Board of Supervisors Adjourned Meeting (Meeting w/ State Legislators)   9/5/2019

We'll begin with welcomes and introductions.

I want to start by announcing the obvious that Ned will not be participating in person, but he is with us by phone for the meeting.

I want to remind all participants that in this room to speak loudly and clearly as the meeting is being live streamed and recorded.

The speakers are in the ceiling.

So if you speak down, no one will be able to hear you.

So speaking directly outwardly, the microphone will pick up your remarks very clearly.

I want to introduce the members of the dais and the guests, beginning with the officer of moral profit.

To my right.

Supervisor Dill and Supervisors Malek and McKeel.

And then all the way in the right side of the room, I put my glasses on to Reeve, is Chris Snyder, the Senior Advisor to Senator Reeves.

Thank you for joining us.

Lonnable David Toscano.

I also want to announce some people out there in the audience who may already be feeling famished because you're watching all these

All the food out on the table is also available for all of you.

So if at any point in the meeting you want to pop up and get something to eat, please take advantage of that.

There's enough food there for everyone.

So I'd like to start off with Ray Campner, the county attorney, with the 2020 legislative priorities

and officials at the state level for joining us today for lunch.

We appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Greg Camper, county attorney.

And hopefully everybody has this written handout.

And the short PowerPoint presentation that everybody will be seeing today will also be made available.

We'll make that available through the clerk's office.

So first of all, taking a look back at the 2019 General Assembly session, there were some successes.

We had the HB 2239, which made some necessary changes to state law that allowed the

County Courts project to proceed.

Those who are not aware of the board and the city council entered into an agreement after, which was the culmination of 19 years of negotiating.

There was a renewed effort over 2018, but in order for that agreement to really have effect, we needed some changes to state law.

Mr. Chairman, could I just give a shout out to Greg for his work on that bill.

It was very easy and unanimous and everybody liked it and it's all because he did all the legwork and groundwork and explaining work and drafting work.

If he does not hear from us enough that we appreciated his hard work on that bill, that's the reason the bill passed.

I just wanted to share that.

Thanks for saying that.

And the other success, one of the board's priorities was just cleaning up a glitch that had shown up in state code a couple of years ago.

The prior law had allowed for the mail of these notices to be sent by certified or registered mail and it was omitted in a 2016 or 17 amendment and it was put back in this year.

This was a request that came from our Department of Community Development and the change allowing the mail to be

these notices to be sent by certified mail.

The difference in costs I think was a difference between about $10 by registered mail and about $3 by certified mail.

The board has had four sessions looking at legislative priorities

for the upcoming General Assembly session.

We first met back in April.

We had meetings again in May, in June, and then the first board meeting in August.

And the number of initiatives, the number of possible legislative changes that the board looked at, we peaked out at around 15.

And those were whittled down through the various work sessions, and we have

Right now we have six, but you'll see the asterisks.

We've had a couple of bills that have

priorities that have already been considered by the General Assembly in committee.

The carrying specified loaded weapons and the monuments and memorials bills have been in front of the General Assembly committees in 2018 and 19.

Both of those bills, none of them made it out of committee.

There were also some other similar bills that had failed

I love looking at impact fees and equal taxing authority.

So for the loaded weapons and the monuments and memorials, the board is still weighing whether to pursue it.

It's very at the forefront of their consideration, but they also don't know whether to proceed if a similar fate is likely to fall

This is the one of the six bills where this is county initiated, board initiated and it is what the board is looking for is an expansion of the enabling authority that exists in Virginia Code section 15.2-953.

to be able to provide in-kind resources and this particular idea came from our office looking at some issues and our Department of Facilities and Environmental Services who desire to work closely with our volunteer firefighting and emergency services and

Medical Services Providers.

We do support our many volunteer organizations to the tune of in the billions of dollars per year.

Our feeling is that we could make our dollars go further if we could provide some of these services that are in the examples in the bottom right-hand corner of the slide.

And some of our volunteer companies are fairly small, and they don't necessarily have the expertise to perform these kinds of functions.

We have a department that exists which is very involved in contract management.

developing proposals, providing budgeting services.

So this is a request.

It also would help strengthen the volunteer organizations by letting the money that the board does contribute to them go further.

In kind resources are not totally new.

In 2002 there was a

The opinion from the Attorney General, there was a town that wanted to provide, to make its staff available to provide some setup services for an event that was going to be held by a non-profit organization in the town for a, I think it was for a parade.

It wasn't until five years later, there was an amendment that redefines what a donation is to allow in-kind resources

for events sponsored by Adoni.

So it addressed that particular type of issue.

If we have questions, would you like us to stop as we go or wait until they're all done?

I guess I just don't know enough about this topic.

This would seem to be something the volunteer fire departments, especially, would be happy.

It's an option opt-in.

They get it if they want it.

They don't want it.

Or if they feel like it.

That's correct.

I guess, has there been stakeholder conversations with them about this?

I know that there's some temperatures running pretty high between some of the departments.

I don't want anybody to think we're doing something that they don't want.

Has somebody talked to them about this?

Thank you for your strong interest in trying to expand the county's contribution to help with large capital maintenance.

The pilot project we identified was a repair or replace of the apron that the Crozet Volunteer Fire Department

Our take, though, is that we don't have enabling authority to actually actively participate with them in the construction of that project.

We can give them the money, but then there's that question about how we can better support them.

So that's probably the best, most immediate example of where this has kind of come up.

And in that instance, it was with the involvement engagement of the Crozet Fire Department.

And I think the feedback we've heard, and it may be from our facilities and environmental services, is that we know there are some companies that would not be interested in this.

You're not objecting to other.

There's not some.

That would be in direct contributions.

The county also works by providing fuel training, turn out gear, insurance, a number of other in-kind contributions in addition to cash donations.

That's a good question.

So on the next, I put these two bills together because these are the ones where the board is still weighing.

The bills that were considered last year, I think the language in both of those bills is fine.

for the war memorials and monuments.

The one important thing there was the additional provision that made clear that contextualization was declaratory of existing law.

With the amendment to 18.2-287.4,

That authority exists for a number of cities and five, I believe eight cities and five counties right now.

Albemarle County is just asking to be added to that list.

Impact fees.

This has been a big topic with localities and this is the one

area where we'll stop and talk for two or three slides to look at this.

First thing, maybe if the legislators look at the very bottom bullet point,

Based on some meetings that some localities have had and a state committee, a state work group has had, we recognize that this particular legislation is going to be something that's in the future.

This is a multi-year process to get enabling authority or to get enabling authority even on the table in front of the General Assembly.

the High Growth Coalition and other localities are looking at these, looking at this issue.

The board looked at it throughout the spring and so eventually, this is just, think of this as a preview, that the board will come back again with a request for enabling authority to impose impact fees.

The three arrow points are

ideas that the board has been talking.

Our planners in our Department of Community Development, I spoke to them about this, they all agree that in a lot of ways the impact fees make that transformational shift in a way that infrastructure is better addressed than the current cash proffer, off-site proffer system.

So the first thing is that impact fees would be imposed on all residential development, not just those that go through the rezoning process.

I was at a meeting where Loudoun County presented its information and their proper unit

Proffer, Cash Proffer amounts are in excess of $50,000 per year and yet the cash contributions that they receive only account for about 2% of their development

generated need for capital facilities development and expansion.

So the cash-proper system is a drop in the bucket.

Of course, Mr.

Chair, the Alton County grows faster than anybody else.

And it would be difficult.

I think there are 420,000 people now, is that right?

I have a question about the model.

It's always been a debate about what actually was the impact and therefore what should be the fee.

And there are lots of models that have been used over the years.

Are there new ones that are out there that are more predictive of what the actual costs are?

We are going to have to get to that.

And if we just

And what we've learned so far is that there are models that range from bare bones enabling authority to very elaborate, comprehensive statutory schemes that prescribe exactly how it will work.

A follow-up question, please, having to do with this situation with stakeholder involvement in this.

I mean, there have been a number of efforts over the years to bring the homebuilders together with the local governments and High Growth Coalition.

sometimes through the Housing Commission, sometimes not.

I can't recall.

The benefits for developers in light of Cree's question is once you reach agreement on a formula that you're going to deploy, it is therefore much more predictable for developers going into a project to know exactly what the costs are going to be associated with the project in terms of impact fees and what role they're going to be expected to play.

There is less room therefore for negotiated proffers as we have right now, which is a push-pull situation.

You hear all that all the time.

That's why people hate the problem.

You couldn't predict what the heck was going to happen and when it would happen.

And it does.

The other aspect about it, as Greg has pointed out, it levels the playing field.

There's no differentiation between by right and special use permits.

Everybody that is building and therefore contributing to police department, fire, costs, social services, education, transportation, they're all making a contribution to those needs within the county.

Let me talk about

These two points right here are issues that the board is dealing with.

Because we have had, and we'll just talk about the Rio 29 general area, we've had developers who did by right residential development and you get the form of development that was there when the land was last rezoned.

And in Albemarle County, a lot of that land was rezoned in 1980.

and when that rezoning took place, what happened in many areas of the county was that the 1969 zoning designation simply carried over into the new similar designation.

So if you think about what Albemarle County was

in 1969 in a lot of these areas and where we are now with the different issues that we're dealing with and just think about transportation and the road network.

We're not meeting our goals, which leads to the second.

We're focusing on that third arrow there, is that we're dealing with old zoning.

So we go through a very lengthy comprehensive plan process.

The community is involved.

This is what we want our community to look like.

But in order to avoid that,

going through the proper scheme that we have right now.

Some developers will prefer, in order for their projects to be economically feasible, to do buy-write development, which means we have development at a conventional, probably outdated zoning style, but we also don't have any of the impacts addressed.

Facing reality, what bare land develops, whether it's by right or they go through the rezoning process, there are real impacts that result.

Looking at the middle arrow there, this is the other thing that localities face with.

We want you, developer, to go through the rezoning, therefore, to allow us to have the impacts addressed

which makes governing bodies often reluctant to have their zoning designations match their comprehensive plan.

Albemarle County is a county that takes its comprehensive planning process very seriously.

Extensive public hearings, a lot of community input.

We're now at the stage where our development areas go through a master planning process and even a small area planning process.

and these beautiful plans get developed and then there is stasis.

Nothing happens until we react to haphazard projects coming in.

So the impact fee enabling authority would kind of unlock these dual scenarios that are taking place right now.

In getting back to the form of an impact fee, this is one slide just hitting highlights of what an impact fee program could be.

Localities would have the ability to determine the range of capital facilities.

Be based on studies, that fourth bullet point

allowing the localities to have the flexibility to establish an impact fee program that the community desires within the parameters of studies and within the parameters of the range of capital facilities.

And there's a give and take and even that impact fee.

The board had a profit cash proffer

policy in place for nine years or so and that per unit cash proffer amount was not set at 100% of the impacts.

There's a balancing process that takes place.

The last bullet point about

being so prescriptive.

That is just a concern.

There are other areas of enabling authority, the state planning and zoning law, the cluster development enabling authority that was adopted around 2004.

It lays out the rules on how

how a locality can establish a new cluster development profit policy.

And we've looked at that.

We were one of the localities that already had a cluster development ordinance in place.

And we've looked at the 2004 enabling authority, and it was just so prescriptive.

We had doubts as to whether it would work.

And I think that's been the issue with other localities as well.

So this is the last slide talking about impact fees and we do appreciate the 2019 legislation it is a big help and I know that I was in a meeting I think it was in may have been in Richmond or it was a high-growth coalition meeting but representative from Fair

and they already had people who were contacting them.

They already had more than a dozen developers who had contacted them while getting ready to file applications on July 1st or soon thereafter.

Two months in, I'm not aware that we've had, I'm sure we've had at least one rezoning application come in.

We have not had any rezonings that were already in the pipeline opt to come in under the 2019 legislation.

We've not had any major rezonings.

pretty small parcels in the two months that the law's been in effect.

I will say though that the 2016 version of the proper statute was complicated and it is

It's still complicated and there are traps for localities because we now have to, our staff and our decision makers, when we are interacting with a developer, first box you have to check off, is this commercial or is it residential?

because if it's residential, then this kicks in.

When was the application filed?

Was it before 2000, July 1st, 2016, or was it in that three-year window period, or is it post?

Because that will govern how even staff can interact with the developer.

If you're in under between

If you're under the July 1, 2016 statute, a staff person who merely suggests a proffer that may be unreasonable may be getting the locality into trouble.

if it turns out that that particular discussion forms the basis for rezoning.

The 2019 legislation is a big improvement.

We do appreciate that.

Another complicating issue for us is that each one of our growth development areas, we have a citizens advisory committee.

And the citizens advisory committee members have to operate also in a legal environment that there are three different standards.

Gates, for citizen participation.

Because if you say the wrong thing with an application, you're potentially imperiling not only yourself legally as well as the county.

So it remains a very complex situation.

No.

That did not come in on her offer.

It preceded the 2019 legislation.

Chair, before we leave that, could I ask some questions?

You started at the beginning.

You said the high-growth counties, is there a cutoff?

It used to be, or the original definition was 2% per year growth or higher.

And so we've been at the table because we're interested and want to learn and do a better job ourselves.

The last couple of years, has it been more or just it happens to be the roads I drive on?

My understanding from seeing what happened during the 2004 to 2008

The per unit cash profit amount was what have been around $20,000.

Our policy in place at the time didn't allow for credit so there was a significant dedication of real property.

About 60 acres for a school site.

I think that's about where they are.

of work and this was the first time that I had seen this data that we had the number of business license in Albemarle County and in 2008 that was approaching 2,500 and in 2019 we just went over 8,500 so in a 10-year period we have tripled, over tripled

the number of businesses licensed in the county.

The other thing that we have done recently is we've had a conversation with TJPDC and I'm very interested in learning what our daytime population is versus nighttime population which is really going to more accurately reflect through economic vibrancy

with what the type of county that we have, especially with some of the major employers that we have, I think we're going to be very interested to look at what that daytime population figures suggest.

And when you see significant growth, as you well know, when you see significant uptick in daytime, it has a real, real impact.

So the business license number, that's just, is Walmart one business license and the mom and pop who's doing arts and crafts at the same space?

Yes, no differentiation.

Is there a metric you could tell us, so we look at, we have some new malls, we've got some old malls that are, are we doing where we at in terms of, if business license is not a good metric, is there some other metric you have for, I have no idea, retail sales or

I think so and I mean tax self-tax and

Well, we have examined some of our revenue streams over the last several budgets more closely and the economic governance with tied to retail, not just the property tax, but retail and such.

We have moved at a strong pace.

I don't know how we compare it to the state.

We can give more detailed information on that.

Yeah, I know.

It's just interesting.

That's not what I would have thought you were going to say.

One other fact that goes with the finance report.

We have, in 10 years, had 4,000 more parcels created.

Land parcels?

We're seeing growth from NJ, but of course they're quiet about it.

Can you see that in some of the numbers you're seeing?

The employment information is often received voluntarily through our engagement with businesses that are willing to report.

There's some specific tax information also proprietary.

We're not able to get that to understand how individual businesses or even some business groups are doing.

And so we do a lot of inference.

to try to get some indication along with the number of business licenses that are issued and the number of parcels that are created, and then the overall growth in our tax categories, then we make general representations about what the impact is on our local economy.

are the transient occupancy taxes.

And is that due to the buildup of additional occupancy opportunities in terms of the hotel trade?

Or is that the competition that's arisen with homestay opportunities?

I assume you talked to other counties nearby.

So Green has seen an increase attributable to Airbnb.

In other words, they had very limited properties before, and they're excited.

For them, it's actually a positive opportunity because of that.

It was a good detour.

Well it's actually a good segue because it brings us to this particular topic and the members who are here they're familiar with this

Requested has come from localities over the years to particularly for the urban counties to Have their taxing powers expanded to be akin to those granted to cities Just talk about mention of the looking at who's coming into the locality the daytime residents they put

Burdens on stresses on the county.

Just the number of business permits that have to be issued, that puts additional pressure, but the roads are impacted as well.

The counties historically were rural in nature and so the focus on the real property tax made a lot of sense but Albemarle County's urban ring is certainly more akin to a city and we have the urban type stresses and funding tension that exists and so this is not a 2020 request but it is a preview

because the board certainly will support if there is a statewide initiative to give counties equal taxing authority as cities.

We discussed during the spring a county specific request if you go through the enabling authority

For the transient occupancy tax, there have been a number of single locality additions over the years, particularly if there was a particular purpose.

And one that comes to mind, I can't recall the locality right now,

but they had a convention center that was already underway and so they were given additional enabling authority to have those revenues appropriated to support that convention center.

We've had a lot of transition in our key decision makers.

relevant to the transient occupancy tax.

So the board decided to defer an initiative until we've had a chance to allow our new tourism bureau, the Charlottesville Albemarle Visitors Bureau, our new executive director of the new chamber, who's actually been in place for several months now, and other new regional interests who might be involved to weigh in on that before we

So this may be, I would expect more likely it will be something that will be back on the table next year.

I just wanted to give you a preview of that.

The last of the legislative changes would be

supporting legislation to expand localities authority to preserve as a catch-all for replacing and replanting trees that are removed during development.

There are environmental issues, air quality, water quality.

Now with climate change, cooling effects of tree canopy,

When we returned to the board for our work session on August 7th, we had just gotten word that Arlington County had made a presentation to the

to VML actually and they were about to go to VACO to make a to pursue enabling authority that would accomplish these two things so the board certainly is supporting this initiative expanding the BMPs under stormwater through

tree canopy preservation and planting and also seeking greater flexibility to reforest and preserve under this enabling authority.

If I could add one thing to that with regard to Arlington County.

They've also been having some conversations in their region with their home builders and also the statewide home builders.

Obviously they have some interest in the issue.

And I would also note that the revised Watershed Implementation Plan that was just released and sent to EPA just a week and a half, two weeks ago has a couple of

some background of what the current law provides.

For example, for development of industrial or commercial property, locality can require that they maintain or establish or preserve a

10% tree canopy and that increases all the way up to 20% for residential sites that are at 10 units per or less per acre.

So people would be part of the zoning process or part of the building permit process?

The enabling authority also allows credits and deviations and waivers and also to establish tree banks and things like that.

So there is some flexibility in there already.

The topic today was dealing with Biscuit Run Park.

You all may recall that the state acquired Biscuit Run Park.

This is just on the southern side of I-64 down Old Lynchburg Road.

Up in the upper part of the property on the map there is Old Lynchburg Road.

It was acquired in 2009.

Over the years the state did develop a master plan and the proposed funding requirements to develop the park as a state park was 42 million dollars in the beginning of 2018 after

lengthy negotiations with the DCR, the county entered into a 99-year lease to take that over.

And it was recognized from the start that it would not only be a county park, but also serve the surrounding localities, function as a regional park.

The board engaged in its own, this is a photograph that was from the master plan.

but the board adopted the Biscuit Run Master Plan at the end of 2018 and to develop the park and it's envisioned that it would be developed in multiple phases the ultimate cost between 31 and 34 million dollars the first phase ranges from about five to seven million dollars there are ranges within each of the three phases

and the board adopted a resolution accepting the state's offer.

There was a $15 million mitigation fund to address the environmental impacts from the Atlantic Coast pipeline and the county share would have been $5 million from that.

If you're following the media, that project is in

Jeopardy right now.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated some permits at the end of July.

That's about the most recent information I saw, at least in the court reports.

So the request

Mr.

Chair, can you go back to the previous map?

That's actually old.

Give me some, where on 20 are we?

Like, where's Monticello High School?

That would be north of there.

Southwood neighborhood is right here.

Right up against it.

Does DCR know about this ask?

Yes.

I've talked with Clyde about it.

And do we know if he's interested in putting it in his request for the budget?

Don't know whether it's been put in this.

So we need to get the information so we can have a nice talk with them.

I assume.

Is that about where Krog envisioned the original?

Phase one is concentrated over this area.

It's going to be the Tuscan Memorial line item.

Thank you.

Whatever.

Before people leave, we kind of modified the agenda as we went.

So I did want to give the local delegation an update from the board.

2019 legislative positions and policy statements.

And the one I just want to focus on, I already spoke about the proffers.

The other one I wanted to speak to was just thanking the General Assembly for continuing to fund Batty, because our broadband authority has been making great progress over the last two years.

But the budget isn't enough for one county.

So we have to do a better job of funding it at the state level.

And another job annually means the capacity to actually implement things can be developed.

I will also say the 19 million doesn't seem like it's enough, but that money incentivized this board

On the other end of the territory I serve is

The rural co-op is BARC.

And before CBAC, they're the first ones in Virginia that launched a rural broadband project.

And I have some perspective about what $19 million does when you've got rural territory like Rockbridge and Bath Counties.

Mr. Chairman, if I could add, I really expect, based on the discussions of the broadband coalition, state levels having, that the governor will ask for $50 million in each of the next two years of the budget.

I think being able to see the number of applications for this 19 million round and how much money is requested and where they're coming from I think will help to maybe make the case even further for additional dollars.

So there are no current grant applications for value that are within the 17th?

Because I just sent out three letters for three other applications from the senator.

Right in other counties.

Nothing up in the North here is where he's describing it.

at this time.

We tried to work something out on the northeast corner, as you know.

And Louisa went a different direction.

Thank you very much.

Thank you everyone for joining us.