Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   2/19/2020

All right, good afternoon.

I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our February 19th, 2020 board meeting.

Apologies for the late start transitioning from the county executive's budget recommendation.

And if everyone would please join in a moment of silence.

Okay board, we need to adopt our final agenda.

I just want to, since we seem to get out early today, would it be okay if we took it from the board and from the county executive and put it in if we have time before we go into the closed meeting?

You mean this afternoon?

Yeah.

I mean, it looks like it will.

So I'm just thinking if we have the extra time, we might as well.

And I don't know where that we end up with.

We shouldn't need all three and a half hours.

Okay.

And it's not that we take that much time from the board.

We'll see how it goes.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

All right.

Motion to approve the final agenda with amendments.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

All right, thank you board and go ahead and introduce folks with us today.

Officer Brian Miller and Lieutenant Terry Walls will be joining us again from the other room.

and then also seated next to the officer, Trevor Henry from the county executive's office, Doug Walker from the county executive's office, our county attorney, Mr. Campner, of course the supervisors, Mr. Richardson will be joining us here momentarily, and our board clerk, Ms.

Borgeson.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'll do one briefly.

I was on vacation last week, and of course whenever you go on vacation you then pay for it when you come back with the hundreds of emails waiting for you.

But my observation, whenever I travel, and particularly when you fly, and you fly cross-country, I am just so

impacted by development around this country.

And I had the great opportunity on my vacation to visit several natural parks and to commune with nature.

And it just reminds me how fragile this planet is and how responsible we are to be good stewards of the planet, the flora, and the fauna.

And I was really close to nature in some areas, and it was just so evident that we could destroy this planet if we are not careful.

And so I am very pleased that this county, this board, that we are focused on taking actions to help protect our environment.

I just love that you said that because I was also on vacation the last, just a very very short one in the Everglades National Park and out in the middle of nowhere picking up the plastic bottles was pretty darn depressing and the little pieces of plastic and styrofoam and whatnot that was lodged in between all sorts of places so with that I would like to let everybody know

that we are now composting pizza boxes at McIntyre.

I saw a picture yesterday at a meeting of the hordes, the huge amounts of pizza boxes that are now getting composted.

We eat a lot of pizza around here.

and so that seems to be quite a success.

And we are always trying to increase, decrease contamination in our recycling bins at McIntyre or increase the purity so we can get more money for our recycling and so that it actually does get recycled.

and so we are looking forward to starting an ambassador program there where we'll have some very friendly faces helping people not put the wrong thing in the bins.

But anyway, so that's it.

Just to piggyback on a couple of the comments because I think you all have made some really good points.

We've received this week an email about litter.

and I want to get back to that at some point because I have to say it doesn't matter whether you're driving in the rural area or in the development area, we are a washing litter.

And I go to other communities and see some litter but I don't see it like I'm seeing it in this community.

and we've got to figure out what's going on and it takes a village and I really think working with the school division might be helpful as well but I responded back with a couple of thoughts to that email but I just think it would behoove us to have a serious discussion at some point about the litter in this community and how we might be able to impact it.

some of it's plastic bags, Liz, I go along with that.

They are hanging from bushes and trees.

It's just appalling, but plastic, water bottles, but it's everything.

So we'll come back to it.

But when you all were making those comments, I was just visualizing some of the litter that we've had in this community over the last year or two years.

I have a couple.

First of all, I think the litter problem is something that is very high on the complaint level for citizens all over the county, rural or whatever.

And I think that there are many wonderful citizens who put on yellow vests and almost get killed beside the roadside trying to clean up every spring and fall.

And they're truly and justifiably aggrieved by the fact that they know they spent five hours and on Monday it'll look just the same.

And I don't know what it is about

our population that thinks this is okay because other states and other regions do not act like this so I will stop being a crabby pants here but it's just really really irritating all the time and very draws the predator wildlife to the road they all get killed I mean it's just a downward spiral all the way along but on more good news we have I just wanted to to give a shout out to the

staff members who are working on the Crozet Master Plan.

And we have had another fantastic meeting last week.

About 50 people came and did small group work looking at the different neighborhoods, different regions of the community.

And I just I think staff has designed a new plan to a new plan of approach.

and many others.

strategic planning wrap up for the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District.

And there's some papers, information, brochures over on the sign up table.

Because for rural or urban residents, they have lots of programs, cost share programs, storm water.

all sorts of environmental programs that people, homeowners, renters can participate in and also members from the USDA Farm Service Agency, which is more focused on rural folks.

Their office is in Louisa, but they are ready to help with all sorts of agricultural cost share programs.

And as people may have heard in the news, there's all sorts of discussion at the state and federal level about

changing some of the participation rates for a lot of these stewardship efforts.

So this is the time to get your work done and participate in these signup programs to benefit your farm, your family, and your finances going forward.

So I look forward to hearing more questions about that later on or at other meetings.

And that's all I have.

I'll make a few quick announcements so obviously at noon today we did receive the county executive's budget recommendation so that should be getting sent out to and be online and all of that for those that are interested in looking at what the county executive has recommended to us and then along with the calendar of all of our budget work sessions etc that will be coming forward over the next couple of months as we work through the budget.

To follow up on the litter just that that has been receiving an emails

The constituent that emailed me about Earliesville Road was calling into question whether or not the Adopt-a-Highway program continues, and it does, but had thought that maybe hadn't seen any organizations putting up new or taking on new endeavors, but I did find out that our local program coordinator is Ms.

Terri Welsh,

and she's with VDOT and that's one R in her name, teri.welsh at vdot.virginia.gov and all I'm saying is part of the announcement that there are local organizations out there

Perhaps the Adopt-a-Highway program has maybe become old hat for volunteering activities and it might be time to just call attention to that program again and there might be local organizations that'd be willing to take that on.

Now that being said that the inmate crews that are out doing litter, specifically to the constituent in Earliesville, I believe they're going to be getting out there in the coming weekend or two is the update that I received.

And that's a great point and I thank you as the chairman Adopt-a-Highway team for 25 years.

I can tell you that we do and they do, the teams do a great job.

We don't, in all honesty, we could use more teams and we could use younger teams.

I'm the youngest person on my team.

I have 70 and 80 year olds picking up.

Well, I've gotten, over the years, I have had, I think, three high school kids that have worked service projects on my team.

And that's great, but, so I'm just saying.

And Ned, to your point, the jail crew has worked now for about, I think, two years.

They can't keep up with the demand.

We literally don't have enough

we have more litter than they can keep up with.

And they're doing a great job and it is a win-win for the inmates because they earn money for their fines to pay off their fines and our community gains, but we don't have enough inmates, I mean we can't keep up.

But two great programs.

All right.

The list with the upcoming list.

I was trying to find that to see if I could take it, but I have it in here.

All right, very good.

The next item are proclamations and recognitions.

We do have one proclamation today.

This is recognizing March 3rd as Liberation Day.

Whereas the county of Albemarle, in keeping with the core principles of our great United States of America, believes that all persons are created equal and possess unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and whereas on the 22nd day of September in the year 1862,

a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States containing, among other things, an emancipating declaration that on the first day of January in the year 1863, all persons held as slaves shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.

And whereas on the third day of March in the year 1865, the liberation of the estimated 14,000 enslaved persons in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area was enforced, and whereas the Board of Supervisors recognizes the enduring cultural

and historical significance of emancipation acknowledges the universally cherished values of liberty and justice and emphasizes our common humanity.

Ms.

Alpisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

And we'll make sure this proclamation finds its way to our Office of Equity Inclusion.

and that will bring us to from the public.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

During this time, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning any issue not listed on the agenda for a public hearing and individuals are allowed three minutes

to speak unless otherwise decided.

A sign-up sheet has been provided.

I do have some names, Mr. Chairman, and other individuals will be asked at the end if they would like to speak.

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We address that you address your comments directly to the board as a whole.

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If a speaker does not use all of the allocated time, the unused time may not be shared with another speaker, and each speaker is permitted one opportunity to comment during each public comment period.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

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When you come to the microphone, we ask that you bring it to your mouth so that we can get your remarks recorded and that those watching the broadcast are able to hear as well.

I will call the first three names.

We have reserved three seats here in the front row, and then we will call you up to the podium.

Kent Schlessel, Judy Schlessel, and Dr. Charles Batik.

Good afternoon, my name is Kent Slush and I live in the Royal District.

In a couple of weeks you will be considering the rezone of 999 Royal Road.

This rezone has been before you previously or was deferred.

You have heard many reasons why you should not rezone and a few comments about why you should.

I continue to urge you not to rezone.

Although I would prefer that the piece of property be left in its natural state or be made into a nice neighborhood park, I know that it will most likely be developed.

This property is owned by R4 and will allow 11 houses to be built on an approximately 1.91 acre site.

The developer has repeatedly stated that if a property is developed as a by-right development, there is not a requirement for green space.

That is correct, but the reality is far different.

In the application, one gets an impression that 46% of development would be devoted to green space amenities.

This includes a multi-use path, parking area, internal roads, an area where houses would be built.

The developer will meet the 20% green space required by the county.

It should be noted that a multi-use path on Royal Road already exists.

However, from an environmental point, keeping the zone as R4 would be much better.

The average footprint of a house in the area is about 1,600 square foot or so.

The site is 1.91 acres according to the developer.

That's 83,199.6 square feet.

If we assume that footprint of our average home in the area is 1,800 feet,

Square feet, slightly higher than most homes in the area.

Eleven homes will cover 20,000 square feet.

That's only 24% of the total square footage.

Even with the driveway alleyways, that could be the potential 76% green space assuming most of the homes will have a lawn with grass and trees.

This is much better for environment than what is being planned by the developer.

This will actually help clean the air from the traffic that is and will be in the neighborhood due to the current situation.

To summarize why you should not rezone, it's not a neighborhood model as stated by the developer.

This is infill and should be compatible with existing neighborhoods.

the commercial property that is not appropriate for the site as well as apartments that were previously proposed.

This is an entrance corridor and not suited to this type of development of commercial as proposed.

Comprehensive plan is out of date in this area and needs to be updated.

The infrastructure is not in place and the traffic will increase.

And lastly, the environmental concerns as mentioned in this presentation.

Again, I urge you to not approve the Arizona request when it comes before you.

And my last 13 seconds, I also like the fact that the tax rate was not increased.

My name is Judy Slusho.

I live in the Rio District and a member of the Rio 29 CAC.

Albemarle County has an image of gently rolling hills, green space, and farmland.

The gently rolling hills still exist as well as some farmlands in certain areas of the county.

However, we only can have an image of green space since developers are leveling the land to build in every nook and cranny, especially in the 29 North corridor.

VDOT has indicated that they are looking for viable options in the horrible traffic situation in the Rio 29 area.

Words give us an inkling of hope, but reality is solutions are many years down the road depending on funding.

A few weeks ago, I took you on a journey with Thomas Jefferson from Monticello to the Dunlora Plantation.

I'd like to continue that journey and bring up some concerns of traffic woes in 2020 scenario.

A driver has just left the newly opened center at Belvedere.

If the driver turns left onto Belvedere Boulevard, he or she is likely to get struck in a line of traffic.

The driver's anxious, doesn't want to wait, what to do.

The driver makes a gutsy move, making a U-turn, drives towards Loring Run onto Dunlora Drive.

perhaps some of the stress could have been eliminated by turning right driving from towards Loring Run onto Dunmore Drive.

Second scenario, somewhat the same except it could be apparent driving

driving, or a newly minted license driver coming from soccer practice.

Some added factors are the adult is thinking of all the things on his or her agenda for the evening, or the young driver is, hopefully, thinking about homework.

Of course, traffic isn't limited just to these two scenarios, but any one of the proposed 775 residents of Belvedere's could choose to drive through Don Laurel.

What are the common elements?

The Lora Drive is being used as a cut-through increasing traffic on a country road that was never meant to have traffic other than the traffic generated by the residents.

VDOT has acknowledged on many occasions they are aware that the traffic is being generated by Belvedere drivers.

When we built our home 26 years ago, we were told that Don Laura Drive would never have safety features of yellow division lines, street lights, sidewalks, curbs, gutters to preserve the rural country atmosphere.

Today we have the rural country atmosphere, but it also includes deer population, deer to clear cutting and eliminating their natural habitat, as well as an uptick in traffic due to surrounding development.

Although the proposed 999 Rio has indicated that there will be green space, which includes bushes, on the heavily traveled Rio Road, it's a matter of terminology, and it actually is an oxymoron, since all the existing natural greenery will be clear-cut, eliminating natural habitat for various critters, both large and small.

In the big picture, 999 Rio Road is small.

However, many small factors eventually have a huge impact.

I urge you not to rezone this particular parcel or rezoning request for future developments in this corridor until the disastrous, antiquated infrastructure doesn't serve just as a talking platform, but rather as a springboard jumping to action.

Yeah, he's coming up.

You can go ahead and get your PowerPoint turned off.

Thank you.

Dr. Charles Batik, Scottsville, members of the board.

Let me get the show on the road.

This sets the theme for my educational effort of today.

Last month we had a compelling reason given by an environmental activist group here for going on with the Paris Climate Agreement.

As far as I recall, it all said everybody else is doing it, you'll be in good company.

That's a heck of an argument.

I think our legal team amongst the board would say everybody's doing is not a good argument.

You tell a policeman when you've been speeding, they're all speeding and therefore you should do and it's okay.

I think not.

So where's the crisis?

All this emotional outcry from these groups provide no scientific background.

And if you would look at the chart there rather than at me, you would see that there is a graph showing a continuing decrease in all sorts of climate-related deaths, not going up, no crisis.

Forest fires come up.

They were much worse in the 1920s than now.

In fact, they've been going down, down, and down.

How about droughts?

Three different shades here, the light shade, the medium, and dark.

From 1950 to 2017, no increase in any of those three degrees of severity.

Oh yes, emotional arguments are great.

In 2009, the Maldives were going to drown because of what?

Oh, the ocean is rising, sea levels are rising.

The groups such as yourselves put on scuba diving masks because that's where everybody goes, the Maldives, and wrote a proclamation.

Ten years later, what's going on?

They're there.

They're crying for more hotels.

They're building ten more or a dozen more hotels.

No problem.

Hurricanes, the red line.

Is it going up?

Down.

It has yearly jiggles, but no trend.

How about food, another thing which the UVA staff member was scaring kids with.

Here, food production is up.

CO2 is up.

CO2 is a plant food.

Farmers use it, or at least the greenhouse people put it up two or three times to increase the growth of plants and use less water.

If you did everything and shut down everything again, one one-thousandth of a degree.

So rather than worrying about fictitious and silly carbon footprints, you have identified a problem.

You've got a litter problem.

That does not require watching carbon footprints.

That requires instilling a sense of personal responsibility throughout the school system and in adults.

Do something you can do something about.

You need it.

You've identified it.

Otherwise, what are you doing?

You're hearing no signs, speak no signs, and see no signs.

Is that the county policy you want?

But you voted, we're all in.

He was signed up, I believe.

Good afternoon.

I'm Tom Eckman.

I'm from the Rivanna district.

I'm a member of IMPACT and I sat in the meeting today on the budget and I'm a little bit disappointed.

I heard that the new budget will address the quality of life of all people in the county and I don't think that's really the case.

Let me point this out, is that there's 660 families that are one paycheck away from homelessness because they pay 50% of their income.

And that includes 933 seniors.

Many of your employees are in that boat.

$15 an hour works out to about $32,000, not even that, which is about 30% AMI.

So they'll be struggling, they will have to move to other counties.

You have trouble finding school bus drivers.

So we need to get serious about creating more low income housing.

And rents have increased 42% over the last seven years.

So, we think the solution is to have an affordable housing trust fund with money available in it so that when the housing policy is adopted we can move quickly.

We can't wait another year for that policy program to be adopted and then put money into a fund.

It's got to be there now.

Every dollar contributed to a housing trust fund locally can leverage $8 for every dollar that's in the fund.

There are 770 trust funds used throughout the United States.

There are seven in Virginia.

There needs to be a significant amount of money in the fund, and we think $5 million would be a good place to start.

This fund could be used to incentivize low-income housing.

It's been estimated that 167 units could be built a year with $5 million.

It could purchase land when appropriate.

Land is really important and a high percentage of the cost of any investment, apartment buildings.

and it could be used to encourage developers to build low-cost housing units and have funds to renovate units where people could put accessory units into their property for low-income housing.

We have a budget of $451 million.

We're asking for $5 million.

Most of that income comes from real estate taxes and we can't put five million dollars to help people find low-income housing in this county.

I think we're missing an important point on improving the quality of people and that's the people who are working making 30% AMI and seniors so we need to work on that.

Good afternoon.

Neil Williamson with the Free Enterprise Forum.

As this board knows, the Free Enterprise Forum does not take a position on any projects we deal on the policy level.

And I find it most interesting the comments from the public this morning, this afternoon, regarding housing and the need for housing and the not need for housing.

Some of you may remember way back to LERC, which was a committee designed to maximize land use that kind of morphed into DISC, Development Initiative Steering Committee, and then DISC 2, also known as Son of DISC, and then we had the Development Process Review Committee,

All of these things were ideas to streamline development in the development area.

What we're hearing today and across really the past couple of months is concerns about development in the development area.

Last night, one of your planning commissioners suggested we should start evaluating how much cut and fill is being done on a site in order to make it level for a building site.

And the planning commission should utilize that for an evaluation tool.

I believe there's state law that covers that and engineering.

and I don't really think that belongs in that purview.

However, I'm not a sitting planning commissioner.

We have a rolling topography.

We have a limited development area.

If you're not going to allow development in the development area, and in the oft-repeated quote from Sunshine Mathon from the Housing Summit last year,

We need more housing at all price points everywhere and for everyone.

The idea of development in the development area is something that needs to be embraced.

If it's not going to be embraced,

I'm going to return to my call that I brought up last month.

Let's look at expanding the development area.

I actually know how most of you sit on that issue, so I encourage you to consider how we choose to develop in the development area to make the people that are coming happy.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak to the board?

Board, that next item on our agenda is our consent agenda.

And we had the minutes pulled from the consent agenda, so that won't be on there.

If no one wants to pull anything else, I will move that we approve the consent agenda with the change to the minutes.

And is there further discussion on consent agenda?

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

Very good.

And Rebecca, good afternoon.

You're leading us through this one.

Good afternoon, thank you.

Rebecca Ragsdale with zoning and then Francis McCall will also

Francis McCall will also be joining me here for the next couple of homestay special exceptions that you will see before you.

Can everyone hear me okay?

Now we can.

Sorry about that.

So this is one special exception request for a home stay zoning clearance that's been submitted.

And as I've done before, I wanted to give a quick overview of the applicable zoning regulations and then get into the specifics of this request.

So this is a request for a special exception on a parcel that's zoned less than five acres in size.

So the regulations that apply in the zoning ordinance are that it's no more than two guest rooms for the homestay use, that there is no use of an accessory structure,

there's no more than one homestay use on the property and there's no whole house rental and that's rental when the owner is not present and in this particular case the topic of discussion for the special exception is the 125 foot required yard

and that's for any structure or parking that's used for the homestay and that's from all property lines including those that are to the roads.

And all homestays must be owner occupied, obtain a zoning clearance, provide parking on site, provide neighbor notice of an emergency contact or responsible agent,

have annual safety inspections and then there are uses that are specifically prohibited in the ordinance in terms of restaurants and special events.

So this particular homestay will comply with all of the requirements except for the 125 foot yard from two property lines.

So there are a couple, there's actually four areas for

regulations in the ordinance that may be waived or modified with a special exception and in this case the applicant is only requesting the one and that's to reduce setbacks and they will comply with all other requirements including the two guest room limit.

and as we've gone over before, there are no particular findings that the board is required to make in terms of acting on a special exception.

You may approve, approve with conditions, deny special exceptions.

There are a couple of factors to consider that are included in the home stay zoning regulations and that's consideration for any detriment to abutting lots and then also if there would be any

So in this particular special exception request, jumping to the specifics, the request is to reduce the minimum front and side setbacks from 125 feet.

So the property, this is a location map and the property is towards the end, it's at the corner of Ipswich Place and towards the end of Lambs Road, which is accessed off of Hydraulic Road in the Ivy Farm subdivision.

It's on the upper left there on the map.

And then the particular property itself, again, is a corner lot and it complies with the required 125 foot setback from the three of the property lines in terms of the location of the homestay.

The rooms are towards the back of the house as the house faces Ipswich Road.

So the property lines that are really

Yes, that's an outbuilding.

Right.

So that would not be it's the 125 feet from the building that's going to be used for the homestay, correct?

Yes.

OK, so that 50 foot really is not relevant to this.

Sorry about that.

So that 50 feet.

Yeah, it looks like it's drawn from the building, but it's really from the parking area.

That is the issue on the western.

Thanks for that clarification.

All right, thank you.

I just have one, if you could go back to the last slide.

There looks like there's two parking areas there.

And I just, this is just a question for staff, when you're evaluating these, do you ever say that the parking needs to be

In your, is it written, and I just missed it, you mentioned about the landscaping that's already existing.

because it would dramatically change if that all got mowed down.

I just wanted to know.

I'm very familiar with this particular house.

That's right, it's not a public hearing.

I was thinking it was a public hearing, just because.

I'm so used to those.

The neighbors in this community are very active.

I hear from them a lot, and they have a listserv.

I have never heard any complaints about this particular short-term rental.

I do know that this was a former mother-in-law apartment, which has been converted.

There was one email of support, but other than that I didn't get any questions or comments.

Right.

My sense is, and I'm speaking for myself, I have no problem with this special exception.

the way that the houses are located and the streets and the fact that they have two parking areas is great.

And I can understand why they'd like to make both of them available.

It works.

The house that is the closest is set back far enough that I don't really think it's a concern.

So with this particular special exception, I am in favor of it.

I will say, and we're going to be discussing this later, the more frustrating situation for the people that live in this area is street parking, commercial street parking, and they've had dogs running it loose.

I have one further question.

And that's what I wanted clarification on.

So that is, it's not the whole house, it's simply the mother-in-law.

That's an addition.

I have no further questions on this.

Just one, and I'm sure that this is the case, but I want to ask it just to make sure, and I don't have any problem with this, but when we approve the homestays, that goes with the house, so when the person sells the house

I'm asking the question, yeah.

Yes, these special exceptions are similar to special use permits in that they run with the land.

We had no idea of that.

I thought this was completely different because it is a personnel

personality and management level and neighborhood relationships business to me.

Well, that's one of the reasons why I asked the question because of Ann's suggestion that we put the condition of keeping the buffer.

there.

And so that's why I ask the question is because this will go with the land and future owners will be able to do the same thing.

Do we want to consider looking at bushes and things like that?

Did you?

Yeah.

I mean, I presumed it did, yeah.

But I mean the business license doesn't.

A new person coming in would have to go through a whole new business application to set up their own Airbnb if they so chose.

So they'd have to come in and go through their own process.

So help me with that.

So this house is sold.

And the new people that own it are now free to have a short-term rental.

but they still have to abide by our rules.

So the zoning clearance process is, you know, for them to, you know, we make sure that it is still the same proposal as we approved before with the special exception, the same two guest rooms, the guest rooms haven't changed.

and we make sure that we are documenting all of the things that we do with the new approval in terms of the safety inspections and the health department.

Right.

And that's why I asked should we be, should we be, since it's a special exception and since they don't have to go through that process again, then maybe we should be looking at

I thought Ann's question was a really good one.

Is there a possible linkage of this to, I just assumed it was home occupation type of category which was absolutely for the person involved and the business involved all these years.

It never crossed my mind that this was creating by right little hotels all over the place which just sets my teeth on edge.

So I will again raise the idea that we need to

If the applicant is stipulating and the staff is recommending that these parking and things like that are fine because of the greenery, then it seems like a condition which hopefully will not be a burden to the people.

I mean, if the derecho comes through and knocks them all down, then hopefully they would plant something else anyway, but it's part of their obligation to the neighborhood is that they buffer their impacts a little bit, and I don't know what the right wording would be.

and then another time Greg can advise us on if there are any other options in the way to categorize this which would not get us into this mess again.

So I'm just thinking of the other recommendation, the previous two have been very strongly based upon the community that the people have built there and we're all watching each other's houses and this is great and everything.

And the assumption is that subsequent owners will comply with the county's rules and the future homestay use will have the same limited or no discernible impacts to the neighborhood.

It's that future owner who may not abide by all the rules that we anticipate would be the problem.

It shouldn't matter who's there.

In an ideal world, you're absolutely right.

It's just you can't legislate who's there.

Well, but we are we are again saddling our citizens with being the policeman of their neighbors.

One quick follow up and then I'll be quiet.

The three strikes and you're out business starts all over again.

Or if if the homestay use

is not successful because of people not meeting our regulations and they have their three complaints and they lose their license.

that's correct they would have to start if that if I believe that's a financing if it's discontinuous or whatever that three strikes is that right the business license no that was part of our regulations we were developing for this whole thing three strikes are any violation of county code okay it's in a separate as we talked before and we'll start including that in your packet I'm realizing now you need that section before you too when you review these but it's a violation of any it's any violation not just zoning for the three strikes but it lives in the health and safety section of the county code

Well it's good to know and I understand what Ned's saying and I get all that and I'm in favor of this particular one but it is something to really keep in mind because I'm telling you we have people even from outside of this community who are coming in and buying up multiple houses and turning them into short-term rentals.

We just had a single family home in my neighborhood that was sold and someone who owns a real estate management company is trying to turn it into a full house Airbnb.

And not live there.

And not live there.

Absolutely.

And that's happening all over the county.

And that's why our angst goes up.

So it is required, it is in the zoning ordinance that the structure be owner occupied.

Right, and we have to deal with that as they come up and I understand that.

Now I have another question.

You just said if there was going to be no owner for the 180 days, that falls in a special exception category.

We're talking about two different things.

Okay.

The owner has to live there 180 days.

Right.

So in order to have a home stay,

you have to have a resident because home stays are accessory to a resident.

So we put in the ordinance a tool for us if there was ever a question if it was someone's residence or not.

That's what's in there for establishing a resident.

But we also said the resident had to be the owner unless you get a special exception.

So really you can only get a special exception to have a resident manager.

And I know we kind of say it different ways and it gets confusing.

I'm easily confused.

So thank you very much.

One thing I just wanted to clarify is that, just so you all know, that even with this special exception, there are multiple special exceptions that you all have granted for different items.

So that legislative action, regardless of whatever the use was that was being asked

Sure, we knew that.

It's just other ones.

Right now, we're focusing on home stays.

Okay, are we at a point we can take a... I'll give them, if you all are through with the discussion.

I move that we approve special exception for HS-2019-00019-200 Ipswich Place.

Second.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

I've got a question for the county attorney, but also continuing the ending discussion that we just had there.

You know, my perception was that the homestay was supposed to be an individual owns a home and wants to make a little money off some of the spaces.

I see some great risk at what's happening here.

First off, and the specific question was in section 5.1.48a residency, the owner of the parcel on which the homestay is located must reside on the subject parcel for a minimum of 180 days in a calendar year.

Well, that right there means mathematically one owner could have two residences because we have 365 days in the year.

So you know if you wanted to play that game itself you could say I reside in both of these 180 here and 180 there So I think that's a problem

The second thing as we turn to the manager aspect is it looks that an owner could purchase multiple homes, this has just been brought up, put resident managers in each one, and essentially create a chain of home stays.

When the real purpose of this was not to do that, not to take housing out of our limited housing stock,

but to allow someone who actually lives and owns in the house to be able to make a little bit of money out of their spare space.

And then you start getting into an individual could create a number of LLCs for example, each one purchases a house, each one has a resident manager.

I am very concerned by those who would abuse what this really was intended for and turn our residential stock limited availability of housing into these short-term rentals making our housing problem even more severe here.

The first question to the county attorney was, at a minimum, using the word minimum, should we look to modify the resident's requirements so that it is over, say, 190 days, so that at least we don't have one person who is claiming

So and understood that the question would be important, but the action item today was on one application.

Right.

It's just putting it on the table.

You do have the April work session scheduled, April 15th.

So that's a good point.

There's our opportunity.

Yeah, and I think all of the stuff we've just brought up here at the end of both this particular application as well as this later discussion.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, the next item on our agenda.

The next item on our agenda, what do we have?

Number 10, proposed lease of space for the Office of Voter Registration and Elections.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board.

My name is Lance Stewart.

I'm the director of facilities and environmental services.

Today's item is a recommendation and request from staff.

We're proposing that we relocate the office of the voter registrar and create an adjacent community center.

I'm going to give you some background on this as well as with the support of Jake Washburn.

Jake, if you don't know him, is our voter registrar.

He's worked very closely with his team and my team and the elections board to come up with what we feel is a good solution to a real challenging problem.

So on the agenda today, we'll go into the background of the no excuse in-person voting law that was passed last year, also known as early voting.

We'll talk about the anticipated impacts of that, some pending legislation, and then move into the more specifics about our recommendation.

Jake, if you'll please step up to the dais.

Mr. Chairman, members of the board, thanks for taking this into consideration.

I just want to say briefly I'm joined here by the Vice Chair of the County Electoral Board.

Bill Love, all of the members of the electoral board would have liked to have been here, but Mr. Campner advised that if two or more showed up, then that would be an electoral board meeting.

So I'm excited to leave that be.

The background of this is that the last

Last General Assembly session, the General Assembly passed an early voting law that would allow no excuse early voting over the last week leading up to an election beginning with this upcoming November presidential election.

And the General Assembly is now

are poised to expand the early voting period up to the full 45 days, which has been the traditional time period for absentee voting, and to make it available both in person and by mail.

When we saw this new law last spring, started looking at the numbers of other states that have adopted early voting, there are about 38 other states

and I've adopted early voting and the numbers in all of them are pretty

kind of overwhelming where it's up and running.

It accounts for between 30 and 60 percent of total voter turnout in any given election.

So I got to thinking, well, unless the Virginians behave differently than the folks in 38 other states, we're going to see a real significant increase in early voting as compared with the traditional excuse-based absentee voting.

looked at some of those numbers and looked out at the parking lot at the 5th Street County Office Building and I think most of you all are familiar that it's a big parking lot but it's always full.

and that's when I sent sort of an alert to the county executive and the operations team and they have been working on coming up with some sort of a solution and it seems like the best solution is to find us a new office location where there's more parking and so we wouldn't have a

A train wreck this fall with the introduction of no excuse early voting.

And so there are statistics up there that we came up with from other states that have early voting.

But if you, I mean, to try to figure out, well, what could we see in Albemarle County?

We'll have 80,000 registered voters for the upcoming presidential election.

We've got about 78,000 now.

We'll probably get a 75% turnout.

That's what we got in 08, 12, 16.

That'll be 60,000 total votes.

So if you just take 20% of 60,000,

That's 12,000.

If you just take half of that, 6,000, that's about twice as many as we've ever seen come through in our offices to in-person absentee vote in any prior election.

And personally, if it were possible, I'd much rather stay right where we are, but I look at the numbers and they're just pretty worrisome.

Very good.

Any questions?

Thank you, Jake.

Thank you, Mike.

So you have on the screen in front of you just a recap of some of the assumptions that Jake went over when we were considering the amount of physical space that we would need for a polling location and parking requirements.

So we're looking at a potential of about 140,000 parking, or 140 parking spaces needed at any one time.

If we assume a relatively efficient voting cycle, and that assumes that we can get people in and out in about a 15 minute window plus have some parking for the folks who have to be there to support the voting process.

and that doesn't account for peak days like this Saturday before an election when things could be worse.

So of course Jake has mentioned his office location.

Parking is extremely limited there.

There is a large conference room which could, conference room A which could accommodate a polling location if parking weren't an issue but that would require that we pretty much not allow

Police use or other use during those windows.

And generally the building is full now.

We've got expected growth and so the possibility of relocating their offices and their very large storage area for voting equipment does have benefits to help us avoid investing elsewhere for other purposes at a later date.

So our recommendation starts with Albemarle Square Shopping Center.

We looked at all potential locations that had available space and took into consideration the amount of parking that we could expect to have available.

Albemarle Square was one of two viable alternatives and the one that we deemed to be most appropriate in the end.

and so we are proposing that we create about a third of that 11,600 square feet that we would rent about 4,000 square feet of it be a community center that would, as Mr. Richardson mentioned earlier, be sort of a community hub for public meetings and used by the public for meetings and potentially other programming.

and then Jake and his operation would essentially own that facility during the early voting window, would help them train people who volunteer for election day cycles as well.

and then the remaining approximately 7,600 square feet would be immediately adjacent, would house his team and then have a large, equally large storage space in the back.

It does have a nice loading dock in the back as well which would facilitate loading and unloading of their equipment on voting day to a very great extent.

So it's almost a 50 page lease, but I'll give you just a few highlights of what are in there that I think are relevant to this discussion.

We are asking for a five year initial term with no cancellation clause.

There would be five additional one year optional renewals, so either party could elect not to re-op at that time, so we would have

hopefully a better than a full year of notice if for some reason they decided to lease or sell.

There were some concerns having been past tenants about the condition of the roof and general maintenance and we did have negotiated that the owner would replace the

mechanical equipment, and also the roof if needed.

Both parties are going to be doing independent assessments to come to a conclusion.

I hope to have that done before we actually sign the lease and an agreement on that.

We also just have stipulated in the lease that the owner or the owner's agents can't access the space unless they're accompanied by a county employee to make sure that our voting machines and other sensitive information is secure.

and an interesting thing that we worked out apparently it's common in retail the lease itself would commence upon execution we'd be able to begin work but the the rent and maintenance fees don't start until you're open for business so in this case we have August 1st so our operating costs in this fiscal year would be limited to just the security deposit and potentially some electrical service

So before you, this is in the executive summary, is our estimate of the construction cost, the operating cost we would bear in this fiscal year and an estimate for FY21.

I believe that construction estimate is a pretty safe estimate.

I hope we can do it for less than that.

but to the best of our knowledge that is a working number and as you were told earlier Mr. Richardson has included these figures in his recommended budget assumptions and the funding we would need for this year has been earmarked and could be appropriated.

So our request is to ask that you authorize the County Executive to execute the proposed lease contingent upon appropriation of funds.

So we would come back to you in a few weeks with an appropriation request on the consent agenda most likely.

Questions?

Thank you.

If you get your roof and whatever analysis back, will you then write that into the lease?

If you want it, they're required to do it.

Well, there's some room for assessment and negotiation there.

But you feel confident that if you decide you need the roof, they're gonna have to do it.

That's my only question.

It's not just that we want a new roof.

That's absolutely what the intent was.

Yes, thank you.

Just anecdotally, at 9.30 this morning, I parked illegally at County Office Building on 5th Street South because there was no other parking.

And I was just going like this and saying, please don't tow me.

But I had to get into a meeting.

You're going to the principal's office.

Well, I admitted it, at least.

Other questions or comments?

I have a few comments.

One, obviously I'm thrilled this is working out that the county is putting something important and a priority into the Rio small area plan.

This area, I think this could go a long way.

It's not some of the suggestions I remember hearing in the Rio 29 steering committee, but it's certainly a place where the county's investing in that small area, so I appreciate that.

And two,

Once this is all up and running and moving, and I'm sure Supervisor McKeel as the chair of the Regional Transit Partnership would agree, we need to get to work making sure transit's in process and working for that prior to the operations getting set up out there.

That's exactly right.

Moved that we approve the proposed lease of the space for the Office of Voter Registration and Elections.

Second.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Richardson, I don't know if you were able to transition in yet, but we did move matters from the board and matters from the county executive to this point since we had some extra time in the afternoon before that we go into closed meeting.

So we'll go ahead to matters from the board.

Matters not listed on the agenda.

Yeah, I think that would be great, especially since Lance is still here.

One of the things that I wanted to mention was that people probably saw and have heard that the city has contracted with a consultant to do a study on all their waste management services.

and they are going to be looking at everything and they have asked Lance to sit in on some of their discussions and Lance suggested that the county might be able to use the services of this consultant to look at some of our needs at that time.

and the SWAC committee has done some, I unfortunately and Donna and I both had to miss the SWAC committee last week so I'm not sure if there was a lot of discussion about this but yesterday I was involved in a little brainstorming on what the county might need to know and one of the things we talked about was littering.

and some of us have thought that at least some of our littering issue is associated with the fact that unlike many other counties we don't have any drop-off areas and people just haven't really learned I think in a lot of cases.

We also have a lot of trash blowing out of trash trucks.

If folks don't know this already, but County Waste, who is a major carrier in this area, has been bought by another company.

GFL out of Toronto.

And we don't know if their trucks are going to get any better, but anybody that's been behind one of those county waste trucks knows that stuff is blowing out of them all the time.

I pick up stuff on our road all the time because of that.

but we thought that the littering might be something that the consultant could look at and we haven't worked this all out in the thought process.

however I wanted to bring this up to the board because I know this is a subject that's come up many many many times just to get your feedback and to see if you had any ideas along this line of finding out maybe reasons why we have the littering problem that we have in this county

and whatnot.

I was just going to ask Liz, help me out a minute, and I apologize.

Tell me, the consultant that you're talking about is the group that is doing our facilities work?

This is somebody that's hired by the city.

and we have been talking, trying to combine stuff because, you know, for instance, the leaf pickup.

We've been trying to work with the city around, you know, street cleaning and leaf picking up and all these kinds of things and see where there's some consolidation of services.

And they're looking at everything.

They're looking at Vulcan.

I mean, they use a lot of different people to companies to do different things.

So they're really trying to consolidate.

But we're just looking at

Where could we benefit from this?

I'll just clarify a little bit that I was on the selection committee when the request for proposals was issued for this consultant, so I got to read all the proposals, hear their pitches.

I was not a voting member, but I'll say that of the four consultants, they were all

really the top in the country at this.

I was extremely impressed with the qualifications of all the groups.

The selected consultants, it's called GBB, it's three last names that are long and complicated, I can't remember.

And we have used them before, by the way.

Yes, we have.

They're an outstanding firm.

Their proposal calls for a study that includes a lot of public engagement and also stakeholder engagement.

So we and the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority and the university are all stakeholders that will be interviewed.

And part of the focus will be looking at efficiencies within the city of Charlottesville, but also at regional opportunities.

So that in and of itself is exciting news really for us.

But we of course, you know, we are not an all urban county.

We have our own sets of concerns and so the notion is we will have the ability to what they call ride the contract.

It was cooperatively procured and we were named as someone who can ride the contract.

There would be hourly rates for different kinds of consultants.

We would come up with some scope alternative options and discuss those with them and potentially get a price without having to go through a protracted procurement process and also have the benefit of that regional cooperative consideration when they are

So did I hear the word university?

The university is involved with this as well or just the city?

And I will just say that the small group that I was involved in yesterday is kind of a brainstorming.

Well, it really is intriguing because my fear is that if we just keep doing what we've been doing, we're going to get the same result.

And so I certainly would be interested in this idea.

I don't know if this is really the right time.

I wanted to bring it up so that you guys could be thinking about it and brainstorming about how you think we might be and give information to Lance.

I don't know how much time we have to do a big thing here.

This is kind of a

a smaller thing that facilities is really taking up to look at a lot of the things that you guys have all brought up in the urban area.

So I'm not trying to make this into a big decision by the board, but I just thought it would be nice

to have everybody's thoughts.

If somebody had some ideas, questions, that kind of thing, this seemed like a really good time, especially since Lance was here anyway.

And we had some extra time.

And we had some extra time.

Well, actually, I asked the operations subcommittee of SWAC to propose what they think a scope of services might be.

I have my own things in my mind, but so I would think we get that, we consolidate it, and then have an initial discussion with the consultant to talk about

how that might fit into their work plan and Charlottesville's effort.

And I believe I can, depending on the scale of the work, I think I can find money within existing funds this fiscal year to be able to afford to do this.

I thought the littering might fit into this relatively well and that's really one of the big reasons why I wanted to bring it up today given all the issues.

I agree.

I mean, I've been tricked.

I must say I think it could be.

Exactly.

So you'll break back more details once you sort this out yourself to us later.

That's great.

I'm intrigued, yes.

As far as the public engagement, which I know tends to be a monstrous amount of money while people stand around, is that I think the SWAC committee members have built up wonderful relationships with our county, and I would propose that they be the ones to run the public engagement for our citizens, not hire somebody from out of town that nobody's going to be willing to talk to anyway.

I think you're seeing kind of a positive or at least an interested reaction.

Tentative, let's put it that way.

That's right.

I have a question.

Question to leave for future feedback.

A while ago I asked about the timeline for the baseline study for our, or the update of our 2008 climate baseline and never got an answer.

So I would like to find that out because we've been talking a lot about three years worth of stuff about doing things, but I'd like to be able to have something that we're putting our teeth into on this project and knowing what the schedule is would be a really important thing to start with.

Well, aren't you glad you stayed?

It doesn't have to be right this second.

I'll say simply, we are coming to you in March with the draft climate action plan proper.

We intend that there be approximately 60 day public or 30 day public engagement period and then we will return to you a few weeks later taking any feedback that you've provided us in March.

and that we hear from the public that seems positive and bring that back to you for final approval later in this summer.

And then we expect, you know, to move into the business of implementing our plan and beginning a baselining initiative, so you did authorize us to reestablish our relationship with ICLEI.

and have access to the software a few months ago.

So we would most likely be looking at this past calendar year's data, at the 2019 data as our baseline.

We do have a key vacancy right now.

You're aware our previous climate program coordinator, Norissa Turner, took a job in Richmond.

And so we're in the process now of reclassifying that position, we hope, and posting it in the near term.

So it would be that.

One of that person's responsibilities would be the fairly sophisticated and difficult baselining exercise.

I understand from friends who have done these before for other localities that it's about a six month process.

It's very labor intensive.

So we might expect the coming winter to have a baseline for the previous year to show what progress or lack of progress we may have made over the previous 10 years as a community.

We've certainly grown.

So did our improvements in process, et cetera, balance out our increased population?

And that will be a scary question to answer.

All right, well, I thank you very much for the answer.

I guess Sarah and Andy did the 2008, so maybe Andy wasn't even here yet, but Sarah must have done the old one.

All right.

Are there any other items from supervisors?

All right.

Mr. County Executive?

Nothing to report at this time, sir.

And that was a great job, by the way.

I move that the board go into a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia under subsection 5 to discuss the expansion of an existing industry in the northern part of the county where no previous announcement has been made of the industry's interest in expanding its facilities in the community and under subsection 7 to consult with legal counsel and briefings by staff members pertaining to

1.

Actual litigation between the Board of Supervisors and the Scottsville Volunteer Rescue Squad and 2.

Ms.

Aye.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

We got all the supervisors here.

All right, we will begin our evening session.

Do we have a?

I'll do it.

You go get it and I'll read the motion.

I move that the Board of Supervisors certify by recorded vote that to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

Ms.

Mallet?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

And this evening there are no motions coming out of closed meeting so we can proceed to number 13 from the public.

These are matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda this evening.

Do we have some folks signed up tonight?

Looks like we do.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is now time for public comment on items not on the agenda.

We have three individuals who have signed up.

I will call each of those three names in a moment.

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And we ask that when you come to the microphone, you please pull it towards your mouth to ensure that your remarks can be both be heard by everyone here, those observing and be recording.

So we do have seats reserved up here in the front and I would ask that Suzanne Smith, Vicki Bravo, and Martin Methes please come up and Ms.

Hi, my name is Suzanne Smith and I'm here representing Impact and I'm a county resident in the Jack Jouett district.

I'm here to speak about and support for the new housing policy presented last week by Stacy Paffia, principal housing planner.

We strongly support the creation of affordable housing fund and accepted best practice around the country including seven cities and counties in Virginia.

It is a flexible tool which can be used by each city or county in a way that best suits them.

It can be used to rehabilitate and renovate existing properties or build new properties.

This is a tool that will help people of all ages, working groups, retired people, and families across the county.

These funds leverage an average of $6 for every dollar spent in the counties around the U.S.

And so it is a wise use of taxpayer funds.

We support ongoing dedicated revenue sources starting now.

We know we are in a housing crisis now.

We know that this is a good tool.

There are families who aren't sure from month to month if their housing will be stable because they spend more than half of their income on housing.

So these folks need help now and they have waited a long time and we call upon you to consider to please don't ask them to wait any longer for another budget cycle and just want to say thank you each and one for your service that you give the county.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Vicki Bravo.

I'm also with Impact.

There are three of us with Impact tonight.

Two live in the county.

I live in the city.

I would like to say, as Suzanne did, that we were so pleased to see the proposed new housing policy and that the second priority is an affordable housing fund.

We were very saddened today to see that the current budget proposal doesn't include funding for that.

So in other words, if you accept that we need a housing fund and you accept it and it becomes something in the summer or in the fall, it'll be an empty fund.

We know that the housing fund is a tool.

That's what's used all over the country to create affordable housing, but also to renovate housing that's not accessible or housing that's falling down.

We know that that's the place, if the money is in there, you all decide how you use it best for the county.

So we're just saying we need money in there now.

Good evening.

My name is Martin Meth.

I am a resident of the Rio district.

I am coming to you as the chair of the Places 29 Rio CAC with a resolution approved by the committee addressing a proposed zoning map amendment called Parkway Place.

A copy of the resolution is provided to you.

While the proposed amendment is still under county staff review, the majority of the CAC members wanted to signal their opposition to this proposed amendment.

The CAC has heard strong opposition from existing adjacent communities, Dunlora and Dunlora Forest.

The proposed amendment asked for 328 residential units, 16 unit density per acre, almost twice the estimated 170 residents density allowed by right with bonuses.

The resolution points out that the higher density will increase traffic throughout the day.

It cites concerns that the developer's proposed road improvements will not be a viable solution to the roads, which are already overcrowded and unsafe.

In addition, the higher density does not meet the comp plan standard for infill development, which requires compatibility with surrounding neighborhood.

I understand the staff is likely to classify this property as greenfield, though the comp plan does not have a definition for either greenfield or infill.

But the comp plan does, in any event, the higher density apartment community proposed by the developer is much different from the surrounding communities in terms of building height, apartment buildings close to each other with little green space between them, reminds me a little bit of the Bronx.

and it's close to East Rio Road.

In comparison, a similar sized existing development, Arden Place, located close to the intersection of Rio and 29, is set back from the main roads and the buildings are not bunched together.

Bringing the board's attention to this proposed amendment this time is intended to highlight several issues which the board should begin to address now in order to rationally assess the proposed zoning amendment if it reaches the board.

These issues include one, a master plan for Places 29 needs to be updated now as noted in a CAC resolution sent to the board in October.

A Rio traffic corridor study should be immediately started and this year's county budget should include funding to address traffic flow on East Rio Road.

Thank you.

That's the last individual who has signed up.

Is anyone else present who would like to speak to the board?

All right, thank you to those who

So public comment is closed.

Number 14, Ordinance to Amend County Code Chapter 4, Animals, Leash Laws.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Greg Campner, county attorney, and tonight this is the second public hearing on the county's proposed lease ordinance.

Back in December, the board had the first public hearing and the proposed ordinance at that time would have required dogs to be unleashed countywide and there were four exceptions.

A number of public comments were received by members of the board and at the December 18th public hearing there were some who supported the ordinance, some who objected to the ordinance, particularly having it apply in the rural areas and some requested that the exceptions be expanded to include exercising hunting dogs, search and rescue dogs, and working farm dogs.

The board did not act on the proposed ordinance on December 18th.

There was discussion about some considering other alternatives including exempting, excluding the rural areas or having a middle ground where subdivisions in the rural areas could opt in by petitioning the board and the board amending this section to include them.

Since then we have looked at the counties running at large regulations.

It's an interesting history.

I did a review of 31 Virginia localities, both cities and counties, looking at the ones that we usually would look at, focusing on, I think there are about 21, 23 counties that I looked at.

There's an interesting cross-section of how counties deal with dogs and running at large.

We developed a draft ordinance and what is attached as attachment B as a sample is not the optimum ordinance.

I provided the incorrect sample.

At some point all of these draft ordinances look alike.

So I apologize for that.

I do have one that I have up on the screen and I can talk about that if there are any questions about it.

We evaluated the enforceability of the draft opt-in ordinance and how that would work would be that you would have pockets of areas of the rural areas that would be subject to the leash law and when we talk to police about that,

their issue is is it enforceable.

There are questions of signage and dealing with the boundaries as dogs move in and out of those areas that are subject to the leash law and because of the problems with enforceability the recommendation from police in our office was

the version of the ordinance that is attachment A. It's a county-wide application with seven exceptions.

We did incorporate and expand all of the exceptions that were in the original version of the ordinance in December and the three new ones that were...

Here are the specific concerns with the opt-in ordinance.

I also looked at other options.

A leash law that applies only in the development areas.

This would probably be a comp plan designation.

There would be difficulties with enforceability there because then you have the boundaries between the rural areas and the development areas.

A leash law that applies in all of the development areas but on all the public rights-of-way within the rural areas.

And a leash law that applies depending on the magisterial district.

In Gloucester County,

they have an interesting running at large ordinance where they have subdivisions, they have a sanitary district and they have a magisterial district to which they're running at large regulations apply.

Some of the counties we have

Only found three counties of the ones I looked at that required dogs to be leashed countywide.

Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince William.

Arlington does allow waivers for dogs that are getting training and participating in dog trials and things like that.

And then

Loudoun, Stafford, and York counties have their leash laws apply in designated areas.

Loudoun does it based upon the minimum acreage under their zoning regulations.

So you are not subject to the leash law if you're on a parcel that's zoned larger than two acres.

Stafford County only applies the leash law in subdivisions and mobile home parks.

I couldn't find a definition or a listing of subdivisions or mobile home parks.

So I'm confused.

But what you're comparing it to a private property, some restrictions, it sounds like on private property, five acres or more, if I own a piece of property, five acres or more, that sounds like they are looking at the size of the private property.

Well, as soon as the dog goes off the property, if you're in an area where the zoning is five acres, all the properties are on five acres, then the leash law doesn't apply, even if the dog is not on the owner's property.

So you have that.

Eight cities I looked at, six of them have citywide regulation including the city of Charlottesville.

Virginia Beach does it in designated areas.

How do you establish what is a bona fide hunt?

During the applicable hunting season, it is on a bona fide hunt, good faith.

Of the seven, is the difference between dogs participating in field trials and exercising hunting dogs more in degree rather than kind?

There are similarities.

Jack Russell in my neighborhood ran across the road and hit me.

It is not defined.

The entire

Exemption is when the dog is a working farm dog that is either guarding or herding cows, fowl, goats, sheep, swine, or other domestic animals normally raised on a farm.

and one of the questions that I asked Greg was a lot of people have electric fences and there are situations where you know there's a thunderstorm or whatever the thing goes out and people don't know it they let the dog out and the dog gets off their property

Yes, Officer Walz.

And he said that if it was a reoccurring thing, and if the dog didn't do anything incorrect, and it's not a reoccurring thing, then they would just go and talk to the owner and not charge the people with a misdemeanor because that would be the charge if the dog got loose.

Well, are we, if we're asking clarifying questions of this slide in front of us, which some of these are, are you finished with your presentation?

Yes.

Okay, a couple other questions.

So, in paragraph A of the ordinance, attachment A that you provided, section 4-225, section A,

If I take my dog off my property and go to my neighbors and it's out in the country, I'm no longer on my property.

Would that dog then be subject to, you know, basically a violation because the dog is not on a leash and I'm not on my property, I'm on my neighbor's property?

Permission, yeah.

I go to visit my neighbor and they say, yeah, bring your dog over and we'll play.

Well, under the ordinance as it's written, yes, that would be a violation.

The case could be, you know, if you were charged, you could make the argument that

I think one of the issues for me that I struggle with this is that the exact same thing that you just brought up is that you're you know it's all complaint based so you have to have a complaint in the first place but you're still putting something forward where you're doing you're feeling like you're doing something wrong and and that's what kind of troubles me a bit is there a way to have a carve out for permission from a

I took my dog for a walk on somebody else's property.

They know that I walk my dog there every day.

It's a large piece of property.

I was there for, it was a couple miles of a walk this morning with my dog.

If somebody thought that my dog did something to them, if somebody else was walking on that property,

saw me without a leash.

Well, to answer your question, could the ordinance be revised to make that change to include property owner's permission?

Yes, it could be done.

My recollection from the December 18th public hearing was that there was a discussion about

There's a lot of large pieces of property in the rural areas where the owners will say well sure you come and walk your dog on property as long as it's not hunting season go ahead it's good to have somebody on there checking things and

picking up the trash and reporting any misdeeds.

And maybe there's 10 different people in the neighborhood that walk their dog.

The place I walk in, I would say there's probably at least eight that regularly walk their dogs on that piece of property.

I think that's relatively common.

And so I'm just trying to

You know, make sure that and I totally get what, Diantha, what you're talking about in your neighborhoods.

I'm just trying to figure out a way.

And there's a reason why so few counties have, you know, county wide leash laws and they're there.

Go ahead.

So I think that the with permission of landowner we talked about and it was actually stipulated by the Hunt Club people when they're doing their puppy walks and everything in the training is that of course they would be completely out of business if they

mismanage or take advantage of a landowner.

They are completely at the landowner's benevolence to be able to ride over or walk over property with the pack.

So I feel very confident that all of those folks will take that into consideration.

When people have been trespassing on my property and I say, oh, what are you doing here?

Oh, well, the owner gave me permission.

I said, well, who is the owner of the property?

And they don't know.

You know, I'm calling 911 immediately.

The thing is, I think we have every ability within our enforcement and logic and good citizenship to know that landowners can give permission.

It is their property.

If they want 10 different people to walk their dogs on their property, it's their problem.

and they've taken responsibility for that in a way by allowing that.

I don't think that we need to worry our staff about it at this point, at least with what I know today.

I feel very confident in what you've laid out here.

At some point later, after other questions are done, could you clarify the term dispose of?

Because that has raised alarm bells a lot, as if it's going straight to some dreadful end, when all you really mean, I think, is pick it up off the street.

And I'll tell you, if my dog runs off my property, I will be very grateful for anybody who picks it up off the street and calls me and gives it back to me.

That's fine because I had that question as well.

Well, the good news is that we we don't have we have a no kill shelter here and so but that might be one of the reasons why a lot of counties don't have it is because they don't have no kill and if the dog goes to the SPCA they have to keep the dog for a certain length of time if nobody

Back to a, I think if there was an inclusion of language that it can be an affirmative defense which puts the burden on the dog owner to demonstrate that they had the permission of another property owner, then that takes the burden off of police to track down the property owner.

That's why it's so good to have a lawyer.

That's why it's good to have an attorney up here.

And then that way it puts the burden on the individual.

Yeah.

I have one more comment.

I think what this all should show us, and I know our Parks Department would agree,

We need more dog parks in this community.

And I think that's certainly something we should be considering with Biscuit Run.

I often drive through Charlotte Humphreys next to Charlotte Humphreys Park and wonder what a dog park would look like in there.

But it's, we have, the only decent dog park we have in this entire county is at Chris Green Lake.

There is one in Crozet.

I take it back.

There is a good one in Crozet.

It was done totally by donations.

I understand that.

But, you know, when I look at the city's Azalea Park, Dog Park, and the one over in Darden Tow, they're little cages.

and they're not, they're terrible and we just don't have enough.

The dog ownership has gone up dramatically in the last couple of decades and I read recently that it

It is an all time high since they kept records, I think the last time, I mean since they started looking at this in 1982.

And that's probably one of the reasons why we're having the discussion tonight.

That's right.

And you're absolutely right, and that's why we need more dog parks.

And that can be a part of our discussion because I do think that's a valid point.

Are there any other questions or comments before we hear from the take up public comment?

The Vice Chair Price will take us through the public hearing.

This is a general reminder.

I believe everyone in the room was here earlier with the matters from the public, not on the agenda.

When we call your name up, you'll come up to the microphone.

We ask that you bring the microphone down to your mouth.

If you live in the county, state your magisterial district and your name.

And we have a light system for timing.

When the green light goes on, your three minutes will begin.

With the yellow light, you'll have one minute to finish, and when the red light comes on, we ask that you bring your comments to a close.

We have two people who signed up this evening, Mr. Chair.

Bob Garland and Diane Salotka.

Thank you.

I'm Bob Garland.

I represent the Canterbury Hills Association in the Jack Jouett district.

I'm here to speak in favor of the proposed changes to the ordinance regarding dogs running at large.

I think dog owners in our neighborhood generally do a good job of controlling their pets.

However,

Over the almost 50 years that my wife and I have lived in this neighborhood, we can easily remember being charged by large dogs at least six times.

And this includes at least one incident when my wife was knocked down and another when our dog, which was on a leash, was bitten.

We would appreciate your vote in favor of requiring dogs to be on a leash.

went off the owner's property, and we have no objections to the seven exceptions that have been put forward.

I think there are others here who support my same view.

They can raise their hands if they'd like.

Thank you.

I'd just like to say I support everything Bob said.

I'm from the neighborhood.

I'm Diane Salaka, Jack Jouett, and we like to walk in our neighborhood.

It's a good neighborhood for walking, but recently we were charged by a dog, and it was very scary.

So we no longer walk in our neighborhood, and I would like to

say that we support the leash law because it is very scary.

I mean, we've been walking in our neighborhood for 20 years and we've been fine, but you never know when it's not gonna be fine.

So it just seems like for our area, which is a pretty concentrated area, not a rural area, it would be a good thing for us.

Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak on this issue to the board who did not sign it?

All right, so the matter is back before the board.

Are there further comments or questions?

Yes, I have one comment.

I would also like us to see, probably not now, but in the future, of asking the Hunt Clubs

to make sure that all their dogs, all their beagles or hunting dogs are microchipped.

I think that would be a good sign of being a responsible owner.

Perhaps all of them already are, but I think we have too many dogs that are let loose after hunting season and they're left to starve or die, which is very sad.

So I would like to see maybe what we could do in the future

That is really an interesting suggestion.

I'd be willing to at least discuss that.

It does seem like that the SPCA's fill up at certain times of the year with the hunting dogs.

I looked, I just happened to, I looked online recently and this is a 2008 statistic, but in Louisa, 31 percent

of the animals in the shelter were abandoned hunting dogs.

It is a huge problem and it's not fair.

The law that we're talking about, the ordinance change we're talking about right now is not only

important for people, but it's important for dogs.

I had a person that came up to me just this morning and said that she had a friend who was walking her dog on a leash in Albemarle County in a neighborhood and a neighbor who had their dog out.

That dog came over and killed the dog.

So this is about safety for the dogs as well.

and I've had that happen.

The little Jack Russell that did this to my leg used to come into our yard where I had an electric fence to keep my beagle in and that old Jack Russell would come into our yard and terrify my beagle.

That's exactly a case right.

I support the proposed ordinance.

I'm very appreciative of the seven exceptions that have been provided.

In my experience and observation with dogs, it is generally not the working farm dogs, clearly not the service dogs, nor the hunting dogs that are generally the ones that are involved in a violence against an individual or another animal other than perhaps the animals that the hunt dogs are chasing.

it was much more likely to be a neighborhood residential dog that is either not trained or and or is not under control and as a criminal judge my every case that came before me the one thing I wanted to know was did this individual hurt themselves or did they hurt someone else you know did they get themselves in trouble or did they do something that would injure another person and I think public safety and protecting the vulnerable

protecting individuals to be able to walk safely in their neighborhood.

I had an experience where there was a Rottweiler in my neighborhood, and I no longer, I mean, I was middle age.

I no longer would go down that section because it was not safe.

And I support dog ownership.

I support the hunting community.

But I also believe that there is a degree of responsibility that goes with being a dog owner.

And there are too many incidents of either a vicious, violent dog, nor a woman whose daughter recently lost a finger in a dog attack, or even just a rambunctious puppy that runs up and jumps on someone and knocks them over.

And the older you get, the more that could be a lifetime sentence with a broken hip or something.

And so responsible dog owners will not have a problem.

I would like to see, however, that amendment that I proposed in terms of an affirmative defense.

So I won't necessarily feel like I'm breaking the law when I take my dog to my neighbor's property for the afternoon and we're going to sit out and do whatever.

But beyond something like that, I appreciate the work that the county attorney's office has gone into preparing this.

I would just say that I'm very appreciative of all the stuff that's been added and I feel a lot more comfortable about it now that we have all these additions, but I would like

your suggestion, which we actually talked about before, about putting in something about being on somebody else's property so we don't feel like we're breaking the law when we do that.

As a veterinarian of several decades, I spent a lot of time talking to people about socializing their dogs early so they weren't dog aggressive.

And that's one of the reasons why I know that dog parks are so important.

because they give people an opportunity to socialize their animals early.

And so I do think that they are a safety issue.

And I do understand, even in the rural areas, I will say that I had to get rid of my dog door.

when my neighbors dogs kept coming into the house all the time and some of them weren't completely trained like mine were.

Not to keep us here but a funny story, one of the neighbors dogs came in and stole my son's glasses.

when he was young and started making out the house.

We had to run after the dog to get his glasses.

So there are a lot of times when dogs are running loose where they're not doing anything bad necessarily or mean, but they can still be a nuisance.

So anyway, I'm okay with voting for this knowing also that we have a no-kill shelter because we went through the animal, we went through those regulations a couple years ago and we know disposed of means euthanized.

in some situations.

It depends on what your other laws are and what your shelter is, and we're just incredibly lucky that we have the shelter that we have here.

It's an excellent, excellent no-kill shelter, so I'm comfortable with that.

But I would very much like to make sure that I don't feel like I'm doing something illegal when I go out with my dog, who is quite well trained.

Well, you make a good point.

You make a really good point about the no-kill shelter.

My Brody came from the Culpeper shelter and he was not very far from being put down, which is why I seek out those shelters to adopt from.

I think we've come a long way.

I'm very grateful for all the improvements that have been made to meet the concerns of people, to bring everybody together.

So Greg, do you need some language?

Let me read what I just crafted if there's consensus to include the affirmative defense.

And this would just be, I think it would just be added to the end of paragraph A. The owner or custodian of a dog may assert as an affirmative defense that the owner or the occupant of other property gave written

gave prior written permission to the owner or custodian of the dog to be on the property.

Wait a second now.

That would mean that if Donna went to her next-door neighbor, she would have to have written permission before she went.

After the fact is what you're saying.

After the fact.

So the police don't have to do anything.

So just delete the word prior.

Right.

Because it's not realistic.

That's just not realistic.

Okay, so I have a question then.

So, you get cited because you're on your neighbor's property, and then you present a piece of paper to the police saying that— To the court.

Pardon?

To the court.

To the court.

To the court saying that you had permission to be there.

OK.

Are you signing it or is the owner signing it?

The property owner signs it.

OK.

If they bit somebody, that's a totally different thing.

We're trying to keep it from getting there.

So moved.

Second.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

All right, very good.

I think their concerns were met really well.

And concerned on both sides.

That's right.

Overbroad.

Yes.

Or not strict enough.

All right, the next public hearing this evening, number 15, ZMA 2019-7, Highland Park, and Mariah, I'm sorry, I was going to say Maria, it's Mariah.

It's like Mariah Carey, but I don't sing.

I saw the H at the last second.

And Mr. Benesch is with us.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.

My name is Mariah Gleason and I'm a senior planner with the planning division of the community development department Tonight I'm going to be presenting zoning map amendment request ZMA 2019-0007 Highland Park for your consideration

The subject parcels are located in the Fontana subdivision in the Pantops development area.

The subject property consists of 21 parcels, or 10.88 acres, that lie west of the upper Cascadia development and north of the existing developed portions of Fontana.

These parcels constitute the final phase of development for the Fontana neighborhood.

The zoning map amendment request is not requesting any change to the zoning.

The request is instead proposing to amend eight of the ten previously approved proffers for these lots.

The applicant has previously requested to revise nine of the proffers, but one proffer change has been removed based on the recommendation of the planning commission and staff.

Today these parcels exist as a mix of developed, developing, and undeveloped parcels.

The parcel on the far left has been developed as part of the neighborhood trail network and will not be developed further.

The parcels in the cul-de-sac area are platted, graded, and development is underway for the 19 residential units approved in that area.

The final 15 lots approved with the rezoning will be placed within the corner lot on the far right.

Of the eight proffer amendments requested by the applicant, three constitute substantive changes, three are clerical changes, and two proffers are being omitted as they've been satisfied at this point.

In the presentation, I'm going to focus on the proffers that are being substantively changed, but we can also review the other proffer changes if members of the board so desire.

I've laid the next couple slides out in a way that you can see the existing proffer language above with the revised or proposed proffer language provided underneath.

Changes to the proffer language are identified in red with a summary of the changes provided on the right.

The first proffer being substantively changed is proffer number five regarding the pedestrian paths.

The revisions to this amendment include more generalizing language to allow some flexibility in the final location of the paths, changing the construction type of the paths, and changing the timing of the trail installation.

The change in the construction type would be from a Class A Type 1, which is an asphalt construction, to a Class B Type 1, which is constructed of earth, mulch, or stone dust.

The image on the right depicts the trails that would be affected by this revision.

As you can see, the trail areas that would be affected are minimal in length.

They're about 610 feet in length, or .12 miles.

The Parks and Recreation Department staff also evaluated this particular proffer change and indicated that this would be an acceptable surface material here and consistent with the existing trails in the area.

The second proffer being substantively changed is proffer number six, which addresses cash proffers.

The applicant here is seeking a buy right use credit, which is a reminder of functions to relieve the applicant of paying cash proffers for development that would have been allowed on this property prior to the original rezoning.

Revisions to this proffer also remove the earmarking of contributions towards specific uses.

This change actually improves the proffer language because one, cash proffers are now codified under state legislation, so this statement is no longer needed.

And two, under state code, the county is actually not able to use cash proffers to fund libraries anymore.

The third and final substantive change to the proffer statement is proffer number nine, which addresses architectural standards.

This is the only area of the Fontana subdivision which can be seen from the Monticello viewshed.

So when evaluating this, we reached out to the representative for Monticello and they've confirmed that the proposed revision is acceptable and it would continue to protect the historic Monticello viewshed.

County staff also had

no further issue with this revision.

So these three being the substantive changes proposed, there had been another proffer amendment, but that proffer change has since been removed from the request on the recommendation of the Planning Commission and staff again.

So the remaining revisions were either clerical or omitted proffers that have now been satisfied.

Could you hop back to your map of the trails?

It looks as if the left and the center one are on a similar topography.

So that one actually, when we presented this to the Planning Commission, they were actually fine with the less intensive construction material there because it allows, it's seen as a little more invasive, it requires less grading, it also, that design class allows it to be a little steeper, and just for context, what that

that connection is going into is actually trails in the Highland Ridge area between two platted cul-de-sac areas.

I don't think the dirt was the issue.

As opposed to something harder, crush around or something that's going to stay put.

So it's a maintenance problem.

And what happens in the future when it all washes away?

Well it's a requirement of the application plan and they are private facilities so it is under the HOA's responsibility to maintain them.

I think practically speaking the HOA really is the one that's going to determine how they manage it.

It gives them the flexibility to go from crusher run.

They could also choose to pave it if it does become a maintenance issue.

Well I can see you've thought all about it, so I'm...

But it is a really good point because, you know, at Charlotte Humphress we had such trouble and Parks and Rec had such trouble with the natural paving that we've gone, you know, they've gone in and actually paved it because it was so rutted and dangerous for people to

to walk on.

In some circumstances asphalt actually gets undermined or the tree growth in a wooded area will cause disrepair.

Other questions?

So I have to admit, I just have to clarify.

So the proffer changes, the applicant has gone with the changes that the Planning Commission has recommended.

That's not your fault.

I was the one reading it.

But I just want to be clear now, so I didn't mishear anything, but I didn't hear

He sent me an email at 11.35pm or something.

But you're not required to answer at 11.30pm.

Not for me anyway.

It's also going to save us a lot of time this evening, too.

All right, thank you for that.

I may have additional comments or questions, but now is not the appropriate time for that then, on that topic.

If there's no other comments or questions at this point we can bring the applicant forward.

Good evening everyone.

My name is Ashley Davies and I'm with Riverbend Development.

I do not have a presentation tonight, but basically just wanted to be here if there are additional questions or topics that you want to discuss.

But I think Ms.

Gleason, we've spent several months working through all the issues, and I think after the planning commission,

We made all those updates to ensure that we were addressing any issues that staff or the Planning Commission might have with the request.

Thank you.

Are there any questions for the applicant at this point?

All right, and then we can start the public hearing.

Is there anyone signed up?

Is there anyone here who wishes to speak to this item?

All right, seeing none, we will close the public hearing.

I'd like to make a motion that we approve ZMA-2019-00007 Highland Park.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

So I'm Tim Padolino, Chief of Parks Planning for the Parks and Recreation Department, but I've served as a lead reviewer for this special use permit application since last year.

So I'm here to present the staff report, summarize the proposal, and share the Planning Commission's recommendations and some other information with you tonight.

Also here is Margaret Malashevsky, Chief of Planning for Resource Management and Community Development.

Thank you for being here, Margaret.

So first I'll just provide an overview of the applicant's proposal for this special use permit application.

The applicant is the Miller School of Albemarle, represented by Mr. Mike Drude, Head of School, as well as Line and Grade Civil Engineers, Design Develop LLC in Williams Mullen.

and the request is a special use permit application for a private school use in the rural areas zoning district and this permit would authorize the continuation in the extension or expansion of the historic private school use which is currently a non-conforming use and this permit would also allow the following the renovation and expansion of an existing dormitory

The increased maximum student enrollment up to 225 students, which is an increase beyond the student body size of about 195.

And also permit the future construction of additional structures and improvements as proposed and shown in the application materials.

So next I'll quickly provide some information about the subject property's location and characteristics.

As many of us know, the subject property for the Miller School is in the rural area within the Samuel Miller Magisterial District south of Crozet in the Batesville area.

It's very large.

It's more than 1,000 acres in total size and has frontage on Miller School Road, Dick Woods Road, and other public roads.

This zoning map shows that it is also zoned rural areas, not just in the rural areas for the comp plan.

And it consists of three parcels of record, all on tax map 72.

And this includes parcels 32, 32D, and 32E.

This map is intended to show how the subject property or a large portion of the subject property is in an existing conservation easement with the Land Trust of Virginia.

It's a partial conservation easement and the deed specifies that the easement is 637 acres in size.

So accordingly the subject property itself in total

contains an additional approximately 400 acres which are outside of and not subject to this easement.

And just to highlight some of the most important terms of this existing conservation easement, which again is a private arrangement, limited development may occur on the property within four designated development envelopes, which the four of these have a total aggregate area of about 155 acres.

and the remaining 482 acres on the property under easement may be used by the school but are not to be developed and are to serve conservation, agricultural, forestal and scenic purposes.

This map is just mostly here for reference to provide a closer look at the entire property.

And just the same, this is an image showing sort of the historic core of the Miller School's property.

We can return to this if that's useful.

And as many of you know, the subject property contains three historic structures that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including Caton Hall, pictured here.

and staff believes that among the other 40 existing structures on the property, there are likely additional historic structures eligible for listing on the National Register.

However, the original nomination form for the listing only focused on those three structures that have since been listed, which are Old Main, Caton Hall, and the Headmaster's House.

Returning to the proposal, this is the concept plan, and I'll just quickly highlight some of the main features which are shown on this concept plan.

The first is the Hayden Hart addition, which is highlighted here, and this is the proposed project which initiated this application, which resulted in the application being prepared and submitted.

As I indicated before,

The special use permit would also authorize other development within the main axis of the historic school campus.

And that includes up to four proposed new buildings, which are identified with the letter U and shaded gray, and new and reconfigured parking lots, as well as new courtyard spaces and other outdoor amenities, and some reconfigurations to the transportation network on site.

And because of the size of the subject property, the application materials contain concept plans at multiple scales.

So this sheet shows the four development areas derived from the conservation easement, which is existing, in relation to the entire subject property.

And the orange box references the area shown in that preceding rendered concept plan.

And just for easier visual reference, I've highlighted these development envelopes in yellow.

And looking at the concept plan a little bit more closely, this exhibit shows the four development envelopes, again highlighted in yellow for reference, in relation to the boundaries of the conservation easement, which is 637 of the 1,000 or so acres.

And this plan or this exhibit also identifies the locations and the square footage of all 43 existing structures on the Miller School site.

So finally, I'll provide a summary of staff analysis and share the Planning Commission's recommendations.

The detailed full analysis of this proposal is provided in the staff report, of course.

And a summary of favorable factors includes that this special use permit would bring an existing non-conforming use into permitted compliance with the zoning ordinance.

And the concept plan and application would limit future development associated with the private school use to the four envelope areas which are situated within an existing conservation easement.

And the continuation and limited expansion of the historic private school use is consistent with numerous recommendations in the rural area chapter of the comp plan as described on page 7 of the staff report.

and a summary of unfavorable factors identified by staff includes that the new private school uses in the rural area are generally not compatible with the intent of the rural area's zoning district or the rural area chapter of the comp plan.

However, in this proposal, this is a situation that is for the continuation and limited expansion of an existing use that's been in continuous operation for over 14 decades.

and the proposal would generate additional vehicle trips on public roads in the rural area surrounding the Miller School.

However, the additional vehicle trips associated with this proposed increase in student enrollment are not expected to create any significant negative impacts or really be discernible at all.

So as you know, the Planning Commission conducted a public hearing on December 3rd last year and ultimately voted five to one to recommend approval of the special use permit with four conditions of approval as specified in the Planning Commission's action letter.

I'll highlight those four conditions quickly here.

The first is the general accord condition that development and use of the property for the private school use shall be in general accord with the conceptual plan.

And second, additional permanent accessory structures that are not shown on the concept plan would be permissible, subject to review and approval by CDD staff.

Provided that those additional permanent accessory structures are determined to not be in conflict with condition one, which is general accord with the concept plan.

and also provided that each such accessory structure and the associated land disturbance would be contained within the four development envelopes shown in the concept plan.

And just as a point of clarification, that condition would not prohibit or limit development or land disturbance anywhere on the property for uses that are permissible by right such as agriculture and other rural area zoning district uses.

The third recommended condition of approval is a maximum total student enrollment of 225 students.

That comes from the application.

And then fourth, a balance of students requiring a minimum of 60% of the total student body being accommodated on-site and then a maximum of 40% of the total student enrollment in any given year can be commuted onto the property.

And as explained in the transmittal summary, the PC did not recommend two conditions of approval that had been recommended by staff and those related to an updated historic resource inventory and historic preservation standards for future improvements and development.

and I do want to point out that the Commission made an additional and separate recommendation relating to those two conditions.

Instead of endorsing them as requirements, they recommended again separately and in addition to their special use permit recommendations that all additions, alterations, or renovations to existing structures or grounds should be performed in general accordance with the Secretary of Interior's standards as determined by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

and more.

and finally, I'll bring to your attention some additional information for the board's consideration.

At the January 27th meeting of the Historic Preservation Committee, a member of the committee brought up this special use permit application for discussion and the committee ultimately voted unanimously to write to the board in support of staff's original historic preservation recommendations which would be five and six for the Miller School Special Use Permit Application.

And this information was forwarded from staff to the board

via email on February 13th, last Thursday.

So in conclusion, I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have now or at any point during the public hearing.

All right.

Who would like to start?

I'm concerned about the change in the language from shall to should.

I can, that's a good question, thank you.

So the commission did not feel comfortable recommending that as a required condition of the special use permit for the private school use.

But as they evaluated the existing conditions and the proposed future improvements in development, they felt like that was a good general recommendation to provide to the board for your consideration.

and from their perspective.

And let me go a little further.

You had those two at the end, and it was not my specific concern.

It's not so much with whether they have to conduct that inventory, but the second one in terms of any development should rather than shall, because that language not being as strong means that the the whole

Yeah, the commission wrestled with that in detail in a pretty open conversation with the applicants and with staff as well.

And they, I guess they voiced support for historic preservation values, but did not want to make those, the inventory or the consistency with standards be requirements.

Okay, thank you.

I think that they were concerned that they would be somehow going off the reservation because we don't have an ordinance yet.

And so it's up to us to decide how to do that.

Yeah, the laser pointer.

That's right, excuse me.

No, it's basically the 100 yards off the road, off Miller School Road is where the civilians got to see what was going on.

The rest of it we didn't get to see.

And the other,

Help me understand a little bit more about these other future projects that are very vague and somehow we're expected, I haven't been in a situation where I'm expected to approve all sorts of things about which we know nothing.

Yeah, thank you for your question.

And is that the house that's on the sharp curve of the old driveway?

So if I'm coming in off the old driveway and it curves around to the left, and that's one of the historic houses that's not on the registry, I understand.