Albemarle Conservation Easement Authority (ACEA) Meeting   12/9/2021

You have me on your list.

Hi, there.

Yeah, we can hear you.

I think you show talk again, Sherry.

Are we?

Okay.

All right, in calling the meeting to order, I'll read the COVID preamble.

Because of the continuation of the COVID pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic, this meeting is being held electronically over the Zoom platform.

It is authorized by the county's declaration of local emergency, the county's continuity of government ordinance, this authority's resolution, and Virginia Code Section 2.2-3708.2, subsection A3.

The authority directors are not physically present at a single central location as it is unsafe or impractical to do so because of the pandemic in the county's declaration.

The authority directors are participating electronically.

This meeting is being held according to section six of the county's continuity of government ordinance.

The public has real-time audio visual access to this meeting over Zoom and real-time audio access over telephone.

Both is provided in the lawfully posted meeting notice.

The public is also invited to speak during the public comment period.

Comments are limited to three minutes.

Anyone interested in commenting should use the raise hand feature.

If you are listening by telephone, please use the star nine feature to notify the facilitator.

All speakers must identify themselves and the magisterial district where they live or have a business.

This meeting is being recorded and will be made available on the county's website.

Now I will ask the authority members to identify themselves and state their general physical location by a roll call.

Let's see, Peter Taylor.

Hi, it's Rose Emery.

David Emmitt.

He'd said he wasn't going to make it.

David Mitchell.

All right, Mr.

Excellent.

First order of business.

And are other matters not listed?

Is this where we do public comments, if there's anyone out there?

Yes, that's right.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Any questions from authority members?

No.

All right.

Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second.

All right.

Discussion?

I'll count both of you as aye then.

Ms. Emery.

Yes.

Dr. Moses.

Aye.

Aye.

All righty, so after the minutes, the first item is the Stillhouse Ridge RPD boundary line adjustment, which we discussed two months back.

And I'll just do a quick refresher and then Mr. DeLoria will take over.

This was a property in the Batesville area.

It was done as a rural preservation development and the authority and the county hold amusement over the preservation track here in red.

The current owners purchased the property this year in hopes of building their home on this property.

But you have this issue that a corner of a building and a driveway from an adjacent parcel extend onto this preservation tract and are complicating both the easement situation and their ability to finance and build their home, which they are

eagerly hoping to do soon.

And so the situation is how to resolve that overlap.

So when the authority last considered this, we essentially had two options.

And one was to do what I'll just call a land swap.

And of course, the authority members are familiar that in order to do that, we have to check a fair number of boxes.

One of them being that the exchange of the property has to be essential to the orderly development of the county.

And the general feeling from the authority was that that was somewhat of a stretch and that it would be preferable to go a different route.

The other route would be along the lines of consenting to a boundary line adjustment

based upon an error that occurred back in 2015.

And so I took it that the authority charged Scott and me with going out and exploring that option.

I will say that in doing that, I found I am comfortable that the authority can go down the route of authorizing a deed of correction or something similar.

In order to justify the deed of correction prior to the agreement to place this tract as a preservation tract, there couldn't be a subsequent change in feelings or circumstances that would somehow force the parties to change their mind.

What I was looking for was some evidence that there was some form of an oversight in terms of looking

of missing this and not correcting it.

And I was hoping to find something that said that, hey, look, this was a problem.

We've identified it.

Someone was charged with fixing it.

And then it just kind of went by the wayside.

And unfortunately, that does happen in these circumstances.

What I did find and I don't know if Scott has that is, well, first thing I will tell you is it's my

My conclusion that in looking this over from every party's point of view, it should have been addressed before the parcel was put into the preservation tract.

What you see on the screen right now is an email from Mr. Hayden, who was the prior owner of the of the of the tract.

And what he indicated at this time to Jim Cox, who is involved, who is representing Mr. Daniel at this point and Mrs. Daniel, is that he did contact the neighbor prior to closing on the preservation tract.

And that would have been Mr. Chrisler.

So it was brought up, it was realized.

I think from Mr. Hayden's point of view, it was something that should have been fixed, and it wasn't.

Now, I don't think it's a situation where we cast blame on any one party for not getting it done.

It's something that should have been done.

And whether the planning commission, whether they saw it, noted it, and made direction,

or any of the other parties at that point in time.

We don't have any hard, fast answers to that.

Clearly, it would have benefited Mr. Chrisler to have it done.

It would have benefited Mr. Hayden.

I think it would have benefited the county to have that addressed.

I will say that I did reach out to Mr. Hayden's attorney, Randy Ralston,

I'm not sure Randy's still practicing.

I did ask his son if he would reach Mr. Hayden and give us permission not to look in the file, but for them to look through the file and see and share with us if there was any information saying, hey, look, we need to get this done.

And someone just drops the ball.

I haven't heard back from him.

And and I was advised that in terms of of John Ralston reviewing those files, he'd have to pull it out of storage.

and with the end of the year coming up, we didn't expect there was gonna be a timely answer from that.

Regardless, I feel comfortable that Mr. Hayden brought it to Mr. Chrisler's attention.

It was on the plat that all parties could see, including the county.

And it just wasn't addressed.

I did look through the planning commission, the subdivision records and plats and notes and memos that the county keeps

in terms of this particular subdivision.

And I found absolutely nothing that even mentioned the encroachment.

So I feel comfortable in saying that it's an error in the sense that it was an oversight.

It's something that should have been done.

At least Mr. Hayden and Mr. Chrysler were aware of it and it wasn't addressed.

So I feel as if that the authority can

I agree with or consent to the boundary line adjustment and a deed of correction or other document that's needed.

And when you look at the motion, that's what it's geared towards is to allow the chair

to sign any document that's needed to make this exchange.

Now, I will say in terms of the exchange, I think it puts the authority in a better position than it would be had they just simply corrected

I'm fairly well convinced that if the parties, if Hayden and Chrysler had corrected the error back in 2015, if they had corrected it back then, they simply would have given, they just would have

giving the land to Mr. Chrysler and taking it away from the track.

And the reason I say that is because there was information, it may have been Mr. Hayden's email, indicating that the parties thought that a creek that ran, I think, to the north side of the driveway on Chrysler property, that that was the boundary line.

And whether that has moved over the years or whether the tree where any of the irons were set, whether that's changed, it's impossible to say because the prior surveys and plats, they don't indicate the location of the buildings.

The encroaching house was built I think around 1950 and there's no survey until you get to I think 2014 survey that demonstrates where that house is.

So the bottom line is that I think it's appropriate for us to move forward.

I call it a deed of correction.

I think there's going to have to be something of record showing the change in the boundary line and that

The additional property that the preservation track will receive is under the terms of our conservation easement.

So at the end of the day, I just think it puts the conservation authority in a better position.

Thank you, Richard.

Any questions?

Yes.

A simple motion to adopt what's on the screen, I think was suffice.

Good with that.

Is there a motion to approve?

I'll move it.

Thank you, Dr. Moses.

I can do the roll call.

Yeah, sorry.

Is there any discussion?

Director Buttrick.

Aye.

Director, let's see, Mitchell.

Director Moore?

Aye.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I've got two.

Let's go with Director Jennie Moore now.

And Director Moses?

Aye.

Thank you, Richie, for all the work on that.

And thank you all for

Great, thank you.

Okay, so again, I'll just do a quick refresher.

This is Logan Farm, still saying that wrong, in the Northeastern part of the county, 153 acres and approximately seven potential dwellings limited on this historic farm.

Last time we spent a lot of time talking about the historic preservation terms

was somewhat vaguely phrased as saying that all contributing structures, accessory structures would have to be subject to the no-waffle demolition section.

That's been refined to say that the no-waffle demolition does apply to all three dwellings, but also to the barn and garage smokehouse.

which I'll show you in just a moment.

And also we reduced the riparian buffer from 100 feet to 35 as requested and made the donors requested exception to the buffer terms for use of an open deck in an already open portion of the buffer.

Here are the historic structures in the site.

The ones with the green tags are subject to the no willful demolition requirement.

The two with the gray tags are not.

say the granary or corn crib structure is not in the best shape and then the one labeled as large bar and it's only the short piece here that's actually old it's been modified significantly with these additions that are not historic and frankly it's a fairly bizarre and difficult to use structure so the

We're not willing to subject that to the historic preservation terms.

As mentioned last month, it's a very odd structure that has a concrete lip around it, makes it virtually unusable for most kinds of livestock.

All right, so that's my reminder section, and then I will turn it over to Richie to go over the steps.

So just by way of preface, Mr. Moyes, the attorney for Miss Alexander, prepared a deed and he edited significantly the template that we used.

I will say that the edits in many cases are improvements.

And so when we go to do ours, I'll probably look back at when we work on our template and make modifications.

However, there were some substantive changes.

I don't think they were controversial, but they are changes from our template.

And so it was Scott and my opinion that we needed the authority to approve these changes.

And I've just kind of put them up in order.

I know one of them and the most important one, which, again, I don't think is controversial, was the no willful destruction or demolition of the contributing buildings.

And that we'll see in line.

I will say we can go through this point by point.

And that's the way I structured it.

I don't know if everyone has an opportunity to look at the email that I sent and look over the deed that Mr. Moises drafted the deed with the changes.

And if that's the case and everyone's comfortable with it, I didn't know if they were willing to move to accept those changes or if we want to go through it point by point.

So I will do whatever the chair and the board prefers.

Then we'll go through.

Oh, you know?

No, I did.

Yeah.

Okay, well then let's go through point by point.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I just didn't see such an email.

There was, there was, I'm sorry, my dog's eating Christmas lights.

That's gonna hurt.

Okay.

Now, I will say that when I sent, and maybe I made the mistake a second time, I did send a group email before a last meeting.

And I think maybe the group email address was incorrect.

I don't know if Scott can correct me on that.

However, we'll just go through it.

Let's do it that way.

Okay?

Okay, so one area they added was they, we have the section, section two, one, lowercase three, that talks about what minor road improvements are, and that those, if there's minor road improvements to the road that comes by the property, then that doesn't constitute a violation of the,

of the easement.

The one thing that the donor did add in there.

So usually the minor road improvements, they don't include, as it says, the addition of new travel lanes.

It will add a bike lane.

And the reason I highlighted this had a lot to do with the the rigor that VDOT mattered that we had recently.

And I know that the board

was real conscientious of what kind of modifications VDOT could make to a particular property.

But in this instance, what the donor added to that exception was that any area in excess of 25 feet from the edge of the existing property would not be a minor road improvement.

The concern I had with that, and again, I don't know if you share it,

The concern I had with that is the notion that, well, anything less than 25 feet would be considered a minor road improvement.

And I thought that was a particular concern in light of the rigor the discussion that this board had and the consideration it had for protecting the rigor property.

So I wanted to raise that.

I think it's a substantive change in the template that we have.

I don't have an answer to that.

I don't have an answer to that.

Because what they're referring to is work VDOT would initiate that would create some sort of an improvement or change in the road within 25 feet of the existing right.

That would mean they'd have to

expand the right of way.

Am I reading that correctly or does anybody else have a feeling for this?

It's like a double negative here.

It seems almost innocuous because VDOT isn't going to do anything just in the road frontage of Logan's property for 25 feet that they aren't going to do for the entire road.

So I just don't

Really understand where they're coming from on this.

Yeah, it seems almost like they have a sense that there might be an expansion project down the road, so to speak.

I mean, I think it's clear they still can't add a travel lane.

Right.

Richard, do you have a sense of what this is about?

No, sir.

Okay.

I mean, they could expand a travel lane.

It doesn't seem to be like a very well drafted provision and the purpose of it seems unclear

I mean, it's a scenic road.

It's a rural historic district.

You know, 50 feet, if you did this on both sides, would change the aspect of this road considerably if they could do it.

I agree with you, John, the intention

I mean- Is there an existing road plan for the need to expand this road?

Not that we're aware of.

I mean, as Richie said, they made, although most of them were not substantive, they made more changes to our template than are typical by far.

So this may just be a piece from somebody else's template they preferred.

or something like that.

There may not be any real intention behind it.

Yeah, I agree.

Well, and I will say if there's no motion to approve it, then we haven't changed the template.

Okay.

If there's no motion and we're ready to move on, then no action's taken and this language isn't approved.

Okay.

Well, you don't have to, well, I hope Sherry has seen this and she can guide us.

So they added the no willful demolition language.

And so I was satisfied with it.

I thought they went well beyond what the board may have required.

I was hoping Sherry had seen it in advance, because I know she,

And how does this make our template better?

This doesn't make the template better.

This was the authority wanted something in the deed to protect the qualified or the historic buildings that were on the property.

So this is directed specifically to this property.

And we don't really have template language for historic preservation and something we need to work on.

I mean, I will say there's a lot of obligation for the holder here.

I mean, I know the VOF would not take this up because they can't do it.

They wouldn't be able to do it.

I worry a bit when the authority takes on things that have a lot of obligation to them.

I mean, how versed is the authority staff on the Secretary of the Interior standards for the treatment of historic properties and the guideline of treatment of historic properties rehabilitation?

Is it necessary for any language of this type to be in what we accept?

All we said at the prior discussion was we didn't want willful destruction of the existing historic buildings.

I recall the discussion correctly.

The authority wanted to

see in more detail what was being required in terms of protection.

However, I will say that other recent needs have not gone into anything like this level of detail.

For example, the Guthrie Hall easement, which is knock wood nearly finished just has basically says no willful demolition and then makes provisions for

What can happen if the structured question is lost to casualty?

So can we move to adopt that VOF language and trust me to pull it and to place it into this donation deed?

If that's the case, then I'll be happy to do that.

I'm comfortable with that.

Like this language here just puts a lot of burden on the donor.

Folks, and I'm not, I mean, I'm wondering about this garage.

I mean, to what degree do we really have to talk about whether the garage can be materially altered and put back in keeping with historic character?

Right.

It may be more constructive to sort of talk about the structures

Yeah, and all those have to be is 50 years old.

But anyway, to get back to the first question, I would be

Sure.

I'll second that.

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

Do we need to discuss this or?

Move this to a vote.

All right.

I'll do it.

Let's see.

Director John Moore.

Aye.

Aye.

Well, this is where I might be confused because I had building envelopes.

Citing a building.

Citing the envelope sketch is pending.

The donor can advise at the meeting if deemed appropriate.

So Scott may have to clarify, help me on that.

Sorry about that.

So just saying that I think the reason that there is not a building envelope is that the dwellings would have to, if they're replaced, have to be replaced at the same location.

Also just wanted to point out, Mr. Mays, the attorney for this is trying to get into the Zoom meeting, but isn't

is having some trouble getting in.

Yeah.

Let me ask.

I just need to unmute them.

So this is what I'm looking at.

Well it sounds like the language

Yeah, I think the vicinity of the existing dwellings is not sufficiently clear that you can enforce that.

Yes.

Yeah, I think that's pretty unclear.

I would take that out.

I mean, I'm not sure what that's supposed to,

If that means every single new building, they just need an envelope.

If they want to say a few key buildings have to go back where they are, then you can get away with, you know, replaced at the same location.

Okay.

It gives them more freedom.

So same, no motion means no action, and we'll just

It's not approved.

Yeah.

Just give them our comments.

The thing that worries me is squishy language as much as lack of envelope.

But if I were on the donor's council side, I would think that they would be wise to have envelopes, but that we don't want to have to give them any tax direction.

I'd just like to get clarification on Richie's previous question, which is, if they're not proposing any envelopes, can we go ahead and process the rest of this deed?

Because my concern here is that this is the last likely time we're going to be able to meet before the end of the year.

I doubt we're going to be able to get this group back together.

If you don't have envelopes, there has to be a way of protecting.

Yes.

But you can see the main house from the road.

I will say they suggested a sketch and they're gonna identify building envelopes, so... Yeah, I just, I mean, I think they may have pulled that language from somewhere that they're just used to.

I don't see why it's even necessary in this particular case.

I mean, if they want one, fine, but we never want them.

And we've got those...

There's an area, and we'll indicate this more precisely in the deed, but where I'm pointing on the screen here, there's an area of the buffer that is not forested.

It's just pastured right down to the banks.

And that's something they've had in their proposal since the beginning is they wanted to be able to have a deck down in that area, which is not really, it's not a roofed structure.

It's literally just a deck.

But it wouldn't require the removal of any trees.

Are they going to get a permit to do that?

Yeah, that's the question is, can they actually do that?

I don't know if they can or not.

Well, I don't want to approve something that's not approvable by some other arm of the county.

You've also reduced the stream buffer.

Yeah, to be fair, I would agree that that was the direction that we seem to be inclining towards.

Correct.

But you know, I think coming down the road, there may, I don't know when this is going to happen, but I suspect that over time, that there's going to be a redefinition of the FEMA 100 year flood plains.

in Albemarle County.

So we don't know what that's going to be.

Yeah, and that doesn't really enter into the terms of these, but that was just there as an illustration of the fact that was part of why, and I apologize for putting up the old map here, but part of the reason I had originally proposed the 100 foot

buffer was that it matched relatively well with the extent of the most recent update to the FEMA 100-year floodplain.

Now, like I said, a good part of the authority felt that that 100 feet was too much and wanted it back down to 35.

So that's what we did in the latest terms.

I mean, is the deck going to go, could the deck go right over the stream?

So what they are giving up is they're giving up any type of stream crossings.

and that's something that they just did voluntarily.

So I, you know, the answer is can they build trails in the stream buffer?

The answer is yes.

Can they do stream crossings?

The answer is yes.

Could they get permission to build a bridge?

That's possible also.

So they have given that up under the easement.

I mean, I'm not sure it sounds like a smart thing to do, to give up the ability to cross the stream.

It's not permitted.

Yeah, I wonder what they're thinking.

That doesn't make sense to me.

And so our template permits the construction and maintenance of stream crossings, including improvements over the buffer strips to access the crossings for pedestrians, livestock, and vehicles, which crossings minimize the obstruction of water flow.

I mean, the vehicle crossings may be so, but I just don't think it's a smart thing to do to, in a permanent easement, make it so that you cannot cross the stream with, you know, on your feet, on a horse, maybe in a four-wheeler.

All right, Alma, it seems like we need to pass that comment along to them.

It just seems like they're

They're thinking it through from their own personal point of view.

Right.

Yeah, I think you want that.

If you think vehicles is too much and too much of an erosion producing thing, airplay, that's fine.

Take that out.

But I would leave the rest of it in.

OK.

I'm confused about what kind of a stream crossing.

Well, if you don't own the other side, what can you do?

Yeah, but I take the point that, you know, at some point in the future, they might own the property next door, or they might, I get the need for maybe a crossing.

I'm only curious about what sort of a structure we're talking about to put in the stream.

And again,

Whoever the government agency is that has control over approving the actual construction of a stream crossing, they're gonna have control over what that looks like, I suppose.

Right, I will say that in floodplains that they can get permits for bridges and that sort of thing.

Could I come at this question from a slightly different direction?

This is another example where we're trying to second guess the intentions of a potential donor.

If the donor wishes a restriction,

It would seem that it would be prudent for us to accept that restriction unless it serves no public purpose or it's obviously unenforceable and misguided.

In this case, they're giving up a stream crossing, which certainly arguably is not public good.

It's not a public purpose.

And they're restricting it in an entirely reasonable way.

It's not capricious.

My feeling is it will bring the authority to grief because if you take away this person's personal inclination or point of view, it is a reasonable thing for the next person to want it.

I think in general that you should do as little as you need to do in a conservation easement to protect the land and protect the countryside and protect the specific conservation values that are here.

I am just not convinced that

saying that a trail that goes down into and across a creek is a conservation problem.

Right.

I mean, I feel like we're caught in a situation where it seems like we're trying to protect them against themselves a little bit.

Well, if you're going to protect the long-term durability of the easements, you don't want to put in items that are, in the worst case, idiosyncratic and difficult to defend.

I mean, yes, some forms of really aggressive

Yeah, I don't know that, I don't know that, well, I think the intent here, and I'm guessing, I suppose, is that we're talking about

Versus a culvert and crip raft, et cetera.

Yeah, and I don't even know this stream, so I can't really speak to whether a culvert would do it, whether you can just simply hop across it.

If we have a great deal of time, I think we could create exactly the right degree of stream crossing here.

But I feel like somebody suggested perhaps to these people that they just give that up as a way of getting their deck and that they didn't think about it.

And- That is not what happened.

This is just one of, you know, a couple of dozen unexpected alterations to the template that were

you know, trying to get through it and Richie has put in front of you all the ones that have some substance to them.

Okay, well, that's fine.

If they want to come back with a more limited form of stream crossing fund, I don't think prohibiting the crossing from one property to another in perpetuity

Limitations on Stream Crossings.

This is gonna put these people into next year, thanks to the representation perhaps.

No, but I think perhaps their councils created it.

I don't understand the deck.

Is it going out over the stream?

What on earth is it for?

Are they going to have a band down there?

I haven't seen anything like this myself, but according to the donors

Other properties in the area will have essentially a wooden flat deck not roofed next to a stream where people will hang out.

It's not over the stream, it's just close to the stream.

It's a picnic site, place to sit kind of thing.

I've never seen such a thing, but once it was a dock, but this isn't a dock, this is just a deck.

If you all decide that you're not comfortable with it

and you just take no action on it, which will be the same thing with the string crossing and the 25 foot thing with the roads.

Then they'll have the option to come back with a deed that leaves those items out and get done this year.

You know, with a 35 foot buffer, maybe they can push that deck 36 feet back and not be in the buffer at all.

And then, you know, they have the choice of,

May I just speculate about one question to ask.

We have not gotten to that.

We skipped over that.

I'm afraid it does too.

and here we see it.

Right, so these are the specific uses that they identified in their industrial commercial activities.

Yeah, I'm not at all sure.

Jay, you might want to speak to this, that a commercial stable couldn't be had within an easement and isn't in fact had within many, many easements, especially in Mr. Moyse's part of the world.

Yeah, I'm torn because this is a very specific list of current commercial uses that are happening.

in the county, and the other side of it is that farming and people that own farms do need to make incomes as well.

I mean, I think if you compare the template that we have,

With this handful of uses, you'll probably find that most of them can be permitted at least on some size, scale, or location.

And any size, scale, location limitations may be pertinent and affect the conservation, you know, integrity of this thing.

Right.

25 by 10.

That's not that big.

No, that's...

I mean, it sounds like a gazebo with no roof.

This body has discussed this extensively regarding another property several years ago.

And we did make a distinction between commercial stabling, which is a traditional rural use, and agricultural processing, particularly farm breweries, homestay, a real red flag.

And it's so open-ended

particularly given the trend to bend zoning for those uses.

I mean, I think some of these things on some scale and in some location are going to be fine, but

Just taking, departing from the standard form that we have at this point in the year without knowing what is on, what's desired without necessarily having building envelopes.

Well, the house is outside of

We haven't tried to make things invisible in the past.

That's impractical.

We've tried to make things distant, not completely obscured.

500 is fairly consistent for easements we've done along this and similar scenic highways.

At this point, I will say my concern was that maybe there were one or two minor concerns you all had that we could give them an opportunity to work around and get done by the end of the year.

It's starting to sound to me more like you all have really significant concerns about the extent of the uses and several other questions on this.

And maybe it's not so important to

Scramble around and find a way for this to get done by the end of the year.

If you all have that many questions, it may well be that they just need to come back in January or February with answers to the questions.

It's unfortunate that Mr. Mays, who was trying to get into the meeting, hasn't been able to do so.

Right, individually they seemed, you know, starting out with the 25-foot easement, they seemed kind of benign, but kind of putting the whole, all the pieces of the puzzle together.

It may just be, is this David Moyes?

Is that who this is?

You said Mays.

It's Mays.

He may be just looking at, say, the Land Trust of Virginia's template or something, but I think in the absence of you all really having a sense of where he's trying to go, whether you think the conservation effect of this is acceptable or not,

It sounds like the message back to them then is, while the property is still of interest, the sheer number of alterations, not just number and character of alterations to the template, leads the authority to not be inclined to accept in its current form.

I mean, we would need you all to make some sort of acceptance action.

I'm not quite sure immediately how we would phrase that, but, you know, that the proposal, you know, authoring the share, the sign, the deed consistent with the proposal, if the changes to the, I don't know, the commercial terms, the riparian buffer and,

I'm not in favor of that.

I think that we're, I don't want to like being pushed into this.

But if my memory serves, the landowner did appear two months ago, and the sense that we had from her was quite reassuring.

The language we're seeing now is a significant departure from what seemed to be her intentions.

That needs to be explained, and we need to follow our own template without these modifications, which are open-ended, in some cases difficult to enforce, and may be inconsistent with a conservation purpose.

I would be fine with that as long as the view from 231 is adequately protected.

I don't know if

John has a quick solution to that.

I don't have any template language on that.

Is that what you're talking about?

It's just not going to happen.

I don't I don't see that happening.

I'm just thinking about the

Well, we have convened this group at year end.

I think we did it at the last week of the year, several years ago, and I was still the chair.

So it's possible to do it.

But as Sherry said, if we protect 231 with no widening, we have building envelopes to protect the viewshed.

Yeah, I mean, I would go with that.

Either envelopes or move the 500 feet back to rounded down right along the front of the house there.

I mean, my guess is from a quick and dirty look at your map, it was 600 or 650.

And I would,

So we would need a motion from, or an action from the authority stating that you all accept the proposal provided that it follows the template and increases the setback to 650 feet.

That removes all of those commercial changes,

Historic changes except for the VOF language and the riparian buffer deck issue and all of that.

I wouldn't even want to offer the special meeting.

Put that into words.

Back to your template.

I feel like you could do envelopes.

Can we approve envelopes if they're past 650?

If they're OK.

Yeah, and I'm saying 650 because somebody who's got a measure tool can see if that is where the top of that driveway perhaps comes to or thereabouts.

Right.

That's not in our template.

So we're essentially going back to, you know,

The deck won't be included.

No deck.

You didn't take action to approve the deck.

So we're saying that stick with our template, stick with our template.

There's a 650 foot setback, assuming it doesn't cut through living rooms and buildings and things, envelopes, as long as they're past the 650 foot setback.

We would add the VOF, prohibition of demolition, willful demolition language.

Yep.

All right.

Is there a second?

Anyone?

I can hear you.

Okay.

I would take it that you should convey that to the attorneys and the landowner.

And they'll have an opportunity to amend the proposal and come back.

Are you all ready to go on to the next item?

Yes.

Sorry for the blur of slides going by here.

All right.

The remaining three items, I believe, are brief and fairly straightforward, knock on wood.

The first two are slight revisions to proposals that you all have already approved.

First is Guthrie Hall.

Again, this is the 800 and some acre property that you all had approved sometime back down in the Esmont area.

And the change here is that originally the Southern of the two parcels, partial 128-1,

had rather than a building envelope, it had a setback and a maximum distance for structures, which is this 500 feet and 1500 feet from Route 6.

That area came out to roughly 67.4 acres.

The donors now have changed their proposal to

This building envelope instead which is an area that has been recently cut for an old pine stand and is 15.29 acres.

To my mind this is an improvement but this is a change in the approved building envelope which is what we need you all to act on.

should be just a motion to approve the change in building envelope.

Hang on a second.

Let me try again.

In the meantime, I note Mr. Mitchell has arrived.

All right, he kept messing with the screen and my unmute started moving around, I had to chase it.

I'm at my office in Charlottesville.

Okay, sorry about the sharing problem.

Okay, so the red outline on the map on the left is the Guthrie Hall property.

Again, this is roughly 800 acres.

The original proposal for the southern parcel of the two, which is parcel 128-1, was that rather than a normal envelope, there would be a setback of 500 feet from route six and a maximum distance of 1500 feet from route six for building location.

They have changed that to this exhibit on the right, which is a 15.29 acre survey area, which is roughly in the location of a recently harvested

Overage Pinestand.

So again, I believe this is an improvement to the proposal.

So that's what we need you all to act on.

But I also wanted to let you know that

What you all approved was for this southern parcel to be permitted to divide into two interships and have two dwellings each.

They've actually changed the draft deed that we've received so that this one would not be divided at all and could only have two deeds rather than a total of four.

So that's another improvement.

You all don't need to act on that one because they've already done that.

All right, is there a second?

All right, see further discussion?

Director Fennell?

Aye.

Director Buttrick?

She's muted.

He was with us.

Looks frozen.

Director Moses.

Aye.

Let's go back to Director Buttrick.

Aye.

Yeah, I heard that.

And Director Mitchell.

Aye.

Yes.

Can you hear me?

So I've got seven ayes and no nays.

Seven ayes, one noes.

Okay, thank you all.

Now there's a comparison map I did too late.

Okay, next item is the Smith proposal.

This is the map here so I can see what I'm doing.

down off of Old Lynchburg Road.

And this is the parcel that is unbuilt and is largely in the mountain overlay area.

So construction above the 700 foot base elevation is prohibited.

The question today is the donor has decided that rather than the single dwelling up to 4,500 square feet, he would also like to have the secondary dwelling up to 800 square feet that could, for example, be located in

It could be its own structure or it could be upstairs of a garage or something like that.

This is still limiting six potential dwellings.

It's still not impacting that mountain protection area.

So I would recommend that you all accept this change.

It seems minor.

Also be freestanding.

I didn't read that.

I was reading the May to sort of be more auditory and sort of insist upon the location.

Yeah, we'll definitely do that.

I put that in there for everybody's information because I think that's what they currently intend to do.

But I didn't want to write in such a way that they were required to do that.

Got it.

I think you're conflicted on Smith too, I believe.

I don't know.

I don't know, Smith.

Will you tell me?

Yes, I'm sorry.

I think so.

I am going to go away if you don't mind.

You've got David to fulfill the quorum.

So Merry Christmas, y'all.

Oh, shoot.

Hey, we do still have a quorum.

Excellent.

Full call?

All right, Director Fennell.

Aye.

Director, no, Sherry Buttrick has disqualified herself.

Director Mitchell.

Aye.

And Director Moses.

Aye.

All right.

So that motion passes six to zero.

Alright, one last scheduled item.

This is not a change to a previous one.

This is a new proposal that I wanted to bring to you all.

Honestly, this is more of a

Are you interested that it is a firm recommendation?

I couldn't really decide what I thought you all would prefer in this case, so I thought it just best to put it in front of you.

The structure property is just a little over 10 acres.

It does have five development rates, and it is adjacent, and I'll zoom in the map here in a second, to a easement that the authority took a couple of years ago.

It is a very small property, and it does not have a lot of notable

features of its own, but it is located within the South Fork Havana Watershed and does share boundaries with the existing easements, both this property across Jones Mountain Road, which is an authority-held easement, and the one across Millington Road, which is not directly adjacent, but close, and is, I believe, a VOF easement.

So basically what this would do is reduce development pressure in the reservoir watershed.

In the proposed terms, it has one dwelling that will be replaced up to 2,000 square feet.

Everything else is standard and we did not recommend any riparian buffers because there are no mapped streams on this property.

So sorry for the jumping around there mouse wheel.

I believe it meets the authorities' criteria, so I would recommend that you all accept it.

However, I realize it's small and doesn't have dramatic features like a wetland or a historic home or something, so

Yeah, I think that's the only thing it has going for it, really.

I'm a little conflicted.

I am too.

We have had easements previously on properties of this size.

However, of the ones I can remember, two were along a scenic highway, which was 231, I think, funnily enough.

And one was actually fairly close to this one down near Lake Albemarle,

but had restrictions to protect an existing wooded area and wetland.

Yeah, it just doesn't have a ton of conservation value aside from getting rid of the four

Right.

Is that Jones Mountain Road?

Is that a private road or a public road?

It's a private road, yeah.

And to access Billington Road, do we know how?

And I should have the answer, but I don't.

Do we know how

How the owner gets across to Millington Road?

Is that a shared road?

Is that an easement?

As it is now, it's open to question because we don't have a detailed enough survey to totally figure that out.

But on the other hand, if somebody had enough money, they could purchase enough right away from the southeast corner of that property down the Billington across the adjacent property.

Can I ask a question?

Was this lot created after the

The zoning change, the rural area zoning change, I'm wondering how he got five development rights with absolutely no state road frontage.

All right.

Yeah.

That allocation in 1980 was to every parcel of record in the rural area's zoning district.

And there are a lot of parcels of record that don't have state road access.

And I'm glad I don't own one of them.

The deal is you have to, if you want to subdivide it, you've got to meet the county's design requirements.

And, you know, a gravel road for five lots is probably not going to cut it.

You're talking about a 50 foot minimum right away.

and wherever that right-of-way hits, you gotta have a certain amount of visual sight distance so you don't pull out in front of a blind curve.

Now this happens to sit on the spot that you do have that distance.

Sight distance won't be an issue.

And there's another house further back down that road also.

Will anyone speak in favor of this easement?

I wrote down no action in my notes.

All right, those are all our scheduled items.

Mr. Chairman, we've made it through another year.

Another year of not being in the same room.

I have one thing to say.

I am leaving at the end of this year.

My term's up and I have a maximum of two boards that I'm willing to sit on.

And I've been asked to be a trustee at Miller School where my son goes.

So, excellent.

I don't know if you all might be able to help.

I reached out to the deputy clerk about reappointments.

I noticed on my notes that there were four or five members whose term expires on Monday.

I don't know if you all have received reappointments or, and I've asked if that has been done or

if it's scheduled for the first meeting in July, which I understand there will be appointments by the new sitting board of supervisors.

So I don't know the answer.

Right.

What did I say?

July.

Yeah, January, I meant January.

Rich, so I'll get an answer to that.

Reach out.

Hopefully I have your address because I'm not confident I have everybody's address at this point.

All right.

Second thing is the January meeting is the annual meeting, according to my notebook.

And so we'll set a schedule and we'll also have to elect officers for the year.

Got it.

I agree.

I mean, I think the templates and adhering to them, because we certainly hashed it out a lot to get to them.

They're there for a reason.

They're there from my perspective so that prospective people know what they're coming into and they can evaluate it appropriately and understand there's parameters.

And then, you know, I think it's just good to have

Been helpful, to say the least.

All right.

It was good seeing you all, guys.

You too.

We'll miss you.

Yeah, we will.

It happened.

Sure.

Yeah.

Why not?

So no new business or old business?

Sherry's not here.

We can't adjourn.

Scott, Richie, thank you again for all your hard work.

Compliments of the season to everyone.

Yes.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays.

Happy Christmas.

Take care, everybody.

Bye.