Economic Development Authority Meeting   12/19/2023

with Recording and Progress.

I'm sorry.

I was saying you wanted to make an introduction, so should we go ahead and do that?

I was gonna introduce Ann Wall, our new deputy county executive at the table.

Ann comes to us from 30 years of leadership, local government leadership experience in North Carolina, most recently in Greenville as a city manager.

She comes from Virginia, though, and her origins.

I learned today that her parents were in the Navy.

I did not know that before.

Half an hour ago, so I learned some of that.

Really interesting story.

Anne went to UVA, has family in Northern Virginia and Harrisburg, and we're just

Tickle is coming to have her on board and part of the team.

Her portfolio will be or is community development, which was seeing some presentations on that today with Tori, Facilities Environmental Services and Parks and Rec.

Am I missing anything?

Welcome.

I knew Anne from

before she was here and I'm very excited that she's here.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Sure, sure.

Yes, I would love to take a moment to recognize Barry Albrecht, our new EDO director.

On the back of your agendas, there is an extended bio for him.

And if you happen to have picked up an agenda that does not have his bio, please let me know and I'll

Make sure you get one.

I will, let me tell you that my first impression with the EDA was presented by J.T.

and he did an outstanding

Briefing on all of you and your capabilities.

And you've got a good man serving you right here.

So you represented all of you very well.

So I'm looking forward to working with moving this forward, keeping me trying to keep up with J.T.

All right, well, welcome, Barry.

Thank you, I had a chance to meet much with Barry and get him going on things.

So I think it's gonna be great to work with you and the team.

All right, so hope I haven't messed up the slide presentation here by jumping in.

All right, matters from the public.

Anyone signed out?

Oh, there's Anne.

Approval of the minutes.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

Aye.

Sure.

That's right.

Yes, Mr.

Chair.

I can take a minute and pull it up.

I didn't have it included in the slides.

I didn't know if people wanted to see the numbers.

While that's getting pulled up, the main number that most of us are going to be concerned with is the amount of money that we have available.

And so that is $540,000 is what we have available as we look at the incentives and things coming forward towards us to kind of take a look at that.

And I'm sorry, J.T., we'll put you on the spot.

There we go, okay.

So we have the revenues of 618,000.

Looking at expenditures, different, you know, basically a little under 55.

And then going down, really the number we need, J.T., if you can scroll down a bit, the number, the key number for us right now is this 548,833.

And that's what we have available.

Ashley and I are still working with the, or will be working with the finance staff to streamline this so it's a little bit easier to understand the numbers.

Right now the numbers aren't matching up as far as really what we're seeing.

And if you did the math, it's not quite in flow.

Going forward, the way that the 4700 account operates is that it's not a line for line match budget.

Scenario.

The figures that we have in our expenditure line items are funds that have been appropriated by budget and the board to allow us to operate the EDA from.

So that 55 that Andy referred to is what we would think of as traditional EDA funds.

Those are those funds that have been appropriated from economic development fees, interest on bank statements,

that are appropriated in amounts for us to have access to during the fiscal year.

The EOF, the Economic Opportunities Fund that you see there with some of the delineation of the Community Investment Collaborative that some of you may remember being committed to supporting and some of the existing VJIP, Virginia Job Investment Program incentives that we're involved in.

Those are those funds that were appropriated in December of 2022 by the Board of Supervisors to give the EDA the flexibility and the opportunity to provide timely support to those agencies, so just to promote

The Willow Tree Clawback was a scenario where the state's benchmarks were slightly short on their employment numbers for that agreement.

So administratively, the organization determined it would be less of a strain on resources to instead of

issuing the $100,000 worth of tax rebate that Willow Tree was owed from the county, that we would instead provide a payment less than $100,000 and provide them with a $30,000 tax rebate in lieu of the $100,000 and then provide the state with the $70,000 that they were owed because of the fact that we have

that were the financial stewards of the ADA.

We would have to administratively go and get the money back from Willowtree to provide it to the state.

And so we thought this might be a more streamlined option.

You said it.

Yeah, very accurate.

Thank you.

Anything else?

All right.

Is there a motion to approve the financial report?

So moved.

Second?

The financial report is approved.

So on to new business.

J.T., are you going to?

Yeah.

We're really happy this afternoon to have with us guests from the Department of Community Development.

Kanalopoulos, and Ben Holt.

And Tori's going to lead us through an overview of this packet of information that we distributed a couple of weeks ago on the draft goals and objectives for the economic development chapter.

of the new comp plan.

And there's about 20 slides that Tori will go through before we take questions, comments, feedback from the EDA.

But your input is critical before this goes to the Board of Supervisors.

Thank you.

Thank you all for having us today.

We're looking forward to the discussion.

We'll start off with an overview of the comp plan, where we are in the process, and then walk through at a high level the draft goals and objectives for economic development

Ben and I head out after our item.

It's not because we're not having fun here.

We actually have the planning commission tonight.

So just letting you all know in advance.

You'll have more fun here.

So starting out with just a brief reminder of what a comprehensive plan is.

It is a 20 year guide for our community and it describes the vision for the future.

So it's where we want to go in the next 20 years with priorities for the next five years.

and recommendations include how and where to direct growth and development, support businesses, protect and restore the natural environment, provide safe and reliable transportation options, encourage housing choice and provide parks, trails and other opportunities for recreation.

And Virginia localities are required to have comprehensive plans and they have to be updated every five years.

So there are a variety of ways that the comprehensive plan is implemented.

That includes guiding how and where development occurs.

That's primarily through the growth management policy.

So that designates development areas and rural area for the county.

The development areas are shown on the map in the bright colors to show the future land use designations.

They are currently about 5% of the county's land area or 37 square miles.

And the rural area is approximately 95% of the county's land area.

and the majority of new residential and non-residential development is expected to occur in the development areas.

There are also future land use designations to guide future use and development of properties and those are found in each of the county's five master plans for the development areas and they're used in the review of rezonings and special use permits.

The plan also guides the provision of public services, utilities and infrastructure

That includes informing the Albemarle County Service Authority's jurisdictional area where public water and sewer is provided, which mostly follows the growth area boundaries, and then providing recommendations for funding and prioritization, informing the capital improvement program.

It also guides new plans and policies, such as the biodiversity action plan and climate action plan, and then guides updates to county ordinances, including updates to the zoning ordinance.

There are three project goals informing the update and these highlight many of the reasons that the 2015 comp plan is being updated.

Since the 2015 plan was adopted, there have been several new county initiatives, priorities and plans, including project enable.

We need to ensure that engagement is representative of our community and that we provide a variety of accessible opportunities for input and that we use an equity and climate action lens to review and refine plan content.

and the current plan has over 70 priorities and tracking success is currently difficult so we want to improve that with the updated plan.

There are four phases for the comp plan update and the first phase which is completed included developing the AC44 framework for an equitable and resilient community and doing a land use build out analysis for the development areas which I'll talk more about both of those.

and we're currently in phase two with updated goals and objectives for each plan chapter and planning toolkits for coordinated land use and transportation planning.

And in phase three, which we expect to start in the spring of next year, we'll have updated action steps for each plan chapter and prioritize recommendations with big moves to complete in the first five years after plan adoption.

And in phase four late next year, we'll wrap it all up into a final document and have public hearings for adoption.

So there are eight chapters in the updated comprehensive plan, which are very similar to the current comp plan.

I'll note that environmental stewardship is currently called natural resources.

That was an update to better reflect how we try to care for and restore the natural environment instead of just looking at it as resources.

And then there's rural area land use and transportation and development areas land use and transportation to

show the distinction between the development area and rural area, but also plan for more coordinated land use and transportation elements.

So there are goals, objectives, and action steps for each chapter.

Goals are where we want to go as a community.

Objectives are targets and outcomes to move us in the right direction.

And then action steps are the implementation measures to achieve our goals.

So as a reminder, since we're in phase two, we are focused on goals and objectives.

and the AC44 framework for an equitable resilient community was developed during phase one based on significant community planning commission and board input.

And it's a vision for a community that is green and resilient, welcoming and equitable, connected and accessible and thriving and prosperous.

So it is used to guide updating the plan recommendations and incorporate climate action and equity throughout the plan.

and we wanted to highlight a few of the key text components from the thriving and prosperous section of the framework since they're related to today's discussion.

So I think as we walk through the framework and community input heard today, you'll see a lot of reoccurring themes.

So we've heard a desire for ample job opportunities and clear pathways to thrive, land and infrastructure for new industries while also supporting existing businesses.

So as mentioned, in 2022, we completed the land use build out analysis, which we complete approximately every two to three years.

It's an important aspect of the growth management policy since we need to track the capacity of our existing development areas based on projected growth and demand.

It's an estimate using a series of assumptions of the theoretical maximum number of additional homes and square feet of non-residential uses that could be built in the current development areas.

Assumptions are used to identify land that has the potential to redevelop or is already vacant and future land use designations are used to create a potential build out of each property.

So there are several key takeaways from the analysis, including that there appears to be sufficient land available to accommodate projected growth and demand when looking at the land uses recommended in the comprehensive plan.

But noting that achieving full build out is dependent on development at the higher end of recommended densities and intensities, and that there will be constraining factors that limit build out.

And there are additional factors to consider for economic development.

There was a secondary tier analysis that was done to look at employment uses,

looking at criteria for at least three acres vacant and appropriately zoned or designated.

And that analysis found only 39 parcels in the development areas meeting that criteria.

And then within that only one site that met the tier four description for site readiness with infrastructure in place, site challenges addressed and a project that could be brought to market in 12 to 18 months.

And looking at the full build out analysis only about 7% of land

So there are three main steps for community engagement to draft the goals and objectives in this phase.

In the first step, we shared a series of topic reports, which I think you all received a copy of as well, the most recent version for economic development.

And then based on that, gathered community input on opportunities, challenges, and priorities by plan topic.

And then in the second step, we gathered input on four planning toolkit topics for coordinated land use and transportation planning.

So those are listed under step two.

They are all in the current comprehensive plan, but they were areas that we felt we needed additional community input on and direction from the planning commission and the board.

And to summarize at a high level, we heard that we should continue to prioritize development in the development areas, find ways to use development areas, land more efficiently,

and prioritize that over potential future expansion.

And now we're in step three, sharing draft goals and objectives for each chapter.

So to draft goals and objectives, the AC44 team or long range planning team is working with many staff across the organization.

I think at least 30 different staff are frequently involved on the partner agencies and county committees and advisory groups.

We also review the current comp plan to see what should be carried forward and what needs to be updated, incorporate updated best practices, refine recommendations with community commission and board input, and then of course using the EC44 framework to guide input as well.

So to summarize some of the key themes that we've heard from the community to date,

And we would definitely appreciate your all's feedback on if you feel the draft goals and objectives reflect what we've been hearing.

So similar to a lot of what we heard for developing the framework, attracting new jobs to the county, especially career ladder jobs, using land and infrastructure efficiently, having space for startups, supporting workforce development.

And then there were several comments in support of reducing barriers for small businesses, food trucks, and home occupations.

and the other comprehensive plan chapters as well.

So I'll walk through the goals and objectives at a high level since you all received them already.

First goal, the county will lead the growth of targeted industries, existing primary businesses and emerging opportunities, recognizing the different expectations for land uses and development in the development areas and rural area based on the growth management policy.

So supporting objectives include ensuring sufficient land throughout the development areas for future businesses and growth,

reducing barriers for the growth of target industries and primary businesses and encouraging efficient use of existing infrastructure through infill and redevelopment.

The second goal, Albemarle County will attract additional financial resources into the community through responsible economic development activities that result in quality job creation and career employment opportunities, increased tax base, an enhanced natural environment and community character and an improved quality of life.

Supporting objectives include using Project Enable to guide implementation, planning for future land uses around Rivanna Station, cultivating partnerships, and encouraging best practices to support local climate action and resilience.

Rule three, Albemarle County will collaborate with partners to support local startups, small businesses, and entrepreneurs.

And objectives include ensuring a supply of diverse spaces for businesses of all sizes to operate

School four, Albemarle County will foster opportunity for upward economic mobility with pathways for all community members to thrive through local and regional partnerships.

So supporting objectives include collaborating with local schools, colleges and universities for career development and access to jobs and collaborating with public and private partners to reduce barriers to workforce participation.

And I think objective 4.2 really highlights how all of the comprehensive plan chapters are interrelated and overlap with each other

and this goal and the objectives highlight how partnerships are needed to implement a lot of the recommendations in this chapter.

So we also held a work session with the planning commission on draft goals and objectives for both housing and economic development on November 14th and we wanted to share the feedback from the commission as well.

So this is just a brief summary, but the commission also noted the significant overlap with other chapters.

and the importance of leveraging partnership and funding opportunities.

They know that there needs to be support for small businesses and startups, especially since it's very expensive when someone is just starting out.

Opportunities for career ladder jobs and career mobility are very important.

And then to consider adding more specific language regarding recreational tourism.

So the next steps related to this chapter on January 17th will hold a board of supervisors work session on draft goals and objectives for five chapters, including economic development.

And then once we have board feedback, we'll work with the economic development staff and others to finalize the draft goals and objectives and then draft the action steps to be shared in phase three.

and I just wanted to put a quick plug for the website.

If you're not already following, it's engage.albemarle.org slash AC44.

So you can sign up for emails.

We share when there's upcoming events and questionnaires that are open and the questionnaire for economic development goals and objectives is still open as well if you have other thoughts you'd like to add after the meeting.

So, any questions or comments for the board?

I guess my initial question would be, beyond sort of participating this way, would it be helpful for us to sort of gather thoughts?

How, like, do we get feedback?

Do you want to start J.T.

Yeah, I'd like to make one just briefly.

It sounds like there are different ways we can contribute, but I don't want to spend too much time.

I just mentioned something, as I'm reviewing this, very comprehensive.

And I don't think there's anything missing.

If there is, I certainly don't see it.

But I'd like to take a highlighter to the workforce development part, especially with regards to blue collar jobs.

And as I talk to business owners, many of them own jobs and employees in collar positions.

So I use that term, blue collar, as an affectionate word, because I happen to own one of those businesses.

And I'm one of those guys that spent a lot of my life showering at night instead of in the morning, which I kind of see as the difference.

So I look at that and I talk to other business owners and the skills that people are bringing to job interviews are very limited.

And I'll give you just one example like automotive technicians.

It's a very high paying job.

If you can score one of those jobs in the dealership and spend a few years developing those skills,

I don't think

and when I've seen the plan, I see that we're doing a great job attracting people with advanced degrees.

We have people in the community already, citizens that live here, not future citizens that I think there's so much opportunity whether it's additional, not all of this is in our purview, but additional vocational training in schools and that kind of thing to help prepare people for the good jobs that the companies want to hire for today, not

years from now after we build buildings and attract companies.

I mean, we have these positions open today, and we don't have enough people to fill them.

It's so interesting that you said that because I was thinking the exact same thing.

As we grow, if you don't keep that base infrastructure,

the plumbers, the electricians, the mechanics, all that, then there's really, I think the whole economy suffers, right?

And we do have, I think PVCC is an outstanding organization.

I would like to see more support of that.

We have already spoken of that and supporting that, K-Tech, those sort of things, because

You're 100% right.

If we do not get all this tech and biotech, it's great, but you still have to have those base blue collar jobs and be able to support educationally through maybe apprenticeships, different things like that.

Also, businesses who are willing to provide those.

Right?

And that also creates economic opportunity for those people who want to go into those businesses who will, you know, kind of the underlying support beneath anything.

It's something we heard over and over again and it makes a lot of sense.

Some of the other suggestions were to start that vocational training in grade school to make people aware of different career paths.

Just to jump in on that, I would agree with both of what you all are saying and I would just add that when we talk about KTEC, we have to remember that the adult program there is excellent and they do a great job.

The high school program is, to some degree, an outdated model.

It needs to be revamped, I'm just saying.

I remember the auto dealers here were importing people two and three days a week to work on cars.

We were not training our children here to take those jobs that had starting salaries of $80,000 at the time.

So you are exactly right.

What I would suggest and

I don't want to get down in the weeds too much about this, but there really needs to be a deeper integration of workforce development into the Almaro County High School center model that they are building out right now.

That is a much more modern model.

And if we could look at that, there's a center already over at the old Cowndile building.

I think most of us know where that is.

but they're building another center that's going to be a brand new center over on the Lambs Lane campus, which is right in the middle of the urban area.

I think it's so forward thinking to be saying, hey, five, ten years down the road, what are these students going to be doing?

Because you drive past everywhere and everybody's looking for help, right?

But they're not saying, hey, I need a bioengineer.

They're not.

They're saying, I need a welder.

You know, I need somebody who can have these basic, an operator.

Those are such, there's a huge gap.

And we're going to see that because we're talking about building, right?

Well, you need construction.

You need all of these trades that if we don't have it, really support.

And there's so many small businesses, mine included.

that really rely on trades.

You know, I have mechanics, welders, operators, drivers, and it's really, that's the core of my staffing.

And so, I think anything we can do to encourage it, in addition to encouraging all of this, you know, the traditional STEM academic

Globe that everybody goes for.

We can't forget and leave this whole gap behind.

I'm sorry.

But sometimes they build on each other.

A child starts at one level or a student, I should say child, sorry.

But a student starts at one level and then can move into careers.

And that's how careers develop.

But I really think that we will miss an opportunity if we don't work with our public school system, as you all are saying, for workforce development,

I was just going to say the aptitude has grown

I don't want to get too much involved in this, but if we were involved in some of those career buildings, working with the schools around HVAC, what we need to do is for the community and everyone to understand that those are respectable professions.

There has been a sense in this country that career and technical is great for everybody else's child, but not mine.

I think also your tie-in to the schools is really important because not everybody is academically oriented in the traditional way.

Some people are really hands-on and are really good with that.

They can fix anything handy, but they're not really technically as far as book learning.

and to be able to make an opening for those students who will fill this very, very important gap for us is important.

Also, as a community, those are people who now are not on unemployment.

They are not getting into trouble because they have no work.

What active role can

Economic Development staff play in supporting vocational training.

Well, I think workforce development was mentioned under, what, 4.1?

I see it mentioned in here.

I'm not sure.

And so expanding on that, perhaps.

And I'm not sure.

Action items, of course, are different than goals.

And I get that.

But I'm just, I guess I'm jumping ahead and trying to get into action items ahead.

Maybe the relationship between current businesses and the educational organizations to say, OK, what do you need?

out with these centers in particular, which is when they decided on locating first over off of Mill Creek Drive, but then back to moving it into the Lambs Lane campus to be near the employers, to get the employers in.

I think if there's a way for us to support the employers getting into the schools to show that level of involvement and

I suppose as many people to as many different ideas.

I agree.

I'd love to share.

This is a fantastic discussion and immensely helpful.

I'm taking a lot of notes.

Just to share what we've been doing to date, it's relied primarily on partnerships.

So the city of Charlottesville has historically done a lot of workforce development programs.

And so our office has paid for Albemarle County residents to participate in those programs, whether it's bus drivers or cooks or solar

McCanons.

We've participated in all of those programs.

I would say just this past year for the first time has there been real opportunity for economic development in schools to get together in a more meaningful way.

One of the ways that just happened to work out, a former EDA director recommended a current high school student to intern in our office this summer.

And that opened the doors to a lot of discussions around what students are interested in, what they need to do in terms of specific types of credit to graduate.

So the two things that I would sort of relate it to this, maybe more equity side of things, is not just people for jobs, but also opportunities for businesses that are high tech startups, but as people want to start other businesses, it's often called main street businesses, or even the consuming businesses, which are not necessarily our high priority, but at the same time, those are the ones that people who may be

PhDs in biopatannics can start and that we need to be able to support those folks too as we encourage businesses.

So I think that's

So that's one piece.

And then the other thing, totally unrelated to any of those, that I noticed is there's reference to redeveloping and reusing and doing things like that.

And one of the parts of doing that is we need to make sure that our process allows those things to happen easily, or I should say more easily than somebody developing a kind of greenfield site.

Because if it's the choice between developing something that's already existing, if that's harder,

Then developing a site that doesn't have anything on it, then people are going to go to the easier choice.

Maybe you all have a better sense of this than I do, but

I will say I've been concerned over the last two or three years that we have proposals that come to us in the development area.

And they are often we are rezoning light industrial property.

We're losing the properties, the rezoning that we could be using for economic development.

And I guess you can speak to that more, J.T., than I.

I find myself in some of these discussions saying, has anyone talked to the Economic Development Office about whether or not this is what they think we should be doing or if this is a good use of that product?

Because if we lose our light industrial, and I'm not saying this very well, but J.T.

's nodding his head.

I think he knows what I'm talking about.

Do we have an accounting of how much properties we have?

That's a good segue into some of our later discussions.

But I do hope that, I do want to say thank you for bringing the sites piece into this.

Over the course of Project Enable over the past five years, our blue collar jobs and our employers are often saying to us, there's no way we can afford to buy land here, develop here, operate here.

So our surrounding counties become much more attractive opportunities for these kinds of jobs.

I would like to give credit to Community Development as those rezonings and special use permits come in.

We are being offered the opportunity, the Economic Development Office is being offered the opportunity to weigh in on the viability of those lands that are designated and zoned.

You may recall our former director, Roger Johnson, asking for

Hey, if this land can be put to a higher and better use, we don't want to stand in the way, but we also want to have consideration for future designation of land that provides a diversity of product and helps us augment some of our other goals.

Because as in Tori's presentation, she talked about that land use build out analysis.

I'm not in the targeted areas that we are interested in and that we qualify for.

That's pretty small.

And what you are discussing is I've been hearing for seven years at a national level, but there are some great examples of communities, how they've engaged in that problem and embraced the concept of wanting to keep their young people locally within the trades.

So there was actually in one,

The city put together the banks and the economic development in the schools, the universities, and they actually came up with a program where every student, they had to be careful because it's not free college or free junior college, but every student that graduated with a C or higher, they would have a two-year

degree with the local technical school and the results were that, believe it or not, those children, when they went through that training,

and got the free scholarship, they were able to stay locally.

They were able to go down to the local car dealership.

And I've been in the car dealerships in the garage.

And I can't really call that but, you know, riches and bolts.

I mean, it's very STEM related.

But the HVAC opportunities, because what happened was the owners of the companies had their children go on to work.

There is a shift going on and I think we are, what you're discussing is you're right on top of it.

The business retention and expansion efforts that's going on, that is a discussion that's come up even during my discussions.

So I think you're there, you're on it.

And those sites that you, and that was a question I brought up.

Do we have an asset inventory?

How many sites do we have?

How many schools do we have?

Really quick, Diane, I think you made a really, really good point about just the perception of blue collar work.

And it seems maybe a little bit like it wouldn't apply, but I really do think that, you know,

As an authority, if we get behind and we say, hey, there's value in this workforce and other entities say, hey, this is a valued workforce.

And then it's not, well, you couldn't cut it.

You had to go into this.

Because it's really, yes, it's really, the traits are respected.

And it's because, I'll tell you what, if you've ever had like a plumbing or electric thing and you have a good electrician come in and do your work, you're so thankful because your house can purchase it.

I mean, really, it's not an easy thing.

We think of it as, oh, it's not as much education, but there's a lot to go through all the journeyman process and everything.

There's a lot of hours of training, and we should be able to respect that as a community and start that with the leadership at every level.

And I think that perception is really more pronounced in a university community where you have a big university and lots of degrees and lots of advanced.

And I get that.

I don't know that it's in our purview or how we can...

I really missed the legislative meeting with the incoming legislators.

But we see many competing jurisdictions around us reducing the barriers to entry into some professions.

West Virginia in particular has done a great job in the last three to five years of reducing

licensing requirements for some professions to allow people to enter those careers that we need.

Cosmetology is the example that comes to mind most recently.

Some of you have to be very careful with electricity in particular, but there are opportunities

at the state level for the state to help us be competitive in that area because we do and we're not the only community that has these needs.

So I don't know how we can really argue for those types of things but that would be another way for the entire commonwealth to compete.

I think this has been great discussion.

And J.T., if you want to just capture the general feedback.

Yeah, thank you all.

I'm happy if you all want to put together a collective round of thoughts to share at some point.

Yeah, appreciate all the great input.

All right, so next on the agenda is the work session on the Virginia Industrial Development authorities training.

So I think what we wanted to do is just talk a little bit about some of the things that we picked up, those of us who

who were able to attend and then encourage those who were not able to attend to watch it because I think it had a lot of good information, a lot of good background on the sort of rights and duties and

abilities that the EDAs have in Virginia, and then I think a lot of good discussions, things that they can do and examples from other projects.

So first let me say, this is a totally doctored image.

You have your own certificate if you've completed the training with your name, but I just for the purposes of this one,

So even if you don't attend, for the right donation J.T.

Thank you for giving us the funds for this training.

So this image that's on the slide is from the City of Charlottesville's Economic Development Director, Chris Engle, provided an overview of some of the activities that their EDA does.

And it's not tremendously easy to see here, but they're looking at the full spectrum of

Businesses operating within the city and trying to find where they can add value through that whole life cycle.

And so I thought this was something that, this was a lens, a framework that we could apply to the areas where we have partnerships, where we have activities, and we could try to see where there are gaps and bring that back to the EDA and see if there are activities that the county's EDA would also like to do.

Just to encourage everybody to complete the training, I thought I would just give a quick overview of the different speakers.

I did notice that Chair Long and Director Storm were able to join contemporaneously with the training happening, but if you go back and watch it, the first day is

Perhaps dry in certain parts, but day two, I think really-

So the first session in the morning was really about legislative authority, what EDAs can do.

As a Dillon rule state, we can only do what the General Assembly tells us we can do.

And then the second speaker was about financing tools, specifically different types of bonds and things that EDAs can get involved in.

But day two was looking at

It starts off with a bang.

Joe Hines is an engineer from Timmins that has a lot of knowledge, does a lot of work all up and down the East Coast and even nationally.

So if you're looking for a primer on EDAs and evaluating

I think this is worth your time.

Likewise, the next sessions on day two talk a lot about that ecosystem that we operate in as economic development offices, who are our workforce partners, who are our utility partners.

What are we able to leverage at the state level?

That was with David Manley from the Wythe County IDA.

And then the final one is probably the most entertaining and I learned best through examples.

It was current directors from Harrisonburg, Lynchburg,

and then the city talking about things that they've actually done or are doing, the structure of it, how it came together.

To me that's really the most fascinating piece of this and so you know we're trying to prepare for

McKeel,

You're thinking as you're watching this and thinking about what it is that we want to do.

And so.

I will open the floor for anybody that has, you know, Liz provided an agenda that has a time stamp on the videos so you can make sure you're getting right to the meat of the discussion.

So thank you, Liz.

But I thought I'd pause here and see if there are any directors that had things that they interested them or caught their eyes.

I thought the first day was so good.

Actually, it was really good for me personally as being the new person in Virginia because I could see the similarities of the same programs from other states, but Virginia has tweaked them in a different way like the TIF discussions.

And then the second day of watching the samples of what other cities are doing provided me insights of what you can do

and I'm going to have to go back and look at the financing piece again because that's not where my strengths lie.

I did agree with the last presenters from the city, Harrisonburg and Lynchburg, in terms of what they did.

The piece that really struck me most was the industrial sites piece and I sort of sit there and I think, boy, we are not where we need to be.

I know with the Rivanna Station Futures purchase, that's going to help us get closer.

But there are going to have to be other opportunities that we can find and that we can work with the board on to make sure that those get addressed.

And that was the piece that caught my eye, that I feel like we're a little bit behind where we should be.

Yes.

Because it means different things to different people and can be very off-putting.

But I think I know many of us know what you mean.

And I'm just saying when you say that word,

It's like the word development.

Word industrial, people automatically think of smokestacks.

Exactly.

And the package we got actually has the tier, this document somewhere in there, they've got the tiering structure that talks about the different tiers and the timeline and things like that.

I think what I took away from it was one of the things that we've tried to feel out in terms of what the EDA can do is really the financing piece through bond financing and I think

where we've sort of come down is that for the kinds of things that we want to do, the EDA doesn't offer a lot for that because the tax advantage benefits really are fairly small.

Where we really get some benefit I think is in working through things like the tax increment financing options that T.W.

talked about and

whether either as a way to finance a project or as a way to just make it more economically feasible and I think as I thought back over it about what I took away I think it's that we've really got to work with the board because that's not something that we can do together and I think there are

that really figuring out, okay, what do we want to do and how do we make this work?

Because the board has to agree to rebate the taxes back to make that financing work.

And I think the projects we need to be thinking about are kind of the but for projects.

Where can we step in to make something happen?

A good example of that is the project that Chris Engel talked about with the Ninjic building downtown that became the SNL building,

Federal Government gave the property to the city.

The city turned around and leased it to the EDA for $1 a year or $10 a year, I can't remember.

And then the EDA leased it to SNL.

And they were able to basically allow SNL

to finance the repairs by reducing their rent over a long period of time.

And so that's the kind of thing that we've got to be open to, saying, OK, can the EDA do these things in something a non-economic plan would not be willing to do?

And that's how we can get somebody to build a building or do those sorts of things.

But it's those opportunities that we need to look at.

And I think that that's something that we've got to work with the board to come

I think the other piece related to that, which is a bigger issue, is if we are going to take on those things, how do we do it?

Does the Economic Development Office do it?

Does the EDA do it?

And if the EDA does it, does the EDA need to have staff to do these things?

And how do we allocate the work between what we want the office to focus on and what we want?

I think those are just those are topics that we've got to think about and yeah County Executive's Office has got to decide okay where do we want to focus because I don't think we as an EDA should be

to taking the Economic Development Office off in directions that maybe the county executive doesn't want us to do.

So I think we've got to think through how do we, and what's the most effective?

Are we, the EDA, most effective to do things or are there things that the county itself will do?

But it is exciting.

Good question.

The county doing anything with site development to encourage like basically getting through all the permitting and some of the infrastructure and all that stuff that sometimes could take years in preparation to attract businesses.

I know Louisa County did that a lot with the new Amazon data center that's coming in and they probably worked on that.

five, seven years at the Shannon Hale Business Park.

And they just, it kept going back until they finally were able

are we doing anything like that?

Yeah, so it's a great question.

Shannon Hill is about a thousand acre industrial park in Louisa that utilized grants from the state, many grants from the state over years and years and years, decades to advance that infrastructure to be ready for that billion dollar, I think it was $10 billion,

Is it 11, 10 or 11?

11, yeah.

So that was a two-decade overnight success in there.

We have an agreement with the University of Virginia Foundation to accelerate site readiness at North Shore.

The grants that are currently available to the state require a match.

And in the case of the University of Virginia Foundation, they had spent a little over a million dollars extending Lewis and Clark Road.

And so we were able to

Take that investment and make a request to the state through the county to advance readiness there.

So that's one site, right?

That's just one site out of the entire county.

But we're constantly working with our utility partners.

We'll weigh in on these are the sites that we'd like to see advanced in that process which is large amounts of state money that can really move the ball forward

We meet with the service authority and the sewer authority to talk about enhancing capacity.

Some of the opportunities we hear about from the state, they need a million gallons a day of water and sewer capacity.

That is not readily available in the community.

But understanding where do we have the most capacity available

and looking at 40% of the county's growth in the comp plan is north of the south fork of the Rivanna River going up Route 29 north.

So trying to concentrate where those infrastructure investments going to give us the best bank

It's 5 to 10 to 15 years out.

We can ask VDOT and ACSA and other partners to prioritize those projects and accelerate them.

They can come through VEDP.

I think in the case of Louisa, it was just a willingness to say, hey, this is a thousand acres that we're going to commit to.

We have a long-term vision and we're going to do it.

It was probably three or four years ago, Louisa County actually approached this body, approached the EDA about developing a regional industrial facility authority that was going to have shares in that park.

And at the time, we opted not to invest, but they were offering, at a regional level, would there be a 50-acre pad for a county business to locate?

but these these are big discussions that you know we got our first strategic plan in 2018 so it's exciting regionally too because you know we want to attract people to our area they have spouses and they need jobs and this just gives it more you know more opportunity for people to you know have diverse incomes in different places and their spouses to find work and homes you know Albemarle County is a ref for a house

You know, you try to even just afford to live here.

I think if you trace that success in Louisa back 30 years or 35 years, it was largely resulting in one guy.

And I believe he was only a comic developer authority in Louisa County.

And it had its birth at the airport in Louisa County.

But it's a good discussion, J.T., I agree with you.

And what's the balance for our community?

Because while something in Louisa might fly at a data center, might not fly here, but there's got to be a balance of what we can do and what we want in our community.

The piece that I took from the

directors, the heads that spoke on day two was the piece that it's not solely about the economics anymore in terms of attracting these companies and these jobs, it's the quality of

It's what does that commute look like, it's what are those schools looking like.

And that was the biggest piece that it's not just the bottom line anymore for all of these companies that are coming and are looking to do things.

Because it's a lot of what you were talking about with that trailing spouse, with the family that comes along.

So we hear that and that sort of

And I think it's often been about that.

It's just that that's not been recognized.

Because I can remember when the Defense Department was talking about coming down here to Rivanna, and I was on the school board, and we were asked to come to Northern Virginia

to explain to the folks in the Defense Department about Almar County Public Schools, because the first question that those folks asked was, what do the schools look like down there?

We're not moving down there unless there's a good high quality school system.

So I mean, and that was two decades, what, three decades ago?

So that's always been there.

We just haven't recognized it like we should and played up on it, played to that advantage.

I'm talking way too much today.

All right.

Well, we have no action items on our agenda tonight.

So the last item is just a staff report.

And maybe

Trevor, if I could ask you to do an update on Rivanna Futures, I can come back to you because I think both of our past two items on the agenda dovetail really well into Barry's first day, which was the affordable housing work session.

where economic development was brought up on a number of different occasions, particularly in the TIF mechanism and can the EDA continue to play a role in supporting affordable housing projects.

Southwood is one that I think all of the directors have heard and have experience with.

Brookdale is another affordable housing project.

That's a 17 and a half year agreement that was around infrastructure to permit for water and sewer to permit an affordable housing project to go forward.

So

That was, Supervisor McKeel helped me, that was the TJPDC representation from the private sector as well as the planning commission having a joint discussion.

They were hitting on a lot of the same themes that we're hearing, that we're discussing tonight.

and so I just wanted to, as part of the staff report, make sure that the EDA was aware that that was true and I expect that the opportunity for more TIF agreements to help support affordable housing investment will come back to the EDA in the future.

Trevor, was that enough time to talk about arriving in the future?

I was ready to go.

The Brook Daleks project has been very successful.

That's right.

That's been a great example of how sort of our first foray into that world.

It was really early and we were able to work it out so he could start on Monday, December 4th, same day as Ann.

And after two weeks he asked me, is it normal to have four board meetings in two weeks?

And I said it was, did you not read the fine print?

Just kidding.

It was a really great time for Barry to join us.

Just coincidental to the work of the board over the past two weeks.

And really up there in the Rivanna Futures is we're now officially landowners as of Friday.

It is in the name of Albemarle County.

We will probably do something probably more public on that because we're in a time of year where

I think everyone is more worried about what Santa's bringing and so probably in January we'll do something more public on it but yeah it's been a

Hardgrind by a lot of folks.

This gentleman here has probably read more documents in six months than I have in my life related to this.

So we're really excited about it.

Over the past month, Mr. Richardson, County Executive, and I met with Senator Warner on this project and his staff.

We likely will be back up there in January working with the congressional delegation.

and back down to the state, kind of back to the last conversation, we have a formal ask in to the state for funding to get us to a tier four level of readiness.

for somewhere between 75 and 100 acres.

And so that's the work that we really will be pushing forward with.

Partnership development, working with the national security and intelligence community to look at needs and wants.

But it's really exciting news.

Thanks to the board for their leadership and their support and their willingness to follow this dream forward.

To prioritize.

Is that good enough, J.T.?

Yeah, thank you very much.

Yeah, so the other remaining items for update really relate to a number of different grants that the EDA heard about at different points throughout the year.

So we wanted to share that the Go Virginia grant, I believe in late summer, we heard about the regional entrepreneurship initiative that will be completed by the middle of next year.

the state Go Virginia board approved the wine industry planning grant that this body committed $20,000 to that will ultimately leverage a little over $200,000.

Shortly after the EDA's commitment, we were recognized as

by Wine Enthusiast Magazine, Wine Region of the World.

So it was very timely and we've gotten a lot of good feedback and excitement around this grant to help support that industry here.

Seville Biohub came here and asked for our support for a RIF grant.

from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority.

They were not successful.

on a 5,300 square foot wet lab space off the downtown mall.

This is a gap in the ecosystem that we've known about for a long time.

We're hopeful that it's successful and we get more of that investment in the county.

Yes.

What was it, George, before?

Sovereign bank.

Sovereign bank, yeah.

So that was just an exciting announcement that Civo Biohub brought forward.

I expect that will be fully rented out.

by some of our innovative biotech companies.

And then the last bullet is the SEDS study.

That's the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy that puts us in a position for federal grants.

That is something that is filed with the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

So, you know, we think about May

The future grants, this would be the plan that provides the basis and the avenue for us to apply for and obtain those grants.

So that's exciting.

The TJPDC has been working with Camoin, a consulting group, to lead that effort and it should be done by the end of Q1.

and beyond that, for your viewing pleasure, Ashley and our crew has put together just a quick slideshow of things.

I didn't realize it had auto.

Yeah, I didn't realize it had auto play on it.

So I don't think maybe I can just escape and show it this way.

But we just put together some photos of different events and things that the EDA supported.

A very informal year in review, if you will.

Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, I think one that I want to call out here in the lower left hand corner was our visit to Vanderlinden Recycling.

That was a really fun

So these are BRE visits.

This is a picture from Ashley.

The EDA supported a study for tourism in downtown Scottsville.

So this is their former town administrator and former EDA director, Matt Lawless.

That study will be distributed to the EDA, so you can see the outcome of that.

Supervisor McKeel at the gala with Seabick at North Fork, and a lot of good events here in Q2.

In Q3, this is our high school intern, Josh, on a BRE visit out in Crozet with InBibe Solutions.

This was a visit to Southwood to get an update on their progress there.

This is Trevor presenting at Seize the Day, a veteran-centric event.

This was a chamber event, the Black and White Affair.

This was Ashley presenting to a group of high school students that went out to Willowtree and learned a little bit about the Broadway corridor.

This was a grant the EDA supported for an expansion of Kelly Turkeys out in Crozet.

This is inside their processing facility.

We are taking pictures of the equipment they purchased.

This is Ashley again.

Stop.

So this is Ashley and Liz at a fundraiser for CBIC at the Glenmore Golf Tournament.

So it's been a big year.

Thank you to the EDA for your support, your attendance, your engagement.

It's helped us get done what we've been able to get done.

And we're obviously hungry for more, but we appreciate everybody's support.

Really good work.

I just have one thing I'm going to throw out just because I have, I can talk about water and lack of water.

Do not throw water away.

People think, oh, I don't throw water away.

all your half-filled water bottles, the ice as you're going at the movie theater, you're in the stadium, even dump it in the grass, dump it in a plant, dump it down the sink.

Do not landfill water.

We need water desperately.

And it's more than people think.

So I just had to throw that recycling thing in there.

There's always a dog bowl nearby.

That's right.

That's right.

So the next meeting is January 16th.

We have a draft schedule of meetings.

You may not change it.

I think just review it and then let J.T.

The next thing we need to evaluate is whether we need to pick another date.

So we'll adopt the schedule and the calendar for the upcoming year.

It will also involve elections.

We really like to present a slate and make it quick and easy.

So if you all want to speak amongst yourselves before we get to that meeting and have a slate, that's certainly appreciated.

If you don't have one and there's going to be a contest, we can certainly accommodate that.

Our positions are chair, vice chair, and secretary treasurer.

And moving forward, we're not prepared to do it now just because events have overtaken our ability to revise the rules and procedures.

But going forward annually, we'd like to readopt the rules and procedures each year.

Mr.

Chair, if I may just ask a question.

J.T., on the calendar, I know you have been working with the clerk's office.

You're showing a joint board meeting on Tuesday, May 21st.

I had assumed that would be part of the board's regularly scheduled Monday and first and third Wednesdays.

All right.

Thanks, everybody.

Oh, wait.

I'm reading the signal.

Well, self-destruct, guys.