Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   8/3/2022

Good afternoon and welcome Call to order the regular August the third meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors The opportunities for the public to access and participate in the hybrid 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.

As you may note, we only have four supervisors present at the dais today, so the first thing I want to do is to pull in Supervisor Andrews.

who is going to be asking to participate remotely.

Good afternoon, Supervisor Andrews.

Supervisor Andrews has requested to participate remotely in accordance with applicable board rules of procedure, rule number 8.A, enacted pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

Supervisor Andrews is requesting remote participation electronically due to a personal reason.

Supervisor Andrews, will you state your location?

Yes, I'm in Sorrento, Maine.

All right, thank you.

So moved.

We have a motion from Supervisor Mallek and a second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

I and Supervisor Andrews we do just ask that if at any time you have to remove yourself from remote participation that you state that you are leaving so that the record will adequately reflect any portion of the meeting for which you are absent and then upon returning if you would then let us know so we can again ensure that the record will

reflect that.

And for members of the public, the quorum requirement for the Board of Supervisors is that we have four supervisors physically present at the location where the meeting will take place.

As you can see, there are four of us here.

Supervisor Andrews will be participating remotely, and Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley will not be able to participate in today's meeting.

I would also like to mention that, well first let me identify the supervisors who are present.

We have Supervisor Mallek from the White Hall District, Supervisor Galloway from the Rio District, Supervisor McKeel from the Jack Jouett District, myself, Supervisor Price from the Scottsville District, and Supervisor Andrews from the Samuel Miller District.

I'd also like to mention that our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, is here with us today, as are our Board Clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson, and our Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris.

Thank you, Chair Price, for the opportunity and for at least this one time when I'm first addressing the Board and the public in a meeting, I will be brief.

I want to say to all of you that I appreciate the warm welcome that I've received from the Board, the staff, and my team in the County Attorney's Office, and I'm so very pleased to join all of you in service to the citizens of Albemarle County.

Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg.

I would also like to welcome and thank the presence of our Albemarle County Police Department officers present here today, Officer Joshua Wright and Officer Angela Jamerson.

and would now ask that you join in a moment of silence.

Board, at this time we'll move to item number four, adoption of the final agenda.

I do have a number of notes or comments to make with regard to the agenda.

I would first like to mention that the recognition of Mead Whitaker for successful completion of the Executive Fire Officer Program through the National Fire Academy was removed from today's agenda as Mr. Whitaker is not available and this recognition will be rescheduled to a later date.

I would also like to add as an item on the consent agenda a resolution formally affirming the appointment and contract of our county attorney Mr. Steve Rosenberg.

I would like to state that the start time for the board's next meeting on August the 17th will change from 1 o'clock to 2.30 p.m.

and that this will also be added to the consent agenda.

Also, I will be asking as part of the approval of the agenda to move item number 18, SP 2021-00017, the Foster Forge Farm School, to the consent agenda for approval of a deferral to a later date at the applicant's request, as the applicant has asked to defer that particular application.

And finally as a bit of a point of clarification I will be pulling from the consent agenda item number 8.4 and moving that from action to information as when this was last discussed it was mentioned that it would be up for approval on August the 17th not August the 3rd so I simply want to be consistent with the previous information that had been given to the public.

Are there any other revisions by any supervisor to the agendas?

Seeing none, at this time the floor is open for a motion to adopt the final agenda as amended.

We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel and a second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Yes.

Thank you, Board.

At this time, we'll move to our Deputy County Executive, Mr. Walker.

I do, Chair Price, members of the Board, Doug Walker, Deputy County Executive,

and I have the distinct pleasure today of introducing to you Jesse Brookins who started yesterday as the county's director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion.

Jesse comes to us from the University of Richmond where he served as the assistant director of the Center for Student Involvement in which he developed and implemented diversity, equity and inclusion programming and leadership training for students, faculty and staff.

He demonstrated passion for this work

His demonstrated passion for his work has also seen his experience creating innovative programming to build cultural awareness, spark community engagement, and an authentic sense of belonging.

Jesse has a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's in applied sociology with an emphasis on race and ethnic relations, both from the University of Northern Arizona.

And Jesse is now a resident of Albemarle County.

I believe he's in the Rio district.

Thank you, Mr. Walker.

Thank you.

I'm glad to be here.

Good afternoon, everyone.

And yes, thank you for having me.

I'm a new member, as you mentioned, Rio, but I'm happy to be here, part of the community of Albemarle.

And just in one of my favorite quotes coming from Plato, necessity is the mother of innovation.

And I see a beautiful county here with a lot of qualities there.

And I think what I'm really glad to be a part of this team is noticing that

Not only is there a need, but there's a want for community and community engagement and connection and building that belonging for everyone.

And my goal and my passion is to fill that need and to, you know, best fit that narrative of community engagement, of involvement and overall, you know, belonging for everyone to be a part of.

Thank you.

I don't know if any of the other supervisors have any comments that you would like to make.

We'll go through our order.

I just want to add my welcome, Jesse.

My sister and niece are both lumberjacks from Northern Arizona University.

Glad to see you here and look forward to working with you.

Thank you.

And while we don't always agree,

We're just having a little fun, Supervisor McKeel.

But welcome to Albemarle, I'll look very much forward to working with you.

Jesse, there are real estate agents in this community and one could always choose to move.

Chair Price, thank you.

You and I probably made eye contact and you read my facial expression and certainly I am excited to welcome Jesse to our team.

A couple of things, Chair Price, I'd like to thank our entire organizational leadership team who participated in this really critical hire for this organization led by Mr. Walker.

but he had a lot of help from a lot of folks to get us to where we are today.

I really appreciate the board's patience because Ms.

Russell, Siri Russell, who is still in our community and working hard at the university, she left us on July the 6th of last year.

She's still connected to this organization in many ways and she's a community asset and I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize Emily Kilroy as the director of CAPE because Emily worked for

Hand in Hand with Siri Russell and the Office of Equity and Inclusion during Siri's entire tenure.

And she took one for the team in stepping up last year and saying, I will help with that and help lead that.

But the entire CAPE division,

had to give and sacrifice as we've gone through the last year to do our best work and we're excited about Jesse being here and we're going to make a lot of investment in him because we see the potential and we're excited about our future.

So thank you board.

Mr. Walker, thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Brookings, I want to echo what everyone else said.

We welcome you.

We are very excited to have you here.

Mr. Walker won't always set you up for controversy as he did with where you chose to live today.

You will usually find him to be very helpful, so don't let that cloud your judgment.

Mr. Richardson, I want to thank you and your entire staff.

I think the words that really stuck in my mind when I heard you say them, Mr. Brookings, is we all know this is a community that has a need.

but I really appreciate your recognizing that we have a want.

We have a want to do better and we really look forward to you helping us to do better and we welcome you in the warmest way possible and we're really excited to have you here.

All right board, we'll move on to item number five, brief announcements by board members.

Supervisor Andrews?

No announcements at this time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair Price, did you intend to do a recognition for Supervisor Cook?

Why don't you go ahead and do one?

Thank you for asking, Supervisor Malek.

Very good.

No, thank you.

Well, I will open with something else and that is that there is an ongoing program called Healthy Virginia Lawns, which is sponsored by the Piedmont Master Gardeners and also DCRDEQ in trying to reduce chemical and water use on green grass and to get more planting of pollinators and other things.

It is an ongoing program and provides all sorts of guidance for homeowners who would like to make some changes in what their house surrounds look like and soil testing, etc.

And piedmontmastergardeners.org would be the place to go to get more information about that.

The second item is less joyful but very meaningful to me.

In 1982, our family moved back from

to live on the farm that we have had since the mid 1900s.

Patricia Cook was the first woman elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1982 and she had a lot on her plate because the 1980 down zoning which was approved by referendum for the whole of the 275 square miles of the Rivanna River watershed

was tied up in court for a couple of years, but was upheld in court.

And then the Board of Supervisors had to begin to implement that down zoning and the water protections that came with it.

So they had a lot of work to do.

She was on the board with Jerry Fisher, who's very much alive and living in the Rhode Island District, Rick Bowie, Peter Way, Joe Henley, and Tim Lindstrom, who now lives in Washington, Virginia.

She was succeeded by David Bowerman when

Her term ended.

Tim reported to me last week that he considered her a very independent thinker and a very strong person, and she would have to be considering the colleagues that she worked with.

The service, her children, her family told a lot of wonderful stories about her, and I just wanted her to be remembered at the board.

Thank you.

I have no announcements today.

Thank you.

I'll just thank Ann for her words, for Pat Cook.

I appreciate that.

Ann, keeping on the theme of magisterial districts, I just wanted to make a comment about how folks tend to think that when they go on vacation,

They have to go far away.

They have to get in the car and drive or they have to get in an airplane and fly or get on a train and all those ideas and places and ways of traveling are good.

But Greg and I this past week actually had a stay vacation, but we didn't stay at home.

We went to Crozet.

to a bed and breakfast in Crozet and had just a lovely time in the White Hall district.

We're not moving there, Ann.

But I wanted to just remind people that sometimes we can reach out to our own locality

and visit a business or a vineyard or a bed and breakfast in our own backyard and have a lovely time and not have to spend lots of money on gas and airplanes and trains.

So thank you, Ann, for the White Hall experience that I had.

It was lovely.

And I highly recommend that people just think locally at times.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Very briefly, first off, Supervisor Mallek, I really appreciate the breadth of what you were able to reference in terms of honoring Patricia Cook as a member of this community.

The only thing very small I could add is that

She was a 1950 graduate of Lane High School and as I sit here today and think about how she was a student here and how she really dedicated her life to serving this community.

Eight years on the Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Mallek mentioned the first woman to be elected and we are so blessed to have people like that in our community.

And as I think about Ms.

Cook, I also think about Mr. Brookings and I think about Mr. Rosenberg as our newest hires, at least that I'm aware of, and in the important roles that you have.

You know, one of the things that I really honor, and Mr. Richardson, this goes back to you and your leadership from the entire team, in medicine you can talk about acute and chronic situations.

And if you take that to what we do at the county level, you can be strategic

or you can be responsive to emergency situations.

And both of these hires, Mr. Brookings and Mr. Rosenberg, I believe represent a very strategic approach by this county to do it right and to get the right people in the jobs.

And that short-term disruption that we may have by an opening in a position is more than made up for in the long-term benefits that we get.

And so I really appreciate both of you being here today.

At this time, Board will move to item number six.

We have no proclamations and recognitions.

As I mentioned, Mr. Whitaker is not able to be here today.

So Board, at this time, we'll move to item number seven from the public, matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing or on matters previously considered by the Board or matters that are pending before the Board.

And if you will give me just a moment, please.

And as you may note, our vice chair, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley is not participating today.

She normally would read these rules, but in her absence, I will read them.

And give me just a moment because I had not pulled that out and put it in the right place for me up here.

So we just confirmed with the clerk we do not have any online sign up so we have in person only.

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

Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting and the sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office.

Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and a light system at the podium.

The green light will go on when you begin speaking which begins your allotted time.

The yellow indicates you have one minute to finish speaking and the red light indicates that your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments.

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

When addressing the board, state your name and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district.

address your comments directly to the board as a whole any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the clerk if representing a group or organization you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker

Back and forth debate is not permitted and please do not speak from your seat or out of term.

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

Good afternoon.

We are the Green Grammys of Charlottesville and you have heard and seen us before as we sang Twinkle Twinkle for you.

We're part of a coalition of environmental organizations and we're here

to sing a song to inspire all of you to hold a joint meeting sometime soon with the Planning Commission to have the risk and vulnerability assessment presented and also to provide a chance for the public to comment.

We appreciate that the Board of Supervisors received the report on June 15th as a part of the consent agenda, but we think that it is critical for it to become a part of the public conversation, especially in the view of the comprehensive plan that's coming up.

With the climate plan, but need to hear the voice of every woman and man.

Listen, listen, listen to our ideas Listen, listen, listen to our ideas The conversation should include us We have experts among us Let's dialogue together We need everyone to help us

Lean in, lean in, lean in on the climate plan Lean in, lean in, lean in on the climate plan Get community input for this very great need We want to help plan the process We are planting a seed

And thanks for supporting the lawns, and thank you for supporting homestay vacations and lowering the carbon.

When you didn't say carbon, it brings the carbon.

It does, that's right.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Judy Slushaw, Rio District Resident and member of the Rio 29 CAC.

Very shortly you will hear a presentation regarding the Rio Quarter Plan as developed by Lion Plus Grade Civil Engineers.

As a member of the Rio 29 CAC, I've heard this presentation previously and I do hope that you've taken the time to read this document in its entirety.

Page 4 states, and I quote, All proposed solutions that developed herein are conceptual in nature and will require further study and design prior to implementation.

Line Plus Grade has been working on this plan for months, and quite frankly, I don't see a great deal of progress from the first presentation to the CAC meetings.

Page 6 states that they worked with stakeholders offering opportunities for the public input.

Yes, there were pop-up opportunities and the public did voice concerns, ask questions, yet it appears that the consultants didn't take any action to implement any of the stakeholders' comments.

Under frequently asked questions or concerns on page 35, there is a bullet about the raised medians with vegetations which were proposed and asked who would be responsible for the maintenance.

I was the individual who asked the question at a CAC presentation and was given the exact same answer that VDOT and the county will need to continue discussions regarding a commitment to maintaining these environments.

What is the status of these discussions, or is this theoretical?

Page 14 begins the John Warner Parkway section of the Rio Quarter Plan highlighting the VDOT study as well as the alternative considerations where the John Warner Parkway intersection summary squeezed in on the lower right-hand corner.

We've all heard location, location, location.

Why wasn't the summary located on page 14 near the VDOT study and alternative considerations to give it equal attention?

This summary does state, quote, based on public comment and feedback, it has been determined that the original VDOT concept is the preferred concept for this intersection.

Given the timeframe of the planned improvements as performed by VDOT, the alternative recommendations presented herein are not currently being considered for implementation.

The new buzz designed VDOT favors are roundabouts.

Roundabouts have a disregard for the environment with the more impermeable surfaces causing more runoff ultimately affecting our stream health.

The John Warner Parkway will potentially be the entrance corridor and will ultimately be responsible for maintaining the greenery that may be planned.

The Rio Quarter plan has been costly to this county and to its citizens.

When it comes time to vote, please look to the future, making sure that in a few years when lives are disrupted because of the construction, you, the board, don't say, perhaps we should have evaluated this more closely before taking a final vote.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Ken Slausher.

I live in Rye District.

One thing I learned from my professional career of negotiating with international partners and within the federal government is that you must get a buy-in for your position to be successful.

The Rye Road corridor study never got any buy-in from the community.

First, the community was promised to have community focus groups.

Many of us apply, including myself.

The groups never happened because, and I quote from a county staff member, they did not get enough diversity.

I ask you, have you driven the corridor lately?

The residence long corridor, although somewhat diverse, is mostly white.

Second, we were told the contract had enough information from the community based on a questionnaire that one had to complete for the focus groups that never happened.

The contractor and presentation of CAC said they had walked the corridor and understood the issues.

Walking is much different than being the people who use the corridor every day at different times and different conditions driving, walking, and running.

Not a way to get by them.

Third, I did attend one of the pop-up sessions for about an hour and a half.

I wrote several comments and talked to both the county staff and the contractor.

Many people did the same thing.

However, as far as I can tell in reading the study, very few of the concerns were even addressed in the study.

Not a way to get by them.

Fourth, I attended the CAC meeting where the study was presented.

There were many questions and comments.

Again, none of these comments and questions were not addressed and has, and little has changed since the presentation.

And finally, on page 14 of the study,

The contractor's recommendation to move the traffic circle at the John Warner and Round Road intersection was based on two blue lines that were based on the road alignment.

I could draw the blue lines to that line with the roads and get a completely different result.

It seems the contractor did not take into consideration current residents' concerns.

The only person that seems to benefit from a contractor's recommendation is the developer of the Round Point development that has yet to be built.

What about the current residents?

The real question for you, based on the study's recommendation, especially on the round road John Warner Parkway, do the recommendations improve the current situation?

Look at how the people will cross the road.

What happens to the field of flowers that could attract endangered species, such as a monarch butterfly?

And there are many more questions.

And then ask, is this any better than what we have now?

I recommend the study be rejected in its current form and have a community committee review the study.

There are some good things in the study that might be rescued and be able to be used for consideration by this board.

Thank you.

My name is Rob McGinnis.

I reside in the city of Charlottesville, and I'm here representing the Piedmont Environmental Council.

And the green grannies are a hard act to follow, my first time.

PEC looks forward to the public presentation of the findings of the climate vulnerability and risk assessment, and we hope that that presentation will occur during a joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission in the near future.

PEC remains committed to working with Albemarle County going forward as a county continues to take the necessary and critical steps to address climate change.

Thank you.

All right.

And I understand from the clerk that two individuals we thought were going to be appearing in person are online now.

So I just want to add to the comments I read earlier on the procedural rules.

If participating by phone, press star 9 to let us know you want to speak, then star 6 if from a landline to unmute.

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

Good afternoon.

I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council joining remotely.

Thank you.

For 50 years, PC has promoted and protected the natural resources, rural economy, history, and beauty of Virginia's Piedmont.

Albemarle County is a great place to live because of its tradition of thoughtful planning and

and commitment to smart growth policies that focus on well-connected, livable communities.

PC is proud to be part of that ongoing effort.

Rio Road is a key link between the city of Charlottesville and 29, but it is also much more.

Many people live and work nearby.

In some ways, it is the heart of the county, yet the current version of Rio is not as safe or inviting a place.

The Royal Road Corridor Plan recommends needed improvements for human-scale design.

Specifically, it calls for improved intersections, continuous sidewalks, upgraded crossings, protected bicycle facilities, better transit stops, reduction of impervious surfaces, and much more.

PUC supports these recommendations.

The plan builds on previous work and reflects abundant community input.

Some of the recommendations have already begun, such as sidewalks along East Rio, and others have been submitted for state funding.

We hope that the findings will be promptly implemented.

In addition, we encourage the county to explore other off-corridor connections, such as low stress and natureful routes along Meadow Creek and the Rivanna River, as well as smart walk-by connections between neighborhoods like Woodbrook, Carsbrook, Greenbrier, Belvedere, and others.

All of this takes place within the context of broad comprehensive planning countywide.

TC continues its work to preserve natural resources, limit sprawl, mitigate climate change, and promote quality communities.

The Rio corridor plan offers sound guidance and shows how much work we have to do.

Thank you.

Hello.

I'm speaking to you today as a citizen from the White Hall district.

Later today, you'll hear an update on the stream health initiatives.

After that presentation, I would strongly encourage you to fully fund and prioritize Proposal 1, the stream buffer overlay district.

This will close a serious loophole in our water protection ordinance.

In just one meeting in 2014, under the guise of routine code update, our water protection ordinance was eviscerated by removing the requirement for perpetual retention of stream buffers.

There was no public engagement before this radical change to our ordinance.

And this has allowed developers to remove stream buffers and entire streams with impunity as long as they remove less than 10,000 square feet at a time.

Because it's vital that we pass this loophole now before more damage occurs, it's also important that we do so in ways that are consistent with the Bay Act and clarify that our buffers are resource protection areas so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel and can take advantage of existing guidance and educational materials by DCR.

It's also worth noting that although this proposal is under rural stream health initiatives, it should apply to the entire county, not just the rural area.

Speaking of which, I strongly encourage you to include measures to discourage any more streams from being removed in the growth area.

A minimum buffer of 15 feet would discourage this practice since none of the Bay Act buffers are perpetual regardless of whether a stream is culverted and must be restored if not present.

Growth area residents appreciate streams, even in the growth area, and are horrified when they are removed.

Projects at UVA have demonstrated that you can have density without removing streams.

Lastly, it took only one meeting to break our water protection ordinance.

It shouldn't take years more to fix it.

If necessary, we should revert to the 2014 ordinance based on the Bay Act until better language can be crafted.

Ideally, though, we should be moving forward, not merely restoring what we had in 2014.

Thanks.

At this time, we'll move to item number eight, the consent agenda.

And again, as a reminder, item number 18 from the action agenda has been moved to the consent agenda for the purpose of rescheduling it, not for approval.

We've added a resolution affirming the appointment and contract to the county attorney.

and we've added a change to the start time for August the 17th, 2022 meeting to 2.30 p.m.

Are there any other, and I moved item 8.4 from action to information on the consent agenda.

Anything else?

I did not get those minutes reviewed prior to December 16th, 2020 minutes.

All right, thank you.

So moved.

All right, so we have Supervisor McKeel making the motion, Supervisor Mallek seconding it.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

At this time, we'll move to item number nine, the Rio Road corridor plan.

And Mr. Benesch, good afternoon.

Thank you, Chair Price.

I'm David Benesch, development process manager with the Department of Community and Development.

The board directed staff to undertake a corridor study of Briar Road from east of Route 29 and the small area plan area to the city limits of Millboard Road.

Lion & Grade Engineering was contracted to complete this plan.

The consultant has completed this work and Daniel Heyer, principal with this firm along with other members of his team are here today to present the plan to the board in just a moment.

Our hope is that the board will accept and endorse this plan and refer it to our ongoing comprehensive plan update for further consideration and adoption ultimately into that plan.

I did want to preface Daniel's presentation with a few points.

Just to recap, the goal of this project is to develop a community vision and plan that will guide future design and improvements in the railroad corridor.

This is a planning level document that establishes a vision for improvements along the corridor with sufficient analysis of the conceptual design to understand whether the proposed concepts can address existing and future conditions and can meet VDOT and other relevant engineering standards.

Recommendations from this plan will still need to be prioritized along with other transportation projects within the county and funded through various local, state, and federal programs.

The projects would then be subject to further study in engineering to determine the project's ultimate final design and construction.

So those details about concepts and components of the plan will be further studied at a later date.

So in summary, the concepts within the document are not final design projects approved and ready for construction, but rather reflect the vision of what kind of improvements are needed.

to address the issues along the corridor and what is considered the most desirable or acceptable form of improvements for that corridor.

So I just wanted the public and you to understand the context of the document that you're looking at.

Thank you, Mr. Benesch.

Hey, good afternoon.

Before I start, my screen looks like I want it to.

That screen does not.

I don't know if that's a problem.

Oh, sure.

It's a PDF, so we just have to drag it up.

If you would just state your full name for the record, please.

Yes, may I?

Yes, Chair Price.

My name is Daniel Heyer.

I am with Line and Grade Civil Engineering.

And I am a citizen of the city of Charlottesville.

And I am joined by two of my colleagues today who may come join me at the podium here, should the question warrant that.

Like I said, I live actually along the corridor myself.

I live on the city side.

I travel this corridor all the time.

and amongst the three of us we're all local and we've used this corridor as citizens and now we've got to spend the last two years studying it.

I'm going to try to work through almost two years of study in about 20 minutes so it'll necessarily be brief and we can save some time for questions after that.

So the direction we're headed today, I'll do a very brief recap since the last time I spoke to you and then I'm going to use three specific images to paint the picture of Raya Road.

and then I'll give you two brief summaries of phase one and phase two and then I'll leave you with our recommendations for plans of implementation and then again we'll have questions after that.

So I was last here before you, actually it was virtual, but October 13th of last year and since then we've been busy basically wrapping up phase two.

Phase one was much further ahead as you recall.

We had started with phase one and then

amended phase two to the work.

And so since then, we've largely wrapped up phase two, gone through all of the public engagement process through quarter one and quarter two of this year, presented the draft plan to the Planning Commission in May of this year.

And that brings us basically to today, back to present the final draft to you all.

A very brief recap of our methodology.

We did our level best to engage, particularly during the season of COVID.

We began this project in June of 2020.

So virtual was a new way for us.

But we leveraged a lot of technology and partnered with a lot of county staff to make that a successful campaign.

We took what we heard.

We tried to organize it and analyze it and integrate it.

put our engineering caps on and think through it, which has resulted in this study.

Obviously, that process was iterative.

It was not a one-stop shop.

It was kind of around the barn multiple times.

I like to think that the study in itself is informed on experience, observation, and relationships.

What has been presented thus far is really two documents in terms of what we're delivering.

The Rio Road corridor study itself, which is an abbreviated and concise document,

and then there's a relatively robust appendix full of a lot of information you may or may not want to read.

The appendix does include a catalog of every single public comment we received and we worked through every single one of them and we organized them and we ran some data analysis on them for trending to actually extract both outliers and converging and diverging information.

So again, here we are today, August 3rd and with that I will jump right in.

If you do recall, Phase 1 of the study went from the John Warner Parkway intersection with Rio Road to the Rio 29 Small Area Plan, basically to the north and west.

Phase two was basically from the John Warner Parkway toward the city line.

And those two roads are very different, as you can see in these images here.

Phase one is very much an arterial roadway, five lanes, a continuous dual left-hand turn lane in the middle, whereas phase two still resembles, in many locations, the local collector that it is.

It's very much a local road.

So it was logical that these

The study is organized in this manner.

The roadways are very different despite sharing the same name.

A part of our project was to ensure that we understood not what we currently have, but what's coming toward us with regard to managing traffic volumes along the corridor.

There's a lot happening right in the near term in terms of traffic generation.

So it was not a static observation.

It was dynamic in the terms of us understanding

the projected volumes that will need to be included in understanding how this corridor operates.

So now I'm going to work through, in my own personal opinion, the three most compelling graphics that we generated with regard to this work.

The first one is about the number of accidents per year.

The second is about the accident type, severity, and location.

And the third is the economic impacts associated with those previous two graphs.

So you can see this is phase one and phase two together.

And the bar chart below is a graphic summary of the cumulative volume of accidents along the corridor.

And you notice the phase line between phase one and phase two is right down the middle, or near to the middle.

So you can spend a lot of time looking at this.

I don't want to tell you how to look at it or where to look at it, except that there is an abundance of data to be gleaned by observing this graph.

And now I'm going to build upon it

and show you a breakdown of accident typology, the types of accidents happening along the corridor and the number of those accidents and where they happen along the corridor.

This is probably most poignantly the protecting the citizens through safety.

What types of accidents are happening and where are they happening and how can we safeguard the general public

through our work to promote this corridor operating in a more safe manner.

Again, I'm not going to tell you how to look at it.

You can spend a lot of time looking at it.

I'm going to go to the next slide as well.

And then finally, based on guidance from

VDOT, how to associate economic impact to those accidents.

And so you can see on the left, the y-axis, that we're getting up into almost $3 million worth of damage in some areas along the corridor.

So the economic impacts of what happens along this corridor certainly should have our attention.

OK, I'm going to move into a summary of phase one.

So phase one and phase two, they're going to sound and be different because parts of the roadway are different.

In phase one, we largely ended up focusing on really four key areas.

It was three different intersections and then the roadway typical section itself.

The intersections were Hillsdale, Belvedere, John Warner, and then obviously, Rye Road corridor.

At Hillsdale, the only thing I want to kind of leave you with is one of these bullet points on the left.

89% of the accidents at this intersection involve the left-hand turn, which is an astounding statistic.

So our work here is to try to safeguard against the left-hand turn movement.

And we explored several different ways to do it.

And the solution that we have recommended basically absolves all left-hand turn movements by replacing the two intersections with a singular dog bone

or Bean Shaped Roundabout.

Thus, all left-hand turn movements have been incorporated but removed in terms of their conflict points.

Moving down toward Belvedere, similarly you can see the image in the top left.

This intersection lacks a lot of adequate safety controls as is.

and the traffic trips per day anticipated to increase in the Belvedere development is substantial.

And so knowing that there already is capacity and delay issues at this intersection, we elected to explore ways of trying to mitigate delay and increase capacity.

And we did that through a recommended solution of what's called a continuous green T. And that's on the image on the far bottom right.

And you can see if you were to compare the bottom right and the top left,

although they're from different vantage points.

The conflict points have been reduced by 40% and this intersection as currently conceived would not require a traffic signal to be installed, but a traffic signal could be installed in the future should the improvements at John Warner, whatever they end up being, and this intersection need to be integrated in some unique manner.

So our recommendation at Belvedere was the continuous green T intersection.

moving further south toward the John Warner Parkway intersection.

This is a unique intersection in terms of this study because the roundabout that's proposed had already been funded and proposed.

And so our work was to consider that and then determine if it was our recommendation or our preference or how that work should transpire.

To put things in context, 50% of the accidents at this intersection are rear ends.

and 20% of them involve a merging maneuver which is not surprising given how Rio southbound ends up, if you're not paying attention, you end up in the left-hand turn lane and if you want to keep going south, you then have to make a dash to merge to continue down on John Warner Parkway.

And so the roundabout is currently conceived by VDOT would be very helpful in mitigating that condition.

If you don't, if you recall,

We talked about this last time in October of last year.

And you had recommended to explore a third option.

We had the original VDOT, the one we had proposed, which was further to the north, closer to Belvedere.

And then we explored a hybrid option, which was somewhere in the middle, which really doesn't do service to either design option, to be honest with you.

So we've elected to state that the preferred option is the VDOT roundabout.

It's already been funded.

and that project will begin its own design chapter here in the near future.

And then finally the corridor itself.

The biggest challenge facing Rio Road corridor as a whole is access management standards.

VDOT makes very specific guidance about how property should be accessed from a right of way and most of that guidance is not really discernible along much of Rio Road.

And so as properties redevelop and as the county is given the chance to review site plans for properties adjacent to Rio Road, that's really going to be where we can continue to make incremental improvements with access management along the corridor.

And part of that work will be integrating the Northtown Trail from the John Warner Parkway up to Berkmar, which will create a very necessary corridor for users of non-motorized transit.

So that's certainly a part of it as well.

easily overlooked is our recommendations on building frontage and how the public realm should be engaged with the built environment along the corridor and the many different roadway frontage types that are present.

OK, so phase two is not anything that I think you've been presented to about so far.

So I might try to slow myself down just a little bit here and spend a little more time in phase two, because it's not a review.

It's new.

Phase two, again, is very different than phase one.

Phase two.

feels like a local road and it should continue to feel like a local road.

It's serving very specific, you know, residential communities and schools.

It is not the five-lane arterial roadway.

Of interest is that the roadway still does reflect somewhat of a rural character, especially this image as seen here.

There's, you know, in portions there's no curb and gutter.

A large majority of accidents are actually off-road accidents with a car colliding with a tree or a power pole or a mailbox or some similar off-road fixed object.

So that's not exactly something you hear on more modern or improved roads.

That's indicative of more of a rural road.

But the phase two, forgive me I didn't mention this, phase two is kind of divided into three

chapters, north, central, and southern, as opposed to phase one, which was very kind of specific and bullseye oriented.

This is kind of generalized.

So in phase one, the north chapter of phase two really goes from the John Warner Parkway to Penn Park Road or right by Waldorf School Road.

And we see a really interesting opportunity for the county in the very near term to actually make a huge stride toward implementing this plan.

And that's because there's two

Pending developments happening adjacent to this corridor.

And we think that if those developments can work with this plan, that the corridor can transform in a positive way and that some of the risks that we've identified can be mitigated through the build out of these developments.

So it's really not different

than how the current roadway operates.

It's one lane in each direction.

But instead of a lot of the hourglass effect you see in a lot of rural roadways where turn lines come in and roads widen to create space for left-hand turn movements, we're trying to create more of a monolithic right-of-way section that the median actually takes up the difference.

And that median actually creates more of a little bit of a character to the corridor as opposed to something that wasn't forethoughtful.

and this also extends the bike lane from the John Warner Parkway along Rider Road to Penn Park, which our study recommends a transition of the shared use path at that point.

Moving on to the central portion of Phase 2, this is from

more or less Penn Park, Walter School Road to really about right before the road gets like a Grand Prix auto zone where it's winding through the mountains and the trees and you feel like you've kind of left the city and the county all together.

Right by Stonehenge, there's a very stark character change and we'll get to that in just a moment.

So the central chapter of the roadway we see as an opportunity to really connect that to the northern chapter of the roadway.

So creating a consistent character, consistent aesthetic,

and addressing some very specific safety concerns.

Most notably, in my mind, one of the most noteworthy considerations to mention is that the vertical curvature of the roadway is non-compliant with the speed limit.

There's a portion of this roadway, if you're driving northbound, that as you come close to Penn Park Lane,

you cannot see the right site distance in front of you because the roadway vertical curve is too abrupt.

And so that is actually a true safety concern in this area.

And it should be something that we have a very formal conversation with VDOT about rectifying.

Most of the accidents in this area are a result of not having a dedicated left-hand turn line as well.

So our proposed solution seeks to continue the aesthetic of the northern area with the raised median

Interestingly enough, there's the space to implement this design as shown within the current right-of-way.

This is not building new road.

This is just using what we have and reallocating that space in a specific way.

Really trying to get left-hand turn lanes where they're needed or shorten some of the medians where they're not needed.

And we've also redefined the Stonehenge intersection here.

I'm sorry I wasn't pointing this whole time.

I forgot that I had a mouse.

So trying to bring clarity to the Stonehenge entrance as well, which is a unique design challenge with how the roadway is organized there.

So the typical section is largely the same as the northern chapter, except that the shared use path is now on the other side of the road.

We're crossing that shared use path at the intersection here, where there is a newly installed pedestrian interval in that signal.

And then they could easily go down to the park, or they can continue down the roadway.

on the other side of the road where the topography is more amenable to a shared use path.

And then finally, this is kind of the last bit of phase two.

This is where really the Rio Road begins to descend toward the city of Charlottesville jurisdictional boundary.

And this is what I meant when I said the roadway just changes character altogether.

This portion of the roadway is unlike the rest of it in any sense.

There's no pedestrian facilities.

The site distances along this portion of the roadway are inadequate.

Most of the accidents we have cataloged reflect that.

I love this picture here with the red truck passing.

The car waiting to make a left-hand turn.

the car couldn't make the left-hand turn because it couldn't see far enough so it pulled all the way forward kind of past where it wanted to be so we could see because the sight distance was compromised and the red truck you know dashed around them on that extra wide median so it's a little ambiguous of should you even drive there it kind of looks like you should it's paved it's wide but it's not a safe situation so on this portion of the roadway we kind of strayed from our trend

and really tried to bring to county staff what we were calling like a safety improvement plan, like very specific safety improvements to this portion of the corridor, which involved some intersection improvements at Agnese, which is actually a city street, replacing the guardrail with a guardrail that meets current safety criteria.

Interesting that one of the citizens mentioned the stream initiatives the county's talking about.

There's severe erosion on this portion of Meadow Creek, almost compromising the roadway.

So there are some very specific improvements that need to be made along this portion of the roadway that are not necessarily like, hey, let's make it the world's best corridor.

Let's just get basic safety items addressed.

And that's what we tried to bring to the attention through this study.

We did present a plan for future pedestrian connectivity and relied heavily on a utility corridor adjacent to the Eco-Village project.

Okay, so plans for implementation.

I'm going to start winding down.

For phase one,

It's kind of obvious that our first project for implementation will be the John Warner Parkway because that project's already been funded and there's already inertia behind it.

So we didn't make any changes to that.

And then shortly thereafter, Belvedere should be improved as well.

Even though it's not the highest ranking in terms of safety or call economic impacts due to accidents, it is so closely related to the John Warner Parkway intersection that

We think that as that becomes a roundabout, the Belvidere intersection is going to have additional pressure on it and that needs to be improved in short order.

And as I understand it, the county staff has put a grant application in for that intersection as well.

Hillsdale, I think there's an immense opportunity at Hillsdale, Old Brook Northfield, that eight-way intersection as I've referred to it many times.

It's an opportunity for the county to do something interesting, specifically because it's the highest point on the corridor topographically.

There's a very specific context change coming out of the small area plan.

And it kind of could act as a visual cue that you are now leaving the commercial area of the Rio 29 small area plan.

And you're entering into more of a residential part of the county, even though this is a residential part of the county that carries a lot of traffic.

But we stand behind that recommendation.

And then obviously, the corridor itself

will need to be incremental improvements in filling over time as sidewalk dollars become available or projects turn over, parcels turn over due to redevelopment.

We're not just recommending a blanket project of just put in a two mile or one mile shared use path.

That's not feasible financially.

So it's more of an incremental approach.

Phase two, plans for implementation.

The first was the streetscape improvements from John Warner Parkway to Penn Park, and that's primarily related to the fact that there's two developments pending right in that portion of roadway.

It's an imminent opportunity.

It's right before us.

Secondly would be the safety improvements I mentioned from Agnese to the city line.

There are specific safety improvements warranted there.

And then third was intersection improvements at Stonehenge.

which I didn't get into specifics, but there's a history of accidents at that intersection.

And fourth, finally, same infill improvements like we're seeing on Rio Road recently where there was incremental infill improvements to the sidewalk network there.

So more of that.

OK, so I'm going to actually take a break.

I'm going to be available for questions.

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Heyer.

We'll go through our order here.

Yes, thank you for this excellent presentation.

I very much appreciate your focus on safety and looking at all of this.

I also appreciate how things divide up into chunks and we can get this

Very specific look at each of the pieces.

But my first question is more of a general question, and it may even extend beyond just the Rio plan.

And that is to Mr. Benesch and staff as much as to the consultants.

Are we generally satisfied with the amount of public input?

I really appreciate that there's a question and answer FAQ in the supplemental materials and that the appendix captures the comments.

I don't know how the amount of feedback compares to what we've been able to get so far on general comprehensive plan but I know as we get into specifics we'll get more and more focused feedback.

Is there anything we've learned about how best to engage the public and encourage more participation that can be carried over to other projects and the big picture ideas?

I have a lot of specific comments that probably should, well, I'll take it in sort of a little bit of a phased approach.

I had some questions from someone about Don Laura and how one expects to exit Don Laura with this current situation turning towards the city, I think, primarily.

No, I think I'm going to hold off on the rest of my questions until we've heard from some of the others.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

I will say that this was like drinking from a fire hose, so the homework was a big chunk and I've tried to break it down.

Supervisor Malcom, I apologize.

Supervisor Andrews, you had a question then that I didn't allow Mr. Heyer to answer.

I had a couple questions, yes, thank you.

Yeah, we feel like the public input was adequate for this level of technical type study and also in the context of the type of study that it is being a planning study.

Recognizing that these improvements as they move forward are going to be subject to their own public input processes and public hearing process again as they get further designed.

We felt like

The background information we received about what the concerns and issues were in the area were adequate enough for this type of technical study.

The pop-ups, I think, were useful to us and I know that the consultant did pay close attention to all those comments and we did focus in on what the themes were from those comments and we felt like the level of input was adequate.

I think you can always look to improve, and we're always looking to do better and better and better in our public input process.

But given this type of corridor study, we ultimately felt like our initial feedback just through the normal general pop-up and online response opportunities did give us enough balance of input that we were comfortable moving forward.

The other questions are on the video.

I'll try to address briefly your question about the Dun & Laura access.

And it'd be easier to do it visually, but I can't do that at the moment because I'm looking at you.

There's two.

OK, now you're gone.

OK.

What I wanted to draw your attention to, if you could see my screen, let me scroll through this document very briefly.

OK.

What you're, I think, referring to is happening right here on the VDOT concept.

If you look near this number four, and if you live in Dunlora and you want to head south on Rio toward the city, you would need to enter into the roundabout, slingshot around, and come back.

And we agreed that that's undesirable, and that's part of how our design was manifest.

albeit ours, moved the roundabout closer to the neighborhood, which is equally undesirable in other ways.

So it's a little bit of a catch-22.

I'll leave you with this statement.

Within this study that VDOT published, they were very focused on the intersection itself and less concerned with the web of connections that came into the intersection, specifically here Dunlora.

And within their study,

I think they have a specific mention of they recognize that the Dunlor intersection does not meet the minimum VDOT spacing standard criteria, but that was kind of outside of their scope at the time.

So they acknowledged that that was kind of a loose end that they hadn't tied up.

Would this function?

It certainly would function.

It would be a habit change, but it would certainly function.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

It gave me a minute to organize better, too.

What I hope we will do differently going forward is not making decisions on individual chunks without thinking about the whole.

That was what my dream was for this project, was we would have enough detail to know what was going to be possible.

going forward so that I'm thinking eco-village decision.

Everybody knew Agnese was a problem then, but it's not feasible to tear down the mountain and make something different.

It's hard to make roadways that are so safe that people who aren't paying attention aren't going to bump into each other.

and so that there is a given the fact that people are not looking where they're going period on any road anywhere anytime which is terrifying to me as another driver right now but it does we're expecting something that may not be possible from our planning so I do want us to focus on what's possible and what's appropriate the one pop-up that I attended was very much focused on the different locations for the John Warner roundabout I had a long conversation with David there that day

As a right turn only, I have no problem with the back loop and going around the roundabout.

Having sat in all the other options that very day to try it all out, that really seems to work tremendously well, no matter what direction you're going in.

To be able to just go around.

For my own driving patterns, when I have to make a left turn, I go to a place where there's a stoplight, if I can.

The Four Seasons light that used to be on Rio Road West was the perfect example.

You could never get out of there for a long, long time.

And so when they put the light in, everybody started going through Four Seasons and now the light is gone and things seem to have balanced themselves out for some reason.

I don't know what the magic is.

But I like the sort of slow speed controlled going around the circle that you all have, that VDOT and you have proposed.

And I really look forward to more detail about how we will

Manage, especially in phase two, without cutting down all those trees and making it just a hotspot again to be able to make some improvements along there as you have suggested using the developments that are coming.

I always have to remember that Jarmins Gap Road in Crozet, which was planned for work in 1988 and finally got opened in 2010, was a beautifully shaded

large trees on both sides and the community was of the understanding that and raised money and contracted for a thousand trees to replace them once everything was done and then to their great disappointment we're told oh no you can't do that because there's utility easement thunder all those things next to the sidewalk and so getting those trees back is not going to be was not going to be possible so I hope we will be careful to remember the quality of life of the people who live there

as well as the people who are driving through.

I do feel as if I have a better understanding now.

I don't know if it's appropriate to say I think the bean is a great idea at Hillsdale.

I know that you don't have enough to do that today, but I think keeping people moving ever so slowly as we have achieved in two roundabouts at the airport.

The one by the airport, we killed somebody every other year there for like 15 years.

and there hasn't been an accident there since it opened in 2007, I think, or 2006.

So that was part of that evolution of VDOT going from no, under any circumstances, we will never build a roundabout to now thinking, appreciating the fact that roundabouts are truly safer.

And certainly for pedestrians, we've seen that in many places.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Chair Price.

I do have a lot of comments to make, but let me start with just a couple of questions.

So I noticed on the safety piece on Phase 1, the Greenbrier intersection is a problematic intersection, but it's like occurred to me we're not really suggesting any treatments of the intersection, obviously the stuff leading to it on both sides.

Can you just talk a little bit about, you know, I don't know if there isn't

Sure, yeah.

Included in the appendix at large is kind of a design of the corridor from one end to the other.

Included in that you'll see if you look in detail what Ned's talking about with coming into the Greenbrier intersection.

So there's a lot of accidents in that vicinity.

Most of the accidents are not related to the intersection itself.

Most of the accidents are related to all of those entrances to the gas stations that are so close together that

and the median which has no, all of those entrances are full access.

So by introducing a median in some areas you create them to be partial access and by doing that you introduce an element of safety by removing conflict points.

So that's a long-winded way of saying our ultimate plan for the roadway includes portions of

the median adjacent to Greenbrier having a raised median, but not to the detriment of the turn lights.

There's still a left-hand turn onto Greenbrier needed and a left-hand turn lane into that gas station that's needed.

So those movements are still needed, but beyond those movements, the cue length required to get a raised median again, which in the near term is kind of out of our reach because

We would basically be implementing a plan that inhibits a business from its current situation.

You'd have to get a little aggressive with the businesses and saying, we're removing a part of your access.

And maybe we need to do that.

That's your judgment call of how you go into actually saying, we're going to put a raised median here because the plan said it.

And when you do that, we'll be at your discretion.

Those raised medians are warranted.

Partial access is warranted.

Aside from speaking directly to the Greenbrier intersection, I think the intersection functions fine in and of itself.

It's really the access management standards adjacent to the intersection on all sides of it that are just an absolute chaos.

In phase two, the central area, the speed limit concern that you highlighted, and talking about that needs to be a conversation with VDOT.

So what's the process for that?

If we identify that, if a study identifies this issue, what's the next steps?

Regardless of what's the design concepts or the planning ideas, if there's a known issue with sight and speed, et cetera,

I'm far enough out of step with the transportation planning process with VDOT.

I can't tell you specifically how that's done, but we have done that before.

I think that would be my formal request to do that.

There's a lot more people

with the addition of the apartments there and the lofts, even making dashes across, especially coming up that hill.

But the sightline issues with the turning, just the vehicular issues are problematic, but now we're introducing a lot of, as we improve the sidewalks and the access,

down to the parkway.

We're only creating more pedestrian activity and that's going to be introduced into a vehicular piece which is really going to be dangerous.

Chair, is this, like, want us to do just questions?

Because I have a lot of commentary, but I don't know if I should just plow through or should I give a chance for making questions?

So I think it's important that David mentioned at the beginning, and I've had this conversation with Doug Walker several times, about the difference between this being approved as a planning document versus approving the projects in the study.

So that's an important distinction that we have to make sure is clear.

We're endorsing the planning study saying this is the document we're going to use that as projects come up along this corridor, we're going to pull this out, look at the information, look at the public commentary on that area, and then make decisions based on that.

The bean, the roundabout bean at Hillsdale I'll use as the example of what I mean.

We have another thought that we are going to reroute Hillsdale behind the mall and connect with Putt-Putt.

That's in our plans to do.

We even, I think, put it forward, did we not, in the past, as a project in the smaller area.

So if we take that Hillsdale and we reroute that up to Putt-Putt, this concept may not even be necessary because we're taking the main volume that's coming off Hillsdale, removing it from that intersection, and putting it into a different place that has its own roundabout conceived.

So as a planning document, if Hillsdale stays where it's at, then this is something we would perhaps consider to do.

We would go through that process.

But if Hillsdale ultimately gets rerouted, now we have to look at the design you put here.

which I think I remember we talked about in an early meeting where, yeah, we didn't really conceive of that if Hillsdale didn't come up through because you really eliminate on the one end the need to get down that corridor.

So what then is the treatment of the other two roads that are spilling onto Rio?

So that's how that planning document would work.

If we keep it where it is or if we don't think Hillsdale is going to realign for 50 years, then maybe we do this treatment.

if it does get realigned and that moves sooner rather than later, then this whole treatment may not ever come to be.

At the end of the day, we know that that intersection is incredibly problematic and needs a solution, but it just may not be the solution that's in the study.

So if we vote to approve the study, it doesn't mean we're necessarily voting to approve that project.

Now that being said, being that I will be voting to approve the study,

I don't want my vote of the study in any way affirming the alternatives to the John Werner Parkway and the preferred VDOT placement.

This supervisor is fully endorsing where the current VDOT study is.

We've gone through that design.

We've gone through the patterns.

We voted for it.

We've had hearings on it.

It's been approved, and that's where I'm at.

I don't want A or B. I understand where you guys were coming from on it.

but to move it closer to the community is a non-starter for me.

And the current placement fits within what they already have, which is part of, I think, why that project got funded, obviously.

So I don't want in any way where it suggests that I'm saying, yeah, the second or third option might be an option for me.

It's certainly not.

I bring that up right on the end of saying that it's a planning document and not an affirmation to say that it doesn't mean that you're opening up doors to change something that's already approved.

But I'm just putting it out there that I don't want my support of the study, if for some reason, it may happen, that if that current placement shifts,

that this is used against any of us when we object to any possible shift, which I'm not expecting, but there.

I'm out there.

I'm on it.

Let me just check off my points.

Now, down in the future when these individual projects come up, the capture of all of the public input, the actual commentary that's in there.

I don't know in the past, I can't think of an example in the past that I participated in where maybe it's five years down the road.

Perhaps we're going to look at Penn Park Lane and do a treatment.

We pull this planning document out to learn from it.

We're going to look at the design.

We're going to look at the traffic.

We'll look at the safety.

We'll look at the updated information.

But are we also going back and thoroughly vetting what the citizens said about those places so that we can learn when we actually get down to design time?

I'm sure we do.

I'm saying that that's necessary.

There's a lot of great commentary in there.

I'm very appreciative to everybody that put their comments in, and even emails that have come in suggesting different nuances of each project.

That's great now.

It's great for me to hear, like one was on the lighted piece of the green tea coming out of Belvedere.

Well, that's great for me to hear now, but until that actually gets into design, that's when we need to revisit all of those comments.

So I'm just making sure that that's part of the step.

Let's go back in, dig into the commentary that we've received.

so that that can inform just like a study or engineering study and kind of the science pieces of it, that subjective stuff is very valuable to making sure a project works.

Well, I think that's the accepted practice.

That's what the study and that's why the multi-page appendix exists is so that all that information can give you a point in time of input.

Those projects usually get discussed again when they're back into another public process, so you balance that with the current input process that you have for re-engaging in that project area.

But I know as staff we go back and look at the studies and all the components of that study as baseline work as we move forward with planning.

So it's a normal practice for us.

These documents also for grants are often cited for state grants as an example.

So they become resources for smart scale applications and for consultants that are working on those projects.

Great.

And what I would say, because it came up about public engagement, public outreach, and gathering this.

I think the lessons learned are make sure that we do what we say we're going to do, or at least have the follow through and the execution on it.

Now, I know this happened during the pandemic.

I know it was complicated, but I do think there were instances early on where we said we would do X, but then didn't do X. And that's important to learn from, that if we're going to put a criteria of who can participate,

That needs to be stated up front, not after you find out who wants to participate, if that makes sense.

If we say we're going to do the focus groups, then let's follow through and do that.

Now, I think we stumbled a little bit in that.

I think it's important for us to recognize that that occurred.

We did receive a lot of really great feedback and engagement.

But it is important to acknowledge sometimes where when we do stumble, let's learn from that.

And public engagement, we've all talked about how much is too much or how much is too little, what do we need.

So I think in anything that we do, whether it's a general survey or if it's lead ups to public hearings or CAC meetings, that we just say, OK, this is what we're going to do.

Make sure all the parameters of what we're expecting are defined up front, and then be able to execute that.

OK, so generally, done that.

Generally what I've heard from folks and in the comments and things like that is phase one, obviously we have a throughway, we have a parkway.

And the putting in of the John Warner Parkway confirmed that that was going to be a major arterial street to get people from the northern part of town to downtown.

And I'll leave my comments about the city's design for another time.

As the small area plan comes into play, and as all of these units that are slated for and in play in the Belvedere-Dunn-Laura area, we've got a ton of residential units coming in.

And as the small area plan becomes into execution, you're going to create a whole other set of pedestrian activity that wants to connect between that high residential zone and a new economic zone down where the small area plan is.

Now we have that pedestrian activity happening now,

but that's only going to increase and buy a huge multiplier down the road.

I've already seen it on the east side in phase two with the center and the folks living there but that will start to occur all the way down to 29.

We can't do the treatments to reduce the ability for the vehicles to be through way because it is a through way but we have to make sure that we're mindful of whatever those studies are that we keep the safety in line for the biking and the pedestrian activity to occur between the Warner Parkway and 29.

I think what you're getting at starts to do that.

But the reason that functions right now is that center turn lane is what allows people to get in and out right now.

And if we get rid of that, then I wonder what happens with the flow of traffic.

Yeah, it's a great, great topic.

And I hear some of this commentary.

I'm like, man, I should have covered that in my presentation, but I was moving really quickly.

The detail of this, I think,

is twofold.

I think you'll have a better success at connecting the dots between, say, John Warner and Hillsdale if those intersections are already improved.

Because the nature of those roundabouts actually will allow the roadway to get narrower.

And so that's where we're going to find the space for the pedestrian improvements and increasing the pedestrian realm for the North Town Trail.

The ability to make a turn with a partial access with a raised median

If you refer to the appendix and you go to the whole design document, you'll notice that there's specific median breaks where full access is warranted.

And then there's also, basically, R cuts are a place to turn around at intervals so that if someone needed to make a left and couldn't because of the median, within a very reasonable distance, there would be an opportunity to make the R cut maneuver, which is a left-hand turn with a little bit of a widened

circle shape to make that turn.

So it is integrated into the thoughtfulness of the plan itself, like the meta plan.

Yeah, it's just going to be important that we continue that flow, but then be mindful of, like you said, that the bean shape could almost be the entranceway to the residential area.

It's very residential with this huge highway basically going through it.

So how do you marry the concerns of the residents who are

and

When people get to the top of the hill coming from downtown Upper I.O., you said it.

It's like a speedway.

They just speed up at the top of the hill.

If they don't hit that light at Penn Park, then they just keep on careening through there.

And those are not people living locally.

Those are people going from downtown out or from uptown to get downtown.

And I am so concerned with the increase.

There's apartments right on the road.

I'm seeing already the different pedestrian activity that's happening.

We do not have transit stations that are set up for people to, you know, that doesn't function yet.

That transit system doesn't function for that area.

And as more units come online and more people are out there walking to do these things, and having that kind of speed stuff happen is not going to work.

So I have no clue if people would be in disagreement with that somewhere, but any deterrence, and I think what you have does that, that says to somebody,

I don't want to go on Rio East to get downtown because all the treatment there really reduces the speed.

The city's done it from Park Street into town.

They've got the curves that come out.

They've done that that says, well, if you really want to just race through there, it's almost impossible to do.

That's what I would like to see that phase two, and I think this is getting at that.

Then people can get across the roads because the pedestrian pathway from Stonehenge or even Treesdale down to the parkway is not consistent.

You have to cross the road if you're going to stay on a path, at least right now.

So anything that can be done to keep those cars from racing through there, I'm all for it.

And for those who are wanting to just get downtown, I'd rather them use the parkway to get downtown than cutting through Railroad East.

Now, all the raised medians.

What's in a raised median?

What is it?

Do you want me to answer that?

Give me an example.

Like when you say a raised median, is this something with

It's not that.

Usually it's characterized by a curb line, an actual physical non-mountable curb, which is what we see all over.

and then it raises six inches or four and usually planted, but it doesn't have to be.

It could be stone.

Even if it's not planted, it'll be planted.

We've learned this.

Sure.

It's 97% humidity outside.

So my point here, and this is more directed at staff, is that this is this, like if we said, yeah, we're going to do this.

and have all these raised medians and have all this type of treatment, whether they're planted or not planted, raises a huge maintenance question.

That only goes to our need as we're finding, Supervisor McKeel I know agrees, is the whole public works kind of sense of what we're doing.

We're bringing on the street sweeper.

We're bringing on the individual to address this stuff.

But this whole design shows the need that we have to start knowing that we're urban enough that we need a public works system that if we put any sort of treatment like this and is what's designed along this whole corridor, we're going to have to maintain it because BDOT certainly isn't going to do it.

So we have to be ready to do it.

Otherwise, we're just creating on an entrance corridor more problems that we're already seeing countywide with vegetation growing up out of

out of sidewalks and such.

Staff's pretty tired of hearing me talk about this point, but this only elevates it, so it's a chance to bring that up.

So I'll leave it at that.

The turn lane going down Rio Road East where Agney Street is.

I mean, it's already being used that way, so we might as well set it up so that it's a safe maneuver.

I agree with that.

People go around there all the time.

what sight lines and how they can study it so that the person making the left turn make sure they have enough sight I'm sure would be looked at but since that seems to be the prevailing pattern it only makes sense to to do that and if there's a way to get pedestrian last night coming up and I didn't myself didn't see him coming I was coming up around the curb and there was a person stopped on a bike on right past Agnese Street and I'm like what are you doing and a little kid going on a motorized scooter

down at the bottom who'd already come down the curve and went.

And that's only going to get worse as more people and more units come online and want to get downtown.

So the thought of trying to find a way using the utility path or getting some activity that could happen and get people off that windy curve, I don't know how they were pedaling up that damn hill.

I had a heart attack trying to pedal up there.

But they were up and they were stopped probably to catch their breath.

Terrible spot for anybody to be whether you're on a bike or walking or whatnot.

Sorry, I'm taking so long here.

The Belvedere spot.

I've got a few comments on this.

There's been debate about whether it should be lighted or not lighted.

I would like it to be lighted from the start and then if it doesn't need, it can then be turned off, removed, maybe it's intermittent.

But I'm not going to say, well, let's not light it and then wait for all the things that you need to happen to get it lighted.

I'm still fighting that battle down at the other end of Hillsdale.

Oh, well, it's built for lights, and when the warrant analysis comes, it'll merit it, and we can put a light in.

Nope.

I'd like the light to be put in from the start, because I think it makes sense.

And then if we feel like it doesn't need to be there, well, then maybe it could be intermittent, and it's between 7 and 10 AM or what have you.

I'm just saying that that's going to be when the Belvedere Green Tea Win comes, because we put that forward as a smart sale application.

I appreciate the light that has stayed in there.

It's a chance for me to voice my opinion on what I think.

But if that goes in and it's not lighted, it'll be a 10-year fight to try to get something lit on there if we think it's needed.

And I'd rather try it, and then if it's not needed, we could take it away.

We build all the infrastructure anyway, so I've always been told, well, if you make room for the lights and don't put the lights up, you've already done the cost.

Well, OK, if we've already done the cost, let's put the light up, and then let's see how it functions and works.

because Belvedere is not even, I mean, how many units are left in Belvedere to come online?

I mean, there's still houses, the soca is still, I mean, they're getting rolling, the center's in and back to full, starting to get to full capacity after COVID.

But I mean, all the units back in there, yeah, that, well, enough.

I did see a second turnout from KTEC going out where the church is.

I like that.

It gives them a different way.

I know that turns them to a right in, right out.

And the hard part is the church is going to have to go down, do the roundabout, and go back if they want to go to 29.

But them taking that left turn out of there right now is a terrible idea.

That's even worse than coming out of Belvedere in a lot of ways.

But I did like the fact that now KTEC can exit where they normally would, but they can also go out the second way and turn right to get off the property.

and plus you have the right end so people don't actually have to go to the roundabout there.

They'll be able to get into the KTEC area right up top.

and then I'll go through my notes after someone else has a chance.

I would like to thank staff for getting the corridor study brought on.

This was not on the radar.

This was something that we, you know, that the board was supportive of to get this done and executed.

So I appreciate the fact that we picked this up, found the time to do it.

We found the funds to do it to bring the consultant on.

I appreciate lining great.

I appreciate your efforts to get the full corridor study done.

I especially appreciate all the citizens who took the time to read the study.

I got stopped over the weekend and said, well, I got this, but then I got this comment.

But I said, well, let's go read it again.

And then it's there.

I'm speaking specifically to the Denver Roundabout there.

But people actually got into this.

It wasn't superficial.

So I appreciate that.

And I'm very appreciative of my CAC, the Rio 29 CAC.

They've put a lot of time and effort and feedback into this study.

And I know all of their comments are captured.

And as these projects come forward individually, when this planning document comes back out, that feedback will be there to help inform anything that we do.

And Chair Price, thank you for so much time.

Yes, thank you and I'm just looking at, I'm going to go through my list.

I think some of them have already been discussed.

First, I do want to thank staff and you all for this wonderful report and the maps and the pictures and the graphs were all just lovely.

Very, very helpful.

I think it really is hard

for everyone when we're not a traffic engineer or an architect or a designer or a planner to visualize.

We read these changes and how in the world am I going to get from here to here?

So this has been very helpful.

Probably three, maybe parts of three or four days to read this out in chunks.

And I just wanted to point out, I appreciate everybody's remarks and what the community has submitted.

I learned a couple of things.

I learned where the Rio name came from.

Railroad stop number 10.

Who knew had nothing to do with Hispanic or any of it.

That was really great.

I learned where there's a good Nepalese food store restaurant, which I'm going to try.

So that was really cool.

And I learned from Jack Kelsey's letter about the realignment of the buffer,

I never really understood that and Jack Kelsey's letter helped me a lot with it.

And I will say that Appendix D, the safety descriptions about roundabouts, I think is and will be very helpful for our community.

I think it's counterintuitive sometimes for people to understand that roundabouts are actually safer for pedestrians and bicyclists

than a stoplight, for example.

I sort of went through that learning process when we were working with the hydraulic intersection, the work around the hydraulic intersection, and I think for lots of folks it is counterintuitive.

So I thought Appendix D is great.

So for all of that, thank you.

Now let me see if I can work my way through a couple of my comments.

I agree with Ann and I think what I heard Ned say, and I really understand that this is a planning document, so some of what I'm going to say, I recognize it's a planning document, but I would just like to go on the record to have some thoughts there.

I think that slingshot at the Dunlora intersection, what we were talking about, the slingshot, I really like that, and I think that's

We have to be really careful not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good with some of these traffic changes and what we're doing.

We're using that same design on hydraulics.

there at Whole Foods because we're changing.

People won't just be able to go through the hydraulic intersection like they're used to doing.

They'll have to slingshot down and come back.

There are other alternative routes they can take, but I think that's a viable suggestion to make the intersection safer.

Let me see what else I had here.

I really want to get to what Ned was talking about because he and I have the same concern around we have all of these raised medians now.

We're going to be planting them.

I see lots of great trees and that's great.

Trees need water, grass needs to be mowed, and I will tell you that somebody I heard say gravel

VDOT put gravel in one of the medians on Barracks Road and it was so appalling that the neighbors rose up and said get that gravel out of there, it looks even worse.

And VDOT came in and moved all the gravel out.

and replanted grass.

So gravel is not an answer in my opinion.

But having said that, this gets to, and I think the Planning Commission referenced this, I really enjoyed reading the Planning Commission notes on their discussion around this plan.

Public Works has come up and I saw Jeff lean in a few minutes ago and I don't think you need to go there right now, but this gets to we're going to have to figure out how to maintain

our urban area.

We know that Crozet has a contract because of their streetscapes to have that area that taxpayers pay for and with grants from the federal government, I guess, and the state government.

But that area is being maintained.

right through a contract.

We're going to have to figure out how going forward we're going to be able to keep other areas as maintained as the Crozet area when we're talking about our urban areas.

To be honest with you, a lot of these areas get a heck of a lot more traffic.

and a lot more use than downtown Crozet.

While they have a lot, we're talking really heavy uses here.

So I'm thinking about public works.

And I have a concern about utilities.

And you don't have to answer this now, because this is a planning document.

But we put all the utilities, I think, in the median along 29 North.

And then we put trees in.

And then when we had to do something with the utilities, all the tree, it just gets to be.

So we have to figure out how we're going to work the utilities and maybe not plant trees on top of them that really then make it impossible to get to the utilities.

Just a thought.

That created quite a hula on 29 North.

Maintenance contract, I've talked about that.

I really, I think Ned spoke to the church, and I was going to say the church and the KTEC entrance, I really like that.

And I think I'm appreciative of KTEC and the folks at the church for working with you guys and being very accommodating in trying to solve that problem.

Let's see.

Oh, Belvedere.

I agree with Ned very much on the lights.

Just go on and put them in.

And part of the reason, you gave some really good rationale, but my other rationale is all you're doing then is if you have to, you're going back and you're digging up again.

And I am weary of

between VDOT and Dominion Energy and Almar County Service Authority and this is at a real high level.

We do one thing and then the next group comes in and digs it up again so we have brand new pavement.

Then we're digging that up again to put in water works.

We have right now brand new pavement over in Hessian Hills that

was the result of the water project and now they're digging it up again because of Dominion Energy.

So somehow or another we've got to figure out, and I think VDOT and some of our groups are working better with the county and the service authority, but somehow or another we've got to get all these utilities together and figure out

How do we plan so that we're not building and then digging up and building and digging up?

And that's not your problem.

It's a much higher level.

But I wanted to take the opportunity to mention it.

So let me just see here.

Help me out a little bit with the wildflower portion.

Just address that a little bit because I know the community has really been protective.

rightfully so, of their wildflower bed.

Yeah, that's a good question.

No matter which roundabout you build, Ned's made clear which one will be built, that wildflower garden is going to be impacted.

The VDOT plan shows it being a stormwater management facility.

So it seems like

I mean The good thing about a wildfire bed is it can be replanted somewhere else.

I recognize that.

Help me With something else though.

I saw or read in the Planning Commission notes recessed bioswales Yeah

Yeah, sure.

So I think that was Karen Firehawk, and it's a great comment.

So basically, she was recommending you replace a raised median with the opposite of a raised median, almost like a lowered median, which creates a swale in the median.

It's nice in theory, it doesn't work in practice unless you re-crown the road to drain water toward the middle.

Okay, that helps a lot.

But now I understand better, I was trying to figure it out, it worked in the... Yeah, it's the opposite of a race, meaning it creates a little pond.

Okay, that makes sense.

Alright.

Well, arguably it is working.

Gotcha.

They do need maintenance.

The place to put them is at the margins, not the middle.

but it should be considered.

I remember reading the book The Drowning of Franklin County because they didn't, I think it was Franklin County, anyway, because they weren't keeping those whales cleared, right, and that's the same issue we're talking about.

I digress.

Let me get going.

I think I'm about through here.

Let me just run through my notes.

This was really a great report though.

I really appreciate

all the folks that the community as well as all the hard work from staff and your company.

And I think, Donna, I've checked all my notes.

And I'll be brief.

Mr. Heyer, first off, I concur.

This was an exceptional report and the emphasis that you provided on the accident and safety issues really helps drive home in my mind why we need to take some of the action we're going to take.

That was extremely helpful.

I also believe that you were able to address so many of the concerns that have been raised.

I concur with the other supervisors in the comments that they made, so I just have a couple that I will add.

Clearly one of the complications is we have so many side roads coming into this artery here, it really complicates things.

I understand from the safety aspect, the partial access limitations being implemented

which is acceptable so long as the alternative access is reasonable.

In other words, that people don't have to drive too terribly far to the right to turn around and come back when they really needed to go somewhere to the left.

And what I would add is wherever possible that we try to avoid having

Pedestrians or cyclists have to cross the main road in order to continue on a sidewalk.

That just raises another traffic point of failure where they're likely to have an accident with a vehicle that's not paying attention because the driver's on their phone.

I understand there are times where the terrain or whatever may make it

and more.

the inability of VDOT to maintain the clearing of the growth.

I live on a gravel road.

Plants grow in gravel.

That's not going to stop it from happening, and it's nowhere near as attractive.

So that's just another item as we work towards our budget that we have to take into consideration, which is another expense to the county.

And with that, I will just simply look to see if there are any other questions, comments.

Thank you.

One follow-up regarding the question and comments about the Wildflower Meadow and it being designated as a stormwater management facility.

Right outside our building is a perfectly beautiful stormwater management facility called the Miles Whale and it takes all the water all the way up to the railroad track and takes care of it.

While the geography of the meadow may be shifted, I think it could be absolutely every bit as beautiful and effective as it is, as this one is.

So I will fight very hard for that.

We had to fight pretty hard out the improvements on Jarman's Gap because the original 1980s plan was for what the VDOT guys called the snake pit.

and the neighbors went completely insane because all it was was this big V and it filled up with water and had all this mess everywhere.

So they did actually put together the neighbors built.

Once the grading was done, they put in all the plants and took care of it and it works really, really well.

So we have a great alternative in that particular location.

And in the middle of the Crozet Avenue streetscape, those are stormwater beds, those ones where all the greenery grows up.

And the greenery grows five feet tall in a season because of all the good water that's in there that it's processing.

So you're absolutely right.

The contractors have to go out and whack it a couple of times in the summer because it gets so tall that people can't see the pedestrians walking across the street.

So these are all things we've learned as we go along.

But I really think we have great opportunities

All right, thank you.

Supervisor Galloway?

I just want to follow up on, and Mr. Richardson, and this can be answered at a different time, but I would like to follow up on the speed issue and the VDOT with the sight line coming up, especially in phase two, especially since we have development coming in.

I mean, I agree that's a quick area of attack because there's going to be some frontage work there, but that

We know it's concerning, but I'd like to know when we might expect or what's reasonable to hear that process to kick off or get an update.

Kevin I think was walking back in at the tail end of the conversation.

So he may be like what the heck's that guy talking about?

Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna follow up with Kevin and then V dot and find out what our feasibility is and we can report back to you great shortly what the next steps might be or if there's a feasibility to it will will inquire internally with them and

Thank you, Board, any other comments?

Medians, and for the left turns I just want to make sure that attention is paid to left turn cue lengths because you don't necessarily anticipate how many cars might need to turn at some point and that can also cause accidents when you have that situation with the raised medians.

I appreciate the response about the bioswales.

I was very interested in that comment and think that there may be more work, of course, to be done with stormwater management and with courage.

Looking hard at that, I don't see a lot in here relating to that specifically as an issue as new things go in.

turn roundabouts and the like.

And then lastly, I just want to, as a comment, say, you know, I very much support this, but I would say, you know, it is still a work in progress and more public input is welcome.

We want to hear from people about this as we go forward, even if we are accepting this as our starting point.

Thank you.

Anything further?

All right, Board, we have in front of us a proposed resolution in support of the corridor plan.

So the floor is open to any motion.

So moved.

Second.

All right, we have a motion from Supervisor Galloway, seconded by Supervisor McKeel.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you all.

Thank you for the work that you've put into this.

Board will move to item number 10.

This is SC 2022-36 5600, Turkey Sag Road, Homestay.

Good afternoon, Ms.

Good afternoon, members of the board.

If you'll give me just a minute, I had uploaded my presentation on the other computer, so we will plug that in here.

There we go.

So good afternoon, members of the board.

This special exception is SE 2020-36, 5600 Turkey Sag Road.

This is one of two requests today for a resident manager on a large rural area parcel.

and it is the first of this particular type of exception to appear before the board for a resident manager on a large parcel as we recently did make changes to the ordinance to permit that.

This property is owned by 5600 Turkey Sag Road LLC which directly benefits Mr. Bradford Manning who has resided on the property since 2020.

Mr. Manning would be the resident manager of the property in lieu of the property owner, 5600 Turkey Sag Road LLC.

So as we are all very familiar with the ordinance regulations, a real quick recap.

This exception is before the supervisors because the ordinance requires one individual owner of a parcel must reside on the parcel itself to qualify for a home stay use.

Since a limited liability company is not an individual, it cannot reside anywhere.

And so in order to qualify for a homestay use, the owner, the LLC, must have a resident manager as approved by the board.

The resident manager must reside on the parcel as their primary residence.

In this particular case, Mr. Manning, beneficiary of the LLC that owns the parcel, would serve as the resident manager.

I would like to emphasize this special exception would not permit the home state property to be used as a restaurant or an events venue.

There is no special exception that allows that, and that is not under consideration.

Also, just to return to the factors to consider, we're looking at whether there are adverse impacts to the surrounding neighborhood, public health, safety or welfare, consistency with the comprehensive plan, and consistent in size and scale with the surrounding neighborhood.

So this proposed homestay would be located at 5600 Turkey Sack Road, which is a 370-acre property north of Sismont.

The parcel is surrounded on all sides by thickly vegetated forests and is in an actual little valley surrounded by mountains.

It's bordered in the west by an additional 108-acre parcel and a 44-acre parcel also owned by the same entity, 5600 Turkey Sag Road LLC.

Peters Mountain is located directly northeast of the property.

So here you can see the location of the home stay parcel in the valley surrounded by vegetated mountains.

and as the property and its buildings are located extremely distant from all neighbors' homes, parking is not a problem on the parcel.

All right.

Thank you.

We will go through our order.

Supervisor Andrews?

No questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Did I understand correctly that it is a bowl on all sides, not just on the east?

Because I know there's one property up there on the southwest mountains that you can see for 30 miles because it's a big white house with all the forest is cut all the way down to the river.

I'm not sure if I would necessarily say it's a bowl.

It is a more natural formation than that.

And to the west, to the river.

Yes.

All righty.

Thank you very much.

Supervisor McKeel?

No questions, thanks.

I've got a couple of questions.

One of them does.

That is a full-time residence of someone who has, I believe, lived on the parcel for a while.

I'm sorry, what?

All right, thank you.

I do have one follow-up based on what you just asked.

In our ordinance, when we require a resident person, a homeowner there, the 51% of whatever it is, half the year plus one, that in a way precludes an LLC from having a different resident manager on a different parcel, even if they have a whole bunch of parcels.

nearby.

That was always my understanding based upon the changes we made, but I don't know if that was an accurate understanding or not.

Absolutely.

That's definitely understandable, and I think that is why we have this as the special exception.

but they still have, it's not prohibited from the beginning which would simplify things.

That's what I was asking.

They can come in and request and then you can tell them, you can make that decision on each individual situation.

In this situation we're looking at, they have this first property.

Very good.

All right.

No further questions.

Any discussion?

No discussion.

I'm going to ask one question in anticipation of the next item on the agenda.

I have a question for our county attorney.

If this is approved and the ownership changes,

What would be the impact on, would it then be approved provided there is a resident manager or would it go back to the owner having to occupy?

I just want to make sure I understand.

If this special exception is approved allowing an LLC as the owner and the beneficiary of the LLC being the resident manager,

I think, Chair Price, it would depend upon the identity of the party acquiring the property.

If I understand the statutory scheme here, special exception is not required if an individual is an owner of the property.

So if the purchaser of the property is a natural person, they would remain subject to the provisions of the county code that require them to reside on the property.

And it would seem to me that if the purchaser of the property is not a natural person, in other words, it's another limited liability company,

Yes, the special exception on the land.

One thing that I had not considered, which the board might want to consider, is tying resident manager special exception approvals to the current ownership.

I don't know if that would be something that, if the property was sold, it would no longer be valid.

I'm not sure if that's something we could do.

I have, this may be a fault of my memory, but I remember a discussion of a very clear distinction between special permits as going with the land and special exceptions as not because they're tied to an individual business who is on site there and the people involved in that.

That's right.

I'm confused too.

I was raising my hand too.

And here's my concerns.

Let me first say, you know, 370 acres of 13,000 square foot house, this is not necessarily our

of available housing stock for the average resident in our community.

So it's not this particular property.

It's the legal aspect of an LLC rather than an individual owning the property, which raises the concerns that I have.

Because this ties back to how many LLCs can

can exist that end up purchasing property in the county, not 370 acres and a 13,000 square foot home, but other houses.

One of the things that I've been reading about is how corporations are taking over residential detached single family or duplex houses, not just apartment complexes.

and are now starting to control the housing market in a number of municipalities around the country.

And so my concern anytime an LLC is applying, which is a corporation, to have a non-primary residential use of a property

what is the long-term ramifications and again this particular property is not the issue but if we're approving this then what is the impact as we start to approve that on

what I would call regular houses on regular lots around the county.

And I apologize that I did not let Mr. Rosenberg know before

And so this is a statutory scheme that I've not studied in depth at this point, and so I'd like to get you an answer to it.

And I don't know how you all deal with the agenda, and if it would be appropriate and possible

You could pass over this item and the next item and it may be that I'm able to come back to you with a substantive answer to the question before the end of the evening for you to take action on it.

Well, I'd like to get the sense of the board on where you are on this.

Again, I'm very concerned when we go beyond individuals, a natural person, and the homestay because of my concern on the impact that this could have on our housing for people who need permanent rather than short-term housing.

And we have had conversations about LLCs in the past.

This very issue has come up.

I would prefer, actually, in order to get all the questions answered, to postpone it to the next meeting to have a decision.

Because the whole new layer of concern I have now is,

identifying the people behind the LLC, there could be a hundred different names and we would never know.

You can only be the beneficiary if one, if we're going to meet our rules effectively.

I totally agree, Supervisor Mallek, and that is part of my concern with LLCs.

that rather than a natural person who can only have one primary residence, we could have LLCs that are acquiring many properties and we could have that impact.

So, you know, I'm not sure the exact procedure.

Ms.

Rosenberg, you may be able to help me on that, but that would be my proposal that we defer action on this.

We've had the presentation.

It could easily go on to the consent agenda or

or back on the action agenda.

Mr. Svoboda.

Thank you.

Bart Svoboda, Zoning Administrator.

I believe for kind of sake of the agenda and

partly to understand the ask that we may want to defer as you all are suggesting to the next meeting.

But let Ms.

Brumfield present both applications so we're aware of both situations.

So when we do the research on what the statute and how the statute would be affected, there's some background there.

Thank you.

And that those items can be, the action on those items could be deferred.

And then we can work with the clerk

and just the board schedule or figure out how that all takes place.

The other one may be a different circumstance altogether.

Let's go listen to item number 11 and then we'll decide what we want to do.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms.

So our second special exception is SE-2022-23, 3950 Lonesome Mountain Road

This homestay is advertised as Broadhead Cottage, which is reflected in the name of the special exception.

So this is an individual case where the resident manager would live on the parcel in lieu of the owner.

The owners do not live on the parcel.

They are natural persons, but they do not live on the parcel.

They have no interest in living on the parcel.

and there is a dwelling where a resident manager would reside full-time.

So similar to the prior discussion of the listing of the homestead regulations, I think that it is

A good time to point out that approving a special exception does not change what is permitted.

What is permitted right now is that a parcel that is over five acres in size can request a resident manager special exception.

Approving any of these special exceptions would not change that requirement.

It would not really create a precedent.

Special exceptions are special by nature.

and they come to the board on an individual case-by-case basis with a different circumstance in each time and the considerations must be looked at for every individual property and all of the ownership and the surrounding neighborhood and the land itself.

So what we are looking at here is whether the individual property will have an adverse impact on the surrounding neighborhood, whether the individual property special exception would be consistent with the comp plan and consistent in size and scale and inverse impacts, et cetera.

So this particular.

Special exception is a 173-acre parcel.

As mentioned, it does contain two dwellings, which you can see on the map.

The parcel was up until very recently used for forestry and logging.

And so the two dwellings are connected through logging roads visible on the aerial, as well as Lonesome Mountain Road, which skirts the outer edge of the parcel.

on the eastern side.

The parcel is not inhabited by either of the two owners but prior to a zoning clearance, a code compliance officer would require proof of residency from a full-time resident manager to ensure that the parcel does have a full-time resident.

Currently, both dwellings on this property are vacant.

This is an aerial showing the surrounding environs of the property.

It is up on a very hilly mountainous area.

As noted, it was previously used for logging.

The entire area is frequently used for logging or is just forested and vacant.

This parcel

is bordered on the south and east side, so the two parcels that are closest to the homestay proposed location.

It is owned in part by one of the owners of the parcel under consideration for the special exception.

A series of parcels owned by family members.

Some of them own multiple parcels.

Some other ones own other parcels.

But one of the owners is a partial owner in all three of these parcels that are all adjacent to each other.

And as the same with the prior presentation, staff does recommend approval of the special exception.

All right.

Thank you.

We'll go through our sequence.

Yes, thank you.

I'm just going to start by saying that I, because I agree that these are not precedent setting, I'm prepared to move forward on the previous application, but accept the decision of the group consensus.

My only concern on this one, as I alluded to when I made the earlier comment, is that this is 3,000 plus square feet between the two buildings.

And so to the extent we are looking at health and safety for someone coming in to stay in this parcel and have a resident manager, it was over.

3,000 feet away does concern me a bit, but I don't know if that's an appropriate reason to deny it.

I don't have any other questions about it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to make sure my memory is correct.

When we were talking originally about resident managers to begin with, I understood or I remember that in places where there was an adjacent parcel,

I think the owners of this, if I understand correctly, live on the other side of Route 20, so it's not very far away.

As long as somebody's living there full time, and these are two, I guess, smaller homes.

No, the 3,000 feet is distance, is what Jim was talking about, I guess.

Anyway, I think the description of this

Application seems to fit what I remember as the reason why we had a resident manager possible in the past.

So if that is correct, then I don't have any other questions about it.

My driveway is 2,500 square feet, so I don't feel like that's so far away.

And I know Donna's is a lot longer than that.

So I think that across the mountaintop, it would be pretty easy for someone to reach.

I'm especially grateful.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway?

I have no questions.

All right, thank you.

I would like, because Jim had a question, I think, about the distance.

Could we get staff, Leah, would you speak to Jim's comments about the distance?

Yeah, the ordinance does not require that the resident manager be within 10 feet of the homestay.

The ordinance requires that the homestay resident manager be on the same parcel.

We have no requirements for them to be nearby.

OK.

All right.

I just want to make sure I'm understanding this because this particular application does not involve an LLC.

It does not.

I'm just pointing that out.

Yes, it is owned by a different type of entity, but these owners could own multiple parcels under their legal names.

That's legal.

Right, exactly, but they're not an LLC.

All right, thank you very much.

All right, and I'm going to follow up on that, Ms.

Brumfield, because, as I understand it, and again, this will be something Mr. Rosenberg, we may need you to look at as well.

This one started off simpler, single owner.

but this owner is also part owner on other properties and so again my concern there would be that if this owner on another parcel wanted to do a homestay now we have a single natural person who is wanting to have multiple homestays.

Now I'm not saying I would vote no on this right now because to my knowledge this is the only application

But if the same individual owning another piece of property partially or on their own wanted to do a homestay, then I think that second one would be subject to objection because that would not be a primary property.

I have a concern clearly about the distance.

173 acres and the two structures are on literally opposite sides of the property.

So in terms of meeting the letter of the law, but I don't know that that meets the spirit of the law of a resident manager, you know, being able to actually observe what's going on.

Something for us to think about.

And then I have another question, Mr. Svoboda, this may be for you.

And I'm just anecdotal, this is off the top of my head, but my recollection is you can have one primary residence on a piece of property, and if there's a second

residents or structure that one of the things is it can't be a full-time residence and I think for some reason 220 volts in the kitchen sticks out in my mind.

So when we look at these two structures, do they both qualify as a primary residence?

So on some of the home stays that we've seen, we've had kind of that cottage situation.

That answered the question.

Thank you.

And I appreciate that.

That was just something that came up.

Well, it's a natural person who owns it.

Again, this isn't something that would affect our normal housing market, but I don't have the same concerns with this application I did with the previous one because it's a natural person, not an LLC.

Mr. Svoboda, thank you.

You've answered my question with regard to the structures.

I forgot about the development rights aspect of that.

The distance is something to think about, but I don't know that I would object to it.

So I would have a problem if this owner came in and wanted a second homestay, though, because this owner already has one.

So I have no further questions or comments on this one.

Supervisor Andrews.

Thank you.

Just may I ask, would that information be captured in the application process?

So is there a place for us to learn whether or not an applicant has other beneficial interests in property that are subject to homesteads?

Ms.

I'm trying to

figure out if I understand your question.

Well, I think it's two things.

It could be ownership or beneficial interest.

So the ownership might be, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the ownership may be easier, you can just

Go through your database and see if this name owns any other property.

The beneficial interest becomes more complicated through LLCs.

Yeah, in essence, that's accurate.

We do generally look at the ownership because we need to verify residency.

And if someone is applying for residency, to meet the residency requirements for a homestay, we make sure that they aren't listed as a primary residence anywhere else in the county.

So that is part of the review process.

Right.

Well, outside the county.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, I guess I'm asking a slightly different question, and that is whether or not we could, as part of this process, ask the applicant directly whether they have a beneficial interest in other property in the county that has almost

I would think that would be an easy add to the application process.

Yes, I was just going to comment earlier that my concern about the first one was the LLC piece and not being able to follow the person or the numbers that they have, right?

But in this case, we know the person

So we should be able to follow how many, I'm just saying.

But I get what Jim's getting at.

If we can do that, that seems pretty easy or logical.

I wouldn't think so.

I absolutely am in favor of having this as part of the application process so that staff is not chasing around after things that owners should be required to provide.

make an affidavit or something like that on there that says this is my only homestay in Albemarle County.

And you can only have one primary residence period.

They can't be a primary in Maryland because there's only so many days of the year.

There appears to be consensus by the board on requiring some attestation as to ownership interest in any property that might be used as a homestay in the county.

Any other comments or anything?

I do see this one as being different than the previous.

At this time, the floor would be open to a motion on agenda item number 11.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, the supervisor for the Rivanna Magisterial District is not in attendance today, so the normal courtesy of deferring to the supervisor of the district involved will have to be bypassed.

I'm happy to do it.

I actually found it this time for a change.

I move that we adopt the resolution to approve S.E.

Pardon me for interrupting.

Yes, we'll go back to that.

Thank you, Mr. Svoboda.

Appreciate that.

All right, so we'll finish number 11.

We have a motion.

We have a second.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Yes.

All right, board, so that takes care of number 11.

So now back to number 10.

I would propose that we defer action on this until we are able to clarify the questions that we may have with regard to the LLC ownership from the county attorney.

Any discussion?

We have a motion by Supervisor Mallek.

Second.

McKeel.

I'm going to have to have you all sit next to each other and not always be motioning and seconding each other in different orders because it throws me off.

All right, any further discussion?

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Yes.

All right, this time board we are scheduled for a recess.

We are running a little late so let me ask

Well, we only have one thing left, the Stream Health Initiative before scheduled to go into our closed meeting.

I'm happy for five minutes if it's available.

All right.

Well, let's take a five-minute comfort break, and we'll be back at 10 till.

OK.

All right.

We will now move to item number 12, a stream health initiative mid-year update.

Ms.

Biasioli, I understand you'll be teeing this off.

All right.

Good afternoon, Chair Price, members of the board.

I'm Kim Biasioli, the Natural Resources Manager.

And I'm going to be providing an update today on our Stream Health Initiative project.

So before I get going, I just want to quickly acknowledge all these other staff that have been engaged in this work, either as part of our original core team or as support staff on some of these specific projects.

And of course, also the many other members of the community through the Stream Health Work Group and technical experts from other organizations that have been involved in providing input along the way.

So our goals for today's presentation are to provide a report on progress on selected projects, to provide an overview of next steps for each of those individual projects, and then also for the Stream Health Initiative as a whole, and then to discuss and answer any questions that you might have.

So I'm going to start with just a really quick history.

And I have a note here at the bottom of the slide that we provided the full history with links to all of the meeting materials in your attachment A. And they're also available with live links on the Stream Health website.

So the goal of this project has been to develop strategies for improving stream health throughout the county and we worked to develop those strategies that would be broadly supported by the communities and the residents and the organizations that live and work in the different parts of the county and we really strove to do that using a collaborative and inclusive process through our engagement.

You'll see on this project goal that I've added the words and implement because at this stage we're really moving from developing those strategies into more of an implementation phase.

So you'll recall that the first part of this project was focused on development-related strategies, and then last year we shifted to focusing on developing strategies specific to the rural area and the specific challenges and types of land use that occur there.

And now we've merged both of those focus areas together for the project as we move forward.

So in December, staff brought forward these 14 final proposals that fell into three categories, regulatory, incentives and voluntary opportunities, and monitoring education and partnerships.

So this is the overview of those 14 proposals.

That's also in your packet as attachment B. And as a reminder, the numbers don't indicate any prioritization.

They're really just for reference.

And the colors around those numbers are to indicate whether those projects that were proposed would be either a CDD or an FES-led project.

So in December, this board supported staff's recommendation to move forward with some of these projects that we felt we could begin with existing staff, to submit budget requests for others for FY23, and then to return to the board to re-evaluate the remainder and potentially phase implementation of those over the next few years.

So next I'm going to provide a brief status update on these projects that are highlighted in orange.

And these are the ones that are currently underway in some form.

And the first of those is the riparian buffer overlay district.

And this project, the intent of it is to establish a higher standard and more consistency and clarity in our stream buffer regulations and also in how they're applied.

So one of the goals of this project has been to reestablish some buffer requirements that would address impacts that occur outside of regulated land disturbing activities.

And essentially, we're proposing to do that by moving those stream buffer regulations from the water protection ordinance to the zoning ordinance and maintaining the exemptions that we currently have for things like agriculture and forestry and utilities as we do that.

And we believe that this will allow for better enforcement, but also help to align some of the stream buffer requirements with other issues that are addressed in the zoning ordinance currently.

So we brought forward a resolution of intent in March and are currently in the process of drafting this ordinance.

So some of the key next steps are to receive public input on these proposed regulations, of course once we have the draft completed.

We will also be seeking input from the Planning Commission and the Board as well as approval.

And then submitting a budget request for staff is anticipated for both compliance and education.

And then if the project supported, we would plan to have hiring of that staff coincide with adoption of the ordinance and the effective date.

So the next project, number two, is intended to strengthen and clarify the standards that we have for restoration and mitigation of regulated impacts to riparian buffers.

Support for this work was included in the FY 23 budget.

And it's really important because it aligns with and interacts with project number one, the overlay district.

and the reason why is that it involves creation of a restoration and mitigation manual that would help address some of the requirements that we already have in the water protection ordinance as well as would be in the potential future overlay district and also help to clarify and strengthen what those requirements are and also where and when they apply.

So currently our staff team is doing some preliminary research and discussing development of this project and how we'll move forward.

And our next steps include aligning this work with the DEQ guidance manual that is currently being updated and that will be available this fall.

and then working with a consultant to incorporate that statewide guidance from DEQ into our local manual that will also include additional guidance to address specific issues and needs that we have locally here in Albemarle.

All right, the next project that's underway is number five, and this is development-focused carryover items.

And I have a star here just to note that there were three of these items that were in our original proposal, and only one of them is moving forward with our existing staff capacity.

So the other two are on hold currently pending resource availability.

and the intent of the one that is moving forward is to address incremental development that is cumulatively exceeding 10,000 square feet of land disturbing activity and currently we have some draft language for that update to the water protection ordinance and next steps will include finalizing that language, scheduling a public hearing for adoption and then we do anticipate submitting a budget request for additional staff.

All right, project number 11 is another project underway, the Low Impact Development Study.

And just as a reminder for those who might not be familiar with that term, the Low Impact Development, or LID, is an approach to improving stormwater management, essentially by mimicking natural processes to reduce the impact of built areas and allow the natural movement of water on the landscape.

There's a long list of best practices that developers can use to incorporate these principles of LID.

And the intent of this project and the Stream Health Initiative is to explore different options that we might have to increase implementation of LID in the county.

Currently, we have a consultant under contract.

This project was not in the FY23 budget, but the work is being supported by FES's water resources program.

And our consultant is starting with a code and ordinance review to help us identify barriers and opportunities that we might have to implementing LID.

And that includes looking at not just our county code, but also the state code and some examples from other localities that we can use as a model.

And then they'll look at the pros and cons and applicability of these practices in the context of our code and design standards and, of course, the state stormwater regs.

So next steps, our consultant is scheduled to complete their work in November.

And then staff will evaluate the results and determine our future next steps.

So the next project is number 13, the new landowner education project.

And the intent of this project is to inform new landowners of all the various cost share, conservation, and stewardship opportunities that are available in the county and contribute to improving stream health on private land.

So some elements of this project we've been able to start with our existing staff capacity.

And we have a great partnership with natural resources, climate, and water resources staff, as well as with CAPE.

And with that partnership, we've launched the first deliverable from the project, the Environmental Stewardship Hub.

So hopefully you've seen that.

And then for next steps, we have some that can move forward as staff capacity and resources allow.

And those include updating the new resident guide to include a stewardship section, and also working towards some targeted outreach to new landowners.

And the last project I want to highlight is number 14.

And the intent of this project is to provide watershed education experiences for every sixth grade student in the county.

And this project was not identified as underway in the project update, attachment A, because we only just learned that it's moving along independently of this stream health initiative.

And our team has only been indirectly involved in the effort.

But we did want to share the update because it's part of one of our original proposals that's progressing.

And some members of our staff team will help with coordination and support of the program.

So the current status is that ACPS has budgeted some funding for this upcoming school year.

And in terms of next steps, they'll be working with the Rivanna Conservation Alliance to define the curriculum and logistics, estimate costs, and also locate additional funding as needed.

So that concludes the overview of the projects from the Stream Health Initiative that are currently underway.

This next slide back to the overview of all the proposals.

Here you can see highlighted in orange the second category of projects.

These are table two in the packet.

And these are ones that we have not yet initiated and our staff team is currently reevaluating and reconsidering.

So next steps for the Stream Health Initiative as a whole, we plan to continue to advance the projects that are underway as staff capacity and resources allow.

And we will also continue to re-evaluate both those underway and future projects with consideration to the staff capacity, budgets, equity impacts, and our overlapping timelines.

And then lastly, we plan to return to this board periodically to provide you with updates and receive direction as needed.

All right.

Thank you.

We'll go through our order.

I'm sorry.

There's a lot to like about this project.

I am very happy with the progress that's being made and just have a few questions, comments.

On the new landowner education project number 13 and targeted outreach, I would suggest targeting outreach to old

Landowners as well.

I think there are a lot of people who just aren't aware of what could be done on their land and targeted to those areas where we really need it most.

And I assume in number five with the cumulative of 10,000 square feet that this will take care of the need to have ongoing management of stream buffers in development areas.

One concern that I have, and this is, I'm going to phrase it in kind of a bizarre way, I suppose, but when we talked about an ordinance a while back on clutter in the rural areas, I believe we found ourselves looking in the rural areas and saying, well, we really can't do this because we can't do this on agricultural land.

And a lot of these issues, of course, in the rural areas come out to be relevant to land that's used for agriculture.

but there are also an awful lot of areas in the rural area that are five to 20 acre home locations without a lot of agriculture going on and I'm not sure when what of these different ordinances are going to be limited by that.

That is ordinances that should apply but because it's in the rural area and it's zoned for agricultural possibilities

We're limited in what we can say about what they do.

Yes, I'd like to know whether there are, you know, issues with the designation of R1 versus agricultural use.

What happens in the sort of Netherlands, in between land where

Well that's a good question and there's one of the advantages of moving the stream buffer regs from the water protection ordinance to the zoning ordinance is that it will then apply outside of regulated land disturbing activities that are over 10,000 square feet so right now those stream buffer regulations are only

active when you have that land disturbing activity above the threshold.

So that will allow them to apply more broadly.

Agriculture is still exempt.