Albemarle Conservation Easement Authority (ACEA) Meeting   6/11/2026

Well, let's hear about our two proposals, please.

So stuff recommends acceptance and I'm happy to take any questions.

So that areas from what?

Just south of Dr. Ho's Pizza.

Is it in the rural area?

All of this area is rural area.

Do you know the principal at Crossroads Farm LLC is?

They're relocating from Florida.

And that's the total acreage they own, correct?

Yeah, as far as I know.

And they just purchased it?

Last year, I think.

That's the forest protection area.

They're relocating here, expanding.

So is there any, in that forest protection area, they'll have the forest management plans that will be used to determine

So we haven't seen this in practice yet.

That's provided for.

And those purposes are, we hope, sufficiently limited to preclude just going in and cutting the trees to make money.

Is this the forest core language that you borrowed from us?

Do you like that language, Sharon?

Yeah, the State Forester doesn't like it much.

But it's VLS, Forest Corps.

So we sort of dealt with that no commercial timbering problem.

And I know the others thought about it a bunch.

This is copy and pasted from FAO.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thanks for helping me, James.

Of course.

Under the verges.

I'm happy to take any questions on that or any other aspect of the proposal.

Building envelope.

That's the east land.

What's the bit that it's tucked into, the property?

So this here?

I forgot exactly what it says.

I could find quickly.

I can find it here.

Maybe the big one is Jimmy Murray.

He's further south.

It's held by viewer.

Where is the entrance to the Skid Row, offer 20?

If they built that guest house over the summer and then came back to us in the winter, would it be consistent with policy?

But that is your guidelines.

So that would be your other guideline.

Yeah, no.

Is one of those like an outbuilding or something?

One's just a basic shed.

and they wanted to add, let's round up to a thousand feet of impervious surface and they wouldn't really have enough impervious surface, just barely enough impervious surface to expand the existing house and build an accessory building unit.

If they wanted to do both, they would have to remove one of the odds, at least one of the odds.

They'd be squeaking by the impervious surface.

The water is, yes, if the water is being held there in a concrete tub that is impervious.

You got a pool.

Yes.

You could propose expanding it.

And so the building envelope was a later addition.

The building envelope only applies to residential structures or residential accessories, residential too, but structures can be anywhere as long as they're not in there.

In recent deeds, when they've been building envelopes, we've limited it only to dwellings, not to anything else.

all the way up.

But yeah, because I'm just used to thinking of building anything, you know, over 500 square feet, but that's not the way to see it.

Deviate from the policy.

So there's like three skinny parcels that add up to about...

I can't do cola, see.

Yeah, I think it's nine, nine and six or something.

8 to 10 of them are usable given the critical slopes and the... What about road frontage or access or... That can always be... That can usually be accommodated with a clever subdivision and...

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it got cut up from something larger because there's C2, C3 and C4.

Biff 54, I think I found a plat and they're like this.

So I think that's a mitigating factor as well because of the size of the property and the number of development sites that would warrant remediation.

If they're right, particularly if it's right on 20.

I think they're

So as long as it's all in the pink space, I'm not sure how much harm it does.

Or this could cleanse up here?

So there's a spring very close to this, probably just to the south of this property.

Can you go back to the other image?

No, this one, they're currently represented by Todd Hochrein of, I don't think he's, right, he's not an attorney, but he's represented them, represented them, taken them through the process up to now.

Not that I know of.

Shall I let them know?

particularly that strongly to the extent we can should we tout the season.

I think it's one of the main.

But extinguishing development rights is one of the core goals of the easement program.

You don't have a D. No.

We rarely do at this stage.

Yeah, this is just something that

Yeah.

Can Michelle try to get me to buy it?

I may have been the fellow who helped me when there was a stake in my car, which occurred right near Forest Marsh.

Yes, this is just, this is the next property in Neill.

If they move the yellow back to the pink, I don't think it's a big problem.

And I think that I would be in favor of this even though it deviates from the policy because of the significant number of potential development rights related to the actual size.

So in particular, you all need to look at the 8283 form when it comes through and make sure that you think it's viable, counselor.

So James, if you do expand that to the purple area, how many feet do you pick up?

It's 200 now, that looks roughly double.

Well, I also

Does anybody want to make a motion?

And drafting and that the 82A3 form be reviewed.

Do you have a correspondence that you generally

And I would share your concern about making that a condition of approval.

People do foolish things.

We've worked with this broker once before, two years ago, and he did engage a lawyer after this stage.

Yeah.

No, but staff suggest this be denied.

The guideline is for a property smaller than 40 acres, there should be only one dwelling permitted.

If they built a house, so under the existing guidelines, if they built a house this summer and came back, it was the winter, then there would be a proposal, there would be compliance with our policy.

Is that right that if they're too existing on 24 acres that actually meets the guidelines?

I agree with your concerns that the guidelines are not watertight and often we're left without much guidance.

Again, in Keswick, a 25-acre parcel that gets developed would have a profound effect on all the other easements.

And then think about Ev Drosh's problem.

Yeah.

And I feel like this could be equal harm, not equal, but harm could happen here and on this road it would be to that.

But if you're happy with it, then we can continue.

And then the reason why it was denied, that helped us make a decision to take all this information.

The only thing I'll say further is I think that easement, that parcel that's under easement across the road, I think that was the very first easement that BOF took in that model.

The thing is, it may be Dr. James Andrews.

Yeah, I think that was the very first one in Elkhorn back in the 70s or something.

The easement across the way, I believe, belonged to him, and he gave it to his son, and then the son lost it.

I think we've already seen it.

Yeah, we have that and a couple of other documents drafted that I'll be working with Gabe on to bring before you, make sure Gabe's happy with it and bring before you for adoption.

There's nothing to prevent pernicious or poor legal counsel.

Move on to new business?

The neighbor is the two acre parcel here.

So that's not, I don't think it's going to reduce the value.

And if there's no future dwelling, then there's a lot less reason to buy it.

Anyone disagree?

They should go to the county assessor and get the thing declared unbuildable and reduce the assessment, but it's really not something for us.

The second order of new business, sorry, to nothing.

Would that be a self-taking?

such as processing agricultural products that have not been grown on site, bringing in...

It's just a term of the easement.

What about like tasting rooms and restaurants and weddings and all that kind of...

And so our plan is to send that letter to the landowners and we just wanted to bring that to you in case you had comments or concerns with that.

I don't know the answer to that.

And it's staff's recommendation that we go with the latter, just write the property owner rather than lodging a formal objection with ABC.

Because there are some activities that they could do under that Class II license that would be permissible.

Sort of in the Venn diagram, there is an overlap where they could be compliant with a Class II winery and be compliant with the easement at the same time.

Class I stuff would be allowed under the easement, right?

Because of all the grapes?

51% versus 100% produced on site.

Yes, because they're presumably expecting... Gonna bring in their graves outside.

You've called it large.

Defining what constitutes de minimis on this property has been a long running issue.

So you're saying that if they just produce

The reason why I picked up on your word large, that you kept referring to it as large, and I thought maybe small is okay, the large is not.

There's a question of what is an accessory use as well, whether it is accessory to agriculture.

I've been there.

Yeah, that's a good question.

The terms of the easement allow entry on the property with reasonable notice to the property owner.

In other words, if they have the yield of, say, 48 acres.

This is 92 acres.

So let's say they put 20 of them, that they can go get 20 acre nominal yield and bring it in and process it.

Yes.

But you're just saying they could bring that in.

I mean, it has all the makings of a violation of branding.

So I just think, I know what you're sending him a letter and saying, watch out.

And our past experience with the ABC is that they really just look strictly at sort of the piece in good order of the locality rather than considering land use implications.

So your plan is to send a letter and you're looking at this body for the sanctity for that effort?

Let me ask you another question.

Which they will.

Then what?

And if they get it, they get it.

How are they doing with the distiller?

We're setting ourselves up for acceptance.

So I think it's designed to address your concern.

You said, James,

have strongly enforced.

Do you customarily now get, if they apply for a building permit, will it automatically come to you all?

Yes.

I mean, the next question's got to be how many square feet is more than day minimums?

And I do think that we should put that on an agenda and have conversations like that, make sure that our staff have the direction and guidance and that we've thought more critically about our easement plans to make sure that we're having a set of easement terms that are robust.

So what do we do then?

We will bring it to you at a future meeting and ask you that question.

What that means.

So there is still the same concept of you can have some agricultural processing, but not a large amount.

There's sort of an exception to an exception that basically agriculture is allowed

But agricultural processing is not considered agricultural and therefore is not allowed.

Unless it's accessory.

But again, the concept of large versus small agricultural processing.

Accessory activity would be accessory to a permitted agricultural activity on the property, which would be the growing of the grapes.

So I would argue that.

And that would lead me to the same conclusion that growing of grapes is allowed, growing of apples is allowed, you know, pressing those apples into apple cider would be permissible, but importing apples from somewhere else is not accessory to agriculture on that property, it's accessory to agriculture somewhere else.

It's not accessory to hauling stuff in from other places.

But is that an agricultural item?

What's on the letter?

Bringing it in 50% or 51% of whatever it is is not permitted?

Well, certainly draw their attention to

My suggestion would be basically to recite the passage as it exists in the easement, to basically let the language of the easement speak for itself.

Let them interpret it.

It does for commercial recreational use, but again, as it applies to agricultural processing, the processing of agricultural products is not an agricultural use except as an accessory.

All right, what's your third item?

The project would replace the existing structures on the left, average height 56 feet, with the new structures on the right, average height 116 feet.

Not to scale.

So this is just an update for you now.

No, they're not seeking more easements.

It stops just before that.

So the easement holders, I think, are obligated to take a hard look at these right-of-way deeds.

And they're complicated.

Or is it all that way?

But for Strawberry Hill, no.

Now whether you want to go to the Board of Supervisors with this or not, that's a question for you all.

And we will aim to finish that review before July 8th in order to know whether we feel that there needs to be further review, whether we have issues that we want to carry forward to the SEC.

The board meets next week, or does so meet next week.

We have our own.

Yes.

Well, right, in terms of if we want to be a part of that as a model.

Well, again, you know, we'll look to the board in terms of the direction of participating on the strawberry.

Conceivable.

Is Gary the co-holder on this one?

Singly held by this body.

So it wasn't an Aces?

Yeah, three of them, that one.

I was kind of watched out but anyway I did know it's the three parcels but I do know that it goes back to like 1940s so it could be one of those easements on the back that has some sort of limitations on the hundred foot roadblocks.

No, that's Strawberry Hill, right?

That was part of Castle Hill.

Well, it's right next door.

to comment on the line to hold an easement, the purpose of which is protecting land in the National Register Historic District and doubling tower height will have a negative impact on the very conservation values that our easements designed to protect on this property.

I don't think we should be, other than to bring up, if there is a legal oddity, to help the county attorney's office find it.

You know, the second is, even if they have a hundred foot wide right of way, doubling the height of the towers is going to have a negative impact on the property that we are charging.

That's what I'm thinking is a more sort of down the middle comment for a conservation group.

Yeah.

So they may not have it, but they may be.

But they may have it?

They may have it by every concession, you know.

That's an average.

So can you see them from 22?

This is actually the Strawberry Hill property.

But in the future picture, it does break the skyline right there.

Yeah, yeah.

Just drive at the edge of Alamo County, like you're going to Williamsville.

or scenic Virginia, and those simulations are very effective for giving an idea of the picture that we just showed.

I couldn't even see the thing.

They completed the line, Jordan's in the north is what you're saying.

Street View This is the Lawson property here.

We're just letting you know at this stage that we're doing the review and the outcome of the review determines whether we need to do anything.

So is the radiation density?

If you don't think that you can meet that timeline in a responsible way, then we should be requesting to the SEC that they attend the timeline.

I had thought that we would review these deeds and if we found something that we had an issue with then we could call a special meeting because July 8th is before the next regularly scheduled meeting to discuss it and if we found that we think there is no issue then we would not need to call a meeting because there wouldn't be anything to discuss.

But that would obviously depend on the research.

What was the fraction for a hundred foot right away?

And so the notion of what's inadequate right away for tall towers has clearly changed from the 1980s to the 20th century.

falls down, you have to have that many feet to the right and that many feet to the left.

They're aware of the corridor that they're trying to push.

But I'm still surprised that there's not something like the AASHTO standards for roads that they would run up against and it would be considered improper for them to build a hundred

Well, is there any procedure going on?

So you feel comfortable with your

If you find an oddity, do you need a special meeting, or can you just ask for the standard timeline because of an oddity having been discovered?

I think what staff will do is staff will go back and take a look at this, show the results of what we find, and if the authority chooses to call a special meeting as a response to the additional information, you know, staff will accommodate that.

What's the way that you call a special meeting if the response of that meeting

I don't know that nobody from the board has asked about this of us yet.

I wonder whether at some point we should send a little guidance to the board saying, I mean obviously Strawberry Hill is a much bigger fish than this.

Yeah, the board has a million dollar property interest.

to send to the board and say, you know, we sort of hope you all think this too.

Does it hold strawberry at all?

They like to stand them.

So the question is, back to the Board of Supervisors, if this is the document, and million and three of 2008 taxpayer dollars have been used to do this, you just analyze it, look into it, or are you going to just let it go?

If the board directs us, take a look at Strawberry Hill, again, which is a board-held easement, certainly do that.

Thank you.

I mean, did I get the message here that this is not the time for us to put forward the kind of comment that we were just talking about, about scenic and historic resources, that this is only a timeline question?

James, what is the plan for the July meeting?

Regarding this issue or otherwise?

No plans yet.

But you don't have any requests that you know that you'll be bringing?

That's quite typical, though, not to know a month in advance.

Or is it the business of the right of way seems to be appropriate to address at this point?

It's, you know, you're fighting big.

That is everything we have for new business.

Yes, not for her.