Planning Commission Worksession   3/12/2026

Yes, sir.

We are happy to have Paige Baker and Ian Cole as members of the Community Development Department staff.

There are two new planning associates.

And so you all will be seeing them.

at various meetings as they work on cases, but we are glad to have them.

Very good.

You all stand up.

We've got some blocking us right here, so okay, now we know who you are.

Very good.

All right, we'll move on to the discussion on land preservation.

All right.

So you all have the binders in front of you today.

But first I'm just going to go through some of this and some of the key points.

So what we started doing, based on y'all's requests, is we did research to find out what type of growth management works and what other people do.

So first, what we'll talk about is there's two research articles in here.

One examines decades of planning research that finds growth management is most effective when local policies work together, relying on any single zoning change.

And then the second is the USDA research that shows that large lots

residential development can gradually fragment farmland and consume significant land over time, making the local zoning and subdivision policies a critical tool for managing the rural growth.

That's similar to what Mr. Smith talked about where you just do minimum lot sizes that actually can hurt farmland in the long run.

And then next what we're going to look at is Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

There it is.

So in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, they've preserved 100,000 acres of farmland despite development pressures from Philadelphia is the closest metropolitan area to them.

They achieve this through a layered approach.

It combines agricultural zoning subdivision controls, and then farmland preservation programs, which is also something staff has been working on.

And then finally, we're going to do a presentation or just outline the potential roadmap inspired by their model and the first steps of basically y'all's role, how we could get towards where Lancaster is using the evaluating long term farmland preservation tools.

And it's important to note, Louisa County is one of the fastest growing counties in Virginia.

Weldon Cooper Center just came out with the new stats.

We are number four again.

After that, we've grown over 5,000 population since 2020.

So yeah, we were seventh, I think, last year and we're right back to four this year.

So something that is ever present with us is that we need to really think about growth and how we're going to manage it.

So now if you guys want to look at the binder, specifically what we're looking at right now, I've got it in order the growth management effectiveness literature review is the one that's before you.

That one.

So that's the study where what they did is it was in 2022.

The study reviewed decades of planning research across the United States examining whether gross management policies actually reduce sprawl.

With that, the authors examine multiple policy tools used by local governments, including zoning regulations, development boundaries, subdivision standards, and then farm land preservation programs.

which you can see they actually have a chart that's pretty helpful when you open the growth management effectiveness page.

On the second page it's a table one and it kind of goes through those the form based code which is a zoning method, the density bonus which is a zoning method and as you go down the list

The Agricultural Protection Zoning or the Purchase of Development Rights, which is a legislation policy and project.

But this is one that kind of explains how they looked at all these, the history of those methodologies and where it was successful.

And then the key findings in the research found that growth management policies do work, but primarily when multiple tools are used together.

No single policy solves the problem itself.

For example, increasing minimum lot sizes may slow development somewhat, but when combined with subdivision standards, such as, you know, not being able to do the private lanes or increasing minimum lot or the road frontage requirements, and farmland preservation tools, it would be significantly stronger than if you just did any one of those individually.

The relevance to Louisa County is that with the development pressures that we're experiencing from multiple directions,

The research suggests that it'd be most successful for us to do a coordinated policy approach to where we address multiple factors.

And the key takeaway with this item that I found was that the growth management works best for communities that layered the strategies.

And as what we presented to you all last meeting, we had several different strategies that we felt that if we layered them together, we'd have something successful.

So that's what that one shows.

And I gave these all to you so you guys can read them yourself, digest them.

If they come up with different ideas that you all think would be beneficial, we can look at it.

Just know that some of these things, different states have different rules.

So we may not necessarily be able to do that exact thing in Virginia, but we may be able to do something very similar.

So just when you're reading those, that's one caveat to keep in mind.

The next item is inside the packet.

It's the USDA behemoth of a packet.

That's the 88-page document.

But that's one.

It's the development at the urban fringe and beyond.

This study, the USDA examined how development patterns affect farmland across the United States.

And they found two primary types of development patterns, which was suburban expansions near cities and then large lot residential developments in urban areas.

What they looked at in particular was national land use data, farmland conservation trends, development patterns around metropolitan areas, and then impacts on agricultural viability.

So with that, the goal was to understand how development patterns influence long-term farmland loss.

And with that, the key findings that we really found with those, or what they found with it, is that most farmland loss occurs at urban fringes, which unfortunately, with our proximity to Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Charlottesville, we not only have urban fringes, we're right there in multiple urban fringes because we're in such close proximity.

Essentially, they call an urban fringe within commuting distance.

you know the eastern end, western end of the county, you're within commuting distance to any of those three major localities.

Then you also have if they're attractive for rural housing and less expensive than urban land, which we check all those boxes as that is a key finding that we're going to be impacted by.

The reports also note that many rural localities near metropolitan areas experience gradual residential expansion over time rather than a sudden large scale development, which as I mentioned, we're now the fourth largest growing county.

This is a trend that's been going on for

More than a decade now, I know we've been at the top of the list.

So that's just something that I think we're, this document that is from 2001 is actually just speaking to what we've been experiencing for at least the past decade.

So I think this is true now as it has been.

Some of the other items that they did find is that large lot residential development is a major driver of farm loss.

This is something that

It seems counterintuitive, but if you just do the minimum lot sizes to 10 acres, which you end up having is if there's a 100 acre farm, they now just have 10 10 acre home sites or 10 10 acre homes instead of actual usable farmland.

So that's something that it's very important to keep in mind that they say over time that this type of development it divides farmland into smaller parcels, it makes farming operation less valuable.

because then you have 10 home sites and if they're not lined up to benefit a workable land then you end up having just scattered farmland that can't really be usable because it's it's just not streamlined in the process that's something that you know larger lot relevant residential development is not a solution in by itself

To add on to that, the low density development consumes more land per household, which is something that like we're talking about, if we were to set a minimum acreage of five or 10 acres only, then you have one home would take up five to 10 acres, where if you have a suburban subdivision style, you would end up having four to six homes per acre or per four to five acres.

So in that same five acres, you may have four homes for subdivision

a suburban subdivision where you would only have one in a residential low density development.

So when you look at it,

The acreage that's taken up from the residential lot ends up being less for that suburban style subdivision than just the larger lots in general.

So that's something we need to account for.

If we just want to maintain the real nature of the county and have bigger lot sizes and do that, that's one way to go about it.

But USDA did find that if you're trying to preserve the workable farms, that that can cause issues because that type of development does reduce the, or it increases the consumption of land.

in general areas.

One of the other key findings is that farmland fragmentation, like I mentioned earlier, reduces agricultural viability.

Large farm equipment becomes harder to use.

Farming operations become less efficient.

Conflicts with residential neighbors increase.

Examples of those conflicts are noise from the farm equipment, odors, livestock, dust from farming activities.

And as the residential development increases, farmers face more complaints

potential restrictions and just the agricultural production becomes harder to sustain.

So then, you know, they try and find something that's more productive and easier for them.

key findings five, what we talked about is the development often occurs gradually.

Same thing we've been experiencing, you know, 1.5 acres, but you do it 3033 times a month,

Every month for years at a time, you start getting thousands and thousands of houses that we've gotten.

USDA did find that local zoning and subdivision regulations are critical.

One of the major conclusions of the report is that local land use policies are the primary tool communities use to influence rural development patterns.

And those tools include the zoning regulations, subdivision standards and parcel creation rules, which I would say the subdivision standards or the creation of new parcels are something that is very important.

The report emphasizes

that the way local governments regulate how land is divided can significantly affect farmland preservation outcomes.

The key relevance, Louisa County, farmland loss is often gradual, which we've been seeing.

Large lot housing can accelerate farmland fragmentation, which is something that I think we need to keep in mind as we move forward with this.

Land development pressure is strongest near growing regions.

Heard, understood, acknowledged.

I mean, we're going through that right now.

Local policies influence long-term development patterns, which is why we're here talking about it today.

One of the key takeaways we've got for this is that farm land loss occurs gradually, and it's also the partial fragmentation.

It's not just the large subdivisions and larger projects that come in.

And those policies that influence how land is divided can significantly impact the long-term preservation.

The next one that we have, we're going to roll.

The next two work together because they're basically about Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

So if you flip in the next page, they're all stapled so you guys should just be able to flip the growth management.

and the president, preserving large farming landscapes, the case for Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is basically known as one of the actually, I would say the most protected areas in the United States.

They have over 100,000 acres

preserved.

They partner with a nonprofit organization that has conservation easements, and they've preserved quite a bit of acreage.

Pennsylvania is a little bit different because the county is like 600,000 acres, but the county does not set the zoning guidelines.

There's municipalities within those 600,000 acres that have to do it.

So that's where they came up with the architectural zoning guidelines.

So that's what the last item is that we'll talk about.

But despite being 70 miles from Philadelphia, Lancaster has successfully preserved the largest contiguous agricultural landscape in the eastern United States.

Like I said, it's over 100,000 acres that they've preserved over decades of work.

They use a layered strategy, which included agricultural zoning, farmland preservation programs, purchases of development rights, and then coordinated planning across

multiple municipalities.

The difference here being, you know, Louisa County is 323, give or take 1000 acres, and they're 600,000.

But they have to have the missed palities and townships and stuff underneath them set the actual zoning code where we would be able to do it without that extra layer of coordination with the municipalities.

And these policies have protected over 100,000 acres of farmland while the county's population continue to grow.

In this, the key takeaways is that to preserve the agricultural landscape, we must focus on the long term land use patterns, not just individual development proposals, which I think is what we're doing today as well.

That's what staff has proposed and the alternatives.

And then

Really the one that we're getting into now is going to be the Agricultural Zoning District guidelines for Lancaster County because once we started looking at it, it just became clear that if they're the best, we might as well follow suit with what they're doing.

So if you look at their guidelines, Lancaster has been successful because of its zoning system frequently studied by planners in rural communities.

They provide recommendations for municipalities on how to structure agricultural zoning districts.

The guidelines emphasize several key principles.

They have agriculture as a primary land use.

So agricultural zoning districts are designed to preserve productive farmland, maintain agricultural as well as economic activity.

Well, I'm sorry, maintain agriculture as an economic activity, and then reduce conflicts between farms and residential development.

Residential uses are generally treated as a secondary use within agricultural districts.

That's not something that

we necessarily presented or discussed.

Commissioner Goodwin had mentioned if somebody wanted to build a house requiring them to rezone in the A1 or A2 to something different to build a house.

That's actually something similar to what Lancaster, Pennsylvania recommends.

The minimum farm parcel sizes, so the guidelines recommend maintaining large agricultural parcels, typically 25 acre minimum parcels, sometimes 50 or larger.

And the purpose is to ensure farmlands remain large enough to support modern farming operations.

They also limit residential development.

Residential development is allowed but carefully limited.

Typical approaches include tying residential density to acreage, limiting the number of homes that can be created from a farm parcel, and these rules prevent farms from being gradually converted into rural residential subdivisions.

One of the things that was actually pretty interesting to see, and it seems counterintuitive, but until you really start thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense.

They actually have a recommended maximum residential lot size.

So what they recommend is that residential lots be one to two acres.

So this prevents farms from being divided into larger estate lots, where each house consumes large amounts of farmland.

Instead, the house would sit on a small lot, and then the farmland would be able to stay intact.

So that's something that they recommended that I had never thought about until I saw them doing it.

And they also use subdivision controls.

So many Lancaster municipalities, they use a sliding scale on zoning tied to acreage and then limits on how many times a farm can be subdivided.

So with these tools, they slow the fragmentation.

of Agricultural Land Over Time.

And then, you know, why Lancaster System works.

The Lancaster Farmland Preservation success comes from the combined multiple tools they use, agriculture zoning, the subdivision controls, residential density limits, and then the farmland preservation programs.

Together, they preserved 100,000 acres.

How it's relevant to us, just going to get into it quick.

We did have that comprehensive plan survey come out.

88% of respondents said that preserving farmland and forest land is very important.

1,677 respondents supported concentrating development in growth areas.

1,400 respondents prioritized preserving rural land and open space.

I mean, I think that's what we're trying to do.

We know that we need to slow the residential growth to try and preserve the way of life that we've got in Louisa County.

And right now with, you know, 21 almost 2200 people filled out that survey, the vast majority of those participants, the demographics were lived here more than five years.

It was almost more than 10 years.

They owned between 1.6 and 5 acres, and it's pretty consistent with what people wanted to see.

Yeah, like I said, I think this all this research in front of you kind of verifies what staff had presented.

There's a couple of different tools in here that we didn't discuss.

I think it'd be beneficial for us to look at it.

I can stand ready to answer any questions.

A lot of the information is found in those readings, if you guys want to, but I can try and pull out anything or

set a roadmap for us to keep going.

And I will mention one thing we do also have the Center for Virginia Cattlemen's Association does utilize Lancaster, Pennsylvania for some sales.

And I know we have some cattle up there.

So there's some farmers here in Louisa County that are very familiar with Lancaster.

So if you guys wanted to ask them,

Mr.

Chair, I've got a question.

Mr. Goodwin.

Fallman's coming out here.

You know, future generations are not interested in farming.

As the farming community gets older, I'm all in favor of preserving farming and forestry, all in favor of it.

But they've got some pressure on them that has nothing to do with zoning

These are tools that essentially the Planning Commission would utilize to benefit that.

I think the other stuff you're talking about, you know, Maggie is working with farmers as well as Extension and want to do different type of educational sessions, work on farming transition, work on getting, you know, there are individuals in Louisa County where there may be high school students interested in farming.

but they don't have the family or the land to be able to start farming.

And just like you said, we do have individuals who have the land, but might not be able to farm it as efficiently as they once could, that if we can try and figure out a way to get those high school farmers interested with those older individuals to share the wisdom, there may be some lineage you'd be able to pass on that way.

So I do think that that is part of the conversation that we need to have.

And Maggie is working on that with Extension and 4-H and

All of our programs that we have here in Louisa.

But I think, excuse me, I think it's important because if there's any part of an assumption out there that you're going to lose a farm anyway,

Then the question becomes, do you want a subdivision or 10-acre lot?

Nothing you're going to do is going to save it, so what do you want?

And as you were presenting, that's what I thought, that there are some reasons that there's nothing we can do about it.

In a perfect way to explain kind of what you when you go down through Lancaster if you look at some of the areas that have been preserved what it ends up looking like is instead of some of the major thoroughfares where you have six homes right up on the road and I mean their mailbox seems like

you could touch one from the other.

You end up having homes that are up on the roadway, but you have substantial distance.

So you have extra road frontage requirements and the farmland is behind it.

So it's similar to what we have in Louisa, but essentially those homes that are up front are just spread out a little bit more and it helps

If you set it up for the land to be there to work the land, someone could lease it, someone could utilize it if it's there.

So that's part of the conversation is, do you just want to maintain the rural nature, have larger lots, have those estate lots and not preserve the working farm?

That may be a methodology that we go and start with first.

But once you lose that or fragment that farmland, just like we're talking about, you're not going to have those big pieces of equipment be able to go through there and navigate all the different residential properties if they're

You know, 400 feet off the road, 200 feet, and it's, you know, all different on that roadway, you're just going to impact how much is usable.

So that's part of the question I think we just need to ask ourselves is, as we go through this process, what's the most important thing?

If we focus on preserving those productive lands, what do we need to keep in mind?

And would that negatively impact, you know, residents today, or it's already kind of what we're used to just be spreading out the houses a little bit more with the road frontage.

Okay, thank you.

So maybe you can help me a little bit with this.

I've been trying to research a lot this past month on different forms of this.

And a lot of what I came up with is in here and is what we're talking about.

I also attended the educational event put on by Miss Maggie.

And that was Monday night.

And I mentioned it last month about kind of working with them through this program, kind of prioritizing the preservation over restricting the zoning.

And from that Monday night meeting, one really important thing that I gathered is April 2, the 14th, and the 15th, there's three meeting times.

But they're going over extended benefits through the AFRPC.

And I think that's really important because we're talking about incentivizing people holding land.

59% of our land is in tax use, but only 10% is in an AFD to be preserved.

It's a 49% gap.

I think what they're doing is bridging that gap tremendously.

At a fast rate, hence the applications coming up for us.

And more of supporting that, I think it's kind of almost letting that take a front seat on preservation first over restrictive zoning.

And is that similar to what Lancaster has done?

So?

So it is one piece and it will be.

I mean that's still, I will say that I think what you have and what Maggie and staff has been working on is the preservation piece is really important because the people that are here, we want to make sure that they're preserving, they're doing everything they can to preserve that land and they deserve some kind of benefit for that and that's what we're working on doing.

The issue that we have, though, is one of the fastest growing counties.

A lot of times, you have people that will come by a substantial amount of land, subdivide it, build the homes, and leave.

You've got Spring Creek that's building homes and things, but 54-56% of the homes being built are outside of the growth areas.

in designated A1 and A2 zoning that's supposed to be safe for agricultural.

So the issue that we've got today is if you only do preservation, which not discounting the importance of it, it is super important.

And I think when all this program comes together,

It needs to be in there.

We need to have the program start the same time the zoning starts so that you reduce some of the speculative land buying and building homes and selling it as well as making sure that the family divisions and the estate divisions stay stable, that people can still do those so the people have been in Louisa County still have those options.

Do they have more of a

So land, land use taxation, we don't have any control over that.

That's a state program.

So we can't require anything like that.

With the program that Maggie's working on, there is some contract language in there that any incentive payments or anything like that, that if if they wanted to

leave before the end of the set term that there may be some rollback.

There's different conversations that we're having.

But like I said, I mean, really, the one the green document in the back that lays out what Lancaster does and what they recommend to the their municipalities.

So when you go through, you can see, like I said, where they talk about really putting agriculture as the primary use.

Residence is a secondary use.

So it's ancillary to operational farms.

It's not something

that they

It's just treated differently than we do.

600,000.

600,000 acres.

But they've preserved over 100, 120, 130.

Yeah, that's the preservation.

But they're 600,000.

And we're at?

We're at about 30,000 acres.

32,000 preserved.

So we're at about 10% right now.

That's a good note.

We're 13% of the state of Virginia and growth.

So the fact that we do have 32 is a something to be proud of.

Any other questions?

If the Planning Commission is able and willing, I think if we had two individuals, they'd be willing to work with staff in the near term, maybe the next month or two to kind of work through a couple different options, and come back with some more concrete ideas as we move forward.

Very good.

I'm certainly willing to work on that.

And if someone would like to replace me, I'm happy to let them.

No, I'm willing.

I'm retired.

If you would like to, then Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Hicks will have them serve on that then.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that's all I had.

Like I said, in the binders, you have all the documentation that I shared with you.

If you like electronically, just let me know.

I can shoot you guys an email with everything so you guys can search it or mark it up however you want to.

Very good.

Thank you.

So we'll let you contact the

committee members here and set up a date to go ahead and get working on that and hear back a report from them.

I was just referring to my notes.

I do have a question for you.

How many buildable lots are available right now today without the Planning Commission doing anything?

9,300.

Thanks, sir.

I don't believe we have anything else currently for the work session.