is flowing along the surface, it picks up contaminants on its way.

A lot of these mown grassy areas are very famous for attracting geese, for example, who then will come in and poop on the grass.

But they're not proposing a change to the way that it currently is.

Mr. King, let's let the commissioners all have their say.

I understand, but we're not here to debate each other.

It's a deliberation, but we want to all have the opportunity to speak.

We'll come back if there's...

I apologize.

Yes.

So my point is, I mean, I agree with Karen here that I think that what we're

While this may not be making things much worse, I mean, it is making, it is definitely, it's adding impervious surface to riparian area.

We just passed the riparian buffer ordinance.

It seems like this is setting us immediately from day one in the wrong direction.

I strongly support, as everyone knows, rural recreation.

That's, you've heard me talk about that all the time.

I strongly support what's being done here in terms of, you know, providing opportunities to use the river.

But I think that there could be some sensitivity here about the impacts of the river and ways to mitigate the impacts that are occurring.

And I don't know whether it's possible to include this in condition.

I really appreciate the voluntary things that are being done in terms of safety here.

But I have some heartburn because I sat on this commission, and we had Misty Mountain come before us.

And we talked about the safety concerns of those campsites right along the river.

And then we said, no, this is handled, no problem.

We have people on site.

This won't be a problem.

and then it was a problem.

And then we had people washing down the river.

And I forwarded you all the article that you can see about what kind of nightmare that was.

I believe that the applicant is going to do what he's going to say he's going to do.

I don't know if the way there's a, but remember special use permits carry with the property forever.

So just because

The applicant is doing what he's being a responsible person.

Who's to say the next person in 25 years is going to do that?

Or you know, 50 years, right?

So I do have those concerns about the safety here, you know, in addition to the

I would, as a sounder, we have this big grassy area already.

I would almost prefer that, you know, some of the tent sites be pulled further away from the area, from the river.

I certainly would like to see the, the, the Portageons, any of the bathroom facilities pulled away from the river.

I do have concerns.

It only takes three inches of water to take a 1,000 pound vehicle and wash it away.

So I mean, once again, I'm glad that they, you know, that the applicant, the moment there's a sign of rain is going out there and pulling those portajons back away from the river.

That's great.

Will the next person that inherits this business or that, you know, gets this property 25, 30, 50 years, are they going to do that?

Commissioner Moore?

Yeah, I don't even know why we're here, honestly.

I thought this would just be handled by staff.

We got 14 tents now.

Dude wants to put maybe up to 20.

I don't care if there's 30.

I don't care if there's 35.

Like, it's fine.

I thought we'd be out of here in 10 minutes, but we're not.

Okay, I'm supportive.

The only thing that I did wonder about was kind of like the Misty Mountain campground situation, but then we heard from the applicant.

really clearly that because it's a livery, there's not going to be campers when the river's above five feet.

And if it floods at 17 feet, that's a hell of a lot of time.

It's not a narrow mountain pass.

That's a big river.

And so it'll take a long time to go from five to over 17.

And nobody's gonna be camping there when it's at 17.

So I've got no concerns about this.

And I...

Also think about like my own times going to not this particular Riverside campground, but others where I set up a tent with my dad and it was great.

We listened to the water and we did some canoeing the next day.

And like, it's just a lovely thing to have in our backyard.

And, uh, and it's not just the sentiment, but it's also like a dude running a good small business.

I got no problem with it.

I was initially hesitant about supporting disturbance in the riparian zone but primitive camping has a pretty small footprint and I think by increasing

access to the small number of people during a limited amount of the year.

The upside of that, which helps people access one of our best natural resources, helps them increase their appreciation

and maybe inspire some stewardship for the river far outweighs what detrimental effects I think could happen just by these primitive campsites.

I mean, the only thing looking at this whole site that I would encourage would be to maybe reduce that mode footprint and replace some of that with a conservation landscape.

But that's outside of the scope of this.

Thank you.

I would say that there's valid opinions that have been raised in this conversation.

I'll remind everyone that every application is unique and stands on its own.

So they say, oh, you're creating a president.

We're not.

because we look at the factors within that particular application.

And I think this one has some unique factors.

And there are some differences between this use and Misty Mountain.

So I do agree that that's, I mean, we've seen some very tragic, unfortunately, in recent years throughout the country, very tragic events with flooding in rivers, campgrounds, and so forth.

I am encouraged by what I heard from the applicant and how they monitor the river and the activities.

The activities start getting canceled as you and I know that because years ago we were going to and with our kids and they got canceled because the river was too high.

So I know that they do that.

So that's encouraging to me and then kind of alleviate some of my concerns on which are very valid points.

And yes, while I agree about

the riparian buffer.

Again, I think this is a unique situation and where there's an activity that does provide for the community and the addition of six additional campgrounds.

I am in favor of continuing that.

Make one comment.

What I would like to have seen, which is still possible, is for the applicant to have said, yes, I want to have my campsites near the river because I want everyone to see there because it's a giant field.

You could move the campsites far away.

But you could also plant some trees down there and create a nicer setting for your tent by thickening up that forested buffer.

I have.

About a year ago.

but I can't really have a debate because what's happening is the recording is only capturing me and so it sounds comes out very bizarre in our official record and the opportunity for the public is during it but you know I would like to see an effort to

restore that area down there and tuck some of those campsites in and amongst the trees in which case it would be a much more shady more pleasant environment yes that's that's not a sufficient buffer it's one tree thick we haven't recognized we're done with this part of the yeah thank you so

That is not an effective riparian buffer.

There's not enough trees living there to effectively prevent the sloughing off of the bank or erosion.

And I can see the exposed soil in the picture.

So I did vote for your first round because I thought, OK, that's some camping.

It's not the whole site.

But I don't want to vote to expand it.

That's where it differs.

It's obvious the way the vote is going to go.

I can count, but I'm just going to say that I don't think we should expand into the riparian buffer.

having just passed an ordinance to protect it.

And Albemarle County has committed to the Chesapeake Bay preservation goals, which call for a 100 foot wooded buffer because that removes most of the nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment that runs off the land.

And so we're kind of going against what our county said they stood for by just allowing it to continue to have an impact.

I know you think it's light, but the impact is also the fact that it is not vegetated.

and we're going to continue to mow it.

That's it.

I'll make a motion.

I'd like to move that we choose to recommend approval of the special use permit SP.

Am I reading it correctly?

Commissioners, any?

Can staff weigh in on that?

So we have noise regulations in the ordinance.

What we talked about was what's applicable to the campground use.

And then we talked about

outdoor amplified music regulations that are supplemental regulations that don't exist for campgrounds that we could consider adding to this special use permit.

So either we are not conditioning noise altogether or having additional regulations on noise like we do for farm wineries, breweries, distilleries, and agricultural operations events.

That's where we were headed with this condition.

We can have no additional conditions like we would for those other uses.

I think I would vote for that, the clarifications.

It seemed that there was a good reason for staff to go in that direction.

Well, but wouldn't that be I'm just curious if administratively that would be the same thing.

She's saying if we don't prohibit it, then they would when before it reaches the board, they would add a drafted

condition.

Is that what you're saying?

We would like for the motion to be clear and maybe counselor would suggest it might need to be amended if you want, because your motion is to strike it all together.

I think that Commissioner Clayborne has suggested that we, you know, your motion may want to recommend approval, but include replacing condition five rather than eliminating it all.

Understood.

Should I restate my whole motion?

Sure.

Okay.

Is there a second on that amended motion?

We don't have any other comments.

Aye.

Ms. King.

Aye.

Mr. Clayborne.

Aye.

Ms. Brown?

Aye.

Okay.

We are

I'll just be really quick because it's like the continuation.

The Historic Preservation Committee did meet, that's always worthy, and they are working hard on putting together the draft historic sign program so that people can recommend

the historic sites for events or places that are important to the county.

They will then take that draft program to the Board of Supervisors and request the supervisors provide funding.

So we currently don't have funding for expanding our historic signs around the county, but we hope that the board will create this as an ongoing program.

Thank you.

Yes.

So the Crozet CAC, Matt, we had a nice presentation by the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

and, you know, of course, one of the big points of discussion was water supply since, you know, of course, we are still in the middle of a drought.

So the question was, you know, a lot of questions about when will our current water supply run out?

So the answer right now, you know, absent improvements, obviously, in capacity is 2045.

Then it talked about some of the things they're doing in terms of water treatment to handle contaminants.

It is quite impressive.

We made the decision long ago as a county to use charcoal to treat water as opposed to increasing the amount of chemicals that we're putting in our water.

And this turned out to actually be a really great decision on our part because now with a lot of these newer classes of chemicals that are occurring in the water, charcoal does the best job of removing those.

So we're already ahead of the curve in many ways in providing high quality water.

The other thing too we talked about was the water capacity that was already lost from the South Fork reservoir.

Apparently one time that reservoir had over a billion gallons of water capacity and now that's been reduced.

I don't have the exact number.

I think it's about 545 million gallons.

But some of the data that was the bathymetric, is that the right word, the term for, you know, some of the technology that they used to gauge the depth wasn't as good when that reservoir was built as it is now.

Thank you.

I have one more.

OK.

Oh yeah, four meetings in a row.

Like each night.

but the CAC met and mostly what we had was, they fit the name on, sorry, I should say.

Mostly what we had was an hour and a half presentation by Southwood to talk about how that's going.

The short answer is very well.

They also referenced that they went to a national affordable housing conference and they were sort of,

Singled out as being unique because apparently it's very unusual to have such a high retention of mobile home park residents in the new development.

And they attributed that to the fact that they did as they promised, which was to

make it easy to stay on site and you know where your new home is being built but you could remain in your trailer and if you want to move your trailer like let's say you want to go somewhere else you don't want to be in the new community they also provided help to relocate your trailer for you

So anyway, it was a very long presentation.

A lot of it was historical about the project, which I'm already aware of because I sat on this body when it first came forward.

So anyway, they just wanted to basically say how it was going very well.

They were able to accommodate most of the people.

People who didn't stay, that was a question that came up.

Why did some people not choose to locate there?

There are a variety of reasons.

I'll just give you a couple highlights.

One resident said that their lawn and garden business was really expanding and they just needed more rural site to put all their stuff.

and then other people you know move for family reasons or other things.

They did modify the Southwood development plan though to add these sort of larger storage sheds instead of trying to fit them in someone's yard there's kind of a zone where they have the and that's for putting your big honking lawn equipment and your giant

I don't know what equipment this is, but anyway, it's taller garages than a normal garage would be.

So they kind of created those unique structures that they designed so that people can have their business go to their equipment shed and then get all their gear and head out.

They lost a little bit of park space in doing that because these structures are kind of large.

So that was essentially that update.

And then the update I provided was about the board's adoption of the buffer protection ordinance.

So I gave them all the details on that.

I think that's a great, it's great to hear about that project and it's a great example of truly affordable housing in our community.

Yes, thank you.

A couple of the really important things that happened there at the Board of Supervisors last week.

As Mr. Saboda mentioned, he is now our director of community development.

The board approved him.

Come on up here, leg.

Come on up here.

Yeah, so that was good news.

And then also, congratulations to you all because you got a raise.

Yeah.

Exactly.

But beyond that, we also did do the Ag Forestal District came before the board for public hearing.

That included the one removal, which the board voted to approve, and the two additions.

Those came before you just about a month and a half ago, if you recall, all approved.

And then as Commissioner Firehock mentioned, the riparian buffer protection standards.

was approved at the Board of Supervisors on the 17th.

There were a couple other consent items including the smart scale applications.

They approved those eight applications that the county and the MPO were submitting for projects within the county.

and I know that we have a couple of items under new business.

Yeah, okay, great.

So one item is that our next meeting, which was scheduled for July 14, the items that we had planned for that meeting were pulled.

And so we no longer have anything for that meeting.

Second.

Madam Clerk.

Ms. Brown.

Aye.

Mr. Clayborne.

Aye.

Ms. Firehock.

Aye.

And Ms. King.

Aye.

Thank you.

And then just a reminder, so that means that the next Planning Commission meeting will be July 28th.

I know we have at least one absence.

I was just hoping to make sure that we were going to be able to have a quorum.

I didn't want to know if anybody else had issues that they might not be able to make the July 28th meeting.

Planning Commissioner training in Danville.

Oh, so I have a question then and I haven't looked up the details.

Karen, maybe you can help me.

The conference is multi-day and then there's a track for planning commissioners and that kind of goes multiple, but you could just do one day of that, for example, if you don't want to stay over.

So my answer is I haven't decided.

Yeah, it's the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

We would need to establish a quorum in person first before allowing anyone to remotely participate.

OK.

I mean, I think four is the answer.

Commissioner, if we lose somebody for whatever reason, if somebody is sick or whatever, then we do.

Because right now, we would have four.

We would have quorum.

Yeah, assuming we don't get.

Razor thin.

Yeah, with with four people that can be here in person, we would have a quorum so that that at least alleviates my fear that we would have to cancel that because this is really our last chance to cancel that meeting.

So I think we'll probably be OK.

And just to remind the commission that if something comes up and on the day of the 28th we do not have a quorum, there would still be a meeting, we would take roll, establish there's not a quorum and then the meeting would automatically be adjourned to the next scheduled meeting and that would automatically continue whatever scheduled public hearing there was.

Thank you.

So while you still come here, like, we did this, not that long ago.

I think Karen and I were the little ones here.

Were you here with us?

We didn't have a quorum, but we had to be here.

Thank you.

I think we're good then.

That was good.

What else?

We have old business.

Do we have any old business?

I completed on Tuesday of last week the certified planning commissioner program at VCU.

And I found the program to be, I want to thank, you know, the county for providing that course.

understand I think that none of you all have taken it.

The person who's Julian, the person whose chair I am in now had taken it and very much recommended it.

I would agree with him wholeheartedly that going into it, I was optimistic that I would learn some things, but I

feel like it is entirely invaluable to what we do and strongly recommend that everyone consider taking it.

There were probably 50 commissioners from across the state, maybe 40 in this particular course.

The next one is in July.

I have the brochure in my bag if anybody needs to see it.

And it was

You know, there's some things that, if you've done this a while, you know, will be sort of repetitive.

But the parts that were really, really eye-opening, we had a really long presentation from Housing Forward Virginia about specifically affordable housing as an example that really gave

some really really good insight into the details of how it works and what doesn't work and there were really good discussions about things like inclusionary zoning and how when it can work and when it you know

That's just an example.

There were lots of other discussions as well.

Also on the second closing day, we had a presentation from a company out of Lynchburg that handles energy.

and they work a lot with data centers, so a lot of the other commissioners from around the state, right, are dealing with data center stuff way more than us, but they also provided an expert related to just energy usage in general in Virginia, you know, in the context of what type of water and energy are these data centers going to use,

but also just in like, you know, where does, where do all, what are, who are the big players in the state and where's it all coming from and what does the future look like?

I mean, there was so much valuable information from a state level that I think would be really, really helpful to all of us going forward when we start making decisions for the county.

So I just wanted to say that, like, I very, very much recommend it.

And I did a poll at the end.

I think it was like more than 75% of the commissioners there

were required to be there by their locality.

Two days in July, and then there's in between work and then the closing days in September.

Yeah.

And I, yeah, I purchased the books for the in between on my Kindle, you know, and just did it when I could, but it was really helpful.

Was that it was it online?

Yes.

So there's two days.

Then there's a break where you do at homework, and then there's two days.

Well, the one I'm doing is in person in Richmond.

but like I connected with commissioners from Stafford County and you know some Northern Virginia counties from Roanoke who you know afterwards we texted each other you know and like just stay in touch and get perspectives.

Thank you.

Actually, sort of a new business thing.

I just wanted to bring up some fun with number crunching that I was doing, if you'll indulge me for a moment.

Because I have sometimes talked about how, you know, I don't think we're keeping our housing supplies keeping up with the demand, right?

And that's an easy statement to say.

But I wanted to make sure it was true.

And so I was poking around with census data, which is

how I like to spend my spare time and I found some stats that did back it up and I was looking up the the U.S. Census Bureau's longitudinal origin destination employment statistics which I'm just going to call loads while I talk about this and basically the loads numbers do tell us essentially how many people live and work in the same locality how many commute to another locality and how many commute into that locality

and Weldon Cooper has published this loads data for Virginia in 2014 and also in 2022.

Some articles based on those two years of data.

For whatever reason, the census is like several years behind on this.

The most recent they even have is 2023 at this point, but it was an eight year span from 2014 to 2022.

And if you look at, and I combine Charlottesville and Albemarle because it's basically one housing market and one market, you know, commuting market.

But if you look at it, that eight year span, we added about 9,200 working residents over that eight year period.

But we added 14,400 jobs over that period.

So in other words, we added 5,200 working people, more that have to commute from outlying counties.

And so, you know, there's just not the housing here that they can afford and so they live in these outlying places.

So we kind of have a number now of like how many

homes we haven't added in terms of the jobs that we're adding.

It's about 650 a year, at least over that eight-year period.

I don't know if the trend has continued since then, but it was like, oh, that's a lot of people every year for a place this size that we're not able to house here, but that are working here.

I think one of the things that

It's challenging to me, as we heard I think twice, maybe three times, people mention baristas.

And they're commuting across the mountain to come to Crozet or wherever.

I don't think any of the things we do in terms of subsidies are enough to make a house affordable to a barista.

I just don't think they are.

So there's a level of employment outside of just what was done at Southwood.

There's just nothing that we can do that will actually provide housing for that population.

And so I wonder if you look at the jobs that are created of what income level

How much of it is workforce housing?

How much is it is minimum wage housing?

Sure.

Yeah.

And this particular analysis was kind of top level census.

Where do people commute from?

But it's a worthwhile discussion.

I think it also points to how

economic development is very much tied to housing policy, right?

I mean, you know, it's also in the context of what other localities are doing as well, because, you know, I think in terms of we have workers that, I mean, if I

If I was a city councilor in Waynesboro, I would question why a significant part of my workforce is leaving Waynesboro to come to Albemarle County every day or to Charlottesville.

Like that seems like a lost opportunity.

If you have skilled workers that are leaving your locality every day, why are you not creating jobs for those at home?

Yeah, the numbers kind of bear that.

I mean, there already were, of course, a lot of people in 2014 who commuted in from those places, and we just keep increasing it more and more over time.

So that was just an interesting set.

That's actually what I was going to say related to the Housing Forward folks.

They did speak at the last CD.

I'm going to get the acronyms wrong, you guys.

But the PDJDC.

TJPDC.

Thank you.

So the person who spoke at that last year was not the person who spoke to the course.

It was a different person, but this person was amazing.

And the data that was shared with similar types of what you're talking about.

And one of the things that I thought was really eye opening was about that missing middle.

And I have some slides here that I intend, my intention is to

put some of this together to share with you guys later once I have a chance to, you know, think about it a little bit more.

But the missing, the missing middle piece is that part where we can provide, like we're providing new housing

But with the current plan, which is infill only, or redevelopment only at very high densities, we're only providing new housing starts of a very specific type.

and the population of people who are moving here want something maybe not that.

Like, what I'd like to be able to have us think about is, you know, there's this many people moving here, this percentage of them are going to want to live in dense areas.

Another percentage of them are going to want broader areas.

One of the examples that comes to my mind always when I think about this is a Carsebrook.

I think the barrier there though is the cost of land, right?

So when you look across, you know, leaving aside even development areas and rural areas, if you look at the cost of land,

like I heard a some from Nelson County, I think it was actually one of the Nelson County supervisors also did some work with like tiny homes and he was talking about like he can build tiny homes in Nelson because the cost of land is less but like there's nowhere in Albemarle he can do that because it's not worth the investment to put a tiny house on a piece of land that costs over a certain dollar amount.

That's because we make them in the rural area, keep it on two acres.

If we let them put 10 of them on two acres in the rural area, it would be much more affordable.

But we won't let them put 10 tiny houses on two acres in the rural area.

I'm going to count that as old business.

Items for follow-up?