Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   4/7/2021

Good afternoon, everyone.

I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our April 7, 2021 1 p.m.

meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

The supervisors who are electronically present at this meeting are Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Liz Palmer of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, and myself, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District.

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.

Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received.

With us today, we have our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Greg Campner, our Board Clerk, Claudette Borgeson, and our Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris.

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

And number four, the next item we need to adopt our final agenda.

We do have some changes here, so I'll review those quickly and then call if there are any others.

Item 8.2 is being pulled from the consent agenda.

That's SE 2021-2 IV proper.

We're going to park that after the end of the consent agenda.

The applicant is requesting a deferral, so we'll need to take action on that deferral request.

Item 8.3 is being pulled, stream health initiative project update.

and we will address that one also after the consent agenda is addressed.

And then for a discussion item under number 22, which is from the board committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda.

Supervisor Palmer has asked community development plans regarding updating the county code in tandem with the comprehensive plans.

So we'll have a brief discussion or update on that item.

And with that, are there any other items that need to be pulled from consent or any other changes to the agenda?

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Mr. Bistro-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Aye.

All right, very good.

The next item, number five, brief announcements by board members, and I'll go through our order for today.

Thank you.

I have several very fast ones.

March, as we know, was Women's History Month.

And I have put in the chat some links provided by Assistant Secretary John Ward, who is the veterans liaison, who I am on the workforce board with him.

Virginia has more women veterans than any other state in the country, over 163,000.

And I thought it was, even though I should have recognized them in March, I'm sorry I didn't, but better late than never.

I love the stream health presentation.

Others may speak about this too, that the Jewett sixth graders made.

I was so struck by the huge majority answer in the survey who did not know about the streams or the quality of the streams near their homes.

And I think that's a great example of the challenge we all face with the stream health initiative.

My

Recommendation from reading the Natural Heritage Committee report is everyone should go to the James Streamside program link in the NHC report, because you can see a property and all the different critical areas all around it and what needs work, which is really terrific.

Dominion, Felix Afrikaner has sent us Dominion Energy reminds neighbors to call 811 before they dig.

A lot of people are planting trees in the springtime and so this is another important element to find out where your utilities are before you go digging two foot deep holes in your yard.

And 811 is the number to call to get Miss Utility to come and mark your lines.

There is the small business, Virginia Small Business Group is hovering a shuttered venue operations grant

and there'll be information about that.

It opens Thursday the 8th tomorrow for applications.

And so there'll be lots of information out and about about that as well.

But so please stay tuned.

Nelson County will be starting the eastern parking lot expansion at the Blue Ridge Tunnel on Monday, April 12th.

And this will go for three weeks.

So if you are visiting the tunnel for basically all of April, please use the western portal parking and walk the trail there to go to the tunnel because the eastern portal will be closed until this parking lot is increased in size.

And that is all I have for announcements.

Yes, two quick things.

I also attended the Jack Jouett 8th graders regarding stream health and was very impressed and was happy that Supervisor McKeel provided us that opportunity.

Also, I'm working with some scouts, small group, and with the county and getting some

Milkweed planted for the monarch butterflies.

So we're on a Bring the Monarch Butterflies program.

Already purchased about 1,000 seeds.

The plants aren't out yet.

It's too early.

But looking forward to that.

By the way, use my own money.

And hoping to get a lot of milkweed planted around the county.

Thank you.

Supervisor Palmer, you're up next.

I have no announcements today.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Just quickly, I want to express my appreciation to Gary O'Connell and

the Albemarle County Service Authority and the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority for the tour last week of a number of their facilities.

What they do to ensure that we have clean, safe drinking water as well as proper disposition of our sewage waste is critical.

It's a lot that they do and a lot of work that goes into maintaining those systems.

So again, I want to thank Gary and all of the staff members

who took their time to help explain so much of how the things they do.

Just to add to what Bea and Ann said, the Jouett presentations were really wonderful.

And the exciting news, one of the pieces that came out of those presentations was that the public schools, our school system is very excited to work with us around litter and our litter campaign.

So we should be hearing more from them at some point.

They're going to figure out what the best approach might be and get back with us.

So that I thought was great news.

I'd like to take the opportunity just to thank I had folks attend my Rio Town Hall.

I had one joint with Supervisor Mallek.

We appreciated their attendance.

And then I had a follow up for the Rio district and had good conversations, obviously, about some Rio corridor and some budget items.

So thank you to those who attended.

And I will need to step away from the meeting today at 4pm for probably under an hour, but could be about an hour just for a work meeting that I need to attend.

All right, the next item.

Number six, Proclamations and Recognitions.

We do have a proclamation today recognizing Thomas Jefferson's birthday.

I am Chair Galloway.

I move the adoption of the following proclamation recognizing Thomas Jefferson's birthday.

Whereas Thomas Jefferson was born in Albemarle County on April 13, 1743,

and whereas Albemarle County Board of Supervisors as part of their community remembrance project have committed to sharing an inclusive history of our county, including the stories that have been traditionally left out of the dominant narrative.

And whereas we want to commemorate Thomas Jefferson's birthday as the third President of the United States, the author of the Declaration of Independence,

and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom and the father of the University of Virginia.

And whereas we want to express gratitude for the immense contributions Thomas Jefferson made to our community and to our country, while also holding space for the harm he caused the black community in Albemarle County, including the people enslaved at Monticello and elsewhere and their descendants.

and now therefore be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize the vast and complex legacy of Thomas Jefferson and affirm our commitment to celebrating an inclusive history of our community.

Second.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes Ms.

Mallek Yes All right, thank you.

That motion carries.

We have with us today Colleen Yates.

Siri, am I going to you for an introduction?

You are.

Thank you.

Happy Wednesday to the board and thank you for having me here with you.

Before I introduce Ms.

Yates, I just wanted to take a moment

to thank the board for their continued support of the community remembrance project and to underscore the board's commitment and our organization's commitment to sharing an inclusive history and building shared understanding with our broad community.

It is with great pleasure that I'm able to introduce Ms.

Colleen Mary Yates II to you guys.

I want to thank Ms.

Yates for all of her efforts to bridge those gaps of shared understanding in our community and her service both to the as a member of the committee for the memorial of UVA's memorial to enslaved laborers and also

all of her work with the Getting Word Project in Monticello.

But Ms.

Thank you, Siri.

I also want to thank Chairman Galloway and the Board of Supervisors.

And Siri has told you my name is Colleen Mary Yates II and I am Sally Hemings' seventh generation great niece.

I accept this proclamation for my ancestors, who were the slaves at Monticello.

And I ask that their legacy not be forgotten.

Because without them, there would be no Albemarle County, no University of Virginia, or no Monticello.

Thank you, Ms.

Yates, very much for being with us here today.

Supervisors wish to make comments today by raise of hand?

Thank you Chair Galloway, Ms.

Yates, thank you.

And I really want to thank the Board of Supervisors for a proclamation that addresses the totality of the history, the complex history of our county, which recognizes the contributions that Thomas Jefferson made and we identify him by name.

also recognizes the contributions of those unnamed thousands whose participation and whose work resulted in what we have today.

And I think it's really a milestone for us to expand our recognition to all the people who participated and contributed to the country.

Thank you.

Colleen, it's wonderful to see you and to thank you and Jill and all of your other contemporaries who have helped all of us to learn so much.

I mean, I grew up here and I have learned more in the last 10 years than I learned in the previous 60.

So I'm grateful for everybody's effort on that regard.

Other comments?

Anyone?

Raise a hand.

I can't say it any better than Donna and Ann just said, but Colleen, thank you for being here and for all of your work.

And we look forward to more, working with you together, right?

I just wanted to say that, well, thank you, of course, and I can't say it any better than anybody else did, but I have to admit, Colleen, I've known you for so many years and I just didn't realize that

what your heritage was.

And so I'm sitting here thinking that I have not been paying enough attention.

So I need to pay more attention.

Yes, this is the first time I'm meeting Ms.

Yates and it's certainly a pleasure and my honor.

And being a history buff, it is so thrilling for me to meet a descendant of Sally Hemings.

All right, Siri, as always, thank you, Ms.

Yates.

We really appreciate your being here with us today to accept this proclamation.

All right, board, the next item today, number seven from the public, matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda.

or on matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board.

We do have a couple of folks signed up.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

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 a sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office.

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 you 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 that 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 or 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 you exceed your allotted time, as indicated, you will be asked to end your comments and the microphone will be muted.

If a 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, and back and forth debate is not permitted.

You are reminded that all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

If participating by phone, please press star nine to let us know you want to speak.

And if by Zoom, please remain muted until you are called to speak.

Thank you.

All right.

Have I been unmuted?

Yes, sir.

Thank you very much.

Hopefully this call won't drop on the cell phone.

It's dropped three times on hold.

CenturyLink does not have any Earliesville area service for internet or phone this afternoon.

I'm Gary Grant, Albemarle taxpayer from the Rio district.

As taxpayers, ours is not to do or die.

Ours is to ask why.

Why is it that Albemarle's all-Democrat Board of Supervisors favors an F-22 budget that takes 17% more money from county taxpayers than this all-Democrat board took away from county taxpayers in FY21?

Why is it that Albemarle's all-Democrat board wants to take taxpayers' hard-earned money

and give it away to county government employees in thousand dollar bonuses on top of their known job descriptions and accepted compensation when county government employees didn't lose jobs, hours, or pay during the pandemic like private sector employees did.

Why is the power to spend rather than saving or refunding taxpayers' money so appealing to Albemarle's all-Democrat Board of Supervisors?

Why is it that Albemarle's All-Democrat Board of Supervisors favors taking some taxpayers' money to pay for other taxpayers' internet?

Why is Albemarle's All-Democrat Board whining about litter instead of doing something?

Why doesn't this Board of Supervisors create a litter authority?

Why doesn't this board hide litter cameras on trees, fence posts, and street signs where all six supervisors walk and drive?

Why doesn't this board of supervisors lobby for litter litigators within their commonwealth attorney's office?

Why is it that Albemarle's all-democrat board of supervisors refuses in their climate action plan to outlaw open

Why is it that Albemarle's All-Democrat Board of Supervisors never answers questions that are asked from the public?

And why is Albemarle's All-Democrat Board of Supervisors only willing to listen to the public for no more than three minutes?

Oh, I've been mistaken.

Ours is not to keep asking why.

Ours is to do nothing.

Just shut up and die.

All right, thank you.

Afternoon.

Afternoon.

Can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

Yes, great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Rex Lindell with the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I'm also a resident of the Samuel Miller district.

Thank you to Chairman Galloway and the entire board for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Albemarle County has seen remarkable success in land conservation over the past 20 years.

And as a result of this success, we are the second most protected county in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with approximately 109,000 acres of private land that is permanently protected with conservation easements.

This conservation and easement success has been one of the most concrete ways that the rural area protection goals of the Albemarle County Comprehensive Plan have been realized and proactively implemented.

First and foremost, land conservation is made possible by private property owners who voluntarily protect their land for the benefit of future generations.

It has also been made possible through collaborative efforts of entities like the Piedmont Environmental Council, Virginia Outdoors Foundation,

Virginia Department of Forestry and importantly the Albemarle County Conservation Easement Authority and Albemarle County's conservation easement purchase program called the Acquisition of Conservation Easements or ACE.

The Albemarle County or the Albemarle Conservation Easement Authority was created by Albemarle County back in 1989 and over the years it has become the first choice conservation easement holder for many landowners in Albemarle County.

Of the 12 conservation projects covering over 2,000 acres during the 2020 calendar year, all of them went to the easement authority.

As a result of this trend, the easement authority now holds easements on 186 properties covering over 28,000 acres, or about 25% of all the protected land in Albemarle County.

The program has been a tremendous success.

and it will be critical to the protection of Albemarle County for generations to come.

In fact, Albemarle County is now running one of the most successful local land trusts in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

As someone who's worked in the land conservation field for over 20 years and represents Virginia's land conservation community as a board member for the Virginia United Land Trust, I can easily say that the Albemarle Easement Authority is underfunded and understaffed.

The Easement Authority currently has approximately one half of an FTE allocated to it

and in order to professionally monitor all the existing easements the county now holds and meet the professional demand and professionally meet the demand for new easements, I believe this should be expanded to at least two FTE.

Finally, I would like to note that the acquisition of conservation easement program is zeroed out in the 2022 recommended budget.

At its height, this program was funded with as much as $1.6 million annually.

It leveraged significant state matching dollars and it has helped protect almost 10,000 acres

of Farm and Forest Land in Albemarle County that simply would not have been protected without the county investment.

The ACE program and the Conservation Easement Authority are two programs that are vital to the future of Albemarle County.

If you wish to see a future where we actually meet our local climate goals, where residents have a clean and adequate local water supply, and we maintain our agricultural, forestry, and tourism industries, then I implore you to fully fund both of these programs and continue to be a conservation leader in the Commonwealth.

Thank you.

Do we have any other speakers signed up today?

We do not.

We will close matters from the public.

And, Board, that will take us to our consent agenda.

And it has been modified.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended?

So moved.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Yeah, I just want to say something about IV proper.

It was pulled.

Oh, OK.

I'm sorry.

I thought we were moving on.

So that's good.

So item 8.2 was pulled.

That's the IV proper.

Supervisor Palmer just mentioned the request by the applicant is deferral until May 5th.

And we have Mariah with us.

I believe you're going to help if you have some comments and then if there's questions by supervisors, we can go through.

Is that appropriate?

Good afternoon.

To introduce myself, my name is Mariah Gleason.

I'm a senior planner with the planning division of Albemarle County.

Yes, the request was reviewed by staff.

There have been concerns noted so the applicant has requested deferral of the consideration of the critical slopes waiver until the board's meeting on May 5th.

I just want to correct a little something.

It was my request that we address this under the, before we passed it, because the concern was that there were, that the critical slopes cut into the railroad

They weren't into the railroad easement, but they were into the dirt that may have some supports of the railroad.

There were multiple qualifiers in there that Frank Pohl put in there, and Frank is out of town this week.

And so it was decided that the best thing to do would be to pull it, and of course the applicant was

asked if that was okay and it was okay with them.

I do have to say that I added one more thing to that.

I want to make sure that Mariah knows that.

And when I went over to try to understand where the easements, excuse me, where the railroad easement ended and where the critical slope disturbances were going to start,

I did notice a large pipe that is in the plans that it seems to be draining Neebs Lane and it's draining.

So this property is actually accepting water from another property and there was a considerable amount of erosion.

So I did want to understand before the board passed this how that stormwater was being addressed in a heavy storm.

I was quite surprised.

I actually couldn't see it last year when I went to the site because it was so overgrown.

And I'm not sure if Supervisor Mallek might have some words to this.

This is a very, very small piece of property that is our old commercial zoning, once again.

and we're wedging a pretty good sized parking lot back there and clearly staff has worked through that with the applicant and I do certainly respect that.

But because of the number of qualifiers in there, I was really concerned that we were making that parking lot larger than it should be.

So that is what I would just wanna make sure that

I made that clear that that came actually from me rather than the applicant, but the applicant certainly approved of this.

So that's it.

Great.

Noted.

I was doing what I was told on that one.

Thank you.

I will just add concerns that the risk

that is described over and over again in the staff report.

And this is resulting from a very large building and a very large parking improvement on a very small piece of property.

And that's why this land has been undeveloped for so long because it can't handle what's happening.

The risk that I see is this whole area was two feet deep in water on May 18th, 2018.

and May 29th, 2018.

The Dooner sign was not visible from the residents up at the top of the hill.

That's how deep it was.

So while it didn't last a long time, it was still a lot of water force.

And I have learned over 50 years of living next to water that I have tremendous respect for the destructive ability of this and any kind of impingement upon

the railroad embankment, despite what geotechnical guesses might be, if a building is built and then something awful happens, we have made a grievous error to allow something to happen that, or approve something that will be failing.

These are all questions I wanted to ask Frank and of course he's not here, so I'm very grateful for the postponement, but I did want to sort of throw those ideas out there.

Fine, I agree with what's been said.

Alright, so what's the concerns that are brought up?

Yes, thank you for walking through the concerns that you have.

I appreciate those notes.

I've worked with the clerk's office to put this as a regular agenda item on your agenda for May 5th.

I look forward to having the other information then.

We do need to take the official action if someone is ready to make a motion to defer to May 5th.

Yes, that's good.

I move that we defer action on the IV proper critical slopes waiver until May 5th.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms.

That motion carries.

The other item that was pulled from consent was item 8.3 stream health initiative project update.

And who am I turning to for this one first?

Good afternoon, everybody.

I had asked a lot of questions via email, which were graciously and thoroughly answered.

So I'm not sure what else I have to say, except I'm really grateful that we're working on this project.

It's really, really important for all of us.

Just a comment that I really appreciate the report.

I've just about gotten through all of the all of the meetings.

I thought they were well done.

And I also had mentioned to our county executive that my only concern was the timeline.

that it was our first time that we were going to talk about this was work session with the Planning Commission and I thought it might be beneficial for us to have an update on this publicly prior to the work session with the Planning Commission just to make sure we're all together on what's, you know, what's been done before that.

Thank you.

As with the other supervisors, I think the biggest concern, well, I support what the other supervisors have said.

The one concern I always have when we're talking about regulations is ensuring that we're looking at the best business practices, not necessarily a one-size-fits-all.

and that we truly understand what the impacts of the regulations can be both as they protect the water and as we also work to allow our businesses, agricultural, forestal, to be able to conduct their business.

I'm fine at this point.

I really did appreciate the report and I'm happy.

I think it's great that we'd be discussing it as a group before it goes to the Planning Commission.

I think that's probably a good idea.

All right, very good.

And this one doesn't, this was for information grade.

Very good.

All right, that will get us to our next item, number nine.

This is SE-2021-3, Homestay special exception, Warren Mill.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

It just took me a second to unmute.

My screen kept moving around.

I will go ahead and start with my staff presentation.

Thank you.

This is a homestay special exception for Warren Ferry.

And this is a request to reduce the required 125 foot setbacks.

Since we do have two sets of regulations, depending on whether a parcel is greater or less than five acres in size, we like to do a quick recap of the zoning regulations that are applicable

The subject parcel is 11 acres, so rental of up to five guest rooms is allowed.

Mentioned that the 125 foot setbacks apply to all property lines and parking.

This property would also possibly be able to use accessory structures.

and have up to two homestays although that has not been requested.

All homestays are subject to the owner residing on the parcel, approval of a zoning clearance which follows any special exception approvals where we do the final verification of all of the requirements such as the safety inspection and the provision of an emergency contact notice to neighbors.

and there are several provisions which a homestay could request a special exception for but in this case there's only the one request for the reduced setbacks to side property lines.

As we review these special exception requests we are looking at if there is any detriment to the abutting lot

and if there would be any harm to public health safety or welfare in granting the special exception.

And of course the board must act on to approve, approve with conditions or to deny special exceptions.

Moving to the specifics of the property, this is a location map of the Warren Ferry area along the James River.

The property

is marked in blue or excuse me the parcel is outlined in blue and then there's a excuse me outlined in yellow with the blue asterisk sort of indicating where the structure is generally on the property.

Ballinger Creek runs through the property to the south and then as I mentioned the James River is just across the railroad tracks there to the south.

This map also shows you where the abutting parcels are and the

the folks that were notified of the special exception request.

This is an aerial view of the property and the surroundings again with the blue star asterisk if you will indicating where the structure is that's proposed for homestay rental.

It is a dwelling that dates back to the 1700s and was a former grist mill.

Again, there's Ballinger Creek.

The property to the left on your screen is about 800 acres.

It's across the creek in the woods and it's under easement.

And then the nearest neighbor is to the right of your screen.

Also on the property is an accessory structure, which is to the right across the fenced in courtyard from the grist mill.

This is another exhibit of the property which shows you the entrances and the location of parking and the screening areas.

To the northeast is who we heard from and you received an email from in terms of concerns.

Staff heard from that property owner earlier in the review process and went to the property to look at the homestay from their vantage point.

and the primary concerns have been related to any rental of the cottage which is the structure to the northeast from the homestay structure.

I will mention that this homestay operator was brought to our attention through our proactive homestay compliance program so it has been a property that has been operating without the appropriate homestay permits

for a couple years now.

So the neighbor has had some experience with what that operation is like.

So this action of this, excuse me, approval of this special exception would be one step towards compliance.

and there are, as we noted in the staff report, there is some screening along that property line.

Now in between the property line with the neighbor is a parcel that is owned by the railroad.

So and there is also screening and buffering along the creek property line.

mentioned the neighbor comments earlier.

Staff did have some discussion with them and the summary and the staff report was that there were not, there wasn't a blanket objection to the home stay if you will, but they wanted to bring to our attention some of the concerns that had been addressed by their neighbors and some of the limitations they thought would be appropriate if the home stay was approved.

one of which is that the accessory structure also referred to as the carriage house would not be used for home stay rental and that's a recommended condition of approval.

Events should not be allowed on the property that is not allowed by ordinance that's prohibited by the ordinance.

There was a suggestion after staff had written the staff report which just came in yesterday

in terms of these comments from the neighbor that there should be a limit to the total number of guests that could rent the property and that has not been a condition that we included in our recommendation.

As you know the ordinance doesn't have any limitations on guest occupancy and then the last suggestion from the neighbor was regarding enhancement of that screening in between

or along the property line on the Homestay property, the one that is nearest to the neighbor.

When I went on the neighbor's property you could see where it needed to be supplemented to screen the parking and then the accessory structure is visible but that would not be used by Homestay guests.

So given, I'm gonna switch back to the layout of the property, given these characteristics in terms of where the guest structure is located and the accessory structure sort of forming a natural screen from the courtyard and guest areas and with the addition of parking screening, staff did recommend approval.

of this home stay with the three conditions we mentioned in terms of where guests and parking areas will be limited and where the where the screening will need to be enhanced.

Thank you, Rebecca.

Thank you, Rebecca.

I may have missed it in the staff report.

So the owner resides in the accessory structure when there are guests in the mill.

Okay.

All right.

And you said you are requiring them to thicken up the buffer, which is excellent.

Yes.

Okay, so thank you very much, Ms.

Ragsdale.

I also wanted to understand, so the Grist House, that's where everyone would be staying, and that's up to five rooms, and you are not approving the other accessory dwelling for that to be rented out for any reason at any time, is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

And you are requiring additional buffering?

Yes.

In this case, it would likely be a supplemental evergreen planting since there's some mixed vegetation there.

Okay.

Okay.

I have a couple questions.

So it said in the staff report that the zero setback was given for a farm building back, I think it was 1998, I don't remember exactly the date.

And so at some point, this went from a farm building to a human dwelling.

I reckon the variant from 1988 when it was granted for an accessory structure so it could be any permitted accessory use.

We don't have a permit on record that I could find to convert it to a dwelling.

It would certainly be allowed to use it as an accessory structure which can include sort of that bonus space.

Okay, so there are plans to address that.

Well, it's another potential zoning violation that we discovered based on our property research.

You know, initially we're looking at the property because of our homestay program, you know, having a property listed as a homestay is what

So there's a history on this property of not complying with zoning regulations in addition to the homestay that you found when you were

doing your search for home stays that aren't registered.

And I guess I'm just noting that if a property owner has been doing this already, and my concern is that we grant this and then

At some point, they decide to rent both of them.

And unless the neighbor starts to complain, we're not going to know about it.

Well, we have the, it's called HMARI, we have the homestay service for another year, or I think it's about another year, through the end of this year.

So without the service, then it does, you know, without the proactive program and that service, we do fall back on the complaint driven process.

The neighbor asked about not allowing any large family reunions.

And I'm wondering if the neighbor knows what our definition of a large family reunion would be, because it would be an event, right?

And did the next door neighbor get a, do we provide a list when we send them the letter saying this is happening next door to you?

Do we supply the neighbors with the regulations?

Yes.

We refer them to our website for more information as a start and encourage them to contact staff to go over the regulations, but we don't send

Well, I know we're getting better with our internet in some of these rural areas, hopefully.

But I think that might be something we should consider.

I don't know how about other board members would feel about that.

But I'm also wondering how well we're communicating this individual, I guess,

Either took a while to engage because you said in the report that the letters were sent out February 19th, I think.

I don't have it in front of me.

And it's April now that it's coming to the board.

If I may clarify that the notice was out and we were contacted in plenty of time in advance of writing the staff report and I think you know I have prior emails from the property owner and we went out right away and met with the property owner on the property

to see it from their perspective and you know we went over all the regulations again and um I think it was one of those things until she saw the staff report and how it was being presented to you that she then sent her final comments she wanted to be here today to speak directly to the item but she had a scheduling conflict that she couldn't get around so um

so that I mean that's how it worked in this case we're okay open to suggestions but I wouldn't I didn't want you to get in the get the impression that we didn't hear about this till the very last minute um and we never know you know some people um it's it's really it really varies sometimes we send these notices and we don't hear anything you know sometimes we hear some concerns um and that's the case with any of our other notifications that we do for special exceptions or major home occupations or

you know, any of the others.

Okay, well, thank you.

I guess what I'm concerned about is, you know, to make sure that the abutting owners, especially when they have had a history of problems, and they are expressing concerns, that they understand all the things that they can call us for.

call the county for to report a violation if they're having problems with it.

And that's where I'm going with that.

I don't know how anybody else feels about that and how onerous that would be, but it's something to consider.

I like doing these.

All right, Supervisor Price.

Thank you, Chair Galloway, Ms.

Ragsdale, thank you.

And I want to follow up a little bit on the thread that Supervisor Palmer started.

First off, I appreciate you stating, differentiating that transition of this structure to an accessory structure.

I am concerned that the applicant did not come to the county to tell us that they were engaged in this enterprise and that the county had to take affirmative action to identify them.

raises concerns with me.

I would encourage the county to continue the service that is being utilized that allows us to identify individuals who are engaged in businesses without the appropriate licensing or permits.

And in that regard, are there any outstanding fees or other matters for the couple of years that the individuals have engaged in this and have not paid their license fees?

So for example, now that we know this has been going on for a couple of years,

Do we require, I think we should, the property owner to pay back the fees that were due for the years that they had not done it, as well as paying any taxes that would be responsible for that?

So one, do we do that?

Yes, as part of the compliance program that we have underway, that includes finance,

and you may recall when we started this, we had the packet and the meetings where we went into great detail about all the taxes or licensing requirements.

So this property, in some cases, when we're contacting people, they may be able to take care of things right away with finance, but then things in our department take longer because we have to schedule special exceptions.

but they sent me the spreadsheet of the taxes and the days that they had rented rooms last year.

So yes, the short answer is yes, that's part of the program.

When we do the work session in June, when we talk about things sort of big picture and comprehensively finance will be part of that so we can let you know how that's going but it's definitely part of the process and they have their own

process where they don't use the same terminology as notices of violation, but they have the equivalent of that when people don't respond to them, statutory assessments happen.

Ms.

Ragsdale, not to be difficult here, but they and them doesn't help me know who you're talking about.

The applicant sent that to you.

To my knowledge, I can't answer that.

I didn't double check that before the meeting.

I can certainly follow up with finance today on that.

They will have to.

Okay, and then the other thing would be when they, the applicant, the property owner,

comes into compliance and pays back those fees, I presume that they also must pay some sort of an interest charge or penalty associated with that, much like if you don't pay your taxes on time, you have to, or any other bill, at least have interest that is due.

Do you have the answer to that question?

yes there are um interests okay um and so as i understand it while they could have up to whom two stays on this property they are not requesting that the cottage um be uh approved so that the only thing we're dealing with today is approved if we approve it it's the 120 the waiver of the 125 foot setback

One moment, I just want to look through.

I believe those are all the questions I've got.

I will tell you at the moment.

I have concerns about approving this until I know that compliance has been fully met and all fees have been paid.

But I have no further questions at this time.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Rebecca, I really appreciate the report and the due diligence you spend when you go out to these properties and you look so carefully and thoroughly through the right lens as you were evaluating.

I appreciate that.

And I just want to make a comment that I really would like to have an opportunity as a board member to discuss the service because I would be very much in favor of continuing to fund the service.

When you talk about we're losing it in December, I get concerned.

But that's another issue.

If we could come back to that, I guess in June when we're talking about the home stays in general, I would really appreciate that.

I too am concerned about the lack of compliance.

And I was kind of going to, I was going to in my head going to where I think Donna has already gone and maybe Liz to some degree.

Is, and just to clarify, aside from the penalties

coming into compliance, are we going to require that the screening, the Cyprus or whatever the screening might be, does that have to be in place before they start using this?

I'm just trying to figure out what our regulations are or

So if you, I can answer that.

You missed it in the report and I apologize if I did.

Well, I guess it's not so much listed in the report.

The special exception is the first step and then being able to have the home stay because they don't meet the 125 foot requirement and the zoning clearance process is the final approval where we can verify that the screening is in place.

We will verify that the screening is in place before we approve it and I can also verify with finance that they have

You know paid all of their taxes So that that happens before we officially approve the use and it's not it's not listed right now As far as offering any more guest rooms for rent so before you know people take their listings down once we talk talk to them usually and then as you know some don't but This one has and we can check on those things.

Rebecca, can you clarify the third condition?

Because you speak as though there is some supplemental screening that is to come, but the way that condition, the way I've read that condition is that it's an either or.

They either maintain what's already there or they install the screening that gets them into compliance with that section of the zoning ordinance.

So the or in the third line of condition three should be changed to I guess the clause or equivalent screening should be changed to and

This well, yes, that was, I guess, in my mind, you know, the the existing screening needed to be enhanced.

The requirement is that the screening be there, and in this case it needs to be enhanced.

Well, yeah, this is the first one.

This is the first one I recall where there was existing screening and it was discussed in terms of there also being more screening added.

So maybe that's

So Greg that's a great catch and Rebecca since I'm seeing that and given the history of the the owners and the question about whether or not they are current on their

What they owe the county.

Perhaps this could come back to us after Greg's had a chance to straighten out this language about screening.

You know what I'm saying?

And you've had a chance to check about the other and perhaps it could just come back on the consent agenda.

I'm just thinking that I'm feeling kind of at this point a little uncomfortable with approving this at this time.

Okay.

Just a thought.

Any objection?

So maybe tightening this up somewhat Rebecca, I don't see, I can't see everybody on the screen, I see three people, but maybe and if when we get that done and Greg has a chance and you know everything is taken care of in the way of fines, then it could come back on the consent agenda

Yeah, no one's stated any objection here so I think this is an okay point.

Greg, anything here we have to do today?

No, I think we're fine and one thing I've been scrambling around looking for

Yeah, we do require the payment of delinquent taxes and other charges as part of the application process, but staff can confirm that to the board when it does come back.

We got a note.

Yes, thank you, Chair Galloway.

I just wanted to know, since it looks like we're going to be deferring this, it's something that Supervisor Palmer brought up regarding sending a notice out, and I'm wondering how burdensome that would be on staff if we send a notice out on what has been approved, once it's approved, just to those who are complaining.

In other words, if a neighbor is

has no complaints about the home stay with conditions, but if there's a neighbor that does have complaints, such as in this case, what would be wrong with sending out the approval we send to the homeowners, also sending out the same approval with the same wording to the people who have complained, would that be burdensome?

instead of them reading the entire, you know, all the regulations, just specifically what applies to this home state.

Would that be burdensome?

I guess we would have to talk about that with the rest of the staff.

There is the requirement that, and it's something that we verify before we issue that final zoning clearance, the applicant is responsible, the homestay operator, for sending an emergency contact notice to their abutting property.

So if something arises, then the neighbor can contact them.

And in this case, the neighbor had been contacting them

When she did have issues, but you know, that's something we can think about it's you know, I'll be you know, when I think about home stays and I guess, you know, there's some times where we

where I prefer to fall back on being consistent with other processes that we have for other types of applications, but we know that homestays are, the program we're in now is kind of new and different.

But I'd just like to talk that over with the zoning administrator and the rest of the staff, and we can follow up on that with you when this comes back or the next item.

Ms.

Ragsdale, I'm just thinking that usually with a homestay, and you have someone who has objected to it, usually with a homestay, that's where we, the county, most likely finds out that there are violations.

All right, I'm seeing a lot of hands go up again, so I'm just gonna go through this order again.

Thank you.

So I have lots of threads that the old conversion from 30 years ago, is there an opportunity in our process now to have a thorough inspection of this property to make sure it meets building code?

Because a lot has changed since 1988.

And if we're having guest accommodations,

That's different in a way and responsibility than a person living there themselves.

So I want to make sure that that is done in some fashion.

I agree with others who have already said about providing more specific information to our neighbors.

I have fussed for years about the burden that our county government in general over all different departments puts a burden on neighbors.

for enforcement instead of because it's we don't necessarily have an alternative but it is a necessary evil that we have right now and so I think providing the detail to them is really important so they know a little bit more than just the specific they need to know the specifics for this particular property and I understand how you want to have consistency but if someone has

almost lost the right for the consistency because they didn't comply.

That should put them in a different category as far as notice and having to sort of work their way out of that.

Several years ago when we had a new understanding of the finance rules, there were people renting cottages who had to pay five years worth of back license fees and 10% interest.

And so I am assuming that that is the same

Time frame for this when people have businesses and licenses and don't do that.

But those are two things that I would love to get qualification when you come back with other information.

I just want to add those to

categories to the list of your questions.

So just so I've got that, we need to work on the wording for the third condition.

We need information about tax compliance.

And then we know that we have the outstanding issue related to the accessory structure that we want to, we'll be addressing that.

And when I say we'll be addressing that, we make sure that they get the proper permits for whatever work was done if they didn't for the accessory structure.

because we've identified that as another potential violation, but the homestay structures themselves where guests are staying always get a safety inspection.

And, you know, we always verify that they meet the current, you know, the applicable building code.

If the accessory structure has to be habitable in order for the resident family to be there on site to meet the ordinances, then it seems like that's an important building to have at the current process.

I don't have anything else to add.

I would like to say one thing that we just have to keep in mind going forward that

First of all, I think it's a great idea that we keep the service or keep this up in some way because this is going to continue.

These homestays are going to continue to occur.

And they do go with the property, not with the owner.

So as properties change hands over the years and whatnot, uses are liable to expand change without

the understanding of adjacent property owners and new property owners what the rules are.

Thank you.

I support the deferral.

I think the process questions, we can really handle that separately at a work session for the process.

I'll provide my thoughts on that separately by email.

Thank you.

I'm fine for right now.

I think the deferral of support and what

Rebecca, you're getting a sense of some of the things that we'll need to want to talk about when we come back, whether it's June or whatever that timeline is.

Yeah, excuse me, just to correct myself, it appears that special exceptions are the one type of land use application where

By ordinance, we do not require the payment of fees or payment of taxes in order for the application to be processed.

Okay.

Very interesting.

All right, hold on.

That includes back taxes also?

We don't require by ordinance, and I'm guessing that when special exceptions came on, originally they were such minor types of applications that they weren't included with this requirement.

Excellent.

Francis, you had your hand raised.

All right.

So this will come back.

Doesn't look like any other hands are raised or cartoon hands are raised.

We can go ahead with the motion.

Well, I mean, I'm not opposed to that, those saying qualification.

Okay, it would just be deferring again if it was coming back on the consent agenda.

That's the reason I ask.

But anyway, okay, I move that we defer this

Second.

Call the vote.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

All right, very good.

That motion carries.

If we could just do a quick little procedural piece.

When we have presentations up on the screen, I cannot see all of you.

And if I do see all of you, I can't see the presentation.

So if you would like to ask a question or have a comment out of turn, including if staff has a request, can you all put that request in the chat?

Because I keep that open and can see that versus this and the cartoon hand.

Thank you.

This next item, number 10, SC 2021-6, I'm going to make this comment just in the interest of time.

This is one that would have normally made its way to our consent agenda and just from a procedural piece did not.

So it's not any reason other than that.

But I just want to point that out that when it was brought to our attention, the agenda was already released.

So we just decided to leave it as an action item rather than make all the iterations that change the agenda.

But this next one, is Leah on?

Or is Rebecca doing this one?

Leah?

I don't see Leah on here.

Sorry, I don't see Leah.

My understanding was that she would be available just to give a brief overview, but like I said, the intent was this was supposed to go to the consent agenda, but got put on the agenda item as an action item, and rather than go through all the iterations, I said, let's leave it there, we'll just treat it as the action item and then move on, since the agenda was already published by the time it was caught.

Francis, are you able to speak to this one if Leia's not on?

Mr. Chair, while you're waiting for the Speaker, I do believe the Supervisor had her hand up.

I was just going to say, Ned, as the Supervisor of record for this particular Homestay special exception, I thought it was coming back on the consent agenda and I feel very comfortable with it as long as we approve it with the recommendations that staff made.

Well, hopefully it'll help with the rest of us spending a lot of time on it, I can tell you that.

I'm just trying to help speed us along because I had no concerns about this.

Understood.

But since it's on there as an action item, if we could just get the brief overview and then we'll probably move through it pretty quickly there.

Thank you, Board.

Yeah, I was stuck in the meeting room because my Zoom is on my personal account and not a county account.

Apologies for that.

So let me go ahead and share my screen if I'm allowed to do that.

So what we have today is a special exception 2021-06 for Georgetown Way.

This is a special exception in the rural area on a 2.23 acre parcel.

As we noted, this type of special exception is normally on the consent agenda, but the process for request had not yet been finalized, so we're just moving ahead.

Homestays like the subject parcel, as we all know, limited to two guest rooms, 125 foot setback, parking must be on site, neighbor notice is required, and the normal requirements for special exceptions.

For smaller RA parcels, four types of special exceptions may be requested.

This applicant is only requesting the special exception to reduce setbacks.

We are going from 125 feet on all parcel boundaries to 87 feet on the front, 100 feet on the southeast and 118 on the northwest property boundaries.

Homestay special expressions may be granted permitted.

There's no detriment to any budding lot and there's no harm to public health, safety or welfare.

And in this particular property, we are in a unique situation where there is unlikely to be any kind of detriment to abutting parcels.

Three of the parcel sides are on dense residential zoning and

The entrance of the parcel faces Georgetown Veterinary Hospital, a special exception granted commercial use in the rural area zoning.

The closest residents directly north, 255 Georgetown Way, also submitted a letter of support for this application.

All sides of the property do feature vegetative screening and the sides on other residential or rural parcels also have a six-foot wooden fence.

We received two inquiries from neighbors regarding the nature of the homestay, but none of the inquiries they received were concerned in any way or expressed any kind of opposition to the special exception.

They just wanted to know what is a homestay and what is permitted.

Okay, thank you for your time.

So as such, staff does recommend approval of the special exception with conditions related to parking and guest room numbers and maintenance of the existing screening.

These are the standard conditions that we have requested previously in other similar applications.

And I hope you'll get the shortest question period.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

No questions.

Supervisor Palmer.

I'm good too.

Supervisor Price.

No questions.

No questions.

I'm fine.

Please.

Okay.

I move that we approve special except of course I said I was ready and now I'm

Special exception, SE-2021-00006 Homestay for Georgetown Way.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

All right, very good.

Motion carries.

Okay, hopefully everyone can see my screen now.

Good afternoon members of the board.

I am Rachel Falkenstein, planning manager.

I'm here to present the draft land use chapter of the Crozet master plan updates.

So the purpose of this work session is for us to check in with you all on the draft land use chapter for the Crozet master plan update.

It's an opportunity for us to share the land use content before we proceed with the remaining chapters of the master plan.

And before we begin identifying implementation measures to support the land use plan, we thought it'd be good opportunity to check in and hear feedback.

We have two questions for the board today.

The first is the draft chapter consistent with the county's comprehensive plan and strategic plan goals.

And the second is does the board have any feedback or suggested revisions to the draft content?

Our agenda for the presentation is we have about 20 minutes of presentation to cover.

We'll provide an overview of the engagement and the feedback and the process to develop the draft land use chapter.

And then my colleague Tori Cantalopoulos will present some of the content in the draft land use chapter.

We'll give a brief summary of the changes from 2010 and then the remaining of the time will be for the board discussion and question and answer.

So now I'm going to go through some of the engagement and the process we went through to develop the content that we shared with you in the advanced materials.

This timeline should look a little bit familiar to you all.

You directed staff to begin updating the Crozet Master Plan on September 4th of 2019.

and we outlined a four phase process to update the master plan.

And I will note that since that time, our project timeline has been revised from the original scope and that was mostly to accommodate project delays, especially due to COVID-19 and having to shift our engagement approach.

So in the next portion of the presentation, I'm gonna talk through each of these phases in more detail.

But this timeline just kind of shows you just a high level overview of each phase.

Phase one being the community visioning stage of the master plan update.

Phase two was really focused on starting to talk about some focus areas and design strategies for our land use plan.

And we developed our first draft land use plan in phase two.

Phase three was draft recommendations where we further refined the draft land use plan and had some specific recommendations developed.

And then phase four, which is where we are now, is the plan drafting review and adoption portion of the project.

So now I'll go through each of the phases in a little bit more detail for you all.

The purpose of phase one, as I mentioned, was a visioning exercise to look at the guiding principles for the Crozet Master Plan.

We looked at the 2010 principles and updated the principle based on the feedback we heard in this phase.

We had several engagement opportunities.

You can see from these photos, we were in person at the time, had some large workshops that were well attended and some smaller events as well.

We mirrored our content online through all of these phases even before we were entirely virtual.

The phase one feedback, and I will mention that this is a really high level with some of the feedback themes we've heard in each of the phases.

If you take a look at the advanced materials that we shared in attachment C, you can see a more detailed summary of some of this feedback.

So phase one feedback, we heard some themes that really carried through the whole update process.

A desire for a variety of housing types and affordability.

Importance of scale and form and that new development be compatible with existing neighborhoods and adjacent development.

Concerns about concurrency of infrastructure, keeping up with growth.

and then we started to develop some high level kind of patterns of development that the community wanted to see.

We heard a strong focus on wanting more growth downtown and not around the periphery such as in RAP 250.

So the deliverable from phase one was an updated guiding principle which I'll show on the next slide.

We had five supporting goals and we identified a couple of focus area topics and themes that we looked at more detail in phase two.

So our updated guiding principle, I will share that the 2010 per se master plan had a vision statement and seven guiding principles.

The 2021 update, we're recommending four guiding principles.

So it would be one for each chapter of the plan.

So there'll be one for land use, one for transportation, one for conservation, and one for implementation.

And then each guiding principle will have total supporting goals and actionable recommendations.

So this is the vision from 2010 on the slide,

And then this next slide, you'll see there are two guiding principles from 2010 that talk about land use topics.

And then our 2021 draft guiding principle is on the right side.

I won't read these in detail, but you can see that we tried to pull forward the themes from 2010.

A lot of the content is retained.

The word and the format is just slightly different.

After we completed phase one, we moved on to phase two where we started some focus area discussions and design strategies.

So the purpose was to really start to address some of the challenges that we heard in that first phase and think about how land use could support that guiding principle identified.

Our phase two engagement opportunities, we started off in person, had some workshops, and then had to transition to all virtual due to COVID-19.

And we had to pause the project a little bit just to while we figured out how to do virtual meetings, how we thought about how we would do engagement virtually for this project specifically.

And we began hosting virtual workshops with our CAC, Community Advisory Committee, at their monthly meeting.

So that began in

June during this phase.

So in phase two, we also rolled out our first draft future land use plan.

And a couple of summaries of some of the content that we brought forward in this first draft was a proposed downtown neighborhoods overlay.

This was a concept we were looking at for neighborhoods around downtown.

Downtown is shown in red on the map in the center.

Some of these neighborhoods around downtown where potential redevelopment would occur, we were recommending an overlay to talk about appropriate scales of redevelopment that could happen in those areas.

We're also starting to look at some parcel specific changes and green space parcels was a theme that we started to look at.

And what I mean by green space parcels are those parcels that were designated entirely as green space in 2010.

that didn't have significant environmental features on them and that actually had development potential that could be an update in the 2010 master plan.

So we started to look at those with this draft land use plan.

We also tried to bring forward some changes that would bring this land use plan more consistent with existing zoning and other master plans that had recently been updated.

So there are some changes to the land use categories needs.

This is just a more zoom in version of that.

You can see the downtown neighborhoods overlay pretty faintly here in a blue line.

And we have our centers identified as well.

That's something, another theme we pulled from this phase.

So feedback summary from this phase, some of the themes were continued from phase one.

There was support for smaller housing types, but not large apartments.

There was still concern about infrastructure concurrency and still concern about additional density, especially as we started to talk about some of the specific changes.

We had a planning commission work session during phase two, where we brought forward the concept of a new middle density residential category

We had not yet applied this to the map, but it was something we were thinking about with the first bullet on this slide about the community wanting smaller housing types and not large apartments.

We thought there could be a new land use category that could accommodate those smaller housing types and have the appropriate densities applied.

The Planning Commission supported that.

They wanted to see it applied to a land use map.

We also shared the downtown neighborhoods overlay concept with the Planning Commission.

They liked the idea but had some concerns as well, and they shared those with us.

And so we went back to the drawing board and made a couple of changes.

So that took us to phase three.

And again, we were all working with our engagement on phase three.

Several community advisory committee work sessions, virtual, and then we had online, we still call them workshops, but they were essentially questionnaires online about the content.

The purpose of phase three was to continuing to refine the strategies from phase two in the land use map based on the feedback.

So in phase three, we developed a second draft of the future land use plan where we applied our new middle density residential land use category.

And we did some personal changes specific to a property called White Gate Farm.

There were some changes to Old Trail.

Block 26 is one of those.

And there was some additional refinement of green space parcels.

These three topics Tori is going to talk about in more detail when she gets to the draft chapter.

And so here's a zoom in of the map.

It still looks pretty similar, but there are a couple of minor changes from the previous version.

And the middle density residential land use is applied and that's in the light orange.

So feedback from phase three.

Again, some of the themes were continued through this phase as well.

And the CAC also had a meeting where they went through all of the list of changes that staff had proposed, and they took votes on them.

And the votes are listed in attachment C. So you can see how they voted on each topic.

But they voted against the majority of the proposed changes and a couple of concerns that

They shared and other members of the community are listed in the bullets below.

Folks felt that the middle density residential, which was at the time proposed for 24 units an acre, they thought that density was too high and that it shouldn't be applied to certain properties, especially Whitegate Farm.

Folks felt that the downtown neighborhoods overlay was too broad and it needed more specifics and they didn't want it applied to an area called Pleasant Green.

There was some support for some of the changes in Old Trail, but concerns specifically for Block 26.

Again, Tori will talk about that in a little bit more detail.

And there was some current concern to the changes to the green space parcels, some specific parcels where we had made changes and added additional development potential, mostly in line with existing zoning.

We also had a second planning commission work session in phase three.

They shared their support for a middle density residential but wanted a couple of revisions, especially around that density number.

They did recommend we apply the green systems to only current and planned open space for environmental features and buffers.

So they had support for that approach that we had taken on several parcels.

They shared their support for the land use designations as we applied them to old trail.

but had some mixed feedback about an adjustment to the development area boundary around Old Trail.

We had made a small adjustment just to include the clubhouse because previously it had cut right through the middle of the clubhouse, so we made that adjustment.

Great.

Thank you, Rachel.

And good afternoon, members of the board.

My name is Tori Calopoulos.

I will be covering the draft land use chapter, which was also included as attachment B. So next slide, please.

So we are now in phase four of the master plan update, which includes drafting and reviewing each chapter and then final adoption of the entire plan.

Staff presented an overview of this graph land use chapter to the CCAC on March 10th.

And then there was a virtual workshop using public input with opportunities to provide general overview comments or comments on specific texts or maps in the plan.

And this workshop was open from March 22nd until April 5th.

The purpose of this phase is to continue to incorporate feedback on the draft recommendations and develop the final land use chapter.

And this will include work sessions with the Planning Commission and Board and continued community engagement for further refinement and feedback to finalize the chapter and its recommendations.

Next slide, please.

So 32 community members participated in the public input virtual workshop and then 10 community members provided online comments on the draft chapter directly.

Additionally, there were 26 community members that provided emailed comments to staff.

This feedback included support for the revised middle density residential land use category and for affordable housing in Crozet.

There were also comments on the concern of increased density and the need for concurrent infrastructure improvements.

And there were a significant number of comments about Block 26 and Old Trail Village including a letter from the HOA.

Next slide please.

So based on the feedback from the previous phases from the community and from the Planning Commission, staff drafted the land use chapter.

So this chapter includes an overview and background, guiding principles, goals, and recommendations specific to land use.

The draft future land use plan, which I will cover in more detail on following slides, the recommended uses in form for future land use typologies in the centers and districts, and then other areas of importance, which include Crozet Avenue and Route 250.

And there were also some formatting changes to align with other updated master plans.

Next slide, please.

So based on the feedback from these previous phases, staff has included a third draft of the future land use plan with this draft chapter.

And the major revisions include a second draft of the middle density residential land use category, which has been revised from a maximum recommended density of 24 units an acre up to 18 units per acre if missing middle housing types are provided.

Urban density has been revised to 12 to 34 units an acre and only applies to blocks 20 and 21 in Old Trail, which are the apartment blocks.

The downtown neighborhoods overlay has been removed and instead included as a text recommendation in the chapter for a downtown neighborhoods architectural and natural resources study.

The green systems designation is now consistently applied throughout all of pro se.

And then an old trail village block 19 is now hatch designated neighborhood density and institutional and the development area boundary has been adjusted.

So I'll talk a little bit about all of these in more detail.

And we have a larger version of the draft land use plan, which shows these changes and we can return to this slide later in the discussion if that's helpful for reference.

Next slide please.

So the main change for the second draft was reducing that maximum density recommended and then providing two density ranges to encourage the provision of missing middle housing types.

So the category now recommends a range of six to 12 units per acre and then up to 18 units per acre if additional affordable or small scale housing types, such as bungalow courts or tiny houses are provided.

And the appendix of the chapter has additional guidance that's being drafted on the recommended housing types and form for this category.

Next slide, please.

And so this map highlights where this middle density category has been applied in Crozet.

And this category was applied to all areas previously designated urban density residential, except for those blocks 20 and 21 Old Trail, which will remain urban density.

And most of these areas are already developed or have existing development approval.

And there are two undeveloped areas where the category was applied.

And the first is the Old Dominion property along Three Notched Road by Parkview Drive.

and then the Whitegate Farm property between Park Ridge Drive and the Wickham Pond neighborhood.

So the Old Dominion property in the 2010 plan was designated urban density and neighborhood density.

And so the middle density is replacing that urban density area on the property.

And then the Whitegate Farm property was designated all green space in the 2010 plan, and is now shown with a split middle density neighborhood density

designation with green systems applied just to the environmental features, which is consistent with the adjacent Wickham Pond neighborhood to the east.

Next slide, please.

So in the 2010 master plan, there is one green space category, and this was applied to private and public land.

So based on feedback from the community and the Planning Commission, and to provide more accurate expectations for community members and property owners about how land can be used, and to be more consistent with other master plan updates, staff has revised this category into two categories and applied it consistently in Crozet.

So the first category is green systems, and these designations are applied to environmental features such as steep slopes and stream buffers, visual landscape buffers, and land planned for private open space.

Next slide, please.

So the second green category is public land.

So this category is applied to existing and proposed county-owned parks, trails, and other publicly-owned lands, such as natural areas.

Next slide, please.

And so this map just shows that there's still a significant green network throughout all of Chris Bay.

And most of these updated parcels were updated to reflect the underlying by right development potential based on existing zoning.

And these are properties that are not planned for or intended to be parks or natural areas.

Next slide, please.

This map highlights the properties that were designated as entirely green space in the 2010 Crozier Master Plan that are not publicly owned, not entirely restricted by environmental features, and not planned as open space.

Next slide, please.

And so this map shows the additional properties that had their green space designation revised in order to more accurately reflect existing development potential based on existing zoning.

and better align with updated mapping of these environmental features that we have available.

Next slide, please.

And so since the second draft of the future land use plan, there were a couple of additional changes to Old Trail Village that Rachel has covered as well.

So to provide a little more detail, with the exception of Block 19, all of the changes in Old Trail are intended to reflect current approved densities and uses based on the approved code of development

So there are ranges within future land use categories, but trying to reflect those densities and uses as best as possible.

So the development area boundary on the western edge was adjusted to include the entire restaurant and clubhouse as they were previously cut off the other boundary.

They are both on public utilities.

The same future land use category of green systems is applied.

And then with Block 19, it is split designated neighborhood density and institutional.

The current zoning for the Old Trail Code of Development allows between 12 and 90 residential dwelling units.

and the hatched institutional portion of the designation would support a potential sports facility request, while the neighborhood density portion would support the underlying approved residential zoning.

So staff heard feedback from the community that institutional uses could be appropriate in this location, especially adjacent to the school site, but there was concern about allowing other types of uses such as commercial uses in that location.

Blocks 10, 22, and 32 are now designated middle density instead of neighborhood density to better reflect the approved densities allowed in those blocks.

And then the final old trail topic is block 26, which is located in the central area near the V for Village Center.

So next slide, please.

So this table shows a comparison starting on the left between the existing approved zoning, the current future land use designation of urban density in the 2010 plan, and then the revised recommended designation of community mixed use.

So while block 26 was shown on the previous land use draft as community mixed use, we wanted to cover this in a little more detail because we've still heard a lot of feedback about this block during phase four engagement.

Mainly around recommended height and density.

And so again, while no future land use category is a perfect fit for zoning, the community mixed use designation better aligns with the approved densities uses and forms for block 26 when compared to urban density.

So per the approved zoning block 26 allows between 20 and 150 dwelling units including single-family attached and detached and also apartments.

The zoning for this block allows a maximum building height of up to four stories or 60 feet and the zoning for this block allows up to 20,000 square feet of commercial retail office and other non-residential uses.

And so that is the range of allowed density and uses in the block, but it is ultimately up to the property owner to choose what is built on the site based on the parameters of their approved zoning.

Thank you, Tori.

So I'm going to conclude our presentation with just talking briefly, providing a summary of some of the changes that we've made from the adopted 2010 master plan.

So overall changes, we would classify the majority of our overall changes as cleanup related changes that attempt to bring the document into greater consistency with other county master plans and with existing zoning.

We've attempted to achieve alignment between existing zoning and what can be built today on property.

and the future land use to set appropriate expectations about future use of developable land.

And we're also trying to achieve greater consistency with other county master plans and the land use recommendations within those to improve understanding and clarity for all users, applicants, staff, community members and decision makers.

The overall growth projections between the 2010 and the draft 2021 plan remain very similar.

The draft plan does not add significant additional development potential on vacant properties or areas where we expect any significant redevelopment.

And we hope this plan is a reflection of the overall feedback we've heard throughout the master plan engagement process, a desire we've heard from the community to keep Crozet's small town identity,

and not to encourage significant growth, but also to provide additional housing choices and affordability on areas where remaining development potential exists.

So where new growth is recommended, we tried to provide guidance for that growth to be appropriate in scale and supportive of the guiding principles and goals.

So I'll conclude with this screen.

It's a side-by-side comparison of the 2010 future land use plan and the draft 2021 future land use plan.

You'll see the development patterns are carried forward in the draft 2021 plan.

This screen isn't intended to give a parcel by parcel list of changes, but so that you can see the overall pattern of development is really carried forward from 2010.

Most properties are retaining the same or similar land uses.

A significant green network is retained in the draft plan.

Commercial mixed use centers of activity are carried forward.

And then the surrounding land uses and existing neighborhoods continue to be predominantly designated for the yellow color, which is neighborhood density residential, and areas of neighborhood density residential low, which is the lighter yellow color on the periphery of some of the development area.

So that concludes our presentation.

I'll put our two questions up again as a reminder for the board.

The first is, is this draft chapter consistent with the county's comprehensive plan and strategic plan goals?

And then secondly, does the board have any feedback or suggested revisions to the draft content?

Victoria and I are also available to answer any questions you have about the draft content.

Thank you, Rachel.

Thank you, Tori.

A lot of information.

Supervisor Mallek, you're up first.

Thank you.

And you are right.

It is a lot of information.

Even for the sixth and seventh time through, it's still really.

And I want to commend.

Thank you, ladies and your entire department, because there has been a ton of effort and understanding and listening and in a very challenging circumstance.

When you have a community where lots of people go back

ten generations, they dig in really well on what's going on.

So I have a couple of questions and just so that the board as a whole understands how sort of where some of the issues have been.

One thing to point out that I guess

has been with the Crozet master plan all along, has been their description of urban density was six to 12.

So that's threw us down a tunnel at the beginning because then this new middle density seemed to be so much bigger and that led to a whole lot of discussion and sort of remastering on that.

But I think we're really getting there now.

I love the benefits of the overlay

if it could be very narrowly defined were tremendous.

But I understand coming back and doing it in the narrative approach that you've suggested is great.

I would love to know at some point what the timetable is for those studies, the downtown studies that were recommended instead of the overlay.

So that's something you can tell us about when you have that figured out.

But I think people will want to know before we move to the approval stage.

I'm running down my list here.

We talked about middle density.

Block 26, from what I understand, everyone in the surrounding area there at Old Trail really is very

devoted to the code of development that exists.

And where they perceive the concern is that the little asterisk that says you can go to five stories when our code of development says four, raises issues of uncertainty for them.

And I understand, I mean, Dave Brockman said, well, if we take the asterisk away, then that takes it away from every place else in the master plan.

but perhaps you can figure out a way to address that because I think actually Block 26 is the only place where that certain zoning would exist anyway in the Crozet Master Plan and maybe that also impacts your typologies for the other six areas and I don't know the answer to that.

The green space redefinition is wonderful to be able to take out the concrete, critical things, all the sort of hands off, no growth here areas and clearly put them out there is really important for people to know.

The only pushback I heard was from actual owners in those areas saying we do not want to be up zoned.

and so I think you heard that very clearly and I hope that that is still the core of the way it's been described because it's very complicated for me and probably others too understanding how all these units and densities

come out.

And I think that uncertainty is out there.

It's almost a leap of faith that we have to have, but we're still trying to ask as many questions as possible.

But they really pushed back on having higher density because being on the southern end of the growth area and having rural across the street, they really felt that was where they belonged.

So I'm just passing that along.

Lots of support for the revised middle density.

And coming down to the White Gate and the Old Dominion, changing the description of those to middle density, how does that impact the changes in the units that could be put there?

and Old Dominion particularly is north of 240.

It is only by fluke really in the growth area at all.

And the fact that there's a perception that it is very high density and packed with townhouses and it's not downtown.

There are no sidewalks.

There is nothing to get people from a very highly dense area there.

if there are ways to describe here is what it would have been under the current zoning under the current master plan and here's what it's going to be having that understanding would be very helpful and I guess just

Everybody is completely charmed by the idea of the bamboo grove, small houses, small developments, and that's really what people want to see for Enfield and are very concerned about having great big buildings and this monster massing that basically sets a cascade up and wipes out a lot of older, affordable, small houses that have been there for a couple of generations at least.

So I will stop there.

And as I said, some of these questions you may not have answers for today and that's okay.

I will look forward to getting them later.

Thank you.

Oh, one other thing to please add on the list.

I did not, I haven't gotten an answer yet on what's happening to Cathaross Lane because that is rural and there was a proposal to make it high density.

or something, neighborhood density when it is in the floodplain and in the middle between our constructive wetland and the Lincoln Hole Basin.

And so I know the owners are processing conservation easement on that property.

Thank you very much.

Yes, thank you very much for the presentation.

A lot to swallow, so to speak.

There's a lot there.

And the only thing I'm bringing up and that's Supervisor Mallek mentioned that regarding the asterisk, regarding the five

going up to five stories because I know that everyone's going to be against that.

But yet I hear from developers that that is the way to get more affordable housing if you go up to five or six stories.

So I'm not proposing that.

I'm just posing the question that if the more we reduce or have restrictions, especially in height perhaps in certain areas,

How is that going to affect the area for affordable housing?

And it's not just for Crozet, it's in all the other five districts.

You know, what are we going to do?

I mean, kind of like put up or shut up because

You can't have, everybody wants small, wonderful little cottages.

We all want that.

But that's not realistic if we have an affordable housing plan, if we need to get affordable rentals, we have to go up at some point.

My question is how does this could that would that hamper that?

I think we've seen it before where in the Pantops or in the Rivanna village master plan where it said I think there was a statement you can't

have increased density unless you widen 250, which we all know is problematic and whether or not VDOT will ever do that.

So I'm a little bit leery-weary, shall we say,

putting in too many restrictions that we can't get out of that then people will hammer us with saying it's in there, you can't do that.

And then we're kind of stuck.

So it's not really so much of a question is a problem.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

I did not see in our packet, I loved the maps that you just showed that had the parts that were changed highlighted.

I did not see those in our packet.

I don't know if I missed them.

But that would be very helpful for me to understand everything that you presented.

So if you could send those that I would appreciate that.

My concern, and I'm very happy to hear Supervisor Mallek saying that the park, the green space worked out fine because I couldn't really follow that very well in the presentation to make sure that the properties that were designated as green space that had potential building because they're privately owned were removed or properly designated.

Is that the case?

Sure.

So the green space changes was there were previously developable properties that didn't have environmental features or weren't designated open space or weren't designated for future parks that were in a green space designation.

Many of them had existing zoning that would have allowed development on them.

Okay.

That's always a concern because people see on the map that it's supposed to be a green space and it's privately owned and then people come in and start screaming about it.

So I'm glad to hear that that was gone away.

I think it's still, again, if you look at the 2010 and the 2021 map side by side, you can still see that the green network is retained.

There are quite a few streams in Crozet, so there's quite a bit of land that is in floodplain or stream buffer that has great tree cover already that's being carried forward in 2021.

Okay, when I was looking at it, I wanted to see more.

But if you're comfortable with it, and Supervisor Malek has been going through this process with the community, I suspect they're, they're comfortable with it, too.

I know they have some great trails.

So I am okay with what's happened.

But I would like to see those maps so I can really sit down and, and understand better the changes that's taken place.

Thank you Chair Galloway and Ms.

Falkenstein, Ms.

Kanellopoulos and all of those who have worked on this.

I want to recognize and appreciate the tremendous effort that has gone into this.

Having said that,

I have some concerns which I will attempt to articulate.

When I look at what we as supervisors and we as the county do, I think most of what we do falls under the better best category.

Not necessarily right or wrong, but better best.

How do we use the land?

This may be a better choice than this other choice, neither of which is particularly wrong.

But overlaying that I believe is a consideration of what I call right and wrong aspects.

And perhaps I missed it here and I would invite anyone to help me better understand it.

My concern as I look at this overall master plan

is that there may have been almost to the point of exclusion the better best consideration without thinking of some of the right wrong aspects.

And the reason I raise it that way is I'm concerned about not only the missing middle of housing but also the affordability for lower income residents who may have the desire to move out to this area.

So I understand that people may not be in favor of large apartment complexes.

I totally understand that.

I'm not necessarily pushing for that.

Can you define for me what a bungalow consists of?

I mean, what makes a bungalow?

I have a sense of what a tiny home is.

I don't necessarily see either of those, however, as being housing for families.

Either of you staff members, could you help me understand a little more?

When I hear talk about bungalow courts or tiny houses, that again to me does not strike me as what would be a family housing situation.

And I'm going to make a few more comments, then I'll leave it with y'all.

So I think we want to look at both housing choices and affordability.

I don't necessarily see some of this as being equitable, and my concern is a continuation through land use of a disparate housing reality for many of our community members who may want to live in this particular area.

And so it's that lower, it's the middle and lower component of housing that I'm concerned with as we look at this master plan, which is different from how we may look at individual proposals that have come up.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

So the question was about the definition of bungalow courts.

And if you look at your attachment B of the staff report, page 29 has a little bit of information about what a bungalow court consists of.

And these unit types are one to two stories, unit size around up to 1200 square feet.

And the defining feature of these is that they are situated around a common amenity space.

and don't necessarily either don't have individual lots or very small individual lots and that helps with the affordability component.

Thank you and I appreciate the inclusion of that but again to me it struck me

that that was about the only part of perhaps an affordable.

And you can't raise a family in a tiny home.

And my first home was a thousand square feet, three bedroom, two baths.

Thank you very much.

And staff, this was great.

And I am so impressed with all the work that you all have done over the last couple of years, maybe even longer, but certainly months and months and months, even through the pandemic to meet with folks and reach out and get this done.

And I appreciate the presentation today.

I probably have not followed the

Do your all's work as carefully as I should have over the months because, to be honest with you, I wasn't attending all the CAC meetings and everything.

I want to just piggyback on what Donna said.

I am concerned that this plan continues our use of land

continues the disparities between what we say we want and what we're actually getting.

And the missing middle, affordable housing, I just don't think this is encouraging affordability.

And it's setting us up to have one development area very different than other development areas.

And I have a lot of concerns and I just don't think that it

I just don't think the developers can provide affordability given what some of what we're requiring here.

I'm really glad to talk about the green space.

I think the canopy, tree canopies are wonderful.

And just to say that I would love to see us talk about when we get to some of our other development areas that are more built out already perhaps,

how do we get at that green space and tree cover for our older urban neighborhoods that really would like these green spaces as well?

I'd like for the staff to start thinking about that as we're coming back to those areas.

But I'm very concerned about not having, Bea got at it a little bit too, the height restrictions

really I think reduce the ability to have affordable housing and density and I'm not sure the answer to all of this but I do know that we have said I think we already have it documented that we're not going to allow 250 west to be widened

So we hear complaints around traffic, but we say we're not allowing 250 West to be widened at all.

I'm not saying I want it wide.

I'm just saying that we really have some structural challenges, I think, in this area around density and traffic and how we solve these problems.

I'm not an expert, but I am concerned

that we're creating very different development areas.

And certainly the Crozet area is not reaching out for a portion of our community to be able to live there with affordability.

I also just wanna bring up another concern I have that has nothing to do with the density and all, but I was a little surprised

when I heard that the CAC, the Crozet CAC, was actually voting.

And it caused me to go and look, and in fact, our CACs, it says right there, while advisory committees are not required to take votes, they certainly can on specific issues.

We've had this discussion, Ann will remember, a good while ago about CACs voting.

I have been operating under the understanding and telling my CAC that they are providing input, advisory in nature,

and we really are not supposed to be voting on issues.

So as we talk and I think staff has been saying that there's more training that's needed for our CACs and we're going to be running folks through more training, that would be a concern that I have that we just are all operating under the same guidelines and understanding on how CACs are, what guidelines they're operating under.

Not for today, but just a comment.

Just to piggyback on that comment because it did stand out in your materials.

The 310-2021 CCAC, the third bullet point under the middle density residential.

I was tracking that topic because that topic in particular stood out, so I was tracking all the notes on that.

But that third bullet point says, comment that MDR concept was already voted on and decided.

And the and decided is what

What is that?

I mean, I get that they're going to take votes, but it's all advisory.

It's information.

So the vote would be, oh, these seven think this way, these seven think that way.

Fine.

There's no decisions being made.

It's not legislative.

So was that and decided just maybe included in there just with not really thought on the vote?

Was that trying to communicate to us that some decision had been made and it's carrying a different weight?

But maybe that's me just getting too damn in the weeds about it.

But I hope that anybody that's participating, especially on any CCAC, understands that it's advisory.

Just because you vote a certain way doesn't mean staff is required to follow or the PC or the supervisors are in any

This conversation that's happening out in Crozet is obviously a county-wide one that's happening in our development area in the urban ring as well.

What do we do with growth?

What do we do with density?

And what do we do with the infrastructure that's currently in place, whether it supports it or doesn't support it?

We've seen it play out 250 East with the recent application.

It was the conversation around Parkway Place.

It's going to be the conversation about projects that come forward to us up 29 North.

But when I think of the development area as a whole,

and we start taking large swaths of the development area and saying we're going to limit density in that whole area.

What does that do to the rest of the development area and what kind of strain does that put on our bigger county-wide goal of keeping five percent development area?

So that I'm not sure where I stand just yet on this middle density resident the middle

middle density residential being limited it seemed that it was being brought down the cap and that was through the votes that were taken and planning commission members and there seems to be split thoughts on that it didn't seem to be you know i'm not saying it was even even steven here but there were definitely it wasn't a unanimous consideration to just pull that down

But if I think about, well, if we completely just cap in a land use plan and master plan and make this a major piece here, what does that mean for the rest of the development area in terms of the strain it'll put there when growth is growing, when growth is happening in all of the everywhere?

And the infrastructure issues are also, well, not everywhere, but can be problematic everywhere throughout the county.

So that's something that I don't want to get locked into any sort of language that states something has to happen or precludes density from happening until said infrastructure project happens.

I would agree that it's smart to get the infrastructure in place if possible, but we all know it's not just as simple as us taking a boat and putting the infrastructure in place.

There's a lot of other things that go into getting the quote-unquote infrastructure to happen.

And that's why like when individual applications come to us we can then make the decisions at that given time because for me it's not so much a question of where it's more of a question of when sometimes that the project or the density should go in there.

This resolution that the CCAC took out there those four bullet points

I'm just curious because it makes me think of this timing of when and thinking through the density caps that are being placed here.

And the Eastern Avenue connector and the bridge overlooking Whole Creek.

I mean, you've been working on that, I know, and we bring it up at the NPO.

Now, shall I answer now or you want to come back?

My understanding from staff and they can correct me is that the pre-engineering and site work has been, we saw a plan a number of a couple months ago and I think supported staff's recommendation about the route because of the total evaluation that was done and there is now

InDesign to be ready for the next round of revenue sharing, which happens later this spring.

And the finals have to be done in August, I'm pretty sure.

So that, while it was at the top of the list for a while, it's back, I think, ready to go now and has a much more defensible design.

So we won't get thrown under the bus by VDOT, who says it costs three times as much as we think.

So that is a really great step forward.

I mean, that's a big project.

I know that you've been after that one and that, you know, just like I said in the other committees, but that is at least in motion.

It's not one that like it's a hope for and we're waiting to see it happen.

Crozet is in the long term plan, right?

The school is coming up quickly, yes, 2022.

That Western Park project, I don't know the details of that.

It just says building Western Park.

Is that in motion, not in motion?

There is phase one ASAP, which is mostly funded by the money that was put in by the purchasers in Old Trail.

They each pay a certain stipend into an account for that.

So that is the first limited phase is heading for its designed to be able to be carried forward with those existing funds.

And so I guess my sort of general answer is there are many, many items which have been done and or are in process, which is really great.

and everybody I think appreciates those.

And we'll just have to get over the fact that it may have taken 20 years to get to this point, but at least we're there right now.

I think one thing that is different

between a new Greenfield subdivision such as Old Trail, for example, where there is easy ability to accommodate the six stories, five stories in the apartment building on Old Trail Drive because of the sidewalks, etc., that are already there.

The difficulty has been in these many neighborhoods which are built in the 30s and 40s.

The little streets are 12 feet wide and the prescriptive right-of-way goes right to the edge of the thing so there is no place easy.

But we've been trying to work on right-of-way for Tabor Street and Park Road for 10 years and it is absolutely challenging to do that.

The infrastructure is a little different in a question because you have an older neighborhood with lots and lots of houses.

These were the houses built for the people who worked in the mills at JB Barnes and at ACME and at Morton and

walked to work, jumped off their desk and ran to the firehouse.

I mean, it's a very compact, compressed geography with lots of older, smaller homes.

And then there were in, since 2006, five, over 300 units were zoned into Crozet that were supposed to be affordable.

They were not delivered due to a whole other examples of how our process has failed but tremendous willingness to have them.

The idea was to have them distributed throughout the community rather than sort of all in one place.

The big apartment building that you see when you drive into Old Trail, when it first came through,

It was supposed to be a HUD project and when it came through the rezoning amendment to the code of development, that was certainly my understanding and then it morphed into a totally market rate instead, but that was something out of the hands of us legislatively.

So I think that

There is great concern about protection of the older neighborhoods, the Orchard Roads, the hundreds and hundreds of houses which are currently occupied by residents whose grandparents built them or they built them themselves and they're 85 years old and there are lots of family houses and children who

lay near the street and it's a real hazard because there are no sidewalks or ability to have sidewalks.

So this is a long story to get to the point was the reason there was concern about having higher density and having every one of those houses have accessory units, for example, was where is the traffic gonna go and how are these streets gonna be able to handle doubling the population?

So I think as it's working its way along, it will be something that can be accommodated.

The bungalow court where there were three different opportunities in Crozet to get this done.

Finally, the last one the bamboo grove got did get approved.

but those are designed actually I think for small families to start out.

There's another co-housing project called Everson Commons just north of 240 which has a lot of I think they're mostly party wall houses so duplexes and triplexes there and then a common area around the old house which is their sort of common play space.

So lots of different varieties of houses

But many of the long timers and many of the newcomers actually have said we came here because we were living out of the area and we read the master plan and it sounded so well organized and here we are.

And so they're concerned also about having it changed dramatically.

The comment about the vote, I want to make sure that we understand.

On purpose, we appointed people of very different points of view from 2010 to currently because it's important that we have different points of view on there and

Before 2010, it was basically the same 50 people who had been concerned with coming to meetings and going to master plans and things for many years.

So the reason that the voting was important was only to give staff an idea of the splits because there were different opinions about things.

There's full understanding that there was not a decision.

The one you referred to, there was one member who was very upset and he tried to make a motion and it didn't even get a second.

So other people spoke up and said there have been changes made and the changes reflect so much more flexibility for us and they supported the changes which were made.

So I think the work has evolved, excuse me, evolved considerably and

I think there's a tremendous amount of support for almost all aspects of this.

But it's been interesting getting there because we've had large groups of people.

We've had 60 and 90 people show up online and all want to say something.

And so we're trying our very best to live up to all these different accommodations because we want to protect the affordable housing we have.

We want to make possibilities for more.

We have to figure out how to keep our kids from getting run over in the street.

Well, I appreciate the information.

And it's, you know, I'm not disputing even their point here, but of the first three we went through, they're all in motion.

Sidewalks, multi-use paths, bicycle, pedestrian, front-row elements, that's a county-wide goal, wherever they need to be.

and we're going to attack that as we can.

We're having trouble getting it done and bidded with the current sidewalk projects just to get these things in and coming in under the budget.

So the bigger point here is that if none of these things were in motion, then I could conceive of a density cap differently than if they are in motion.

And that I guess is my overall point here.

So that's why we get... The potential is what's happening.

The potential was at one point and it was negotiated down.

Do I have that wrong?

because it's still more than what used to be called urban density in Crozet.

I mean I get it.

I read the notes.

I see where it went.

I'm just stating my view here.

that some of the things that the CCAC identified as major infrastructure projects are in motion and that to me says well when we conceive of a plan that is going to be in place for many years that we should be able to count on needs to take that into consideration not just the current state of infrastructure.

And that's something that I think when we're discussing densities and caps on densities, that just has to be made.

And that's what I'm making.

I'm making that point.

And I don't know what staff will do with that, but that's just my opinion on that.

And specifically, I was tracking the MDR, not to mention that when the CCAC meets, my Twitter feed lights up and that seems to be one that I'm seeing a lot of comments flying around on.

So I honed in on that particular MDR as well.

I mean obviously we have to take the lead of the folks living in the community and look to their opinions and certainly to you Supervisor Mallek because this is the area you represent but you know when I think of capping anything based on when some infrastructure things look to be in play that are

There is a ceiling.

What does that mean to the development areas elsewhere in that same 10, 20, 30 year lookout when we know growth is going to continue?

And I'll leave it at that.

Staff, you had two specific questions.

Did you get answers to those questions as we were commenting, talking?

Because I didn't hear answers to those questions myself.

So I need to do that check-in.

Do we need to go back through and specifically hit those questions for you?

I think it would be helpful if you could go back through on the questions.

I mean, I get it.

We reacted to all this information, so we did it right.

But we also want to make sure that with what you're coming to us for, that we give you those responses.

and then if obviously if you have if any supervisor has concerns about how they answer this right yet then we may need you know we've got plenty of time but these were the two questions that we were specifically asked to address um if we could go back through and just give some comments feedback here that would be great i think for for making sure we leave this meeting um so that staff has uh their path forward um sorry i'm getting a chat here

The supervisor is telling me that we had Charles pop up at one point.

Charles, did you want to weigh in here before I go to these two questions?

Good afternoon, Charles Rapp, Planning Director.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

I was just going to add in, you know, I think as you pointed out, and I think you're on the right track, it would be great to kind of circle back to these questions and see if we can get some better direction because we certainly want to have a plan that the board supports.

And as you had pointed out Chair Galloway, there was some reaction to where do we set the densities in this middle density category and some of these other items in trying to find that balance between the community's feedback, the CAC's feedback, and balance that with the larger

Future land use goals of the county.

One of the things we have been trying to do with this was to eliminate the inconsistency so that we have density ranges throughout the county that are consistent in all the growth areas and that's kind of what led us down this route of a middle density.

uh designations so that we could adjust rather than having an urban density that was different in Crozet than in other growth areas we felt we needed to address something different here that that actually fit the densities that they had desired out there in previous master planning efforts and try to capture that in a better way so that's really how we got there um

I do have a comment and I will get my comment and then I will answer these questions and you can skip me when you go through.

When these two development areas that are detached from our main development area, Crozet and Rivanna Village, they are a little bit different in that right now, hopefully this won't be forever, but right now there's somewhat of a bedroom community.

My district is very close to Crozet.

I get a huge amount of feedback about all the traffic that is coming on rural roads.

Everybody gets feedback about traffic.

There's too much on our urban roads.

There's too much on our rural roads, but the rural roads are not really designed at all to take this.

Lots of blind curves, lots of, you know, biking on rural roads without any shoulders, you know, things like that.

And I just wanted to point that out that I don't necessarily believe

that the densities should be the same in the, or should at least take that into consideration that a large percentage of the people are leaving to go elsewhere, to go to work or school or wherever they're off to.

As far as the draft chapters consistent with the county's comprehensive plan and strategic plan goals, I

I think that it's consistent in my mind.

I would like to spend some more time with it after I get the maps that I asked for before.

And does the board have feedback or suggested revisions to this draft content?

No, I do not.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Question one, I would say yes, I think it is consistent.

Our comp plan really focuses on the protection and quality of life of neighborhoods and historic and natural resources, in addition to many other cosmic issues.

And I think that's where this master plan is building on the

1980, 2005, 2010 work that's been done.

And so while it is perceived to be a much higher density to many of the residents, it is something that I think the community can manage.

And so I think it is a good balance, as Charles said, between where we could go and where we might be right now, considering the limitations of the geography.

The only thing regarding question number one that I would bring up, and I agree with Supervisor Palmer, that we don't necessarily have to have, regarding affordable housing, a specific number for each district.

We have to look at the district, the entire county, and see where growth higher density is possible, where it has been, where it's possible.

So, I mean, that's my only

Thank you, and Mr. Rapp, thank you for your additional comments.

Taking into consideration the other comments that have been made, I would say I think it largely answered a question number one.

It largely is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

I think it falls a little further short of the strategic plan goals as regards affordable housing.

and that would be my response to question number two.

I do recognize the difference between our urban rain density.

Crozet is the next largest area and then the Rivanna area which is developing but at a much smaller scale.

And my concern is principally limited to whether there is going to be the availability of a reasonable component of middle and lower

income housing availability.

I guess I am going to follow with pretty much exactly what Donna and to some degree I think Bea indicated as well, perhaps.

The county's comprehensive plan, probably from a high altitude, yes.

Strategic goals, maybe not so much.

Does the board have feedback or suggestions, revisions?

I again am looking for density throughout our development area and the ability for people to have a choice of affordable housing in multiple locations and not just in one area.

and if we do that, then we can make sure that transit and transportation is provided for those areas, right?

So, but those are my thoughts is I'm looking for affordable housing opportunities for people to live in different places within the development area and I'm looking for density that allows that.

Yeah, I would repeat or ditto the statement Supervisor Price made in regard to question one.

And in question two, I want to be clear, I'm not suggesting that the development areas should have the same density levels or caps.

I'm just saying my feedback is that when we make this decision in this area, while yes, it all has to be taken into consideration that specific character of that area, any decision we make here will impact the other development areas.

And that has to be thought of.

and that doesn't even get to the equity question of will this help with equity of ability for different income types to fit there.

I'm not of the mind that the Rio 29 small area plan density should be the same as the downtown area pro se density.

I'm not saying that.

but whatever numbers we put in any of these development areas will impact the others and that fluidity or that relationship is one that we need to make sure that we're taking into account when we make the decisions on the total plan for what it's worth.

All right, staff, I'll do that check in again.

I'll address Supervisor Palmer's comment.

Just a question to leave for future thought.

and that is how we can dramatically change the way we do rezonings to actually achieve what we say we're looking for because for the 8,000 new residents in the little growth area of Crozet since 2005, our process didn't deliver even the 15% that they were supposed to when

And we should probably have a much higher percentage, but I don't know how to get there unless we figure out how to dramatically change the process we have and also perhaps encourage these partnerships where somebody takes control of x percentage of the units.

to keep them affordable in perpetuity, as opposed to this game that is played where all these units just turn into market rate after some arbitrary minuscule amount of time.

And we're just spinning our wheels and not getting anywhere.

And that's incredibly frustrating for everybody.

So I'll just leave that bombshell for people to figure out because I certainly haven't figured out the magic solution either.

Thank you.

Rachel, Tori, thank you so much.

This is a ton of information to get through, but not just to present this here today, but the entire process of going through this type of update is phenomenal.

So kudos to you both as you continue to work on this, and we'll be watching it when it comes back forward.

Thank you.

Okay, board, we are scheduled for a recess.

We're running a little bit behind schedule, but we had a 15-minute

up here.

So we'll come back at about, what would that be, 52, 57, a few minutes before four o'clock.

For those who are observing, our Chair Galloway is still part of the meeting.

However, he does have a work call.

So I will be running this section of the meeting.

And that brings us to item number 12, our presentation on the County Transportation Planner Quarterly Report.

Yes, you are.

All right.

Not yet, but it does.

It has pulled up, although it's not in.

There you go.

That's the slideshow presentation.

Okay.

Dan Butch, Senior Planner of Transportation.

This is the Albemarle County quarterly report, January to March 2021.

For our transportation priorities, staff continues to work to advance the Albemarle County priority list.

Most current update is for the SmartScale projects that were submitted in August 2020.

This past January, initial scoring and proposed funding scenarios were announced by the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

and which resulted in nine out of ten Albemarle County projects recommended for funding.

And this would be finalized for approval at the CTV meeting in June of 2021.

We got the nine projects that are listed.

The only project in Albemarle County that was not recommended for funding was Frays Mill, Burley Station, US 29 intersection improvements.

For our 2019 revenue sharing grants, our status updates for the Berkmar Drive Extension to Airport Road project, this project would complete Berkmar Drive to Airport Road.

and construct a roundabout at the intersection including bicycle and pedestrian connections.

This is the one revenue sharing project from 2019 applications that the county decided to move forward with and staff is working on the project agreement with VDOT and a resolution will be going to the board and the project agreement on April 21st.

Also for the 2019 Redview Sharing is the Old Lynchburg Road, Morris Creek Bike Pet Improvement.

This project proposed to construct sidewalk along Old Lynchburg Road beneath I-64 overpass connecting to Azalea Park in the city and construct a shared use path along Morris Creek.

from Old Lynchburg Road to Sunset Ave.

But because of the reduced funding awarded, the decision was made to break the project into separate projects and move forward with just the sidewalks on Old Lynchburg Road.

and utilizing transportation leveraging funds for that and also then re-evaluate the Greenways portion of the project.

Staff is currently reviewing the concept plan and preparing to begin discussion with the engineering consultant to develop a scope and cost for the sidewalk portion of the project.

For our major planning efforts for our priorities, we have Eastern Avenue South.

This project is currently being evaluated through an alignment study and conceptual design by a consultant.

The result of this study, which will be 30% design and cost assessment, will be used as necessary funding to complete the project.

The alignment study was presented to the board in January with the preferred alignment endorsed.

This project is being considered for revenue sharing grant application and pre-application submittal due date is July 2nd and final applications are due on October 1st for that revenue sharing coming up.

Staff is working with another consultant on the Rio Corridors Study.

which is evaluating transportation in the corridor from US 29 to the John Warner Parkway.

The consultant is currently focused on data collection and assessment of existing conditions.

And within this corridor, there were public meetings held for the project to gain feedback on March 11th and 12th of this year.

And currently under discussion for phase two of the corridor study is the extension to the city line on Rio.

to include that portion of Rio in the study.

For the Crozet transportation study within the master plan update, a consultant is underway on a transportation study for the overall street system in Crozet.

Existing condition results were presented to Crozet CAC in December and the transportation recommendations were presented in January.

Staff is working to finalize the recommendations within the master plan update.

For the Broadway blueprint, staff is finalizing recommendations from the study and we are having internal discussions on next steps.

For the bike and pedestrian aspects of our priorities, for some quality of life projects, the Avon bicycle and pedestrian improvements, these are recommendations from the corridor study.

These could be potential transportation alternative grants for 2021.

We'll be taking these potential projects to the board in May for revenue sharing and transportation alternatives.

For the Burkemarsh shared use path that connects from Rio up to Hilton Heights, this is under design.

And we also have, this was a quality of life project, the Ashwood Boulevard shared use path.

This is part of a proposed rezoning, RST rezoning, so it looks like we can make that connection there as well.

The Rivanna River Crossing, public meetings were held in the fall.

This was a study done through VDOT as a proposed route through our Jefferson area bicycle and pedestrian plan.

This could be a potential smart school application, but we'll be going to the board in May and confirming this for your direction with that project.

A lot of coordination was associated with the Rivanna River Corridor study that's ongoing as well.

For the, we have a bicycle pedestrian facility inventory and mapping efforts.

The Planning District Commission did a field inventory of neighborhoods one and five, not just bicycle and pedestrian, but that's the data we're using with this.

There's a lot of other signage and inventory they collected as well.

We're merging that into our One Map data, our county data, and then there's this effort to merge this with the city and UVA and have this be an accessible online planning tool, hopefully come this summer.

We're also using this data to do analysis to address sidewalk conditions with maintenance programs and evaluating potential improvements on VDOT routine paving where it's suitable, such as shoulders for any bike.

For transit, staff is working with CAF and stakeholders, specifically on a sense of place project.

I know the shelters are in the process of being ordered and being permitted right now.

But we're always looking for improvements and coordinating with the development of transit stops within development projects.

And the PDC was awarded two

and two grants this past year by the Department of Rail and Public Transit to support a regional transit vision plan and a transit plan for Almonte County focusing on expanding service to US 29 Pantops and the Monticello facility.

Both grants were funded and staff has been working to initiate those planning processes with the PDC.

An administrative aspect, the functional classification application was endorsed by the Charlottesville

MPO.

This is for the major collector to minor collector upgrade and functional classification.

Staff will be preparing these applications to submit now to the Federal Highway for review of these five highway segments that proposes for upgrades from major collector to minor arterial.

Also, yes, Virginia Scenic Byways.

This is two years in the making, but the Department of Conservation and Recreation and VDOT recommended routes A10 and 240 as scenic byway status.

So we will be going to the board shortly, asking to take this to a public hearing sometime early summer to be able to have these routes designated as scenic byways.

And this is a list, I won't go through them all, but this just shows you development projects that staff is working on that has significant transportation implementations and staff is in coordination with planning staff and engineers in these reviews.

These are the ones that have been on the radar this quarter.

For rural rustic hard surfacing, we have Coles Rolling Road, segment one is finished and segment two is ongoing.

We have Reservoir Road and Wesley Chapel, that portion of Wesley Chapel.

They're both expected for a spring paving and Burnt Mill Road is in the scoping stage.

And again, all these are hard surface, rural resting hard surface, surface, paving through the secondary six year plan.

And that public hearing will be end of May coming to the board for that.

And for our reported transportation issues,

The two main areas that Kevin and I have been working on have been addressing speed concerns and parking issues and specifically we have St.

George Ave.

The petition has been submitted for traffic calming from the residents and we'll be going to the board for support and resolution to take that St.

George Ave in the process of a traffic calming plan.

as well as for parking issues.

We specifically had two areas that we've been trying to address the parking concern and that is in coordination with FES, ACPD, and VDOT, but specifically on Berkmar Drive with truck parking there as well as Mill Creek South.

We've been in coordination with Parks and Rec department as well.

Thank you, Mr. Butch.

We'll go around the supervisors.

Great.

Thank you, Daniel.

Lots of wonderful news in there.

I'm excited about the pilot that you all are working on to try to keep the speed studies organized so everybody can keep up.

Keeping up is really hard.

And so I'm also grateful for the tracking system that you all have invented.

because I would generally have to go through five years of emails to try to find out what happened to a request that was sent in and everybody was so busy that it never got anywhere.

So this is going to help all of the board members out tremendously that you have an organized way to keep going on that.

Talking about Berkmar Extended,

I think I saw as it went by that you're going to be using tele-fee funds into the future to pay for that, and how many future years are we talking about?

Because we basically swept all the other projects' funding buckets to get money for Bergmar Extended, and those projects are all sitting empty now, so how long do we have to wait?

Thank you.

And the other question is,

For the Rivanna Crossing Bridge, is the location determined for that yet or is that still to come?

Should I answer it?

Yes, please.

Okay.

So for Barbemarle, this project agreement will actually be going to the board in two weeks.

This does break down the cost within our quarterly report, the attachment today.

I know it's out years in the secondary six-year plan tele-fee funds.

A lot had to do with the update of the state's recommendation, and so we had to add more to that.

I believe it was through 2024 that those tele-fee funds were going to be used for, so a couple more

before any are available to move to other projects.

But we also have a lot in the past that has already gone to that.

Okay, two more years, we can hang on.

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Butch.

And I do have a question.

I didn't notice, I know there's a speed study going on for between Shadwell and Bordensville, which is Route 22, and then it turns into Route 231.

And there's half of it is 45 miles an hour, the other half is 50 miles an hour.

And we do have speeders.

And I do know there's a speed study going on.

We are in coordination with VDOT.

That's a VDOT led.

Yes, yes it is.