Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   8/18/2021

Good afternoon, everyone.

I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our August 18, 2021 1 p.m.

meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-8

The supervisors who are electronically present at this meeting are

and myself, Supervisor Ned Gallaway 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.

Also with us today are County Executive Mr. Jeff Rickardson, our County Attorney Mr. Greg Campner,

our board clerk Ms.

Claudette Borgeson and our senior deputy clerk Mr. Travis Morris.

The additional staff folks as they participate throughout the meeting will introduce themselves and their position at the appropriate time.

Everyone would please rise.

I pledge allegiance to the flag

The next item number four is the adoption of our final agenda.

We do have some things to add, I'll go through what I'm aware of, and then we will have any additional changes are made, we can do that.

I know that for discussion under item number 18, which is from the board and supervisors, our request

a conversation about revising a sea ordinance update language to specify decibel levels in relation to property lines, et cetera.

At supervisor Price's request, a conversation about calculating density in a development proposal, as well as requesting VDOT provide maps showing roads for acceptance or deletion into the state's secondary system of highways.

For inclusion in the board agenda packet,

Two things, I'd like to pull for discussion 8.3

and under number 18 also, if we have time and discussion, just some questions about the legislative priorities information which was included in our packet so that we can work better forward at the next meeting.

Item 8.3 will be full.

We can deal with that after we approve the consent agenda.

Are any other changes by other supervisors either from consent or adding to number 18 needed?

Does not appear so.

So if not, then if we can make a motion, or somebody can make a motion to adopt the final agenda as amended.

All right.

Bea LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

And we will go to number five, brief announcements by Board members.

And we will go through our speaking order for today.

Supervisor Mallek, you're up first.

All right.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley?

No, thank you.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Three things very quickly.

First off, as everyone knows, the Scottsville District has been hit pretty hard, especially down near the town of Scottsville with some storms recently.

I first off want to express great appreciation to everyone down there who's pulled together to try and help take care of their neighbors.

but a special shout out to Jack Maxwell who over the last number of weeks has established and created a weather tracker as well as a storm tracker he's been able to provide a lot of detailed information to the state which is really and businesses which have been able to help

restores some service down there.

So that's really a great example of a community member helping take care of the community.

With regard to that, I also want to let people know that Michael Culp of the Albemarle County Broadband Office and I have been working with Mayor Smith and Town Administrator Wallace and we are scheduled for September 20th, Monday, September 20th to do a presentation on

actions that we've been taking to try and get a restoration of service by the internet provider CenturyLink down there.

I've also invited CenturyLink to attend and participate.

I want to be careful

Town Council's time.

So I at least will remain after our presentation time to be able to talk with, meet with community members, again, as we try to do what we can within the limits of county authority to help restore power.

The third thing is a broader thing, and it really applies.

We've been seeing a lot of this nationwide to a very small extent here in Albemarle County.

And so the first thing I want to do is really express my great appreciation for the

who so respectfully reach out to us as supervisors and our county employees, understanding the work that we do and the efforts that we make.

There's a segment, however, of our population, which has been a little disturbing around the country in some of our neighboring communities.

And actually, I've started to see a little bit of that in some of the communications that we get.

For example, I've had a number lately that start off

As your constituent and your boss, I demand that you, and then they tell us what action they want us to take.

Whether it has to do with demanding that we have a mask mandate or prohibiting a mask mandate.

Same thing with vaccinations.

of what it has to do with, for example, an ordinance that we're going to discuss later tonight with regard to weapons on county property.

And we've seen it in housing coming out of some of our CAC meetings and community meetings, development.

I mean, you can pick the topic.

And while the vast, vast majority of our community is very respectful in the way in which they engage in their communications with us, there is this segment that is a little upsetting and of concern to me.

Speaking with a wise member of our community recently and talking about, you know, when we're elected officials, we are elected for our judgment, not necessarily to make a decision based upon what the loudest voice may say.

I mean, it doesn't take long to remember that slavery was legal in the United States.

It didn't mean it was right, and that's what the majority for many years approved of.

We're elected for our judgment.

And this community member reminded me specifically of Edmund Burke's speech to the electors of Bristol from the 3rd of November, 1774.

Edmund Burke was an Irish statesman, philosopher, and economist, and he was a conservative thinker.

And he specifically addressed this.

When we are elected, we are here to use our best judgment in making the decisions that we believe best provide for the health, the welfare,

of our community, not necessarily the loudest voice.

There are times where reasonable minds can differ.

You electorate, you do decide who gets voted into office, but once we are in office, we are elected based upon an expectation that we will use our best judgment and not simply

listen to the loudest voice or sometimes even the largest number of voices.

And I just want to express that that is a philosophy that I also adopt.

I have asked the clerk to append the letter of Mr. Burke for the record, and I commend it to your reading.

I do not have any announcements today.

And we do have one today.

So we have a resolution of appreciation for Lorna Jerome.

And I see, wait for Lorna's video to come on there.

Looks like she has joined the meeting.

And Supervisor Palmer, once we have Lorna confirmed on the call,

Good afternoon, morning.

Sure.

Okay.

This, as Supervisor Galloway just said, is in the form of a motion, I move that the Board approve a resolution of appreciation for Lorna Jerome.

whereas Lorna Jerome has faithfully served the county of Albemarle, local government and public schools for over 21 years with the Department of Human Resources serving the community in the role of assistant director and then director for the last 10 years and whereas Lorna has shown superior leadership in progressively maintaining

the common interest of local government and school division for more than two decades as well as serving multiple partner agencies and whereas Lorna has exhibited strong human resources acumen in her efforts to carefully and purposely facilitate meaningful compensation and benefit programs by initiating and coordinating the local governments and school divisions joint compensation policy and strategy.

recently approved public safety pay scale time and attendance program and policy implementation.

Long-Term Disability Program, VRS Hybrid Disability Program, Wellness and Safety Program Implementation, Introduction of a High Deductible Health Plan Program, and whereas Lorna has relied on her professional expertise to thoughtfully understand and manage organizational risks and liabilities

while maintaining all stakeholders' interests.

And whereas Lorna is highly regarded throughout her department and local government school division and by all partner agencies and stakeholders as a thoughtful, kind, caring, and compassionate service-oriented leader who serves every opportunity to champion professional growth, equity, pluralism of thought,

business partnering and all aspects of pursuing an ideal work environment allowing great people to do great work.

Now therefore be it resolved by the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors that Lorna Jerome is hereby honored and commended for her many years

of exceptional service to the County of Albemarle, Albemarle County Public Schools, and the Department of Human Resources, Albemarle County residents, family, and students, the broader community in which we live, and the entire Commonwealth of Virginia with the knowledge that Albemarle County is strengthened and distinguished by Lorna's dedication, commitment, professionalism, and compassion in meeting community needs.

Be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be spread upon the minutes of this meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors as a lasting visible testament

to the esteem in which Lorna is held by this board and previous boards for her lasting legacy of community service and the tangible results from her work to make Albemarle County better for future generations.

Signed this 18th day of August, 2021, and Ned Galloway, Chair, Albemarle Board of County Supervisors.

Second.

The motion's been made and seconded.

Call the roll please.

Mr. Bistro-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

And the motion carries.

Mr. Chair, there's not a lot that I can say to really elaborate on what I think is a wonderful resolution to exemplify a public servant's career.

It is always an honor and a privilege to serve with people who devote their entire professional career to public service.

Ms.

Jerome, the words that come to mind when I think of her first is kindness.

That's how I would describe Lauren Jerome and so somewhere along the way growing up someone suggested to her that she get into the people business and that was probably good advice and Lorna exemplifies kindness and care with every single thing that her fingerprints are all.

I've only had the honor to work with her for four years.

Many of my colleagues have worked

with her for a much longer period of time.

The smile on her face every day when she come to work exemplifies her care, her excitement for being a part of the Albemarle County Public Schools and Albemarle County local government.

She was amazing because she was asked to move in two directions at once, and she did that aptly with a smile on her face every day.

We'll miss her greatly, Mr. Chair.

And so on behalf of local government staff, I would hand it back over to you.

And I'm sure Ms.

Jerome would like to say a few words to

The Board and to the community and on behalf of the County Executive's Office, I thank her for her service.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson and Lorna.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Thank you all for this recognition.

I certainly feel very special and appreciated.

All of the achievements are really credited to the wonderful staff and human resources.

I've been so proud to lead that team.

They're talented, caring, adaptable, and resilient.

And while I'm excited for my retirement journey, volunteering, traveling, more time with my family, it's bittersweet.

I've loved working and serving Albemarle County and Albemarle County Public Schools.

I'm so appreciative of all the encouragement and support I've had both personal and professional

I've received from many individuals over the years, helping me grow continuously as a leader.

And I'm grateful for the kind of leaders that I've had the opportunity to work for.

Visionary, ethical, innovative, and compassionate.

Leaders who consider the people implications when making decisions.

And finally, I know, based on conversations with HR colleagues in other localities and school divisions, that I am very fortunate to work for elected officials who value diversity, equity, and inclusion and truly appreciate and value our employees, as it is our employees who make this a wonderful place to learn, live, work, and play.

Thank you, Lorna.

And I'll go through our order.

I would imagine supervisors would like to make a few comments.

Oh, goody.

Thank you.

And I will say that while it is a team effort, absolutely, at a very large department, and a huge constituency that human resources has to deal with, leadership really matters.

And I've seen three different leaders in this department.

I'm so grateful for Lorna's care, her kindness for sure, but also her care about the details and the fact that we are avoiding costly errors and costly decisions that have plagued us in the past and that is a wonderful legacy that I hope you will be very proud of, Lorna, because it's very important for all of us to do the best job we can with our resources and I thank you.

Yes, Ms.

Jerome, although we didn't get to spend a lot of time together because of COVID, and I regret that.

I wish we could have.

But everything I've heard, I support.

The resolution certainly states all you've done.

And I agree with Supervisor Mallek.

Leadership is very important.

Ethics is very important.

Doing the job.

Your team could not have done the job without your leadership.

So please remember that and enjoy your retirement.

I think you'll love it.

I'm going to wait and ask you this later, Lauren, at another time, but I am curious what your volunteer schedule is going to look like or what types of volunteering you're going to do.

However, there's nothing I can add to this

resolution about your work ethic and the job that you've done and how wonderful that is.

So I will just say that one thing that I really appreciate is those very, very few times over my years that I've had a difficult situation that I've had to turn to you to help with.

I've just been very impressed by your kindness and attention to

those few situations.

And the resolution really does spell out that kind and caring, compassionate leadership.

And I just very much appreciate that.

So thank you for all the time you spent with Albemarle County government.

Good afternoon, Lorna.

In reading your resolution, I just kept thinking to myself, I can't imagine our HR department without Lorna.

And then when I looked at the years, I realized that I've never been around our HR department at a time, practically, when you weren't there, whether it was when I was on the school board or now on the board of supervisors.

And you have led our HR department, which is one of the most important departments in any organization.

And you've led it beautifully.

You've helped us with multiple searches for employees, whether it was superintendent or county executive.

and have done those searches beautifully and your expertise and your kindness and your outreach to whether it was county government employees or school employees was just really outstanding.

So I think Liz is correct.

Thank you Chair Calaway.

Ms.

Jerome, there are two comments that I have to try and avoid just simply replicating what the other supervisors have said.

The first one, when I see you, I'm often reminded of it's not just what you say, but how you say it.

And your attitude and your professionalism comes across just as powerfully as the work that you do.

And the second thing is one of my favorite phrases, and that's without ground support, there's no air support.

What the county does largely is external.

It's air support.

But without ground support, we can't do that air support.

And so without the work that you have led in human resources, we're incapable of providing that air support.

So thank you for taking care of our ground support mission.

Yeah, Lorna, this is interesting for me because being on the board over the last four years, there have been many people that have been with the county for a long time, but my interaction with them has only been for not even a handful of years.

And when I stop and think about it, you are the one department head that from my time on the school board through to today has consistently been there.

So that's over 10 years.

And I'm like, yeah, this is different.

Now I understand like, you know, Supervisor Mallek has worked with some department chairs the whole time on the supervisors.

I'm starting to appreciate and understand that sentiment for the other supervisors who have a longer tenure.

I can tell you that during that time, personally, I just appreciated the fact that any time I called, whether it was urgent or not, it was treated with urgency and so fast to respond.

So I thank you for that.

And I've also, you know, when you have an elected body, anytime a department comes in front of us, while we may or may not have some expertise in that field, so you know, like Madonna being an attorney and when legal things come in front of us, et cetera,

HR sometimes I think is one of those fields we all feel like we're experts in.

And you have had to deal with a lot of non-expert questions in a very public way.

And I always appreciated the fact that with great poise and great care answered those questions when the experts were asking them of you.

So I've always appreciated your approach with the elected folks, whether it be the school board,

or the Board of Supervisors when we talk about things of compensation and raises, et cetera.

So for that, thank you very much.

As everybody said, we do appreciate the fact that you will enjoy your retirement and wish you so, but stay in Albemarle.

Joseph wanted to pass along some advice from Leonard Sanderich because when I called him up after he retired from the university to ask him to do something for me, he said, well, I'm not going to say yes to anybody for a year because then I can decide what I really want to do because he was already being buried.

Yes, that dovetails perfectly about what I was going to say.

Thank you.

Well, on behalf of the Board of Supervisors and the County, we want to thank you so much for your many years of service, and not just to the Board and to your own department, but to the citizens of Albemarle.

We wish you all the best in your retirement.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Yay.

These are the things that I can't wait until we're back in person for.

These are always better when we are in person.

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

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 a public hearing.

Individuals are allowed three minutes to speak, and the 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 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, you will be asked to end your comments, and the microphone will be muted after about five more seconds.

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

And speakers are permitted one opportunity to comment during each of the comment periods for meeting.

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 9 to let us know you want to speak.

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

Thank you.

And we'll begin.

Hello, good afternoon.

My name is Finn Maloney and I live in the Rio district and I'm speaking to you today as a member of Charlottesville DSA and I'm asking you to allocate funds to ensure a right to counsel for tenants facing eviction in Albemarle County.

During the continuing COVID pandemic, evictions represent a public health risk on top of the economic trauma that they have always caused to families and I believe that ensuring legal representation for these families is a crucial step to protecting our community.

In addition to informing tenants of their rights and protecting tenants from being evicted wrongfully, this representation would help tenants to access existing rent relief programs that they might not otherwise have the time or legal expertise to apply for.

Seaville DSA has documented eviction hearings in both Albemarle and in Charlottesville and much more often than not tenants facing eviction did not have legal counsel of those without counsel about a third were evicted while those with legal representation at least in Charlottesville were able to set trial dates or have their cases dismissed.

So in this system, it seems that landlords and tenants are simply not on an even playing field as tenants are often not aware of their rights.

For example, they may not be aware of measures such as the CDC's eviction moratoriums that would rightly prevent them from being evicted.

And I believe that a person's ability to access this legal representation on their own should not prevent them from being treated fairly under the law.

The Charlottesville City Council has stepped up recently and allocated $300,000 to provide legal representation for its tenants.

I would urge the Board of Supervisors to use funds from the American Rescue Act to match this or to allocate a proportional level funding of about $600,000 to address the eviction crisis in the county.

Great, thank you.

Hello, my name is Diane Boyle.

My home at 5849 Buffalo River Road is in the White Hall community.

I'm here with my sister Sue Smith to share our experience with homestays in Albemarle and to provide the board with a more nuanced understanding of how the new rules affect real people.

My parents bought 123 acres in Earliesville in 1964 and built their dream home.

I went to Broadus Wood Elementary and my sister and I both graduated Albemarle High School.

My folks loved, loved, loved the property.

We inherited that love and have passed it on to my two 30-something girls.

My sister and I inherited the property when my mom passed in 2015 and had to grapple with the painful choice of what to do next.

First, we approached Roger Reagan Associates surveyors to develop a development plan in accordance with our development rights for future subdivision, which we have here.

I don't know, you probably can't see me.

While we were interviewing local real estate agents, it was suggested that we may look into short-term rentals as a means of keeping the property.

After associating with Virginia guest houses and Drew Tomlinson, we discovered that short-term rentals have indeed been a lifesaver.

We have a local caretaker, Julian Beechey, who actually took care of the property while my mom was alive.

Julian bought one of our plots to build a home for his family while still being able to care for the property.

Utilizing the home as a homestay has minimal negative impact on neighbors as it's nestled in the woods 200 feet and invisible from the road, 400 feet from our nearest neighbor.

While short-term rentals have never been consistently profitable, they have allowed us to pay property taxes and to maintain the property including refinishing the floors, replacing the roof and HVAC.

But the biggest benefit has been the warm heartfelt appreciation from the families who enjoy our home and the area.

We have consistently had stellar guest ratings and delightful stories of guest stays.

We had a family who hadn't been able to get together because of foreign deployment.

They gathered at the house and the grandma was able to meet her grandchildren and celebrate both Thanksgiving and Christmas during their stay.

They used Mom's china and even put up a Christmas tree.

We have been able to provide a home away from home to so many.

Another important benefit is that we employ local cleaners and service people.

Our guests patronize local establishments such as winery tours.

We are able to contribute to the local economy in many ways.

After paying our short-term occupancy tax and sales tax for three years through Virginia guest houses, it has been heartbreaking for us to have received a violation notice.

We have complied and stopped short-term rentals, but we can't afford to keep property without this income.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, good afternoon.

Okay, great.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sue Smith.

Our property is in the White Hall District.

Thank you for your service and the opportunity to speak.

I know that some of you have sympathy for our story.

It's hard to make rules that apply fairly to every situation, which is why special exceptions are so important.

Some home stays or assets to their communities attract visitors and considerate to neighbors, add jobs to the economy and pay taxes.

These are the keepers.

except sometimes they're not the owner's primary residence.

Like inherited properties or restored cabins, the resident manager's special exception gives the board the opportunity to consider the circumstances and the flexibility to decide what is best for the county in each case.

However, the current ordinance allows the special exception only for lots under five acres, not for larger rural lots.

Say my niece lives in a house

lives in our house and wants to have a homestay.

If our lot is four acres, we can apply for a permit with her as resident manager.

But if it's five acres or more, we're automatically denied.

This distinction was not intentional and is arbitrary.

For lots five acres or over that need a resident manager, there currently is no path for a permit.

Equal treatment under the law is fundamental.

All property owners should have the same opportunity to make their case.

Undesirable hosts could still be denied a permit for cause.

I've heard you wrestle with the specter of vacation rental businesses, some with multiple units potentially commercializing neighborhoods and bringing a steady flow of strangers, too many cars, and noise.

Since these problems are most disturbing in dense communities of small lots, why ban resident managers in widely spaced rural areas?

When the subject of larger parcels comes up, the conversation generally turns to corporate owners, as if large parcels lead the big business.

This is no longer the case.

When the whole house rentals were limited to 45 days a year, the profit incentive dissolved.

Income wouldn't begin to pay expenses.

Developing land for the purpose of vacation rentals no longer makes economic sense.

So the fear of larger lots being used in this way should not drive policy.

If a non-conforming cluster of vacation homes already exists, there are numerous other enforcement tools available, such as development rights, permitted density, the two home stay limit per parcel, the 45-day limit, as well as noise or disturbance ordinances.

Banning resident managers on large parcels is not the answer.

In addition to being discriminatory, the policy of denying the special exception for resident manager solely by lot size results in lower lost revenue for the county.

And by reducing income options for large properties, it actually encourages subdivision and development in rural areas where it's least appropriate.

Please revise the ordinance to allow the resident manager special exception regardless of property size so you can make good reason judgments with all the facts.

All right, thank you.

Gotcha.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Hello.

Thank you.

My name is Javier Rodales.

I'm a resident of the Rio district of

Ned Gallaway.

I speak as a longtime resident of Albemarle County.

I want to urge the Board of Supervisors to support right to counsel for those facing evictions.

As a community member, I speak with members of the Latinx community, hard-working immigrants who currently face due to the impact of COVID-19 on the job market, a legal system that is unfamiliar and set against them.

Right to counsel for these members of our community

should be complementary to rent relief efforts.

I speak with community members in my personal life who are unfamiliar with the frightening court system.

When the court system is unfamiliar, it is intimidating.

Right to counsel will ensure that all members of our community have equal footing with landlords who are often and almost always have an attorney.

My community is often unable to afford an attorney.

Right to counsel would be greatly beneficial for community members that I speak with

who work long hours in hard jobs during the same times that court dates are normally held.

Having a right to counsel is a question of justice.

Community members are supported in navigating the legal system and are represented in a manner that the legal system is just to them and all community members

in all members of our community.

Right to counsel is important when the immigrant community often faces situations in which landlords do not provide sufficient information on their rights as tenants here in our county.

I have experience where I have known of experiences where having right to counsel would help community members keep a foot

where community members would be able to keep a roof over their head while they wait for rent relief to be approved.

I often hear about ways in which our neighbors are taken advantage of due to not knowing their rights as tenants.

Right to counsel is an important measure that the Board of Supervisors can take in addition to rent relief.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Hello, good afternoon.

My name is Gabriel Komisar and I'm a resident of the Rio district.

I'm here to lend my voice to the others advocating for a right to counsel for tenants facing eviction in Albemarle County.

I have something in common with my district's magistrate.

I also studied the performing arts and I'm sure we're all waiting with bated breath for a time when we can go to the theater without worrying about transmission or the ramifications for ourselves and others.

That said, after a challenging year and a half, so many of us are still trying to pick up the pieces.

One of the best ways to advocate for those who have lost work and struggled to safely keep their lives and families afloat is to help with the threat of eviction.

Their right to counsel is essential, and the city of Charlottesville has already allocated funds for it.

I believe Albemarle County should similarly allocate funds accounting for the aforementioned disproportionately higher rate of eviction in Albemarle County.

And so I second taking a proportionate $600,000 from the American Rescue Act for this cause.

As Blanche Dubois famously says in A Streetcar Named Desire, I've often relied on the kindness of strangers.

So often, situationally, the lives and livelihoods of others are helped by strangers through government initiatives like the right to counsel for those facing eviction.

In my mind, being a stranger in that situation is an honor.

And it is.

The American Rescue Fund's money is their money.

and they have not only deserve it, but they have earned it.

Thank you.

Great.

My name is Melissa and I'm from the Samuel Miller district.

I'm also speaking today to ask the board to provide funding from the American Rescue Act for a right to counsel program that's at least on par with Charlottesville's, especially since Albemarle had almost twice as many evictions on average prior to the pandemic compared to Charlottesville.

Evictions have economic consequences for both individuals and localities and other cities have seen economic benefits from right to counsel programs.

Evictions can follow tenants for the rest of their lives and make it more difficult for them to find future housing in addition to other long-term effects.

Well, I believe that rent relief is a great protection measure.

It takes time and expertise to apply for and it's ineffective if tenants are unaware how to access it.

I'm not sure if any of you have ever actually looked at the rent relief application, but it's pretty long and complex, especially if you don't have a computer or someone to help work through it with you.

In addition, not all tenants have problems that can just be solved by rent relief and having an attorney can better level the playing field during this process.

A lot of tenants are unable to make it to court since it occurs in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday and having an attorney can help the tenants navigate the court system and also represent them in the case that they're unable to attend themselves if they're at work or if they have to take care of children, etc.

Even when tenants are able to attend, a lot of them don't understand how the court system operates, which puts them at an unfair advantage compared to landlords who typically do have attorneys.

And with a right to counsel, we can ensure that tenants understand their rights and also help keep people in their homes, especially as the Delta variant continues to surge.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Hi, my name is Lydia Brunk.

I live in the Samuel Miller district.

And we've heard from me a lot before, and we're hearing from me again because this is something that's important to me, obviously.

I'm coming in front of the board again to ask that the board both consider and approve allocation of funds towards rent

funds towards providing lawyers for tenants facing eviction.

I really appreciate, I saw that Supervisor Price took the time to speak with Brielle Ensminger of SEVA Weekly about her thoughts on providing funding for legal assistance.

And I recognize and respect the view expressed in that article that it would be preferable to directly help tenants and landlords rather than funding lawyers who are involved in the process.

and first I am so grateful for funds provided directly to tenants by the county and that is an absolutely

Absolutely essential measure in a time like this.

But I have to say, providing funding for lawyers to help tenants is helping them directly.

They cannot and should not be in opposition to each other, taken as one or the other.

They should both be part of our necessary efforts to help folks stay off the streets and have a roof over their heads.

You know, as Melissa mentioned, it can be hard for tenants to even figure out what to do if they can't make their court date.

In most cases, they'd have to fax the court, which I don't know about you all, maybe you do, but I certainly don't have a fax machine and wouldn't know where to find one.

You can send a fax over the Internet, but I would never have known that if I hadn't been involved in an organization, Seville DSA Housing Justice, of folks who are working on this specific issue with help from

with help from lawyers and experts.

So it wouldn't be my first thought, oh, I guess I can send a fax over the internet.

There are just so many complicated steps that you have to know if you want to effectively interact with the court system.

It's great that things like Legal Aid Justice Center have these rent relief navigators now, but the more that we provide funding to programs like Legal Aid, so the city of Charlottesville provided $3,000 for a program for legal assistance for tenants facing eviction, and that means Legal Aid can spend more of their own money if needed.

on these rent relief navigator programs to help folks navigate the rent relief application.

And the program Legal Aid is doing is helping not only with specifically legal representation, but also with outreach to tenants, which are, again, both crucial, crucial parts of the process of allowing tenants to actually access the protections that they are legally entitled to and deserve.

I really appreciate that the Board of Supervisors could and would consider this.

I am just someone out here.

Your time has expired.

Thank you.

As always, if there's additional comments that need to be included before time elapses, you can email the Board of Supervisors and the full statement will be made part of the record.

Good afternoon.

Mr. Maxwell, please unmute your computer.

Thank you.

Hello, good afternoon.

My name is Laura Brunk and I live in the Samuel Miller district.

I'm speaking like many others in support of the Right to Counsel program.

I believe that housing is a human right and that any support the county can give to individuals to provide them with housing including rent relief and Right to Counsel is a necessary and a positive thing.

As many of the other speakers have said, right to counsel simply levels the playing field between tenants and landlords and equalizes their power.

Rights given to tenants are extremely important, but they're essentially meaningless if tenants don't know how to enact them or are unaware that they even exist.

Right to Council is an essential step to allowing citizens of this county to actually access the power that the county gives them.

So I believe that the Right to Council is essential and super important and just another step in supporting our citizens.

Thank you.

Can you hear me now?

Yes sir.

Hey good afternoon guys, I'm Jack Maxwell out of Scottsville District and I want to say a shout out to Don Price for teaming up with the storm relief project we've been doing.

I sent you guys a map a couple weeks ago when I finished it.

I want to put that into the record for evidence of the storm.

Also we have received over 300 reports of downed trees.

and also one fatality out of the tire storm which was the cow out of the non-vista road area which was a cow out of the spring horse farm which is a 325 acre farm out of the scalpel area.

Right now we have the apartment issue right now whenever it rains, it floods.

So we're working on monitoring that situation for and read and document any other type of weather that we have available in Almonte County.

Oh, I didn't know.

This is my first time.

We're working on

with the National Weather Service Office, the floor supervisors, and also Jeff Richardson, and also we're hoping we have enough information to help support Town's Council.

And also, I will be sending out drone footage of the drone over the damaged areas on this road and also along the James Road, which was also significant damage

And also if you have any other questions you need to reach out to National Weather Service you can do so with Chris Strong who is the warning coordinator for our area.

And also we hope that we can have enough information that we can provide state and also we can help out as much as possible.

Also the severe threat has been diminished for Vermont County and has made up north so all that's fine.

With the weather for today, the speed of my flood down trees are still falling from the recent rains.

All right, thank you.

Good afternoon.

Thank you so much.

I'm Marta Kane.

I'm the Java CEO and a resident of the Rio district.

I had sent a

Handout the other day to review with all of you our client satisfaction surveys.

I'm just going to highlight a couple of programs, but when you have time to peruse the handout, you'll see most of our programs are in there.

The Senior Helpline, which is our information and assistance, our entry point, had 98% satisfaction where the residents felt that their questions had been answered satisfactorily.

Our insurance counseling, which is getting started in Medicare as well as the Part D prescription program, had 3.96 out of a four point scale of people feeling they had received the assistance needed.

In our volunteer services program, we had 93% of volunteers finding their work meaningful, and 100% said that their volunteers made a positive impact on their lives.

and of significance is that we had 957 volunteers totaling over 24,000 hours and that's a huge value, that's over a half million dollar value to the community that was volunteer and for us that meant expanded capacity that we were able to deliver more and a lot of our insurance program is

carried on by volunteers, our ombudsman support, and support in our centers in terms of activities and also a neighbor-to-neighbor program is some examples, as well as our FISH program that just won an award for the way it pivoted during COVID.

Our adult care centers, one of the most significant points that the caregivers reflected was that 80% of the members

are in a better mood after they've been at the center during the day.

And that's wonderful for the folks who attend our adult care and it's also a real relief for the caregivers to know that they've had a good day and that helps them in the evening when they're home with the caregiver.

Our community senior centers, which is Mary Williams,

and then as well Esmont and Scottsville.

There were wonderful 100% at all three of those centers for enjoying coming to the center and

Esmond, and Mary Williams, 100% satisfaction with meals, Scottsville, 98%.

And they also all felt really good above 95% for health and wellness and for the activities that they were involved in.

I take that back above 92%.

So what they're doing at the center is they're really enjoying and they're so thrilled to be back again, meeting.

and we often meet with Mary Williams at Darden Town Park and that's been wonderful.

They've enjoyed that.

Our home delivered meals, you'll see for Albemarle there was an 88% satisfaction with the meals and also a huge increase.

We're almost going to be double the amount of meals we'll have provided this year and that's really due to

The fact that during COVID the regulations were loosened so that we didn't have to have somebody qualify as strictly homebound, but rather an unwillingness to get out more frequently.

Ms.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Marta.

If there is additional information, I know that you would pass that along.

But please do so again if needed.

All right.

All right.

We did have item 8.3 removed for discussion.

So there is a motion to approve as amended.

Albemarle?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallet?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

All right, the consent agenda and number 8.3

which is the Walnut Creek Park tier three personal wireless service facility special use permit application was pulled by Supervisor Mallet.

Thank you.

A constituent sent me the text which I forwarded on to Greg Campner about a recent FCC decision.

It was written, I mean a recent court of appeals decision about FCC failure to provide review of a 1996

Standards.

And so since that is now in the court again and has standing to proceed, my question to County Attorney Kantner is, should we be stopping accepting more and more of these possibly non-compliant when the rules get straightened out?

Wouldn't it be sensible to have the rules straightened out first before we have more things to

that are put up in the county that then we have to deal with after the fact.

I can briefly respond and we can talk in more detail later.

The decision from the DC Court of Appeals pertained to the procedure that the FCC followed when they started what's called an inquiry, and then they ended it.

And in the process, the FCC, and this was pertaining to the impacts of radio frequency emissions from wireless telecommunications devices.

In 2019, they stopped that process and that process could have ultimately resulted in updated regulations pertaining to the radio frequency standards.

What the court said was that the FCC failed to provide a reasoned explanation for the reasons for why they stopped the process.

The court also made it clear that it was not making any decision on the viability of the 1996 standard, recognized that there were studies, but it was the studies and the eventual rulemaking that might warrant a change or the FCC just leaving those standards alone.

So that decision does not affect either the matter that's 8.3 today, which is simply to authorize the county executive to sign on behalf of the county as the owner of the property.

It also doesn't affect the federal law preemption of state and local governments from considering radio frequency emissions in their wireless related decisions and

their regulations.

Second question then.

So assuming that that is correct, what would be, if in five years this process has finally been completed, are we still stuck with all the approvals we give from now forward

which we are making with full knowledge that there may be something that changes in the court.

Part of that will depend on what those rules might say.

They may require all of the wireless facilities that exist to retrofit

their equipment so that they do comply with the new standard.

As a zoning decision, those typically do not have retroactive effects.

OK.

Well, I thank you for the question.

I know there's going to be a lot more discussion about this, because after 15 years, this is the first window to get the process to be done right.

And so I think we all should be watching.

But thank you for your effort, and I will thank you for the answers.

I don't know.

Any other questions?

Motion to approve.

Bea LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallard?

No.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Yes.

and Nelsie.

Good afternoon Chair Galloway.

It's good to see you and everybody else on this afternoon in August.

I am Nelsie Burch.

I'm the county CFO and I am here today with Kimberly Gardner who is going to lead the bulk of this conversation.

She is, you've seen her before, she's our grants leader for all county grants, but she's also

in particular responsible for the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funding as you'll hear it called during this conversation and discussion today.

Also, Andy Bowman, our Chief of OMB, Office of Management and Budget, is also here with other program managers and directors who

who may be called to answer some specific questions about some programming.

And so there's a series of us here who are ready to take any questions the board might have as we go through this.

So with that, I'm going to ask for the presentation to pop up.

Thank you, Andy.

And let's move to the second slide once you get into presentation mode.

Today, board, we've got a few desired outcomes from this work session that we have.

The first few are really just providing the board with some updates.

Andy, can you get that into presentation mode?

I'm not sure if you can see that.

We have some updates relative to additional information that we've received from the US Treasury.

We also, and something that we were really particular about when we started this ARPA American Rescue Plan Act discussion back in March, is we wanted to make sure that we were tying together both the local funding that we're receiving through the state and local fiscal recovery funds,

with other funding that's available through the state and also maybe administered through the federal government and how that might trickle into our community so that both staff and the board can make informed decisions about how we might want to either further leverage our dollar

or we might want to redirect some of our funding to different things because other funding might be available through some state programming.

So I'm so sorry, we must be having some issues with our PowerPoint today.

So I'll pause just for a moment.

Let me.

Andy, I'm happy to take it if it's not popping up for you.

Yeah, I think when I share it, it sends it to another screen.

I'm so sorry.

I was not.

Oh, share screen.

Here we go.

Sorry about that.

Let me pop it up.

Thank you, Andy.

Thank you for that.

So I believe I've gone through most of these, but the last in the board discussion that we will tee up for you today is we will be making a recommendation to increase

The next slide, please.

Thank you.

A little bit of background particularly for those who might be listening to this conversation and not have had the history.

I'll briefly go through this really quickly.

We are expected and have received half of the expected 21.2 million

in federal ARPA funding.

And so that crazy alphabet soup that you see there is American Rescue Plan Act.

And then that CSLFRF, I wish the federal government would have been nicer to us.

But this is the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds.

So this represents our portion of the funding that flowed from the Treasury down to either states or localities.

So you'll see that acronym there throughout the presentation, but that's really speaking to the funding that we received as a locality.

In May 21st, we received the first tranche of that, as I had mentioned.

the second of which will be received toward the end of this fiscal year.

And we appropriated all of those fundings, all of that funding back in July really just to make it easier for us to administer the grant.

We had some lessons learned from CARES funding.

And so while we're not planning to spend it before we have it, it allows us some administrative flexibility.

And then the board did approve in June the framework, which I'm going to show on the next slide in just a minute, which has been our guide for how we're moving forward with trying to determine the best use of this $21.2 million in funding.

And then two weeks ago, the board did approve a slight adjustment to that, which is allowing for the ABRT process, or the Agency Budget Review Team,

which is really the funding that is provided to human services programming in the community, creating a secondary application process that will support using ARPA funding to advance the human services related needs in the community as part of our budget process.

So the next slide shows you the three buckets that we have and the framework that was endorsed by the board back in June.

We have $4 million in economic vitality funding.

This is human services and both business support and economic activity related support.

This is what I would consider the more acute funding.

So the funding for FY22, learning from what we did from getting our CARES funding in FY21, and supporting some programming into FY22.

The next one is the 3 million in broadband to support our broadband efforts.

And at the time, and I will remind everyone of the conversation that we had on this, was we are not sure that 3 million is the right number.

But it was a number that we were confident and we were going to plug in there until we learned more about what might be needed to support our broadband programming.

and that's one of the reasons why we're coming back today to ask for additional funding related to that.

And then the last bucket is ensuring that we are being the most strategic that we can be with this funding and building it into our FY23 to FY27 capital budget process.

and our fiscal planning process so that we can align both the resources that we have in the county with really supporting the outcomes that we know that the board is supporting and we've discussed.

and relative to the community needs as we're going to learn through the AVRT process.

And so that is the framework that we have been working under.

And I'm going to now turn it over to Kimberly Gardner, who's going to take us through the rest of the conversation relative to where we are to date on the funding and lead a discussion with the board on the broadband recommendations.

Thank you, Nelsie.

And thank you, board.

It's so nice to talk to you about this today.

I'm Kimberly Gardner, grant leader in the Office of Management and Budget.

And I'm just going to go over the agenda quickly.

We're going to talk about local funding, kind of what we've done to do with our local portion, a little bit of an update on state and federal funding and how that may affect us for opportunities.

There is a broadband recommendation that Nelsie spoke to, and then any feedback or hopefully approval of our recommendation.

Next slide.

The first slide is what have we been doing with our local state and local fiscal recovery funds.

First thing that was really important was for us to get the emergency assistance program being taken care of.

So we have allocated and put forth payment of $800,000, which was an extension of the United Way program that was previously funded by the CARES program.

And it provides support for both rent and mortgage payments, as well as some wraparound like utilities, gas, electric and water.

The other thing that we've been working on is meeting with both our human services groups plus housing as well as economic development to discuss those FY22 programs that Nelsie was talking about, those acute programs.

We're trying to be very strategic around some of the information we didn't have yet, which was the General Assembly funding that was coming down, of course, that happened last week.

And then I'm very excited to say that you guys approved the ARPA process going into the ABRT process for FY23.

So that'll be a huge help for Human Services.

Most of those programs already know how to access the application and use it, so I think that's a huge run for us.

Other piece that we've really been working on is structure to support this programming.

As you know, $21.2 million is a lot of money to make sure that we are in compliance, able to do the reporting, which is much more expensive than the CARES reporting, and also to make sure that we can follow procurement processes and really not bog down any of the

Business Partners that we have right now.

So those are kind of the things that we have been setting up in place to make sure that as we move forward with going through these immediate need programs, we're ready for them.

Next slide.

So the next two slides as well as the third one

Really just an overview, not so much about the dollars here as far as, you know, I've kind of pulled out what the state assembly did, but it's more about the fact that there are many, many programs and dollars that were supported and released through the special session that took place with the House bill.

7001, which was the budget bill, the ARPA funding that came through the General Assembly.

Some of that funding is going to go to established programs and some of it we are waiting to see how they will allocate.

It's been really, really important for us to kind of watch and wait for this bill to pass for a couple of reasons.

It's allowed us to position ourselves really well to augment some of this money coming in from the state side with the local programs that we would like to institute on our side, especially when it comes to those immediate need FY22 programs.

But it's also allowing us to work with our partners to make sure that we understand what's happening through the state level and what may be out there, not only for the funding that we can use, but for additional funding, for example, utility assistance may not come to us, may come to our utility providers.

And we've been working really closely with them to understand that funding and also to answer any questions that you guys may have coming through because we're aware that you're doing your own research and we want to support that as well.

Next slide.

These are big, big buckets of money coming down from the state.

Next slide.

This is an update on some additional federal opportunities.

So the last time we met, we kind of talked about some big buckets that were coming down through federal.

They've really been tightening up some of these programs.

For instance, HUD just recently came out with $20 million.

They have $21 million grants for eviction prevention services.

$2 million in home ARP is going to be coming to us through Thomas Jefferson.

and some of the tourism opportunities.

For instance, the competitive tourism grants and the 500 million for the good jobs challenges have come down as well.

Next slide.

So we're kind of going to wrap up here.

I'm going to bring you back locally.

And I'll see you started the discussion with the framework that we had originally laid out.

One of those pieces to the framework was our broadband support, which we had initially put $3 million towards to support our VADI application that we'll be doing in September.

Next slide.

As an overview, $700 million is going to be coming down through Javadi.

$479 million of that is coming from the state's portion of their local fiscal recovery fund.

So if you look at the appropriation, they just did $479 million sitting there for that.

They're also going to take $220 million coming in from the Capital Projects Fund, which is from the US Treasury portion.

that states can apply to.

We are recommending that we add an additional $1.5 million in our local funding to ABBA similar to what we did with the $3 million to support our body application with Firefly in September.

We've been working very closely with the broadband office and just making sure that we are ready for that application.

Originally, the $3 million looked like it was going to be the right number, but as we're getting closer to the application, $4.5 million would be a better match for us to be more competitive.

The awards were going to be expected in January sometime in 2022, and that award, along with, of course, our match, would support the goal of universal broadband coverage within the county.

Next slide.

So our next steps, we are hoping to appropriate, if you approve, $1.5 million in additional ARCA or a funding portion of that.

And then we will be providing a board update at the next quarter.

And that will provide information on more of the local projects to date, now that we have a lot of the state understanding, and also an update on state funding, if there's any additional information to be provided there.

Next slide.

I think that's it.

Thank you, Nancy.

And Supervisor Malek, you're up first.

Questions?

OK, now I'm ready.

Thank you very much Kim and Nelsie and it seems like daily we get new emails from Richmond or DC about all this minutia and it's just completely mind exploding so I'm so glad you all are in the right spot to figure it all out.

My question is about an arts bucket.

because I've, with colleagues on the Arts and Culture Commission at NACo, there are different communities who are drawing down pretty significant pots of money for the arts out of some special allocation.

So I wondered if you knew anything about that.

specific to arts?

No, I don't know what allocation.

I will tell you that our goal with our ABRT process is to open it to ARPA funding as a whole, not necessarily just human services.

And Kim and Kelsey, were you looking for, you were also looking for specific, how each of us felt on the additional one and a half million.

In the staff report, it all seemed to make great sense.

And as long as our colleagues in the broadband office are keeping them from doing any cherry picking, I'm all for it.

Thank you.

I'm definitely in favor of the 1.5 to go for a more broadband.

Not a problem.

Yes.

And I, I certainly

Agree with the 1.5 going to broadband.

I've got some questions, though, about United Way.

We've got the $0.8 million funding for emergency services.

Has that started being allocated?

We heard last time that it was being worked on.

Mary, you want to speak to that?

Yes, it is happening.

The money was sent.

last week, I believe.

Maybe this is for some email in the future, but I'm curious what types of folks would be left out of that, especially with the rental assistance.

Are we paying attention to residents versus non-residents, US citizens, that sort of thing?

Are we

Are there buckets of people that we know will not qualify?

I will get that clarified.

My understanding is it is for Albemarle County residents.

But I will clarify exactly who is being covered.

Who is considered a resident, I guess, would be.

the question.

Right.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

Oh, no, that's OK.

I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Are you finished?

No, I'm pretty sure it's open to all residents of Albemarle County, but I will clarify that for you.

You said that the state is allocating $2.5 million to Virginia State Bar for legal aid funding for legal representation in eviction cases.

We've had a lot of questions from the public on providing ARPA money for that.

Do you have any information on how the state is going to allocate that, use that,

and what their criteria are for that.

That's a great question.

That's actually one of the first ones I started looking at.

I went directly to the Bar Association.

They do not have an update on their site, but it's on my list to write to this week to find out if it's one of those that are we going to a program already established and if so,

Is it XYZ program and how do we start applying or are they establishing a program and if so, what is our time frame and how will we be able to apply for that money?

OK.

And I have the same kind of question for the $120 million for the utility assistance.

Does that mean that Albemarle County residents have two buckets to apply to the ARPA funding that we're supplying to United Way is distributing and the state fund?

Or how does that work?

So the utility.

And I guess these are all questions you're.

No, that's okay.

The utility program is going through the State Corporation Commission and there's going to be an application process.

Based on what I've read so far, it looks like the utility providers will be

in that process.

But I'm in the process of clarifying that.

It doesn't look like it's a process right now that we would be applying to, but they haven't set up the actual application process yet.

So it could be both.

It could be they'll have a portion of it that if you're in arrears, you can contact them to receive funding.

Great, thank you.

I would just like to know that when you guys find it out to share that with the board.

And I believe that's all my questions for now.

Thank you very much for the great presentation.

Right off the top, I can say that I do support the broadband funding piece.

So that answer is pretty easy.

I think most of us are agreeing that that's a pretty easy yes.

I have a question about the arts as well that Ann mentioned.

And I have no clue at all, but I know some communities have a designated arts district.

And I don't know if this funding might be tied to an arts district, which I would love to establish, but that's not part of this conversation.

But I would be interested in a little bit more information at some point, as you all can kind of tease that out, that would be great.

And just a question, I keep hearing in the news, and you know so often we hear the national news,

and it's not as relevant to Virginia or certainly to our local area.

Having said that, I keep hearing that the states have been so slow to distribute these monies

And I guess, could you just speak to us a little bit about how you are seeing that through the lens of Virginia?

Because it would be Virginia for us.

So I think I can speak to it on a couple of different levels.

There's several different buckets, right?

So we, as county, were eligible to receive our funding directly from the US Treasury.

There were some non-entitlement units that had to receive their funding directly from the state.

In order for the state to fund them, they had to reach out to the non-entitlement units.

something to the effect of an attestation.

I believe that they had to sign and say, yes, we want the funding, because some people did not want the funding.

And I know that they have spent quite a bit of time tracking down each of these localities to get the funding out.

So I don't know if that was a slowdown in the sense of the non-entitlement units receiving their funding.

But the second piece of that, and I think it's the piece that we've really been talking about a lot, is

This is not CARES funding so we don't have to go at lightning speed.

I feel like the state, at least in the sense of Virginia, has really tried to focus on how are they appropriating the funding, putting it into the right buckets.

and again going back and deciding are we going to spend the administrative burden or effort to set up new programs or keeping them in the same programs?

What is the right way to go with that?

I think that they've moved

more quickly on some of the things that we have also put into our bucket as being important things like housing assistance, rental assistance, those things.

They've acknowledged that it was difficult to apply for rental assistance in the past.

They're working to up that administration on their end.

So I think some of it is slow in the sense that it's just a lot of money, especially when they're giving it out to the non-entitlement units and tracking them down.

And Supervisor McKeel, if I could add one piece to that.

I'm so sorry, Kim.

That was a great answer.

The other item was just like local units wait for their boards to make some decisions, and then we set it in motion.

That just happened last week with Richmond and the General Assembly approving the allocation of how they want this funding to be apportioned based on various buckets that Kim had gone through in the presentation.

So I think by the next time we come in front of you, we'll have a better understanding for how quickly they've been able to move once the General Assembly made their decision and the governor signed it.

And both of your explanations or your information have been very helpful.

And Kimberly, when you refer to non-entitlement, just so the public understands, and I want to make sure I understand, because I always think of an entitled community such as the city of Charlottesville, because they are entitled automatically to monies.

And the non-entitled communities would be like Albemarle County,

because we have to apply through a competitive grant process.

Yeah, you are spot on with the traditional meaning of that.

Through the US Treasury and the guidelines around ARPA, and it's escaping me exactly how they cut it off, Kim, you might know that.

But in our instance, it's the town of Scottsville.

is a non-entitlement.

So they got their money directly from the state, not the Treasury, and not through us like CARES was.

As you all might recall, you provided, was not required to, but provided funding to the town of Scottsville through CARES-CRF.

But I cannot remember the distinction, but you're spot on, Supervisor McKeel, with how it typically is with entitlement versus non-entitlement.

Yeah, and that's okay.

I just was trying in my own head to figure it out, and then I know sometimes for the public who assume that because one entity gets it, the other one just, it's, they're all, that we're all treated the same and we're not.

And only one other comment.

I, we are, we certainly have lots of folks in our community

that are very concerned about rent relief and evictions.

And I know this board is as well.

And we're hearing a lot from folks.

And I just want to make sure that there were numbers in this presentation that you gave us.

And I can't remember right now.

I should have written them down.

But can you go back to the numbers that

that were being targeted towards, and Liz got at that discussion a little bit, but I was just trying to see, and I hate for you to have to go back, I'm sorry.

Right.

Right, so 20 million for eviction.

That's federal government.

OK.

All right.

That makes sense.

All right.

Yes.

There is.

You're probably referring to the $2.5 million for the Virginia State Bar for the Legal Aid funding presentation that I'll be looking into this week.

Yeah.

And that was $2.5.

Yes.

I was just trying to wrap my head around those two, those numbers.

Right, right.

That's great.

And I think Jeff sent out, Jeff,

sent out to the supervisors, I guess it was this week or last week, a really great email explaining the work that the county has done and how many people we have served around this issue.

And you can take the presentation down.

That's fine.

Because I think it's nicer for people to be able to see each other.

And I really appreciated Jeff's email.

So I know that you all will be coming back to us with the numbers and the eviction piece and we'll be working with social services as well as some other structures and to include legal aid.

talking to Legal Aid about what their thoughts are, because I don't even know what our people are talking about the numbers, but I have no clue.

I mean, we just don't know the data, right?

I mean, it's hard to, and we can assume, but we don't know, and we really need to know that.

Anyway, so that's all.

Thank you very much, though.

I think I answered your main question.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Madam Birch, Gardner, and Stevens, thank you for both your presentations and the detailed responses you have provided to the questions thus far.

I have two areas that I just want to comment on.

As with all the other supervisors, I believe absolutely, unequivocally, I support the additional $1.5 million towards broadband expansion.

This is an absolutely critical

The second area with regard to the request that we are receiving both

through public comment today as well as through communications from our constituents regarding funding for attorney representation in eviction cases.

I'm either insensitive to the plight of nor the consequences of an eviction on an individual's credit

and how it affects their life for many, many years going forward.

Similarly, I am far from oblivious to the impact on particularly individual landlords who may lose their property due to an inability to pay their mortgage in this instance because they have tenants who have been unable to pay their rent.

And so I'm very concerned about ensuring that we have an equitable concern for both the tenants as well as individual landlords.

I put in a different category from, for example, corporate or large businesses that operate a rental enterprise.

In the legal practice I've had for approximately 20 years,

I have dealt in more cases than I could ever calculate on individuals who have faced deep and severe financial consequences in terms of employment, loss of their home, family stability where they've been unable to pay their mortgage.

And so I think it's important that we recognize that not only do we have tenants who may be suffering, but we also have individuals who own a home that they're renting and they face comparable consequences.

With regard to the requests for funding for legal assistance, have we received any requests from the entities that provide such representation?

Which we see is different from the requests we're receiving from the public to fund such entities.

So before making a decision whether we wanted to send some money towards legal representation,

I think it's important to know, are we receiving that from those entities?

For example, Legal Aid Justice Center that are providing representation because if they do not necessarily need the funds, then I believe that there are better ways that we might be able to use those funds to help both tenants and landlords.

I have no objection to the broadband money, but could you, and I'm sorry if I lost focus when this was explained, if I'm asking to repeat, but we initially put the first three million towards it and then it goes to four and a half.

What was the jump again?

We didn't know, we put that aside because we didn't know, now we know.

Yes, that was the original thought was to be competitive with the BODI grant.

We would need three million.

At the time, I do not believe it was known how much funding BODI would be receiving from the state and how it would be allocated or what the options were for allocation.

Mike Culp has been working diligently.

I just saw him come on here.

He may be better at answering this question than myself.

But just to make sure that we're competitive, Mike,

Thank you, Kimberly.

You all did a great job with the presentation, and thanks for putting forward the $1.5 million.

This was due to Firefly doing some field work and going out and identifying this is what our actual costs are going to be, and then coming back to us after knowledge of the additional funding and saying this is what we'll need to be truly competitive during this FODI grant.

This FODI session, we're going to have

It seems like there's at least 60 and maybe up to 100 applications.

So it just goes to show that the Commonwealth is really taking a good look at this and they're going to be funding a lot more programs this year.

So let's be in that bucket.

So we're really excited to get the federal funding and state funding working to provide broadband to all citizens in Albemarle County, fiber broadband.

So we're very excited.

So thanks for the time to chime in here.

Appreciate all the good words.

I know this is happening.

The fact that there's so much different money coming in going different directions and what matrix you must have that exists that you look at to understand.

I suspect just from past answers that, you know, at other board meetings that nothing is locked into a place that if

We miss that one spills here that could free up the local money to be maneuvered to another spot that we always will retain the flexibility to do that.

To me, this is just changing and evolving so frequently that we have to have that ability or else we're undermining ourselves in ways that we may not even know yet.

So I know that that's happening.

There is one, I don't know where this memory is coming from in the past,

They're in their own kind of lane with some lines.

And there was at one point, I thought I remember a note, something coming to us about that could be impacted or not impacted.

Can you just, are we okay there?

Are we tracking that?

That we're not needing to necessarily put our own local monies in that direction because it's being handled from the monies that are flowing down from above.

That supervisor Galloway, that's exactly right.

I remember we did have it in an earlier presentation.

I think it might've been our very first one.

because we did know what transit was receiving.

It was one of the early ones where we knew exactly what they were receiving.

We don't have it in here, I think, because of that.

But I don't believe, and Kim, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not as close on this, I don't believe there's been any market changes to the transit funding because it was established very early on, particularly as it relates to ARPA.

Now the infrastructure bills, that is a whole different animal for transit.

But I don't believe on ARPA has changed.

But we can provide that just so you have it for your reference in a future update.

Because I do think that's important for us to keep track of.

So thank you for that.

That's all the questions I had.

I think you got your question answered.

No, thank you for this discussion.

Mr. Richardson, did you have the next vote?

And then I'll go to you, Supervisor Malek.

Mr. Richardson?

I'll let Supervisor Malek in first.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

This is just to go on the list of future inquiry because it makes me nervous when I hear that our utilities are going to just be getting a direct X million dollars and who's going to be tracking where that's going and if they're going to put it in a bucket or they're going to actually get it out to people.

So that's not really something you're responsible for, but it gives me anxiety that we're going to get it where it needs to go.

So I hope there will be some information coming forward about that.

Mr. Richardson?

Mr. Chair, just as we transition, just very quickly as we wrap up the ARPA discussion, I appreciate the leadership from the finance and budget department, but also Mary Stebbins, who is on the call with us today.

Mary stepped up in a big way recently with the retirement of Phyllis Savitas.

And as we were waiting for CACademic to come on board to lead our social services department, our wonderful staff over there who work so very hard every day,

and Mary exhibits that on a day-to-day basis and I wanted to publicly thank her for her leadership.

County Executive's Office has leaned on her really hard during this interim time and she did an outstanding job for Mr. Walker and our team here in the County Executive's Office and Mary, thank you very much for your hard work and thank you to your team and social services.

We appreciate it very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

The Board also expresses our appreciation there.

Next on the agenda, number 10, SC 2021-19 Home Stay Special Deception, Tranquil Cottage in Vallejo.

Thank you, Supervisor Galloway.

Let me go ahead and share my screen.

All right, so good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this special exception.

I'm presenting special exception 2021-19 to reduce required setbacks for a homestay on Foster's Branch Road, located in a cottage built 20 years ago.

Given no neighbor objections to proposed homestay requesting a setback reduction, this special exception would have gone on the consent agenda.

But there was a concern voiced about this application.

So we all get to spend a couple of delightful minutes together this afternoon discussing the application.

So again, homestays for parcels like the subject one here, 3434 Foster's Branch Road, an 8.5 acre

Rural Area Parcel, are subject to regulations limiting them to five guest rooms, requiring 125-foot setbacks from all parcel boundaries, permits the use of accessory structures only if they preexist the home state ordinance, and require the homeowner to be on site during the rental.

Additionally, as with all home states, the property must be the primary residence of the owner.

Parking must be on site.

Neighbor notification is required.

annual safety inspections are also required.

There are two special exceptions possible for a larger RA parcel like this.

This application is requesting a reduction in the setbacks on the southwestern parcel boundaries in the accessory cottage structure.

As the cottage was built in the year 2000 and is on a parcel over five acres in size, no special exception is required for the cottage itself.

but there is a special exception required for the setback.

As a reminder of the requirements, homestay special exception may be granted permitted there's no detriment to any abutting lots and no harm to public health, safety, or welfare, what we are all here for.

So the proposed homestay shown here with a green asterisk

is surrounded by large parcels used for residential and agricultural uses.

The nearest house is 442 feet away from the homestay across a large field.

All other budding parcels are used solely for agriculture and do not contain any dwellings.

We did receive a phone call expressing concern from the nearest neighbor that is labeled here with a red asterisk.

This neighbor cited poor neighborly relations and dumping as a cause for concern.

but she did not cite any concerns related to the actual proposed homestay on the phone call.

As such, staff does recommend approval of the special exception with the addition of screening as shown on this exhibit.

As you can see from this image and the prior aerials, the parking area is very well screened already.

and there is no current vegetation or any kind of screening between the homestay location and the neighboring parcel.

This photo is taken from the corner looking towards the neighbor's parcel where the fence separates the two properties.

As previously required in other homestays, staff recommends providing screening to mitigate any visual impacts and believes that would

provide to avoid any future negative impacts to neighboring parcels.

So again, just returning to that, showing the location of the screening, which it looks like it's to the north.

The view is actually turned around, but this would be between the cottage shown with the asterisk and the neighboring parcel.

So as such, staff recommends approval with conditions related to parking and guest room numbers and maintenance of the existing screening and the addition of plantings as shown on the aerial exhibit.

All right, thank you.

All right, questions or comments for staff?

I was very glad to see all of the attention already given to the screening.

Sorry, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley?

OK, I was trying to unmute.

Thank you very much.

Yes, this is in my district.

And I, with the additional screening and with the approval of attachment F, I have no problem with this homestay.

Looks very nice.

And that's something that I'm going to be supporting.

I am good with how it's been presented and I too will support it.

Yes, I don't have any problem with this proposal based on the screening and I think it's fine.

I did flag though Leah in my in the presentation that I had

The dumping issue, which really brings me just more to a process question because this is 8.5 acre piece of property and someone could be using that piece of property without the owner's knowledge.

We have such dumping issues all over the county.

I mean, we all know we have a problem with dumping.

And I'm just wondering, when you hear a complaint from someone in a process like this that wasn't about necessarily the homestay, it was about dumping, do you investigate that?

I don't expect you to investigate it, but I mean, do you report that to the powers that be so that they could follow through on an investigation and make sure that this owner's property is not being used for illegal dumping?

Sure.

Thank you for your question, Supervisor McKeel.

In this particular instance, it was very clear that this was not a further issue.

This was a one-time issue, and I think it was a misunderstanding.

Go ahead.

Yeah, if there is something that was more alarming, if there was something that was a red flag

that would need to be investigated, yes, that would be investigated.

It would be created as a zoning violation if we had any kind of follow-up that was needed with our code compliance officers, and then they would be able to investigate that.

And we probably wouldn't move forward with the homestay application at the same time if there was something that came to light.

Usually, that would be something that zoning

office zoning officials are used to seeing what the red flags are.

Okay, that's great.

I'm just curious and I wanted to just make sure in my head because we all know we have a problem with illegal dumping in this area and we can have property owners that have no clue that a certain area of their property is being used even, you know, so all right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Brumfield, for your presentation.

I would simply be repeating the same concerns that Supervisor McKeel articulated, which are separate from the homestay itself.

I appreciate that discussion.

It is an area that I think we are all very interested in.

But I have no questions or concerns with regard to this homestay application.

Do we have any questions or comments here?

So we are ready for lunch.

Second call vote.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallet?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Are the applications approved?

And the board then will bring us to our recess.

We have 15 minutes scheduled.

We're a little behind, but we can go till, I guess that would be 3.10 when we return for a recess.

And we will go from there.

Travis will let us know when we are clear.

Yes sir, let me get my screen share here going.

All right, how we doing?

All right, so we got Board of Supervisors, August 18th, 2021, right?

Thank you, Chair Galloway and members of the board.

I'm Bart Sobota, Zoning Administrator.

I'm going to cover a little bit of background here.

So folks that are listening in, if they're new to the homestay regulations, there's a little bit of history involved.

So there'll be some new, some old, and hopefully some good.

News as we progress through this.

So we'll move on to the next slide.

So we're going to go back in time a little bit.

This particular slide is an illustration of how long Albemarle County has been contemplating homestays.

Approximately 45 years is if we do the math, give or take.

This is an article published in 1976 from the Daily Progress.

This article was for the bicentennial and talks about the visitors that come to our area for the celebration and their need for accommodations.

Some found refuge in B&Bs, which is what we now call homestays.

Homestay is a form of transient lodging that is accessory and permitted only in association with a single family residence.

It allows for the rental of guest rooms for less than 30 days at a time.

The provision for this form of lodging has been in the zoning ordinance since 1976.

And that provision did allow up to five guest rooms within a single family dwelling.

I want to talk a little bit about the comprehensive plan and tourism as part of our background.

And I'm going to run through this fairly quickly, but I would like to briefly mention that these home stays help promote tourism and our heritage and what's associated with tourism and agriculture.

It helps preserve our scenic and historic and natural resources.

Folks who come to see the area like to see those things, right?

So we have motivation for landowners to keep their properties and historic structures and that part of our tourism is an industry alive and vibrant.

Homestays in Albemarle provide lodging in areas that aren't currently served by traditional types of lodging, like hotels or motels.

So later on in the presentation, as we get towards the end, there's a little snippet of a heat map that lets you know kind of where tourist lodging takes place throughout the county.

Also, the homestays contribute to our TOT, our lodging tax revenue.

and visitors spend and I think we heard that today under other matters from the public where visitors will spend money at our local shops and restaurants and hire local

employees, the average travel party to Central Virginia spends about $623 per trip.

This is according to the tourism corporation.

So we did speak with our tourism folks here at the county to get some updated numbers and to talk about how that industry plays into the bigger picture of our finances here in Albemarle.

One of the terms we're going to talk about is the compliance gap.

This is strategy E-5 and what it talks about is within the comp plan about how we were to study the transient lodging and look at the regulatory changes that should occur and determine what changes needed to be made, what was appropriate.

So this took place or started in 2017 and we adopted what we refer to as the new homestay regs.

in 2019.

So we've been at it about two years now.

And we have referred to what was folks who either didn't know, were unaware, weren't paying attention, will stay on that side of the fence for now.

And we called that the compliance gap, meaning folks didn't know, they weren't in compliance

I'm putting that term out there because that's a shop term for us.

I know the board knows it, staff knows it, but any of the public that's listening, they may not be aware of what we call the compliance gap.

But that's basically folks who are up and operating and did not understand what regulations that they had to meet.

So they weren't complying with zoning or taxation or other requirements.

And again, we refer to that as the compliance gap.

This is a summary chart of our current home study regs.

The little blue asterisk located within the chart are those things that may be modified for a special exception.

Towards the end of the presentation, we're going to have an ask of the board for about four things.

two of which are special exceptions, the 125s and also a brief discussion about owner occupancy and how we would like to proceed with that.

So I'm going to follow up with that at the end and also before I get much farther, I would like to get through the presentation at least to tier 3, that final part

unless there's any pressing questions.

So if that's okay with the board, I'd just soon move through and save our questions for towards the end.

So as I mentioned, home stays have been permitted in the community since 1976.

most recently following the two-year study process as we discussed briefly.

We amended the ordinance in 2019 to allow for unhosted or whole house rentals.

Those take place only in the rural areas on those parcels larger than five acres.

You heard one of our

members of the public who was speaking under matters of the public talk about 45 day cap.

That 45 day cap is associated with whole house rentals.

It's not a cap for any other time frame within home stays.

It's only that whole house rental where we have a resident manager or someone available when that whole house is out.

And I'm going to cover that again a little bit farther down in the presentation.

and again we were looking at those regulations to make sure that we protect the rural area and the residential, the rural character and those rural areas and residential neighborhoods and that character that went with

where these uses were located.

So it was about the what's going on, the homestay and the where is it located and does it fit into the character of that particular neighborhood.

Whether that neighborhood is residential if it's permitted there or whether that neighborhood is a farming community and how does it impact that particular character.

As there are five main focus areas of the new regulation, which is guest rooms, use of accessory structures, required setbacks, whole house rental, and residency.

We're now moving into part two.

And what we're going to talk about here is some compliance program updates and a little bit of information from finance

I think most of you all have been aware of our progress, so we'll try and get through this quickly.

I believe myself and the board members are interested in how we proceed to the next steps of home stay.

So we'll try and get to part three as soon as we can.

So as we move into part two, I think some of you may remember this from a year or so ago, where we talk about how a zoning

the zoning cycle or the homestay cycle works.

So we have our zoning approvals.

We have our building safety inspections, which includes a fire marshal office.

In particular that inspection has been combined for the initial inspection.

If you recall, we had a request

back in the beginning that we not send three different types of inspectors to do one task and we were able to cross train one of our CCOs and they take care of the initial safety inspection and the building inspection and the zoning inspection all at the same time.

We have health department approval, we have intake of the application and then we have our business taxes and then zoning and some of the cycle will repeat

repeat annually as they renew annually under the registry.

This slide is just a brief rundown of the steps you would take to get your homestay.

So most of you, I believe, are aware of this.

Again, this is for some folks who are kind of just tuning in to homestays.

But you need to meet your zoning requirements, your fire and building safety requirements.

You need to get a zoning clearance, pass your inspections, send your neighbor notice, apply for business license, pay your applicable taxes,

and become a member of our registry which enables us to solicit that annual safety inspection and make sure that the homestay is up to date.

This again is a repeat slide from last time that talks about just the type of taxes that a homestay might pass.

We have our business license tax.

We have our transient occupancy tax.

You'll hear us talk about it as TOT.

We have our business changeable personal property tax, sales tax, and food and beverage tax.

So depending on if there's souvenirs or if they're serving food for a fee, that's where really the last two come in.

The other three have to do with your business license.

Your room rate is your TOT.

and then equipment, bedding, beds, things you use within the business, that's your tangible personal property tax.

This is information provided to us by finance and we went over it today just to make sure it was accurate.

So as of 5-12-2020, that was the big push, the 295 was the initial.

And then in that last

year.

We did about 32.

In there, there was a gap.

If you went through the staff report, you can see where there was about an eight month lull where we didn't have our third party helper to ferret out some of these.

But as you can see, these are finance numbers.

We'll get to the zoning numbers in a minute.

You can see percent responded.

It's on the rise from talking with Ms.

Lynn today.

That number is probably closer to about 80% now.

And the captured revenue is listed below.

She is with us if we have questions about any of the finance component when we get to the question part.

So zoning compliance gap.

That's what we talked about a little bit a moment ago.

With the zoning compliance effort, we have proactively contacted close to 400.

It might be actually a little over 400 on the listings.

We are about 90% compliant.

So that 10% of compliance gap that's left

It's likely to remain for a while.

It may get smaller, but we have a certain percentage that are going to be new to coming into doing the home stay as a business, so they may be unaware.

Also, we'll have a certain number of complaints, but also we'll have a certain number of repeat customers that are in and out that we'll have to track.

So that number probably for the foreseeable future meaning the next few years at least till our citizens and our county kind of settle with the activities of the last few years.

Let's say the challenges that we faced as a county and as a nation and the

Habits are reestablished on how people vacation or use these homestays or as recreation.

So since 2019, there's been approximately 400 complaints.

Of those 400, 39 have been called in by individual property owners.

So the majority of those complaints come in off of our third party help

I thought that was a number that the board would be interested in because that helps tell us the kind of amount of nuisance, if you will, of the homestays.

So if we do sort of the math on that, we get about a 10% of the homestays have some sort of complaint.

And we have Ms.

Green here, and she may be able to elaborate on that if you wish to go down that road about what types of complaints we're receiving from the individual property owners.

And we may have to actually get back with you on some of that data.

but she's also here for the question and answer part.

I'm going to push the compliance gap a little bit.

Again, I want to mention that it's closing and I don't know if we'll get it 100% closed because that means everybody's doing perfectly what they're supposed to do under the ordinance.

But I believe operating in that 10% range is a vast improvement from where we began a couple of years ago.

So barring any significant shifts again in the market, this figure will probably remain fairly constant, that 10% gap over the next few years as we transition through these current events and establish our new routines.

This is the heat map that I'd referenced earlier.

And it's only partial, but it gives you an idea of kind of where home stays are located.

They're located primarily around

The urban ring and primarily around growth areas.

The red, I just want to have a little caveat there.

That doesn't mean there's a bunch of houses in the red because of the way the listing works.

If I have one house that has three rooms, it counts as three listings in our third party helper.

So there's a little caveat there to when you see some of these.

I want to talk about some of the takeaways that we have in our compliance program, which is the majority of home stays are concentrated around the urban rain.

The number of non-compliant new listings is declining.

So our message is getting out.

I did verify that with finance.

They have identified the same thing, that the number of non-compliant folks that they're running into is going down.

So our message is getting out, both for zoning and finance.

That we need to continue the third party helper for one final year.

And also, I cover this number again.

I think it's an important number for us as getting bang for our buck, if you will, in this particular program.

where homestay complaints remain low, meaning that that 39 out of 400 is about 9 or 10% of the overall homestays from individual property owners.

and that last bullet is about a board review in August of 2022 meaning coming back to the board after another year and having maybe a final update if not an update by report as opposed to presentation but I would like to see how that goes over the next year.

So this is the last part and I don't know if this is part everybody's been looking forward to or not but this is the

This is the part where we talk about ordinance improvements or revisions.

So these are based on our experience, meaning board, applicant, community, staff, and what we've experienced over the last year in special exceptions, in phone calls, the whole process all together.

This chart represents special exceptions in how many we took in, how many we processed, how many were re-approved.

So as an example, the 125 foot setback reduction is by far our most sought after special exception.

42 have been submitted, 29 approved.

We still have 10 pending as of the date of this slide.

I don't know if any more have come in.

We might have one less pending after today.

So that may be 30 approved and nine under review after what took place about 30 minutes ago.

So what we're asking here is that

Staff is recommending that we do a revision for the 125 and I'll get into a little bit of those details in a minute but what we're asking is that we get permission to do an ROI that says we can look into this, we can develop the standards, we can develop the landscaping for the 125 and similar to the application you saw today

those would be

the complexity of the application to present a homestay by the time it runs through all the review process, all the people, through our granicus approval and everything else.

It's a pretty decent chunk of time.

These are our recommended ordinance

amendments, meaning we want to replace that 125 setback and where we would like to start the discussion is with the primary structure setbacks.

But that consists of sufficient screening, meaning if that gives us the ability to, or the owners the ability to use their structures that meet the appropriate setbacks in the district, which is what we already allow for home occupations.

So we want to mirror that section of the regulation, but with some additional screening requirements.

One of the things that we've run into a couple occasions

is that the structure may not and we may have a historic structure that doesn't meet primary setbacks.

So we also want to consider having the special exception setback still available for parcels that are less than the district setback in case we have a structure that's historic or we have a property where the property owner owns adjacent properties, similar to what we talked about

as a criteria for the 125 special exception a couple of years ago where we can reach for that, but it would be on a case by case basis.

The other one that we heard today from matters from the public, and I think we've talked to a few of our supervisors over the last few months regarding these, is expanding the option

for the owner occupancy into or onto lots greater than five acres.

And so again, that wouldn't be automatic.

That would be similar to how we started with 125 is expanded into that area, do it by special exception.

And as we go through that, we can develop criteria to analyze those special exceptions.

And that particular category may never be

administrative.

So that's something that we would have to work out.

We recommend that the full conversation of that would need to take place in a work session that would probably come up after the first of the year because that's a heavier lift to develop criteria to talk about different types of ownership versus what the use is.

The work session I just referred to would take place in the end of first quarter, beginning of second quarter, that's calendar year.

And that would be a discussion about what's being done and where it's being done, not necessarily who owns it, although that is a large part of the conversation, I think, based on that would at least be our starting point.

and we want to make sure we have clarity there on how that would work and again this is has to do partly with comments from the farms and other when you heard from a lady today who talked about they still own the farm but they don't live on the farm

and so how do we negotiate or navigate that to keep that rural character and that farm intact without having someone have to sell it and put houses on it to have it maintain its rural character.

But I think that's a broader discussion and a longer process for zoning text amendment than the 125 would be when we move to that.

So I'd like to get the board's thoughts on that.

This is a summary of our asks.

One would be to endorse the third party helper for an additional year.

The second would be to direct staff to prepare a resolution of intent to adjust the 125 and also clarify any additional confusing language within the homestay regs.

As an example, if you read through the regs, which I'm sure most of you have, it's not necessarily in a user friendly order.

So we may reorganize that section without actually changing language so it flows a little better for the layman and we don't get stuck in kind of the technical speak that we have.

The third would be to expand that special exception onto properties greater than five acres.

So at least those owners would have the ability to ask.

It's not automatic, but they would at least have the ability to ask the board whether or not it would be appropriate.

and then the last is to schedule that future work session to really dive into number three, to dive into that owner occupancy and figure out where we want to go from there.

What about the what and the where versus the who.

And so that concludes staff's presentation.

And I'm all ready for any questions.

And we do have, again, Ms.

Lynn here from Finance, Ms.

Green, and Ms.

Thank you, Bart.

We'll go through our order here.

Thank you.

I have a few on my list, so I'll just go down sort of in order of my writing them as I heard things.

Bart, you mentioned the registry.

Yes, the registry is in operation now.

The folks that we have on the registry are compliant.

Excellent, okay next is, okay I'm coming.

Regarding number one, I would

suggest you take out the part about one final year and just say we'd like to extend it for the next year, because we don't know.

I think as long as it's bringing in more revenue than it's costing, we should keep it.

That's just my view.

Until you learn more and do better, because I think the minute we look away, things will go to pot.

Let me zoom down my list here.

I did that one.

OK, now I look forward to more explanation about the primary structure setbacks

as if something new would match the existing one, but you'll describe that more in detail when you come back.

Now, another category altogether, which you and I have spoken about, is that according to our current interpretation, I understand that if your property is owned by an LLC, even if the family all lives there 100% of the time, they are excluded from even applying for any reason because they're an LLC.

So that to me sounds like a much simpler change.

If it's somebody who's owner occupying, it shouldn't really matter if they're an LLC or not.

I know that perhaps we thought an LLC would automatically be some Marriott Hotels coming in to put up a lot of stuff.

but in this one circumstance for the family in Earliesville in addition to the sisters who called in today with the other side which is the people who live away is that we have real bona fide residents who have 100 acres or more and would love to be able to do this but they weren't even able to get their application in the door.

I'll jump in.

And I think part of that is because of the definition of owner in the zoning ordinance, which applies to the entire zoning ordinance.

What sort of lift is that to fix that?

Because it certainly wasn't our intention to have the result we're having.

Yes, so our kind of proposal to expand the owner occupancy exception into that five acres or more is

Sort of the quick fix so we can do it case by case.

The longer fix is that work session as we talk about how it affects potentially other portions of the owner, the definition of owner throughout the ordinance.

Yeah, it would be a zoning text amendment.

Okay, so it could be something that's like a couple of months if we get on it.

Okay, I'll just stop and see what other people have to say.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, thank you very much.

I lost my train of thought, so...

Oh, I'm sorry.

It was about timetable.

So that's based on the board schedule.

We would get with the clerk, get with the county exec's office, our work program, and put all that in there.

Figure out where this lies in our priority and also how it balances against, like the 125s as an example, possibly freeing up some resources to take place of the other stuff.

So we're hoping that the

Those two and three may be earlier, but that's a discussion I would need to have with my director about work program and how all that fits in.

The other number four, the bigger, broader discussion that Supervisor Malek was referring to is a heavier lift that require more resources.

Yeah, within a year.

Probably within a year.

Yeah.

Okay.

Could you go back to the screen so I could see the four items please?

Yes ma'am.

Thank you.

So this is what you're asking for.

I agree with Supervisor Mallek.

I would take out for the one final year because once again, I don't want to let anyone know that this is going to be an if in case we do decide to continue it, maybe even on a part-time basis, who knows, but maybe eventually phase it out or keep it.

So I would at least leave out the word one final.

or to continue it.

Number two, I would agree with that also.

I think the 125 foot setback, since those are the items we get the most of staff being able to look at that.

and say this is reasonable to put up screening for parking and everything, I think that would be good.

I look forward to your suggestions on that.

Number three, I'm definitely in favor of.

I think that was actually an oversight to limit it like that, but I would like to

see that and if it comes before the board that's fine but because we have some we have some historic homes on large piece of parcels of property where people don't necessarily live there and I do agree with the looking at down the road the LLCs because from my understanding someone has an LLC in order it's suggested to protect themselves for insurance purposes and

So and then number four, I agree with also.

So thank you very much.

OK, thank you.

Number one, yes, I agree.

Take out the one final year.

Other than that, it's great.

Number two, I'm a little bit confused on your explanation.

I don't think I disagree with it.

I'm just a bit confused.

Are you thinking about coming back and saying, well, we're just going to require 60 feet or some other number of feet?

Is that what you're talking about?

I guess if we see a consent agenda, I'm sorry.

Reducing it.

Okay, thank you.

The third one, I'm agreeing with no problem.

I do want just for those who weren't on the board then, this wasn't an oversight.

We had quite a discussion about people coming into the community and purchasing properties for this purpose and our housing

are the number of affordable housing and other housing that we have in the community.

So just having said that, I think that that's important to say.

However, I think now with the situation where you can only use it for a certain number of days per year helps quite a bit.

I'm a little bit confused on our

whole house rental, how this would work into it since we're saying that you have to live in a house for six months at least a minimum.

Yeah, so that would be part of the broader discussion and we'll call it number four, right under number four because as we tweak that ownership then that whole house rental is something that we're going to have to deal with.

Is it null and void?

Is it a different thing?

So that somewhere lies between somewhere between three and four as we analyze it because if we allow an absentee owner

or then I'm not there so I'm somehow subject to the 45 days so when we look at expansion into the five acres then we would have to write a caveat that if you receive the special exception either the 45 days doesn't apply or we would have to address it somehow so they're kind of in order of the lift

Okay, and not that Supervisor Price might be saying this, but as you're talking, and not to speak for her, but I'm remembering her saying that we should be looking at something slightly under six months for the, excuse me, something slightly over six months so people wouldn't be just buying two houses.

and I don't know if she still feels that as a concern or not, but I'm just remembering that comment from before as something that we would want to look at under this review.

The other thing that I just would like to ask about is conservation easements.

If these large parcels are put in conservation easements, either the ACE program or Virginia Outdoors or whatever, depending on their income

I think it would be really interesting to see, depending on how you do this, just to look at that as something to make this process easier.

So if an owner puts it in conservation easement, then they get some easier situation to take care of it.

It certainly reduces their taxes dramatically, and I wonder how many of these families that own these large parcels, and I'm not even sure if you can apply to the ACE program if you have multiple people owning a property and you have an LLC, but I think that would be an interesting thing to look at to give them some break in the process.

I'm just throwing that out.

Thank you Sure, thank you one part I am supportive of one and

And I agree with everyone to take out the word final.

I think we're going to probably want to continue this, it would seem to me.

And if nothing else, it reduces staff time, I would think, the time that you all would be needing to investigate compliance.

So that's a yes.

Two, about the zoning, the 125, yes, I'm happy to look at that situation as well and discuss that.

You can come back to us with your recommendation.

So that's a yes.

Help me a little bit, though, with the discussion around the LLCs.

And maybe I just haven't caught the drift of where we're going with that.

LLCs, in my mind, are a creation so that folks can

not have exposure to culpability.

They won't lose their home if they have something happen through their business.

And I understand the reason they exist.

But I don't see how they really fit in with our homestays.

Would they not create situations where people

would not be as inclined to take care of the property.

I'm just trying, help me out a little bit with the LLC piece of all this.

Maybe I'm totally confused because they have to have inspections anyway, and I get that.

Yeah, and I'll let Greg jump in here at some point to talk about the ownership LLC part of that.

But for us, for the

for the what, meaning the use and the where, it's kind of like a business, right?

A regular, if I, this is sort of an extreme example as related to homestays.

But I got two folks that own a restaurant, one things are run down, the other one they're not.

It really doesn't, it's really not the LLC that's doing that.

It's, or whether or not I have an individual owner who owns that same restaurant and not in an LLC, one's run down and one's not.

there's no more control zoning wise whether it's an individual or whether it's an LLC it's really about the what it's about the use the restaurant and does it meet the applicable regulation and does it maintain whatever the character is of that particular area so bad actors to coin a supervisor mallet term

can come in the form of an individual, a group of people, an LLC, a company, it's just a variety of things.

So from the zoning perspective, we look at it more of the what's the use, where is it, and where is it depends on those are the regulations that they have to comply with, and that the who

runs it is less of a concern because we actually do have individuals that they have more than one property or more than one business and some of their properties comply and some of them don't.

So it's really about what's going on as opposed to who's doing it.

And so that's kind of strictly from the zoning enforcement end of it.

I'm not sure I can talk about that.

One of the issues with, and I'll use LLC as a shorthand for artificial entities, including corporations and what we used to have more common land trust is that the homestay use is residential in nature and the artificial entities

Mike LLCs at least leave open the possibility for a single entity to operate multiple homestays and in some ways that is problematic because what happens is that it becomes more of a business and it's an incursion of purely commercial activity

and what are either residential or RA districts.

Part of that could be addressed through focusing on, as Bart was touching on, the effects of the use and adding criteria to the special exception review that would include consistency with the comprehensive plan, for example,

whether or not it affects the residential character of the neighborhood and as a way to help control the proliferation.

So that's very helpful because you're expressing exactly, Greg, and I think Bart, too, some of my concerns.

Because I have had staff say to me, well, we have, and maybe not about necessarily home stays, but LLCs, we haven't any clue who owns that property.

It's an LLC.

And that could become part of the application process.

Just for applications for an LLC, for example, for a rezoning, we have to find out who the authorized signatory is so we get the formational documents that identify who the manager is and who the members are of the LLC.

Yeah, because most of those documents are not going to be recorded.

OK, having said that, I have concerns about the LLC because we talk about these as home stays.

The whole idea was to allow people to use their home

to not have to sell their home to be able to bring in extra income.

I don't have to go into all the details about that.

When we start talking about LLCs and businesses and people owning four and five, then that's not my idea of a homestay.

And that's where I start pushing back and it goes to the LLC.

And maybe we don't need to belabor this any further.

You get what I'm concerned about.

Okay, I'm curious though, taking us in another track, you mentioned BART complaints.

Can you just quickly tell me a little bit more about what are the complaints that you're getting?

I'm going to probably let Ms.

Green jump in here, but they're kind of our regular stuff.

There's some noise, there's some parking, things like that.

You heard one that wasn't related to homestead but came up in the application.

about dumping.

Sometimes there's things like that.

I don't know if Ms.

Green wants to, if she has more specifics for you.

But it's like you suggested, Supervisor McKeel.

It's kind of our meat and potatoes of the neighborhood complaints is what we get.

OK.

All right.

And you all are keeping track of those, I'm sure.

Yes, ma'am.

And investigating them as they come up.

Yes, ma'am.

And do you have a sense of, is it a small percentage of our home stays, or are the ones that are getting complaints located in a certain area?

I mean, do they fall within a certain category like under five acres?

We haven't.

We've got everything logged and tracked.

We haven't really done a mapping situation on those that are actual complaints from constituents or others about the location.

We did get several after the new home state ordinance was adopted.

We've had everything from I want to make sure this person is paying their proper taxes to traffic concerns.

A couple of noise, but not a lot of those.

Sometimes it was just about if the property was a townhouse.

And that, as you all know, a home stay can't be in a town home.

And there was traffic and parking concerns related to those.

But as far as the location, we haven't really tracked that.

Yeah, and I was thinking about location more of the five acre or less than five acre and that's okay.

I was just curious.

Yeah, yeah.

Only one other comment.

I think, did I answer all your questions?

I maybe did not.

That really is where that

And I have one more just quick comment and then I'll be done.

I think Liz makes a really good point and it gets about, I'm sorry, about the ACE

Program and how this relates.

And that also relates to my desire to go back in.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say we have a 30-year-old program that we have never reviewed in the context of a new reality.

You know, lots of changes in 30 years.

And I would love to see us go back

and look at our criteria for ACE, see how we could change it to improve it, to strengthen it, and what we don't need now that we have just been automatically, you know, after 30 years you just do things automatically.

And I just think when you're talking about programs like this, we need to at least every 30 years go in and review them.

So, but I'm not disagreeing with Liz, but just to be

I don't want to use the word knee-jerk, that's not true, but just to be looking at these things in isolation without a review of the plan.

And I know that gets to work plan, but to do what Liz says would get to work plan anyway.

So I'm just saying that I really holistically would like us to see how we can, what we can do with the ACE program to improve it.

But I do,

So piggybacking onto what Liz just said.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

This is a very complex area that does have some competing interests.

And I really appreciate the fact that the county has taken such a measured approach to identify

addressing and resolving a lot of the concerns that we have.

I totally concur with the other supervisors.

Let's continue our third party helper.

No reason to limit it to just a single year.

Just take that out.

Just continue to use them.

And I also agree with number two to move forward.

with that change in order to reduce what really in most instances has been unnecessary time of having full confidence that county staff will be able to identify those situations that do require actually coming to the Board of Supervisors.

I have total support in your professions.

The last two, I guess I would say I agree that more time

and work needs to be put into those.

And I have a number of comments.

I'll try to put them in some sort of a logical order.

You know, one of the real complexities here is our desire to preserve the scenic, historic and natural resource, maintaining home stays as a collateral use of a primary residence and not allowing it to turn

into either a business as a primary source of revenue or effectively creating sort of a landed gentry by those who may inherit or own a large piece of property which then

causes complexity with balancing the ability to have a homestay for collateral use versus the impact on the housing stock availability, which is a major issue in our area.

We need more primary residences.

So there are certain situations where I believe that we can make exceptions to some of our general policies.

For example, we just recently approved a homestay in the Scottsville district owned by an LLC.

where it was a piece of property that there appeared to literally be no other reasonable use and if it wasn't approved then the property very likely could fall into disrepair which goes against maintaining our scenic historic and natural resources.

So there may be situations where an LLC

might be appropriate.

It could be created to protect the owners from personal liability in the event of an incident that takes place.

But on the other hand, an individual could have or individuals could have multiple LLCs.

And now we've gone completely away from the collateral use of a principal residence.

So as we look to try and balance the highest best use with these other interests, one of the things I think we also have to take into account is compliance tracking resources and the expenditures that are required in order to support that.

So not that I'm necessarily pushing LLCs to be able to have home stays,

If, for example, an LLC were to apply, perhaps there should be a different fee schedule for individuals versus LLCs because there's additional tracking that would have to be done.

I also have serious concerns with individuals having ownership in more than a single LLC if they are looking to have a homestay.

Speakers from the public earlier today, our second speaker, and I would ask county staff to go back and listen to the comments.

What I heard, which may not necessarily be with the individual saying, but what I heard was a request for some sort of an exemption from at least some of the regulations for these inherited properties, which I simply cannot support.

I think there has to be an equitable responsibility and expenses that are tied to homestays

other than if it costs us more to be able to monitor compliance, then I think those entities that require us to take more time and expense to monitor them should have to pay a higher fee.

So I recognize that's a lot of things, perhaps not necessarily in the best logical order, but one and two I agree with.

Three and four, I support having additional conversations.

Thank you.

Well, it's now turned into more of a comment.

I want to thank Diantha for talking again about the ACE program.

We are going to have a review of the ACE program on September 15th.

and so this may come up again.

It was made very clear to us and has many times since then

that when we approve one of these things, it goes with the land, not with the owner.

And if it is a family situation that has an LLC or whatever construct they have of multiple people in the family having a portion of this family farm, if they decide to sell that, it could be a business, it could be something else.

You know, we just don't know what it could be in the future.

And so I wanted to mention that and just remind everybody that it goes with the land.

But the other thing that I'm thinking is that not that I would suggest that a family be required to put their land in conservation easement in order to get this homestay situation, but that it could

application that could be something of an exception and most people that live somewhere else like family members that live in Maryland or you know I had several people when we were doing this a couple years ago that lived in different states

and one sister lived in Maryland, one sister lived in Georgia and they all come back for their family reunion which is a wonderful, wonderful thing to be able to do.

They probably don't know about the AIDS program and how they can reduce their taxes significantly if they decided to enter into something like that.

And so I'm going to throw it out again as just an idea to consider as you're working through that or something to talk to these people about so that they're aware that they can reduce their taxes dramatically by doing that.

And if they are people who are land rich but cash poor, the AIDS program might be a much better option for them than the Virginia Outdoors Foundation or Nature Conservancy or some of those others.

So that's it.

I'll stop now.

But maybe I will be bringing this up again on September 15.

I did have a question that I'm getting more confused instead of less so I just wanted to clarify one thing.

What I wrote down Bart saying is the proposal to expand owner occupancy exception into the over five acre category is the quick fix for the LLC.

I may have written it down wrong, but I don't see how it helps.

So if someone can talk about that for a second.

So I'll take the second one first, which would be no.

So what it would do is it would open up the options for property owned by an individual owner or other entity.

and that would be a board decision.

The other thing that number three does for us is it gets the landowners or their representatives, the landowner representative in front of us to have the discussion about what's happening in those individual situations so we can understand it better and there's less speculation and more real-time example of what's happening.

But it would still be a

Discretionary decision on the board's part and not an automatic.

Okay, so it is the category to deal with these and I guess the difference for me that we still haven't answered is

Is there a different way to describe a residential full-time family who happens to be described as an LLC on the deed?

Which is different than all these other things with the resident manager because they're there.

They want to do this all the time since they live there.

So is that creating a new category?

and also may bring people before the board to say, here's who we are and we're these six people and we'd like to do this.

So I know it's more complicated than it was when I started and I'm sorry, but I don't think that, I don't know, these are just questions we'll talk about as we go forward.

I think that issue you just spoke to speaks to the

a definition of owner that is unique to the home stay use because it has that unique residency requirement absent the special exception.

And it would have to be very carefully crafted to incorporate that situation that you've just described and what we've heard anecdotally from others as well.

Because right now that definition is

And I understand that, and we were just beginning two years ago, so we've made a lot of progress and I get it.

The only thing I would add regarding the discussion of the 125 feet, and it's fine to reassess this, I'm supportive of that, is that the reason we made it there was because we wanted to make sure that these uses with perhaps four and five cars

were not crammed onto very small lots, either urban or small neighborhood rural subdivisions.

And that's the reason why the 125 feet was there.

So as long as these changes would be thought about with all sorts of other checklist amenities around the package in order to allow those changes to be made, then I'm happy to move on.

The only other thing is about, I was really glad to hear what Liz had just said about the conservation easements because for the 18 years that I was on the committee, every single year we were modifying something.

I mean, we went through Greg and then we went through Andy and now they're working on Richie.

So there's been a constant reevaluation.

I mean, poor Greg had to be there for the first two years to write the ordinance.

And boy, was that painful.

I mean, we almost killed him.

So I think that there have been a lot of very wonderful evolution.

And it's never fast enough, but we have to keep plodding along.

So I look forward to that discussion in September.

Well I'm just going to add then that because when I look at the ACE program there aren't indications on the dates and the changes that any changes have been made so I mean I'm just that's what I'm going on Ann is that it hasn't been reviewed and updated in a long time because I'm looking at the dates and

So maybe things have changed.

No, I'm talking about how they, yeah, I'm just saying, right?