Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   3/18/2020

It's 5 p.m.

I'm going to call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our March 18, 2020 meeting.

I move the board go into a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia, under subsection 8, to consult with and be briefed by legal counsel regarding specific legal matters requiring legal advice relating to, one, the continuity of county government during the COVID-19 disaster, two, the public's access to and use of the county courthouse grounds.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Aye.

And this evening, we are doing our closed meeting right where we sit.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Aye.

Do we want Greg's going to say a couple words about it before we make the motion?

For all intents and what we have is a resolution consenting to the county executive issuing an amended declaration of local emergency.

So I guess the issue for us is we have a motion to amend our original declaration of local emergency and Greg's going to just chat about what this really means before we take a vote on it.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, Greg Campner, county attorney.

Before you is a resolution to consent to a proposed amended declaration of emergency that would be made by Mr. Richardson, who's county executive and also the director of emergency management.

The change to the his declaration incorporates the reference to disaster.

His original declaration was issued before the governor or it was prepared before the governor issued the state of emergency and the governor has expressly declared that the COVID-19 virus is a disaster within the meaning of the

Virginia Emergency Services and Disaster Law.

Thank you.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

If everyone would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Very good.

Thank you, everyone.

I have a couple of quick questions for a couple of items on consent.

So I'm moving that we adopt the final agenda.

Ms.

Malek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right, the agenda is approved.

And I want to thank Officer Ryan Escarell and Officer Brian Miller for being here this evening.

Thank you, gentlemen.

We have a little bit different setup.

The clerk of the board, Claudette Borgeson, over here to my left.

Different seating arrangement.

Board will begin with brief announcements by board members.

Just very quickly, two things.

One, I think we've all seen the news of the impact economically of the financial situation.

And like many others, I want to encourage everyone to practice as safe a practice as you can in terms of your health.

But if possible, try to find a way to support our local businesses because so many of our employees in the county are in situations where their jobs are at great risk, their financial stability.

So order out, call your favorite restaurant or restaurants, pick up the food, take it home.

Let's help keep people with their jobs.

Secondly, very briefly, I want to thank Mr. Campner and his staff in the midst of everything else that they normally have to do to go back and review arcane statutory enactments from decades and decades ago to go through what is not always clear language, find some inconsistencies and some actions at the state level that are going to

To share the thanks for all of the branches of our departments from EMS to folks here in the building.

Everybody's really calling on our better angels to do the best job we can, and I know our citizens appreciate it tremendously.

There are things such as Meals on Wheels, which I understand are going out of service next week.

So one request I would have of all citizens is to be in contact with your neighbors, elderly neighbors, and try to check in on them, see how they're doing, if you can bring them things.

Gosh, there's been so many announcements, but I agree with everybody.

I'll do a different type of announcement if there are no others.

Well first, we were commenting that Neil Williamson is viewing from home and he has one seat available there.

So if anybody, just I'm calling out Mr. Williamson's, I know he'll be listening in.

This is a little bit more of an aside.

I understand we're asking everyone to socially isolate.

Stay at Home.

And this year, one of the first things to cancel was the Festival of the Book.

And when we did our Proclamation and Resolution, we received Supervisors, if you remember, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson.

And it's not that I have a ton of time to do any reading, but this book is absolutely wonderful.

So I would encourage, as I would imagine many people do, I saw people on social media who were getting to the library and getting a couple stacks before they closed, that they got in and got out.

So I know a lot of people might be catching up on some reading.

That is one I just wanted to reiterate that we recognized and it's wonderful.

With that, we can move on to from the public.

This is matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda.

We do, Mr. Chair.

We have one individual who has signed up.

Briefly, just to recap, each individual who desires to speak to the board will be given three minutes.

We use a light system.

The green light comes on to start your allotted time.

The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish, and a red light indicates your time has expired.

We ask that you bring your comments to a close at that time.

When you come to the speaker's podium we ask that you state your name and if you live in the county your magisterial district and that you address your comments directly to the board as a whole.

If you have written statements or other supporting documents you are welcome to leave a copy with the clerk so that might be included in the record and if you represent a group or organization you may ask others present to raise their hands and be recognized.

If you do not use your allotted time the unused time may not be shared with another speaker.

and you're permitted one opportunity during each public comment period per meeting.

Back and forth debate is prohibited.

We ask that you not speak from your seat or out of turn, and we ask that you raise your hands to indicate your support or opposition to speakers during the meeting as a courtesy to them.

Signs are permitted in the meeting room so long as they are not attached to any stick or pole and do not obstruct the view of persons attending the meeting.

We would ask that you speak into the microphone.

You may need to move that towards your face.

But one of the things I just thought about is we want to be able to ensure that we're also protecting people who follow.

So we may have to do we have to clean it off in between.

All right.

Thank you.

I was reading and I could see you out of the corner of my eye, but I wasn't sure what you were doing.

Thank you.

So speakers will be commenting from the middle of the room rather than up at the podium in the front.

I understand.

Hold on, sir.

Mr. Hall, hold until we get the microphone figured out.

We just want to be able to hear you.

I don't think the virus is really dangerous yet.

Okay.

I am John Edward Hall of Fry Springs in the Jack Jouett District.

The building is closed at our city hall now.

Standing out front is trespassing, even giving an appointment with city manager at 2pm today in his office, as was for me.

I am praying fervent prayers that God lifts this C-virus scourge pandemic from our nation and Virginia County.

But I don't think he will until our government officials remember that we are human beings not to be governed as second-class metal and plastic cyborg robots online.

His government is trying to terminate our will

even on a local level, forbidded Almighty God.

Liz Palmer wrote me in an email that trying my Second Chance program at Biscuit Run Park as a private citizen was a non-starter.

I wrote back that I'm a non-profit and I showed that by payment of $275 to the IRS, I show that

can become a bona fide 501c3 organization with a following of thousands of people on LinkedIn and Facebook, et cetera.

It could be social media.

It could be benign sedition.

Remember Thomas Jefferson's words and warning in the Declaration of Independence of what it could become.

You know that I want 40 acres at Biscuit Run Park for the poor and time-served individuals

this growing season.

I need Albemarle County Board of Supervisor feedback now on vegetable farming there by the poor in Southwood Trailer Park, the time-served individuals from Albemarle, Charlottesville Regional Jail, and other blighted individuals such as myself.

Thank you for listening.

We will allow the remainder of the three minutes for your questions, and I hope

Thank you, Mr. Hall.

There are still, what is it, 27 seconds.

Are there any questions?

Understood, sir.

Whose policy is that?

Our board's policy.

Thank you, sir.

Is there anyone else present who has not signed up who would like to speak to the board this evening?

Thank you.

All right, Board, we will move to the consent agenda.

Why don't we go ahead and make the motion second and then discussion because I have a comment to make an item as well.

So you want me to go on and make a motion.

Second.

All right, discussion.

I apologize.

I'm going to check on my emails and see if Rebecca had responded to me from earlier about the, if there were any photo simulations or anything for the antenna array.

So that's my neglect at not doing that.

My question on the proffer

revenue.

Is there a policy about keeping track of the sources of where the proffers come from?

And I'm only thinking about this for the areas where proffer money has been generated who will then have needs in the future.

And this is not an extensive discussion if it's something the board wants to think about and do more.

But if you have a quick response, I'm glad to have it now if that's all right.

Yeah, sure.

They did.

They did.

They did reply.

OK, well, I am done.

I'm just behind on what I've received this afternoon.

No, that's all.

I'm going to throw this out.

I'm not looking for a response this evening, but we do have the facility environmental studies report as part of this.

One of the items that was included within as update was the right-of-way maintenance on Berkmar.

The warranty time is coming to a close, and that'll be coming on over to us, and I want to make sure

Obviously any items that were under warranty there I'm sure there's some sort of checklist or procedure to make sure things all are good if we had issues with them coming up to the end of that period but one in particular was there was a time where there was water going over the road when we had a very wet cold winter and it was icing over.

Well this year we would not have had that issue because it frankly hasn't been that cold and hasn't been as wet.

So I want to make sure those particular items find out if those are corrected before it comes under county maintenance.

And the only other thing, Ned, that's a great point, I would add, is we had a lot of complaints within the first season, I guess, when that road went in, that a lot of the trees that had been planted were dying.

And we were told it's okay because they're under warranty and they'll be taken care of.

Without it being very cold this year we just would not have seen the prolonged icing

So I'd appreciate just some check into that and some follow up.

All right.

Ned, can I mention one more thing and I'll make this really quick.

What we're seeing at the entrance on on that new road where Sam's Club comes out in the hotel, we're seeing what I consider to be little illegal signs from the hotel and from Sam's Club and the restaurant at the hotel.

If we could just reach out to them and say, maybe there's a possibility that they can actually put up a nice sign that VDOT would allow, saying that this is the way you get to those facilities, rather than these little illegal, you know, signs you stick in the ground.

Sure.

And there are proper signage pieces, right.

Agreed.

All right.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Very good.

All right, board, that will bring us to our first action item this evening.

And that's number 11, Homestay H2 2025, Homestay special exception.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Francis McCall, Principal Planner.

I'm also here with Rebecca Ragsdale.

We are here this evening to hear this particular one and two additional Homestay application requests, special exceptions.

This first one is Homestay 2025 Smith.

We've gone through a number of these particular applications previously and you'll recognize these slides.

First application is greater than five acres, and all the particular applications, homestay applications, have the same regulations.

But the ones greater than five apply there.

Please stop me if you've got any particular questions.

Next couple ones that we do, we'll maybe go through, because they'll be the same slides, so we'll just kind of go over those a little quicker.

So this particular application, as you know, all these special exceptions have to do with the four criteria that are identified there.

And this particular application is for reduced setbacks.

Exceptions here again is another slide that we've reviewed before as far as how we process these applications or the factors to be considered and the two factors whether the detriment to the budding lots or the no harm to public health safety or welfare and you may impose reasonable conditions.

So this particular application is for a modification of the 125 foot setback for two side property lines for the dwelling and the parking.

The dwelling does meet the 125 foot setback from the front and the rear property lines.

There is one letter of support for this application and no objections have been received.

This is a particular location map of the homestay.

This is also another location, but a little more context with the surrounding features.

And this is the parking and housing parking and house location exhibit that is part of the conditions for the approval or the recommended approval.

So with that, staff is of the opinion that these setback reductions do not cause that detriment to the abutting lots or cause harm to the public health safety or welfare of the surrounding area.

Supervisor Malle, I'm sorry.

So from the picture, it looks as if the lot has a shared easement with a neighbor.

It's all right.

There we go.

So does someone stipulate, the applicant I hope, get permission from the easement holder that this, because this would be a commercial use and perhaps not included in what was originally planned for a shared driveway easement.

Right, I know that this particular, these two lots that are there were done as a family subdivision so that is a private street that serves both of those lots and that street does have a maintenance agreement between the two property owners.

So more than likely that agreement does not speak to

particular commercial uses.

Okay.

And the shared family person then is aware and supportive and all that stuff.

And Supervisor Malek, in the packet you probably saw there's the letter from the applicant and the parents.

But I think you raise an excellent point here, and this has come up in our previous discussions, is that the special use exception goes with the property, not with the applicant.

And so what we have is something that's very common in the county.

In this case, they bought the 13 acres.

They divided evenly.

This was exactly what they were planning to do.

But the application, the exception will go with the property.

We should all understand that at some point, one or both of those owners will move.

the parents, we presume, are older and are likely going to die before the applicant here and maybe it will be another family member, maybe it will be a third party who comes in and so it's very important when we look to approve these that we take out of consideration, I believe,

because it goes with the property, not with the applicant.

We take out of it what the current adjacent property owners believe and we look at it more from a holistic standpoint of by approving this, what will the long-term impact on this be.

Having said that, I don't see a complication with this.

We very often have private access easements on these sorts of driveways or roads as we call them.

and the setback is the only issue and when you look at the map it's very clear there's really a sufficient distance.

So I of course completely agree with you and I was just going to say that I have no objection to this except for I still am sort of waiting to hear specifically how we're going to record these special exceptions so that the next buyer of the property can easily find this out.

The last time we talked about this it was a title search.

I'm not really crazy about

that outcome, I'd like it to be more obvious in some way for people to be when they're looking at a piece of property.

And I'm assuming that we have a date in the future sometime, way in the future now, where we're going to be discussing all these issues.

Greg Cavanagh, County Attorney.

The discussion that we had last board meeting when there was a homestay application and dealing with this issue, I think the approach it was going to be taken was to have our GIS mapping system start identifying special exceptions and special use permits.

as a way to track this.

I think the feeling was that recording these types of documents and then showing up in title searches may not be the easiest way for the prospective buyer.

Thank you.

I didn't get that final out of that.

I'm hoping that there's going to be another layer, you know, just like there is for leaky underground storage tanks and all these kinds of things that you can just flip on when you're looking at a property and you can just put that layer on to see where those kinds of things are.

That is potentially one of the options.

And it's April.

Thank you very much.

It'll be an action item.

I'm going to go ahead.

Just as I said, I would.

The applicants did write in.

They did not want to come down to out of the need for being here.

But I would mention that I would read their statement into the record.

This is Courtney and Ryan Smith.

Like I said, they came down to be considered maintaining social distancing.

Their quote, we appreciate you reviewing our case for special exception.

We meet all criteria for homestay in Amarillo County except for the criteria regarding how close we are to a neighboring property line.

The property line we are closest to is that of my parents, Miranda and David Bieber.

I hope I'm saying that right.

They are in full support of us continuing to do homestay and have written letters on our behalf.

They have not had any trouble or disturbances from our occasional homestay and they want us to be able to continue because they see how it gives us a bit of added financial stability.

We're happy to answer any additional questions and so appreciate you taking time to review our case.

Thank you, Ryan and Courtney Smith.

And then we'll make sure the email is part of the record as well.

Mr. Chair, if I could, I'd want to thank the Smiths for handling that this way this evening.

It shows great respect for the members of the community to do it.

We appreciate the confidence and trust that you've given us in being able to proceed without you physically being present today.

Okay, I move that we approve the resolution attachment F to approve the special exception with conditions contained therein.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

That motion carries.

This is our second one this evening.

This is, again, this is a parcel that is greater than five acres.

It's about nine and just over nine acres.

Again, the applicable homestay regulations.

This is for reduced setbacks, this particular request.

Again, the particulars to this request are the 125 setback reduction from two side property lines.

The front and the rear property line are met, do meet that 125 foot setback.

There have not been any objections that we've received regarding this particular one and so that leads us to make the recommendation again that no cause for a detriment to the abutting lots or harm to the public health, safety, or welfare.

There's a quick location of the property off of Woodlands Road.

That is the Rivanna Reservoir there.

There are two dwellings on this property, or one under construction, which is the proposed homestay.

The existing one, as you note there, is the current owner's residence.

They do reside on the property.

The proposed location, as I said, is under construction at the moment.

And here is the location map that will be used for the conditions.

It shows the approximate location and the approximate distance is obviously less than 125.

Again, you can still see the existing dwelling there.

No questions.

I think it's grand.

But I did previously, at a previous thing, talk about tree protection.

And in this case, I've talked to Karen Pape about this, so she's not surprised.

But it's especially important when you're looking at site plans around the reservoir, for example.

I think there are rules that Rivanna has, and hopefully our WPO, our Water Protection Ordinance, also has about preventing tree cutting.

not in this circumstance because she's way way back from the water but if the house locations were reversed what I want to avoid is everybody looking the other way until all of a sudden all the trees between that structure and the water have been cut down to make somebody's view lovely.

which it is, but we have to do what we can at every step along the way to make sure that doesn't happen.

And I apologize, I forgot.

Off the side property line there.

Woodlands would be front, which would be 75 feet.

Off the side property line would be 25.

Well, and the reason I ask the question is I think one of the things we always need to look at if we are approving an exception to distance like this is what impact might that have on an adjacent property owner if the adjacent property owner then wanted to construct something.

I recall, you know, last year y'all having the three rectangles up here that show the way the previous regulations were and while we want to be supportive in the cases where we can be supportive, we always want to be thinking about the surrounding property owners and will we somehow put an unreasonable burden on an adjacent property owner to be able to use their property as they would like.

And you're referring to the first one gets it and then the others.

Exactly.

And we have discussed that.

Thank you.

All right.

With that, I move to adopt Resolution Attachment F to approve the Homestay Special Exception

Modify the minimum 125 foot side yard required for a homestay in the rural area zoning district pursuant to County Code 18-5.1.48 with the following conditions.

Ms.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

This is Homestay 2023 Bond.

This parcel is less than five acres, so there are a few different regulations that apply there.

I believe we brought a few, one or two to you previously that also showed that, but these are very similar.

They are also requesting the reduced setback.

That reduction is from one side property line for the dwelling and parking.

The dwelling does meet the 125 feet from the front and the rear property lines.

Again, no objections have been received and that we don't see the particular detriment for abutting lots or cause that may cause harm to the public health or safety of the community.

Here's another location, general location of the property.

As you can see, I didn't point out on the other ones, but we all have that little area map on the lower right and you get a better picture in each of those.

This is all the way down in Hatton.

There's a particular aerial photography there that shows the surrounding conditions.

And then the particular parking and house location exhibit that will be part of the resolution.

Staff is also then recommending that this resolution be adopted as an attachment F with the condition.

One note, the report did identify two conditions, but the resolution was written for the one condition, so it is just this one particular condition.

It has to do, as you know, we've been identifying reducing, not reducing, but limiting the number of home stay guest rooms to usually one or two.

not a question I would comment that on this one that house appears to be almost centrally located in the property it's about as close to the center I think as you can get given the shape of the property and has a minimal potential impact based upon the request for the variance with the exception for the 125 feet it's almost 120 100 feet here any other questions comments or emotion

I will move that the board adopt the resolution to approve the special exception to modify the minimum 125 foot setback for HS 2020-00003 subject to the condition attached.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Aye.

Very good.

That is approved.

Thank you.

We're going to do a series of public hearings.

This is a series.

We have three, I think, three or four.

The first one is fiscal year 20 budget amendment and appropriations.

Yes sir, Mr. Chair, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening.

I am here for Mr. Andy Bowman, who is with our budget office.

On this particular item, as this board knows, the Virginia Code requires the county to hold a public hearing before amending its budget when the total amount of the funds exceed 1% of the current adopted budget.

The proposed fiscal year 20 budget amendment for the board's consideration is an increase of approximately $5.9 million.

The budget amendment is comprised of 16 separate appropriations.

15 have already been approved by this board.

Attachment A includes the details of the appropriation for approval this evening, which is to appropriate funding for the Emergency Communications Center pursuant to a prior action by the ECC board.

That is a management board and the county serves as the fiscal agent for the ECC.

After the public hearing, Mr. Chair, staff recommends that the board adopt the resolution, which is included as attachment B. Thank you.

Briefly, if the 15 have already previously been approved,

and we just really have the $373,000 for this one.

Is this sort of maybe a cleanup amendment more than anything else?

I think it's cumulative throughout the year.

I'm sorry?

No, Ms.

Mallek states it correctly.

The way OMB presents these appropriations, they aggregate and once we reach the 1% threshold, then they come to the board for public hearing.

Thank you.

I do have one.

But yes, ma'am, most of the improvements that you see here are IT infrastructure related improvements, which, as you know, is critical to the day to day functioning of that operation.

And portable and belongs to them.

Yes, ma'am.

All right.

This item is a public hearing.

We'll go ahead and open the public hearing.

Is anyone here to speak to this item?

All right.

Is anyone here who has not signed up wish to speak to this item?

All right, we will close public hearing.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Very good.

The next public hearing, number 15, Ordinance to Amend Parking Provisions in County Code Chapter 9, Motor Vehicles.

Mr. Deloria is here this evening to help us with this item.

I have to be getting to this point.

If you think about it, this one is finally coming to us.

Legislative change took effect in July 1st of 19th.

So we've been working on this one.

You've done a great job.

We're feeling very positive about it.

May it please the board.

I'm Richard Deloria.

I'm with the county attorney's office and I've had the privilege of working with a good group of county employees and Supervisor McKeel on

studying this and addressing changes that we thought were necessary to the parking ordinances that we have.

Yeah, there you go.

I was missing a few.

So it was a good group to work.

And so there was comments that this was a long time coming.

It's my understanding that it's been a four-year process.

And it started when this body was interested in having the Virginia Code amended to give it authority to regulate parking on the secondary streets in Virginia.

So in 2018,

In 2018, the General Assembly went ahead and amended the statute that added Albemarle County to the jurisdictions that were able to regulate parking.

And so what it allowed Albemarle County to do was to regulate parking on any secondary street.

in Albemarle County.

It also allowed the board to classify vehicles, certain types of vehicles that could be parked.

And finally, it allowed the board to set fines, declare them to be traffic offenses and then set the fines.

And so that was the purpose that the group convened

to discuss.

Kind of the overriding themes that were in our discussions were that there were a number of neighborhoods primarily in the urban ring that were older neighborhoods that didn't have the benefit, say, of homeowner's associations that had regulations as to what type of vehicles could park on the streets.

You think, for example, like Belvedere.

I know I live in Dunmore, and so

I know that we have covenants that say you can't have trailers, you can't have your boats, you can't have your campers.

You put them in your garage or you store them at a more appropriate location.

But it had come to our attention that in neighborhoods that don't have the benefit of that

commercial people involved in business would store their equipment on neighborhood streets because there weren't any regulations or any prohibitions.

So they may come from outside the area, outside the county, or outside the neighborhood and find that they're doing most of their work in Albemarle County so it's easy to leave their trailers or their box trailers or their equipment parked on neighborhood streets.

And so the concerns are is they would get built up

You have visibility issues, you have safety issues for driving, and you have I think just quality of life issues also in terms of having your street filled with these types of vehicles.

So based on that, we were trying to figure out ways that we could regulate it.

In terms of where the problems are,

Albemarle County Police Department was they were kind enough to provide us with a heat map and this shows the parking the parking incidents that have been reported since 2018 so you're in 2018 2019 and in just a couple months I think January February and in 2020

and it might be a little bit tougher to see right here but you can tell the concentration of the parking issues is a little bit north of Charlottesville.

I would say it's probably in that commonwealth in the Jewett area is where the most of them are and then we have more south of town and in the La Crosse area.

So in the development areas you can see where those incidents are reported and the police respond to them and they broke them down

In terms of numbers, in 2018 there were 115 incidents and when it says dispositions that means they were cleared so the police went out.

They investigated, they may have issued a ticket, they may not have.

In 2019 we were able to get from finance the number of tickets that were issued and paid.

That's not necessarily, doesn't include what were issued and not paid.

but in terms of those, 137 out of 146 incidents were cleared.

So, and that's all done, that's not done in the courts, that's all done with the finance department, so it's all, their tickets, hopefully they get paid within 48 hours, if not, the fines may be doubled.

And then in 2020, we have, in the first two months, 18, so they're kind of on par for what, kind of on par for what's happened in the past.

In terms of what we tried to address is we focused on something that the Board of Supervisors could do essentially on a county-wide basis.

So we didn't want to go and cherry-pick certain neighborhoods that might be problematic and say, okay, let's put signs there.

Let's just do something that's broad, that's easily interpreted by the citizens and the residents, and also easily interpreted by the police department so that they could take action on it.

So what we focused on were residential areas.

And the ordinance, it defines, when we look at the amendments, it defines what we mean by residential areas.

It includes the standards, your residential area districts, village residential, and the planned residential developments.

But it also goes into the neighborhood model.

developments and the plan unit developments, and they have residential components.

They may also have some more intense components, commercial of the sorts, but if you have a boundary line, so if you're in something like, if you imagine Belvedere, where, where soccer is building a sports facility of sorts, if you have a road that's on a boundary,

then only the side that's on the residence comes under the ordinance.

So if you have commercial vehicles parking over by the facility, they're not going to be covered by the ordinance.

Just my perspective, so.

Well, and the one side would mean, explain to me a little bit more, so the SACA example, but for example, does that mean that everywhere it's only one side?

And Belvidere may be a bad example, it's just one that comes to mind because it's going to have the HOA covenants that are covering, that are going to take, and I don't know the specifics of it, but that's going to take care of it.

And Supervisor McKeel might have better examples when you think when you get over on Commonwealth Drive you have elements that are residential and then across the street there may be some businesses.

So perhaps one clarification that we might consider is if you have a business there, then just like you have a right to have a sign there, if you have a business there and you don't have a right to put your sign over here where there's no business, the same thing should go for vehicles.

Because I was pretty horrified to find out recently, a few months ago, that people from out of the area were parking their business vehicles in neighborhoods and just coming back to get them the next morning.

I mean, that's just completely inappropriate.

No matter where it is, that shouldn't be happening.

And sometimes they'd leave them for weeks.

That's the issue, too.

I mean, I guess.

We'll hear what people have to say about that.

I guess what we could do is try this.

It's easier to make it easier, lighter than it is to make it stricter.

Commonwealth is an area, certainly Commonwealth is an area.

I was trying to think, I mean, Bea, I've certainly heard complaints about this in Camelot.

I'm just trying to think about the places where we've had complaints about a lot of this.

Oat Forest Circle, Hessian Hills,

One one option.

And Mr. Campner may have a better observation, but is is is to go with it as it is.

And then if if, say, on Commonwealth, there's areas that become problematic, the board has authority to to regulate the parking and can do it by signage.

We were trying to avoid, trying to go through and put signs up everywhere.

And remember, this is basically enforced by complaint.

It's complaint driven.

So it seemed like that that was the best alternative.

Greg Kamner, County Attorney.

I think one reason why the language is the way it is is because the ordinance is based upon the zoning designation and we've identified residential districts to which these rules will apply.

And the way the zoning map is interpreted by ordinance is that the zoning district goes to the center line of these roads.

So what's on the other side has a different designation.

So at this point,

And one follow up to that, so where do the rural neighborhoods fit in?

Are they in this R1, R2 list?

They're not.

Briarwood, where it's in the rural area, but they had terrible trouble with people parking right, just vehicles, people who lived there and guests, parking right to the intersection where nobody could see.

And VDOT was able, after about three years of coercion, to fix that, put up signs.

Well, I mean, it obviously depends on what the zoning is out there.

And then I mean, but we could we could come back and I mean, the board has authority to designate an area and

probably in terms of notice to the citizenry, signs would be appropriate in that situation.

So in terms of the authority, the board can look at particular types of vehicles.

It has the authority to do that.

And so this particular proposal looks to regulate commercial and recreational vehicles.

and it defines them in two ways.

It defines it by the size of the vehicle, the dimensions, and then it also goes to identify particular categories.

And there was an interest in doing that, one because there's precedent for it in other jurisdictions, but also if there's questions from business owners or residents just to know, hey, is my vehicle covered, then they could look at the ordinance and see.

So the first thing we looked at was size, and the notion was that by regulating the size of the vehicles or the dimensions, we'd probably capture most of the vehicles that are of concern.

And there was significant debate over the, in terms of registered gross weight, there were a number of measures that could have been used, but within consultation with the police department, the registered gross weight was something that you could get from DMV.

and essentially the registered gross weight is the total weight that the vehicle can carry without a trailer.

So it's the passengers and the cargo that you can put on the vehicle.

We learned from Scott Miller that because of advances in technology, vehicles, they become lighter but their capacity to haul cargo gets bigger and bigger.

and so when you got into the bigger vehicles and the ones particularly that that haul horse trailers that we were sensitive to that you started getting around 14,000 pounds so that's what we did we ended up and landed on 16,000 pounds

and the feeling was that the larger pickup trucks that are used for horse trailers and other things that family have, we're going to make it into this.

It also included, I think, I call them sprint vans or sprinter vans where families, large families, take these larger vehicles and outfit them to drive the family around.

They would fit within this regulation.

So the recommendation was to adopt a registered gross weight of 16,000 pounds.

Again, there was spirited debate over 25 feet.

We started at 20 feet, we went up to 24, and then we learned that I think it was a Ford F-250 with a trailer hitch and then something on the front bumper came in at 24 feet and some inches.

So that's where we went with 25 feet, which is longer than any other ordinance that I had seen, so it's pretty generous.

Eight feet seemed to be fairly standard, and then a school bus is a little over 102 inches wide, eight and a half feet wide, so that was a limit too, and that's going to capture a significant number of commercial vehicles.

In terms of categories, we're looking at commercial construction type vehicles, and you can see those are listed.

In terms of trailers, and so this would be flatbed trailers, it would also be kind of the box trailers, food trucks, or any type of trailer or vehicle that would store food or other commercial items.

Those would be covered by this ordinance.

Motorhomes, campers, school buses, and boats.

Another issue that other jurisdictions have tackled are vehicles for hire.

You think of those as taxis, limousines, and then the transportation network companies, the Ubers and the Lifts.

And there was spirited discussion as to whether to include the TNC partners.

and although there might be difficulty in terms of enforcement and identifying just because of the nature of those vehicles, you can remove the credentials when you park them.

The team felt that they shouldn't be treated differently.

So they were included also.

And so the vehicles for hire would be barred from parking also in residential areas.

What we were finding though was people that are driving in lifts and Uber or whatever that model that transportation model is were not able to park their own vehicles in their own neighborhoods because they lived in

You can't make this, I could tell you stories, you can't make up what's happening.

I mean it's just amazing.

But if I understand right, each resident can have one such vehicle.

Your own car can stay there.

Does that affect all these other vehicles too, the larger ones?

If you happen to live there, you can still park your monster something on the curb?

No, it's just that one sub-paragraph.

I guess you sort of answered it with the vehicles for hire, but having a connection to the property,

is a real solution.

Ron's back there.

We might let Ron at some point.

If they want to address that, certainly fine.

But I know we addressed that.

And what we landed on was was it if we were going to allow one per address.

And and it's something that the police can readily identify.

Is this the address?

And then saying it had to be an adjacent parcel.

So that didn't have to be right in front of of of your residence.

It could be next door.

It could be across the street.

Good evening, Chief Lance.

Hello, Chief.

Mr. Chairman, board members, thank you for having me.

Ron Lance, Chief of Police.

You said it perfectly, you know, for us to be able to identify where the cars are parked, we're going to run the tag, and we're going to see where it's associated with, whether it's going to be in that neighborhood or not.

Okay.

As Supervisor McKeel illustrated earlier, a lot of these vehicles are being parked in neighborhoods where they don't even live.

Right.

So that's one of the things that we're looking at as well.

That's correct.

We were able to partner with the business community and the airport and solve that problem.

We had quite a few complaints resulting from that.

Yeah, it wouldn't be on parking.

Exactly.

That's right.

because the airport wouldn't let them stage over at the airport anymore.

Or they may have been given to her.

So what the ordinance would cover, it would cover the pods, the temporary storage that's placed on the roadways.

It certainly doesn't prevent it from going into your yard.

Just an example of the box trailer and more of a flatbed.

The picture on the far right is a flatbed trailer and it's got weeds growing up around it.

The interesting thing about that is it's on the shoulder, but the ordinance adopts the definition, the Virginia Code definition of highway, and that includes the full right of way.

We specifically addressed whether we wanted it to be roadway or we wanted it to be highway.

The roadway is the travel portion,

and so the bottom line is if that is parked on the right-of-way and it may depend when the road was built how far the right-of-way is that potentially could be in violation so it could cover shoulders.

I'm sorry, so if you term it a highway, it incorporates the shoulders.

Not necessarily.

And I think it depends when the road was built and when it was designed.

We own to the middle of the road on a lot of, you know, in some neighborhoods you think about it, the grassy areas are, you know, they go 10 feet or more.

So that that's still the right of way.

That's a camper motorhome, fairly significant.

And of course that would come under the motorhomes, but also size.

It's going to come under the dimensions.

18-wheelers using our neighborhood roads that aren't made to support and then parking on the edge of the roads and just running.

And then one of the issues was the landscapers coming from outside the area and just leaving their trailers there.

They may serve the neighborhood, and so just more convenient for them to do it, but the ordinance would get at that practice.

We did mention there are exceptions, and there are fairly standard exceptions.

Obviously, if you have a person with a disability,

and they have a large vehicle and it's properly tagged and it's not being used for hire, then it would come under it.

Moving trucks, people got to move.

They can move in, got to move out, so you'd be able to rent your U-Haul or have a Mayflower come in and they have 48-hour windows in between them in the move.

A big question was if people are doing work at your house, their concerto, can I do my landscaping trailer while I'm working on your yard or

or I'm a plumber and I've got to work on your house.

If you're there performing the service, then that's temporary parking and that's not covered by the ordinance, so that would be permitted.

And then the last notion is the vehicles for hire.

It is limited to, obviously a limo wouldn't fall under the exception.

We limited it to seven person vehicles, so that would cover SUVs and minivans.

It wouldn't just be limited to a passenger car, but if you start getting into if you start getting into 15 person buses or 20 person buses Then then that's not going to fall under the exception So we're really kind of looking at people who are one the uber drivers that they have a passenger in a passenger vehicle or SUV they'd be able to have that they're also the taxi cab driver would be able to have a

to be able to have their Ford vehicle there.

I know you used to be able to.

I believe you can still get a suburban SUV that holds eight, three, three, and two.

But most of them are seven passenger.

So, you know, not a minor point.

The moving trucks.

In the ordinance, you have two different policies.

If it's a moving company, it's 48 hours of the move, but if it's a rented moving truck,

it's 48 hours from the execution of the lease.

And that, and I recognize this is complaint driven, you know, but that's a difference between the two.

If you move yourself, you might be using the truck more than 48 hours from the time you lease it.

Are they eight?

I just, my experience is seven.

Three, three and two.

But my Honda Odyssey is three, three and two.

Well then that may be appropriate to amend to eight.

I mean it sounds like.

Or the backlight truck.

So I think eight would make more sense.

Remember you had yours on private property too.

This is in the street.

I'm just saying and I'm not objecting to your but I want people to remember that if you're moving and you have it in your driveway that's not a problem.

And that's fine, I agree with that.

So Ron, does that work for you?

Because you were so integral with all of this.

Because Ron had a lot of experience with this when he was in another locality.

All right so I noted to strike if parked within 48 hours of execution of the lease.

And I'm looking for that and so if you all

Because it says 6 plus 1, so it should be 7 plus 1.

That's 6 is going to change to a 7.

And so that ends the discussion on the residential parking regulations.

There are other changes that are suggested by the amended ordinance.

One is in terms of general prohibitions.

There existed the prohibition against parking within 15 feet of a fire hydrant.

The team suggested that mailboxes be added to that because, and understand that may be

somewhat contentious, but the concern was that there could be habitual blocking of a mailbox that one on a regular basis may prevent the post office from making deliveries.

The other notion was that we discussed a time limit on that, making like eight to five or something.

but then we realize in this time and this day and age delivery is occurring 24-7.

It occurs, I know the post office comes around 8 o'clock or even later.

They come on Sundays.

The final notion was that if it's limited to say normal business hours, not everyone accesses their mailbox during those hours.

So if they get home at work after 10 or 11 and there's a truck or a trailer blocking it, they may have difficulty.

Some people may have difficulty.

I'm getting into the mailbox.

And I'm the one who, at least I am one person, if not the one, who brought up the time aspect of the mailboxes.

And I think there's a difference between blocking a mailbox versus parking within 15 feet of it.

And I was the one who asked, well what about putting a time limit

so that basically, and I'll just throw these out as a consideration, 8 a.m.

till 6 p.m.

you cannot park there.

But if you get a weekend or an evening and you have people coming over for dinner, in a lot of areas like in Mill Creek and some of the densely populated areas, it's difficult to find any place that's 15 feet from a mailbox.

And so when you're in a densely populated area with very limited parking to begin with,

although the coronavirus concerns may very much change our social interactions.

But I know, I'll just use as an example, when I was canvassing in certain areas of Mill Creek, I found it very difficult to find any open place to park.

And that's why I suggested consideration of not parking within 15 feet of a mailbox during basic, we'll call banker's hours, but to allow evenings or Sundays

that you could park within 15 feet, but I don't think anyone should ever block a mailbox.

Yeah, and I guess the problem we had in some of the neighborhoods was people were parking and then just, they weren't even in the neighborhood.

So if we're keeping people from doing from just parking, leaving their cars, places and commercial vehicles, now we get rid of those.

and we're just talking about residents that are coming to stay or visit, right?

Because we've taken care of the people who just leave their cars there.

So I'm just wondering if this is a little overkill on never allowing anybody to park near a mailbox.

Because I have your problem too.

I have several neighborhoods where if you go over to somebody's house for dinner,

You can't find a place.

I'm certainly not planning on blocking it.

I think it's not far enough for a car to put the mailman's car to pull in from the street in front of another parked car, get to the mailbox and pull out again is I barely understand that.

So that's what I'm worried about here.

And I really like it the way it is.

And if you're having a party and you don't care, somebody parks by your own mailbox, that's no big deal.

But Chief Lance indicated that, look, we're talking about complaint-based type.

So the police department doesn't have a parking unit that runs around shaking the bushes to say, how many tickets can I stroke?

And I accept that.

And I accept the consensus of the board.

But I just wanted to raise the time issue.

near a mailbox, there should absolute prohibition against blocking a mailbox.

And I do see those as two different things, but I accept the consensus of the board.

I guess I have a tendency, think it's a little overkill if you go ahead and you already have, you're keeping people from parking illegally, just leaving their vehicles there, commercial vehicles, all that sort of thing.

Oh, the biggest problem I have with people complaining about the mail is that they can't get to their mailbox without taking their lives in their hands because of speeding.

So moving on, this is one I think that would be welcomed and that is this would apply to all areas in the county and it's clarifying what it means to park near an intersection and we have heard that there were some concerns about that happening, I think particularly in the rural areas where people would park on the curve itself and block visibility.

And so what the suggestion is is that the board adopt language, and it comes from the Virginia Code, but it clarifies what it means to be in an intersection, and it talks about being within 20 feet of the intersection of curb lines.

And there aren't always curb lines in the county or out in the rural areas, obviously.

So then it would be within 15 feet of the intersection of property lines at a highway intersection.

So it does indicate that you can't park in the curb itself.

And so that's part of it also.

It's not a question.

Very, very minor point.

Everywhere in the ordinance it says commercial and recreational until you get to fines, and then it says commercial or recreational.

I think we were playing lawyer and trying to think and saying that my vehicle is just recreational.

I'd better be consistent.

Do we want an and or?

Do we want to add an and?

You can do it whichever way you want.

I just pointed out.

As long as it doesn't, I mean, do whatever won't cause a problem for it.

Or is fine.

Ron's folks and people to understand it.

That's fine.

Make it consistent.

I just have one question.

Definition of a highway is the full width of the right of way.

So VDOT comes in and they own a right of way.

It might be, this is hypothetical, it might be 100 feet, but the travel portion of the road might only be 50 feet.

And so then on each side you have 25 feet.

So on some of our roads I'm told that we own to the middle of the road.

Now is that just not the case?

Not we, the property owner, I'm sorry, not the big we.

Greg Campner, County Attorney, there are probably very few roads that will be covered by this particular set of regulations that are subject to what are referred to as the prescriptive easements that are 30 foot right of ways.

And this dates back to the early 1930s when the state took over what was a patchwork of county roads and turnpikes and all the other types of roads that were in existence at that time.

and so in those prescriptive easements the property owned by the adjoining properties goes to the center line and then 15 feet on each side became the prescriptive easement.

But my understanding of the prescriptive easement is it's to the edge of the asphalt.

That's, I mean, in our old, all those pre-1932 roads, Clark Road, Browns Gap, Turnpike, all that, the owners, that's why it's such a difficulty to get drainage work done and everything has to be negotiated.

Usually they're so happy to have the work done, they say, fine, bring it on, let me sign.

but that is their ownership and control.

At the end of our driveway, it's 16 feet from the center of the road.

So how do these parking regs apply to these areas?

I think the area that is covered by this ordinance is primarily within the, they weren't prescriptive easements.

So we probably have rights of way that are gonna vary probably from 30 all the way up to, there may be some roads within these districts that are well beyond 50 feet in width that they're functioning more as a

I guess I was just thinking about the the intersection discussion of parking within 15 feet of the intersection and that applied to the rural areas so I'm envisioning areas in the rural areas where there are intersections that it's kind of hard to see if somebody parked on the side they would really be on private property I think.

I'll give an example.

Well, Richie, Ron, the police staff spend a lot of time at both ends of Ridge Road.

One on Free Union Road and the other on Garth Road because the runners from downtown take 15 or 25 vehicles and they park on both sides of the road at the intersections and the people who live there cannot get out.

I guess I was really going after the

So it says that it says the intersection of property lines at any highway and so it doesn't just say a VDOT highway it says any highway and case law does define you can have you can have a private roadway that's considered to be a highway it's where the cars travel.

So in my view I think it would be covered and it certainly could be enforced and I suspect it could be challenged and we would defend it.

I'm just wondering if, you know, Ron Lane, Chief of Police again, we cannot enforce on private.

There has to be a state, as I was telling Mr. Campner, has to be a state dedicated highway for us to enforce.

That makes sense.

If we have an intersection, get a visual where there's a private road coming into a state maintained road,

First thing we're going to do is find out who owns the car.

We're going to try to get voluntary compliance even though it's private property.

Hey, it's causing a safety hazard.

Can you move the vehicle for us?

So that's how we would approach that.

I think everything has been touched on this in terms of the enforcement that the police indicated in all our meetings that it's going to be complaint-based and their response first is going to be to educate the neighbors, educate the vehicle owners.

That would be followed up by warnings.

Essentially, look, if you don't stop, then we'll have to get to the ticketing and then getting down to the ticketing.

So they're not driving around shaking the bushes.

They're trying to educate people and get compliance.

That's the main goal.

So, which then takes us, if we do get to ticketing, what's the result of a violation?

and what we found in looking back, well, when we looked at the ordinance, we saw most of the offenses came with a $10 fine and we were kind of surprised by that, thinking that that is usually less than daily parking fees in places, certainly less than renting a spot

and so we considered using this as an opportunity to kind of modernize and bring them up to date so that we could maybe create a fine system that would deter violations as opposed to incentivize just paying parking tickets if you get one or not get one.

So one thing we looked at as a measure is the state parking.

The state code does address parking violations and the General Assembly has authorized the Virginia Supreme Court to publish a schedule of prepayable fines.

And so our fines generally were $10 and then if not paid within 48 hours it went up to $20.

The state generally started with fines around the $20 range

but here's the catch that they charge a processing fee so for every offense you can prepay and it might be $20 which is fairly low but you got to add $51 on for your so in order to pay a state a state fine you're looking at $71

So based on that, the team thought that it would be appropriate to generally move the fines up to $25.

If not paid quickly, they would double up to $50.

But the county doesn't have a processing fee.

So in all instances, the fines that the county would impose are less than what you would pay for a state violation.

So we thought that was fair, and so that's why we suggested the schedule of fines that we have done.

and the theory was to create a system that does deter.

We're not looking to raise revenues.

As you can see, there aren't that many violations that result in the payment of fines, so it's not a revenue generator.

Well, the fines have to be big enough to get people's attention because, even as an example with the illegal signs packed all over the place, some of the bigger home builders would laugh in my face and say, that's the cost of doing this, keep your $100, I don't care.

Well, and I would hope Ron would give us feedback if he finds that the fines aren't working.

He can come back to us and say we need to increase these fires, at least in some of these areas.

In fire lanes, we thought, you know, we try to go by what would an expectation be if we were caught parking in a fire lane, and we did think that it would be more than $25, and so you'll see that that went up to $50 and then it doubles to $100.

In terms of parking in a handicapped zone, we didn't change that.

That had certain elements that made it difficult to change, but it still remains $100 for a local fine, and it doubles to $200 if you don't pay.

It was the earlier when you talked about the issuance and where there were paid fines.

I mean, you would hope that that deterred them.

They got hit with a fine, so then they complied after that.

But you probably would look into that data to see if you had repeat offenders because the way this is going, I ask, well, what's the escalation if you have a repeat offender?

But we may not have a repeat offender's problem.

Yeah.

So you can have a repeat offender and just keep paying your ticket.

So and we did discuss that.

Well, I would look at the original issuance, which I'm sure somebody probably has, and say, well, of those 137 or whatever they were, how many of those were repeat offenders?

And I don't know if we can break out that data.

I suspect we can, but we can.

I just really appreciate you all, the work that Ron and his staff did and Rich and Greg, everybody did, because this is so important for our neighborhoods that aren't, for the quality of life in our neighborhoods, especially the older neighborhoods that are just seeing change from urban, from being urbanized.

for the urbanization that's going on.

Well, and Ron's indicated this is part of making hope enforcement easier.

Do we have other questions at this point?

This is a public hearing, so we still have to handle that portion of it.

Any other comments or questions at this point?

Why don't we go ahead and open the public hearing.

Has anyone signed up for this item tonight?

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

All right.

There are no other comments.

Ms.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Very good.

That motion carries.

Thank you.

There was a little note there where Camelot got called out to be.

I just want to say Camelot is part of the Rio district.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I forgot that.

I don't want any.

I knew that.

Notice I didn't say anything.

I apologize.

I could increase my area a little more, though.

I was thinking Norman handled Camelot at one point.

I didn't want to take you away from you.

The next item this evening.

Number number 16.

This is S.P.

I said Maria last time.

I make sure I noted the right name this time.

She's got it.

You got it.

Good evening.

I'm just going to load my presentation real quick.

Okay.

Good evening, everyone.

So, I'm Mariah Gleason.

I'm a senior planner with the Planning Division of the Community Development Department, and tonight I'm gonna be presenting a special use permit request for SP 2019-3, Hunter's Way Coffee Shop, for your consideration.

The subject parcel is loc... Oh.

There we go.

The subject parcel is located in the rural area just south and east of exit 124 off of Interstate 64.

The parcel lies about 5,000 feet from the Pantops development area as measured along Route 250.

Looking closer, you can see that the property is part of a 16-parcel commercial and industrial district zoning, or legacy zoning district.

Oh, goodness, it's not even on present mode.

I'm so sorry.

There we go.

In the rural areas, businesses in this development include a daycare, self-storage facility, Amerigas propane, and a UPS customer center.

The applicant is requesting to locate a coffee shop on this parcel.

Coffee shops under our ordinance are classified as restaurant uses.

The proposal states that the coffee shop will be a maximum of 700 square feet with no interior dining space or public restrooms and intends to serve customers by a walk-up window as well as a potential drive-through window.

If the applicant includes a drive-through window, that aspect will be evaluated with a site plan amendment and subject to the additional regulations of Section 5 in the zoning ordinance.

This proposal was heard by the Planning Commission on January 14, 2020.

As you read in the transmittal summary, the commission recommended approval unanimously and offered revisions to the conditions presented by staff originally, those items being items A and B listed here.

The first recommendation was to substitute restaurant use wherever the phrase coffee shop was used, and the second was for an additional condition to designate parking spaces for customers of the walk-up window.

In follow-up conversations, zoning staff, our compliance enforcement body, concurred with the rewording of coffee shop to restaurant use.

However, did not recommend the addition of a fourth condition to designate parking spots.

Zoning staff indicated that this condition was not one we typically attach to special use permits.

Instead, we typically allow the property owner to decide if they are going to designate parking spots.

Also zoning found that ample parking is being provided for in the site plan amendment for this property.

Therefore put before you now are the revised conditions for your consideration.

These conditions are supported by the commission and county staff and are agreeable to the applicant.

If you would like to include a fourth condition, we do have that option available to you.

All right, any questions for staff at this point?

I have one.

So I need a little reassurance about what slippery slope we're going on by calling this a restaurant in the rural area because we've had very firm policy over decades that we don't do that.

Oh, well,

We do not have a definition for coffee shop in section three of the zoning ordinance.

It umbrellas under restaurant use in the definition, so we've typically been attaching restaurant use to the coffee shop as

the catchment for that because we don't have a definition for it as it exists now.

I think what you may be referencing, and correct me if I'm wrong, the ZTA that was 2018-2 that essentially expanded what we were allowed to evaluate

a restaurant use on, and it expanded so that it wasn't just a major amendment, it was a site, it was a special use permit, and it expanded the criteria that we would evaluate it against.

So it wasn't just water usage, it was water usage plus traffic, light, sound, smell, the gambit.

Well, I mean, long before that, people have asked for years about, oh gee, I'd love to have a little

Local food restaurant once a week only in White Hall and we're told flat not gonna happen because restaurants do not happen in places where you don't have water and sewer.

I just want to add that we did evaluate this against water usage and they are under their capacity.

We evaluated as 400 gallons per site acre per day and this use added to the existing uses and proposed uses which is a six bay auto repair shop and a hardware store.

Those are 3,000 square feet.

The auto repair store and the hardware store is anticipated to be 5,000 square feet.

This use would be 700, which is decidedly less.

And I think the conditions work to limit that size, scale, and intensity so that we're not looking at a full-blown restaurant use.

We're looking at very much a downsized version.

But Greg, I'll let you take it.

for this?

The square footage is the main control in terms of the intensity of the use.

Also, by limiting the indoor seating in the public restrooms, we were hoping to ratchet it down further and in that way kind of address concerns around traffic or how many cars will be parked and those things.

It's the way we technically describe it is what I'm worried about, which is not my skill.

That's what triggered me.

But it's the HC district I need to think about.

Other questions for staff?

Can you clean up?

I just lost the thread that was going from the Planning Commission recommended the fourth condition.

Right.

Staff essentially found that there would be an enforcement issue with that.

particular designation and if they, so the whole condition was about designating parking spots for this use.

I have a question.

You said this is a walk-up.

It's not known.

So that's a really good question.

So they could have a whole

I don't know that they could have a whole patio.

Well, but that's what bothers me, so if you've got people who come there, get coffee, they're able to sit down, there's a table there, they're gonna have to use the restroom at some point.

Right, right.

The drive-thru would need to be evaluated by the board as a special exception.

And there is a special exception on the agenda for May to be associated with this.

Well, maybe what we want to do is make sure they don't, getting at it the other way, Bea, I'm just thinking that the concern is that they would put tables and chairs out and then hang around and then need, it's not so much for me to drive through or the walk up, it's the patio and the lounging around that is kind of the disconnect it would seem like.

Yeah.

The no seating would be the answer.

Yeah.

I think that makes more sense.

No, I agree.

Otherwise there's a conflict.

So just so I'm clear,

a patio, for instance, and I'm not even sure if there's room with that, but anyway, that would be addressed at a site plan.

Yes, especially because it will be attached to a hardware store.

So the driveway will loop on two sides of it.

They'll have a structure on one side and then parking will be the other side.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

It's quite a what?

Constrained.

So really, if you eliminate the parking, except for employees, and you have a drive-through, then... Anyway.

Okay, thank you.

Other questions for staff at this point?

All right.

We will bring the applicant up.

Yes, come on.

You really have to do that?

Hit the eject button?

I didn't know there was an eject button.

I knew there was there, but I was like, yeah, that doesn't really matter.

Good evening, members of the Board of Supervisors.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

My name is Kelsey Schlein.

I'm a planner with Shimp Engineering.

Also here with me tonight, way in the back left, is Justin Shimp, the engineer on the project, as well as Kevin Schuyler with Heart Rock Farm, who is the applicant for this project.

So thank you to Mariah for a staff report.

So as Mariah said, this is a request for a coffee shop on a property zoned highway commercial, however, within the rural areas of Albemarle County.

So this is kind of the specifics of the request of the proposal.

Within this blue box we are requesting by special use permit a coffee shop at a maximum of 700 square feet on this site.

The rest of the building that's shown on the property would be a buy-write use.

It's proposed for a hardware store retail use and just a portion of that entire structure would be designated as the coffee shop.

And there was some discussion about drive-thru, walk-up, how is this all going to be

achieved, and Mariah touched on that briefly, the location of the proposed drive-thru, if that is approved, requires a special exception because it is adjacent to Hunter's Way, which is a public right of way.

and so there's a provision in section five of your code that prohibits drive-throughs from being located adjacent to a public right-of-way.

Hopefully, if this is approved tonight, that will be a discussion that we come before you and have on some time in May.

And so that, this, you kind of get a better feel for how the site would operate with a drive-through

wrapping around to the coffee shop.

So the existing conditions on the site, it's located at the intersection of Hunter's Way and Route 250.

There is an auto body shop user already on the site.

And this portion here towards the front is what we're calling the area of redevelopment.

It's where the building that we just looked at, the proposed hardware store, and the special use permit request for the coffee shop use would be located, fronting on Route 250 here.

This property is subject to ARB review, so you get that additional level of review for aesthetic consistency with the adjacent area.

And this project has already gone through preliminary review with the ARB, and so that's why we're at a point tonight where we can present renderings of what the building is proposed to look like.

This is some of the existing conditions.

Need to be updated a little bit from last summer.

If you've driven by there recently, you know that some of these homes are not, or these former model homes' offices are not existing on the property anymore.

And just in context, with the commercial industrial subdivision, it's right,

near floor fashions and UPS, Bright Eyes Childcare.

And so kind of in this commercial, industrial, very pocket hub of business in the rural areas.

This is just some more site context of the existing conditions on Hunter's Way and looking from the site out onto Route 250.

and this is the proposed plan view of the site design.

So you kind of get a better idea.

There was talk about, you know, is there going to be outdoor seating?

And you can, it's a pretty restrained site, especially with all of the users that are currently on the site and that are proposed to be on the site.

And additionally, kind of flipping back to this picture here,

So this picture is taken kind of up on the hillside, looking over Route 250.

And so not only is the site kind of restrained with the number of users that would be on there, but there's also a hillside right here.

So not ideal for outdoor seating, could not comfortably sit on a picnic table there.

This is just the proposed circulation.

See how vehicles would navigate the site.

and just an elevation from Route 250.

And again, this has already gone under preliminary review with the ARB.

And if approved tonight, we'll move forward with going forward for an additional review before the ARB.

And that is the extent of our presentation tonight.

If you could go back to where the one photo where you had, no, back again, back again, back, back.

Actually, what I was thinking of is, because I know this area very well and you're correct, in the front of it, there's no way you can put anything in there.

It's a huge slope, and I know because I've climbed that slope to put up campaign signs.

and nothing can go there except a mountain lion or a mountain goat.

And a supervisor, and a short supervisor, yes, crawling up there.

Anyway, so you have the car and I can see the drive-through, no problem.

I'm talking about the small little area in the front.

I guess that would be the drive-up, the walk-up window right there.

Correct.

That's not the intention right now.

It's a pretty limited space.

Not at this time.

I would also say that there are other existing users on the site.

The whole issue is public restrooms.

Looking at that building, my understanding is the main part of it is going to be a hardware store.

And that's the ground floor.

So we have it kind of rendered as a second floor.

I believe it's a 3,000 square foot footprint with a 5,200 square foot request.

And so it could be storage.

It could be in the future.

If there's another site plan amendment, it could

be an office, but I think at this time it's just more of like storage for kind of like Martin's Hardware when you go downstairs and they have a whole hardware store that has storage everywhere of all the supplies.

And the top floor, it looks like you've got two pergola sort of areas.

Yeah, so that is imagined as a place where people can be outside.

There's not signs that say seating upstairs or if it's not affiliated with the restaurant use itself.

I don't think it's encouraging for people to stay there.

I think there's many examples of this for retail and office users around town.

buildings that front on 250 right next to Chick-fil-A, those are all office, retail, gym users and they have the nice seating on the second floor for people who work there.

And so I think there's examples of that around and that's kind of what this was modeled after.

They do have public restrooms there.

If they go to the coffee shop, they purchase a beverage.

They don't have public restrooms, but if they go upstairs to that open area, which looks very attractive, it would encourage people to go there.

When you go back to the Chick-fil-A example, those office buildings between Chick-fil-A and 250, there are people who are working there and they would generally use what's in their building.

I haven't gotten a clear sense of the rest of the use of this building.

Sure, and I think kind of back to Mariah's point about the question about water usage.

The limiting of the public restrooms and the limiting of no seating is specifically to mitigate potential water usage impacts and traffic impacts.

Because if you, when we look at the legacy industrial use, I think is what they called this area, the 16 parcels,

Pretty much those are going to be the only customers who are going to walk up to the place.

If you're on 250, no sidewalks, no easy access for just, oh, I'm just walking down 250, I'm going to stop at a coffee shop.

It's going to the people who work there that would be coming.

And candidly, when I was thinking a hardware store, one story, I didn't see any issues.

Excuse me, Justin Schimp, engineer for the project.

This is an interesting situation in that, so going through the ARB process, they encourage design like this, but it's actually not really tied to the special use permit.

that is a

here's a good design we thought of and yet and the model of course for this is a drive-through model that's where all the traffic comes from that's the business a few people may hop out of their cars they want to stretch their legs for a minute walk to the walk-up window get a coffee and move on their way I don't know how we deal with this exactly and that the

The office space is by right would be entitled to a rooftop deck if it was so inclined.

There could be some condition, you know, trying to restrict that.

It's going to be hard to enforce to say, oh, well, if you buy coffee, you also can't visit your friend in the office.

on their patio.

So I get the questions, but at the same time, we could have changed this, shown just the one story, not discussed any of this at all as far as the rooftop, and then come back and propose that, and you would have never known until it was there, basically, because they're not connected, at least from a zoning standpoint.

Definitely it's a drive-thru model.

You're right, people could see that and be attracted to it.

I don't know how we prohibit that.

Yeah, I understand what you mean Donna, excuse me, Supervisor Price.

But I do think that if there's office buildings on the top floor, then really the only people who are going to go down and walk up and get coffee are the people who are in the offices or at the hardware store.

But once again, they have restrooms, they all have restrooms.

I think that is conditioned.

We may not have a public restroom associated with this use.

So in the example, if you go to the coffee shop and you wanted to use the restroom, you'd have to sort of encroach upon the office user's space, the hardware store's space, which I'm not saying they would bar someone for doing that, but in theory, you're not in the restaurant space.

You're walking to someone else's space they're leasing, they're paying for.

Oh, I just have one more question.

Your drive-through, would that also be large enough for the UPS trucks?

Because, you know, they're going to come down Hunter's Way and they're going to get their coffee.

That's what I'm asking.

Often, I think that's where the pull-up spaces come into play.

Often the canopies and things on those are lower than those trucks go into.

Greg Kamner, County Attorney.

If the board will look at condition number three,

which deals with, that's the condition that deals with public restroom use.

I'm sorry, I'm just baffled by this whole thing.

There is nothing about this plan that invites people to come hang out with their coffee.

I mean, this proprietor is saying, come pick your coffee up and leave unless you're going to buy some hardware supplies.

So the top use, the office use, that's all a separate issue in my opinion.

But I'm baffled that there's no seating.

I'm giving in to the proprietors model here or whoever's doing the coffee shop.

I was baffled why there isn't seating available.

I was like, oh, it's a coffee shop.

You should have some seats.

But that's not the plan.

This is like those little shacks that are out that I've seen in other areas that, yeah, it's for the people on the go.

I think some of the concerns, why I understand and appreciate the concerns, there's nothing in this whole design that tells me that's going to become an issue.

I mean, you're not going to want to walk up three flights to hang out, and somebody puts a sign on the door that says, for staff only, and that takes care of that for all of these issues.

I mean, you've got to give the business a little bit of some common sense here to execute the plan.

So I mean, I'm sorry, I just get a little, I'm just getting a little baffled here.

Yes, sort of a different point of view altogether.

This seems to me to be shoehorning something in that really doesn't belong.

And it's a perfect example of the real problems we have with this whole 400 gallons per acre nonsense anyway.

is that it restricts the things that should happen because there's no water and sewer available.

But there's no water and sewer available here.

So the kinds of things that would make this a really appealing business don't exist because of the lack of of the facility.

So I'm I'm baffled as well, because I would never go to a place where I couldn't wash my hands.

The business plan.

Lots of people go through drive-thrus for coffee.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I personally am fine with this.

I think it's a good space for a drive-thru to get your coffee.

Probably everybody is just going to, and I remember the Planning Commission minutes somebody made the point that

I think the Planning Commission went over it really well.

Anyway, I'll

Well, I thought it was addressed.

So, last question.

The reason why, because I agree with you, Chair Galloway, is that it would be a great little coffee shop to have seating and people come inside and everything, but that would make it more of a restaurant type and because of the water issue, that's why we can't do it.

Is that correct?

You're talking to someone that would feel differently about this whole restaurant.

We probably shouldn't even go down that.

I agree.

So we can open the public hearing.

Is there anyone signed up for this item?

Anyone here who wishes to speak to this item?

All right.

You know, I do have a comment about this, just so I'm clear.

So we're not specifying spaces for the walk-up parking, right?

That's not part of this.

So I basically gave you two options.

So we don't want the fourth one, I agree with that.

Second.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

I'll look forward to seeing you there.

And as with Supervisor Mallek, McKeel, I do want to add, however, that because water is such a sensitive issue in this area of the county, I think it was important that we have that conversation.

about it.

I concur.

I think it's a really neat idea.

I think it's going to be a great improvement to that little section of the district in 250.

And I hope that it's very successful.

So what I'm gonna just make a quick comment, and it's against what everybody here has said, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

I am becoming very concerned about the number of drive-throughs we're approving in a time when we're talking about reducing our carbon footprint, and we're now starting to see restaurants with two drive-through lines.

Not one, but two.

And at some point, I don't understand

how people that say they are environmentalists and they want us to reduce our carbon footprint want to continue to build more and more drive-throughs.

And, well, thank you, but I am becoming, and I get it, I use them occasionally myself, but I'm starting to think about this from a different lens, and all I'm suggesting tonight is, and I'm happy to support this because it's what we have and we've been approving them,

But when we have our discussions around climate change and our footprint and what we might want to think about going forward, I think this is worthy of at least a little bit of a discussion.

And I would agree with that in many situations.

I just honestly thought that this was a reasonable place with a short area for coffee for people to run into.

And I know what I just said would not be popular if people in the morning want to go to a drive-through and get a cup of coffee.

That's all I'm saying.

And especially in places where the whole neighborhood thing is designed for people on their fleet.

It wouldn't be appropriate in Stonefield.

It certainly isn't appropriate really in my mind in Pan Tops.

People should get out of their car and go in and do stuff.