Board of Supervisors Meeting   2/25/2025

Francis, are you flying on a plane?

I have to mention, he's going to join us remotely, but only at 630.

Is he joining us?

All mine was sick this morning, but I don't know what's wrong with them.

almond milk.

I was too.

I think that's why I was raised on it.

You can only drink milk at my house.

You can drink milk.

Maybe water.

That's it.

Good afternoon to our Tuesday

February 25, 2025, Board of Supervisors meeting.

I'll be sitting in tonight for Mr. Catalano, who is not feeling well and is staying home.

He will be joining us at our open meeting at 630 by Zoom.

Yes, ma'am.

Whereas the Board of Supervisors of Greene County desires to discuss in a closed meeting the following matters.

Discussion consideration or interviews of prospective candidates for employment assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries displaying or resignation of specific public officers appointees or employees of any public body concerning the Board of Zoning Appeals, the Board of Equalization,

the Agricultural and Forestry District Committee and the Economic Development Authority, whereas pursuant to section 2.2-3711 of the Code of Virginia, such discussion may occur in a closed meeting.

So moved.

We have a motion and a second to go in closed session.

Roll call vote.

Ms.

And the chair of outside.

We'll be back at 5.30.

Or 6.30.

Excuse me.

I think we normally start at 5.30.

We've been starting at 4.30.

It's all nice.

It's all nice.

It's hard to say.

Thank you.

Thank you, General.

Oh, no.

I don't know what that is.

I don't know what that is.

I don't know what that is.

Welcome to our Tuesday, February the 25th, 2025, Board of Supervisors meeting.

Mr. Catalano is on Zoom with us tonight.

He's not feeling well, so I'll be taking over.

So moved.

We have a motion and a second to come out of closed session.

Ms.

Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Do all members certify that only public business lawfully matters exempted from the open meeting requirements and only such matters as identified by the motion to enter into closed meeting were discussed?

And I certify.

Yes, Madam Chairman.

I have two motions I have to make.

First motion to petition the circuit court to appoint Jay Hunter to the Board of Zoning Appeals for a five-year term which will expire on February 28, 2030.

I have a motion and a second.

Roll call vote.

Thank you.

I have a motion and a second.

We'll call that.

And the chair votes are.

Madam Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to reappoint Corey Jacober to the Economic Development Authority for a four-year term which will expire March 1st, 2029.

I have a motion and a second.

Roll call vote.

Mr. Lamb?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

You may be seated.

I have a motion and a second to adopt your agenda.

Roll call vote.

And the chair votes aye.

All right.

Good evening, I'm Jeannie Faulkner.

We know we're already struggling to meet our current water needs and Greene County's anticipated residential development is going to create even higher demand for water and sewer.

I do not think this infrastructure should be created on the backs of residents who live rurally and who have wells and septic systems that we are already paying for.

And I hope that whatever projections you make when you are figuring out future needs will include

realistic numbers and will not include real estate tax increases for the purpose of paying for any additional infrastructure that we need.

High real estate taxes price out long timers and short timers.

And by that, I mean people who have lived here for a long time and also people who have a short time to keep living, seniors who are often on fixed incomes.

do not raise our real estate property taxes to solve this water problem.

We do not want to subsidize a developer's profits with our tax dollars.

Thank you.

Good evening, Chair Dorr and supervisors.

My name is Mark Fanning.

My wife and I have had the pleasure of living here since 2016.

Tonight, I'd like to pose two questions to the Board of Supervisors.

One is how are the recent and ongoing federal budget cuts affecting our county?

And more importantly, what are we doing about that?

I thought Terry, I don't know how to pronounce Terry's last name, Biggie?

Biggie, sorry.

I thought Terry Biggie's January letter on federal grants was a good starting point.

Ms.

Biggie's letter addressed a total of $2.5 million in grants.

She indicated that while many of the grants have already been awarded, the county needs to request reimbursement, and there's always some risk that they will not be reimbursed.

I suspect this letter addresses just the tip of the iceberg.

as our county and citizens are dependent on many federal funds.

The threats in these areas range from as broad as rumored cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security to more narrow impacts such as the recent layoff of staff at Shenandoah National Park.

We know our county is very dependent on federal funds for several key initiatives such as the piping replacement in Standardsville.

We also have businesses supported by the park.

We have a food pantry that relies on federal support.

We have farmers to get federal support.

We have landowners that are getting environmental support.

We have a business development office that is trying to bring in defense work.

Our school's impacted, and I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface of the impacts.

There are many people wiser than me regarding federal funding for our county.

That is why I'm asking the county to engage these folks to analyze the situation thoroughly and tell us what is going on and how the county will deal with the cuts if they cannot stop them.

I think it would be wise for the county to bring in community members to participate in this very important work.

I'm trying very hard not to be political tonight.

We are hardly divided in this country, and I don't want to add to that, but I do think there are some consensuses emerging.

One is that many people support a more efficient federal government.

We want a careful look at spending, but the other consensus is we want this done thoughtfully.

We want it done by people who understand and care about the impacts of these cuts.

I think that also, I think that many people in Greene are beginning to understand the connection between these cuts and the administration's desire to lower taxes for the wealthy.

So again, I'm asking the board to please study carefully the impact of these cuts.

I know they're emerging and I know it's hard to keep track of them, but we must do that

and also get to work on how we're going to deal with these cuts.

And I also think that the board is obligated in their roles to speak out on behalf of their constituents.

And if the cuts are hurting people, they ought to speak out about it.

Thank you very much.

Jay Willard, please come forward.

Good evening.

My name is Jay Willer.

I'm a resident of the Standardsville District.

I'm here to talk about the water utility, but not about water supply.

Last week, I got my new bill.

I am a sewer only customer.

And when you all talked about water rates back in November,

you there was some lots of discussion and language in the ordinance you approved, but I don't think anybody really paid attention to it.

A lot of the discussion was, we'll work out the problems of metering for sewer only customers.

And until then, we'll be okay.

So I got my bill.

And what you have in front of you at the top of the page is my water bill from Mountain Lakes Water.

you all know who they are they have meters at all our houses you can see there that a month ago my wife and I used 1,750 gallons of water our average last year was only 1,430 gallons of water this month in the brighter orange we used 1,400 gallons I think that's a fairly low number

But at the moment we just got, when we got the county sewer bill, it said our rates were going up from $36.27 a month to $43.11.

That's a 16% increase.

And then that is going to be added again to our bill in July.

So we're talking about a 32% increase only because we're a sewer only customer.

Thankfully that's lower than what the rates on the county sites that we should be paying $61 a month just because we don't have a meter, but it's still a significant amount.

If you look at the back of that page, it was the thing that surprised me more.

This was tucked into our water bill and it says water and sewer costs for the lowest users are being reduced while higher users rates are priced to encourage conservation.

I think my 1,400 gallons falls in the lower user rate.

And this is me.

It applies to everybody in Green Mountain Lake, every sewer only customer.

And lots of my neighbors are one and two member households, probably with similar things.

I'm not asking you to do anything about this tonight.

I'm just wanting you to hear that at least one constituent and one customer was a little surprised that the numbers here and the impact

on this.

I will close by saying what I will always say, talking about the water and sewer business here, I want it run like a business.

I want it to raise enough money to pay what needs to cover what needs to happen.

All I'm asking here is why single out sewer only customers for hugely higher rates than everybody else is paying.

Brent, turn.

please come forward.

Good evening, board.

Thank you for having me.

Fred Terp, Stannersville District.

A couple things I want to tell you just when I'm going to focus on public comments this evening is I'm not sure if you all I don't think you were on the call.

There was a call last night from a

group, a citizens group had a virtual meeting and it was set up to be an hour long meeting for people to call in and just discuss the basically two subjects, two topics.

Somebody else will probably talk more about this and provide you with some information.

But the first half hour is supposed to talk about the need for reservoirs.

the second half hour was gonna talk about the, how do we pay for it?

The financial end of it.

Well, I wanna address the first half.

I was kind of surprised.

There was, I don't know if it was a sanction by the county, I don't think so, but a county employee, the water and sewer director Tom Hooker was there and he spoke and he spoke as a county employee.

So ipso facto, he was representing the county on this call.

And they started off by talking about why we need a reservoir.

And I am for a reservoir for future growth.

Let's get that out of the way.

But I was really taken back when Mr. Hutke was rattling off some facts and some figures.

And he made the statement that the high school does not have enough water.

There's not enough water or water pressure to put a fire out at the high school.

and I said, what?

You've got to be kidding.

If that is in fact true, if that's just a statement somebody makes without fact, we gotta get to the bottom there.

But if that's a true fact, forget about needing a reservoir for future growth.

And you need a reservoir to make sure you have the water needed for safety of the citizens of this county as well as the county employees.

and there's a difference that says we don't have pressure.

Well, you could have a billion gallon reservoir and you're not gonna have more pressure.

Pressure doesn't come from the amount of water.

They said also that the high school built an underground tank.

There's an underground tank under the high school that has water to have a backup if there was a fire and they have a water need.

I said, you've got to be kidding.

And if they don't have pressure, and also the statement made that years ago, I don't know when, that the high school had to shut down a couple of times because they didn't have enough water pressure to flush the commodes.

I don't know how long ago that was or how true that was.

Again, if you don't have enough water pressure, is the water pressure enough to run the sprinkler system in that school system?

This is a question, so I'm going to kind of end.

My time's up.

I have more to say, but I won't.

But I was really taken back that a county employee stood in front of this group and made the statement that our high school is not safe.

Thank you.

Mike Traber, please come forward.

Thank you.

My name is Mike Traber.

I appreciate you guys taking the time, Madam Chair and Supervisors.

I would like to read a quick letter that you may have seen or not seen from a couple of citizens that were out there, but I'd like to read it into the record.

Dear Greene County Board of Supervisors, I'm ready to express my deep concern regarding the apparent delays in advancing the much needed white run

water impoundment project and associated water infrastructure improvements.

As a resident of Greene County, I'm very concerned about the future of our water infrastructure.

It is vital to the health, safety and economic well-being of our community.

A couple of key concerns and observations.

I understand that the county has been planning the White One Water Impoundment Project for 23 years and that significant investment of our tax dollars has already occurred.

The Board of Supervisors has provided no viable alternative to this.

I recognize that moving forward with the final steps to fund and construct this system requires a significant investment in the future of Greene County and the citizens and businesses that call it home.

I appreciate that this is a complex and challenging decision for the Board of Supervisors.

Time is running out on permits that authorize construction and further delays could jeopardize the entire project.

Most importantly, the County cannot afford to neglect the critical investment.

Our future depends on a reliable and sustainable water infrastructure.

Given the urgency of this matter,

I respectfully request the Board of Supervisors take the following actions within the next 30 days.

Pass a resolution reaffirming the county's commitment to completing the White One Water Empowerment Project, the new water treatment facility and associated infrastructure.

Two, develop and publicly share a detailed funding and project development timeline.

Three, complete the necessary bond issuance to secure funding and ensure timely project completion.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and commitment to Greene County.

I urge you to act swiftly to secure our community's water future.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I'm Bill Martin, Stanersville District.

I'm also with Impact Green.

I want to offer a few words on the Greene County's inadequate water infrastructure.

There are plenty of reasons to have a public water system that provides adequate safe drinking water and adequate water pressure.

I'm heartened to see a more sophisticated debate on this subject in recent months.

I'm also encouraged to hear debate on how to finance the White Run project and associated components.

I support the upgrades and I've worked hard with some of you to advance the project.

I'm hopeful that a majority on this board now sees a need to move forward.

Now I'm not here to suggest how to finance the project.

That decision is yours and yours alone.

There are multiple revenue sources that will provide sufficient revenue flow to attract competitive bond offerings.

Godspeed on getting appropriate budget line items into this coming budget cycle.

My main comment tonight revolves around fire safety.

I appeal to this board to consider the danger we face if the wrong fire is sparked.

when water pressure is particularly low, for example.

I asked the board to consider the study that the county requested the Rapidance Service Authority to complete a few years back to locate all fire hydrants and to document whether they were functional and whether they held sufficient pressure.

The results were not encouraging.

Far too many of the hydrants were found to be dysfunctional and with insufficient pressure.

disappointingly, all we got from RSA was a fresh coat of red paint on each hydrant.

This was a concern for the Board at the time and spirited it to gain independence from RSA so Greene could build new infrastructure to secure adequate water supply and adequate water pressure.

There were whispers about what would happen if there was a major fire at our school complex that required extraordinary quantities of water.

There were murmurings of increased insurance rates if our water vulnerabilities became widely known.

It made the Board at that time nervous.

I remain nervous.

I asked myself, what kind of community can't or won't fund a public water system that has adequate water supply and adequate water pressure for functional fire hydrants?

Two major fires have destroyed major sections of the town of Standardsville in the past 100 years.

In addition to our large school complex, we have major commercial enterprises, box stores, and denser attached housing.

With inadequate water supply and low or no water pressure, less than fully functional water hydrants, we are vulnerable.

For any of you who do not support moving forward with the reservoir and associated water infrastructure upgrades, please consider the ramifications to your constituents and please consider the vulnerabilities to the county for not having acted to rectify the threat.

Thank you and thank you for the hard work that each of you does.

Well, you're fortunate.

Lots of people have already said what I wanted to say.

So for once, I'll try to be a little bit more brief than usual.

I think we're putting the cart before the horse on the tech thing.

Here we are talking about fixing the new zone.

We want to attract all this business and we're not going to attract anybody

for tech if they can't have water.

They're a little too sophisticated to even take that chance and not have enough people to read the law and all of that.

So I urge you to prioritize the water.

It's just all that stuff about the high school was exactly what I was gonna say, except I looked it up.

Harrisonburg built a new high school for $70 million.

That's a whole lot of money for us if we have to replace our high school.

just to reconstruct an elementary school in Richmond city was 30 million.

So yeah, you've got the land, you got the foundation, but you're still, if nothing else, the financial risk, and I don't see the state of Virginia saying, sure, we're gonna give you a grant to rebuild this building that didn't have to burn down because you didn't have water.

So I also signed on public comment so I could kind of step over.

About the tech zone, I noticed that in Northern Virginia, some of the people who owned land that got zoned for tech and data centers ended up having a much higher property tax, but not an opportunity yet to sell their land.

And so they were in danger of being foreclosed on their land.

because they couldn't make their tax payments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Vice Chair Durr and board members.

My name is Jennifer Lewis Fowler and I am here about water this time.

There has been much talk about who should pay for the reservoir project, an enormous expenditure that directly impacts approximately 3000 households and dozens of businesses in Greene County.

Some citizens have argued that everyone should pay, the rationale being that every taxpayer contributes to the public school system.

Yes, that is true.

However, children of today are our future, so investing in their success is critical and should be a priority for everybody.

or the recent Firefly broadband expansion specifically helps those in areas without reliable internet.

I believe Firefly

The Firefly contribution from Greene was about $80,000, which is a drop in the hat compared to the Reservoir project.

Taxpayers' dollars also go towards fire trucks and ambulances regardless of whether or not the taxpayer ever needs those services.

In some ways, it's like an insurance policy.

You loathe having to pay it, but it's preferable to not need it.

Others have said only those who hook up to the county water should pay for the infrastructure.

Then there are those citizens who have private wells and septic.

They pay for the upkeep of their wells and drain fields.

So many of these individuals see an additional tax or that would be penalizing them for having their own source of water.

Furthermore, they are also paying for Greene's public water by patronizing local businesses.

Businesses pad their fees and their goods sold to defray electricity, insurance, theft and water.

So what is fair?

What is reasonable?

Who is responsible for paying for public water?

These are the questions that have been haunting board members for years.

And I forgot to say I'm getting Debbie Turks three minutes as well.

Last year, Greene County was warned of overdrawing water from the Rapidan River.

And this is occurring even after the reduction of customers no longer receiving water from Greene County, such as the former Orange County residents.

If the reservoir project started tomorrow, water would still not be available for about four or five years.

We need more water now.

The expanding number of new apartments and homes utilizing the county's water is quite obvious to see, and the warnings from the Department of Health should not be taken lightly.

I'm not a mathematician, but the current price tag on the reservoir project

125 million is going to bankrupt our county.

If you include interest for the next 25 or 30 years, the actual price tag is basically double that.

A $3 million grant here and there doesn't even put a dent in the cost, although I appreciate

the efforts for the grants.

By selling EDUs at extremely low costs over the past decades, we have lost a huge amount of revenue.

The large projects underway or soon to be in works have already secured their water and sewage hookups for very low fees.

The guesstimated number of new hookups seems unrealistic, further limiting the amount of money generated by EDUs in the years to come.

Let us also not forget about the numerous other items on Greene's capital improvement list, such as an emergency services center in the Rutgersville area, fire and rescue equipment, another ambulance, sheriff vehicles, overdue maintenance and expansions for county offices, HVAC units for schools, a new school, generators, a community park, fixing dozens of inoperable water hydrants, and the list goes on.

The county intends on flooding 125 acres for the reservoir.

However, including the water treatment plant, approximately 175 acres of trees will have to be removed.

An average acre contains between 100 and 200 trees.

But some of the forest isn't dense.

So let's say there's 75 trees per acre.

That's still 13,125 trees gone.

To get a handle on 125 acres, envision the Rutgersville Walmart and the Lowe's building and the parking lots and all the land in between those two and multiply that by four.

That's the reservoir.

This forest is home to bear, birds, turtles, frogs, wildflowers, honeybees, dozens of deer, just to name a few.

In 2011, a permit application was conducted and it stated that a state endangered bird

was confirmed to be within a two-mile radius of the reservoir site.

That was almost 14 years ago.

As far as I can determine, there have been no follow-up surveys to review the current wildlife of the area, if bald eagles are there, or other important birds or species.

Isn't it time for a plan B?

The current reservoir project has been discussed for over 15 or 20 years and is not monetarily feasible.

The county could drill a dozen deep wells in various locations, such as the proposed reservoir site, the current water and sewer department lot, the land on Deerfield Drive, etc., costing approximately $100,000 each.

Of course, there would be other costs, too.

However, they would supplement the current water that we're getting from the Rapidan River.

It would also cost a fraction of the current plan.

Other counties in Virginia, such as Louisa and Loudon, utilize wells and stream water.

Please discuss other solutions for Greene's water crisis.

Moving forward with the reservoir plan will dry up Greene's funds for the next 30 years.

You can find that under the reaction button.

Thank you, Mr. Friedle.

We'll move on to our public hearing to consider a request from Ice Park Holdings LLC for a special permit for an indoor recreation facility at Ice Park.

Thank you.

As stated, this is a request for a ice park, an ice skating rink facility, and it's located near the food line in the shopping or the

urban development, land development, and unit development next to it.

And I've got on the overhead right now a photo.

You can see in the bottom left corner the food line.

And then you can see the red line around the parcel.

And that is the parcel where they would build this facility.

and the reason why we're here tonight is it is indoor recreation, which is a vast category.

You could have a basketball arena, for example, seats 20,000 people.

So the board, when they put together the zoning ordinance, they made a special use permit request just so you could review the request to make sure that it wasn't something that was too large or didn't, you know, created too many impacts.

Now this business is much smaller and similar to the types of businesses that would or could go in this district by right.

This is just another view.

You can see the parcel in the foreground and in the background you can see the parking and hardware store and shopping center and associated retail at the Food Lion Shopping Center.

This is an overhead of the whole area, the planned unit development.

So if you look at the top where you see the purple and the top curve there next to the blue and white stripes, that's where Murphy's Bagel is right across the street, that white and blue stripe.

In the center of the lines that kind of come slightly diagonally, that's Route 29.

and the purple is the area associated with this development.

You can see the center left of the purple is where the apartments, the residential component of this development are located and Harley-Davidson is located in the upper right quadrant of the purple.

There is a road being constructed that will come through the middle and tie in right next to this parcel, kind of catacorned into this parcel and the advanced auto.

And this is just the street view of the parcel from the existing Deerfield Drive.

What we're looking at now is just a concept drawing for the ice park, just to show what their initial thoughts are for the layout, meeting parking requirements, their due diligence to make sure that this will work on this parcel.

It is not a site plan.

It is just a concept plan that they provided for the rezoning.

If approved, they will have to do a full engineered site plan.

They have to meet all the regulations for lighting, parking, stormwater.

That's a completely separate step.

This is simply just asking if you can review the impacts and either approve or deny the special use permit request.

And this just is what we always refer back to.

It's the community plan, the comprehensive plan.

And this is in our highest density area.

We'll call it coral.

I never know the right color to call it, but I'm going to call it coral today.

In the area there right around Sheets, Food Lion, the corner store, that is our corner store

Village Center, and it calls for a mix of residential and commercial with a high use of services.

It's our highest density organization or highest density land use category within the comprehensive plan.

And just talking about the benefits in the comprehensive plan, it's what we always look to when making land use decisions, highlighting several things.

The comprehensive plan calls out for recreational opportunities, obviously a place for ice hockey, ice skating, family recreation certainly fits that bill.

Provide additional activities for children, teens and adults.

Many of us remember the ice park when it was in Charlottesville and probably had multiple birthday parties there for kids and grandchildren, so it meets that category.

Raise awareness and benefits of exercise, create tourism opportunities, you know, things that

encourage people from outside of the area to visit and spend their money in green and go home.

And then additionally, another kind of bullet point in the comprehensive plan that says the same thing in a slightly different way, encourage travelers on the major thoroughfares to stop and patronize local businesses.

So it meets all of those goals in the comprehensive plan.

Next thing we, well, just a reminder of a special use permit.

The goal of special use permit, by definition, it is something that could be, before review, something that has greater impacts than something that's by right.

So we want to review that to see if there are identified impacts.

And then if there are, are there ways to mitigate those?

And then we can place any mitigating conditions on those impacts to help make that fit.

And so we'll talk about the outside agencies that we sent this to.

And that's the next slide.

Great, excellent.

So we sent it out like we always do.

We sent it to water and sewer, Department of Transportation, the building official, our stormwater administrator.

And we looked at it.

All these organizations looked at it.

They didn't identify any specific comments.

from staff when comparing the ice rink to a major restaurant chain, the things that are allowed, a large retailer, all the things that are allowed by right within this district, we didn't identify any higher impacts.

Many of the uses would have higher water.

Many of the uses could have higher traffic.

Those are all by right.

So we didn't identify anything on staff that

this particular use would have that would be greater than the things that would be by right.

And then we did have a public hearing at the Planning Commission and the Planning Commission recommended approval 5-0 at that hearing.

And that's staff's presentation.

Madam Chairman, I'm Marvin Henschey with Henschey & Baines Engineering.

I prepared the concept plan and the submission for the conditional use permit.

I don't have anything to add.

We've really enjoyed working with staff.

and we look forward to continuing working on this project.

I'm here to answer any kind of technical questions, engineering questions.

Chris Artelli with the applicant is here, along with Jim Beal is here.

If you have any questions about the proposed use, they might be able to- Thank you, we may call you back.

This is a public hearing.

Ms.

Kemp, would you get the list please?

Thank you.

And no one has signed up.

Anyone that's joining us on Zoom, on the Zoom link, please use the raise your hand feature if you have anything you'd like to address the board regarding the proposed ice cream.

Thank you, sir.

When will the project break ground?

Jim Bale, member of the board of the Friends of the Charlottesville Ice Park.

So first off, we really appreciate all the support from Greene County to date and appreciate you considering this special use permit.

To specifically answer your question, there's obviously quite a bit of design

that needs to be accomplished first.

So we're in that phase right now if the special use permit is approved, we will get heavily into the civil engineering design with Marvin.

And I would imagine typically it's gonna be at least six or eight months for that design and then approved by the county before we could break ground.

And what's the water usage per month?

Because we've been told that we have a water crisis and we don't have enough water.

We had 18 days or 20 days last year when we exceeded.

Excellent question.

I don't have the specific answer for you now, but I could get it for you.

I don't know whether you have any estimate.

Right, so the ice, so the way we envision this working and the way that it did in downtown Charlottesville, if it's fully booked from morning until evening, it's usually one hour cycles of people using the ice and then a Zamboni comes on and resurfaces.

the ice.

It's not a lot of water that's used in that resurfacing process.

Right, it's like filling a swimming pool, although not quite that much.

It's only a few inches thick, six feet deep.

So the water usage is not extraordinary, that's for sure.

By tomorrow, I could have... How many visitors do you think you'll have?

oh yeah no no right so there's showers there's I mean again a typical cycle is people come in you know hockey teams anyway that are playing they will come into the locker room you know change play and then shower after and then leave so you have showers you have toilets you know where we're anticipating a restaurant area or water fountains for filling water bottles and how many people a day then

Yeah, so again, like the maximum number would be probably, you know, 20 people an hour for 10 hours, a few hundred tops, but that is maximum.

Only if there's maintenance or in the past, it's not our intention here.

In the past, though, the ice was melted over the surface.

purposes, indoor sports camps or high school graduations or something, a floor was put down.

If that's the case, then a few times a year, that few inches of ice would need to be rebuilt.

Thank you.

For Mr. Friedman.

Now, those sections, the R2, it says on this first page here, it says that those 5.67, 25.66, zone B2, and 3.77, zone R2 will be rezoned to plan U of PUD.

Has that been done?

It's not a planned new deed.

It says back in 2007 it was approved.

It says conceptual development plan which is theoretic.

That's the reason I was asking.

Madam Chair, I just think that this is a very positive

enhancement of Rutgersville area.

I think as a county we've talked about having activities and things for kids and adults to do in Greene County and I think this fits the bill.

I sat in the night of the Planning Commission when it was first brought to the Planning Commission and a lot of talk of

So are you talking about the hockey teams coming in for tournaments and stuff like it?

I know it was also mentioned that like UVA, JMU could come there for practice type stuff.

Yes.

And everything too on that aspect to that.

So how much of it is devoted to actually public, like say for

Quite a bit.

You're right.

The program for the ice rink encompasses hockey, figure skating, public skating, and curling as well.

In the hockey category, there are adult hockey leagues like I play in.

There are youth hockey leagues that younger people play in.

Then there are the college teams.

We

I've already been approached by the University of Virginia and then they've asked to sign a long term contract to practice and play at this facility and then JMU also would come across and play but back to your specific question birthday parties are typically afternoons and weekends and those are times that these other leagues and groups do not play so there's lots of

ice time available after school and on weekends for birthday parties.

And then public skating is another big component of this.

And historically, the rink that existed here in the area previously, it was really between October and February with like the peak public skating months of the winter months.

And a lot of birthday parties were held then.

Yeah, again, from historical experience, when the rink was fully operating down the road, it was running from 6 o'clock in the morning to about 11 o'clock in the evening.

Well, that fits pretty good because that's usually about what time the food line shuts around 11.

There you go.

Right, right.

What were those hours again?

I'm sorry.

What were the hours again?

Again, we skated previously 630 was usually the first hour of ice time and then games would typically end.

I think it would definitely be an asset to our community.

It would definitely be better than the eyesore that's there right now that has been there for years.

I think it's a fantastic idea, but based on the hours we were just given, if it's 20 people per hour, it's 340 people.

And the problem I have is, you know, we are in a water crisis.

We've had at least four people talk about fire

and the agencies are supposed to comment on this issue.

We don't have no estimate of how much water is actually going to be utilized.

And our water department didn't talk about water demand at all, which is what they're supposed to do.

The only thing they're talking about is whether or not the pipes are there, which I just find disturbing personally.

You know, we're supposed to have that information because, you know, we're going to add in theory before this reservoir is ever built 16%

to 25% increased capacity because we're looking at three years till it's built.

250 homes are supposed to be built.

We only have 3,000 homes right now.

So I think it's a great idea, but I find it disturbing that we're not considering water when we're approving projects.

I'm okay with it.

I like that.

Take this down and go back down and just shave off a little bit each time.

And I like it's not what you meant to speak.

So it's not, I mean, it's still water, but don't get me wrong.

But it's not like a swimming pool, even half the amount of a swimming pool.

In accordance with the Greene County Zoning Ordinance, Public Necessity, Convenience, General Welfare, and Good Zoning Practice, I move to approve SUP 24-008 for Tax Map 66-A-6E as submitted with the following conditions.

I will vote no, just because I would like to see that information.

I say yes.

And I vote yes as well.

Don't forget me.

I'm coming to you.

Yes, I'm not going to forget you.

Right.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to start by saying what this isn't, just to clear some of the confusion.

This is not an ordinance about creating a place for data centers.

Data centers are mentioned, and the reason why they are mentioned

is because our ordinance currently does not define data centers and by right today, unless we make some changes, you can build data centers without a question in any industrial district and B3 districts.

without question.

You could actually with question and a good attorney probably argue that it can go in some of our other business districts because we don't define it.

We don't declare where we want it, where we don't want it.

And one of the comments that we received from the board and a feedback we had with the planning commission was that we wanted to have some board control over data centers.

And so our recommendation is that if there is a place

that we would want or the board would want to consider having a data center, this very limited zone would be a good place for that as a possibility.

Now, it's only recommended in this ordinance as a special use permit, which means that if a data center came through, the board has the opportunity and the complete and total control over whether you would approve one or not.

So if there was a concern about water, if there was a concern about electricity, if there was a concern about noise, any of these things are all reasons that it can be denied.

Ms.

Kemp has helped us with the language that Mr. Lamb just read.

You can actually deny it because you can say that right now it doesn't fit the pattern of development.

and we don't want one.

So it gives the full power and control to the board.

Having it listed as a use within a restricted district gives us a little bit of control, not much.

So, you know, we all know about the Sixth Amendment, the Supremacy Clause.

The state gets to tell us what to do and we don't really get any say over it.

However, in recent years, the legislature has been using

I don't know what you would call a gimmick, a lawmaking style where if you already have a law in place, they will allow you to keep that.

If you do not have a law in place, then you have to follow whatever the new state law is.

Now, they don't have to do that.

They can do whatever they want.

Based on the last few years where this technique has been used, it could give us some extra protection to mention it as a special use permit in this one restricted area.

Again, it's just a suggestion.

Also, the purpose of this ordinance has absolutely nothing to do with data centers.

We only included it for the reasons that I just stated.

So if the board wishes, we can simply scratch through that line item under the uses allowed by special permit, and we would only have the one line under that.

So it's up to the board, whatever you feel is the best approach.

I just wanted to let you know why we had it.

The one recommendation I do suggest you keep is absolutely regardless of whatever you choose with the uses, definitely keep the definition.

So we want to have the definition that gives us some level of control because we can say it's defined, but it's not listed as an allowed use anywhere in the ordinance.

So it's

It gives you a little stronger standpoint if you have it listed someplace only as a special use permit, but we definitely want to have that district definition so we have grounds to fight or argue against any proposal that we would not want in the county.

So, sorry, I wanted to start there.

Probably a lot of the people that are signed up to speak wanted to talk about Zena centers, but I wanted to be clear about what this was.

So backing into what it is, in this area,

We talked about hockey because we're right next to JMU.

We're right next to UVA.

Those have research centers.

They have a lot of students and a lot of research going on.

It attracts people that want to be within proximity of those universities.

Our location on 29 and 33 makes us pretty much equidistant between each of those universities.

You've already seen the success of the UVA Research Park.

It's got a specific design and go for a specific type of client.

The people that maybe don't want to be in that specific atmosphere might be interested in a similar smaller version in Greene County.

Additionally, the 29 corridor has been a corridor identified for

by military contractors and the military industrial decision makers.

They want the 29 corridor to be a corridor of significance because you've got UVA on up to DC.

So they're looking for areas like this for potential.

And so this is a market that we don't have a specific

Category 4, and it's limiting the potential users to the people, high technology, research and development, advanced manufacturing on a scale that we want to control in Greene County.

and just a place for them not a place our districts now are for people who are only industrial and you know smokestack industry traditional industry or people that are commercial so it's higher higher traffic lower volume different type of customer this is basically

The best example around is the UVA Research Park.

So it's something like that where it has a specific purpose, a campus-like feel.

So in working through the ordinance on staff and working with the Planning Commission in the review of it, we went through all of the ordinances throughout the country.

We pulled together an amalgamation of those ordinances to have the uses.

We went through and reviewed it with the Planning Commission, went through on staff and tried to make it more Greene specific, have similar language to some of the requirements that we have in our PUD.

We sent it out to the people in these industries, got some great feedback.

We were able to make adjustments to it.

We actually got really terrific feedback on, you know, it would be clearer if you have more detail about this regulation.

So we were able to make those changes and we brought that through the Planning Commission again, then had a public hearing in the Planning Commission.

So what you have before you today is the result of that work.

Since it's a three-page ordinance, it really wouldn't show up very well on the screens.

I don't have any visuals for you.

You have the details in your packet.

Yeah, in your opinion, Jim, can we limit it?

The smallest data centers are 5,000 square feet.

And the highest ones as far as the story is about 35, but they can accept down to 15.

Yeah, anything.

So size would be an impact, and that is something that certainly we can address.

So we could put those parameters within, just right underneath it, as a performance standard.

Data centers won't be considered unless they're between these parameters.

If that is the board's pleasure, I'd ask you to give me those numbers again.

Mr. Friedel, I read something where the data center put in, they couldn't be any more than 35 feet, but then I saw 45 if the lower part was down, you know, and it could be 45 feet.

I was just, I thought maybe I was wrong on that.

That's a common zoning thing, and we use it throughout our ordinance, especially in Greene County.

I don't think you have any ground like this.

It's all like this or like this.

So it's about where you measure it from.

This is a public hearing.

Ms.

I want to remind you that in importance with our board bylaws, you have limited three minutes to speak.

It's Jeannie.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

So maybe what I have to say is moot.

I couldn't hear a lot because you're facing this way and I couldn't.

So I'm not sure.

So I'm going to say what I've prepared to say because it's very important to me and I will count on you all to

make the judgments that work with reality here.

I do want to comment on zoning that would allow data centers in Greene County, and I'm asking you not to leave space for that to happen.

I already spoke about the water problem in Greene, and lest it just seem like I'm here to be against everything, Ice Park sounds great.

But data centers would multiply our water problem exponentially.

Virginia has the largest concentration of data centers and they suck up two thirds more water now than they did in 2019.

That's the arc of what we're talking about as far as water usage.

Data centers also bring high transmission power lines, reduction in farmlands and woodlands, loss of animal habitat.

They would certainly erode the rural nature of our county and would probably impact tourism.

There's the noise issue.

If you've been around them, there is a hum that is disruptive to humans and wildlife.

If you are next to a data center, you're going to have lower property values there, and they do pollute, even though you may not be the one living right next to that data center.

Somewhere, all that energy that's being used is polluting Virginia's air.

and they are ugly.

They are a visual blight in residential or agricultural communities.

And often what we've seen happen in other Virginia communities is power substations start popping up around these data centers because even though everybody said, oh, there's enough power,

It turns out there's not and that you can tell because the substations start popping up.

And don't be fooled because tech businesses are not attracted by these big industrial type of data centers.

There's not a connection.

They are poor land use cases in terms of density of the jobs created, in terms of tax revenue or other contributions to our economy.

They just don't employ that many people.

and the taxes per square foot are going to be less than other uses for the same land.

And then they make it really hard to manage the growth because of the excessive power and water use.

So I'm asking, please do not create zoning that would make it any easier for data centers to get a foothold into our county and to threaten our quality of life.

We've got enough water problems without them.

the money that others outside our community, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, that's not money that's going to come into our pockets here and putting data centers here would just be a way of taking our resources.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Renee Burchell.

Good evening, Madam Chairman and the board members.

Basically everything that she said, I'm just going to reiterate with a couple of more figures.

Even the small data centers use about enough energy for 4,500 homes.

Most of the data centers, if you go up to Loudoun County, take a drive down there.

That will cure you of wanting to be near a data center.

They're 100,000 square feet.

They're concrete.

They're ugly.

They hum.

The people that are around them can't, you know, are ready to leave their homes because they make too much noise.

We don't even have to discuss the water supply issue because some of the larger centers use a million gallons a day.

They said that the largest centers use more power than Virginia's largest nuclear reactor.

You can make the language any way you want.

You know, there's different terms, information systems, black zoning, server farms, call it what you want.

But if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

And I don't think this county needs a data center.

And I realize with all of the NJIG development that's going to be happening from NJIG to Sheets,

and the government contractors that this is going to be something that probably will be pushed for, if not now, later.

But we haven't been able to solve the water problem for 20 years, let alone

what's gonna happen if we allow data centers to come into the county and ruin the rural appeal of the county.

I mean, the tagline is gateway to the Blue Ridge, right?

We wanna see big, ugly concrete buildings that hum when you come into Greene County.

We may as well just be Northern Virginia or an extension of it.

So I asked the county to please, please put language in there to not allow data centers specifically into the county.

We just, we can't afford it, can't afford it.

Thank you.

I get welcomed twice tonight.

I'll try to skip some of the things I was intending to say because they've already been said.

First of all, I hope you ultimately will vote for this package.

I think it would be wonderful for Greene County, but I'm not sure you're ready for it yet.

You've heard some things about

what could possibly come here?

The language that Mr. Fredl talked about says that it's intended to generate minimal impacts of noise, smoke, gas, odor, dust, and lighting.

First of all, minimalism defined.

And second of all, those categories apply to things already in Rutgersville, but not necessarily some of the things that might come to this zone.

I worked for 16 years for the research arm of the natural gas industry and I know some things that we did that I wouldn't want in my neighborhood.

I won't get into that tonight, but there's nothing in here that talks about things that you might want to control other than those standard things just with minimal

Ratings to them without any deeper discussion.

If it is a data center and they have lithium batteries and those catch on fire, Ms.

Meador is going to run out of this building very quickly.

And Ms.

Biggie is going to spend tomorrow morning trying to find a grant to provide the county with the technology and the equipment you need to fight that fire.

We're not prepared for that yet because we don't know what those things can be.

But if you say yes, even at Mr. McGuigan's I think helpful suggestion about size, there's still those issues of other things that could come here that the county is not yet prepared for because we haven't thought about what those impacts could be.

I'll say one other thing and then I'll be done and I still have a few seconds.

We also don't know who else wants to, the last lady who was here kind of mentioned it.

The other businesses that might want to come to these business parks may not want to be next to a data center.

They may simply say, if you're going to allow that, I'm going to look elsewhere.

And we are losing their interest

because we have some vague hope that a data center will come here.

And I personally don't think we'll ever qualify for a data center for a whole bunch of water, power, lines in the ground, all kinds of other things.

But it sounds like we're betting on that big payoff and we may hurt the county in

other people who might wanna come here.

I'd urge you to keep that in mind.

And it may be that you need another work session, hear from REC, hear from, you know more about the water system than I do, but REC has a huge issue, will have a huge issue to service all these things.

They're not dominion power.

They don't have that capability.

You need to hear from people like that before you go forward.

Thank you.

Fred Turk, please come forward.

Welcome again.

Fred Turk, Stannersville District.

Thank you for that overview, Jim, on that.

It was interesting.

And that's maybe what I'm going to go for is we need some more information so we can hear more about what it is you're thinking about.

This technology corridor, to me, that includes solar farms, wind generation, and then not only data centers.

I could be wrong, and I probably am more than I'm not.

I've been coming to a lot of these meetings and I've heard more than I enjoy hearing that the board cannot control development.

You know, it's in our plan.

It's, you know, it's by right and somebody can build and we can't control growth.

And then I hear tonight that we can put things in place that will control

the size of a data center or put things in the plan that may make it where it's not feasible for a data center to come to Greene County.

So I'm confused where under special use permits or other, maybe the terms aren't right, where one time we say because of by right, and I really don't like that term, but by right, you know, we can't control this, but we can control this.

I don't understand the differences.

Maybe a clarification of that might help the citizens to be more knowledgeable about the decisions that y'all are making.

So I guess I'm just also just being, you know, need to be cautious of your wording, you know, the devil's in the details, how you word this, every part of the document for the creating this technology,

center or land use area needs to be well thought through and not, you know, and I know it has.

I know you all spent a lot of time and effort in it already, but I'm saying just relook at those, relook at the terms, relook at the definitions, relook at what control the board has over this growth because, you know, we found and we know

that we need to control growth.

One way or another, we need to control the growth so we can manage it, not to restrict it always, but just to manage it in an effective way.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't know that I can add anything to what's been said already.

I think you're late as it led things.

I've started out some really good

and I think Mr. Freeland has looked into this possibility of something coming up and he would have to address it at that time.

But from everything I read and understand about data centers, you have very few positives.

And now it seems that in California, places where all that stuff started, Arizona, that

what the people that have the money want to do is to get more new areas set up with these centers and then lo and behold awesome Americans to work there and then train the people with the green cards and the blue cards whatever color cards that they need to come in and work for a lot less money.

And then those folks, they determined that probably they don't need a mega mansion to live in.

So they may live wherever, but it doesn't help the community as far as the type of housing or different things.

So I would think that probably what we would want to do is to be strongly against this

I keep coming to meetings with the Planning Commission every so often, and I'm surprised that we see so many 5-0 votes from the Planning Commission.

But has anybody from Greene County, any citizens or businesses really come up here and ask for this to be done?

And I just can't see where we were gained by having this district.

if we're going to even look at it, is to think in terms of special use permits.

And I keep hearing here that we can't, that the special use permit runs with the land, but then I see Madison County, it runs with the name.

The person applies for it.

So I think our planning department should be asked to look at

at least all the negatives and then a few positives that they might find.

And at that time, if they wanted to go any further, but I believe it tonight, we're not ready to vote on this.

We don't have enough information.

Certainly the earlier meeting here tonight talking about the water issue, different things.

I can't say how we were ready for data centers.

and with the proximity to the NINJIC facility at the airport.

And knowing that we got the Hyper-6, Hyper-5s that can hit here and destroy this place in just a little while.

We don't want to track things that would maybe have our enemy sending the missile in.

I see somebody already found the raise your hand.

Can I raise my hand?

Ms.

Good evening, members of the board.

Gwen Baker with the Rutgersville district.

I did have a couple of questions and I'm not against tax flex districting.

My question is, how was it determined to be these three particular properties

would be the ones that were the best for tech flex.

And were those landowners contacted in regards to the redistricting?

Also, one of those properties is owned by a board member.

And I'm wondering if the board member needs to recuse themselves from this vote.

No more.

All right.

Is there anyone in the audience that did not sign up?

Yes, sir.

My name is Scott Bivie.

I just want to make a short comment.

One, to me, the concept of this district sounds like it might be a good fit.

Based on what you've heard,

probably need some more study, so long as the issue of data centers is clearly not included.

That sounds like it is ruled out as part of this district, and I think it should be.

One small comment I'd like to make on behalf of a friend who's gone through the language is sort of legalistic, but somewhere in the early paragraphs it says, new businesses proposing to come to this ex-flex district or should be located within this area, which in a legalistic way has a bit of a shall would be a more definitive way of making that

hard and fast.

And if I can bend the rules a bit and make a comment about the previous ice rink, 12,000 to 15,000 gallons of water are normally used to fill a rink that is being described and less to refill it with a Zamboni and just scrape off the towel.

But that's what a

a rink the size that was being proposed would use.

I wish the developers hadn't left because I wanted to ask them another question.

Again, excuse me for talking on another subject, soccer field.

A lot of ice rinks in this region in the summertime are able to put an AstroTurf field down over the same place and add a whole new dimension to an athletic facility.

My phone research back there was talking about a thinner layer of rice.

All I want to say is I'm hoping Mr. Friedel can come back up because I feel like there was he said some things that maybe didn't get heard because what I heard was that by right now, there are places that could build a data center.

And so part of what we're trying to do with this language is to put some constraints around it and to make sure it's a special use.

So I just don't want kind of the fear mongering that's been happening around it to let us lose this opportunity to actually contain

data center.

Yes, sir.

Hi, my name is Richard Ayad, A-Y-A-D.

And I've got a couple of comments.

One, we're talking about a huge change in the atmosphere of Greene County, which makes itself famous for what?

Being beautiful, gateway to the Shenandoah, and a lot of things like that.

So we're talking about a quality of life, and I'm glad that a couple of people mentioned that, because that's one of the things that you'll find on the Greene government website is the quality of life.

Any change, whether it's a

a data center, or an enterprise park, or a tech park, whatever you're going to call it, is going to be a massive change.

And I understand that the height limitation is 60 feet.

That's three times as tall as a two-story building.

Now, that's inescapable.

There's no way going down the road.

If you live nearby, there's no way to escape that.

The noise for any of those things, the increased traffic from people who work there, and just very briefly, if the sound is disjointed, I apologize.

I've written a bunch of notes down, but

Greene County has one of the lowest unemployment rates.

That's 2.2%.

That's lower than Virginia, definitely lower than the national unemployment rate.

My question is where are these people going to come from?

Somebody pointed out data centers, very few people.

These other places, these people are gonna be coming from wherever they come from.

Why is this even being discussed when we don't even know about it?

And I want to thank Mr. McQuiggan for saying no, because I don't understand how you can vote on things without knowing anything about it.

There's no concept.

Which brings us to the next thing.

How can you have a concept and not let the people who are going to be affected most?

And that's including all of the residents of Greene County, not just the people who live in the Rutgersville District.

If you look at the traffic jams that you have now are 29 and 33, that's after all that construction and redesign that they've done, there's only going to be more traffic.

Then they're going to widen the roads because now you've got trucks coming in, you've got buses, who knows whatever.

Because one of the things that was included on that was also the possibility of warehouses.

That's a lot.

A one million square foot warehouse, that's a lot, right?

is equal to about 23 acres.

So how many of those million square foot warehouses could you put on that property back there?

in that area that's under consideration.

I think the biggest thing that you could do for all of us is to send out notifications to post a big sign that's proportionate to the size of the property that's going to be developed.

So I'm not talking about one of those little signs, notice of rezoning consideration or whatever it's called.

I'm talking about a sign that's proportionate and says exactly what's going to go on, where you can get the information.

In fact, I actually prepared something like that.

and it goes like something like this and includes all the information, places where you can get more information regarding data centers.

But once again, industrial park, data center, I don't see what the difference is because it's all gonna serve the same thing.

And one problem we have here is frankly, you've got a lovely place here.

Do you really wanna change it to what end?

We already know that people here don't need the jobs because they're already employed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

state your name, please.

I'm Polly Callahan.

I live in the Rutgersville district.

The language, I just want to reemphasize what the other gentleman said that the language in the ordinance to be considered, quote, parcels should be located within the designated growth area.

That led me to, I didn't understand the distinction should to shall.

And I would highly

I strongly urge you to change the should to shall because right now the larger areas that are

adjacent to the growth area, but not in the designated growth area, they run along Moore Road.

And the page 54 of the comprehensive plan states that transportation access, convenient truck and car access to all portions of the technology flex research and development center are critical to business operations.

Well, we just had an RCUT put in so that we could get across 29 at 609.

And where we turn around to get back going

up like if we're coming south and we wanna get around is Moore Road.

But if we have to have access to Moore Road to get to this Texflex area, then I just, we're gonna snarl 29.

We already have two major lights coming through Rutgersville like to get into Rutgersville.

all backed up.

I remember Mr. Davis saying that UVA football games, they all got to decide they're going to take the shortcut through Moore Road and go flying down it when it's a smaller country road.

So I just if we could change the should to shall.

that we can start small.

Maybe we have enough water infrastructure for that smaller piece, see how it works, see how it goes.

That's a small road that was determined years ago to be an access road.

Parallel runs with 29.

Any further questions from board members, Mr. Freedle or comments?

Well, I would just like to start by saying that, and I don't want to speak for board members, but I absolutely know that none of us want data centers in Greene County.

So that's a statement.

Thank you.

Probably just one.

Probably the IHHS.

They have a special exception that they were granted from the board to be taller than 60 feet.

The ordinance actually says

that the height limit is 45 feet.

And similar to other ordinances that we have, you can be taller, but you have to back up from the property line for every foot high that you go.

So it changes the scale as far as the proximity to the lines.

But all of that, if it can be adjusted, any of that information,

We can lower the size.

We can add criteria, as you mentioned before.

We can simply scratch out uses.

The word shall, of course, all of us have legal training and understand the difference in the words.

Honestly, we didn't use the word shall because we wanted to give the authority and decision-making to the board of supervisors as opposed to having it in the ordinance, but it's certainly something that the

that the board can choose to put in there.

I would be shocked.

Anything that came from staff that was outside of the growth area wouldn't come with a recommendation.

Can't speak for the planning commission, but on staff, we follow the comprehensive plan.

We're not going to recommend something that's a high use or high density outside of the growth area.

And I guess one other point just to make more, I think the board understands this is more for the public.

So the comprehensive plan lists areas that might be considered within the growth area for different types of uses.

That is not a zoning classification.

So if the board approved an ordinance today, zero properties would be able to utilize that

without coming to the board and asking for a rezoning.

So there's multiple steps with this.

And the properties that were selected were actually selected by the Planning Commission during the comprehensive plan review.

And one of the members at the time was actually

a member of NINJIC, very familiar with the type of land and spaces and just looked at the map and identified properties that would fit the criteria of this.

But none of those properties have to be included in a rezoning.

Every one of them, if they wanted to rezone, would have to come to the board and ask the board for approval to even be able to take advantage of the zone.

So just want to make sure that that was clear, because a lot of people don't have the benefit of the knowledge of staff or the board about zoning.

And so this doesn't create any new land that is allowed for this.

Since it's not well defined, office space is supporting technology design and engineering services.

No.

So we do have a separate data center definition.

But it wouldn't fall underneath this?

I wouldn't interpret it that way.

I mean, we certainly

I'm not sure.

So an office space is an office space.

A data center really doesn't have office space in it.

So if somebody came to a proposal like a 5,000 square building for a research lab that would hire, maybe have 10, 20 employees in it, that would fall into that tech flex, not necessarily data center, right?

Correct.

That's the definition of somebody making it more simple to my knowledge to understand a lot of it.

You're bringing a business that, like I say, will pay taxes and possibly hire county employees to be there.

Stuff like that.

That's my definition of a tech flex to a business on as far as, yeah, the county definitely does not...

need or want a data center, per se, as a building, that part of it.

Yeah.

And the data centers, just to be clear, under Article 22, we're recommending adding two definitions that don't exist in the Greene County ordinance.

And a data center is a facility containing one or more large-scale computer systems

used for data storage and processing for off-site users.

Typical supporting equipment include backup batteries, power generators, cooling units, fire suppression systems, and enhanced security features.

So it is very specific definition for a data center, and that's that definition alone, which is why I recommend we definitely have the definition.

It just says a facility containing it so somebody could call it an office space and it would contain.

Do you understand?

I mean, I could tell you the way we would we would view that in your scenario today, somebody could put a data center in any building and we do an investigation and we determine that it was a data center and shut them down.

They can go to court and they can argue it.

They can go to the BZA and argue it.

But a data center is a data center and we wouldn't allow it to put one in and call it something different.

it would be hard for us not to notice because the power company might call us and note the power.

I mean, things happen, right?

People do things knowingly or unknowingly that violate the zoning ordinance.

And as soon as we're able to discover them, we notice, we'll serve a violation.

We go through the court system.

There are fines.

further comments?

I'd just like to state for the whole time, 25 years or so, the county's been trying to attract research park type industries to the Rutgersville area.

And I just see doing this as a step in preparing for a streamlined process for people that show interest in our community to come forward and get started in developing these types of businesses.

I have no problem taking the data centers out completely at this time.

Excuse me.

We've closed the public comments.

Did I make a clarification about the word shall being used?

I'm just saying, Supreme Court ruled in 2001, basically the ruling was based upon the use of the word shall in the Code of Virginia in 18.2 that's

in which was a filing on forfeiters in the state.

And it was the Supreme Court of Commonwealth Virginia versus Altamont Wilkes case.

And in that case filing, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of the word shall did not mean must.

It just meant that it was a guideline or referring to that was suggesting

that that should happen, but the Supreme Court actually ruled that the shall was not mandatory for the filing in that particular case for that code.

Okay.

Thank you.

Ms.

She's not wrong.

It was a somewhat ridiculous situation, in my opinion.

You can have a different one.

But I think you all can make changes to this.

I think Mr. Freel has told you you all can make changes.

I mean, if you feel like shall is stronger, I don't disagree with that.

But I can't say that it's a magic word that a judge couldn't disagree with.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

I have no problem with taking data center out.

I think we need to clarify down to get this research district.

Correct.

Any landowner.

Technically, because of the wording, should be, which again was intentional, anyone can ask the Board of Supervisors

The board can choose, if they thought it was a good idea, to allow it on any parcel.

Again, as I pointed out, our recommendation from staff would be following the comprehensive plan.

So if it wasn't in the growth area, it wouldn't be something we would recommend.

And we're fine with changing that word.

We've used must in many of the wording.

It's a word some people use instead of shall.

Half the people and half the new laws, even from the legislature, still use the word shall because everybody that grew up in Virginia for the last year.

70 years, 100 years has been told that shall is the only word to use.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

One other question.

I mean, it seems a little.

So by right, you could have advanced manufacturing and assembly operations, but by special use permit, you have data centers, manufacturing and warehousing.

being a typo that would be my fault that we didn't catch.

So to your point, yes, advanced manufacturing is listed as a buy right use.

So that's a very good catch.

It should just be data centers and or warehousing manufacturing, advanced manufacturing.

I mean, it could be standard manufacturing.

If it was just standard manufacturing, most likely we would want them to be in the industrial park.

I don't know how that one slipped through.

So we can scratch that too, if that's something the board prefers.

And not to be too nitpicky, I know it's driving you crazy, but do we define what public utilities are anywhere else in all these ordinances?

Yes, it's defined in our chapter 22.

And do those include solar at this point?

Solar has a separate definition.

Power stations, yeah, they're listed in our ordinance, and they have the right to.

Is it the will of the board to make that change that Mr. McGuigan suggested to scratch warehousing, excuse me, manufacturing and make warehousing special use number three so there's no confusion that data centers and warehousing are somehow related?

What do we decide on the must or shall or

Should.

Should.

Shoulda, coulda.

I know in Old English they use shant a lot.

We could try that.

I think we change it to must.

All right.

I would like to keep the definition of data center in, but remove it from the whole ordinance.

The use?

Correct.

I have a question.

If that's the will of the board, yes, I'm sorry.

Just highlight the three changes or more if we come up with those that should to must.

scratch data centers, make warehousing the special use permit number two.

And I don't think, did I miss any other?

Those are the only notes I've made so far.

Especially when there's concern that, you know, you have neighbors who aren't consulted on most of these things, or at least weren't consulted on most.

I mean, I keep it at that.

Feet?

So just 45 maximum, don't have the clause about extending up and distance from the property line.

I have to put my reading glasses on.

So really, we would scratch...

10-a-51, where it says maybe 60 feet for each foot in height if you increase your front and side yards.

And then under 10-a-5, we would just put a period after grade.

buildings may be erected up to 45 feet in height from grade, period.

And then we would scratch the very next section, which talks about an exception for greater than 45 feet that we would no longer have.

Does that mean the parapet walls can be 49 feet?

Yeah, four feet.

Yes, and that's consistent with all of our zones.

Our parapet walls and things are allowed to extend four feet above the height.

Ms.

McGuigan, you want to make a motion with those changes?

Is that where you're headed?

I second.

Okay.

I have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

Roll call vote.

I abstain.

I think some of my land is in that

And the Chair votes aye.

Thank you very much.

Close those public hearings.

Please come forward and give you a report.

Hello.

Thank you so much for the invitation to be here tonight.

My name is Judith Selzer.

I'm the new CEO of JABA, the Jefferson Area Board on Aging.

And I'm so excited to be here to say hello, to say thank you, and to introduce myself to you all.

I just started the job in mid-January.

and have been delighted to start in Java's 50th anniversary year and appreciate your long-term investment in seniors in the community and those living with disabilities.

You all were one of the founding counties that created the Jefferson Board on Aging and I just wanted to

Let you know how passionate I am about the mission, how excited I am to get to know you all and work with you all and exceed your expectations.

As you know, the aging community continues to grow tremendously across not just Greene County, but of course our entire Central Virginia region.

By 2030, we anticipate that one of four people in Central Virginia will be over the age of 60.

In our area, over 30% of seniors live alone, and about 9-10% of them live at or below the federal poverty line.

So your continued investment in the aging community here is tremendously important.

It is a lifeline for those dealing with isolation, dealing with inability to have food security, to have healthcare, and different programs.

And so as I joined this new organization,

or new job for myself, not a new organization.

It's just really exciting to get to work with you all.

A lot of folks, as you know, come in through our senior helpline.

That might be they're calling for themselves or caregivers calling for a family member.

And those calls help connect them with all different resources throughout the community.

They might then get connected to one of our aging services coordinators who essentially think of like a caseworker.

They might go out to their house to see them or talk with them on the phone or meet them elsewhere in order to create those wraparound services.

Everything from you need a ramp for your front door, you need home delivered meals, you need a ride on jaunt to the community center.

Of course, the funding that you provide also keeps open the community center here in the county.

where we provide warm meals and, of course, all different programs to keep folks living independently and healthy longer.

And just, again, just really appreciate the opportunity to serve this community and to get to know all of you.

So thank you so much.

I won't take up a lot of time.

You have a long evening.

And again, though, happy to answer any questions, but look forward to reaching out to get to know each of you personally.

Thank you.

Any questions from board members?

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

The next presentation is a VDOT quarterly update.

Ms.

Shepherd, Mr. Engineer, please come forward, please.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board.

I'm Carrie Shepherd from VDOT here to provide the quarterly presentation.

So I don't have a lot of updates for you tonight.

The latest change that we have is the Route 636 Goose Pond Road bridge replacement project.

We just recently held a public hearing.

So the next milestone is design approval and the ad date is still December of 2027.

Rural rustics, we have none at this time, of course, because it's winter.

But I did want to take this opportunity since I'm here and I didn't have too much to present to begin the discussion of this year's review of the secondary six year plan.

And just a few reminders about how this program works.

This is the program to pave unpaved roads.

The roads must be in the state system, must carry a minimum of 50, but no more than 1,500 vehicles a day, be predominantly used for local traffic with minimal anticipated traffic growth, require minimal, if any, improvements to alignment and drainage features, and our goal is to attain a width for two vehicles to safely pass at least 16 feet, but preferably 18 if we can get it.

Right now, Greene County has a total of about 50 miles of gravel roads.

15 miles of those qualify simply based on the traffic count minimum of 50 vehicles a day.

A field review is still required for those roads.

We're working through that so hopefully we can have a more comprehensive picture of what can still qualify.

So the next slide

shows the plan from last year.

And the reason that I'm showing you this is because we haven't gotten the allocations for this year yet.

However, we expect fiscal year 2031 to be the same as fiscal year 2030.

So the district grant unpaved road fund in 2030 is $242,563.

Using that projection to 2031, we can look at where the plan stands today.

So Welsh Run Road was completed last summer.

We had an original estimate, as you can see in red, of $248,000 roughly.

We went over that.

The total actually was $276,000.

So we are having to use about $23,000 of this year's funding to pay ourselves back for that.

Not a significant amount, but just wanted to make sure I pointed that out.

And then for future years we have, or future funding, we have 601 Mission Home Road on the plan at .68 miles.

That estimate was $180,000 last year.

We have done an estimate overhaul based on current prices.

Now we're expecting that to cost $280,000.

So that puts $208,000 in this fiscal year with the remainder being funded next year.

The next priority on the plan is 667 Middle River Road.

That's 1.26 miles.

Our previous estimate of $332,000 is now too low.

and we estimate that that's gonna cost $460,000.

That does move it out one year, but we should be able to go construction just like we had it planned before, even though the price has gone up.

And so the remaining fiscal year 27 funds, once Mission Home Road is fully funded, would go to Middle River at $169,000.

And then fiscal year 28, the full amount for the unpaved grant funding would go to Middle River with the remainder

to be paid in fiscal year 29.

And those are the end of the current priorities.

The future funding, as you can see at the bottom, the 172,000 will be left over in fiscal year 29 once Middle River Road is fully funded.

And then fiscal year 30 and fiscal year 31, those entire allocations are in the unpaid grant allocation fund.

I will mention, I think I mentioned this maybe last year, that there was some legislation passed that

may give us some other opportunities to use this funding, not just strictly for paving, but perhaps some other maintenance improvements.

We don't have guidance on that at this time.

So we're still working through that.

I don't expect it to take too much longer, but it may be too late for us to include anything in this year's plan.

That's not necessarily a bad thing since you already have funding allocated to Mission Home and Middle River, which takes us into fiscal year 29.

So it might buy you some time if

if you decide to keep your current priorities and still wanna investigate those other uses.

Mr. Mack.

Mr. Mack.

He asked me about it on Sunday, but I'm not sure which road the road is.

Okay, okay.

And that would be a potential use for that once we get the guidance on how we can administer it.

I believe that's old school road.

That's one that we identified that had structures in the right way.

Not all of them?

Not all of them, excuse me.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone signed up, please.

Thank you, Ms.

Kemp.

No one has signed up.

Anyone joining on Zoom, if you'd like to speak about VDOT and the VDOT road system, please use the raise your hand feature and we'll give you a moment to identify your desire to speak.

Thank you.

Any board members would like to make a comment or a suggestion?

Just a moment.

I'll be with you.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

You can come forward, please.

Your name, Rochelle.

And I'd just like to ask the woman from VDOT.

Originally, we're

on 29 by Sheetz, where the free property is, where Terrace Free Apartments are, where the water tower is.

Where are they on that?

We're actually talking about that this evening.

The road project is still a smart scale project.

It is going through local administration.

Board of Supervisors approved going local administration.

The goal of the county is to change the intersection treatments to get a left turn, southbound left turn out instead of the RCUT and J turn.

Project location hasn't changed.

Because I noticed they built like a clubhouse there.

It looks like that's where the road was supposed to go, right?

No?

OK.

OK.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Catalano, do you have any questions that you'd like to ask Ms.

There is an attempt to try to pave Wilhot's Mill Road because it's gravel and it is kind of a rustic road.

Their big problem is there's not 16 feet

of roadway.

School bus apparently drives and drops kids off a quarter mile from their house because of the condition of the road.

Two cars can't go across.

Kids are walking basically on the road.

And the problem is it's in two different counties.

And the individuals who are trying to get this through are running into problems and trying to coordinate between Orange and us.

We've expressed support

without a resolution, but I guess there's a problem on the orange side.

Is there any advice that you can give Mr. Mann on how to approach it?

I mean, the best I can do, and I've talked to Mr. Mann a couple of times, and I understand his frustration, but the best I can do really is just kind of explain our process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else?

I know this has been a troubling winter for you guys.

It has been a bit.

It has been a bit rough.

The roads, the grease falling down, but I know you're trying to keep as best you can.

We are.

We are doing debris cleanup and we've been doing pothole repairs all week, so we're just going to keep continuing on with that.

Thank you very much.

approve the donation of an ambulance to Unicor County, Tennessee, and authorize the county administrator to transfer the title.

Resolution to accept and appropriate $9,050 for the Commonwealth of Virginia 2024 election grant for the registrar's office.

Resolution authorizing the county administrator to apply for the fiscal year 2026.

Department of Criminal Justice Service School Resource Officers incentive grant for three positions and resolution to accept and appropriate $7,121.09 from the state for vacancy savings for the Treasurer's Office.

So moved.

All right.

We have a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda.

Roll call vote.

And the chair votes aye.

Thank you very much.

Approval of the finding of public need for the Route 67 road project.

Mr. Friedel, director of planning and zoning.

Yes, this is one of the many times we'll be before the board.

It's one of the many, many steps.

Ms.

Shepard laughed, but they have quite a bit of documents, forms,

Boats, activities to keep projects moving along.

And this is one of those.

It's just a finding of need, defining the process that we're going to go through.

It's a design build process.

Basically, the reason why we're choosing that is speed of getting the project moving.

And also because the current design is for an RCUT J-turn.

We have two U-turns on Route 29.

Our preferred design is a left turn out.

And so when we go through design build, the bids design that portion and then get evaluated.

And that saves about six months on the process because we don't have to design it

get approval and then send it out.

They do that as part of the bid process.

So it's a checklist item that's required for VDOT and we'll send this form to them.

It's a left turn out right now.

None of the signals today show a warrant for a light.

And that's another step in another part of the process.

We've got to get it designed.

The left turn has a protected acceleration lane.

people could get across in theory in a gap and then accelerate up and merge into traffic.

So they have many of these and they do work well without the signal.

Our thought is at some point in the future, near future, it's going to show the warrants for a signal, regardless of whether it's the left turn out or the U-turn movements.

But today it doesn't.

Yeah, it's the section, so...

Well, six years ago now, they had a location hearing, and the board approved the location, and it shifted a little to the north, and it straightened it out.

A long time ago, the plan was a little bit further south, and it had a big jog in the middle of it.

All of that for the last six years has been changed, so it's still in the same location ever since the public hearing was now.

Are people going to be able to do a right turn going north, coming out?

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, in any configuration, right turn.

Again, if you remember, we're doing the local administration because that's the only way we can get an alternative intersection approved.

And we've worked with VDOT.

It meets all the criteria.

We just got to go through every little step like this one through the process.

And the payment's coming through VDOT, am I correct?

Payments come through VDOT.

Yes.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, a motion and vote would be great or consensus either way.

Ms.

Shaffer.

Go ahead.

I have it here somewhere.

I can make it if you want.

Go ahead.

Motion and a second.

Roll call vote.

And the chair votes aye.

Thank you.

So after many years of marriage, my wife and I pretty much have the same conversations all the time.

And one of them is she tells me we really need to lead for the airport.

We might have bad traffic.

We might have car problems.

TSA line might be really long.

Don't know.

Don't wait until the last minute.

And then I'll respond with something like, well, you know, I haven't started packing yet.

This is a DEQ consent order.

It was issued in July of last year.

just after the budget was approved and put in at the beginning of the budget.

So they missed that cycle.

DEQ requires that this equipment be implemented and working.

and certified by the end of this year.

It's already designed, it's already permitted for construction.

There is a potential schedule to start July 1st with funds available in the new budget and hope everything goes right, but I'd rather not do that.

And so that's why we're here.

OK.

I just want to make that clear.

This is not a new something.

We had put in for grant money under an existing grant to change the scope for the grant.

So far, the answer is no.

We're still hopeful that's possible.

Well, just to confirm the cash reserve, if we use cash county funds, it will come out of the RSA money, correct?

It will not be an additional appropriation, right?

That is true, yes.

Absolutely.

Same question.

Was this in a CIP?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Yes, it's in the CIP.

Was it in last year?

It's in the current year CIP.

Martin, I think Miss Callahan, Mr. Turk, we're all concerned about water pressure in the school for fire.

And I guess they were quoting you from yesterday.

No, that was exaggerated.

I said if they have a big fire.

at the high school, at the schools.

There's a concern that there's not enough pressure.

Now, there have been studies done on this.

There's documentation to that effect, which is why they built the underground tank.

Yes, it's two different things.

In Stannersville, in that part of the system, there are two different issues.

It's volume of water that we're getting out of the river and producing through the plant, and then also the size of the line that goes into Stannersville.

And that's a longstanding project, too, is to either replace or supplement that line.

And then, as you know, from just the last couple of months, we had a case where a contractor hit the line, and that's going to happen.

But we also, like

I think it was two weeks after that we had a case where the line just broke because of age, and that's an ongoing concern also.

I'm sorry, utilization?