Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   6/17/2020

Welcome.

I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our June 17 1 p.m.

meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A6, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

The supervisors who are electronically present at this meeting are Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Liz Palmer of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District,

Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, the Rivanna District, and myself, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District.

The persons responsible for receiving public comment are the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle County.

The opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Also, we have our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson,

County Attorney Mr. Greg Campner, our Board Clerk Claudette Borgeson and our Senior Deputy Clerk Mr. Travis Morris are also present for the meeting.

And with that Board if everyone would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

and Justice for All.

If everyone would please join in a moment of silence.

and Board, we're at the adoption of the final agenda.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

All right, very good.

I think we'll address that item individually right after the approval of the consent agenda.

Any other items need to be pulled from consent?

All right, is there a motion to approve the agenda as modified?

Is there a second?

All right, I heard Supervisor Price with the motion and Mallek with the second.

And Travis, you go ahead with the vote.

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Bea LaPisto-Kirtley?

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Very good.

All right board the next item brief announcements by board members.

We'll follow our speaking order.

Supervisor Price you're up first.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Just briefly, our nation is dealing with so many issues right now.

The pandemic seems to have fallen in the background of many people's lives, but I saw in the news right before our meeting today that Texas, Arizona, and Florida are facing record infection rates.

And so we cannot put behind us a pandemic that is still in the midst of us.

And I urge caution to everyone in our Commonwealth and our community

as you look to reopen things.

We, of course, are also dealing with the economic fallout of that.

And most recently, the Black Lives Matter movement, which has coalesced after the death of George Floyd, but that was simply the latest of a number of issues.

It is in that latest item that I would like to take a few moments to express my support for the Albemarle County Police Department and Chief Lance and the work that they have done with their community policing.

We hear calls for defunding the police and that means different things to different people.

I was in the Navy for 25 years and near the end of my career the military was being called upon to do things that were not really in the realm what the military should be doing.

And I believe that over time what we have done is that we have imposed upon our police departments responsibilities that really are not theirs.

And we in government have an obligation to fund the resources

in other areas, social support, social welfare, mental health, and things such as that in order to remove those responsibilities from law enforcement and allow law enforcement to do the things that they do best.

I am very appreciative of what our local law enforcement has done.

I want to express my support for them.

Chief Lance and I have had a number of communications where we recognize the importance of employing the proper individuals, having the right procedures, training them on those procedures, and then holding them accountable and responsible.

And I think that we in our community have been very blessed, and I just want to express that.

Thank you.

I have no announcements.

I was going to say something about the general state of the world as Donna just did.

So she did an excellent job.

Thank you.

I, like Liz, I'm just going to agree with Donna's comments.

I thought they were excellent and well said.

I do want to add, just for us to think about, in the fall when we are establishing our legislative packet,

that one of the things that we're going to really want to talk to the General Assembly about is helping us to finance some of the exact government responsibilities that Donna mentioned, social services, all of those functions that need to happen

that really have been pushed back onto the localities to pay for.

And so some of this, we're gonna need the help of the General Assembly to make this happen and to be able to afford really what we need to do.

So having said that, thank you, Donna.

Thank you.

It has been a really positive

change over the last 12 years and I appreciate all the work that our county staff and citizens and the police department have done to increase the training level, increase the standards, increase the accountability for our department and they have been so responsive to questions from citizens and I appreciate and share over and over these very well articulated

sets of information that have been sent out.

So I do encourage people to still stay involved with this whole discussion as we go forward because we all know we have improvements we can make and our officers know that too and are working very hard to improve things as every day goes along.

Under the COVID-19 there are still businesses in our area who are not following the governor's guidelines about masks

I hear complaints from citizens and ask them to call the Department of Health because that is where this enforcement should happen.

But businesses should be aware that if there isn't comfort level on the part of their customers, their customers are not going to come.

And we are all in this together and we have to be very careful to continue the work that has caused such sacrifice amongst our citizens and our communities in Virginia.

We cannot turn our back on it now and throw all that away.

on a very good news.

The Safe and Ready Resilience Committee, which is a subgroup of the White Hall Ruritans, is progressing along every two weeks working on their plans to help communication and planning for the citizens of that area.

And I hope this will be a pilot that could then be picked up by other neighborhoods and neighborhood organizations throughout the area.

But the latest is that they are sponsoring

A COVID-19 testing as is the early still fire department dates to be determined in July.

the first the 16th through the 30th and then the Crozet date is not yet chosen but I encourage others in other parts of this county to do the same to reach out to VDH to be able to offer a site where people by appointment could drive up to get testing because this will help our help our numbers help our understanding of what's the current situation and help us do a better job dealing with this.

Thank you.

Yes, I concur with everything that Supervisor Price and Supervisor McKeel said.

I am in support of

Ron Lance and what he does as well as Sheriff Chan Bryan.

I think they both do an excellent job.

There is room for improvement as there always is and police officers aren't social workers.

They shouldn't be expected to do that and so we need to make sure that we have the monies and I think that's an

We have an excellent idea as far as getting it from the state.

They have to help us be able to find more services for in areas that belong to mental health, that belong to social work, that belong, you know.

that aren't part of or shouldn't be part of the police enforcement.

So we need them, of course, in all areas because of the fact that crime doesn't go away.

But let's get the help we need for mental health and for social services and get some of that away from the police department so they don't have that burden.

Thank you.

I appreciate the comments Supervisor Price made and concur as well.

The only thing I would add is that I appreciate the fact that our constituents have been reaching out to us.

We've been obviously receiving volume of email around our normal kind of

business items, land use items, applications and the like, but we're also receiving emails as it relates to things that are going on in the world from COVID-19.

Issues around Mr. Floyd's death and issues with our own grounds and statues and locations of things like that.

So the fact that our constituents have been emailing us shows that they, even though there are so many different issues going on, they stay well informed.

And we do have some, I believe we have two proclamations or resolutions today.

The first proclamation is in celebration of LGBTQIA Pride Month.

And do we have that proclamation ready to be read by a supervisor by chance?

Mr. Gallaway, I will read it.

I understand that Suri Russell from the Office of Equity and Inclusion is available.

I think it would be best for Supervisor Price to go ahead and read the resolution first and I'll be deferring my speaking time to Lisa Green, the chair of the Albemarle County LGBTQIA Affinity Group.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

I'm proud to offer a proclamation in celebration of LGBTQIA Pride Month, whereas Albemarle County's stated mission is to enhance the well-being and quality of life for all citizens through the provision of the highest level of public service consistent with the prudent use of public funds.

and whereas the board of supervisors is committed to supporting through its actions and its partnerships the promotion of an equitable and inclusive Albemarle County and whereas Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, LGBT Pride Month

is celebrated annually in June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Riots and works to achieve equal justice and equal opportunity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning LGBTQ Americans.

and whereas on April 11 Governor Northam signed the Virginia Values Act comprised of 16 pro-equality bills into law making history as the first state in the south to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in their daily lives and whereas the Virginia Values Act bans discrimination against LGBT people in employment, housing and public spaces

allows cities and counties to pass their own non-discrimination ordinances, prohibits health insurance companies from discriminating against transgender Virginians, ensures public schools provide an equal learning environment to transgender students and more,

and now therefore be it resolved that we the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors continue to affirm our commitment to our stated mission to enhance the well-being and quality of life of all the members of our community and recognize with pride the rich cultural diversity and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning residents of the vibrant Albemarle County

All right, very good.

Supervisor Price made the resolution.

Supervisor Palmer has seconded.

Go ahead and call the vote.

Ms.

Price?

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Right, thank you board.

That motion carries.

Yes sir, thank you.

What a week and it's only Wednesday.

Happy Pride Month.

I want to thank you for this resolution during Pride Month and while we should be celebrating with all the new rulings by the Supreme Court and the new legislations that have been passed,

protecting the LGBTQIA community from employment discrimination, I would be remiss not to mention the injustices and tragedies that continue to occur in our nation and we must do better.

As you heard, Pride Month began 51 years ago as a riot against police brutality, against human beings of the LGBTQ community and specifically the transgender people of color.

Sound familiar?

This new ruling by the Supreme Court and the signing of the new legislation gives us glimmers of hope, but I promise you we've not exhaled.

A wise woman told me this week, we've just won this battle.

We are far from winning the war.

Today's resolution is another step forward and I want to thank you and explain to you all the importance of this particular resolution.

In the past, the Pride Month resolutions have been requested and accepted by the Seville Pride Organization as a part of the Pride Festival in September.

While I'm a part of that Civil Pride organization, I'm grateful for the support by this board to this regional organization.

Neither myself nor any other county employee has ever come before you in this capacity.

I have a story I've shared with some, but I will share it with all of you.

In 2013, the Segal Pride Organization came to this body asking for a resolution for the celebration of the Pride Festival on September 4th.

At that meeting, one of the Board of Supervisors at that time asked, how many people care about this?

The president of the Charlottesville Pride Organization, who happens to be at that time my future wife and my children were there and I was there after hours as an employee.

And when she turned around to ask everyone to stand as a part of support for this,

I slumped in my chair.

Reluctantly and hesitantly I stood, but I was fearful.

And I know there were others in that audience who did not stand, who probably would have had they not had the same fear.

See, in this county, there has been a fear that you might lose your job just for being who you are and loving who you love and being married to who you are married to.

That resolution did not pass that day.

That was 2013.

So I hope by passing this resolution you too will show you stand up without hesitation against homophobia and transphobia and stand with us in saying the names of black and brown transgender humans who have been injured and killed very recently and their names aren't being spoken.

Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Monika Diamond,

Raya Milton, Dominique Fells, and our own community member Sage Smith who went missing in 2012 and still has not been found and her name was not mentioned in our news media.

So today I am very happy, filled with emotion, without hesitation, to stand up on behalf of the LGBTQIA affinity group as a county employee and accept this resolution.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lisa.

I can't, I'll cry.

Thank you very much, Lisa.

That was beautifully put.

Thank you very much for those comments.

Thank you.

transgender member of the board.

This has been a very emotional week.

Earlier this week we saw the Trump administration is resending health care protections for transgender individuals.

Yesterday or the day before, it's been sort of older, we saw a six to three Supreme Court

Rights Act of 1964, the word sex apply cannot, you cannot talk about homosexuality or gender identity without addressing sex and that it is protected.

In my lifetime, I've gone from serving in the Navy where if the Navy had found out I even thought that I was transgender, I would have been discharged and the basis would have been sexual coercion without regarding any conduct or behavior on my part.

to an opening to a closing.

And today, we see an opening again.

And with a six to three decision, we see that history is on our side.

But much as after the Obergefell decision on marriage equality in 2015, many people thought that it's over, we're done, we don't have any more concerns.

We've seen attacks against civil rights and human rights for LGBT individuals.

Today we're dealing with the same issue with regard to black Americans with the Black Lives Matter issue and our brown brothers and sisters and people of all races and ethnicities.

And so I sit, I am here today with pride, um, literally and figuratively, um, at the progress that our country is making, the support that this county now offers.

It, uh, it's hard to imagine what has happened, what has changed in just the last seven to 10 years.

simply allowing people to be free to be me, to live their lives without fear and I am extremely proud to be a part of this board.

I am extremely appreciative of the support that this board, Jeff Richardson, our county executive and county staff and our community has shown to me and we are stronger together

We are all in this together, and this is just one step, and I thank you for this opportunity to speak.

Lisa, thank you so much for your words.

Thank you, Supervisor Price and Lisa.

Please let everyone know that this board will never fail to stand in support of you and everybody in this community.

And we'll stand quickly and steadfast.

and we will keep being there with you as we continue to make the progress we need to make.

The next item is a resolution of appreciation for Matt Smith.

I do, Chair Galloway.

Resolution of appreciation for Matt Smith.

Whereas Matt Smith has faithfully served the County of Albemarle over the last 46 years as the Superintendent of Parks, providing mentorship and leadership as a recreation service provider, building and maintaining relationships at the community, regional and state level that reflect the community's and organizational vision and

Whereas Bath's leadership and vision with the Parks and Recreation Department in creating and maintaining a county-wide park and recreation system have led to tremendous growth and success which has resulted in over 5,000 acres of public parkland, 12 regional and community parks, three swimming beaches, four community centers, 21 athletic fields, five public river accesses,

two dog parks, 75 miles of multi-use recreation trails, greenways, and open spaces that provides recreational experiences for over 850,000 visitors and guests annually.

Whereas Matt has coordinated and served as project manager

on countless capital improvement and park enhancement projects.

Been a leader in many existing and new park designs and with his knowledge, skills, and innovation, these have resulted in project design and development savings.

all benefiting our community and surrounding areas and whereas Matt has diligently worked with community leaders and stakeholders both non-profit and for-profit in accessing and providing community recreation needs not only for the present but for the future generations and has served on many civic organizations

that also benefit our community in so many ways and whereas Matt has coached and mentored not only his own staff but also staff from other departments and agencies looked at the broader picture and assisting others as to how projects, tasks, and issues would benefit the county in meeting community needs.

encouraged others to do the utmost for excellence, viewed success in relation to the overall organizational success, and has strived to provide the highest level of service.

Now therefore be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, hereby honor Matt Smith and commend him for his many years of exceptional service to the County of Albemarle, the Department of Parks and Recreation, Albemarle County residents,

the broader community in which we live and the Commonwealth of Virginia with the knowledge that Albemarle County is strengthened and distinguished by massive leadership, dedication, commitment, professionalism, and compassion in meeting community needs.

On the seventh of June 2020, I only want to add that I wish you could stay on for another 46 years.

All right, the motion has been made by Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, seconded by Supervisor Palmer.

You can go ahead and call the roll.

Ms.

Joyfully aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Very good, that motion carries.

I understand we have Bob Krichenberger here.

Bob, you're going to make some comments for us?

My apologies, do you hear me now?

I'm not that familiar with Zoom, more so with Dean's, but okay.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, sir.

Okay, well, and I agree, I wish Matt could stay on for another forty-six, but

and I appreciate the opportunity to just share a few words.

Matt is not one that favors or is comfortable with a lot of public recognition so being respectful I'm going to be as gentle as possible but I do want to share just some additional comments.

When we look back on the history of parks and recreation

We find that different people have featured in prominent ways at various times.

Matt is one of those individuals.

Matt has served this organization and community for 46 years, and I've had the honor and pleasure of serving by his side.

Over those years,

Matt would oversee many defining moments in major park developments.

Matt has been such a strength of foundation, has navigated the department through times of change and tremendous growth.

When he started, there were only three park facilities.

Minnespring Valley Park, Chris Green Lake, and Beaver Creek.

Over the coming years, and with Matt's leadership,

There are now over 4,000 acres of public property, four regional and community parks, 21 athletic fields, five public river access, four community centers, greenways and open spaces, and 75 miles of multi-use trails.

As stated in the resolution, our park's annual visitation averages over 850,000 people, and Matt leaves his signature

with each park visitor.

During Matt's career, he has managed all these facilities and at times with limited resources.

However, with Matt's skills, talent, innovation, by employing new trends and best practices, he's been able to continue to provide a high level of service to our citizens.

which are reflective in our Parks and Recreation 2004, our 2018 Community Recreation Needs Assessment, and a recent County Community Survey.

The findings of all these surveys bring Parks and Recreation very high in quality and care and a high level of customer service.

That is one of those individuals that has the ability to inspire others and knows how to bring the best out of people.

He was excellent at encouraging imagination, culture and teamwork.

He's done this not only with the staff that he manages over, that he manages, excuse me, but others in Parks and Recreation, as well as others across the organization.

Matt's thinking and actions has always looked at the broader picture, not just his own and has influenced others to think and react the same.

Matt is one of the smartest people I've ever known.

Matt just doesn't know a lot about everything.

He knows everything about everything.

Whenever I needed something,

I didn't go to the internet.

I would just always go to Matt.

He could always figure it out and always had an answer.

A day rarely goes by that someone doesn't stop by his office, stops him in the parking lot or in the hall, or sends him an email or calls him, all seeking his assistance, his advice, tapping into his wealth of knowledge.

and Matt always welcomes the opportunity to assist and is always willing to drop whatever he's doing to help.

Matt will always be remembered as putting the needs of others ahead of his own.

Matt has always been our go-to person, a utility player and a dedicated team player.

We joke in Parks and Recreation that if Matt can't fix it, regardless of the needs,

Man, we're all screwed.

We're in trouble.

So on closing, I want to thank Matt for who he is, what he is, and what he has accomplished over so many years as a public servant.

With his leadership, commitment, and vision, these talents have made the quality of life in Albemarle County such a desirable place to live and play.

Matt will be greatly missed but never forgotten, and I know that if Matt places as much effort in joint retirement as he has working for Albemarle County, that too is sure to be a success.

Thank you, Bob.

I would like to make a quick comment on just listening to Bob talk.

I'm remembering the first time I ever met Matt.

I was on the board of the Ivy Creek Foundation.

It was almost 20 years ago now and I had a very small little project I wanted to do there that involved some plumbing.

and we weren't quite sure how to do it.

And everybody said, oh, you got to call Matt up.

And I did.

And he came right out and explained everything about how to do it, knew everything that needed to be done and was incredibly helpful.

And over the years, I've heard from citizens over and over and over again exactly what you said.

You've got to call Matt.

He'll help you.

Mr. Gallaway, if I might just briefly, I just want to express great appreciation to the Parks and Rec Department and Mr. Smith for what you have done.

The perks are so critical to our quality of life here and the improvements that have taken place.

are just amazing and I thank you very much for your dedication and support of nearly five decades for this county and its community and its citizens.

Thank you very much, Bob.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I find it remarkable to be celebrating 46 years of service in one place.

That's becoming a more rare

Landmark if you were a milestone for folks.

So he certainly earned the to enjoy the retirement.

Great board.

The next item on our agenda is number seven from the public matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda on matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board.

Thank you Chair Galloway and for those who have signed up to speak before the board.

During the time set aside for matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board other than items listed on the agenda for public hearing.

Individuals are allowed three minutes to speak and our clerk is managing the sign up.

Timekeeping is conducted through a timer.

The timer will commence when you begin speaking and this begins your allotted time.

You will be notified when the three minutes are up and are requested to bring your comments to a close as your microphone will be muted after about five more seconds.

In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests the speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

When called to address the board, please state your name and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district.

Address your comments directly to the board as a whole.

If you have written statements and other supporting material, you may email them to the clerk to be included in the record.

If you represent a group or organization, you may identify the group to be recognized.

If the speaker does not use all allocated time, the unused time may not be shared with another speaker.

Speakers are permitted one opportunity to comment during each of the public comment periods for meeting, and back and forth debate is not permitted.

All comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

Thank you.

And for any speakers who are listening in who are signed up by phone, the way to raise your hand for the clerk is to star nine, and that alerts you to the clerk and then they will proceed from there.

And if the clerk needs to give additional instructions, invite her to do so.

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon.

I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I'm here to talk about the Monticello and PVCC connector that is among the suite of smart scale applications.

You've heard that people shouldn't have to drive to take a walk on the area's favorite trail.

You've heard about reducing vehicle trips by the tens of thousands and parking at Monticello

We've spoken about getting to PVCC without a car and connecting southern neighborhood residents to jobs and opportunity.

I'm sure you know that Monticello is visible and close to many residents, including the children at Clark School, but they can't easily get there.

Nor can a tourist who arrives by plane or train.

With this project, they could walk, bike, or even catch the number one cat bus.

Probably the biggest reason I'm personally so passionate about this dates to when I took part in a walk-in procession from the Jefferson School to Monticello.

It was fun, deeply moving, and great exercise, except that the organizers had to hire a bus to drive us the half mile from the city line to the Monticello trailhead.

That isn't right, and it's an example of how the status quo actually causes harm.

There are challenges, as there are with any project, but we can work through them together, and that's what a yes vote will authorize.

I know that you have been hearing frightening words about the destruction of trees, but that is not happening.

It is absolutely possible to have both a path and trees.

In fact, we insist on it.

As the founding partner of the Journey Through Hell and Ground, PUC is fully committed to do whatever it takes to protect these important resources.

And please don't fall for stories about nicer alternatives that may one day become possible.

I've studied them all intimately and none of them is likely anytime soon.

This project, on the other hand, is very feasible and would be a major improvement.

Albemarle can meet its climate goals and be the connected community that residents consistently say they want.

But to do it, we have to learn to accept yes for an answer.

A yes vote today will authorize a robust, good faith community effort to find a solution that VDOT will then pay for.

A no vote simply shuts it down.

I hope you will allow this process to go forward with whatever amendments you require to assure that it be satisfactorily inclusive.

Thank you.

My name is Dorothy Smith.

I own an 18th century house on Route 20 near Scottsville.

The Monticello Gateway tree planting is a combined vision of the Charlottesville Tree Commission, the Charlottesville area tree stewards,

and Journey Through Hallowed Ground.

The design is a series of groves of native canopy trees that visually and environmentally link Monticello and PVCC to the city.

and welcome travelers to Charlottesville.

The trees were chosen for their lifespan, thus reducing long-term costs, height for visibility and safety for drivers, and fall color.

Species are favorites of Thomas Jefferson.

In 2015, the Charlottesville area tree stewards received a grant from the Virginia Trees for Water Quality Program to plant 80 trees to enhance our tree canopy and improve water, air, and quality of life.

The many local businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies that contributed labor, money, and services to this proud endeavor are listed at the end of the history I emailed you yesterday.

These trees are the final stretch of the journey through hallowed ground heritage area, which stretches for 180 miles from Gettysburg to Monticello.

The term memorial trees refers to the living legacy tree planting, an initiative to plant one tree along the hallowed ground byway for each of the 620,000 soldiers who died during the American Civil War.

The trees in the Monticello Gateway are the culmination of honoring all that spent blood that still defines us.

The current plan for a bike path in the Route 20 median does not acknowledge the well-being of the trees in any way.

There is not one dollar of budget allocated to their survival.

As citizen arborists, the tree stewards and our professional partners are raising the alarm that this plan as it now stands will kill the trees.

The Monticello Gateway represents the best of our community working together toward a vision that unites history and nature.

Thank you.

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed project.

My name is Tim Maywalt.

I'm a member of the Charlottesville area tree stewards.

I'd just like to make one addition to the comments that were just made by Dorothy Smith.

That is, I was involved in the planting of the trees along the median on Route 20.

And the day we planted these trees, I had the opportunity to work side by side with Virginia National Guard troops who volunteered to assist us to put these beautiful trees at a site that welcomes all those who enter the city via Route 20.

And I feel that it would be a dishonor to those troops, as well as to the families of our Civil War dead, to damage and displace those trees, which is the only way you're going to be able to accomplish putting a trail there.

Thank you.

Hi, this is Kendra Harrison Hall.

I'm in the Samuel Miller District, so hello to Liz Palmer.

I'm reading a letter from Phyllis Johansson.

She's a concerned citizen that has unreliable internet and also a Charlottesville area tree steward like myself.

Here's her letter.

It has come to my attention that a proposed bike path will seriously alter and possibly destroy the trees that currently exist in the Monticello Gateway project.

As a resident of Albemarle County, I'm disturbed for several reasons.

First, a large scale three-year effort representing the work of multiple community organizations and hardworking people is about to be tossed to the curb.

These trees are a source of pride and are intended to beautify the entrance to Charlottesville for all residents and visitors.

How is more concrete going to upgrade the look of our beautiful landscape?

Secondly, having people ride bikes between multi lanes of fast moving traffic is a recipe for disaster.

If nine trees have been run over in the last four years, what is the potential for a tragic accident?

Certainly it represents a distraction to motorist driving in both directions.

Thirdly, and most important to me as a citizen of the world, is that the Charlottesville area tree stewards have projected the depth of 62 trees.

As we humans wrestle with what we can do to repair nature, why in the world would we think that replacing trees with concrete is the right thing to do?

Trees fight climate change by absorbing CO2 and pollutant particulates, storing the carbon and then emitting pure oxygen.

The rest of the world is planting trees to save the planet.

Trees grow slowly, but bulldozers move quickly.

So please do not destroy the Monticello Gateway by approving funding for this project.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jackie Vater.

I'm a member of the Charlottesville area tree stewards.

I live in the Rio district and I'm reading a letter from a tree steward who is also a biker.

She writes, I disagree with the location of the shared use path on Route 20.

You would think that a wide path in a median would provide some safety for pedestrians and bikers.

Instead, I think that anyone, young and old, that rides or walks that path once will not do it again.

I have biked many miles throughout the area in the on and off 21 years I've lived here.

I have biked route 20.

Having large trucks go by makes you feel like you are going to be sucked under.

While cars pass, my knuckles are white and my teeth are clenched.

I am pedaling as fast as I can and scanning ahead for potholes and a place to ditch in case there is a problem from oncoming traffic.

So I applaud efforts to make the area more bicycle friendly.

But my concerns are the following.

Number one,

Access to both the northern and southern terminus of the path will be crosswalks across two lanes of traffic.

Number two, being in the center of traffic gives no option to avoid an oncoming out of control car, much less one coming from behind.

Could that happen?

Yes, as evidenced by the number of trees in the median that has been replaced after the original trees were run over by reckless driver, as has been said.

Guardrails do not provide enough safety.

Number three, for a biker or pedestrian the path will be breezy, noisy, and dusty due to the traffic.

It will be extremely hot in the summertime due to

pavement on both sides.

There will be little to no shade after the path is built because the installation will require removal of some of the trees and the rest will start a slow death due to suffocation caused by several feet of soil added to level the medium and by compaction caused by heavy equipment.

In summary, what was once a welcoming memorial grove of more than 70 trees funded by a federal grant and planted and cared for by many volunteers will just be a very expensive bear calf in the medium of Route 20.

Sincerely, Libby Gretsz.

Thank you.

Hello, this is Paul Josie.

I live in Charlottesville.

I'm a principal at Wolf Josie Landscape Architects and the former chair of the Charlottesville Tree Commission from 2016 to 2019.

And I wanted just to say that it is ridiculous that PEC has tried to sneak this bike lane down the center of the Route 20 medium.

I worked on the design of this memorial grove with a number of groups, including, as mentioned already, the Tree Commission, the tree stores, along with Monticello, working with species.

Thomas Jefferson wrote and Myers, as well as the journey through hallowed ground and National Guard members that helped plant all of these memorial trees to fallen soldiers.

So I know this site and I know the many utilities that we flagged to locate the trees.

I know the challenging topography and also how loud and dangerous the site is.

And this plan does not, or the budget for this plan, does not account for those utilities or the topography.

And because I know the site, I know the proposed plan removes nearly every memorial tree proposed.

There are good ideas for a revised design to this plan that have been talked about that could save these trees.

They're talked about narrowing the lanes of Route 20 to slow down traffic, widening the median to make it a more

and more safe, welcoming place to ride bikes.

Also ways to save the trees or transplant memorial trees.

They've all been discussed, but none of these ideas are in the plan proposed or the budget proposed for the Smarts Peak Scale application.

Those trees growing in five to 10 years, are they going to be watered?

Because they're going to need water every day.

Does VDOT provide irrigation?

I don't think so.

This is a critical historic connection between Charlottesville and Albemarle County, between Monticello and the town, and this is a bad plan and a bad budget.

So I ask the board today to deny the smart scale funding for the Route 20 bike trail and let them come back in two years with a good plan built with public input to build a trail for the rest of us, families and walkers and not just bikes.

Thank you.

Hey, I'm back.

The plan as presented is deceptive and incomplete.

Elevations were deliberately not provided.

And so it is not clear that the median is a ditch, a drainage ditch.

The ditch starts at about one foot at College Drive and deepens to around five feet at the bridge.

The trees are planted in the sides of the ditch and some even near the bottom.

The plan will fill the ditch and add curves to further increase the final height of the median.

You fill the ditch, you bury the trees under feet of dirt.

You bury a tree, you kill a tree.

You don't have to be a tree expert to know this.

How do you fill a ditch?

You bring in dump trucks and heavy equipment, and then you compact the soil.

You need a compacted surface for the trail.

So not only are the trees buried, but the soil above them is compacted, and so they cannot get air or water.

The trees will die.

All the trees in the median will die.

Over 60 trees.

They say they will remove and relocate the trees that are in the footprint of the path, but no plans

are provided and there is no budget item for the trees.

No plan and no money?

It's highly unlikely it will happen.

If this plan goes through, there will be a path, but it will be flanked by dead trees.

I have worked in the median.

It is a terrible place.

Getting to and walking in the meeting is stressful.

Cars, trucks, and semis speeding down both sides make ear-shattering noise and spew out toxic fumes.

It is a noxious environment.

Why are we even considering letting children and handicapped people walk almost a mile down the middle of a four-lane highway?

To ensure the health of both the trees and our fellow citizens, I ask you to deny this project.

Thank you.

Supervisors, sorry for the striking plot.

My name is Bill Emery.

I live in the city.

I'm a contributor to Piedmont Environmental Council, but I'm speaking on my own behalf today as a bicyclist and a walker.

The Jefferson Area Bicycle Pedestrian Plan, which was an amendment to the county's comprehensive plan, contains a lot of good ideas.

We understand the public process involved with the creation and adoption of the Bike Ped Plan.

Now we get to the tough part, implementation of the bike ped vision.

There are approximately 160 proposed bike ped routes in the plan.

How are the routes rated and ranked?

How and why is a route chosen to be built?

The Bicycle Pedestrian Coordination Committee picked the route 20 shared use path for smart scale funding.

The Coordination Committee is not an official group,

There is not a membership list on the MPO website.

The committee meets at undisclosed times.

Their work takes place out of the sunshine.

They don't publish an agenda.

They don't keep minutes.

And they don't explain their actions.

We are directing millions of taxpayer dollars so walkers and bikers can arrive at an endpoint safely.

As a community, how do we choose the beginning of the path?

How do we choose the endpoint?

How do we lay out the route in between?

Historically, topography recommended three primary routes connecting Charlottesville to Monticello.

Now, institutional interests in the interstate have added more possibilities.

How was the choice made between the five possible routes?

What are the routes?

How are they weighed?

We have no idea.

Please pull this request from SmartScale round four consideration.

Next round, ensure that a named and known group evaluates potential bike-ped SmartScale feasibility report candidates by the light of day.

Two years hence, it is possible that a Monticello proposal will return.

Such a proposal must be created in the open with the public in attendance.

Thank you.

I'm Robin Haynes.

I have property in Schuyler, and I'm a tree steward who was one of the ones who planted these trees.

I want to echo the seven people before me and say that despite months of our specific concerns, plan designers offer us no clear assurances on particulars.

for viable modifications on this plan.

Here are some more concerns.

A. Entering and leaving the median through two lanes of busy traffic on foot or a bike is a challenge even with added crossing measures.

B. The amount of traffic on the stretch of road, rush hour especially, will bottleneck if it is slowed or narrowed.

C. There is a large opening in the overpass which will require sizable bridge for bikers to cross that is not described in the proposal.

D.

Jessica said in her first webinar that a 10-foot wide path is DOT regulation standard and required, and they will not accept another size.

And now I hear there's an additional two feet on each side, which will be compacted and probably filled with gravel.

There will be great changes in machinery compaction which will harm the trees.

E. Perhaps the Bike Ped Committee will hope to plant more trees once they have done away with those in their way.

Trees installation and keeping them alive are not inexpensive.

There are many serious problems with this proposal.

Our next speaker next speaker is Susan Cruz.

Hello, my name is Susan Cruz and I am the Executive Director of the Community Climate Collaborative and I'm here today to speak in support of the County's draft Climate Action Plan with some recommendations.

The Community Climate Collaborative works with businesses, nonprofits, households, and schools to advance individualized climate solutions, identify obstacles to action, and recommend policies to accelerate that action.

We thank the County Board of Supervisors for setting leadership targets to reduce our community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

And we applaud the release of your climate action plan phase draft phase one, which reinforces your commitment to these targets.

As residents of Albemarle County and the greater Charlottesville area, the supporters that have signed on to our letter, currently at 161 area residents, they share a common goal to protect the health and vitality of our community against the effects of climate change.

The future of our community, our children, and our legacy is dependent on our commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

While we are grateful for the county's current work on climate, we believe that we can incorporate some recommendations which will improve the present plan and set phase two for success.

Firstly, we think that Albemarle County should adopt smart targets for each sector in its climate action plan.

A target can only be an effective guide for decision-making and action implementation if it is possible to know and measure to what extent the target has been achieved.

It is time for us to move to more effective and result-oriented targets for climate action.

We also applaud the county's inclusion of equity, equitable implementation of climate action planning, but we believe targets for that need to be identified.

Currently, the CAP does not set any specific strategy or target for guiding implementation of climate actions in an equitable way.

C3 believes the cap should include specific equity commitments by requiring that historically economic disadvantaged communities represent a certain percentage of the county's benefited and engaged residents.

And finally, I want to encourage you today to again commit to regular data collection reporting and inventories of our greenhouse gas emissions.

The next step of this climate action plan absolutely relies on

knowing when we will achieve our targets and what we need to do to get there.

Without an initial inventory, this task will be very challenging.

We only have 10 years, now nine left, to reach a 45% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and frequent measurement of our progress is essential.

Albemarle County should gather and publish community-wide building energy use data annually with separated values for each of the main energy consumption sectors, residential, commercial, governmental, and industrial, and commit to a full greenhouse gas inventory every two years.

Thank you again for recognizing the need to address this important issue.

We believe that together we can ensure the health and vitality of our residents, protect our natural resources, and strengthen the resilience of this dynamic community we call home.

Thank you.

Proposers and county staff, I am the executive director of the local energy alliance program LEAP, a nonprofit that provides energy efficiency solutions to your residents.

I hope you and your families are all doing well during this challenging time.

I am commenting on the climate action plan that you'll be discussing later this afternoon.

I have participated in the consultation process executed by county staff and found it to be rigorous and inclusive.

Importantly, I did note that the plan did take an equity perspective when considering the actions it proposes.

Because of that and other COVID events that are generated by taking climate action like economic development, improved health for residents, and addressing affordable housing challenges, I request the board to approve this draft and related near-term actions.

Such actions leave implements and to give a concrete example of one,

that LEAP recently did in the Southwood mobile home park, I'll share now.

In Southwood, LEAP retrofitted 10 mobile homes, which included replacing heating and cooling systems and insulating under bellies and attics among other measures.

While the climate impacts were impressive by reducing energy use in each mobile home by 40 to 50% and equivalent greenhouse gas emissions, co-benefits of this action included reducing their energy bill burden by at least $1,200 a year

or average $100 a month.

Improved indoor air quality and reduced respiratory health challenges and limiting the need for kerosene heating, a fire risk.

I want to again reiterate my support for the climate action plan and request that you have staff prioritize advancing it because of the significant amount of benefits it will bring to your constituents.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks.

I'm Paul Whisberg.

Mr. Whisberg, the time for that is this evening during the public hearing for that.

I apologize.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Linda Goodling.

I can't get Rick Goodling off the screen, sorry.

I'm Linda Goodling with the Samuel Miller District, and I am speaking for the League of Women Voters.

The League of Women Voters of the Charlottesville area has submitted a written statement regarding the climate action plan.

At this time, I would like to briefly emphasize the main points of that statement.

The first point is the importance of plans.

At a league seminar,

On climate change, all four speakers agreed that setting a goal, creating a plan to meet that goal, and sticking to the plan is the most effective thing anyone can do to address global warming.

The Albemarle County Comprehensive Plan directs the county in policy and decisions.

The Climate Action Plan will complement and complete

parts of the comp plan.

The second point is the climate action plan is important for the following reasons.

It fills a gap in the climate change section of the comp plan.

With the exception of housing, all sections of the comp plan address topics related to energy and environmental sustainability.

Greenhouse gases,

reduction in the climate action plan connects directly to those topics.

She's asking me a question.

With community development can combine economic growth with the carbon reduction by using renewable energy sources and redesigning buildings and open spaces we can decrease both cost and the GHG

emissions.

The third point is keep global warming as a focus of attention.

The plan should include having every project demonstrate how it will reduce climate carbon use and and by how much.

Do a basic GE emissions inventory and

Stick to the plans.

Do not make spur-of-the-moment decisions that may conflict with the plan.

And encourage developers to consider whether their projects follow the spirit as well as the letter of the comp and climate action plans.

And the fourth point is we need to do this now.

because climate change and its negative effects on health and safety and the economy are going to keep getting worse unless we address the root causes now.

The climate action plan is meant to do that and we can use it together with the comp plan to help us achieve a better quality of life for all county residents and at the same time promote sustainable economic development.

Thank you.

Hi, this is Donna Shaughnessy.

I live in the city.

I wanted to speak actually to two issues.

One, the proposal and the consent agenda to declare the area in front of the courthouse a non-public forum.

It appears to be an unfortunately timed effort.

I'm not aware that there's been disruption of the courts.

And at a minimum, this decision should be open for discussion by the county residents in general.

Moving on, I'm speaking now with my Sierra Club hat.

I'm the chair of the Piedmont Chapter of the Sierra Club and wanted to reiterate the comments that other folks have made about the climate action plan.

We are super grateful that the county set such an ambitious goal for greenhouse gas emissions and also for the amazing effort that staff

We have made over the past year a very inclusive public participation process using the smarts of lots of folks out there to try to address all the different sectors of greenhouse gas emissions.

We were really grateful for that.

But we, like all the others, are concerned that there are not concrete targets for achieving the goals that were set in the plan.

So if you have a plan without milestones, it often ends up just being a piece of paper.

So we would urge you to, at the earliest opportunity, to put some concrete numbers with those milestones.

Thank you.

This is Barbara White.

Okay, I'm Barbara White.

I'm the president-elect of the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards and a certified arborist, and recently retired as the Urban Forestry Coordinator for the Virginia Department of Forestry.

The Monticello Gateway Tree Planting Project was funded by a Virginia Trees for Clean Water grant from the Virginia Department of Forestry and the USDA Forest Service.

In addition, members of the Charlottesville area tree stewards donated hundreds of volunteer hours.

Numerous local businesses, organizations, and our local National Guard unit supported the planting.

This project was thoroughly researched prior to funding so the costs were well established.

Approval was received from Albemarle County, City of Charlottesville, Virginia Department of Transportation, and Virginia Department of Forestry.

The federal funds that were used come with the expectation that the plantings will be in place for a minimum of 15 years and into perpetuity because the purpose of the Virginia Trees for Clean Water grant is to plant trees to improve water quality.

Large mature trees provide a lot more water quality benefits than small trees do.

The purpose is to have large trees that not only provide water quality benefits but also improve health and expand quality of life benefits.

It seems a bit absurd to me to destroy a project that was funded by federal funds and replace it with a project which would be funded by federal funds.

As a professional arborist who has worked planting trees in medians and taking care of them, I can attest that the process of constructing a level 10-foot wide concrete path between established trees in its limited and constricted space will destroy these trees.

Even if there's absolutely no physical damage to the trees above ground, the damage to the roots will be extensive, resulting in the trees dying a slow, torturous death.

Trees depend on their roots for water and nutrients.

If the roots were damaged or destroyed, the trees suffer.

Construction equipment compacts the soil, removing the pore space necessary for air and water and nutrients to move into the roots and then up into the canopy.

There is nothing in the plan proposal to identify the needs and expenses of managing the trees during construction.

I would expect that any well thought out plan would have identified and detailed concerns for the trees and included them in the project budget.

but not one dollar has been allocated to the welfare of the trees in the Monticello Gateway.

This is a very harsh site for any tree and community volunteers have worked for five years to maintain their health and vigor as they become established.

The construction will severely impact these trees

just as they are starting to really provide the environmental and community benefits that they were planted for.

The construction of the path amongst the existing trees is essentially impossible.

The result would be many dead and dying trees as an entryway to Charlottesville.

Trees grow slowly but bulldozes move quickly.

Please find another path.

Thank you.

I know we have one more speaker.

There may be a few who are attempting to, who've signed up that staff is attempting to reach.

So if you are on the phone, please do star nine to raise your hand.

If you're in the meeting, please use the raise your hand feature so staff can recognize and get you in the queue.

Good afternoon.

Okay I'd like to speak about the bike paths.

Trails and pathways should be safe and healthy environments.

This proposed bike path is neither safe nor healthy.

The safety issues are number one, the intersection of Route 20 and Quarry Road at the north end of the bike path has four traffic lanes and four pedestrian bike lanes coming together at that point.

plus the southbound lane at Route 20 is downhill and has a curve there.

This situation has a high potential for rear-end collisions as well as injury to pedestrians and bikers.

The proposed bells and whistles will create additional distractions rather than helping.

Another serious problem is the I-64 on-off ramps across the median create unsafe conditions as drivers on these ramps are watching surrounding traffic, traffic signals, and will be suddenly confronted with pedestrian and bike traffic in the median, which would be unexpected.

A real serious problem is there are 10 total crosswalks for users of the path.

Commuters, bike commuters specifically, would have to negotiate six or seven of these crosswalks depending on where they enter or exit the paths.

For true commuters, this means 12 or 14 road crossings per day, presenting many opportunities for conflict with motor vehicles.

The health issues.

I spent quite a bit of time in the last three years working out there digging holes, planting trees, straightening trees that had been run over with cars, and it's a terrible place to be.

You feel like you have your life in your hands.

Users of the bike paths are going to be subjected to degraded air quality for the approximate three-quarters of a mile along Route 20.

What's more important that most people don't notice is fallout from I-64 with its heavier traffic, with more trucks, diesels, is likely going to severely worsen the situation.

carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, and more importantly particulates drifting down from 64 will make this a seriously unhealthy environment.

These safety and health issues plus the conflict with the trees make the proposed bike path an unsuitable project for location in the median at Route 20.

This situation was summed up succinctly by the editorial yesterday and the daily progress, and I quote, find a better way.

No, sir.

If there's anybody who was attempting to participate, obviously there is another chance to speak to members not listed for public hearing this evening.

During the evening at peace it starts back up at six.

An attempt to speak then if you're unable to join us at this point in time.

Board the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda and we did pull item

That was 8.1, I believe.

So is there a motion to approve consent minus 8.1?

Motion was made by Supervisor Price, seconded by Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Hello, yes, I'm here.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

All right, very good.

The consent agenda has been approved.

Now we'll go to item 8.1.

Supervisor Price, you pulled that item.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

I pulled the item because I had some concerns Commonwealth

Jim Hengele had some concerns and clearly a number of our constituents have had concerns about it as well.

I think it would be very helpful if we could ask our county attorney Mr. Campner to address some of the considerations that went into this item.

In large measure I believe to address some of the concerns our constituents had in terms of what is and is not a public forum

the limitations of the geographic area, but also to ensure that our constituents are comfortable that we are not seeking to constrain free expression, simply recognizing the unique nature of the courthouse property and the business that must continue to be able to take place in those properties.

Let me acknowledge that I have not reviewed every single email that came in.

I did read Mr. Hengele's and certainly his comment number two was a good suggestion.

I heard the question about these rules was the timing of the rules and these rules were started

in conjunction with the other work that our office has been doing regarding other county facilities, including this side, Cobb McIntyre and Cobb Feth.

The courthouse grounds work was an offshoot of that because invariably when you do research regarding public spaces, you end up with cases challenging the right to

engage in First Amendment activities around courthouses.

And the courts have been, as I noted in the executive summary, the courts have been virtually unanimous that courthouse grounds are not what the courts referred to as traditional public forum.

So one view of looking at these rules that they're really just memorializing what is

even if there have been demonstrations in the past, they did not transform the courthouse grounds to a public forum.

During the Unite the Right rally in 2017, the county portion of Court Square, what we have referred to as the courthouse grounds, were being protected, monitored by the sheriff's department.

Getting back to the timing though, this was a project that was being worked on in February, January, February and March.

And when I pulled up a draft date a few weeks ago, it was right around the time the pandemic was hitting and that's when the work stopped.

So it's coming now because slowly we are

trying to bring forward non-pandemic related matters to the board for the board to act on.

So we can, you know, this was on the consent agenda.

It's obviously has generated some public input.

We can review the comments that have been received.

We can discuss Mr. Hingley's comment number one, that the courthouse grounds be open

at times other than when the court is in session.

Generally, that would be something around any hours after 7 p.m.

just to be safe.

You know, but it's not a public forum right now.

The board also has the opportunity to designate it as a public forum, which would allow

if it is just as a designated forum, that is essentially the county board treating it as a public forum.

There is some case law that allows the board to define groups or topics that could be the scope of permitted activities that has yet another name, which is a limited public forum.

The county and the board cannot regulate the

The content of it, whatever rules we had in place, would have to be viewpoint neutral.

I'm happy to revisit the issues that have been raised by the public in the past couple of days and return to the board at a later date with revised set of rules.

Thank you Mr. Campner and I really appreciate your addressing the distinction between the courthouse grounds and I think our constituents need to understand the very limited geographic size of that property in reality.

The distinction between courthouse grounds generally not being a public forum as opposed to the work that you your office has done and the board has worked on

in opening up the county office building at McIntire to more public forum participation areas.

But I really believe that that last comment that you made is worthy of the board taking action on, and that is to defer action on this particular proposal, be able to review the comments that have been received, and then I would recommend that we take that as a course of action and ask that you come back to the board

after that review and possible some revision to it.

And the other thing I would like to add, this is mainly for the public because the board has heard this from me in the discussions with the county office buildings.

Court Square is bounded on three sides by public sidewalks and public streets that are traditional public forum and the rules are not, they do not include the public sidewalks that surround the court.

Those are unaffected by these rules.

And on the west side of the courthouse grounds is a city park, which also is a traditional public forum.

Thank you, Mr. Cameron.

I can actually pull one up right now to board these.

Because also on a different topic related to monuments and the

a new law that goes into effect July 1st.

I've personally received a number of communications from constituents who were not aware that the park to the west, I believe, of the courthouse Square County property and so this might help our constituents understand exactly what we're talking about.

Thank you.

So I'm going to go through.

Each supervisor will have an opportunity to speak.

I'll just go through our order for comments.

Yes, I do.

I agree with what Supervisor Price has asked for as far as delaying it and having Greg have a chance to read through

the comments from the citizens and respond to us on those.

The other thing though that I just want to mention is that we have chosen over many years to put a variety of plaques, commemorative plaques on this property.

And those plaques in some ways almost invite the public to go there and

and visit those plaques, think about those plaques and in one email that we received have a quiet vigil around the recent plaque we put in about the lynching that took place in our community.

back many decades ago.

And so I think we really need to think about that as we move forward in the whole discussion, that we've sort of made this place a place where people would naturally go to express their concerns about different issues.

and again, I would agree.

I would like to see us postpone this until we can have a little more review of options for folks.

Thank you.

Essentially, it's a

It's a term that comes out of US Supreme Court analysis.

And traditionally, it was a place where the public gathered to debate.

And streets and sidewalks and parks were the, what I, the term is traditional public forums.

And that is where First Amendment activity is allowed to

take place.

And in those places, the government cannot regulate the content of the speech.

We can establish reasonable time, place and manner regulations.

So when we're talking about this, I'm receiving emails from constituents who feel like it means that they can't even step foot on those grounds, courthouse grounds.

They couldn't take their child there to look at a memorial.

They're interpreting this as sort of

that they can't even access those grounds.

No, that's not the intent.

And we can clarify that better.

And I will say that this is one of the concerns that I've had for years when we have a historic courthouse

that people naturally want to be able to see.

We have a park situation and we have a working court or two working courts that are all in the same location.

It has and is creating some problems with us just because this particular

Small little area of land has become all things to all people.

It's very awkward to have that all of those

all of those situations just piled into one small area.

Having said that, it is where we are right now.

But I do think that folks are misinterpreting using the word public and public forum and their ability to access.

So to have you go back and take a look at it, then come back to us with

your thoughts and suggestions I think is a really good idea.

At the end of the day though, we did determine when we said we were going to leave the courts downtown, we determined that these are two working courts and they have to be safe and they have to be accessible during their hours of operation.

Yes, my main focus was to make sure I understood correctly that any restrictions about courts not being public forum was because we needed to make sure that people who had business in the court were able to get to them.

And so I don't think that conflicts with tourists reading the signs or looking at

any of the historical things which are there.

And clarification will help to sort all that out.

My name is Supervisor Price.

I think we should pull the item, educate the public, and move on.

All right, so by my count

Doesn't seem there's any objection to deferring or delaying the item.

Ned, could I make just a quick comment?

Yeah, absolutely.

And the public should know that we reached out to Jim, the sheriff's office, and the judges for feedback on this.

That's right.

And that's a really good point.

All right, so this item will come back.

Greg, do you have what you need?

No, I have enough and we will try to get it back.

Board as you know I think now is the best time to address we've been receiving multiple emails

relative to the statue that sits on Albemarle County's property there at Court Square.

And as we just talked about the rules, I thought it would be important for us to have a brief discussion or supervisors can ask questions if needed of what our process is.

We do have a process in place.

We all know that the law has changed or will change on July 1.

effectively giving localities control over the property, essentially.

And Emily can speak to the timeline briefly.

We've asked her to be prepared.

So Emily, I'm going to ask you to do that first and then each supervisor, if needed, we can have questions or comments and try to move.

Thank you Chair Galloway, Members of the Board of Supervisors, Emily Kilroy, the Director of Communications and Public Engagement.

Thank you for having me with you this afternoon.

I'm going to focus my remarks on the schedule that is set forth in the legislative process that was laid out with the signing of Senate Bill 183 and House Bill 1537, which Supervisor Galloway referenced takes effect on July 1st.

and this is the legislation to give localities the ability to remove relocate and contextualize monuments in their communities.

This has been part of your legislative priorities for several years and as of July 1st the Board of Supervisors for the first time will have the opportunity to begin the legal process to remove relocate or contextualize monuments in Albemarle County.

The process begins with the board asking staff to advertise a public hearing.

The public hearing has to be advertised for a period of 30 days.

Following that public hearing, the board can take an action to request that if there's an interest in removal,

There's a period of 30 days where the board has to offer the monuments to groups that would like to express an interest in receiving a monument that might move.

We have roughed out a schedule of what that might look like.

None of these dates are confirmed because we would have to schedule some items, but what that looks like and what that could look like just for planning purposes is that July 1st is a regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Supervisors at that meeting with the legislation in effect could direct staff to advertise a public hearing.

We expect by Monday July 7th that public hearing ad to run in the paper of record which is the daily progress.

The date, the safest date for which to have that public hearing to ensure that we just hit those advertising requirements and the turnaround time that it takes to get something into the paper would be a special meeting on Thursday August 6th.

and at that meeting would be a public hearing and immediately following a potential for action by the Board of Supervisors to remove, relocate, contextualize or cover a monument or memorial.

If an action to remove was taken again, there would have to be a period of 30 days for a museum, a historical society, a government or a military battlefield to express their interest in receiving that item.

Thank you, Emily.

I'll go through if there's questions or comments.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Ms.

Kilroy, thank you so much for laying out that potential timeline because it's so important for our constituents to understand that Albemarle County

is committed to following a legal process.

I want to thank our constituents for the communications that have been sent to us thus far and I also want to express my appreciation for the law-abiding nature of our residents in not moving ahead of the process, letting it work and then finding out what the outcome is going to be.

I have no further, I have no questions and no other comments.

Thank you Chair Galloway and again thank you Ms.

I have one question for the board.

And first of all, Emily, thank you very, very much.

I know staff is going to be all over this and the communications department is going to be pushing out information and trying to get the schedule out to everyone.

And I think it's absolutely critical that people understand what the legal schedule has to be, what the legal process is.

My additional comment, which I emailed the board earlier, was that we're getting a large volume of emails.

Some people put their address on their email.

Typically what our board does is if it's addressed to somebody we know or they have an address, we'll look it up.

We'll make sure that they're our constituent.

and we take those letters and answer them individually.

And typically the chair ends up answering those that are directed to the whole board.

We don't really know who they are.

I mean, we know their name, but we don't know necessarily where they're from.

In this case, we're getting so many emails and

and I think we'll continue to do those.

And so my request was, does the board, because we don't, you know, these emails are addressed to the board, they're not addressed to the staff, they're not addressed to the county, they're addressed to the board.

And if we could have a method or a standard email that explains this legal process,

to be used for those emails where we do not know where the person lives and it is also addressed to the BOS at Albemarle.org.

and I believe we've done that in the past.

I don't know how Ned feels about that because it usually falls on the shoulders of the chair to take care of that.

It just seems like something that would make communications easier, but more importantly, make sure that there's a consistent message coming from the board about the legal process.

I think we can address as I'll just continue to go through the order and folks can comment to that as needed and I can loop back to those already talked if you wish to comment on it.

So I'm just a little confused, Liz.

So let me just make sure I understand what you're asking and I think it you're just simply saying if

staff, if there's a way that staff could respond to the BOS with the, I'm just confused.

Do you have, can you?

I'm sorry, we could have the clerk do it.

We could have the clerk do it.

We could just have one board member do it.

But just to make sure, all I'm trying to do is have it come from our office and make sure that they all get answered.

And right now, they may all be getting answered.

I simply don't know how it's being handled.

and I sent out an email several days ago or something just on that.

I don't think that this is something

If our staff does it, if the clerk's office is doing it, that's fine.

But I think it's important that it come from the board office in some way.

And I just want to make sure everything's getting answered.

Siri provided for us already in an email a great timeline.

It would seem like to me and the legal process.

Right.

That is available and it would seem like to me we could simply identify someone for those BOS's which is what you're talking about.

Yes.

I'm getting what you're getting at.

I for the BOS emails have been using that anyway.

Yes.

But it is true that we don't know because

To be honest with you, we're getting emails from a lot from the city, a lot from Fluvac.

You know, you just want to make sure they're covered.

Absolutely, and I think it would be easy because we already have that document.

Siri worked hard, got it to us, and it's there.

Well, we don't have to use the whole document.

She certainly spelled out the timeline and we could add to it any changes to that timeline that we may have now that we've gotten the more specific dates, right?

So I think that's very appropriate so that people get an answer and understand the legal process.

I think that's an important thing.

Yeah, and I think it's important for it to come out to the board from the board office, because some of the emails are going to go to a staff or information, you know, from the county, all those, but the ones that are directed directly to the BOS, I think should come from the BOS, the clerk's office,

You know, Ned, I hate to put him on that because there's just so much volume.

There's too much volume right now, right?

Right.

Right.

I don't know what, but I would think we should ask staff how they might approach that or what would you- I would rather it be our staff since it's sent to, you know, the club's office.

Yeah, and that's what I'm saying.

Ask staff, right.

Let's go through and get everyone's comments and then we'll maybe see if we can come to a kind of a plan.

Thank you.

I would just ask people who are writing, I appreciate them writing, but they please would identify where they live because it's very important to me and to the constituents who have written to me that this be a county process and decided by county residents.

This is not something where we are flowing with the tide from other places.

We need to do it in our way correctly and listening to our citizens.

So I think

The more information that our correspondents provide will enable us to do that better.

Yes, I agree with Supervisor Palmer.

I think it's very important that we have perhaps the BOS staff respond with something that comes from all of us, especially when it's addressed to the BOS because we are getting these

emails from all over.

A lot of times they don't say where they live so that means that they're not going to get an answer because of the fact that we don't know whose magisterial district they live in.

So if since this is something that concerns all of us not just a district specific item I think it is important that we do it this way.

The other thing, the only thing I would add is if I receive an individual

specifically to me, not to the BOS, then I could also still forward it to staff to answer that email regarding this subject.

Maybe we can do that for other subjects that are countywide to save a lot of time.

And people would actually get answers to their questions and be acknowledged for sending in an email, which I very much appreciate.

Thank you.

I think, I guess my comment would be we can kind of hit two birds with one, or let's see, two birds, one stone maybe is the right.

I think this has enough public interest.

I mean, first off, I think it's important to clarify that the volume of email we're speaking to is on several different topics, not just one particular one.

There are certainly some that are creating volume on one topic, but right now there just seems to be five, six topics

that are all generating tremendous volume of email and you could speak to Liz's point on each one of those items.

Particular to the statue item, I think this is one that the public would have interest that even if they're not emailing the board, they would have interest in understanding what's going on.

So versus, yes, I mean to have some standard format that goes out I think is prudent, but that probably can be a link where people can go to

whether it's a board landing page or a department page, something like that so that if I'm just, you know, what are they doing?

What's the timeline?

And don't think to email us, they can go online and find the information and figure that out.

Because I think this is only going to continue to create public interest and I'd hate to think that the only way somebody is going to get that is if they were emailing us and expect, you know, and getting the reply.

The replies to the emails can just then include, great, thank you for your question and then direct folks to that landing page that has the information that we're going through.

So I would just offer that out as a suggestion, because anytime we have something like this arises that level that can be found and just made public online, perhaps an email can go out announcing to it, that that would help folks generate it where they don't necessarily have to get that information by email.

I just want to make one comment.

I'm expecting multiple, multiple ways to get this information out.

And I'm expecting that Emily's department will be working very hard, like they always do, to get the information out.

I just want to make sure that every email that comes to us is answered with that timeline, not knowing who they are.

So I'm really kind of directing it.

And a link in that email is fine.

But I just

That's what I'm just trying to make sure is that all these emails that are getting sent to us, I'm assuming they'll continue as we go through this process.

And I'll go back through.

We will have two.

We had one large one that we finished up at the last meeting.

An application got deferred.

There will be action on an item tonight.

So two very large volume generating items will be behind us.

So that will cut down on some of the volume and make it more manageable.

Supervisor, let me go back through here.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

You actually covered my major point, which is providing a link rather than having to provide a detailed email to each individual.

I think Ms.

Kilroy and community and public engagement can have the information on the website.

And I would just add, I really don't want to see our clerks office tasked with having to respond individually to emails when they come in.

Thank you.

Yes I think a standard reply when it comes into the Board of Supervisors however when it's something that is generated countywide as of this nature would be okay and I do agree with Chair Galloway any chance we get to redirect people to our a-mail should we call I guess county mail any chance we get to

All right and obviously I'll be the volume of email has been great but I know that everybody's participated in the replies so you know as we go through especially lead up to board meetings emails can kind of generate up and then go back through and work work through ones that have uh that they haven't been responded to.

Yeah, so we actually right now have, concurrent with the legal process that I went through, there's a community engagement process around the community conversations for Court Square that we began in February and had to pause due to the restrictions in place related to COVID-19.

So we have transitioned that whole process to a digital engagement process.

There is a tour of Court Square that is a video tour of Court Square that mimics the tours that we had scheduled for March and April.

That's up there now.

There's also a series of questions that are similar to the listening sessions that we held at the beginning of March.

All of that is available right now on publicinput.com slash court square.

And that's sort of the project hub for the whole Court Square project.

We'll add a schedule when we have it for the legal process onto that page as well.

So that page will sort of be the hub, the digital hub for all the information related to Court Square as we move forward.

Very good.

Thank you.

I think we can move on.

I think we got, I think we're in agreement with where this goes.

Is there any final comments here?

Good afternoon members of the board, Mr. Chairman.

I will begin with staff presentation and move on to the public hearing from that.

So again, good afternoon.

I will try to keep this quick since we are running over.

I don't want to keep people too late.

My name is Leah Brumfield.

I am a senior planner in zoning and I'm presenting staff analysis of the special exception application for homestay 2020-35 at Minor Mill Road.

The homestay is located on a 10 acre parcel in the rural area in a renovated barn, pictured here.

And the applicant is requesting a reduction in the required 125 foot setback.

So as always, I will take a very short brief time to turn this into a learning moment for everyone.

The homestay regulations that apply to this homestay on a parcel larger than five acres in the rural area

include a maximum of five guest rooms, the use of accessory structures if they were built on or before August 7th, 2019, maximum of two homestay uses on the property, whole house rental for a limited number of days, and a minimum 125 foot required yard from all property lines.

The requirements for all homestays listed here also apply.

So on rural area parcels, there are two homestay regulations that permit special exceptions, use of accessory structures and reduce setbacks.

The applicant is using an accessory structure for the homestay, but as it was built when the Beatles song, I Wanna Hold Your Hand was a number one chart topper, it predates our time requirement by 55 years, no special exception is required.

This applicant has requested a special exception to reduce setbacks to the Southwestern property line.

The factors to consider for all homestay special exceptions are that there is no detriment to abutting lots and that a special exception will not cause harm to health safety or welfare.

The board may of course impose reasonable conditions to address any possible impacts.

Here is a location map of the proposed homestay.

The location of the parcel is about 3.5 miles north of 250 and one and a half miles south of Prophet Road.

This is a 10 acre parcel.

It's located at 2420 Minor Mill Road and it is the parcel outlined in blue.

So the proposed reduced setbacks would be a setback of 60 feet from the property line for the structure used for the homestay and 40 feet for the parking.

There is a 25-foot planted buffer immediately shielding the homestay used from the closest neighboring house, which you can see in the bottom right of this photo past the blue parcel boundary.

This is a view of the proposed homestay location from the street directly in front of that house, which is 2435 Minor Mill.

This was taken June 9th.

and previously the board has recommended use buffers and screening that is consistent with commercial district use buffers for special exceptions for setback reductions and under this standard the use buffer and screening would not actually be required because commercial use buffers are not required when a commercial zone is located across the street from a rural district.

um since the reduction is against a property boundary that is on a street in a purely commercial sense we would not require this boundary I'm sorry this buffer um however the closest parcel is 3.7 acres it may not be developed with any additional residences so the view that you have is what would be and as the neighbor residing there has contributed a letter of support for the homestay application

The existing location of the homestay and its parking is not believed to be a detriment to the neighboring parcels.

As an extra mitigating step, however, we do recommend that the buffer between the homestay and 2435 Meyer Mill be maintained as it currently exists.

Staff believes that the characteristics of this property, including a large lot size, existing planted buffer, and the support of the neighboring property owners, including the property owner whose house is closest and would be impacted by the homestay, indicates that this special exception would not prove detrimental to neighboring parcels.

As such, staff recommends approval of the special exception resolution in attachment F, which includes the recommended conditions noted here.

Thank you.

Go through the supervisor's questions, comments.

Supervisor Price?

Sorry, thank you, Chair Galloway.

I have no

No questions.

I appreciate Ms.

Brumfield filling in the omission from the staff report of the music that was popular at the time of construction of the building.

Very good.

No, I have no questions.

I'm fine.

Yes, Leia, could you pop back to the photograph that shows where the parking is?

Absolutely.

Let me go back to that.

There we go.

So this is an aerial of the buffer.

It does not shield the parking from the street, but it does shield the parking from the neighboring house, if that makes sense.

So the buffer isn't in front of the parking, the parking does directly access the street, but the buffer does shield the parking from view from the nearest house.

And then you would have a condition

which would maintain the buffer and if an 18-wheeler came by and bulldozed it all down, they would have to plan it again.

Yes, ma'am.

And just to put on your list for future discussion, not today, I'm shocked that there is a waiver for new buildings because we had a long discussion before the adoption of this ordinance about how this was for existing structures and should not be used

to populate all sorts of new houses all over the place for this purpose.

So I would defer that discussion to a later agenda, but I just wanted to put it out there right now because I think it's appropriate that we have this in mind.

This certainly doesn't interfere with this particular application.

Thank you.

No objection.

I move that we approve HS-202000035 home state special exception minor mill.

So if I didn't neglect it to add a zero or not have a zero, we all know what I mean.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley made the motion.

Supervisor Malek has seconded.

We can call the vote.

Ms.

Price?

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Malek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Very good.

Thank you, Leah.

All right, the next item on our agenda, number 10, Albemarle County 2020 Smart Scale Applications.

See Kevin connecting in.

Good afternoon, Kevin.

You're muted.

Kevin, you're muted.

There you go.

All right, good afternoon.

Thank you.

I am going to share my screen right now for you.

Okay, so I think you all can see the screen here.

And we do have a lot to go over today.

So I will try and get right into it and move quickly.

Thank you.

So we're going to be talking about the 2020 SmartScale applications for Albemarle County.

and requesting resolutions and support from the board for these projects today.

I'm trying to advance my screen here.

There we go.

So a little background on SmartScale.

Just as a reminder, SmartScale is the primary source of state and federal funds for transportation projects in Virginia.

Typically about almost $800 million is put into this program statewide.

It's on a biannual cycle with application deadlines in even years.

Hence, 2020 is an application year.

There is a four project limit for Albemarle County.

And then the MPO and TJPDC are also able to submit additional four projects each, which we will discuss today.

The projects are scored and funded based on a cost benefit analysis that considers land use, safety, congestion, accessibility, economic development, and the environment.

Local funding can buy down costs of the project.

And staff has recommended some local funding on select projects that is based on priority and the potential scores of those projects.

So we have done some preliminary evaluation and made assumptions about how they would score.

And we've also discussed this with the Department of Transportation to try and get some feedback on what they think would be appropriate.

So there are amounts that we're recommending for some of these projects of local funding.

The projects will compete for funding in both the statewide and VDOT district level funding pools.

All projects that are located in Albemarle County require county resolutions of support.

That includes the ones that are being advanced by the MPO and the TJPDC.

So these resolutions of support would decide whether or not the project moves forward today.

In addition, the ones that are being advanced by the MPO and the TJPDC will go through a separate process and will need resolutions and support from those organizations.

So there is a second level of questions on those at that time.

The application selection is based on the Albemarle County Transportation Priorities List and Strategic Planning.

So this is just to say that we look at those projects from the Albemarle County Priority List and we don't go straight down the list from number one, number two, number three.

because some of those projects may not compete well for this and also there's strategic planning involved where certain projects we may want to advance faster than others even if they're further down the list.

So just keep that in mind.

The board was provided a report on the projects that we're moving forward on through consent in April 2020.

This was originally intended to be a presentation and I think there would have been a lot of great discussion at that time, but it did not move forward because of the COVID-19 reductions in board items at the time.

It probably would have made today's discussion a little bit easier, but we're moving on.

Nonetheless, the design and cost information is based on very preliminary evaluations from VDOT.

These numbers will change.

The design will change.

That is ongoing right now.

If the projects are funded, then it moves on to the next level of design.

So there will be a lot more opportunities to reevaluate these as we move into the design process.

and on some we're looking for a lot more public input on that if it were to be funded.

So just keep that in mind that what we're looking at right now is the most preliminary evaluations of these projects.

The projects are presented today in groups based on the response that staff has received from the public and the board.

So we'll get into this a little bit as I move forward, but I'm kind of presenting these in batches, allowing you all to potentially approve groups of these based on the level of potential opposition.

We think it's going to make it move a little bit faster.

So the first

And then finally those projects that have received a high level of impact.

So I'm going to try and move faster in the earlier ones because I think you've seen those projects a lot and we've discussed them.

And like I said, probably a lot of support, but as we move on, I'm sure there'll be lots more questions.

We can also always pull any of these projects out individually and vote on them separately, vote on those resolutions separately, which is why you've also received the individual resolutions on each one of these projects.

We'll discuss that more as we move on.

So starting with the smart scale applications that have received less feedback.

The first one I'm going to go over is the Route 20, Route 53 intersection improvements.

This application would be submitted by Albemarle County.

It's recommended in multiple planning documents.

The corridor improvements in this segment were recommended in the Southern and Western Areas Master Plan and also intersection improvements were recommended in the MPO Long Range Transportation Plan Vision List.

This is number 15 on the county priority list, and the proposal is to reconstruct this intersection as a roundabout.

It includes separated bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and it was previously submitted for funding in SmartScale in 2018.

It scored really well, but it was just outside of funding.

It addresses a very high crash and heavily congested location.

and the preliminary cost estimate that we have right now is $7.5 million.

Staff on this one is recommending an additional $1 million in local funding to the project.

And I will point out at the very end of the presentation, we will come back to these local funding amounts for a second discussion or for a further discussion and approval on those local funding amounts, emphasizing that we don't need to put the local funding on to move forward.

So we can move forward with the project without local funding.

That's a separate decision.

Here you can see the proposal.

and I am going to pull in a laser pointer just to walk you through briefly what you can see.

This is Route 20 going north to south and this is Route 53 coming from Monticello.

You can see the parking lot here.

PVCC is just off this sketch.

Of course, it would go into a roundabout.

You have two lanes entering the roundabout on the north and south side.

and also a slip lane turn lane coming from 53 to address high levels of movement.

We've got pedestrian crossings shown and the green line shows a separated bicycle and pedestrian facility on the side.

I'm going to move on to the next project and I will say we'll also come back to each group with some questions so I can go back to these in a few minutes.

The next project is the I-64 Exit 107 Park and Ride lot.

This would be an application submitted by the Thomas Jefferson PDC and it is number 82 on the county priority list.

It's located right at the corner of Patterson Mill Lane, US 250 and I-64.

It includes 25 parking spaces, bike parking, and a bus shelter.

It could be served by both the Afton Express and Crozet Connect.

Athens Express is of course the demonstration project that we recently got funded that will be starting soon coming from the other side of the mountain.

It's identified as a need in the state park and ride study and recommended in the LRTP.

The preliminary cost for this project is $2.7 million.

This is just a general sketch that shows what that would look like.

This is 250 and here is the I-64 on-ramp.

This is just on the south side of I-64 at the Crozet exit.

You can see they would need to add an extended left turn lane on 250 to turn onto Patterson Mill.

And then this is Patterson Mill down here.

And you can see there's a turnaround for the bus in here in 25 spaces and a bus shelter.

Moving on to the next project.

This is the US 29 hydraulic road intersection improvement package.

This is an application that would be submitted by the Charlottesville Albemarle NPO.

It's recommended in multiple planning documents including the Places 29 Master Plan and it has also gone through a long process of planning with the hydraulic 29 stakeholder committee that I know that some members from the board have been participating in as well as the MPO.

It is number one on the county priority list reflecting the high level of congestion and

crashes at that intersection.

The proposal includes multiple elements to improve safety and operations, pedestrian connectivity, and transit, including removing left turns from hydraulic onto US 29, constructing a roundabout at hydraulic in Hillsdale, providing new enhanced transit stops on 29 just north of hydraulic, including a pedestrian overpass over 29 where those transit stops are located,

and converting Angus Road to a Green T intersection at US 29.

The preliminary cost estimate for these improvements is $25.6 million and it would utilize the $18 million in state funds that were previously identified for US 29 improvements.

And just as a reminder,

This funding could be at risk if it's not put towards a project this year.

This has been a discussion that we've had with VDOT and the MPO and the stakeholder team.

And I will also emphasize that this alternative was endorsed by the Hydraulic 29 Planning Committee.

And just quickly to walk you through this, I know it's hard to see because it's way up there covering a lot of ground, but we've got 29 heading north to south here and Hydraulic Road, east to west, and 250 Bypass here.

You can see that right here in front of Whole Foods at Hillsdale, that's where the roundabout would be located.

They have removed left turns from both sides of hydraulics.

You would no longer be able to make a movement that goes from here northbound or from here southbound.

That movement could be made by going through and around the roundabout and back and making a right.

or there is a turnaround proposed north of here for people that want to make a right and come back and head south.

But of course there are multiple ways to make those connections beside us making those left turns.

You could stay on 250, you could use Hillsdale, you could use District, Commonwealth, so there's a lot of other ways to make those movements.

You can see this is the location of that proposed transit stop, which would be pull-offs and shelter just on the north side of Stonefield.

And the blue line you see there is the location of that pedestrian overpass, over 29.

Down here is where Angus goes into 29.

And what would happen, the green T, once again, that describes a protected left turn.

So what would happen would be if someone wanted to make a left turn from Angus, they would come up here to the light.

When they got the green signal, it would stop southbound traffic.

allowing them to get into this protected left turn lane and then merge with the northbound 29 movement with those folks going up 29 not having to stop at that light.

So increasing that throughput.

Those are the general elements of the 29 hydraulic intersection improvement package.

The next project is the Fontaine Avenue 29 Bypass Interchange Improvement.

This would be an application submitted by the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO.

Elements of the proposal are recommended in multiple planning documents, and this is number six on the county priority list.

The proposal is to reconstruct this interchange as a diverging diamond.

It would include a separated shared east path and address the safety and congestion issues, primarily for those ramps that are going down there, people getting off the 29 bypass and wanting to make a left to go into town on Fontaine.

That shows a lot of congestion in the morning and in the afternoon.

So it's causing problems even with the main line of the 29 bypass.

Another feature of this is it could also relocate the US 29 northbound left turn onto the I-64 westbound ramp, eliminating that conflict in queuing.

And I'll show you how that would work on this page.

So this is the sketch of the diverging diamond.

You can see the tan line going through it is the shared use path with connections on both ends.

And just like the diverging diamond we have proposed for 250 and I-64, you would come up to a light if you were heading westbound

and cross over the eastbound traffic so that you're on the opposite side of the road under the bridge to another light and cross back.

Alternatively, you could be making free flow lefts onto the ramps at all these locations or free flow rights as well.

So it really removes the conflicts at those points and helps that traffic flow much better.

and to make the point 29 or I'm sorry 64 is south of here and that left turn onto the ramp could be removed or optional and allow those vehicles to come up to this intersection and make a left and a left essentially a u-turn without having to go through

any signals or any stops and get back on that on 29 and then go down and make a right-hand turn in onto that ramp so it has not been determined how that would be implemented but like I said it could be an optional movement or it could be required at certain times of the day or we could close that that turn down there permanently and force all vehicles to make this

Movement, really addressing a major safety issue there.

So I'm going to pause for questions on these projects that I've just gone over before we move into the next group of projects.

And also, after the questions, I will talk about how we may want to recommend approval on a batch of these project resolutions.

So any questions?

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Thank you, Mr. McDermott.

My principal questions will be with the first item I believe that you addressed, the Route 20-53 intersection improvements.

If you could go back to the picture of that.

Right there, thank you.

First off, let me say that in general I'm very supportive of this.

I do have a question, however, and it will tie in with the later discussion that we're going to have on the shared youth path down 20.

Some stuff I've read is that traffic circles are very good for vehicles up to a certain volume.

After that they become problematic, but I don't think yet.

But they're very difficult for pedestrians and for bicycles.

An advantage we have here

is that the road going off to the west off of the traffic circle really is a very short road with very little traffic so I don't see that as being an issue.

I'm a little more concerned as cars are coming west on 53 down the hill from Mickey Cavern and getting ready to make that right turn onto northbound 20 that

but any pedestrians that might be there and maybe limited numbers at this point that that could be a dangerous crossing as well as any pedestrians crossing over Scottsville Road 20 just north of the traffic circle.

So I would like you to address that but also the bicycle path as I see it would be coming on the west side of 20 and I do want to make sure that we address

In the later discussion with the shared use path, how that bicycle path would work.

Absolutely.

I will mention that roundabouts, even a single lane roundabout, they say can handle up to 20,000 vehicles a day, which is way more than we're looking at here.

This does have two lanes heading on 20 both directions.

So I don't think we would really ever see this being limited by the number of vehicles.

As far as the pedestrian connectivity, the primary movement for pedestrians is going to be north-south on this western side.

Like you mentioned, that's going to be a really low volume crossing there.

And we show these other crossings that are possible.

Currently, these don't connect to anything, so these may be something that we could add at a later stage as other development occurs or as the need arises, but I'm not sure if these are going to be necessary for this at this time because people will be able to access the

the parking area for Monticello, which is right here from the signal at College Drive.

And I say that that could happen with or without the other Route 20 project that we're talking about because there is a signal there and we could always allow pedestrians to cross at that signal with a signalized pedestrian head crossing.

So we could allow them to make that movement to get to this trail.

The proposal with Route 20

shared use path would allow those pedestrians or bicyclists, it would move them out of the median back there at College Drive.

So from there the folks that want to get on the Monticello Trail would go to the east side of the road and connect to this road and move to the Monticello Trail.

The folks that want to continue down 20 would continue on this west side from College all the way down south.

Thank you Mr. McDermott.

I formerly lived just south of this in the Stone Creek Village Apartments and once and only once I took my life into my hands and I actually tried to walk

from those apartments to the Saunders Monticello Trail.

And actually on my return, southbound facing traffic, found myself literally having to lean against the bank of the hill as vehicles coming north were coming up the road.

I think in general, I am okay.

I just wanted to, Kevin, I remember on the HDAP panel, the hydraulic panel, because we had multiple roundabouts that were being suggested in the first round, we had a lot of discussions about pedestrian and bike safety and roundabouts.

and I remember the discussion from VDOT was almost counterintuitive that pedestrian and bike safety could be improved, that roundabouts were actually safer.

But I think the key was it depended on where the crossings were located.

Sure, that is true.

I mean, it all really depends on how the design is done.

If we do it right, which I expect we would, you do back that crossing down the leg a little bit.

It's not like right at the circle.

And as vehicles approach those circles, what the channelization of the lanes usually do

is forced drivers to look both ways.

So you go into it facing one way, and then you kind of turn as a vehicle facing the other so that the driver is forced to look at both sides.

So that makes it much easier.

Also, it reduces the length of crossing for pedestrians, allowing them to only cross one direction of traffic at a time, and that helps a lot with that protected medium.

So I think we can design these to be a much safer alternative than other options.

Thank you.

Agree.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I do think that this 53-1 has been under consideration for at least 15 years and has had a lot of work done on it and lots of public discussion.

And I think it's going to be great.

And I know during the

1990s and 2000s there was a lot of debate about roundabouts and in the efforts to persuade VDOT to build them there was a lot of research about other places around the country with 50 and 60,000 vehicles per day killing people right and left and turned out that it was far safer.

And we do just have to take our time and make sure that people learn how to use them and that we get them done.

Right, and stepping back the crossing from the first car is a really important suggestion, so I look forward to seeing that.

Did you want other questions of other things?

Now, I do have one about the Fontaine.

Okay, so the left turn for trucks that you mentioned.

Those are going to be the primary users to that westbound 64, and I just want to make sure we're not cutting off our options on that.

And just to remind everybody, the university in its last rezoning for Fontaine Research Park does have the obligation, and they are standing behind it, according to Jim Murray, the rector,

to provide whatever traffic lights, et cetera, improvements for this intersection when we need them as soon as they're ready to do that next building.

So there are some resources as this develops over time that will help it get even better.

But it's one of those mind exploding things.

When I look at this map, I just think, oh my gosh, how will this ever work?

But I think it will.

No questions at this time.

I've looked over those and all of them.

All right.

I think we're ready to go.

Okay.

So, as I said, we can break these up into these groups that may need approval.

It sounds like we have support for this.

And if we wanted to, we could go ahead

and take a vote on the resolutions for those four projects.

No, these are all individual projects with individual resolutions, so you can approve these four.

It won't affect any way to vote on the future resolutions that we'll get to during the second.

I move that we adopt these projects for application.

Second.

We had Supervisor Malek made the motion.

I heard multiple people second.

It's fine, that's okay.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Bea LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

All right, Kevin.

Okay, thank you.

I'll move on to the next round and these are projects that we've received some minor feedback on and just want to make sure that the board has an opportunity to see them all and possibly separate them out if they'd like to vote individually.

The first one is the Old Lynchburg Road 5th Street extended county office building intersection improvements.

This application would be submitted by Albemarle County

It is recommended in multiple planning documents.

It's a recommendation from our currently underway Fifth Street.

The corridor study that VDOT is leading and the corridor improvements are recommended in the Southern and Western Areas Master Plan, intersection improvements recommended in the MPO Long Range Transportation Plan.

It's number seven on the county priority list and the proposal is to reconstruct this intersection as a roundabout.

It would include pedestrian crosswalks across all quadrants, improve access to the transit stops on both sides,

and address this high crash and heavily congested location.

As you know, this is on the 5th Street corridor just north of where Southwood is being developed and we have multiple other developments ongoing in that corridor.

So I think we're going to see this continued increase in congestion.

This is an intersection that will be failing and so that's why we're trying to address this now.

The preliminary cost estimate is $8.5 million

and staff on this one is actually recommending an addition of $2 million in local funding on the project.

We don't have a great sketch of this project right now.

This was actually submitted by the Albemarle Business Campus application submittal.

So you can just get an idea as to what we're looking at there.

Going this direction is Fifth Street.

Going this way is Fifth Street.

This leg is Old Lynchburg heading into the city and this leg is Old Lynchburg heading south.

And then of course this is the county office building entrance right here.

There is a bus stop located right here that pedestrian facilities would provide access to that would be included with this.

There's also a transit facility right here that would also be accessed and there would be crosswalks included.

They're just not shown in this.

This is really just a general sketch to get an idea of the area it would take.

The next project is the U.S.

250 Pantops Corridor Improvements, Route 20 to Hanson Road.

This would be an application submittal by Albemarle County.

It is also recommended in multiple planning documents including the newly approved Pantops Master Plan and the MPO Long Range Transportation Plan.

This is number two on the county priority list which really reflects the

The proposal would close the center left turn lane and replace it with a median with brakes for left turns and U-turns at key locations.

We are also evaluating extensions of the continuous rate turn lanes as part of this project.

This would also close current gaps in the sidewalk network that exists on that corridor and addresses the safety issues in congested corridor.

Preliminary cost estimate is $11 million and staff is recommending the addition of $1 million in local funding.

This is a sketch that shows you what we're looking at here.

So this is Route 20 coming from Stony Point.

Of course, the city would be on that side of the map.

And this is heading eastbound up Pantops Mountain to Hanson Road right here.

You can see right now we're showing turn around and left turn locations, U-turn and left turn locations at this location, at Town and Country.

and at People Place.

So that's where people could make turns.

If they came out of one of these, instead of going into that center lane, they would make a right and go to the next turnaround point and then come back.

So that's how it addresses safety.

You can also see this is where the additional sidewalk would be added.

And this does not show the extensions of continuous right turn lanes, but that is something that is currently being evaluated by VITA.

The next project is the Route 29 Shared Use Path.

This goes from Carsbrook Drive to Riverside Center.

It would be an application submitted by the Thomas Jefferson PDC.

It is number 35 on the county priority list and it's also recommended in multiple planning documents including the Jefferson Area Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan.

The project would replace the existing 5 foot sidewalk with a 10 foot shared use path.

It would be the initial phase to eventually connect across the Rivanna River to the existing shared use path on the north side that was built with the 29 widening project.

We had originally looked at making that all one project, but complications crossing the bridge forced us to separate those out into two different projects.

So really, this is a first phase but it does provide a lot of independent utility.

This just really shows the location for you.

You can see Hilton Heights right here going up to the new Berkmar extension where that roundabout is.

We do have a shared use path going this way on Berkmar and working on design for the shared use path going south on Berkmar.

You can see Sam's and Walmart here.

This is where Carsbrook

And of course, the river is just on the north side of here.

So this would allow pedestrians to move up and down that corridor and bicyclists move up and down that corridor a little bit more easily in a first phase.

The next project is the Fifth Street Bicycle and Pedestrian Hub and Trails.

This would be an application submitted by Thomas Jefferson, D.C.

and it leverages funding from an existing transportation alternatives grant.

It was awarded a number of years back and has been worked on but has had an increase in its budget and so now we're looking to go back and add funding through SmartScale.

It would construct a shared use path connecting multiple commercial centers along the Morris Creek Greenway.

And it's an initial phase of a Greenway network that connects along Morris Creek heading west and east towards Rivanna, as well as connecting to the Biscuit Run, going down to our future Biscuit Run State Park.

The preliminary cost estimate for this is $6 million, which would be offset partially by the remaining money in the TA grant funding.

This shows the current design that we're looking at for this.

This is the new 5th Street Center where that Starbucks is located.

It's not quite open yet.

We do have a couple parking spaces that were reserved as part of that development for access to the trail.

The trail would begin crossing Moore's Creek right here on an existing bridge that would be enhanced.

and then run along the city side all the way up to 5th Street Station Parkway where it would connect to the existing sidewalk out there so folks could go up to the pedestrian crossing here and get on this side or there is a trail that goes under the

the current bridge it just doesn't meet VDOT standards at this time so it's not included on this and it would have been really expensive to bring that to VDOT standards as part of this project but maybe a future project.

You can also see there's a connection across Morris Creek right here that would wind up the hill to the Wegmans parking lot where we have another trailhead that's proposed and some parking that's reserved for that as part of the proffer.

Once again, I'll pause for questions after those four projects.

Thank you Kevin.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

Mr. McDermott would you go back to the very last slide that you showed on the 5th street path.

Yeah so on that one on the what is the northernmost but on your picture far to the right where the purple trail ends that that trail shows the VDOT project but you indicated there is currently a path under the bridge and that would still be accessible it just does not meet VDOT standards is that correct?

That's correct.

Thank you.

I have no further questions right now.

Thank you.

Yeah, so that would be another phase that we'd look at for this project, and we are working on that currently with the Parks and Rec Department.

But this blue line you see here, Biscuit Run, and currently that unimproved trail goes along this side and then would run into this trail right here.

And 64, you can just barely see a piece of 64 right here.

Okay, and I just want to comment that I appreciate the suggestion that we put the two million, I think it was two million, I can't remember now, into the Fifth Street project for the roundabout in front of the county office building there.

They're all highly needed, all these projects are highly needed, but that one is

in my mind, very, very important.

And I appreciate that.

So that's all I wanted to say.

I have no questions about it.

You know, I don't have any questions, Kevin, about these projects.

I will say, in case I don't have a chance to say it another time, I really appreciate the ability now to look at all of these areas that need pedestrian, bike, and vehicular access and safety and looking at them through a little different lens of ways to get at

access that are different than our usual and in some cases they are transportation improvements that people that are a little different to people and that they're not used to but if we're going to solve these problems we have to look what we might think of is sometimes out of the box in different ways that are probably

proving in other localities to be safe and just different ways to get at congestion.

So that was a long statement to say thank you.

I appreciate all the work that everybody has done on these projects and just sometimes thinking out of the box a little differently.

Yeah, and I will add that, you know, these designs, they come from VDOT.

VDOT really is pushing that to look at alternative intersections, alternative ways to move vehicles.

I will also say that you get additional points on projects through SmartScale.

if you bring in an alternative intersection type.

And you're right, because it used to be that VDOT was very inflexible and we're starting to see that with all the congestions everywhere, we have to start coming up with different solutions and just going back to the same old solutions.

It's just not going to work.

So I really appreciate it.

Well, you're all part staff's part, VDOT's part.

Thank you.

A comment about the shared use path on 29.

I was part listened in to the webinars about this.

And I think one of the questions that was raised several times was

Let's not worry about the bridge, which is very difficult to cross, and just collect people from the north, from Riverside, up this proposed trail, and from the south, from Carsbrook, and then send them up Hilton Heights Drive to the existing very expensive and well-constructed shared-use path that already is there.

So I'll just leave that thought with you.

I know it doesn't impact this plan.

I think this plan is fine.

Jumping down to the Fifth Street hub and trail,

My question, if you would go to that map, thank you, you already did it.

So is the route for this switchback trail prescribed now because of pre-application?

Because I know that's a problem we have in a different one.

So what has been commented to me separately after listening into this webinar a couple of times is

Has there been consideration of going from the Starbucks development, hopping over Biscuit Run there, which also gets you work to connect to the, to the under the 64 connection and stay on a better elevation all the way east?

Yeah, I think that's east.

And then forget this switchback business.

I understand why you made the trail going north along the creek because a lot of people want to go that way.

But

We're spending millions to make that an environmental damage on a very steep slope.

And so I don't have an answer.

I just wanted to pass along what I've been hearing that there may be a route that's like a cow path.

You know, they walk along the sides of the hills.

They don't go up and down.

So there may be a way to much more easily get there to Wegmans if we skirt around to the south.

And I will say this exact alignment is not prescribed by making this application.

Once we move into the future design, they'll reevaluate that.

A connection between those would have to be made if that's what's in the application.

So somehow we do have to get people from each one of these points up to here.

Yes, thank you very much, Kevin.

Could you go to the 250 Pant Hops?

Yes.

Okay, so studying this, I was just a little concerned because I know you have

I don't think my pointer shows up on yours thing, but you have your left hand turn lanes, but anyone coming out of the businesses on the south side, they're having to go, for example, where your pointer is, they come out of those businesses, turn right.

How do they get to get, they have to then make, go to Hanson's Road?

They could make a U-turn there, okay.

On the right, go down to the right.

Go to the right with your pointer.

Okay.

so they won't be able to make a they can only turn right out of their business yeah and come down to where Town and Country is and you can see they have a break there make a u-turn okay so all those uh let's say I see a break there at a Town and Country where you can make a u-turn and then then but at Hamptons Road

This is a heavily, heavily congested corridor with lots of accidents.

And we think that a lot of those accidents are probably the result of that center turn lane, which causes confusion and throws new movements into an area without much direction.

I will also point out that there's parallel networks on the north and south side.

And we're also getting new private streets with this development that would connect the 20.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Yes, actually right to the Pantops question.

isn't the goal to get drivers off of 29 as much as possible, rather than encouraging them to come on 29 and go make a U-turn.

So you would go to State Farm Boulevard, or I mean, whatever it is that parallels 250 on the south, to get to easily to a place where there is a proper light and crossing, as opposed to, I mean, that would be the preferred thing.

And the same thing going back behind

some of these existing buildings like the one where the architects are, they have all these back connections on the north side that people can use to get to Rolkin Road, for example, to be able to get out.

Absolutely.

We really want to make 250 be a lot more focused on the through travel

and allow local travel to access the kind of back roads on there.

And that's something that's developed more through the Pantops plan.

So question, the bottleneck and Ann's right, I mean, there is a parallel street going behind Martha's and Tara Jefferson all the way to 20, but the bottleneck is once you hit 20 and make a right turn because you want to go into Charlottesville,

you have to go over Free Bridge and that's where a big bottleneck is, but so is there any plan for, I think there is a plan, right Kevin?

This intersection is already funded for improvements.

We're gonna make the Free Bridge project is not funded.

All right.

I would move that we adopt these.

All right.

It was made by Supervisor Price, seconded by Supervisor Malek.

You can go ahead with the roll.

Mr. Price.

Mr. Galloway.

Yes.

Bea LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?