Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   1/11/2023

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm called to order this January 11, 2023 meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.

We are located in Lane Auditorium in the county office building.

We have present at the dais this afternoon, Supervisor Ann Mallek.

of the White Hall District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Jim Andrews of the Samuel Miller District and myself, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District.

Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio district is not with us at the present time.

We do anticipate that he will be joining us later this afternoon.

He is unable to attend the meeting in person due to a family member medical condition.

We will address that in more detail when he is able to join us.

I would also like to mention that present on the dais this afternoon is our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg, and we also have the Clerk for the Board of Supervisors, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson, all present.

Let me also acknowledge and thank our Albemarle County Police Officers who are present today, Officer Ben Chisholm and David Sprouse.

We appreciate what you do every day to protect all of the members of our community.

Thank you for your service.

So moved.

I first heard Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley make the motion and Supervisor Diantha McKeel make the second.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

I do want to make an announcement.

For the February 1, 2023 Board of Supervisors meeting, there will be a temporary change to the Zoom meeting link for virtual participation for the February 15 meeting.

A permanent change to the Zoom meeting link will then occur

And after the change to the meeting link for the February 15th meeting, the link is not expected to change.

I know that many people have just put in their favorites the link to the Zoom meeting, so I do want to make sure people are aware of that.

so that as we get into February, they can ensure that they have the proper link.

And then once we get to February 15th, you can make that one of your favorites again.

But just trying to reduce the potential of people not being able to connect virtually at those February meetings.

At this time, board will move to brief announcements by board members.

Thank you.

Yes, I do have a brief announcement.

I just wanted to let the board know that I'm exploring starting a parks foundation with a group of people and I would look for the board's support in doing that.

This is very similar to the police foundation and I think the school board, I think

Supervisor McKeel said the school board also has a public foundation.

So this would be for our Albemarle County Parks.

And if I can have the support from the supervisors, I can go ahead and proceed with what this group is doing.

Thank you.

Since we've only had one supervisor speak at this point, I'll just check to see.

All right, thank you.

And then we'll go through the rest of our order.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, and I support the Parks Foundation as well.

And I will jump into a very brief welcome to 2023.

and Omen for today.

We saw an eagle first time in 2023 flying over our lake.

I was 55 before I saw an eagle in the wild and now we see them four and five times a year on our farm and to me that is just a wonderful chance that we can fix problems that exist with water pollution and other things and making a huge difference.

2023 will be full of successes and challenges.

and I'm continually inspired by our citizens, by our county staff and by my fellow elected officials who work together every day to do our very best work.

Our world is not perfect in 2023.

Many in our community have problems with availability and cost of housing, the cost of food, worries about water and air pollution among many topics.

But we have gratitude for many gifts.

We have so far avoided the ravages of climate change

Climate driven storms, but we may be next.

We have so far avoided a severe economic downturn, but we must be cautious and prepare.

We have so far avoided the worst of the divisiveness of many communities in our nation.

This gift we must especially nurture.

Listening to my constituents is my priority for representing their needs.

As the Board approves a new phase of work on the Comprehensive Plan,

We should remember our values on which our local government policies have been based.

While change is all around, we can remember what Albemarle County is, what it stands for, why its citizens come here to live or choose to stay here to live.

We can focus on improvements in opportunity for all of our residents, avoid dividing people, and continue to build this community's strength and cohesiveness.

And now on to the news.

In the new year, the Biden administration reinstated the federal Clean Water Act safeguards against pollution and destruction for many of the streams, wetlands, lakes, and key water

across our country and especially in Virginia.

WOTUS, as it's called, the Waters of the United States, again now includes full protection for headwaters and isolated wetlands.

This overturned changes made during the previous administration.

Protecting the headwaters gives the rest of the waterway a chance.

But if we don't protect our headwaters, the rest of it is lost.

And the greatest generation is one fewer in our midst.

I did want to show again the picture of Jack Bertram.

I wanted to let you all know that Jack C Bertram passed away on January 1st.

He was 102.

As you know, he was a B-17 pilot during World War II.

He flew 36 missions over Europe with the 95th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force.

His missions included two on June 6th in support of D-Day's invasion and a secret mission to drop supplies to the French Resistance.

On one mission to Munich, after dropping his payload, his plane took an almost direct hit of flak, knocking out one engine and the plane's oxygen system and severing the rudder control cable.

The damage was so extensive that he had to drop out of formation and nurse his severely crippled plane back to base, alone and without any fighter support.

For his service, Jack received, among other medals, the Air Medal with Five Oak Leaf Clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Flinch Legion of Honor.

And he brought a smiling face and a kind temperament for all of us who were lucky enough to know him.

Thank you, Supervisor Mallek.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

I appreciate all of those remarks.

I have no specific announcements, but I do want to express appreciation for the efforts that you, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, have been making towards, in your individual capacity, towards that Parks Foundation.

It really will be a benefit to our community, and while it's not a Board of Supervisors action, our community throughout the county and our region will benefit from the work that you're helping to bring forward.

Thank you.

By the way, I did check with Supervisor Galloway knowing that he wouldn't be here and he also supported us.

And our clerk has just handed me the in-person sign-up sheet.

Do we also have any online?

We do not.

Yes.

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 or other than items listed on the agenda for public hearing.

Individuals are allowed one opportunity for up to three minutes to speak at each Board meeting.

A sign-up sheet is managed up to ten persons.

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

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

The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish.

The red light indicates your time has expired.

You'll be asked to end your comments.

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

When addressing the board, state your name, please, and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district, address comments directly to the board as a whole.

Any written statements or other sporting 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.

Do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

We will call our first speaker up, Doug Earl.

Good afternoon.

My name is Doug Earl.

I reside in the Scottsville district and I'm here today to speak in support of ranked choice voting.

Weeks ago, I came before you to say that deciding on ranked choice voting presented at that time a dilemma that there was no way that you could have known at that time what it would cost.

Soon thereafter, the county registrar presented you with a presentation that substantiated much of what I was referring to.

However, today I'm happy to report with great confidence that all of the mystery questions surrounding rank choice voting have been revealed or resolved.

We now have recent assurances as of December from the Department of Elections that all technical and legal obstacles to local adoption of RCV have been eliminated.

We also have, as of December, reliable and comparable data from Arlington County upon which to estimate a budget for Albemarle.

I provide the factual particulars of this in a letter to the county executive, which I can share if you wish.

As a result of these developments, I'm here today to urge you to place rank choice voting on your, one, regular agenda, and two, proceed with a period of public comment

with three, the intent to adopt.

Citizens in Arlington County overwhelmingly supported ranked choice voting during their recent public comment period.

And there is every reason to believe that the good and discerning citizens of Albemarle will do the same.

As members of our county board, I know that you are individually well aware of the benefits of ranked choice voting.

However, before ranked choice can be broadened and adopted more broadly, it must begin first with local adoption and be experienced firsthand by the voters.

Many times in our history, citizens from Albemarle County

have helped lead the nation through troubled times.

And I believe this is another such time.

Thank you.

Our second speaker, Neil Williamson.

Good afternoon and happy New Year.

I'm Neil Williamson.

I serve as president of the Free Enterprise Forum

A privately funded public policy organization focused on Central Virginia's local governments.

Way back in 1984, when I was still a public policy wonk in training, Clara Peller made history for Wendy's by asking the big burger chains a simple question.

Where's the beef?

Peller came to mind as I reviewed the pre-charts, process pictures, and infographics.

In the AC44 Phase 2 presentation you'll receive this afternoon, there seems to be a Dilbert level of detail regarding toolkits and structure.

It calls out the import of incorporating the framework for an equitable and resilient community, as well as lenses of equity and climate action.

At no point in this presentation is the Board of Supervisors or Planning Commission called out to schedule the elephant in the room.

the development areas.

Where's the beef?

The AC44 project contracted with a consultant who indicated Albemarle needs to expand their currently shrinking development areas on page 62 of the 62 page report.

Independently, the Free Enterprise Forum and Albemarle staff both documented the significant delta between comprehensive plan density and the approved density in rezoning applications.

You can see our density deferred, density denied report.

Last year, the Free Enterprise Forum called for the Albemarle Board of Supervisors to consider a new planning paradigm called lasagna.

The lasagna plan expands the existing development areas and eliminates the binary distinction of development and rural, replacing it with three types of development areas, urban, suburban, and transitional, as well as rural areas.

Will the community benefit from a discussion of these ideas in an open meeting with their elected officials?

Shouldn't the citizens hear from their elected officials on this issue that impacts housing affordability

Economic Development and Equality.

We also have heard murmurings that the development area expansion discussion may be kicked down the road and later given to appointed groups charged with various master plan updates.

This would be a huge mistake.

These designations impact the entire county and should be discussed in totality as part of the AC44 comprehensive plan discussion.

As I think about Peller and examine the process-heavy AC44 presentation you'll receive today, I wonder today if just one supervisor might channel their inner Clara and ask staff, where's the lasagna?

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Thomas Sykes.

Please feel free to bring that microphone down to you.

There you go.

Thanks.

I know, I'm short.

Sorry.

Vertically challenged, actually.

My name is Thomas Sykes, and I'm in the White Hall district, as Ms.

Mallek there knows, we're pretty much neighbors.

I don't have a single topic, but an overall topic, the county.

A lot of us moved here for a reason.

We liked it rural.

We liked the county itself.

We didn't move to Charlottesville because we didn't want to be in the city.

We didn't want to be crowded out by a bunch of buildings and everything, but I see that the county's going that way.

Infrastructure.

Water, sewage, electricity, and parks.

You know, the water, we're about our 90% capacity, as anybody who's lived here for a while knows.

Sewage, septic tank, probably, in most of the county.

Electricity, sometimes it's very, very sketchy.

Sometimes it's non-existent.

Parks, the city I live in is Earliesville.

Haven't had one.

Probably will never see one.

Schools, another thing that comes along with infrastructure.

There are at least three more schools that need to be built in this county today, have to be built within the next five years.

If you don't do it, you're not going to be able to educate students.

100% truthful, would you?

That's $350 million, $400 million at the very least.

Man, it is very important and it is improving.

I just told Ms.

Mallek that I got mine fixed, but I had to go beat on doors.

And I understand that most of the county is in that way.

I have some phone numbers for you if you want them, and you can beat on the doors.

Elections, they're coming up.

I would like to run, personally.

Jobs, very few jobs here to pay what should be paid.

I know my son's looking for one right now with benefits because you can't afford to buy a house or even rent an apartment if the apartment costs you $1,500 a month and they want four times that, your income to be four times that in order to qualify for that apartment.

That's the facts.

That's the way it is right now.

Maybe you all have houses.

Maybe you all have apartments.

But those are the facts.

Money.

Oh boy.

This county is in for a rude awakening when it goes to build those schools.

It's going to have to jack up taxes.

There's no other way about it.

Education.

You have to educate your students.

But I'll tell you right now, we need to stop paying the city to be a good neighbor.

That's costing us $15 million a year and we're not required to pay it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker, Eric Schmitz.

Eric Schmitz, I'm in the White Hall District.

You know, I'm here to talk about the Water Protection Ordinance.

And I would say that the problem is pretty simple.

It comes down to just six words.

Piped streams do not have buffers.

For the last eight years, these six words have been the dirty little secret of our Water Protection Ordinance.

It's the basis of a game plan used by the development lobby to eradicate the environmental benefits

that our stream buffers provide.

Clean water, carbon sequestration, and protected wildlife corridors.

The trick play is unethical, but it is simple and it goes something like this.

Step one is you can pipe up to a football field length of stream under our water protection ordinance without any oversight from this body.

Step two, having

piped it, you have removed the banks, and therefore the buffer.

Step three is to profit from building on top of the stream that was buried.

Supervisor Malek mentioned some very important happenings at the Supreme Court level and by the Biden administration.

And just last week, the Supreme Court, among other lightning rod issues on its docket,

took up a case that many fear will significantly weaken hard fought environmental protections over our nation's streams and wetlands.

But in a few minutes, this board will have the opportunity to exercise its own voice and legal authority to ensure that wherever federal streams are recognized, local county stream buffers will be unequivocally enforced.

So what do I want?

When that time of the meeting comes, I invite each and every one of you to go on the record by publicly voicing your commitment to achieving three goals by summer's end 2023.

Number one, to adopt an ordinance that protects our stream buffers without any ifs, ands, or buts.

Number two,

to go beyond simply engaging citizens in this process, but to give them a seat at the table that is equal to that of the development lobby.

And finally, to find a creative but legal stopgap to prevent the further exploitation of our broken water protection ordinance effective the beginning of 2023 last week.

Six words, pipe streams do not have buffers.

Thank you.

At this time, board, we will move to item number eight, the consent agenda.

The floor is open for a motion to adopt the consent agenda.

Second.

So we have a motion by Supervisor McKeel and a second by Supervisor Andrews.

Then we'll do that afterwards.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

I would just leave the question on the table and for, I guess, Mr. Johnson and Bea, who are our links to the CEA CVB, to be able to learn how this commission, number 8.1, will be representing Albemarle as opposed to

Charlottesville, and not mentioning Albemarle's name at all.

So I've been plugging away at this for 15 years and I'm going to keep harping on it because it is important we have our own story to tell.

If I were a magician, I would say we should have our own commission.

But I would look forward to really getting some details about what's going to be done and how.

Thank you.

And just for those who may not be looking at the agenda, that's the resolution of support for the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission.

So thank you, Supervisor Mallek.

Any other comments or anything about the consent agenda?

I will just let Supervisor Mallek know that I'm aware of this and I've already spoken with the Executive Director, Courtney Klikation, and Albemarle will be involved.

Definitely.

Completely.

Thank you, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Item number nine, an action item, SC 2022-00060, 7 South Farm, Henrikson Homestay.

Ms.

Good afternoon.

I just had a typo on the one that's uploaded already, so I need to change it.

Thank you.

All right, so good afternoon.

My name is Leah Brumfield.

I am a senior planner, too, in zoning.

And I am presenting SE-2022-60, 7S Farm, Henriksen Homes Day.

This is a special exception for a resident manager request at 4504 Turkey Sag Road.

The property is owned by 7S Farm LLC, occupied by Christina and Jeff Henriksen, who are also the holders of the LLC.

This is a property that contains multiple outbuildings, multiple farm structures, and two dwellings.

One dwelling is occupied by the Henricksons and the second, a two bedroom cabin shown here on the screen, is proposed for use as a homestay.

The ordinance requires that at least one individual owner of a parcel must reside on the parcel itself in order to qualify for a homestay use by right and an LLC must

have a resident manager approved by the board, which is why we're here today.

So if the special exception is approved, the owner of the property must then apply for a homestay zoning clearance.

During that process, the structure is inspected for building, fire safety, and the owners would also send a notice to their neighbors, providing them contact information for their responsible agent who would be contacted in case of any disturbances or emergency relating to their homestay.

We've all seen this before but in general the homestay regulations in 5148 of the zoning ordinance does require the special exception for this use for an LLC and in granting the homestay special exceptions

The board may consider whether there's adverse impacts to public health, safety, or welfare, whether it is consistent with the comp plan and applicable master and small area plans, and whether it is inconsistent in size and scale with the neighborhood along with any other adverse impacts.

this proposed homestay you can see the red roof at the front of the property is an entrance barn behind that it's a little bit unclear but there's a green roof structure that's the primary dwelling on the property and then far in the rear

is the cabin that's proposed for use as the homestay.

It is 87 feet from the nearest property boundary with vegetation on all sides.

And the nearest abutting neighbor's dwelling is 700 feet from the proposed homestay location.

And so here is the parking and structures location exhibit showing that the parking is on the far side.

of the property from the abutting owner's property boundary.

As such, and with all these considerations, staff does recommend approval of the homestay at SE 2022-60.

and that's all I got for you.

Thank you.

We will go through our order.

Supervisor McKeel?

No questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Supervisor Andrews?

No questions.

Thank you.

Just one clarifying because I'm trying to remember exactly the wording when we were discussing this in the ordinance a couple of years ago.

Yes, so because the wording is that an individual owner must reside on the property, an LLC cannot reside anywhere and so then they have to have a resident manager.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

And I have no questions.

Yes, I move that the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors adopt the resolution in attachment F to approve a home stay special exception to permit a resident manager to fulfill the residency requirements for home stay use at 4504 Turkeyside Road.

All right, we have a motion from Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, excuse me, and a second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

All right, thank you, Board.

Thank you, Ms.

At this time, we'll move to item number 10, AC44 Phase 2.

Ms.

Good afternoon members of the board.

My name is Tori Kanalopoulos and I'm a Senior Planner in the Community Development Department and I'm joined today by Vlad Gavrilovic, Principal Planner with EPRPC, Jesse Brookins, Director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion, and Gabe Daley, Climate Protection Program Manager.

Today we will be discussing Phase 2 of AC44, which stands for Albemarle County 2044 and is the project name for the county's comprehensive plan update.

So our agenda for today is starting off with where we are in the AC44 process and reviewing where we went in phase one.

We'll share an overview of the revised framework for an equitable and resilient community.

Then we'll discuss how equity and climate action are being integrated into the AC44 process and content and share how we'll be using an equity and climate action lens to evaluate plan recommendations.

Then we'll review the proposed structure for the updated plan.

shared the proposed phase two engagement plan and timeline and then have time for board discussion and questions.

So a reminder of where we are and where we've been.

The comp plan is being updated using a four phase approach, moving from big ideas envisioning to more detailed policies and action steps.

We just completed phase one where we focused on reviewing the current growth management policy and building the framework to guide the next phases of AC44.

In Phase 2, we will be updating policies for each comp plan topic.

We will also be developing planning toolkits for the more detailed recommendations for certain topics, such as land use and transportation.

Later in the presentation, we'll discuss the comp plan topics, structure, and planning toolkits in more detail.

In Phase 3, we will be updating and prioritizing action steps to implement the plan.

And in Phase 4, we will bring all the recommendations together into a final plan document.

At the beginning of each phase, it's helpful to review the project goals that continue to guide the AC44 process.

The goals are update plan content to reflect recent county-wide strategic initiatives including climate action, economic development, and multimodal transportation planning.

Ensure that equity is integrated into the engagement process and the updated plan content consistent with the county's recently added community organizational value and improve plan usability by articulating clearly prioritized goals

incorporating metrics for tracking progress and applying a modern streamline document design.

The goals are also tied to the county's mission statement, which is to enhance the well-being and quality of life for all community members through the provision of the highest level of public service consistent with the prudent use of public funds.

To implement these goals in the county mission statement, we will be using an equity and climate action lens to evaluate plan recommendations.

This graphic shows an overview of phase one with the engagement opportunities and corresponding responses and attendees from each of the three main steps.

In the first step, we shared a local history of growth management, an overview of the current growth management policy, and initial findings from the land use build out.

In the second step, we developed potential growth management options to consider while reviewing the current policy.

Based on the input we received, we developed several common themes.

and in the third step the common themes were refined and developed into big ideas which were then developed into the framework.

The four big ideas provided a foundation for the four components of the framework which are a green and resilient, welcoming and equitable, connected and accessible, and thriving and prosperous community.

To develop the big ideas, we used the community input heard during steps one and two of phase one, equity and climate action, planning commission input, goals in the current comp plan, and best practices.

The framework was refined and developed through community, planning commission, and board input during step three, and the resulting framework prioritizes equity and climate action and resilience as key principles to guide our policies.

Since the board of supervisors meeting on October 19,

The AC44 team has updated the framework to reflect commission and board feedback and the updated framework was included as attachment C in the board's packet.

And there are several ways that the framework will be used going forward.

The framework incorporates the board's priorities for equity and climate action and will be used to guide the development of comp plan policies and action steps along with the equity and climate action lens.

And since there are a variety of interests and perspectives on topics within the comp plan, especially in how we implement the plan, the framework provides a foundation of community support that we can use as we update policies.

And the framework helps to streamline content and show connections across the different comp plan topics.

Changes to the framework since the commission and board meetings include revising language to be aspires to be instead of definitive language, adding Albemarle specific examples, adding information on the purpose and use of the framework, and refining overall content for clarity.

And one suggested change that is not being made with the framework but that will be done in upcoming phases

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone, and happy new year.

Myself and Gabe will be talking about how we're involved in participating with the comprehensive plan, starting with why it is needed.

So, Tori.

So just to merely state that we need to prioritize equity and climate action to our service and to our communities, not guaranteed successful outcomes.

It can no longer really remain at the peripheral, hence why achieving these outcomes really requires us to effectively integrate and strategize our understanding of equity and climate action impacts across the organization.

This is really centered to ensure that we have

local government involved, also to create probable implications on different groups and communities for any given initiative.

One particular thing that we want to focus on as well in terms of understanding equity and climate impacts is how we define it.

So I'd like to share with you all from the Office of Equity and Inclusion how we are currently defining equity within our work and our efforts.

So we have the then referred to from the equity profile

as equity being all community members having access to community conditions and opportunities needed to reach the full potential to experience optimal well-being and quality of life.

This is good.

And this is a good example of the end goal that we wish to achieve.

But how do we communicate and articulate to the community what that process looks like?

It's more than just the end goal, but also the means by which we get there.

So with this description,

We describe equity as a process of continuous action, reflection, and analysis of what is fair and just for all.

As distinguished from equality, whereas equality means the same to all, equity begins by the process of acknowledging that there is an unequal starting place and continues to correct and address the imbalance.

So this is really the initiative by which we wish to move and the intent with which we wish to apply this

to our comprehensive plan.

So now that we know the initiative, what are those actionable steps to really guarantee equities incorporated, which

We show with our four types of equity.

So at the first one, we have recognition of equity, which is really data driven.

We seek to quantify and measure the existing disparities of our quality of life, health and education, and more to the community members that we are working and serving.

We also talk about the second one being distributional.

So what kind of access are we providing and how can we maximize it to our services through our programs?

Then we talk about thirdly for procedural equity.

Again, it's not always about just the end, but the means by which we get to the end goal.

So how are we ensuring a meaningful involvement with community engagement throughout this process with the overall being structural equity, being able to have an institutional and base level within the policy, within the objectives and strategies that will be meaningful and have a positive long-term impact.

But with that, I'll pass to Gabe for climate action.

Thanks, Jesse.

Thanks, board.

We're going to tag team over a few slides, so we'll do one more back and forth.

So alongside integrating equity in the comprehensive plan update, we want to integrate climate action, which you all have been speaking about the importance of.

Ultimately, that integrating climate action into AC44 is about enabling our community members to be able to make choices that help them reduce their carbon footprint.

And so if we can effectively integrate a climate action perspective into the comprehensive plan update, we can essentially empower members of the community to be able to make greener choices, so to speak, in their life.

And it comes down to asking a question about how can we affect systems in the county to make it easier rather than more difficult for folks to be able to live with a lighter carbon footprint in work, in life, recreation, et cetera.

Go to the next slide.

So there's some interesting research that came out of UC Berkeley recently that was summarized in a nice visual way in the New York Times.

The link on the bottom of the slide for folks to check out if you're interested afterwards.

But some pretty impactful large scale national data suggesting interesting results, essentially looking at how greater density in urban areas tends to predict fewer greenhouse gas emissions per household.

at a broad average level.

And then showing how, as you kind of move further out into the suburbs and the exurbs, greenhouse gas emissions per household tend to go up for a variety of reasons.

I won't go into all of them here for time, but there's links to the research if you all are interested.

I give this as an example of something that, when we think about integrating climate action into the comprehensive plan, which looks a lot at different types of land use and development in the county,

that this is one way that we might bring a climate perspective to the comp plan and different kinds of policy objectives that you all are considering making updates to.

So this is just an example, something that certainly staff, the public, you all will look at further.

But I wanted to share it because it's a good example that has some interesting recent research findings behind it.

So on the next slide, just to give you all a visual, one of the things about this recent research that's nice

is they actually have data on averages by census tract throughout the country.

Usually in the last number of years when you see interesting climate data or equity data, often the visuals are for specific case studies that have been done for specific cities in the country, usually cities that are much larger than our community.

And so it's like, well, hey, this is really interesting findings, but it's not necessarily relevant to us here in Albemarle County because it's looking at New York City or it's looking at Los Angeles.

Sometimes we've seen some interesting maps about Richmond.

So here's an interesting one where we have some national level data.

that offers some interesting information broadly about the county.

Again, you can take a look more and happy to explore kind of the details at some other point, but I wanted to share this just as an example of kind of looking at how climate data and greenhouse gas emissions we can bring that as a lens to look at with respect to the comprehensive plan.

So next slide.

Yes, so if you go to the next slide.

So here you can see a visual that we provided to help digest some of the information in the process by which we're going about

utilizing this land.

So if you see it as a pyramid or a mountain, really the first thing that we want to ask at the base level is, are these objectives for the comprehension plan in alignment with climate action, and is it alignment with equity?

So this is the first starter question to make sure that that is at the forefront of intent and of their planning process.

So as we move up this mountain or move up this ladder, we're really looking at to what extent is this objective or even strategy

involved in considering resilience to climate action or climate changes.

Recognitional equity, distributional equity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, procedural equity, health and biodiversity, structural equity, with the ultimate goal being our strategic plan of a more equitable and resilient community.

So this is really the process in which we are considering these major factors and major points to make sure that we are in alignment throughout the process as we continue.

So on the next slide, just some information for you all to be aware of in terms of what the tool does, how we'll plan to use it.

So Jesse's already covered the purpose and ultimately the outcome.

The tool is organized as a series of questions, as Jesse mentioned, about the extent to which a particular objective in the comprehensive plan update in AC44 meaningfully addresses the county's equity and climate action goals.

That again, you all have been quite serious about wanting to make sure that staff are integrating into the update.

So the way that staff will use this tool is Jesse and I will work with folks in community development, Tori, the comp plan team, the consultants, as well as other staff subject matter experts across the organization to look at potential policy objectives and strategies that are being proposed and basically ask those questions having to do with greenhouse gas emissions, with resilience to the impacts of climate change,

with the different dimensions

The last thing I'll say, and I think our portion is done, is that we've used the terms objectives and strategies and evaluating objectives and strategies.

So just to put a point on that, we are being specific with those two terms.

We've designed the tool in review of looking at the 2015 comprehensive plan where each chapter has

A number of objectives throughout it and then each of those objectives has usually three to sometimes ten strategies within it and so the way the tool is designed to work is it's designed to look at a policy idea at the level or a policy goal at the level of an objective

as a unit with the strategies that are part of it.

So I know sometimes goals, objective strategies, that language can be used loosely.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Vlad Gavrilovic again, principal of the EPR, more tag team.

but thank you for the opportunity to share with you a proposal for updating the comprehensive plan structure and appreciate your patience with some of the charts here.

We feel it's very important to get the structure right before you start plugging in the content so we really want to get your feedback and guidance on this important stage.

We've been working with your outstanding staff on

As you know, the 2015 plan is an extensive document.

It runs to over 400 pages with 900 pages of appendices, 700 pages of reference documents, but it's truly comprehensive.

There's 10 chapters ranging from the vision to the implementation plan.

As Gabe alluded to, each chapter has a goal, several objectives, several strategies under those objectives.

And this is not unusual for this generation of comprehensive plans.

I call this kind of the legacy plans that accumulate these policies and plans over time and it becomes a cumulative document where each new update or each new standalone plan has to be incorporated into the new plan wholesale.

However, we think, next slide, that there's an opportunity here to streamline this new update to the plan and address some of the issues with the current structure.

The biggest issue we saw is this growing collection of what we call standalone plans or element plans, such as the climate action plan or biodiversity action plan.

All very important, but they add to the comprehensive plan over time being a longer and longer document.

A similar related issue is that the land use plan in the county

to date has been done through these individual master plans, transportation plans as well, rather than some kind of overarching land use and transportation framework.

So next slide.

As these comprehensive plans get more complex, some counties are moving towards this more sophisticated model of a family of plans.

As more and more standalone elements need to be incorporated,

The comprehensive plan really graduates to become an overarching framework for this family of plans.

As you can see in the Arlington County example on the left, they have that kind of pinwheel with a county vision in the middle and all the different element plans around it.

These are really links in the document.

A plan nowadays does not live in a three-ring binder.

It lives online.

So it really helps the user-friendliness to have these documents be links within the overall plan.

and it brings important kind of benefits for updating to them too, which I'll get to.

Next slide shows how this could work for the county, this basic three-part structure.

The top of the structure is in the pyramid diagram would be the policy framework that would contain the vision, the goals, objectives and strategies for each element that apply countywide.

Below that would be the element plans, things like housing or resources or transportation.

And below that, of course, the resource documents that were in the 2015 plan.

But what you'd actually adopt is the top two tiers, the policy framework and the element plans.

The others would be references.

And so I'd like to share with you just briefly how each piece of this pyramid structure could work.

Next slide.

The policy framework, first of all, would have the overall county vision and the framework for an equitable and resilient community.

It would have the goals, objectives, and strategies for each of the six new elements.

And you'll notice here we're proposing some streamlining of the ten elements from your current comprehensive plan down to six new chapters, but not losing anything, just combining some of them into a smaller set of basically chapters.

Then the next level down in the pyramid would be the element plans.

And a key recommendation here is to combine the land use and the transportation element together, which admittedly would make this the biggest of the element plans, but we think there's a good planning reason for looking at transportation and land use together.

This chapter would have a set of guiding policies for both land use and transportation.

and then links to the individual master plans or the corridor plans which can be added to over time as they grow.

And then it would have this kind of set of development guidelines that would apply countywide and would have this kind of goal of uniting all the different design guidelines and policies you have in the master plans currently and providing some more uniform development guidance countywide.

And then the other five element plans would have a similar structure.

They'd each have this introductory section, some summary data points, summary of policies, kind of a mini policy framework.

And then they provide links to the more detailed element plans, whether they're climate action, biodiversity action, housing, or whatever.

And then finally, the reference documents, which would not be adopted as part of the plan, but they'd be linked there.

All the legacy reference plans, such as the regional hazard mitigation plan or the regional transportation plan would be in there.

And as these become updated or superseded, all you'd need to do is update the links within the document.

So that's the basic structure proposed here.

I just want to say in closing that we feel there's some real benefits to this, this family of plans approach.

We feel you'd have a much more user-friendly plan.

You'd have a single place for all the policies, goals, objectives, and strategies that apply county-wide.

I think, as Tori alluded to, we also look for streamlining some of those and getting them down to dozens rather than hundreds.

The land use and transportation plans would be linked together at a high level with some basic county-wide guidance, but then they'd also have the individual master plans and corridor plans for more detailed guidance.

And most importantly, though, updating this will be streamlined.

You could provide a link to a new element plan or an updated one, and you'd incorporate any new policies from that element plan into your overall Top of the Pyramid policy guidance.

So this is, as I said, very important to get the structure right before you start plugging in the content.

We're going to be doing that in this phase.

But we look forward to your guidance and be happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you, Vlad.

And I'll be the last presenter.

So now that we've covered the proposed structure, we'll move to the proposed phase two engagement plan and timeline, which was included as attachment A in the packet.

There are three engagement goals that we're using to guide outreach and community input during the AC44 process Which are conduct outreach and collaborate with community members whose perspectives have not historically been well represented in county processes develop and implement a transparent community engagement and decision-making process and provide consistent and varied opportunities for community input throughout the update process and

and these goals help inform our engagement plan for each phase.

For example, they provide a foundation for the working group's role and they help guide our engagement opportunities.

They are also tied to the county's community organizational value, which says that we expect diversity, equity and inclusion to be integrated into how we live our mission.

Equitable outcomes in the updated comp plan need to be supported by equitable opportunities for engagement and we are continuing to work toward expanding our outreach efforts to hear from a wider range of community members.

The overall engagement approach for phase two is similar to phase one.

We are continuing to use the four-pronged approach for iteratively developing and refining content.

County staff and consultants provide research, data, engagement opportunities, and draft recommendations.

The working group provides insight and feedback and engages with their networks and neighbors.

Community members provide input through community engagement opportunities, both online and in person.

The Planning Commission provides recommendations on draft content to staff, and the Board provides the final direction.

As in Phase 1, there are three main steps for community engagement in Phase 2, which we expect to last from now through the end of this year.

The outcomes of Phase 2 are updated goals and objectives for each plan topic, an updated plan structure, and developing planning toolkits for more detailed land use and transportation recommendations.

The three steps of engagement are shown in the lighter green boxes on the top row and represent each main opportunity for community input.

The working group meetings correspond with each step, with the working group conducting outreach on their own during each.

And there are work sessions with the planning commission and board after steps two and three to further refine content.

And I will note that the proposed timeline does not preclude additional work sessions with the commissioner board as needed.

While this is a similar approach to phase one, we will continue to learn from the engagement we have already done and make changes to improve, such as providing additional outreach materials to the working group and more time in between their meetings so that they can engage with their networks more effectively.

And I'll provide a brief overview of each of the steps on the next slides.

So in step one, we would share topic area reports for each comp plan element.

These reports would include data, trends, challenges and opportunities, and equity and climate action considerations for each topic.

And each report would have a corresponding one-page summary with key takeaways for easy reference.

We would ask for community input through an online questionnaire on challenges and opportunities to build on what we heard during phase one and help inform updating the goals and objectives.

We would also plan to hold pop-ups around the county for community members to stop by and have conversations about their lived experiences.

In step two, we would hold a series of roundtables for community members to share input on draft planning toolkit recommendations.

Planning toolkits would likely be focused on land use and transportation, and they could include an activity center framework based on multimodal systems planning, development guidelines related to land use and the neighborhood model,

Land Use Categories, and other policy guidance.

And we would share a summary of feedback we heard during step one.

And in step three, we would share updated goals and objectives through a series of open houses for community members to review and provide feedback on.

The updated goals and objectives would be streamlined and follow the new comp plan structure.

And they would incorporate the framework and be reviewed with the equity and climate action lens.

We would also reflect recommendations as developed in the planning toolkits and would continue to refine those in this step.

So that concludes our presentation and we have a few areas of discussion for the board to consider.

So staff is asking for board direction on proceeding with the proposed comp plan structure, proceeding with the proposed phase two engagement approach and timeline, and any additional feedback as the AC44 team begins phase two.

So we'll turn it over to the board for discussion, and we're happy to answer any questions.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

We will go through our order.

Thanks to all the presenters.

This was really great.

In a way, even though I've sat down at home and very carefully read this, I feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose.

But anyways, it's all good.

I guess the idea is to go through these three.

Do you want each one of us to do this?

My first comment would be yes, yes, and yes.

I was very pleased with what you presented.

I do have a couple of questions though, Donnie.

Is this time for us to ... Yeah, okay.

Questions and maybe comments.

Refresh my memory, just trying to think back because we've certainly talked about the comp plan and the process a lot.

What were the demographics of the groups that we were able to engage in phase one?

I'm just trying to remember, and I don't mean specifics, but just in general.

Yeah, and I don't have the full statistics in front of me.

And we tried to do a better job as we went on of asking for those options, people to answer the questions if they felt comfortable doing so.

I would say maybe a third of people actually felt comfortable answering them.

But I think overall, still hearing more from homeowners versus renters.

More from higher income demographics.

So we want to reach out, you know, work on reaching more of those groups.

But we did hear from the people who responded from a pretty wide geographic representation so far.

Thank you.

From the people who responded to the optional questions, yes.

But we do want to work on improving that as well, whether that's through pop-ups.

We're also hoping with this working group that giving them more time in between meetings gives them more of an opportunity to meet with their neighbors.

Yeah, and I understand the challenge.

And I think the pop-ups are really a good idea.

I would actually request just for me that I would love for staff to reach out to me as a supervisor in the Jack Jouett District for suggestions on what would be good locations for the pop-ups in addition to what you all might, just because, right?

I found some of the data that you shared early on counterintuitive and very interesting.

Thank you for that.

.

my note was on urban area and transit and the discussion about

in the urban areas, the need for people to be able to get around.

Of course, our concern right now is our transit is really not viable.

We're working on it, but it's not anywhere near as robust as we would like, just kind of a comment.

Encouraging the board and the community to really work hard on transit as it's very important to this work, to our climate change work.

and let's see, other notes I had.

In general, I really do want to say I agree with

trying to make this more modern, shorter.

I really appreciate that focus.

It is daunting even to me.

Not that I'm an expert, but having said that, I really do think that that's great.

I did have one question.

When we're talking about the land use and transportation elements, and there's

You know, we talk about the master plans, and I'm not sure exactly how you might get at this, but the Lambs Lane campus now has a master plan.

Now maybe, you know, you gave examples here, and because that's in my district, it jumped out at me as missing.

Not taking offense at all, but it is a master plan for an educational campus, but it certainly involves transportation, economic development, and it is a master plan that has been vetted by this board as well as the school board.

So I just want to make sure that somehow or another we at least think about that.

because it is a really important master plan for that area, Hydraulic Road, Georgetown Road, and that core area.

And I see you stood up, so.

But I definitely appreciate that note and we'll work with staff to make sure that, you know, master plans include

Thank you and let me see if I had anything else Donna.

I think since I'm the first one out of the gate I think I'll just stop and see what everybody else has to say.

Thank you and we'll give you a chance to come back if you think of something else.

Yes, thank you very much.

I just have a couple questions and actually one comment I think Supervisor

McKeel, am I correct in thinking that your counter intuitiveness regarding something was at the greater density in the have less greenhouse gases?

That blew me away.

That blew me away.

I thought the same thing.

If we can go back to page 19.

By the way,

What you're requesting, I'm in favor of.

So we can skip that part.

May I offer just one phrase of clarification on that?

For household.

Just just so because they're smaller.

Thank you.

So on night, let's see 19

Yes.

Yes, so for, there we go.

So for Recognition Equity, it's really basically data driven, seeking to quantify and measure our outcomes for quality of life in the health and access to education.

Distributional is really making sure that we are consistent in maximizing our access.

So when we talk about land use and who's available and how these resources are being used, we're making sure that it is distributed in a fair and equitable sense and that means of production.

So these are really the steps that we're looking at highlighting for equity because there are different components to how you approach equity.

Yes, and I remember this particular slide, but then we went to the other one.

We didn't spend a lot of time on this one, I don't think so.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

Anyone would be welcome to attend them.

I think what we would probably set them up as is choose a few different days and times and locations,

and have our recommendations for the goals and objectives available and then people could walk through and stop in as they have time and talk to staff and share their input on the policies that have been drafted.

Hi, I can address that question.

Kevin McDermott, I'm the Acting Director of Planning.

I just wanted to step in because we are currently working with CAPE right now and in the new community connectors that we've brought in and we're gonna be training them up on a lot of elements of the comp plan and one of the things we are looking at is sending them out to

Thank you very much Mr. McDermott and that clarifies that and I think organizationally you're doing a great job and I look forward to seeing a shorter version.

All right, thank you.

Yes, also thank you for excellent presentations and really appreciate all of it.

I'm glad we're going back to slide 39 because I want to make sure I focus on what you've asked for.

But noticing what you've asked for, I guess I see the presentation that was given as having three groups and I really loved the equity and climate focus that we started from.

and how that would be incorporated into everything and that's very important to me and the resilience that comes with that.

That particular topic doesn't seem to be reflected quite so much in the request for directions on what's going forward because then the first question is proceeding with new comprehensive plan structure.

My only concern, and I really do appreciate the streamlining and the effort to

understand how the plans fit together because there are so many of them.

But it looked to me when I started to look at that section, particularly the second stage of the pyramid, that it was again separating out the plans into their different

That was my one concern about the structure, that it still maintained this focus that I heard at the beginning.

that told us that we were looking hard at how this worked with equity and climate and that that covers the land use, the transportation, housing things.

There are a lot of parts of this that need to be looked at that are going to impact all of it.

So that's sort of my overall impression of how the structure

I think it's an excellent presentation.

I love what's going on.

I think it sounds like a great idea.

The question I would ask is just,

You've done through phase one.

Is there anything that you would say you did to get feedback on your engagement in phase one and apply that feedback to phase two?

I'm just simply suggesting that in every case, we'll want to go back and look and see, did this work?

before just saying we're going to do what we did before, but now with a different phase of the project.

Do you want me to share some of that now?

Sure, please.

OK.

Well, one thing which we covered was the working group asking for more time and more materials from us to host their own engagement meetings.

So we're going to you know have fewer meetings with them overall But then provide more robust materials and more support for them to do their own engagement I think another big takeaway was You know with some of our earlier surveys hearing that some of the questions were too complicated And so we're always trying to strike a balance between you know some community members Would prefer to just kind of answer you know high level just give some general feedback and others you know really want to dive into the recommendations and

So with our updated engagement, we're trying really hard to have kind of short key takeaway materials and then more detailed reports so that if someone wants to participate, they can choose what level of detail that they want to get into and working on making our survey questions a little bit more straightforward as much as possible, too.

Sorry, just to respond to your first point, too, I think that's an important one.

I don't think equity and resilience are reflected as neatly in the structure that you saw, so it's a point well taken.

And I don't think we had time to get into it procedurally when we're going through this equity and climate action lenses that Jesse and Gabe presented.

Tori, correct me if I'm wrong, but these are going to be gone through all the goals, policies, strategies are going to be passed through these lenses.

I think you'll see in the final document that those are the overarching themes throughout everything.

Thank you.

I'm looking forward to it.

That's excellent to hear.

And yeah, everything else, I'm thinking this is going really well and appreciate the work.

I like what I hear about combining land use and transportation together.

Connectivity is a constant theme and I look forward to more.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I am truly a comp plan aficionado, so I am afraid I have more questions perhaps than some others.

I would like to run through in order of how my colleagues have addressed things because that makes it easier to keep straight.

Someone asked about open houses and I think finding ways to provide more background than a three-sentence introduction and then expect someone to answer a question is really helpful, whether it's printed materials they get on the door or ways where our

Regional newsletters and newspapers can share this information.

Here's homework if you're coming to the CCAC and you have time to read this ahead of time, this will really help you to participate better.

I would love to be able to have access to those as well as for neighborhood meetings that each of us may hold.

This has built in conflict and tension everywhere you look, all of these topics.

I understand why in the old days there were chapters because

That was how you got the information out about the chapter and what had been adopted.

I will grumble a little bit at Vlad's description about how our 2015 comp plan was a series of notebooks because you should have seen it before.

Yes, it is a lot of chapters.

I have no concern about the length.

I'm much more concerned about its understandability and that kind of thing.

It took five years to do because all of those different notebooks were assembled and Neil is nodding because he was here.

to get these together under one vision and one mission and how those were reflected throughout.

But we did not, as far as I remember, deal with the conflict tension because that was just too over the top and we never would have gotten done.

So hopefully with these approaches we'll be able to get to some of those very thorny issues and have a more effective document going forward.

We have to really be careful about avoiding leading questions in these surveys.

That's been a real pushback.

I have received people calling and complaining about that, so I will just leave that thought with you all for great care.

I love what Gabe said about just saying it is not enough, and I agree completely that we're getting to the hard part now, and I understand that.

Another issue is in the tension conflict side is

We are looking at a very narrow view of greenhouse gas emissions, transportation basically, and buildings.

But we haven't, and maybe you have, maybe you have it in your mind and it just hasn't come into our discussion yet about all the offsets that open space and conservation provide.

Because people who live way out in the middle of nowhere, as I do, surrounded by 90 acres of forest, there is a certain balance there that

has a benefit and in the 2015, I was looking for the page this morning and I couldn't find it in the 2015 comp plan.

It talks a lot about the amenities for climate protection, water protection, air quality protection that the rural areas provide.

And so I will be raising that issue as we continue to go along because it hasn't seemed to have come up yet.

Miles driven, no question about it.

Buildings, no question about that either.

But just avoiding the sort of all or nothing

Buckets that seem to divide people and then we end up with a rural urban argument that was really going to waste our time and not get us anywhere.

As I said, I don't care that it's longer than usual because I don't know what the goals were of those other communities.

Whereas we are very concerned here about being a

the place we are and not any place USA and so that's been my worry all along as we look at importing text from other places for example that we're losing that and I'll just say it right out there.

I think I understand the benefits of the elements plan, but rural areas missing.

That was something I looked at because the grand majority of my district and half, fifty percent of my district's people live in the rural areas.

They're saying, well, I was on the working group and we never talked about anything that the rural areas were involved in.

Maybe it's coming later and I understand that.

I didn't write down the page.

In page 33, it was on your 33 and something else, it showed little diagrams with circles and things going like this.

It looked like all the input from the citizens was going through the working group instead of directly back to staff.

If that's not correct, that's great, but I don't think that the working group should be the filter that does anything to get between our citizens and the process.

and again just avoiding dividing people into buckets is direct outreach.

There's a very small mention of rural area residents there as people who are underrepresented but if one thinks back to the 80s and 90s almost everybody was rural back then and there were meetings in the schools, Scottsville Community Center, Greenwood School, all over.

and there were huge crowds of people and they were definitely rural folks who had just come to see what was what and to stand up for their main concern in many ways was this element that we should in the rural area we should have residential be equal to ag and forestry and there was huge pushback on that and that was even in 2015 that was not put in and so if we want to achieve our rural urban sort of designations

then we shouldn't be encouraging people to think that the rural area is just a place where you go and put up a house necessarily.

Let me see, I think I may have, and I have more to learn.

The 13 chapters in the green boxes, there were a lot of those, I couldn't quite see how they went into the yellow, green, and blue chapters yet, but I'm willing to be patient and see how those go forward.

and I'm looking forward to being able to read things in draft.

It would be very helpful for me because I like to take time to sort of absorb things.

I don't do well today with all of these new slides that we never got to see before, so I'm sort of scrambling trying to take notes.

So if you're able to, even with great big draft,

letters across the pages to be able to say, here's where we're working on now.

That would be very helpful for Bea and perhaps others as well to be able to do that.

I don't know quite how countywide development guidelines would happen since the rules are so different in those two regions.

So that's just another question that doesn't have an answer yet.

But I'll stop there.

Thank you very much.

Oh, I think tentative yes on the structure and

Thank you.

As much as I prefer to have everything in a single volume, I think we have to acknowledge that the complexities

are such that it becomes more difficult to do that and so I support the family of plans approach to the comprehensive plan.

I think that's a good start and it will also make things easier as we have to make modifications or amendments later on.

So I would say focusing on the structure, yes and yes to the two questions.

Then the feedback as you begin phase two, my comment here is probably gonna step a little beyond phase two, but slide 17, I think it was, was really significant in, yes, that one, because it makes perfect sense that each household

in the development area, the more densely populated, would have a lesser individual household impact on the climate as opposed to those in the rural areas such as myself because the travel that we have to spend to reach amenities or whatever is substantially more extensive

and it also the nature of life in the rural area generally will require larger vehicles because of the things you have to bring out there.

And the reason I bring this up and as I say these comments probably go beyond phase two is it demonstrates the necessity of this board and this county encouraging

As we reach the balance between density of development and quality of life, ensuring that we are approving development within the development area to a higher capacity than we have heretofore been approving

in order to

The larger the geographic area those services have to be provided to, the more expensive it becomes to our community members.

So that would be my comment in terms of going forward, which I recognize are a little beyond the structure per se, but I hope that those will be taken into consideration as we move forward with the comprehensive plan.

And with that, I'll just look around to see if any supervisors have any additional comments.

Only to say it's a great discussion, and I am very pleased with the timeline.

Yes.

You know, for us to be able to finish it within this calendar year, it looks like, of course, I realize that some of the work will continue on further, but what they're talking about right here for that timeline, I am really pleased.

For eight or nine years, we've been talking about those disconnects, so that'd be really nice.

Thank you.

All right.

Anything further?

I appreciate you asking.

I know that after this meeting's over that Mr. Walker, Ms.

Filardo, and the CD staff, they'll sit down and talk through this feedback, and if there are any areas of confusion or clarification, we'll follow back up with the board.

But thank you very much for your interest today, and really appreciate the community development's excellent work, along with the consultants and the feedback from some key areas in county government.

So as you can see, this is a cross-departmental

All right.

Thank you this time.

We are scheduled for a recess But we're about a half hour ahead so Mr. Richardson, let me check with you to see if

Mr. Lynch is in the back of the room, and so he is here early, and so it's certainly the board's desire of when you'd like to have your break.

Any preference?

Alright, we'll go ahead and take a 10 minute break, come back at 2.40 then.

Alright, good afternoon again everybody.

At this time, we'll move to item number 11, calendar year 2023, reassessment presentation.

Thank you, Madam Chair, honorable boards of supervisor members.

My name is Peter Lynch.

I'm the county assessor.

And this will be the eighth time that I've presented these reassessment results to you.

And so thank you for your time today.

So as this introductory slide indicates, I'm going to share the results of the 2023 reassessment.

So not to drag out the suspense, the overall change due to the reassessment is 13.46% over 2022.

However, what I think is most important about what I'm going to be sharing with you today is not that number.

Though historically high, it's well supported by sales

and market data.

And so it's an appropriate number.

So as the one who is responsible for establishing and defending assessments in Albemarle County, my biggest concern with this large increase this year is that it will be a surprise to most people.

Because the latest news about the economy, about the market is not

that's going to make people think 13.46% increase.

So this slide is our historical assessment changes over the last 14, 15 years since we started the annual reassessment in 2008.

And what is not shown on here is the big run-up in assessed values prior to 2008.

that led up to the decline in values from 2009 to 2013, followed by kind of a steady growth through those years up to the last two years.

So last year we had an 8.4% increase as this graph shows.

We expected record numbers of people to be calling our office

last spring because of that record increase.

We ended up with record low numbers of people calling our office, record low numbers of reviews and board of equalization appeals because they understood what was going on with the market.

They knew people were bidding up the sales on houses and that

the assessments would be higher.

So I was surprised, but luckily everybody understood what was going on.

This year I don't believe that's going to be what we experience, especially due to what is being currently discussed in the market and what you hear day to day.

The Fed has raised interest rates aggressively over the past few months.

Obviously that affects home values.

In the media, generally you hear how the housing market is declining.

I read a story the other day that stated mortgage rates doubled and sales plummeted.

So why am I standing here talking about this type of increase?

And it's really, the answer is all about timing.

We're required to assess properties.

with an effective date of January 1st.

So January 1st was our cutoff for any information that can be used to establish the assessment, to defend the assessment, or to contest the assessment.

And all of the information that we found all throughout 2022 indicated the assessments that we've created for 2023.

And I'm going to show you a lot more detailed information to support that.

So this is a graph of all the sales throughout 2022, all the valid sales that we found.

And it shows that what I was concerned about, especially over the last several months, is when the Fed started changing the rates, that we would see a dip at the end of the year over those two months that showed lower values or a higher assessment ratio

of assessment to sale price.

But we didn't see that.

What you're actually seeing here is a plot of all of the assessment ratios of all those sales.

So the fact that the line that I drew across the center of this graph shows that the assessment ratios dropped from a little over 100% to a little below 100% by the end of the year.

And they're pretty steady.

There's no big drop off at the end.

It indicates that still throughout 2022 the values were increasing throughout the year, though a little bit from the beginning to the end.

So now I'm going to start talking about a few of the kind of different breakdowns of the results that we have.

The 13.46 is an overall for the entire county for taxable parcels.

We break down, these are state property class codes with urban, residential, rural.

apartments and commercial.

So you can see the different breakdowns here.

Things of note this year, and I'll have more slides on it, is that commercial is going up when it has been going down over the last couple years or staying pretty steady.

So I'll get into more detail on that.

So this slide is specifically talking about your single-family residential and commercial changes over a three-year period.

So you see the single-family residential this year is up 12.4%, as opposed to the commercial's 15.47%.

Even though the commercial is going up a lot this year, overall over the last three years, it's really a moderate increase compared to the rest of the property classes.

And I will get more into details on commercial in another slide.

So, and this is the detail on some of the different commercial property types.

So, despite the fact that you see shopping centers and hotels going up 21 and 40 percent respectively, those three-year averages after the decreases that happened in 2021 are pretty moderate.

Four percent for shopping centers, nine percent for hotels.

Now, apartments in many storage properties are very sought after, they're doing very well, and those values are up quite a bit over that three-year period, including a large increase in 2023.

This is our breakdown we include every year, which is the change overall of taxable properties by magisterial district.

Typically what we see here is if commercial is higher or lower of an increase than the residential, some of the districts that have more commercial will be affected.

So some of the, you know, Rio, Jack Jouett, Rivanna typically have more commercial.

properties in them so that they can be affected that way.

So in this slide we start getting into our the kind of the work we do.

The rest was the results of you know what's going on with values themselves.

This is the work we do to support those values and

So this slide shows that, overall, with our residential sales, our single-family residential sales, we are at 100% ratio, which is... So let me explain very quickly what a ratio is when I refer to a ratio.

So in the appraisal industry, or the assessment industry, or the assessor's job, we use mass appraisal as a standard basis for assessments.

Mass Appraisal uses ratio studies and valuation models to determine values of all properties.

We use the actual sales of properties to calibrate the models that we create to come up with those values.

So the ratio that I'm referring to is the assessment and in this case the new assessment we've created to the sale price ratio.

and when we looked at that big plot of ratios on that one graph, that's what those were, is the assessment of sale price.

A ratio greater than one means that the assessment is above the sale price and lower than one would be lower than the sale price.

And typically we don't look at it one-on-one, we look at it in groups so that we can combine multiple sales together to determine what the market is doing.

So on this graph, actually, it's a little bit busy, but I have eight different groupings by value range that are included in this graph.

So we have four groups on the left and four groups on the right, starting with the lowest of homes less than $150,000 value up to, on the right, over $2 million value homes.

The second column of each group is just the number of properties that are included in that value range for which we had just reassessment changes on this year.

If there was new construction, we didn't include that in this study.

The third column is the average increase for that group.

The fourth one is the sales, the number of sales that applied within that group that have that value range.

And then our median ratio that our guidelines say that we should be at 100% of ratios of the sale prices.

And these are all right at just below 100% in these cases.

Our goal is to be between 99 and 101 percent in any group that we're looking at, any grouping that we're looking at, and our goal overall for sales of individual properties are to have most of them between 90 percent and 100 percent of the sale price.

And when we were talking about the work that we've done, the majority of properties, over 90 percent fall within that 90 to 110 percent range.

So what's important on this slide, I believe, now that I've explained what all the different parts are, is that when we look at our assess values after we create a new model and after we calibrate it, we want that 100% overall, obviously, but we want, no matter how we look at the data, to be at 100% or close to it.

So we set our model up based on a style of a house.

Is it two stories or one story?

But then we have to look at how old properties are, what grade of property they are.

So grade really applies to this breakdown.

Are the luxury and mansion homes being assessed at close to 100% at the same time as our $150,000 homes are?

to have that equity across the value range.

So we look at all of those, we look at it by neighborhood to make sure one neighborhood is not high compared to another one and we adjust our model, different parts of our model to make each aspect of that model work.

So like I said, this is related to the value range and the grade of a property typically and information we provide at the bottom of this is what effect would this change in value make to the normal taxpayer with a home of these values in these value ranges.

So just as an estimate of

If you had a home worth $150,000 after the reassessment, it's worth $150,000.

It would have gone up around 9.13%.

You'll end up paying $106.75 more in taxes.

That's with no change to a tax rate.

Obviously, that's a conversation that comes afterwards in part of the budget conversation.

Now, the median home price is now $436,300.

and the effect of that would be someone with a property of that value would be $384 more in taxes at that same tax rate.

So that's information that I wanted to provide for you.

So on this slide we have

where I'm trying to show overall the 13.64% overall increase, obviously everybody's affected differently.

And you're gonna have half of the properties increasing more than that and half less than that typically.

So in this case, we have more than 10,000 properties that are going up in excess of 15%.

The vast majority are between 5 and 15 percent.

So just to show the effect on individual properties, we quite often get phone calls.

You said it was going up 13 percent, but mine went up 20 or mine went up 5.

You know, what's the difference?

And the difference is every property is different, and they don't all change the same way based on the market.

The market doesn't change in a uniform way in any aspect.

Okay, so back in 2019, we were able to add a staff position

for a use value administrator, someone who would be dedicated to work on use value of the land use program full time.

that has

I say clean up this program a little bit to where we make sure that properties that are qualified under this program are properly qualified.

So as you see on this slide, the number of parcels included in the program has dropped as we've been working on

ensuring that that has happened.

This is actually a continuance of work that we started back in 2016-2017 but it's accelerated a little more and we've been able to do a little more effective work on it since we brought Eric in.

So one aspect of that benefit is the number of parcels and the amount of value that's deferred each year due to that program.

So now that we have less parcels

a number of parcels in the program, the deferred amount is lower than it would have been.

But the second aspect of that is that we're able to find more times when the qualified use that gets them in the program has changed.

And one major misconception of, and I'm referring to rollbacks in this case, rollbacks of the deferred value.

The misconception about this is that your property is either in or out completely of the program.

But what really happens is that you own a property that's either in forestry or in agriculture, and you build a house.

And more often than not, you're building a house on an area that was previously qualified, and we're going to roll back that two-acre home site where that house is being built.

So that adds up a lot.

and something we probably were missing in previous years.

So if you look at this graph or this slide, we had some high numbers in the past of rollback amounts, but there were low numbers of actual rollbacks.

and those were just because this was specifically Brookhill Development that was all under the Use Value Program and it was rolled back in those two years and it was a very large amount for those two years.

But in a normal year we had a pretty low number in the 300,000 range.

Since then we have been doing this work, you know,

regularly with Eric and bringing in the proper amount of rollbacks that should be done as properties are being developed in a small way, not just in a large way.

So as you see, the rollback amount in 2022 was quite a bit higher, and the actual number of properties that were affected were higher.

And this is important because the rollback part of it, there's a big debate over the land use program or the use value program.

10% of the properties or so are under the programming bank gaining the benefit of the tax decrease.

The other 90% are not.

So the rollback part of it is kind of that protection is that recovery of those deferred values.

So it's important to know that that part of it also exists.

It's not just the decrease but the liability of the increase that happens.

One of the other things I want to make sure is that Eric is not a hammer.

He's not out there banging on doors.

He does a great job educating the public about the program.

And it's really important to know if all you think of is you get into the use value program, you're going to reduce your value, that you have this liability in the future.

You have this obligation to maintain your use and that things that change it could affect

either your qualification or your ability to be rolled back.

So I wanted to just point this out today.

And then one last thing about the Use Value Program is we use the SLEAC rates when we value that portion of the properties.

And we always have, I believe, in Albemarle County, certainly as long as I've been in here.

And those SLEAC rates are also going up a lot.

These are set by

the Department of Forestry, the Virginia Tech, they all get together on the SLIAC Council and determine what those rates would be for all the jurisdictions in Virginia.

And just some general information.

So this year there have been not just a lot of market activity last year, there was a lot of new parcels being created through Platts.

We're up 991 parcels created with Platts in 2022.

We're almost up to 50,000, we're getting close.

Total parcels.

We are going to be mailing our reassessment notices on the 20th of January.

Those will notify all of the public of what their new assessment is for 2023.

That notice, and I believe as an attachment to the executive summary, you received a copy of our FAQs that were updated for this year.

We are also sending

An insert that has updated phone numbers for contacting the finance department, different parts of the finance department.

If someone is calling to ask about their bill or if they're calling about personal property or if they're calling my office, there are different numbers in it.

That'll help you get to the right person.

We will kind of follow on from this process.

We will create the land book in May.

Obviously, we're going to be going through reviews, any reviews that we get over the next few months.

We'll finalize values at that point in May and create the land book, and then the tax bills will be created directly from the land book.

So that will determine what is mailed out.

That will be due June 25th.

As just a reminder, 2023 is a revalidation year so we have a big event every two years where we have all properties under use value revalidate and we are preparing for that now so that we can have that be as smooth as possible.

And then I have one last slide

about the review process.

So when people receive their notices after the 20th, the new assessments will become available on GIS on Saturday morning on the 21st, so they can see them either way.

But once they see that and they see what's happening to their value, the best thing my

My recommendation is that the taxpayer call my office and talk to the appraiser that handles their property.

The appraiser can explain the valuation process.

They can provide the sales that we have for their neighborhood, for their property type.

They can confirm any data that maybe we don't have updated on their property.

number of bathrooms or they added an addition or something like that.

And then if necessary, they can set an appointment for the appraiser to visit the property.

And that's always a great thing if we have that connection with the taxpayer.

If we still don't have agreement on what the value is, the property owner can request a review, and that is a formal process.

They fill out a form, they provide us with a reason why they believe the value is too high or sometimes too low, and any support they might have for a change in the assessment.

I will review with both the supervisor and the appraiser

the value of the property, any information that was found.

We will do an interior inspection on properties based on this process and we'll either update that information and the value or we will explain why we're not.

That response will be in writing.

The final

aspect of kind of the appeal season is the Board of Equalization.

The Board of Equalization is a board of six members that the Board of Supervisors has set in place.

and they will look at, they will listen to what my office has done and our reason for the assessment being where it is.

They will listen to the property owner or their representative explain as why they think the value should be different and then they'll make a binding decision on that value.

Now the Board of Equalization, there's a separate application for that.

and those applications can be gotten from my office.

They're controlled so you know who we've sent them to.

And you can apply to the board by March 30th or you can apply 30 days after the results letter from a review.

So if we have done a review on a property and we send a letter, you have a little bit extra time sometimes.

We also require an interior inspection for the Board of Equalization, so that is always a requirement for both of those.

We stopped requiring that during the pandemic, but we're back to needing to do that part of the process.

So that is it for my presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Lynch.

We will go through our order.

Peter, as always, thank you for a really good report.

Very thoughtful and great information.

That's great.

Yes, ma'am.

I made a note and I skipped it.

Yeah, that's always very helpful.

I appreciate that.

And I don't think I have any questions right this minute, Peter, but thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Lynch.

I learned a lot.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I really appreciate this and a deep dive.

I'd like to look at it.

I love the data.

I'm a little curious.

I noticed that in slide nine you have for single-family homes a higher increase with higher valuations.

I do think it is also a nationwide trend that apartments are a hot commodity in the

Real Estate Market.

And it's really the difference between that's an income stream that is sought after as opposed to these which are typically owner-occupied.

Thank you.

I really appreciate the instructions as to sort of what to tell people when they call because I do expect to get a few people calling concerned about their appraisals.

Yes, sir.

It is the current and five previous years of deferred value that is recovered.

Six years overall.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I must have misremembered.

As far as I know, it's always been five years.

Okay.

Well, that's long enough for sure.

Let me zoom back to my list.

As always, I thank you for the incredible thoroughness of your approach.

You mentioned on slide four, class code 06, over 100 acres.

I assume that's with a house.

or not.

This actually includes all properties that are over 100 acres.

House or not.

and I tried to label them.

It's not always clear if I'm just addressing single family residential or all residential or the entire county.

Great.

I think one of the big improvements you worked on when you first came was

Somehow the equity across value range and among neighborhoods was not just sales in a particular neighborhood but like neighborhoods around the county.

We have mostly cleaned up.

So one of the problems you might be talking about is that we have created in our office really tiny neighborhoods.

And we tried to analyze them with five parcels or ten parcels with no sales.

Thank you for explaining that.

You're welcome.

Could you explain, just so everybody understands and the public too, we're talking about rollbacks and change of use.

Could you explain who pays?

It is, and that is a concern.

So the person who pays is the person who makes the change to the use.

So if you were to buy a property that was qualified under use value, then you come in and change the use.

You either stop the use completely and the entire property gets rolled back, or you build a house on the property and we roll back, let's say, the two acres that are affected.

You are going to be the one who pays the rollback for the current five previous years, even though you didn't own the property in any of those previous years.

So word to the wise for people shopping is to make sure you get that information in your purchase agreement so you know what's coming and don't get surprised by an extra $25,000 a month after you've hit the property because that has been really crushing to some people.

Absolutely.

Correct.

And we always, anytime it comes up with us, we recommend that they have the conversation and they'll include, you know, we talk to agents as often as we can because they're going to be part of that, you know, making that agreement and making sure it's part of the conversation.

And I guess in Virginia, the realtors are not,

Lee Williams.

the timetable for jumping ahead to revalidation because we may not see you between now and then.

And I will forget to ask you until it's probably too late.

What's the timetable for mailing the forms out?

No, we are looking to mail them probably in July.

August at the latest, beginning of August at the latest.

But no, it wouldn't be in August.

It would be July.

It's always a question of do we do it in the end of June or the beginning of July.

Alright, and when we get to then October

first.

Could you put in your notes?

in the last revalidation.

Judging by what's been happening with our Postal Service around here, anything we can do to avoid that is great.

And then one last question, I forgot.

try to include what they're currently qualified for.

So if they're qualified for 22 acres of forestry and five acres of agriculture, we will have that at the top of the form.

So that's the determination.

Yes ma'am.

Now there is a complication this year.

because one size works so well for everybody.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I did.

I apologize.

I think I'm missing a connection somewhere.

The assessment to sales ratio, as I understand it, is pretty close to one, which sounds exactly what you want it to be.

But then the assessed values, because they're done once a year, are on average going up 13.46%.

So when we ran a sales ratio study in probably early September, before we made any changes to our model, we ran that report and came out with median ratios in the 87%, somewhere in that range.

and that was the first indication that it was going to take a lot to get us to 100%.

We don't know at that point exactly which part of the model we have to adjust, but that was the first indication.

So yes, the sales ratio study works like that.

If you're using the old model against the new sales, you will show that.

Mr. Lynch, pretty much every home or property owner loves to get information.

Their values have gone up except for when they hear it from your office.

Could you go to slide number eight?

Yes, ma'am, so the COD is the variance of so the median ratio of the whole in this case of 2049 sales that that we included in the study that these were just single-family residential sales the median of that group of 2049 ratios was a hundred percent but how tight around that hundred percent

are those ratios, or how wide are they?

And the variance, or the COD, is how tight they are.

So, statistically, probably around 68 to 70 percent of those ratios are within five, so they're between 95 and 105 percent.

And 95, I can't remember the exact

percentages, but about 95% of those ratios fall within 90 to 110.

Got it.

Thank you.

All right, and following up with Supervisor Andrews' earlier question to you about the increase in apartment values, a little bit of speculating on my part, but as the purchase price of family homes goes up,

then the affordability of apartments becomes more attractive and as apartments became more attractive then their values will go up and apartment dwellers will likely be seeing an increase in their rent to accommodate the increase in the property values and the increased taxes that the owners of the apartments will have to pay

And they don't know what to do with that stuff.

Mr. Lynch, you and your office really do incredible work and we thank you for the presentation that you've given us.

Obviously, this now brings a tremendous discussion item for us on the board as we start working towards our budget next year.

Just to look around, any other questions by any other supervisors?

Please.

It's on this slide.

If you look over on the column on the right, that's the state ratio study.

This is the ratio study that's actually conducted by the Department of Taxation.

We just got the updated information for the 2021 sales on Monday and I was rather shocked when I got it and I had to come off the ledge and talk about it with the state as to why this number was so low, 89%.

So we typically have, as you see by this slide,

We've typically been in 93, 94, 95 percent range.

And why are we saying 100 percent like we do in the median ratio column and the state says 93 to 95?

So the difference is we are looking back at 2022 sales and determining what

the 2023 assessments are going to be.

So we're looking backwards.

When they do their study, they will look at 2023 sales and the 2023 assessment.

So when they were looking at the 2021

for that study, they were looking a year later after we've created our values and during a year where the values were rising and we reported an 8.4% in that year after.

So the difference between that normal 93 to 94%, which is the usual lag between our work and their work, was exacerbated by the large increase we had during 21

that led to the 2022 reassessment increase of 8.4%.

So this number, why it was concerning to me to start with, it affects our revenue sharing with the city and it affects education.

It affects the state's contribution to the plan.

What I was assured by the state is that we are in a group with all other jurisdictions in the state.

99% of jurisdictions are in the 80% range, in the 80s this year in 2021.

And we're actually pretty high compared to some.

Charlottesville had an 86% in comparison.

So really, as it affects our revenue sharing plan, it's how are we compared to them, so we're still above what they have.

And so as it affects education and any other funding, it's like I said, it's in comparison to everybody else.

All right, and perhaps not necessarily on that exact same theme, but all of your data for this assessment was based on value calculations as of January 1, 2023.

Correct.

So what the economy does this year

with regard to inflation, interest rates, and the effect on home sales would then affect the values as of January 1st, 2024 for next year's assessment.

Correct.

Thank you.

The board's always gracious with Mr. Lynch.

Nelsie Burch is here as well as Jacob Sumner.

And you see those folks on a regular basis.

We don't see Pete.

We also don't see his staff nearly as often.

Billy Taylor, Sheila Conrad.

I do want to thank the staff because they do work terribly hard.

and Long Hours both in the office and they telework and they're back and forth and they put in a lot of time.

You can see the pride that they take in their work.

The analytics is amazing.

They go the extra step to do their best work for our organization and I just wanted to recognize those folks.

Thank you.

You know, I'll add a personal note on that as many of you have heard me

Comment before I'm a frequent filer here.

I've done a number of permits with you know work on my house and Individuals from your office came out this year to check on what had been you know filed with the permits the work had been done and I really appreciate the value of the work that everyone from community development through assessment does because the permits were

Why do we have permits for safety, you know, public safety?

And we do the assessments to make sure that we're following through with what needs to be done in terms of the valuation and the services that we provide.

Yes, thank you.

I just have one point of clarification for myself.

And then they are due, that's the part I didn't get.

So no, this is just a notice of the assessment, just to notify people what their new assessment is.

The finance department revenue administration will send tax bills after we create the land book in May.

Yes, ma'am.

There's a form.

You can request the form on the telephone.

We can either send it to you, come in and get it, or get it online.

And with the assessment, they'll get the FAQs that provides that information.

And on the back of the assessment form itself,

There's a section that talks about the reviews.

There's a section that talks about the BOE appeals and the deadlines and everything you have to do.

Thank you.

And the phone numbers are also very helpful for us.

All right, board, at this time, we will move to item number 12, the transportation planning quarterly report.

Ms.

Thank you Chair Price and thank you members of the Board of Supervisors.

I'm Jessica Hirsch-Valering, Principal Planner with Community Development and I'm pleased to be presenting the Amaral County Transportation Planning Quarterly Report covering the months of October through December 2022.

So we'll begin with a SmartScale update because this is an important program that represents a large potential funding source for Admiral County.

As we said before, the SmartScale grant program is the primary method for funding large-scale transportation projects in Virginia and it is a competitive funding program.

On August 1, 2022, 12 projects were submitted by the county, the TJPDC, and the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO.

Descriptions of those projects are included in the written quarterly report.

So at the time we submitted those 12 applications, we had not yet received all of the information for those projects from VDOT, namely the cost estimates.

So project cost estimates have now been finalized and they are included in the written quarterly report at the end of each project description.

These cost estimates include escalations and contingencies.

So to explain what that means, I want to zoom out and note two important details about the SmartScale program.

One, if projects are awarded funding, that funding is typically not available for about five to six years.

Given the rising price of goods and services over time, VDOT makes an estimate of how much the project will cost and then escalates the cost estimate for each project phase to account for inflation.

Second, when we submit a SmartScale application, that potential project is still in the conceptual planning phase.

This means we have a clear sense of what we want to do to address a transportation challenge, such as put in a roundabout or add sidewalks, but the exact design of that infrastructure is not complete.

As such, there are still many technical unknowns for the project, and VDOT accounts for those unknowns and their potential cost by adding in contingency costs.

So we've got our base project cost estimate plus escalations plus contingencies and that has resulted in some rather high estimates.

At a recent MPO policy board meeting we heard from VDOT staff that one way to reduce project cost estimates and make project applications more competitive would be to do as much planning as possible ahead of submitting our SmartSkill applications so we could reduce those contingencies.

To wrap up this slide, initial funding decisions are going to be made later this month and those decisions will be finalized in June of 2023.

Now a brief update on the Three Notch Trail Shared Use Path.

So in August, we officially learned that the county was awarded just over $2 million in RAISE grant funds to complete a Three Notch Trail Shared Use Path Master Plan.

When constructed, the three-notch trail shared-use path would cross western Albemarle County, extending from the city of Charlottesville through the Crozet area to the Blue Ridge Tunnel in Nelson County.

I want to clarify that the raised funds received cannot be used for construction.

They're for planning only.

We're currently in the process of finalizing a detailed grant agreement with the USDOT, which we expect to complete this fiscal year.

Next fiscal year, we expect to put out an RFP and hire a consulting team to do the master plan work.

Once the consulting team is on board, we expect the master plan process to take about two years.

On to Lambs Lane campus.

So at the December 14, 2022 meeting, the Board of Supervisors supported the use of Strategic Plan Reserve funds to complete a Lambs Lane campus and adjacent transportation improvement study.

The study is going to further investigate the proposed loop road on the Lambs Lane campus, potential multimodal improvements to the adjacent hydraulic corridor, and how all those improvements will interact.

The study will identify potential project constraints and develop realistic cost estimates so that staff have the necessary information to submit applications for upcoming funding opportunities.

Schools and county staff are currently reaching out to potential consultants and working to develop a scope and timeline for the study.

On to Freebridge Lane.

So at our last quarterly report, we described a few conceptual design studies that are part of our work plan for this fiscal year.

We're currently in the midst of the Freebridge Lane conceptual design study being done in collaboration with LPDA.

A reminder that Freebridge Lane is a low volume unstriped roadway that extends from Darden Tow Park at the north to 250 at the southern end.

On the west side of the roadway, there is an existing substandard shared use path.

and that path is poorly defined at parts.

On the east side of the roadway we have the site of a future county park.

This slide lists the consultant's three tasks.

We've already completed Task 1 in which stakeholders met at Freebridge Lane for a site visit and the consultants documented the opportunities and constraints for the roadway.

We are now in the middle of Task 2 in which the consultants prepared two very different conceptual designs.

The picture on this slide shows a portion of one of the two concept designs.

We'll present both of these designs in detail for public feedback at the January 23rd Pantops Community Advisory Committee meeting.

We'll return to the Board of Supervisors on March 1st to present these two designs and the public feedback that we got and request direction for how to proceed for Task 3.

In Task 3, the consultants will create a final conceptual design that incorporates the preferred components from the two designs from Task 2.

The next conceptual design study that we'll be working on is the Route 20 Shared-Use Path.

This conceptual design project will plan a shared-use path likely along the east side of Route 20 from the City-County line at the north near Quarry Road as far south as Dairy Barn Road.

This would provide a vital connection to recreational amenities and PVCC, but it's a challenging connection to make.

We expect to hire an on-call consultant in the current quarter.

Okay, so this slide is intended to provide a brief overview of the remaining transportation planning projects covered in the written report.

So with regards to the secondary six-year plan, staff have received requests for paving Sutherland Road, Arrowhead Valley, and Murray Lane.

Two-thirds of owners on these roadways have signed a petition, and VDOT is reviewing for suitability for paving.

Staff will present the fiscal year 24 through 29 secondary six-year plan, which includes these paving projects, at a board meeting in March, followed by a public hearing on the final secondary six-year plan in May.

entrance corridor fixes.

So staff recently learned that VDOT and FHWA approved Albemarle County's request for the functional classification change from major collector to minor arterial for the five roadway segments listed in the written quarterly report.

Staff originally applied for these classification changes back in July of 2021, so this wraps up a lengthy process.

and Amrock County transportation priorities.

So back in 2019, transportation planning staff created a scoring system to prioritize proposed transportation projects.

These are the numbers you see next to projects in the written report.

Since then, we've completed or received funding to complete many projects and new projects have been identified, so we're in the process of updating our potential project list and the prioritization system.

Staff will return to the Board of Supervisors on May 3rd to present the prioritization methodology and draft rankings for proposed transportation projects.

Lastly, the multimodal transportation plan is part of the comprehensive plan update.

We continue to work with Tory and other long-range planning staff on those efforts.

Moving on to projects that are managed by VDOT and that are currently in design or under construction.

So I won't go into detail on any of these projects because basic project descriptions and some milestone dates are in the written report, but I do want to call attention to some financial commitments that were made as part of Albemarle County's 2020 SmartScale applications.

So this was two rounds ago.

While it was initially expected that Albemarle County would need to submit the local funds in fiscal year 25, these projects have been fast-tracked.

Transportation planning staff notified the board of this fast-tracking back on February 16, 2022 when the board approved a resolution to submit local funding for the three roundabout projects in fiscal year 23 and then to submit local funding for the 250 corridor project in fiscal year 25 as expected.

So we're reminding the board of this process because VDOT recently requested the local funds that we committed for those three roundabout projects.

And that money will be coming from the CIP Transportation Leveraging Fund, with some of that offset by proffer funds from the Albemarle Business Campus Development on Old Lynchburg and the Rio Point Development on Rio Road.

Altogether, the $7 million in local funding is expected to leverage approximately $25.8 million in state funding.

All right, moving on to projects that are managed by Admiral County FP&C that are currently in design or under construction.

Again, I won't go into detail because these basic project descriptions are in the written report, but I do want to call attention to and celebrate the fact that FP&C has recently completed quite a few construction projects.

So they've recently completed Rio Road, Avon Street, and US 250 West pedestrian improvements.

For FP&C's purposes, they group all those projects together, but I've listed them separately because they're three different locations.

They've also recently completed Ivy Road bike and pet improvements and the Greer Journey bike and pet improvements.

Now, all of these projects still have tiny little things that need to be finished on them, but they are open and available for the public to use.

So you can see their quarterly report for more details on these projects.

But again, we really wanted to celebrate their success and the fact that all this great bike and pet infrastructure is now ready for our community to use.

All right, moving on to transit planning.

So the regional transportation planning staff continued to attend regional transit partnership meetings.

The partnership met in October and December.

At those meetings, the partnership received the final regional transit vision plan presentation, and they got an introduction to the regional transit governance study.

The purpose of the Regional Transit Governance Study is to identify strategies for achieving regional transit priorities and goals identified in the Regional Transit Vision Plan.

As discussed at the last quarterly report, some sudden staffing changes at CAT resulted in delays in getting transit shelters installed at Stonefield and the Northside Library.

But the transit shelter at Stonefield is in place and we continue to work towards installing a shelter at Northside Library.

Lastly, an update on the upcoming microtransit service for the North 29 and Pantops areas.

So CAT has engaged a consultant to develop a feasibility study to identify the optimal service design.

A discussion of the results of that feasibility study is on your agenda for the next Board of Supervisors meeting on January 18th.

All right, this slide highlights the larger development projects that transportation staff have reviewed in the last quarter.

I want to note that the projects listed on this slide are not necessarily done with the development review process.

That process involves significant back and forth between the developer and staff.

By listing it on this slide, we simply need to note that transportation staff time has been dedicated to this review in the previous quarter.

This slide

highlight some of the reported transportation issues we addressed in the previous quarter.

As you can see, there have been a lot of speeding and safety concerns as there often are.

As always, we address these concerns in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Transportation and Amarillo County Police Department.

I'm happy to answer specific questions on these if you have them.

Thank you, Ms.

Hirsch-Ballering.

We will go through our order.

That was a great presentation.

I am impressed with how quickly you were able to go through that.

And I'm going to ask you to go back to the last slide.

I'm sorry.

But just pull it back up one minute.

All right.

Thank you very much.

This was really good.

I don't think I have any specific questions.

Obviously, we've been hearing some concerns around the diverging diamond up on pan tops, but I think as we move through that process that those challenges will be smoothing out.

Thank you.

Yes, regarding the divergent diving, I do get some calls, not very many though, and I let people know, I said wait till February, wait till it's done, you will love it, and each week I see improvement, so I'm not getting as many concerns, frankly.

I did want to ask, there's a missing stop sign at the intersection of Rolkin and Hanson's Road?

If I could jump in, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Which corner?

I believe it was the northeast corner.

It actually sat on church property and it was the responsibility of the church to replace it.

Okay, good.

And the other one, regarding speeding concerns, I know I've been working with the Albemarle County Police Department, the traffic enforcement, and along 22 Old, or Gordonville Road.

is real problematic.

We've actually had a couple deaths this year and crashes.

So the items listed on this slide are just ones that the public has reached out to us to address.

And I thought it was a really good presentation.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Excellent presentation.

I kept looking at my notes and recognizing that everything is sort of getting checked off in a very efficient but informative way.

Some silly questions.

What is the significance of changing classification from major, collector, minor, arterial?

Thank you.

Kevin McDermott, Acting Director of Planning.

So the functional classification is a federal designation for different roads.

And it changes requirements in design.

It can also change funding options for them.

But the important thing here

is that we had made that application as a result of, as you see, the entrance corridor issue.

And state law only allows the counties to regulate arterials as entrance corridors.

A number of years ago, it was pointed out to the county that we were regulating some collectors, the level below arterials, as entrance corridors.

And when we went back and looked, we thought, well, these roadways actually appear to meet the qualifications for an arterial anyway.

So it made sense to us to go back to the FHWA, Federal Highways Administration.

and point that out and see if they would consider reclassifying them.

That isn't actually the case with every one of the entrance corridors that we were regulating that were collectors.

Some of them we recognized wouldn't have met the criteria for arterials.

So we are currently now working with the county's attorney's office

and the Planning Manager in charge of Architectural Review Board to re-evaluate how the entrance corridors are going to be regulated in the future.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

A question about the discussions of ranking projects.

I noticed that in the materials we were provided, it talked about the rankings being noted from 2019, and then I heard a discussion about rankings are coming.

I don't mind stepping back up and I only laugh because the intent when we did that was to do it every other year and so we would have come back in 2021 and done that but at the time that was when COVID had happened and there were a lot of delays that were occurring in transportation funding programs and so we didn't have all the information about a lot of projects that were applied for and it just didn't make sense at the time to redo it

then other issues came up so it was delayed a little more than we would have liked so we're finally getting back to it now a few years late and we're going to kind of reevaluate that process as part of the comprehensive plan update that that's probably the type of thing that we would be looking at in the transportation toolkit that you heard a little bit about earlier today

is how we should be prioritizing the projects and how often we should be looking at that kind of thing.

Thank you.

I very much appreciate the presentation and the fact that it added some things on here.

Valley Road was mentioned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Let me get back to my list.

Yes.

All right.

But finding where the route will be will identify the places where we need it, right?

So everything but the money, basically, is how this gets us to.

Yes.

Okay, great.

And last question related to the extension of Berkmar extended to Airport Road.

I may have missed that in the materials too, just like I missed something else.

Yes, so the Berkmar Extended was approved for a revenue sharing project and that's the extension from the current stub out up to Airport Road and then it also included a roundabout at the Airport Road, I guess Lewis and Clark, Berkmar intersection there.

That project is currently in design right now.

I believe there is a date, it should be included in there and I can't recall the exact date, but it should be in your written report as to when they're expecting some construction on that.

But I will add that we have a meeting scheduled with the Department of Transportation.

later this month to get updates on those.

That project is being administered by VDOT.

They may cover it in their report.

My last question regarding the DDI, I was going to a medical appointment this morning and wondered if the eastbound 250 turn lane into the hospital is going to be lengthened because

the whole right-hand lane that used to be mostly people turning off into the hospital is now full of people going straight.

Yeah and that's a great question but if you wouldn't mind I think we'd like to wait for the VDOT folks that are here because we have not only Ed from the local office who knows a lot about it

but also Troy Austin from the central office, or I'm sorry, from the Culpeper District Office and I think they have a piece on the diverging diamond in their presentation.

Happy to wait.

All right.

Thank you, Ms.

Hirsch-Ballering, Mr. McDermott, Ms.

Lardo, Mr. Walker, Mr. Richardson.

So many of the things in here.

I mean I'm just so amazed at how many things are happening and that last slide had a number of items I had raised questions about.

And I just want to thank you, not just for the presentation, but for y'all's collective responsiveness when members of our community raise questions about road safety, so thank you.

I have no questions, just appreciation.

I just wanted to ask quickly, could we have a copy of this presentation, because it is a little different than what we had in our packet, so if you don't mind just sending that to us, that would be great.

And I agree with Donna.

I keep saying to my constituents, you're going to see a lot of construction happening over the next few years.

So get used to the pain of construction, right?

The orange barrels everywhere.

That's right.

But it's all good.

It's all good.

Because we went through a long period of time when nothing was happening.

Thank you.

All right, board, we'll move to item number 13, just advertised by Mr. McDermott, VDOT quarterly.

Report.

Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, members of the board.

I'm Ned San Nicholas and I'm standing in for Kerry Sheppard, who as you know is on maternity leave at this point.

Thank you for allowing me to present the quarterly report.

Also with me this afternoon, I have Troy Alston, who is our Director of Traffic Operations, who will share with the Board, following my presentation, VDOT's proposed traffic improvements for the western end of Old Ivy Road, which also includes Faulkner Drive, 29-250 Bypass off-ramp, as well as Old Garth Road.

So for status of the road projects, I would like to highlight two updates from the report you received earlier.

They include the add dates for I-64, Exit 107, Park and Wright, and Route 29 shared path projects.

They should reflect October 2024 and January 2025, respectively.

And I believe the slide is correct in those dates.

As far as Route 250, Route

20 intersection improvement and Route 250 east corridor improvement projects.

I just want to let the board know that those two projects are actually going to be combined into one, and that's for ease of management as well as tracking.

There are no other changes to report with regards to road projects.

For status of bridge projects, I have one to highlight, and that's Route 667.

Catterton Road bridge replacement was advertised back in November, but weren't expected this month.

There are no other changes to the other bridge projects at this time.

For status for the 29 hydraulic package, technical proposals are due this month.

Price proposals are due in February.

with Commonwealth Transportation Board Award, anticipated in April.

For status of Albemarle County design-build projects, I know there was a mention of the DDI, H-124 Interstate 64.

Last month it was February 2023, however, that is probably going to slip to spring 2023.

The reason behind that is because this is with respect to the resourcing and the pavement markings.

Of course, we're in the winter season, so it's very difficult

We don't want to do the resurfacing or the pavement markings during the day because of traffic.

So we have to do it at night.

So we have to achieve a certain temperature, road temperature, which is about 50 degrees or better.

And we need three days of that.

So just want to let the board know that that might slip to spring 2023 if the opportunity presents itself.

I was told by the construction manager that we will take advantage of that.

But those are the conditions that we need to make that happen or else we're not going to get good pavement.

No other changes with the other projects as well.

For the status of Albemarle County design build, number two projects, there's no changes to the schedule, so there's really nothing to report.

What you have there is really where we stand right at this point.

With respect to rural Rustic Road, the only one we have there is Route 633, Coke Garden Road.

Construction is ongoing and will resume in the spring.

As far as construction activities, all concrete repair projects associated with Old Brook and Albemarle, Lewis and Clark Drive, and Pebble Hill are all complete.

Burkes Creek Road Bridge Project was completed back on December 14th, which happened to be two days ahead of schedule.

With respect to traffic engineering activities, I-6429 North, rumble strips and actuated flashing beacons are awaiting installation.

250 Route 1815 Old Trail crosswalk markings are awaiting installation as well.

All other traffic engineering actions, including Mountain Wood Road centerline markings,

Removal of two on-street parking along Valley Street and installation of double-sided pedestrian signs on Crozet Artesian Depot are complete.

There are no other traffic engineering activities to report at this time.

Madam Chairman, that concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Mr. San Nicolas.

We'll go through our order for this.

Thank you for your updates.

I appreciate it and I don't have any questions on this portion.

Thank you for your presentation.

I just have a quick question regarding the 29 hydraulic.

I will double check on that as well.

Thank you.

No questions at this time.

I will be waiting with great interest to design engineering for the Route 29 Fontaine Avenue interchange that's been discussed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So is this the time to get some information about the turn lane on

Okay, so my question then is, is there possibility or is there something in the plans already for lengthening the turn lane from 250 eastbound into the hospital on Pantops because right now it's changed from right turn only to straight

I don't know the specific answer to that question.

Okay.

Thank you.

I look forward to find out.

That has been postponed for some reason five different times.

This is the roundabout by the trestle in Crozet.

It was the very first of the three roundabouts and then it became the last for some reason.

Is the contractor in this bundle?

Have they moved off?

Because the other two units are already done.

So I would like to make sure that this isn't going to get punted again.

The traffic there backs up all the way up to the Roberta Water and Sewer.

240-250 roundabout.

It was approved in 2018.

It was HSIP funds.

The public hearing was held in 2019 and it was supposed to be going forward.

Pronto.

So I would really like to find out what's up with that.

And I appreciate it.

Mr. San Nicholas, thank you for your presentation.

I don't have any questions.

I've got two comments, one for you, one for Mr. Richardson.

We get very comfortable and used to our VDOT rep, and I just want to thank you for how ably, completely, and responsibly you have filled in with Ms.

Shepherd being gone.

I really do appreciate it.

I've become your new best friend with the emails that I send you and I really appreciate how responsive you and your office have been in that regard.

And Mr. Richardson, greatly appreciating the temperature needs to be able to complete the paving at the diverging diamond.

I would ask if there is just some mechanism for us to help our community be aware of that

because they may start to ask, when are you going to finish, when are you going to finish, not appreciating that if the temperature is not sufficient for a sufficient period of time, then we won't get a good pavement.

We appreciate that and I do appreciate those periodic, I mean daily emails that come out from Culpeper District informing us.

That helps us.

I'm not sure how broad your distribution list is and that's where I think maybe the county might be able to do something to help.

And I too have seen, as Supervisor LaPisto currently mentioned, substantial improvement as the process and the

the development continues towards completion how much better the traffic flow is coming through there.

So thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Troy Alston.

Director of Traffic Operations for Culpeper District and I appreciate all the presentations before me.

They were very thorough and in-depth and mine tend to be a whole lot more informal.

But before I get into it, since there's a lot of questions about the DDI, I may be able to add a little bit insight on the turn lane.

I have to check into that as well.

I can tell you as far as the operations, one of the issues that we ran into with that is the DDI traffic was switched over without all of the lanes being open.

So that was creating a few problems.

Once we had the lanes open, it was still some challenges trying to get drivers to realize where they needed to be.

And we were still seeing queues back up into 64, which we had to figure out how to deal with that.

And unfortunately, the movement that suffers in that case is 250.

Drivers are adjusting well.

They're getting to where they're using the lanes coming off of the interstate much better, and we're not seeing the same backups.

So we're making slight changes to the timing on 250 to try addressing some of those issues.

The traffic engineer who did the timings for the DDI is an on-call consultant.

He's actually coming to Albemarle County next week and is going to be doing some field adjustments to try implementing the final timings.

So stay tuned.

The timings are still changing.

It's an iterative process.

But from the very beginning, the one thing we had to make sure is that we weren't backing up into the interstate.

That was potentially going to cause catastrophic problems.

We think that things are slightly getting better, and they will continue to do so.

So, Old Ivy and Old Garth.

This is a project that we have actually been looking at in traffic engineering for a couple years now.

And it's been going on for longer than that.

You're right, Ms.

Mallek.

Where we really started taking a real hard look, there was a lot of concerns from St.

Ann's about parents backing up when they were trying to get out of Faulkner Drive and parents trying to get to the school.

That's where it started.

Then we were hearing concerns from the businesses in the area that they weren't able to cross the intersections.

We did some very minimal things there like don't block the intersection, things like that.

But what we quickly realized is this is a much more in-depth problem that we needed to take a look at.

So instead of just focusing on specific intersections, we needed to figure out what the root problem was.

I think most of us are probably familiar with this area.

Each one of those numbers represents a specific intersection.

where we did analysis on.

We got traffic counts on them.

I believe we got the counts in 2019.

They projected, they did growth on those counts all the way up to 2030.

We analyzed each one of those intersections.

We included every new project that we were aware of in our 2030 projections.

What we quickly found is that, and our consultant described this very well as a case of whack-a-mole, you fix one problem over here and you create another problem over here.

And we kept going around in circles with that and there came a point where we had to decide what the critical problem is here.

And again, similar to the DDI,

What we were seeing is that from intersection number four out at 250 and Old Garth, the queues were backing up at times into the bypass.

And that posed a very significant safety issue for the bypass.

Not only the problem of getting to where you want it to go when you got off the bypass, but when it starts backing up that was a real safety concern.

With that in mind, that's where we kind of honed in on the intersection shown on this slide as being the key points.

And I will say that as we've done studies on this, really the intersection that is driving the entire issue is that intersection number four, Route 250 in Old Garth.

That is where the queue starts.

That's where everything starts to break down when it backs up from there.

So we had to try figuring out a way to deal with that issue.

This shows part of the proposed project.

And we'll certainly be talking about this more, I'm sure.

improvement is to remove the through and the left movement from Old Garth.

So you won't be able to come down Old Garth and make a left into Charlottesville.

And replace that with dual rights.

You can look at the traffic volumes on the right-hand side of the screen, and you can see that by far the heaviest movement at this intersection

are vehicles that are coming down Old Garth and wanting to turn right to go west onto 250.

There are trips that do want to go straight across.

This is in the AM and PM peaks.

And there are vehicles that want to make that left.

So those vehicles are going to have to be diverted somewhere else.

The unfortunate thing is most of

The traffic problems we have, there's constraints with, you can't just simply build your way out of it.