Board of Supervisors Meeting   7/22/2025

Did you get to see the Rappahannock River?

I can see it from the back.

I went for the water scheme down there.

Oh really?

Man, that's cool.

That's nothing like the rivers around here.

Perdue.

They load those things, they sink.

Pretty wide.

Oh, yeah.

I'll get it this weekend.

Never had to do things yourself.

How are you?

Good sir, how are you?

You?

Good evening everyone.

We'll call the workshop meeting of the Greene County Board of Supervisors to order.

I would like to announce that Supervisor McGuigan will be joining us virtually.

We don't know the details of that, but if he calls in then we know what's going on.

Okay.

So first on the agenda is workshop with planning commission regarding agritourism.

That's a big thing.

Sure, that'd be great, thank you.

So, appreciate everybody taking time to be here, everybody that's here, all the planning commissioners, board members.

The purpose of this, as we discussed in our first work session, is for us to get together with the board, us being the planning commission, get together with the board, present the work that they've accomplished to this point, and then get some feedback from the board.

So, there have been five

Work Sessions.

We've had stakeholders that were at the first and last of the work sessions.

And we've had citizens that were able to comment.

You've seen the comment package online.

And citizens were able to participate in those work sessions between the Planning Commission and the public.

And the Planning Commission has come to a draft ordinance where they've

taking into consideration what they've heard from the citizens, the stakeholders, and the board, and trying to come to some middle ground that they feel comfortable with.

The goal of this meeting is to get feedback from the board.

Is this the right direction?

Are there certain aspects you want to change?

Are you comfortable with everything?

Do you want to give direction to start in a different direction?

Whatever it is the board wants to relay to the Planning Commission

so that we know what the next step is, whether we go to a public hearing, whether we go back for more work sessions to take in the advice that we get tonight.

And I will defer to the commissioner and the board on how you wanna go from here, but just a brief description to simplify matters.

You've had your whole packet that was delivered to you, but for tonight's discussion, we just gave you a clean copy of the ordinance

that is being recommended at this point from the Planning Commission so that we can walk through it together and ask any questions.

Appreciate it.

I assume that's the small topic that we all have heard.

I see.

Correct.

Like that, like that.

I'll go get here from there.

So it was, I don't know, for me kind of evolving process.

I mean, we did have the five work sessions and had businesses in, as well as the accounting extension agent, and try to understand the business.

And there's not, there weren't many businesses, as you know, in Greene that are involved, you know, in,

in trying to craft something that would allow these type of businesses to survive and not create something that was just looking at the worst case scenario and let's prevent that and kind of shut down growth in the county in agritourism.

I think our comprehensive plans is we want to preserve our rural character and I think

having these businesses and maintaining these open spaces and not having developments goes a long way to that.

But we did change the definition of what an event is because many of these businesses have, you can have like a birthday party or a business lunch.

If you're under 50 people, we felt the impacts of the level did not

beneath the definition of events were key and impact the surrounding community.

So 15 above would require, you know, would be defined as an event.

And then we set a size for their structures for the for the events and the cells area.

A number of events reduced to 30 per year by Wright.

So by Wright, there's a by Wright and there is special use permits.

So by Wright, 30 events.

If you want more events, you go for a set of use permit.

Outdoor amplification allow only by special use permit, but that's the exception of like a wedding ceremony where you need to use the microphone or have music playing while the bride and groom will walk in there.

So parking regulations specific to the use and definition of food service at the facilities like food trucks and restroom requirements.

And participants by right is limited to under 50.

Above that would be a special use permit just because of the increase in impact.

and then life lighting requirements and then a calculation of space associated with events, sales, or agritourism.

Questions, comments, interactions?

So, a couple of things.

Number one,

I don't want us to get into a place of limiting business before they try to move to Greene County.

And this kind of felt like it was going in that direction.

You know, if I have a business that wants to house meetings, and I'm being limited by the county saying, you can't do that, even though it's in my building, and no one even knows I'm doing it, why are we trying to limit that?

And that kind of bothers me.

If I'm a businessman, I want to be able to do what I need to do to make money, right?

The other thing that we talked about many times was the size of the structures.

And the more that I went through this, I started thinking about it and thinking, well, wait, if the business follows our guidelines, why do we care how people do it?

Why don't we let them put 25,000 square feet up and get the property taxed on that?

Because Greene County could use some money.

And not care because they're still limited to everything else they can do.

Right?

They have 150.

but other than special permits.

So I think you get rid of the line on building sizes of some of the things they work with a 20,000 square foot building.

Okay.

You get more property tax tax.

Yeah.

And I'd be very careful about tents, you know, because one of the biggest things that I live right next to Blossom Ridge, which is an advanced place.

And the biggest problem they have is when it's amplified music for amplified DJs or people speaking, you know, and here comes the bride and half the neighborhood can hear it where we

If that's inside, amplified music starts from inside the building.

It's usually pretty good.

You put it in a tent, you get a couple square miles of people.

So I'd be very leery about saying tents are the way to go for big events.

Right, well, my right is 45 on the square, but I can't actually, ma'am.

Say somebody had

You could probably work with the size of the building with the amount of acreage.

Yeah, but it's 125 acres and 4,000 square feet.

Well, honestly, we modeled the original ordinance after what Albemarle had, because they were one of the first in the states that revised theirs, and theirs was 4,000 square feet, and it's just always been 4,000.

Now, if you look at Fauquier County and look at the wineries up there, they're magnificent.

Huge, large places.

And I think a lot of the definitions of the binaries and then the events, that's where everybody's drawing the line.

Is it a winery or agricultural brewery, or is it mainly for weddings from events?

Wineries, and then if you look again at Fauquier County and the wineries, almost all of them close at five.

Well, that's the case for many of our wineries here.

Rightly, wineries will close at five, and I presume that's because food service

It's probably not available like at a bar.

The special events will go past.

Yes.

Or 11, even.

Well, but you're limited to 150.

If a parcel is bigger, it's less impact to the surrounding acres.

No, but I mean, I think that's a good point.

Yeah, with the number of events.

Because it is less impact or opportunity to find action.

If the building's bigger, are you going to still cap it?

Like if it's a 300-acre farm and it's as big a building as they want, you're still going to cap it at 150 when its capacity could be 250 in square footage.

And it almost seems like it's a good point.

At some point, where does the state come in on regulations on the size of the buildings?

I mean, there is a size limitation through the building code.

So if you build a hundred square foot building, you can't have a thousand people in there.

But it's not a significant, just like this room, the interior of this room is 65 people.

Right.

And we wouldn't let them have an occupancy load greater than the building would allow, regardless of the size.

So the one thing music potentially could change based on the parcel size, when you start changing the number of people, traditionally, you're only going to have one ingress egress.

So the traffic impacts stays the same regardless of how far away the building might be.

You know, the parking isn't typically as big of an issue with the neighbors because that has setbacks and limitations.

It would just be the traffic impact.

And that's a good point, Mr. Ryder, because you weren't on the commission yet.

I said you weren't at that.

That implies you just blew it off.

There was a lot of conversation that if you limit the number of people, then it's

additional to limit the number of vehicles because the number of people that are allowed to attend are really going to decide how many vehicles.

I mean, technically, I guess you could have everybody bring their own tour bus, but that'd be... And the vehicle is interesting because listening to some of the people that are in the business, you don't count the number of people.

You have to be careful you're not limiting the number of staff that could be there to help.

Yeah, a wedding or a convention or a Blue Ridge or a Bluegrass Festival or you know any one of those things can easily be a three-day event so you know that means you basically have you know 30 plus weekends per year entirely you know theoretically full.

Like if somebody turns it into a music venue like the Blue Ridge Cafe or

Maybells, Lydia Mountain.

In our ordinance currently, the ordinance that the Board of Supervisors reaffirmed just last year, an event could be up to seven days.

So a fair is an event.

The county fair that used to be there was an event.

It wasn't seven events.

A music festival, if you had concerts two nights in a row, that would be an event.

So you would look at the total participants, the traffic in and out for the event.

That's up to the board and the commission.

I was just stating what our current temporary event status is.

And then is the amplified music by our hereun2 not revamped

Noise ordinance.

So at the property line, you measure a certain amount of decibels.

So regardless of whether or not you can go till 10pm, if you exceed that, the event has to be shut down or modulated.

One minor question, Jim, on noise.

So as written, it says EST.

And so does that imply that you can go to 11 in the summer or during daylight time?

Or should that be 10 p.m.

Eastern time?

going to affect the number of participants.

So you've got the first one change the definition of events to only 50.

Then you've got number by right is 150.

So in theory, if they build this 10,000 square foot event center, only 50 people can go in there.

Is that what we're doing?

Like, you know, every day if they have a wine tasting, but that they need a special use permit if they go to 150?

So there's a bunch of questions in there.

Mr. Mastrovich just tonight suggested that maybe, well, that he didn't feel if we were controlling the total number of people,

We needed to control the building size.

Goolsby brought up that

Maybe that was a good idea on larger parcels so that you would scale the allowed building size as the parcel got larger.

There was a brief discussion about whether or not they would scale people and I don't think we've closed that conversation yet other than the fact that if you allow more people that's still going to have the same impact on the highway regardless of the size of the property.

And then the

Wait, so again, how do you go between 50 and 150 if there's no special use permit?

It's by right.

Right.

That's what the definition is that zero to 50 is not an event.

50 to 150 is an event.

Okay.

And the 50 distinction is that they can do those things every day.

Is that the idea?

That you can have up to 50 people every day of the week if it's like a winery.

But if you want to have one of these events,

as covered under the fourth paragraph or fourth bullet point, that those can only be 30 per year.

Is that the idea?

So the three levels are you can have 50 every day for like wine taste.

And then you're saying that between 50 and 150, you can have 30 events or days, depending on how we decide it, where you can have up to 150.

and then you need a special use permit above 150.

Wine tasting isn't included in this.

They're allowed to do that by Virginia law, correct?

So these are only if they have an event like a company wants to have a company get together there or a birthday that are under 50 or less people.

OK, then I'm completely confused, because the first one says events only to include 50.

Then down here, it says number of events limited to 30.

No.

So we are limiting then the number of people to 50 who can visit the winery, right?

No.

Is there any definition from a daily operation to events?

Well, it is in the event definition.

If you read it, it says conducted at or supported to and it lists all the exclusions, which we think of.

Daily Operation has allowed special events like the Web.

By right, you've got so many people at the Web, but if they're going to have 300 people coming to the Web, then they have to come to the special in Eastwood.

So actually put the definition in the ordinance?

Yes, in a way.

I like that in there.

Definition of what you consider an event through Daily Operation.

Kind of write that in there in the ordinance to clarify a little better too.

I mean that's because I think if I write your daily operations, that's the difference in terms of what is considered an event.

Well then it seems like what you should just do is take that first bullet, get rid of events that, not of events, only include activities.

If you had the definition of event is 50 or more attendees at one time, because otherwise to me it's a little confusing.

And I just, I think the Planning Commission's goal was if 12 people show up for a birthday party versus 12 individuals that show up to taste wine, the impacts are the same, and then their decision was at 50, that's when it really starts to have impacts, and that's... Right.

The only thing then, do you really want to have 50 people?

Well, I guess technically, if you then have 100 people tasting wine and you have a 50 person event, do you need a special permit for that?

Like how are you going to separate the people who are doing the normal operations of the winery and what is a special event?

Because again, you're saying safety

and the traffic is the paramount consideration.

You've got several people tasting, and then you're going to, for me, that's, they're not real people at the same time.

It's one or the other.

It's the events happen after they close.

The events happen after they close.

I think in the moment, if I run out of place, if there's people wine tasting, walking around, crashing your wedding.

Yeah, exactly.

But especially if you have a very large structure, I mean, there's a lot of people who have a wedding in a restaurant simultaneously with all the other participants.

since that is probably the largest that I'm thinking of up this area where they have a large tasting room and then they've got lower space for your beds.

But I don't think they have much, I mean rarely outside of the

What is the current buy right occupancy?

The current buy right occupancy?

Yes.

Well, right now the way it's set up is buy right with a zoning certification.

Okay.

Here you go.

I think actually it intersects 200 with the certification.

With a zoning certification, it's 200 people with, excuse me, without a zoning certification, it's 200 people with a zoning certification, it's 400 attendees.

All right, right now.

At how many events a year?

It's not well-defined.

Yeah, that was input we had from the businesses that we reached out to was they have many of these events that are small.

You know, it would be burdensome to keep track of all of these.

How do we arrive at 30 per year in the draft?

Because that does seem relatively low to me if it's fun at night.

We also asked that question of when we had people, local business owners who came to speak to us.

We asked that question about quantity events.

Yeah, so I'm curious since we've sort of did expanding like the size of the venues that are allowed, you mean you need more events to make that pencil out, right?

There's a major event like that.

Most of that season.

You're not in Greene County.

Yeah.

Although you can come here.

Much as they would probably help to do it, I don't realistically, I don't see that in any event.

You know, the more events that is available, it's going to be spread out now.

between those events.

It's not that more people are going to be in the area.

Keep it from restricting to monthly weightings.

I'll say it could be from a business convention.

Somebody can come in for a Saturday for 50 employees for a convention on that.

And can we remind you that the person that has any certifications now

And to Ms.

Hawkins' point, when we had the stakeholders, they weren't as concerned about large events.

Large events are very rare.

And most of the events in Greene County are right around 100.

Larger events seem to be about 125, give or take.

So the state code, first statement of the state code is that there are important industries in Virginia and that there should be limited regulation and the regulation should consider the success of the business.

and that it should be related to health, safety and welfare.

And most of the ordinances, if you read the Joint Commission, the JLARC report on wineries and agritourism, most of the regulations are focused on things we're talking about, traffic.

So the road access, parking, noise, those types of regulations that have the impact.

because a lot of the farming stuff is farming.

Whether you find growing grapes and tractors that work on grapes more distasteful than hog farms is a personal choice, right?

But it's all agriculture.

We did not.

And that was the difference from the ordinance we have now is that you didn't have to do anything as far as zoning, sort of you had 10 acres, you had to get a zoning cert, it was less than 10 acres.

So there is one small change that came through as currently the area requirement may be one or more abutting parcels under the same ownership, which the agricultural operation and event or activity is located.

So if you had two five acre parcels, that would be 10 acres.

That has been scratched from the revision.

So if you happen to own 10 acres, but they're split into two parcels, you can't do this without a period.

That whole line has been scratched out.

Well, I think, actually, would you save us some 10 acres?

No one cares.

Let me ask you about the food definition.

The definition of food service.

Because it says in one section of it, kitchen.

Kitchen is the rhythm of the food.

Yes.

Yeah, I think that was one of the main things.

What I was going to talk about was if you're actually coming in, you're setting out for a dinner there,

as to, anyway, they're having a caterer and they have a kitchen where they can come in and help prepare the food for it there itself, not as to me just driving up the street and I get to think of it for dinner.

It's a restaurant style like that, but that was a lot of the definition in there too.

It's not a drive up restaurant or if you come every way for tasting, then okay, I want to go over here to the restaurant and have dinner.

Well, anything is this kitchen facilities that the health department license as a commercial kitchen shall not be closed off.

And so the food trucks have their own licensure that they have to get to the health department.

And like he's saying, you're saying pre-packaged stuff.

That's not regulated to the health department.

Mostly a big weapon of something.

Probably a change of them.

Usually it will cater to

Madison's ordinance does allow restaurants, actually just in general in the rural areas.

So there's, there's a different kind of unusual in this day.

So there's a lot of smaller agro, foodie, regional, local growing stuff.

So on a 10 acre piece of land, how do you put a venue of any kind?

Is it a stand?

Would that be considered... You follow where I'm going with it?

You don't have so much ground if you put a 4,000 square foot building on a 10 acre parcel.

and you're growing a product seems a little small to be, and those impacts obviously will be higher on the neighbors, right?

Because it's so that that parcel is so small.

But at the same time, I don't, I just can't see how somebody with 10 acres that's actually performing a bonafide agricultural enterprise can have the room to do it.

They probably won't.

It depends on the crop.

Five acres of grapes is a significant amount of grape production.

and so that still leaves one-tenth of an acre for a 4,000 square foot building and now you got four and nine-tenths acres that aren't specifically devoted to agriculture.

So, I mean, the crop is significant what the crop is.

Yeah, but other events in Arizona, other farmers markets, other, because that tourism is more than just wineries.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, in the beginning, you know, back in the day, this was only set up to be supplemental income to a bona fide agricultural operation.

And the challenge is, is as it's grown and as it's changed, I mean, I know the discussions that we've had here

every time one of these things has come up, is it sort of semi feels like the farm is de-emphasized and the operation of the venue is emphasized.

So I've been waiting for it.

But I guess the problem I had is I would, I mean, I really, it needs to be pulled back into acts of bona fide agriculture, in my opinion.

I think that's probably a key component to this and your larger partials will be conducive to that.

Grapes is an anomaly, but they also have its own designation, right?

Because once the locality gives the farm winery designation, right, it triggers the state code and all the rights therefore that come with it.

So that's completely different to a wedding venue or a place to come and learn about horticulture or to tour a farm.

There's definitely a difference between a vine leaf and a brewery.

As far as most breweries have their own beer or stuff like that.

And I know one of Madison Ball Top, they had one little row of hops that they grow.

I don't think they have grown up there sustaining what they actually produce.

So that's, you know, that's where you come into the agricultural world.

Yeah, that definitely follows under the agriculture because you can grow your product right there.

The brewery would be considered different than that or distillery.

I mean, other than that, you're basically a brewery, you know what I mean, or a distillery.

You're not enhancing.

You know, winery, if it brings grapes in and manufactures grapes, it's still agribusiness.

Like I said, if they bring wine, if it brings in and manufactures wine, plus growth grapes as well, it's an agribusiness.

But some of those things are pushing it, I think.

But the winery, it depends upon what we accept as the definition by the state, right?

So there's ones where you can bring in your wine bottled.

There's ones where you can bring in the wine and the grapes.

There's ones where you have to have grapes from Virginia.

And then the final one is the ones that everything has to be done on site.

So we could say that we accept three and four and not one and two as definition of a winery.

But do we know in our area how many have which designation?

So we have, for the sake of looking at the numbers, probably four wine businesses in Greene.

One of them grows their grapes on site.

They import grapes too, and they produce it on site.

The other one grows and produces wine on site but hasn't had an event center or events at this point.

Another one has a closed event center and tasting room and just grows grapes.

And then the most recent one has I think probably about eight acres of grapes right now and they're building a barn.

They don't have any other buildings yet.

So in Greene, the majority of the businesses

So we could always limit it to, I don't know whether it's three or four, one or two that are those ones where you have to at least grow some of them there that you're adding to your wine that you're producing.

If you want to reinstill that concept of agriculture as the primary and the other as an accessory, if you want to go that direction.

Okay, but then we have the number of participants by Wright is limited to 150.

And then why is there a restriction on somebody owning two parcels and bringing them together to treat them as one?

Why would that be a limitation intrinsically?

The only thing that bothers me is A1 subdivision, two five acre lot side by side.

and all of a sudden you have an event center.

That's what I can see happening there.

So let me give you an example.

There's a person in Riverdale that owns probably 10 parcels, probably three acres of these.

Because it's an A1 subdivision and we have a lot of them.

Can I make a point?

Sure.

Now we've combined ag tourism

breweries, wineries, all that kind of thing.

What we had before is we had criteria in the state code to find what a brewery was and what a winery was.

And for a tourism, you had to be a bona fide agriculture producer.

And there's five criteria.

It's in your definition.

It's at the discretion.

It says X, Y, and Z. Not that I don't think the acreage isn't a good idea, but what I'm hearing you say, and correct me if I'm wrong,

I think that's speaking to all of it because well it's just to me if that's the purest form of it and that gets rid of some

this thing has evolved into something quite different than what it started.

Well, the question there becomes how you define that.

So you can have a piece of land that's dedicated to agriculture and it's

preserved as rural and agriculture.

It's mostly farmed and yet that's hay and it only makes $100,000 a year.

And they could have an event center that takes up one 10th of that acreage and it makes five times as much money.

But the property is mostly dedicated to agriculture.

It's not financially the most profitable venture.

That's why the thing was created to start with, right?

Because there are years that are great and there are years that are why we're doing this.

So it's designed to stabilize that.

And to your point earlier, to me, it's designed to preserve that open space that we all talk about.

You know, when people say preserve open space, that's an open-ended deal.

I mean, everybody wants to do it.

The question is how you do it, right?

And so at the end of the day, financial security is how you preserve and protect open space.

And whether the land is rented out, whether it's crop, cows, whatever, you can probably go to VDACs, and you could probably find absolute definitions of bonafide production.

on your own production.

So it's really not about money.

It's about function, right?

Because maybe I rent her farm, or Davis rents her farm or whatever, and you pay $1,000.

You know what I mean?

So we have, as an example, we have a beautiful agritourism place in Greene.

and it's majority property, they grow some flowers, they have horses, they have some fruit trees and 99% of the time it's a farm and they have very few events per year because that's their model but they have maybe four events a year.

Those events per event are way more profitable than the stuff they do in small versions across the farm but it's still

all in agricultural use.

It's a bona fide agricultural property.

The events are enhanced by the beauty of the rural area and our little attraction.

If you have the farm and it's a bona fide farm, could your activity be a gun show?

We have a definition that are agritourism related activities.

It doesn't include gun shows.

You know, some people will argue just what you were talking about.

And we actually had a zoning case against someone that said agritourism could do whatever they wanted because people could enjoy beauty of nature.

So in that extreme theory, somebody could build an office building and say,

It was a lot of approval to do it.

In this case, they had a campground.

But the reality is those are activities that aren't agricultural in nature.

And the code has some things they define, state code, as agriculture.

We've got a definition.

So that would not be possible.

That would not happen.

OK.

Why wouldn't you be used to, she's like in Greene now, I mean,

The new commissioner has done a good job in redefining or at least adhering to the state code regarding land use.

If a parcel qualifies for land use, it has to be bonafide agriculture.

That's one of the priorities.

One of the six.

Just have to check the box.

It's the percentage acreage used in agriculture, receipts, farm statements,

The definition of agitourism is somebody had 20 acres, a big barn, could they technically just have that for a bed for weddings only?

They're not producing anything.

So if they rent that 20 acres out to a bone and five producer,

So can we summarize, because we're running close to the end, are there any key points for months?

We're going to do it in an hour.

Anything, anything urgent that somebody wanted to bring up that they haven't mentioned at this point?

So just one of the thoughts was, and we'll go through this and ask if we want to talk about it further, with the Planning Commission, direction to the Planning Commission, was suggested by Mr. Coach Dave, sorry.

Goolsby refined that by saying if you want to consider that it should be scaled with the parcel size.

What about that concept?

Is that something we want to explore further?

Would you rather see a matrix or some sort of formula that's like it can occupy this percentage of the law?

I don't know yet.

Okay, got it.

Yeah, yeah.

Those are both good points.

Yeah.

$26,000, right?

We're building on 10 acres.

Probably not working.

So there's a ratio that we could do with a floor area, ratio of a far, and we could come up with something like that.

But in the proposed, they're not a limit on size if it's special east permanent.

It's just greater than 4,000.

Yeah, I think what we're tasked with is we'll have a conversation and a work session with the Planning Commission to come up with that scale.

So if we're 100 acres, could the building be 10,000 square feet?

So I see your point is that after 10 acres and 4,000 square feet, it's going to the board anyway.

Right.

We've already, we've dug and dug and dug.

Well, we can do that, but what I'm hearing was by Wright, should we change that to if you have X number of acres, you can have a building by Wright up to this size and have a level for each corresponding size.

Yeah.

Can you all also consider amount of events a year, maybe not the amount of people, but the amount of events a year on that same platform, meaning that the premise being possibly that a large parcel will have less impact on the surrounding area.

And therefore be a bigger building size so they'll need more revenue to pay for it.

And then range of events, like the days.

Range of events.

Well, I think... We clarified it.

Yeah.

And then... Vividers versus attendees.

Right.

Now there was one thing we can look into and I don't know, I didn't really get a consensus.

Mr. McGuigan mentioned potentially licensing based on the different tiers.

that the state has for their licensing.

One, I'll just stay up front.

We'll have to do some research because I'm not sure if the state provides a winery license.

We can say you can't do that for this one, but you can do it for that one.

The type of license that they receive would limit

I don't think it would hurt to look at it, but I don't know how I feel about that yet.

When I think, you know, we can do that pretty easily.

But I look at it since you're looking at everything else.

That one, I still don't really understand

How the designation is grain.

The criteria that we have is just simply, we want to do this.

Okay, that's criteria one.

We want to do this, this and this.

Okay, that's criteria two.

I don't quite understand.

The state licensing?

So the county, if you're a farm winery, then you can have these events.

And you told us that designation, it triggers that state stuff.

And you said there's four tiers of them.

Under ag tourism.

Yeah.

So the vision here is to have them work on this, come back and have another workshop with us before we do anything.

I think that's wise.

Well, always a pleasure.

Thank you all for coming out.

Thanks folks.

We will end the workshop with the Planning Commission and we will go to our closed meeting.

Ms.

Yes sir.

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

Consultation with legal counsel pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefings and open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body.

OK.

Do you have a motion?

We have a motion and a second.

Roll call vote.

It's going to be a long night.

Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

Ms.

Mr. Goolsby?

Aye.

Mr. McGuigan?

Oh, he's no longer on right now.

He must have left early.

OK.

Where are you starting?

I'm such a typo.

I know this.

I think Francis did the same thing though.

I can't understand you.

Yeah, probably.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Do I have a motion to come into open session?

So moved.

We have a motion and a second roll call vote.

Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

Ms.

Durrer?

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby?

Aye.

Ms.

McGuigan?

And the chair votes aye.

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

Roll call vote.

Mr. Lamb?

I certify.

Ms.

Mr. Goolsby?

I certify.

and the chair certifies.

Out of executive session, first I would like to read a statement.

On Friday, July 18th, 2025, Ruckersville Volunteer Fire Company was reinstated as an emergency response agency.

The Board of Supervisors is prepared to work collaboratively with the department to implement the necessary remediation measures, oversight protocols and compliance standards required for full operational restoration.

There has been documented concerns about the ability of Ruckersville Fire Department to respond safely to emergency calls, especially in the two weeks preceding the May 13, 2025 letter temporarily suspending operations.

These factors resulted in the Board of Supervisors implementing such severe measures against the Department.

The Board of Supervisors took reasonable steps to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Greene County.

Over the past two months, the county and the court system conducted extensive review of all concerns outlined in the May 13, 2025 letter to the department.

All supporting documentation regarding the decision to temporarily suspend Ruckersville Volunteer Fire Company and documentation regarding this review can be found at greencountyva.gov slash 167 slash emergency dash services.

This was not a decision taken lightly by the Board of Supervisors.

It is our responsibility to first and foremost protect the public.

That includes ensuring that all emergency operations perform at a standard.

Additionally, it's the Board's responsibility to mitigate liabilities to the county and indirectly to its taxpayers.

The Board of Supervisors' number one priority through this period of time was providing coverage to the Ruckersville area.

The membership of Stanardsville Volunteer Fire Department and Dyke Volunteer Fire Department provided outstanding coverage countywide during this time period.

They personified the spirit of our community by covering all calls and in some cases with dedicated duty crews to reduce response times.

Additionally, staff monitored emergency response through this time period to ensure proficient and expedited service.

Please take the time to thank these departments and celebrate their performance which benefited our community.

Moving forward, the county will partner with all three departments to implement strategies to provide consistent operating procedures which will improve emergency operations.

Additionally, the board will enter into formal agreements to protect all parties as we move forward together to provide consistent, safe, and reliable fire response.

Also, I would like to announce before we get into the meeting, Mr. McGuigan will possibly be joining us virtually.

Okay, so now we'll get into the open meeting.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

I second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda.

Roll call vote.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

Miss Durrer.

Aye.

Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

And the Chair votes aye.

Okay.

Next we would like to recognize the Greene County Lions Club on their 75th anniversary.

So I would like to start by reading a proclamation and then I would like for the board to adopt it.

Whereas the Greene County Lions Club has been steadfast and a compassionate pillar of the Greene County community since its charter on December 19, 1950.

And whereas the club is part of Lions Club International, the world's largest service organization founded in 1917 with a mission to serve, empower volunteers, and meet humanitarian needs worldwide.

and whereas for 75 years the Greene County Lions Club has demonstrated unwavering commitment to improving lives and strengthening the fabric of our community through countless acts of service and generosity and whereas the club provides critical yearly vision screenings for more than 900 students at the Greene County Schools ensuring early detection of vision issues that can impact learning and development and whereas the club has enhanced accessibility and inclusion by providing ADA compliant swings at Greene County Park

enabling children of all abilities to enjoy recreational activities.

And whereas through its scholarship program, the Green County Lions Club has awarded over $50,000 to graduating high school seniors supporting the pursuit of higher education and future success.

And whereas the club promotes literacy and early childhood education by sponsoring reading programs such as the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and providing reading assistance

at the Nathaniel Greene Primary School.

And whereas the club, through its sponsorship of the Miss Greene Pageant for the past 72 years, has enabled countless young women to develop self-confidence, cultivate leadership skills, and pursue educational opportunities through scholarships and awards.

And whereas the club hosts vital community blood drives, distributes food baskets to families in need during the holiday season, and collects eyeglasses to be refurbished and distributed to individuals in need in developing nations,

and whereas the Greene County Lions Club exemplifies the Lions motto, quote unquote, we serve through their selfless acts and enduring dedication to service.

Now, therefore, proclaimed that the Greene County Board of Supervisors hereby recognizes and celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Greene County Lions Club and extends sincere appreciation for their decades of service, leadership and positive impact on the lives of Greene County residents.

I would love a motion to adopt that proclamation.

We have a motion and a second to adopt the proclamation.

Roll call vote Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

Ms.

Durrer.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Do you guys want to hold the prop for me?

David, he's the president.

How about you stand on my toes?

Who you want us to look at first.

Mr. Ranch, it might be better if you stand in the back.

Ready?

I'll take one.

This was someone else's.

Okay.

Very good.

You're all welcome to join us on August 16th at the bar.

We're going to have a celebration out there.

Well, thank you all for continuing on because nowadays it's hard to get organizations like that to stay cohesive and it's great that y'all are growing that much and Doing what you what you've been doing all that time.

So it's awesome All right, number nine matters from the public.

Ms.

Kim

Thank you, ma'am.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.

My name is Kathy Darnell and I reside in the Ruckersville district.

The workshop earlier and your statement about the firehouse has kind of changed what I'm going to say.

I'm very happy that the fire department is back in service and I look forward to looking at the documents online.

While I fully support the ordinance changes that disallow manufactured homes as accessory structures, I would ask that this board direct planning and zoning to investigate property maintenance ordinances.

It is no secret that I'm a huge supporter of property owners rights.

I also believe that my neighbor's property should be maintained in such a manner as to not draw vermin and stench.

I'm sure there's a very fine line between fair and overzealous.

Attending the workshop this afternoon actually alleviated some concerns I was having on limiting the regular business operations, but I think y'all worked through that this afternoon and that was good.

I'd also like to thank you, Ms.

Durrer, for responding to my June 27th email entitled Public Interest and Understanding.

The intent of that message was to engage in dialogue on how we can get more folks involved in and understand how our county is run.

Further, I continue to be disappointed in Mr. McGuigan, who's not here,

So I had to change some verbiage.

As he continues to hide behind a pseudonym on social media, blocks constituents and refuses to engage in public conversation with the very people he was elected to represent.

Mr. McGuigan states it's his right as a private citizen to manage his socials as he sees fit.

However, his Green Sentinel page looks anything but personal.

It is full of his views as an elected official.

He constantly airs his grievances with and his disdain for the very colleagues he should be working with collaboratively.

The fact that he refuses to engage with his constituents publicly also shows his absolute disdain for the citizens of Greene County, unless of course they agree with him 100% of the time.

Thank you.

OK, that's the end of the sign up sheet.

Anybody that's joining us on Zoom, if you'd like to address the board for matters from the public, please use the raise your hand feature.

We'll give you a moment to hit the reactions button and raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak.

OK.

My name's Roger Breedy.

I live on Buck Drive.

As the county extended Buck Drive on over to Deerfield, and as apartments went out, we've noticed more and more traffic on that road over the years, especially after the second set of apartments were built in there.

We often see a lot of people speeding over the speed limit in there.

And we would like the county to work with the VDOT, maybe getting some speed humps put in there to reduce the speed in there and people cutting through there.

A lot of times whenever 29 gets backed up, we have people cut through there up on the Deerfield back on Cedar Grove trying to cut around all the traffic.

They're not being slow about it.

I've seen cars doing 50, 60, 70 miles in front of my house.

And with the addition of the Harley dealership down the road, we see a lot more motorcycles coming through there, rolling through there pretty good too.

Not only that, when the Harley dealership has some really big events, they didn't have the events in the parking lot, which leaves no parking for the cars.

And we're getting cars.

Parking on both sides of the road up through Buck Drive now, which kind of restricts the flow of traffic through there.

And it places pedestrians getting out of their cars going to these events in harm because there's no sidewalks or anything for them to walk on.

They're walking down the street to the holiday dealership.

But I'd like to see something kind of done about it.

Preferably the speed bumps kind of keep people from cutting through there a lot of times.

We even see 18 wheelers come through there now.

Couldn't do there.

It just seems like a big problem.

I know we we still have a lot of deer in that neighborhood that cross over there and go to the lake.

And I just don't see with the speed not being monitored that it's going to cause some sort of problem in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Stephanie Dowell with the Midway District.

I'm actually asking about I don't know if this is you or not, but I've had a couple of occasions where I've needed to drop off hazardous waste.

like paints and that type of thing and unfortunately oil-based paints we don't take at our landfill and I can't find a place to leave them so I'm guessing if I'm finding that problem other people are and I'm concerned other people are just disposing of them in places that there's not a good place to be disposing them that gets into our waters and our streams so I didn't know if there's any way that we could look at our landfill beginning to offer maybe a couple of hazardous waste stays a year where we could drop off paints and

to be able to do that, because it ends up costing us money, because it's very difficult to dispose of some of those hazardous weights.

Okay.

Yeah, I've called the Urbana place over, but any of them, they didn't want to take it.

We're supposed to take this.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay.

I will close matters from the public and we'll start with public hearings.

A, public hearing to consider amending article 22, definitions of the zoning ordinance regarding restricting the use of repurposed manufactured homes as accessory structures.

Yes, and thank you and good evening to the board.

This is a relatively simple

Dr. Tim Goolsby

What we call mobile homes.

The official name is manufactured homes.

They're manufactured in a factory to a specific standard to be mobile.

When they leave the factory, they're classified as vehicles.

It takes some changes to make them real property from personal property.

So they're built and designed to be a

affordable residential or single family home.

It oftentimes is in areas that are small parcels with a lot of houses surrounding them and it does have an impact on the character of the neighborhood.

The building code allows someone to convert

a manufactured home a mobile home into a shed so the building code doesn't have a restriction zoning is the way to protect or regulate health safety and community welfare in this scenario so we reviewed this with the planning commission and the general consensus on the planning commission four to one was that we are a rural community

but it does make sense to have some regulations to protect people's property lights like the speaker earlier had mentioned.

So what they decided was that a manufactured home can't be converted into a shed in any of the residential districts, right?

Small lots, close to houses.

It looks like you have two houses on the same parcel on a tiny lot.

and in the agricultural districts A1 and C1 and industrial districts they thought well industrial districts you have all types of buildings and structures and equipment and things so it really isn't a concern it's limited to those parcels and their industrial nature right and

In our true rural community, you see a lot of different things.

People use different things for storage, different types of equipment.

So their concern there was the smaller agricultural neighborhoods, right?

We have some non-conforming older neighborhoods that have tiny lots, but they're still considered agricultural.

And we have others that are two acre lots that are still pretty close.

So the solution was or the recommendation from the Planning Commission is to restrict the ability to convert a mobile home, manufactured home, into an accessory structure shed.

in all the residential districts and all the business districts because that's where our comprehensive plan wants and focuses most on appearance, sense of community, sense of likeness, sense of space, but in the industrial

District, it would be allowed on any parcel and in A1 and C1, your agricultural districts, it would only be allowed on part parcels that are four acres, excuse me, five acres or larger.

So the thought is if you got kind of a similar conversation earlier, if you have 200 acres and you have it, that's a lot different than if you have two acres and you want to do that.

So that was a recommendation.

It's a very simple ordinance change.

If the board wants to move forward, it's literally just changing the definition of accessory structures.

and defining where an accessory structure that started life as a manufactured home is allowed and isn't allowed in any conditions.

So you'll see in your packet it literally is just an addition of a few sentences to the definition.

It doesn't change the use.

Accessory use is allowed in all districts.

It's just this type of accessory use is limited based on the conversation we just had.

So that was the culmination of the work and the recommendation from the Planning Commission.

And the staff is here for any questions and open for the conversation.

All right.

We'll close the public hearing and opened it up to the Board of Supervisors for discussion.

I kind of agree with it.

I watched the little subdivision I live in and two acre lots and I wouldn't want my next-door one or single-wide trailer putting it in and calling it storage rain.

I mean, it's by right, yes, but to say the state rule to the nature of the community you're in, I don't, I agree with the change.

Probably not, Tony.

Okay.

I just hope they don't pile up stuff around them, you know?

Gotcha.

If it's for storage, it ought to be for storage.

That's right.

To make a motion in accordance with the Greene County Zoning Ordinance, Public Necessity, Convenience, General Welfare, and Good Zoning Practice, I move to approve O.R.

No.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Roll call vote.

Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

Mr. Durrer.

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

And the Chair votes aye.

B. Public hearing to consider amending article 22, definitions of the zoning ordinance regarding solar energy generation facilities.

Thank you again.

This is a culmination of a direction that came from the board.

We had a work session and then we went through, excuse me, a joint work session between the Planning Commission and the board, got direction from the board.

The Planning Commission has had work sessions on the changes.

And if you remember the joint work session with the board, the board's directions were one that we wanted to add minimum performance standards to any power or solar generation facility in Greene County in addition to limiting

the minimum size before you would have to have a special use permit.

So to be clear, solar power generation facility is not allowed by Wright in Greene County.

It requires a special use permit hearing and the recommendations from the Planning Commission that are in your packet include significant performance standards

on top of the special use permit.

And just as a reminder, a special use permit gives the board full authority to address any impact.

So although for clarity for anybody wanting to come to Greene County and for a minimum starting point for the board we have performance standards in place if this is adopted that doesn't preclude or prevent the board from adding additional performance requirements so you can add a condition so right now today we've given you

some pretty stringent recommendations.

However, a week from now, three years from now, something may be discovered that is a recommendation or a condition that we want to add that will prevent some impact.

And you have full authority with the special use permit to add any of those.

So this is

a limiting point that gives clarity to this board and future boards but also to any potential applicant if they want to go through they know hey at least there's a minimum starting point there might be other things that we have to do but but you know we know we're not going to just be able to come in and do whatever we want.

So that's the standard.

The other thing that is important to point out is that prior to this, it was a special use permit for any power generation, solar power generation greater than one acre.

And at the recommendation of the board, that was reduced to one half of an acre.

So legitimately, there's not a solar power generation facility half an acre.

I mean, it just doesn't generate.

It generates some for a house or a couple of houses, but it's not.

Some people aren't going to be putting in half acre solar farms to feed back to the grid.

That's the other important change.

When we reviewed it, we realized that we didn't have clear separation between power generation, solar farms, solar fields, and commercial use or personal and commercial use.

So if you have a home and you put

roof mounted or ground mounted solar in your yard for your own consumption, that is something that is buy right.

You have to meet the accessory structure standards for your district, different things like that, but you're generating power for your home.

Sure, some of those situations in some months, you may generate enough power where you have a negative power bill that month.

but the goal and the purpose is for your own power not to be a power company.

Same thing with farms and businesses.

If we had a commercial development and let's say they wanted to have a covered parking lot and the roof of the covered parking lot was solar panels.

It's a very effective way to generate power for the business.

A university in Michigan, I believe it might be in Michigan State, covered their parking lot, student parking lots and faculty parking lots with solar panels.

Everybody loves it.

The wind, the rain and the snow off their vehicles and they power about 70% of the campus just through that.

So those types of things where it's for personal consumption for the use of your business or home would be by right and we've made those definitions clear by adding those.

And again, solar for agriculture is different.

There's a difference between somebody plowing up a farm and planting a field of panels.

than someone who has a dairy barn or a pig facility and they generate their power through the sun.

That's pretty common.

The valley has a tremendous amount of those small scale farm solar.

So again, the big key here is regulating the ones that you see when you're driving

down east and you just see miles and miles and miles.

Eastern North Carolina has a ton of them.

That's what we're talking about.

The individual private farms, businesses and homes wouldn't be impacted.

We want people to have that option.

So those are the major changes that were recommended to the ordinance now.

Again, the talk about conditions is important because you receive some letters where some people reasonably say they would prefer different mandatory upfront conditions.

You know, you can't have a law that makes everybody happy and satisfies every particular thing.

We have a law that's reasonable.

It's well vetted throughout the state.

Are there others that are more stringent?

Sure.

But if you have an application that comes forward through special use and, for example,

The setbacks that we have aren't large enough because of the location of the property, the potential for screening, elevation differences, things like that.

You can impose an additional, more stringent requirement.

So that's just to put it in context.

We've got a starting point that protects the citizens in the community, and we have the ability to go further from that whenever we receive an application.

And again, the key point, especially for folks listening online and in the building, is that solar generation facilities are not allowed by Wright in Greene County.

And that's the presentation from staff again.

We open up to other questions and we do have you can find out.

Good, good.

Thank you, ma'am.

Roger Breeding.

Okay.

James Higgins.

Good evening.

My name is James Higgins and I'm a resident of Barbersville.

I'll be brief.

My thoughts on the language of the definitions in Article 22 have already been communicated to you as board members.

I do want to point out that solar farm facilities can have a projected lifespan of as long as 30 years.

Advances in solar panel technology and storage battery technology may be capable of extending this lifespan by years or even a decade or more.

This is a long time.

The developers that reached an agreement with the board through the SUP approval process may not be the same developers

who are responsible for the decommissioning process and the issuers of the surety bond for decommissioning costs may not be viable after the passage of 20, 25 or 30 years.

The board should give careful consideration to the long-term consequences of solar farm placement and operation in Greene County.

Setback distances, the mandatory involvement of the county firefighting resources, and apparent company guarantee work best when made integral to the definitions.

rather than being negotiated with developers during the SUP approval process.

The residents of Greene County, not solar farm operators, are owed primary consideration in the decision-making process and incorporating language into the definitions will make this possible.

Thank you, Mr. Gins.

Anyone joining us online, if you want to address the board regarding solar generation and solar definitions, please use the raise your hand feature and we'll give you a moment to find that at the bottom of your screen or actually possibly top of your screen too.

Okay.

We will close the public hearing and open it up to the Board of Supervisors for discussion.

Well, I can say that five acres, if you have the right solar panels, you can create one megawatt that will either apply current to 600 and some houses or 1,000.

It all depends.

You don't never want to face north,

When I was, I was reading all about it and I think you put that in this thing too.

But I was thinking if you had 15 acres, that'd be three megawatts, that would take care of most houses and all Ruckersville.

Okay.

The setback is like what, 300 feet?

Yeah, recommended.

and all those can be added to if there's an application and the board feels like there's necessary, the impact is too great unless you increase those.

This is just a minimum standing point and it's not, some misconception apparently, it's not negotiable.

You cannot say, well, we wanna do it, but we're gonna, we want you to give us 200 acres.

It doesn't work that way.

300, or if the board wants to impose greater penalties or requirements, they can, but the law is black and white and it has to be that minimum.

Thank you, Gene.

I don't, the purpose of somebody putting it on their own property for their own personal use, I don't have any issues with that at all.

Even, like Jim said, as far as a business, commercial business rooftop to support that business.

They're not stuck in anything.

You're looking at like 500 square feet of panels or less.

You know what I mean?

Think about it.

A rooftop system generates power.

So if a house footprint is 2000 square feet, you know, and it doesn't usually cover the entire roof.

So maybe it's a thousand square feet.

The ones we have in people's yards are like four panels laid out in the yard.

We do have a commercial business, the Institute of Highway Safety.

They have maybe an acre of,

panels in there, you know, they're downhill, but it's only for their own use on site.

So that's another example of a commercial one.

I know they have it down at the, is it Travailians scope?

Right down 33.

And what's interesting is the state regulations, there's contracts that you can enter into that they recommend, but they start at five megawatts.

So it gives you an idea of what people who are generating solar power think is big versus small.

So your example was accurate, but that's only one fifth of what they consider a small system.

On the pending state action, if that was to ever come to fruition, we have no ordinance then?

We have no say then?

So the way that it's played out, the recommendations, not only for this, but other things like accessory dwelling units and data centers,

The last probably four years running, all the bills have been defeated.

So this would give us that existing law that we would have.

And we already have it.

This is just giving performance standards to set it from here to the minimum standards being here.

And even with our data centers, when we added the definition but made sure it wasn't a use allowed, that probably is enough to bypass that.

If Richmond starts looking at it again, we may consider just doing something in our ordinance that would be more clear.

It's just like the decommissioning of them.

I mean, you just can't take it to the dump, I can tell you that.

It does have bonding requirements in there and the bonds have to be viable through a viable organization.

Now, to have companies in the world gone bankrupt and the people that sought the money from that company not gotten it, sure, that could happen.

But we take bonds every day, all day.

It's not been an issue.

I think you just simply bond the landowner and the developer.

That's the way you handle that.

And it's, you know, bond is basically an insurance policy so they could both be parties to pay back.

All right.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion.

Okay, we have a motion to approve.

I second.

And a second.

Roll call vote.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

Ms.

Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

And the Chair votes aye.

Number 12, Consent Agenda.

I'll make a motion to take it all together.

We have a motion and a second on a consent agenda.

Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

Ms.

Aye.

Goolsby?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

We do not have action items.

We do not have items for discussion.

Informational items, updates, and reports.

Nothing?

I was going to say, you're the busiest board member here.

I was counting on you for a report.

A few announcements actually start with one and lower.

Well, the Lions Club is still here, but I was also going to remind everybody, August 16th, 6 to 8 PM.

Come to the park, see the great park, lots of great events.

You will get one free hot dog, chips, and water, right?

And then afterwards to celebrate the Lions Club we'll be showing the FASA, which was a coordinated flight event.

So it should be really fun and hopefully the weather's well good.

Unfortunately, we had to cancel the Sentara mobile mammography van that was coming this Thursday.

They need a minimum of 10 people.

We've been doing really well, getting plenty of people there, but I guess July is maybe not the best month, but they are going to be coming back in the fall.

So hopefully we can get enough.

This Friday is Sunsets on Main.

It was, even though it was drizzling, well-attended, food trucks, live music,

beer, apple cider drinks or alcohol, whatever, water, soda.

It was really fun.

So hope to see a lot of people there.

DMV to go will be here where you can pretty much get everything except your driver's license if you have to take the test.

But if you need to renew, deal with an expired one or get the real ID.

You can do that here.

So that's going to be August 4th from 9 a.m.

to 4 p.m.

They'll take walk-ins, but the last one was super busy because people were getting the real ID.

You can do online appointments and then you won't have to wait as long.

Registration is open right now for the Tour de Greene, which is the bike.

There's three different bike routes ranging from 20 miles to

One's 22 miles, one's 50 miles, and one's long or really long.

But you can register online.

It's going to be on October 11th, and hopefully the weather is really nice.

And then lastly, I just wanted to share that we got a copy of a letter from Representative Eugene Veneman writing to FEMA asking for help for residents who live on Rocky Road in Greene County.

to help with the restoring the road that was washed away and also helping with some of the permitting and some of the other requirements for actually rebuilding the road.

So he has asked for a response from FEMA by July 31st.

Okay.

Thank you, ma'am.

Other items from the board who'd like to go first?

I see where this is going.

All right, we have a motion to adjourn.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to adjourn.

Ms.

Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

The chair votes aye.

We are adjourned.