Planning Commission Worksession   11/12/2026

All right, I'd like to call this November meeting, or work session, we'll say, of Louisa County Planning Commission to order.

We don't really have any new or old business to discuss per se, so we can move right into discussion items.

First discussion item is growth management and rural preservation.

I was gonna say yeah you look at packet page two and three of the work session you can see a memo that kind of explains everything and it's starting all packet page four you'll see a draft amendment

members were a part of this work group.

The only thing that we included and why there's different font colors is you'll see that there was the growth in rural preservation group consensus is in red.

Green is specifically the board's work group recommendations.

Blue was the three planning commissioners work group recommendations.

So didn't always mirror up some different ranges.

And then the last item, we had staff produced items in response to specific requests and clarification language, things like that.

So you go through the document, just depends on what you're looking at.

So for example, under family subdivision, one of staff's updates, this on packet page five, we've got property owners, S is in parentheses, just to make sure that if you have two owners that are not related, you know, there's

D. Smith,

Under private lane, we have only one private lane maybe permitted per parent parcel.

Like I said, as you go through the whole document, you'll start seeing different colors in different sections.

But we stand ready to answer any questions.

And we've had, you know, four planning commissioners work on this from the original inception to the work group and everything in between.

So, Mr. Goodwin, you were involved in both the original and the last portion of the work groups that worked on this.

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I guess what I'd like to start out with doing is passing out some papers.

I have copies here for press.

as well.

Thank you, Linda.

I've got one, so see if there's enough there for everybody.

Okay.

Maybe a few more.

I wrote this paper because my supervisor asked me to.

Please take as many as you need.

The supervisor asked me to put together and I had informed the chairman that I had done that and he requested a copy and since the supervisor asked for it, I considered his property and he gave me permission to release it.

That is a lead in and I think that you might find the first page a little easier to follow the different positions.

I went through the different colored sections that's in the packet.

This is just a one page wrap up of it where the left hand column is where was the presentation by the original PC Working Group, which was Commissioner Hicks,

and staff and myself, we worked on that for about, I want to say five months, Todd.

Put a lot of work into it and that left hand column is what we brought to the working session.

I guess we discussed that a very little bit before the Board of Supervisors reps came back with what they offered

based on looking at ours.

Just take the first line or the second line.

We had said 15 acres, minimum lot size in A2.

They came back with five.

And you can read it all the way down here.

What I will also lead in and say, the highlighted areas are the areas that we did not come to consensus on.

and I'll make a kind of an editorial comment.

I'm sorry, did press get a copy of this already?

The highlighted areas of where we could not come to a consensus and my own personal opinion, I'd trade everything else on a sheet for those three areas.

That's how important they were when we went through the original work session.

The division rights being reduced from seven to five is certainly important.

It's a great idea.

We didn't think about it, talked about it, didn't include it, but I'd trade it all for those three because they make the biggest difference.

Let you kind of look at it for a side.

The final column,

as you see what we came back, we reduced ours from 15 to 10 and so on and you see in the column over there where we had consensus where we had no consensus and the only issue that we had and the reason it's highlighted was on private lanes.

That was originally brought up to us by staff.

and they said they were working on, they believed it could be fixed with a technical change, upgrade to the code.

So we just decided we can't come to a consensus, we can't identify differences until we see the language.

So that's the reason it's highlighted.

The top three are the ones that are really still up for discussion.

if you look at the next two pages if you don't in any time you all have questions please interrupt me you look at the next two pages I went through and tried to explain the rationale for the Planning Commission's recommendations both the original and the ones that we offered towards consensus

I make a statement in here several times that we didn't get rationale from the board members that were there.

The only thing we heard was that one of them said that, well, we were looking to just shave a little off each area.

There wasn't a rationale for making any individual

recommendation that I could remember and please on the committee with me was Commissioner Dickenson and Commissioner Kersey.

I've drawn blanks tonight.

Allow me some for my age.

So if I misstate this, please jump in.

The first thing I'm going to talk about is lot size.

Lot size is very important.

I'm going to tell you, leading into this, there is only one finite in this whole discussion and that's area.

There is a finite amount of acreage in this county.

It will not change unless the county changes.

Everything else is a variable and

A lot size is important if you just take the extremes.

You take the total number of acreage in this county and divide it by an acre and a half versus divide it by 10 acres or 15.

The board came to us saying with a certain amount of desperation last winter that they wanted to reduce the growth rate and the population increase.

Well, if you're increasing the divisions between one and a half, five and 15 against that finite number, you are doing that without a doubt.

It's less homes, same amount of land, less kids.

And they had a right to have some desperation.

They were looking at a budget, what some $50 million for a new school.

and consistently rated in the top five in the state for growth.

Some desperation.

Planning Commission, please give us something to help fix this.

That's what got us in it.

We went with 15 in the beginning and I'm not going to read all of this.

I'm hoping that you all can do some speed reading here.

But if you're gonna cut into the problem that we've got with the budget, you'll see somewhere in that taxes, there's only three ways to deal with that.

You gotta cut services drastically, which I've heard no appetite for that.

You've gotta increase taxes.

And I heard a lot about that, but it was not an appetite for doing it.

And finally, you gotta cut the growth.

You gotta cut the number of lots that we're allowing in this county.

And also, not talked about in this paper because it wasn't in our guidance, was affordability.

It's gonna come up eventually.

This was not the place.

It was not our guidance, number one.

and this is not something that affects affordability in any major way at all.

And I'll just give you an example.

One of these smaller homes being sold for somewhere in the range of, let's say $400,000.

Reasonable?

The cost of the driveway which is affected by setback.

The cost of the lot size,

here, that probably cost someone in the neighborhood of about $15,000 against $400,000.

A minuscule effect on the total cost.

$15,000 versus a total of $400,000.

You increase that to 10 acres.

Do the math.

It's still minuscule.

And affordability

is not the issue that we're dealing with because the people that are buying these houses, I've heard people say, what if my son wants to live there?

It's not our sons and daughters that are buying these houses.

It's people from outside of this county.

This is anecdotal information.

But that's not who I see building.

Our children are building on family land.

They're living in apartments.

They've gone off and gotten a degree and because we have a lack of degree programs in this county, they've gone off to live in Richmond, Charlottesville, wherever there are degree jobs.

It's not an issue for keeping our kids at home.

If we want to do that, there's some answers out there.

I think a PUD is a perfect way to do it.

You design smaller houses, you clump them together, you can

You can put a, we did it.

In effect, we did it with the working neighborhood that we created down next to the resource center.

A way to address affordability.

Development countywide is not the way to address affordability.

The second thing I think is equally important

and that is if we look at what we've considered over the last, gosh, ever since I've been on the planning commission, some 90% of the land use activities that we've been involved in have had nothing to do with agriculture and had everything to do with residential.

Well, why is that?

because some 16, 18 years ago, we went out with a letter to every resident without any guidelines, without any guardrails and said, what do you want to be when you grow up?

And just let them choose what they want.

Well, now they're coming back and saying, well, what we really wanted was residential.

And

The position is, if you want to be residential, then come in for a rezoning and be residential.

And let's start straightening up this morass that we've been dealing with since 92 or 90 or whenever those letters went out.

And get residential in their box and get agriculture in this box, which makes it easier for Ms. Brakeville to do her job, which is protecting agriculture, when

probably a great percentage of what she's trying to protect is not agriculture, it's residential.

So doing what we are proposing is addressing that.

Getting residential in its box, agricultural in its box.

And anyone who gets caught in that trap because they don't have quite enough acreage to

Pritchett their retirement savings or whatever there's a little mechanism called an exception which people can go through and we can consider it we want the board will can consider it and say I get it we kind of brought this on you we're okay with that and you can look at the intent and what the result is and issue them an exception or not and after

what, five years?

We ought to be seeing how many we're getting, whether it's an issue, and maybe we deal with it at that time.

But right now, we've got to take a stance.

Otherwise, we're not gonna get anywhere.

And quite frankly, with apologies to the board members that were on that committee, shaving off a little bit in every area.

is not going to give you results that you can actually assess.

When you get through, if you moved a needle at all, how do you know which one it was?

We made such minor changes.

I don't know if it was lot size or setback or road frontage.

We still didn't get where we wanted, but I don't know what we need to revisit.

This is enough of a move that I think we might be able to do that assessment after some time.

And we see whether we're still in the top five or whatever.

Beginning on the second page, talk about, I call it strip development, which we're dealing with now.

and with respect to taking up agricultural land, this is anecdotal.

It is an observation, if you will.

The development that I see, the strip development, is not taking away agricultural land.

What I see being developed is hardwood, not forestry, forestation,

They sell the lots off.

The owner has already cut the rest of it and is not replanted in pines.

And what that tells me is he saw, he or she saw a way to make some money and they made a decision not to stay in forestation again.

Because a hardwood forest takes 75, 80 years to get to market size again.

Where a pine takes 25 to 30.

Now, I'll stand ready to be contradicted on that, but that's what I see.

910 times, it's in a hardwood area, and allowed to grow back for, I don't know, 10, 20 years, till it's about 20 foot high, and that's about it.

Any questions on lot size?

Anything you see there that I didn't cover?

Will.

All right, moving on to road frontage, you see the difference there.

We are at 350 versus, we are at 450 versus 350 for the board.

We proposed 400 and I thought we had an agreement, to be perfectly honest with you.

But I got back to the following meeting and found out that that was not the case.

I'll be honest with you, this is totally a safety division with regard, a safety issue with regard to schools, buses stopping every 30 yards.

And it's a visual.

If we want

Ruhle, characterization of the county to stay as we were told in the comp plan that citizens wanted.

You can't have that if you're going to have a home every 30 yards.

And that's what we got now, 100 foot.

We're moving it up.

But we are proposing, again, mostly visible,

Here's what it is.

We're different right there.

I know the same thing on road setback.

And early on, the board members of the working group said that the cost of putting in driveways was just astronomical to sum it up.

but then later on they kind of admitted it wasn't and when you look at the numbers, it isn't.

The setback based on driveways, not an issue from an economic standpoint if you're buying that property.

Again, it's a visual.

When you drive down the road, do you see a house or do you see woods?

Rule of character, pure and simple.

The last thing I talk about is that I already explained it and that was at Private Roads and I think that is part of the presentation that the staff is going to give us later on today, tonight.

The one thing, going back to lot size, I think the one industry in our efforts to preserve agriculture, which after we got the initial instructions, the board came back and said, oh by the way, you do this without negatively impacting agriculture.

I've already said that most of the activity is not agricultural in nature, but I think we're missing out on the market.

I would love to work with Ms. Brakeville on this.

Excuse me.

You know, I don't get close to the mic, because I have a tendency to speak off the top of my head, and the head's the weakest part of my body, so I kind of get away from the mic, because I know that Ms. Purcell is over there waiting for the quote of the week.

I think we're missing out on a market and that's small scale agriculture, which is what I believe the original intent of A2 was all about.

Small scale.

A1 in everybody's mind is corn, grain, cattle, hay, forestation.

That's A1.

A2 on a smaller scale as that market has emerged.

And by that I mean there are people in this county now that are growing heritage plants and selling heritage seeds.

There are people that are growing organic gardens, selling them on farmers markets and local restaurants, organic cattle even on a small scale.

They're just, I can come up with about 20 different things that are already, we had a fishery in this county at one time.

It's shut down now, but we haven't done anything to promote that, which would help us in our agriculture endeavor, as well as preserve the rural nature.

You know, looking at a, looking at 10 acres of alpaca,

Grazing out in a field behind a house is a little different than we're looking at six houses Strip developed along the road if you want to call it rural character I think that if we could work on a program with the right amount of carrots I'll go ahead and

quote Supervisor Barlow he said we ain't doing none of this unless we get the carrots.

I think there is latitude for us to work carrots into this to attract that business into the county and relieve us from some of the pressure that we've got from developers wanting to strip development along the roads.

I believe that is a potential.

And it is a second market for the A1 farmers who are selling hay and what have you to have a local outlet for their product to the A2 farmers.

So we had a rationale for what we did is what I'm saying.

And it did not come easy.

Very good.

Gladly.

Mr. Goodwin, Commissioner Goodwin gave a great update and great synopsis.

At some times, we agreed so that we could move forward, even though we didn't come to complete consensus on everything.

And the one issue I had was the A2 lots, I guess where we differ.

If you're looking at a 200 acre, I call it mythic farm, it's this mythical farm, and you're splitting five lots off of it, if you take five 10 acre lots,

You just lost 25% of your farm.

25% of your ag land just went to residential.

If you're taking a two to five acre lot, you lose a whole lot less of that ag land.

So I'm for the smaller lots instead of the ten acre lots.

in the A2, and I think we've got great growth areas.

That's where our affordable housing, that's where our workforce housing, that's where our starter homes, we've got that already set up.

We've just got to ensure with other work that we do, both the Supervisors and the Planning Commission, that we get the infrastructure there, the roads, the water, the sewer, the things that it takes to support that housing in the growth areas.

One summary I got from clueing in on this and queuing in this week.

I haven't really talked much while this new work group's going on and just really admired what you guys were doing.

When Commissioner Goodwin and I were working originally on this, we were answering a problem, as he stated.

We were putting tools on the table that were solutions to a problem.

You know, liked or not, widely supported or not, we were using ordinance changes to create a solution to a problem and not one over time, one immediately and quickly.

They're looking at it from a different perspective, where I'm looking at it from ordinance to solve a solution.

They are elected, and they are the voice of their constituents and what people want.

So I think finding a blended composition, which is what this is, is a beautiful complement between something you're never going to get 100% agreeance on

but you can take what they feel is a general public opinion and what they can support, get behind and not feel like too many rights are being taken at once or anything of that nature and blend it with something that does solve a problem.

I agree a lot in what Commissioner Goodwin said and I think moving forward it's really important yearly or bi-yearly

to look at our growth rate and what this is doing and assess which side of the needle we need to go, which way, and which carrots.

I don't think any of this, any of the three options is a total fix-all.

It's something we adjust accordingly and be smart and study and go along.

But personally, I really liked taking a step back and looking at A1 and A2 differently.

And that was a route we didn't go.

I do like the separation in A1, A2.

and if we do separate them in acreage I think moving forward it gives us more opportunities to throw carrots into the micro farms and try to support that because throughout the county as Commissioner Goodwin said they're so abundant and you know that could be something special next year to look into but I think this is a whole does slow growth which is what we were tasked to do and that's what our county and our resources need us to do.

And with that perspective in mind, I like a lot of what's on here.

You know, some of it would be nice if I could suggest a little tweak one way or the other, but I think we put the right tools on the table, and I think we gave everybody the right resources to come together the best that they can to find a solution.

I commend you all for

Very hard work.

I think it's fun.

So maybe I'm a little different and weird, but I know this was not easy and staff to run around this all year long from every different angle.

But collectively, and Tommy from the board is very impressive.

This many different opinions on this many different topics to get filtered.

That was the original goal to filter it down to something that works.

I appreciate Mr. Goodwin's articulation of what transpired.

I think it was unfortunate that

O'Brien, and our committee of two couldn't have just moved forward, and we deliberated over their recommendation.

I think that, as George mentioned, affordable housing has not been considered in this.

I think that is an issue that we need to look at.

The lot sizes are not going to guarantee any outcomes.

Part of that discussion was that other factors over the years have encouraged the growth.

I would dare say that we're getting what we asked for.

That's my thinking.

I've heard the discussion that we're unwilling to make the tough calls to say no on some of the expenditures.

It may not be easy, but

It's a flip side.

It encourages the growth.

So we're not at a place where increasing these lot sizes is going to drastically decrease our growth, I don't believe.

Not soon.

It may affect things 20 or 30 years out.

I don't think any of us will be sitting at this table then.

If we're lucky, we may be still in the county.

That's the extent of it.

Commendable effort.

I think the lens that we have to place every decision in is this one, growth.

Each little piece of the equation invites someone to come in.

They like what you're offering.

Is it what you really want to develop in your community?

is the goal to encourage farming.

I personally think it should be, but many people translate that into rural character, the appearance.

And I know enough farmers that appearance is not just a commodity.

They have to farm in order to make enough to pay the taxes and keep the place going.

So it's not a simple thing of the appearance.

Economic factors we can't address necessarily in the lot size.

I think we made significant effort.

I do think it probably would be wise to consider some smaller lot sizes in some areas.

and save that actual agricultural land if we truly want farming.

I have had my own thoughts as to why I notice our neighbors to the south are having lots of Amish folks to move in and actually are farming and those folks are committed to farming for many lifetimes.

We haven't embraced that.

I'm not saying that there's a formula for it, but it hasn't happened in Louisa.

and those folks are agricultural totally.

And I think if you want your community to be that way, you have to do it.

I was just in Pennsylvania for most of last week and I rode the countryside and I recognized that was what we used as a template to start this for our committee members.

They looked at 25 acres,

We couldn't quite take that bite, but as I look around the countryside up there, there are many more towns in order to take the growth.

And I think one of the things that we have probably missed the mark, and it's another one we can't do anything about, but in 69 when we put zoning in place, what you were doing with your land then, unless it's agricultural,

You didn't get that zoning.

If you continued in your business, when you stopped your business in less than two years, your zoning went back to ag.

So we haven't done anything to encourage growth in community centers that have been established for generations.

I think it's unfortunate that may have something to do with where we are.

Appreciate the opportunity you gave me to serve

and meet with the supervisors, but no additional insights this evening.

I think that we do need to move forward with something, but I would not be opposed to going back to two committee members hashing this thing out and come back to us.

If Jim is thinking that smaller lots, I thought that myself, that it has to be looked at that way.

Gentlemen I served with for a number of years on Supervisor Sambo Johnson, I'm sure some of you knew Sambo.

He used to tell me that five acres, too much for a man and not enough for a mule.

And if you look at that in terms of farming, it's a lot of truth, a lot of truth.

Mr.

Chair, I guess I would offer a rebuttal.

As Commissioner Dixon said, he and I did not agree on the lot size issue.

Take his mythical 100 acre farm.

I have not, again, this is

Anecdotal, my observations, I've not seen the first development in this county on corn, grain, pasture, hay land.

I've only seen it, as I said earlier, on hardwood forestation that has not been replanted.

The reason I can't agree with Jim on that rationale is I don't think the rest of that farm is impacted.

Number one, the A1 activity on it is not what's being developed.

And number two, the forestation is not in a pine plantation, it's in hardwoods.

Well, what I would like to get to, if we can tonight, is whether we can produce something that we can all agree to move forward to a public hearing.

And if we can't, we can't.

That's okay.

But we do have the beginning positions that we had and we have two proposals that came out of the work that was done recently by the last session.

Is there a way and apparently

and everyone needs to consider whether the items, I'm just working off of Commissioner Goodwin's paper because it's very easy to look at.

Is there a way that we can, in the yellow highlighted areas, come to a reasonable consensus and we'll agree with what's remaining in that case, then we'd have something we could carry forward.

So that's my request of the Planning Commission.

Can we come to terms on that tonight?

Come up with a consensus.

That's why we included this document with the different colors.

So this way, if you have a public hearing, let's say you decide to hold the public hearing next month, you open it up for public hearing, public ways in, then when it comes time to make the recommendation, it's basically in a range.

So if it's the 100 feet setback to 250 foot setback, that's generally what it is.

And then if you come up with that recommendation, and it ends up being one or the other,

you can move forward with that specific recommendation or if you guys can't agree even after the public hearing you could at least make the recommendation with that range of increase it from what it is today to somewhere between 100 and 250.

That's why we did that is we included it in there so that it is a range so that the public can weigh in on that and

provide their information and their input so that you all can take it under advisement as well.

So it's not necessary to understand if you guys want to, happy to make that, but I will say that if it is different than the Board of Supervisors recommendation, it's going to end up looking like what it has in front of you today.

And I'm not trying to drive towards one thing or the other, I'm trying to find out whether the commission, we at least come close, or we come close enough to say, we'll take it to public hearing and hash the rest out there.

Mr.

I can't remember which one, but one of the reps from the Board of Supervisors,

told me that our job was to root out public appearance on issues.

And I don't think we're doing the public right unless we give them what the target is.

which is one figure and not here are three choices.

You all talk to us about all three of them or two of them or I think it can get confusing.

Well, I'm happy with that and I'm happy to work towards getting to one figure.

In a work group that we worked on and everybody's been working on this thing for, I don't know how many, months.

What we did, we couldn't reach a consensus but what we did come to was, you know, you don't necessarily have to reach a consensus.

If you have a particular feeling towards something, you don't have to give that up to agree with somebody else.

You have staff, what you started out with, you have what the board is leaning towards, you have what the planning commission has been working on.

and I thought was if you could go ahead and just move it on to public hearing and let all of that be advertised then in that public hearing you can work it out and hold them when they come to a vote on it but if it's like you say if I guess if you if you come to some consensus on this planning commission

It will still end up like what Chris had alluded to just a minute ago.

And, you know, there was rationale to the board's part as well.

We didn't come at that haphazardly either.

I say it since the day one when this started.

because of working in Hanover County and I've seen what their large acreage did.

That's the rationale for going with the five acres.

And when you have your farmland, it's like Mr. Hicks had said in an earlier meeting ages ago, if you went with the 15 acres, it's gonna sell.

But it'll be somebody from Chesterfield County, Herico County.

It won't be Louisa people buying these parcels.

Once they sell, that's the end of that farm.

It's divided up.

So I approve of Mr. Dickerson.

If you have, and Mr. Kersey,

Especially when we've made a cut from seven to five in the A1 zone, part of keeping that at the 10 acres was it does not allow for subdivisions anyway.

So to say that there wasn't any rationale behind the board's recommendation, I don't think that's fair.

We had input to it.

I think we have seen what has gone on in Hanover.

It'd be at least two.

I think it would just be these two middle columns where Commissioner Goodwin's got Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission and it runs down, that would probably end up being the range.

Well, whatever you all include in the package, we've had this discussion before, whatever you include in the package, what you include in the package is what the board wants to see.

So you all do that.

We, I think the Planning Commission feels best when the Planning Commission makes our recommendation out of work that we've done.

And it's considered that way.

But I understand the board asked for other things, and you all provide what they asked for.

So

All this rest of this discussion notwithstanding, the Planning Commission is here tonight in the work session to work through what has come out of these sessions and to produce, if we can, a recommendation that we can take to public hearing.

So that's what I'm trying to accomplish.

Whether we agree on everything or we have some things that we don't agree on and we take to public hearing with one or the other,

We're still going to have to hammer it out when it comes to public hearing.

And at that point, with some input from the larger audience, learn something.

So and I agree with you, Commissioner Goodwin, it is good to take our best recommendation to the public.

However, if we take them to recommendations, because we don't come to terms on something, they're going to come back and speak about it one way or the other.

Those that think five is two

Small are going to come in and those that think 10 or too big are going to come in and we're going to hear plenty from them either way.

So my inclination here with the remaining

Roughly our that we have to work on this is to come up with a final and I think really the three or four highlighted areas here are all that we have to really hammer out unless somebody feels strongly about some of the areas that aren't highlighted.

With that in mind, we can take this item by item or we can do it a different way.

We might as well take it item by item.

The first item being the A2 minimum lot sizes.

If you go to public hearing with that, 10 is the maximum lot size then.

These are minimum lot sizes.

So you would not increase it.

So that would be your maximum minimum lot size.

Right.

So if there was any opportunity to have, say an A3 district that would be larger and that would create

I just open that up as an item of discussion.

I would like to see us

Put something in that's comprehensive and that will stand long term.

Well it could, I mean the public hearing, it's a number is a number.

The number is 10 acres.

It could be an acre and a half again when we come out of public hearing or it could be 25.

I don't know.

I'm not suggesting anything is more or less likely than the other, just that whatever number is chosen, the number is, you know, before public hearing, it stands to move at public hearing.

But if there's no other feeling one way or the other, I can go back to 10 myself.

And we can start with 10.

Next item would be road frontage on public roads.

Mr. Chairman, I think the 400 foot is a great compromise between what our original group proposed and what the supervisors proposed.

Are the positions all right?

I'm good with 400.

Road setback?

Mr.

Chair, just a note, I did not put it in.

I think 100 is what it is now.

If I am correct, there's a different setback on primary roads and secondary roads and the current is 100 on primary, is that correct?

Yes.

Yeah, I think that's it.

So let you know that there really hasn't been much movement on the setback.

I mean, the board is proposing what's there now.

So that's not true.

It would be 100 for all to be primary, secondary.

Roads would stay the same to 522, 208, 33, like they would all stay the same at 100, but all the secondary roads would end up doubling from 50 to 100 feet setbacks.

Okay.

So that it is doubling the majority of the parcels in the county.

It would just be those along the primary routes that would be the same.

And that would be from the right-of-way, correct?

From the right-of-way, yes sir.

It would always be 100 plus feet.

I was walking a property today in Louisa with the Louisa Citizen and we were my favorite time of the year to walk any property that's best.

And a lot of the foliage is off in the last week or so.

You know some of the beautiful colors starting to go down and you can see through the woods a little bit further.

And this unique parcel had availability to place a home in the front of the parcel and in the back.

And it had a swell in the middle, so they had a choice to go forward or backwards.

And they didn't make that decision today.

It was a lot for them to think about.

their first choice was 100 and the second was about 350 to four.

It was back there a good ways.

And when we stood, I stood with them back there on the back of that parcel, couldn't see the cars, couldn't see anything.

That was why I brought that up because that moment I knew this was coming up tonight and it was to get a citizen's reaction in real time on a real decision.

and they stood on the back of that property and they fell in love with the fact that they couldn't see the road and they couldn't see the neighbor.

And I appreciated their decision very much.

But then I also thought it was right for me to give them the decision and the choice to be at 100 or to be back further.

Because not everybody wants that.

Some people do want to be closer to the road, or it makes them feel safer.

Not everybody shares that opinion.

That's my opinion.

You said, too.

But I can appreciate giving someone the option.

And I think somewhere around 100 foot universal on all roads gives our citizens the option.

Personally, I hope that as many as possible choose 350, 400, 250, get as far back off the road as they can and gain that privacy.

But I can understand the importance of 100.

To me, the road setback was more delicate to me than the other previous highlighted items.

Because as Commissioner Goodwin said, it's a visual.

Is that role character?

Is that a visual?

What are we enforcing about with that?

We're dictating the cost of the job because we're saying cost of driveway, so forth.

But I'd like it if it was 250, but I can certainly appreciate.

giving our citizens 100 and keeping it at that.

So it's something I'm torn about because I want people to have that option and feel like I'm not doing that.

They've met all the other ones.

I'm sorry.

How do you mean to cut you off, Mr.

Chair?

I appreciate that.

The view that you've got from buyer's standpoint really do.

because at one point, again, in the meetings we had, I'm trying to draw on my memory, one of the, and I'm not sure which one, one of the board reps said that given a choice, the buyer and the seller would prefer being further off the road.

That didn't go anywhere, but it was said.

And with respect to somebody wanting, not wanting $250,000 and wanting $100,000, what do you as someone in the business see in the way of supply in this county for that

Particular Buyer in the R2 regions.

Is there enough R2 to satisfy that clientele that doesn't want to go back 250 but they want to be closer?

Yeah.

And I think that customer moving forward in the future is going to be more focused towards our growth areas, you know, and possibly that that's where I see that clientele or market going.

When I look at the hundred foot, or close to road frontage, I see that being abused in the past with our ordinances and developers and development.

When I speak to somebody who's a Louisa citizen relocating in Louisa or building on family land, something of the sort, it's almost universal they want to be off the road.

The up on the road is the developers.

But then again, you get those special clients and generally what I've seen, they're

It's for EMS reasons.

You know, they don't want to be back off the road and feel like they're insecure or not safe.

They want a first responder or an ambulance to be able to see their home come in.

It's supposed to be perception of safety, not safety.

Because nobody wants to live in an unsafe house.

Everybody wants a safe home.

You said that much better than I, thank you.

It's what makes them feel safe, and whether we restrict that at 100 or 250.

Mr.

Chair, what I really was asking is,

to satisfy those people for a feeling of safety or whatever.

They're coming from a more urban area and they're not used to being surrounded by woods.

Is there enough land in this county that is zoned A2 where they could find that ideal property for them instead of making it

everywhere in A2, if we've already got that in R2, is there enough R2 to satisfy that need?

I'm asking you now about the supply side.

Well, I know there's more, but is there enough for the, you said majority don't want it.

For the minority, is there enough R2 to satisfy that demand?

Let me point out though that we do have roughly 6,000 or more already platted.

That's the pipeline we keep talking about.

That can satisfy all of this because these don't apply to that.

Setbacks would apply.

And just one point of clarification, Mr. Painting, the setback would be 100 feet for all A1 and A2 parcels out of a growth area.

So if it was in a growth area, we would keep the same patterns that we have.

So when I said that,

Mr. Chairman, if I may, and Mr. Goodwin, I appreciate your efforts on this, it's outstanding.

And not to negate what you said, you used a number of 15,000 additional calls for a longer driveway.

I agree with that number, it seems very reasonable.

I'd also, not to negate anything you just said, but you know, also look at what Mr. Hicks has said as well as not the initial installation of the driveway, but the ongoing maintenance, annual maintenance, biannual maintenance, whatever a person would have on the driveway, snow removal, heavy or storm damage in a wooded area.

There's lots of other factors to consider that, again, it keeps me at the 100 foot

Mr. Chairman, for the public hearing, I'd really like to see 100 foot be what we have in there and see what the public says when they come out.

Do they want 200 feet?

Are they happy with 100 feet?

And see what hue and cry we get from the public on that.

Mr.

I guess I feel the exact opposite.

I want to see the public input too, but I want to see a public input on something that has real change.

Yes, there is no change on primary roads, but show them something big and see what they say.

Again, it goes back to the shaving off a little bit.

They're not going to know the order of the possible unless we throw it out there and they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's too much.

That's the way I look at it.

Yes, I want to see the public input.

I am inclined to go with the 250 feet myself just because we are talking about agricultural land.

and if we really want to make residential land and rezone the residential then that's something different than what we're trying to do here.

I think we're going to generate sufficient comment either way and I can

personally put in 200, 225, 250, something like that in order to get to final consensus.

Or we can go with this being a 100 or 250 feet to take the public hearing and see what the comments are we get.

But I do think

With that, I think that makes a very good point.

A couple years ago, there was this young young lady, Savannah Walker, Louisa residence that came up and spoke.

And out of all the citizens, she, her speeches and talks were so educational.

And it just, you know, a picture of something similar and that we're going to get a lot of topic and discussion.

And I think

Smith.

Very good.

We'll move to 250, which brings us down to private lanes.

And before we get started in private lanes, there was an item here to wait for staff ordinance rewrite, which we've had in here.

It's got the different sections right there.

So this would end up being one

McRae, and then we've got the parameters in here that would be required.

So what this would do is there's individuals that are utilizing it to get seven lots.

So we felt with these parameters, this would allow individuals that had acreage on the back of a property that they wanted to utilize, they could use the private lanes, but with the reduction in divisions from seven to five, plus these parameters, which

The width of travelway, the depth of the base, the surface treatment, the minimum length, the minimum cul-de-sac, right-of-way, roundabout, roundabout, the right-of-way radius.

All of those requirements would help address the issues that we're seeing and people using it for seven lot subdivision.

Mr.

Chair

Back to the original reason we looked at private lanes and I believe it was Ms. Buckler who brought this to our attention and you probably had a heavy hand if not the big hand on this rewrite.

Does this fix the problem that you brought to us?

It helps to alleviate the concerns that we had with there being no real parameters or guidelines for the development of private lands.

What's been drafted here and discussed during the work group, I think we could all agree addresses those concerns that we've had and again we can always re-evaluate.

Okay, good, thanks.

I trust your judgment on it.

It was your issue that you brought the issue up, so I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

Ms. Buckler, I do have a question for you just out of curiosity as I try to understand this application to all of the different things we deal with.

So this private lane for any parent parcel defined in 1997, this private lane would apply

If we approve this, how about a family subdivision?

Family subdivision is basically just a driveway and a right-of-way.

So I'm just what-ifing some different things.

So if you have one parent parcel and someone has held it the required length of time and makes the grant to the children, they can

That's correct.

Under the family subdivision regulations, they have to have a right of way out to the state road.

But they don't have to have state road frontage.

They can have a right of way through another parcel.

If that right of way serves more than three lots total existing

and new proposed, then it has to be at least a 50 foot right of way.

Okay.

All right.

I'm just trying to make sure as we look at all these different pieces, what all that means.

Yes, sir.

And just to bring up, you actually bring up a good point about family divisions.

One thing that we did have to do is change some of the language to memorialize the family divisions that we have today.

So based on the minimum lot size, based on the remnant pieces and all that, that is we added that language to keep it what it is today.

So it does look like a change that we had to address, but that is solely to keep the requirements we have today.

So you'll see that in A1 and A2 where we've got the residue parcels resulting from bonafide family or estate division shall be minimum 1.5 acres and then refer to section 86 531c for additional provisions.

So that language was added in paggot page 8 and then again in 9 for A1 and A2 to memorialize that family division requirements and parameters that we have today.

And if you go to packet page 13 that's where the additional requirements are because the question was asked repeatedly are we affecting family subdivisions and

And the answer was no, we were keeping those at an acre and a half.

But what we realized, as we continue to talk through this is if the minimum lot size increased,

McPherson, Michael McPherson.

Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Goodwin.

One of the things I wanted to point out that I did not highlight but I think it's noteworthy and it has to do with the TDR program.

I think we also came to consensus on that to put a placeholder in the ordinances and you'll see that on package page 11.

I saw it for the first time.

when I got the packet of how it was placed in there.

And I think that it's well-rooted.

It says it's we see that there's potential there, but it's not ready for prime time.

And then point of clarification with that.

So after our legislative meeting with our delegates and senators, staff has submitted changes for TDRs, one for amending, allowing localities to bank those development rights and then also some additional flexibility and uses.

So parking space requirement, open space requirement, things like that.

and then we've also submitted a and these are two potential bills the other one is regarding the conservation or the PDR program looking at ag-forestial districts and allowing a locality by ordinance to be able to authorize tax abatement

For any property that was in an ag forester district, if the locality so choose, both of those have been submitted.

I have gotten contact back from one of our delegates that they are evaluating it.

We won't know if it becomes a bill until the 30th is when it's due.

So right after Thanksgiving, we'll see if

I've got indication that the ag-forestry tax abatement may be moving forward.

I don't know if the TDR one is moving forward this year, but that's okay.

We've also submitted both of those legislative packages to VACO and VML that have reviewed it and provide input.

VACO actually had their winter conference.

They, my understanding is spoke about the at least Ag Forstrell tax abatement at their Ag subcommittee meeting.

I didn't have feedback with the internet and the emails going down.

But those are two things.

So the PDR program and TDR program that is already up and moving towards what we think would help make it more successful.

You know, not necessarily what we need in the very near future, but that is something promising that

We should find out here before the next Planning Commission meeting if it gets chosen as a bill, then we can share that with you all.

But two of the three carrots have been at least forwarded to the legislature to try and get a little bit better options for us.

But we still have a way with the PDR program that we think we can make it work.

Getting a little creative with it, but we still think we can make it work.

And then hopefully the delegates and senators make it a little easier for us in the future.

But those are three items that we saw here, two of which have been forwarded.

And I think the Conservation Grant Program, that's something that we have started discussions on, but that'll be a budget discussion specifically.

So work is being done on that.

But unfortunately, I don't have updates because we just submitted CIPs last week in operational budgets this week.

Good.

Thank you.

All right.

So let me bring us back for just a moment to private lanes.

Seeing the proposal, the staff proposal here, does any Commissioner wish to see a change in that or so I'm going to ask by exception, which may be easier, assuming that

You may be alright with that unless you speak up.

Does anyone not agree with what's been proposed by staff?

You're right with me, we're tracking you fine.

But I do want to go back and now that's the highlighted items.

Now looking back at the items that were not highlighted,

where there appears to be a consensus in the two positions top to bottom on the page which I think is everything else if I read correctly in the package that there's consensus on everything else.

Burns with the items that are highlighted.

If it's not related, can you hold it for a few minutes till we resolve what we're doing tonight?

One of the things that we've seen in the ordinance we've dealt with for years is back to the setback issue where you have a lot that goes back and then may go back 600 feet.

I've known to go back 1,500 feet and the parts are wide now.

And then if the person wants to build back there where it gets wide,

That will become its front yard so the setback would have to be from that which is it's just something that I thought about today that I have really needed to look at and I don't know how that will impact going forward it would be nice if we could get it in on this but when you've got something on a lot that is

The front yard setback was intended to leave room for road widening and stuff like that.

Well, if you've got a lot that goes back

and then it may turn left to right and the person wants to build back beyond where they turned back.

Instead of, if you have a private road that goes in and you go off that private road, that becomes a 20 foot side yard setback.

But if it's a parcel of land that goes back and turns one way or the other, it becomes, it's a front yard setback.

And in this case, if you treated it to a hundred foot,

then instead of being a 20-foot side yard setback, it may be 100 or 250.

So if we could do it and before this thing goes to public hearing, that's been a problem that we've had for years and it would be a cleanup issue trying so that when something is

Way back off the road, and it's not a front yard setback issue, that it be treated like a side yard, and you don't have to treat it as though it were a front yard, when in some cases, with one of them thinking about it's 1,500 feet back off the road, but you gotta adhere to a side yard setback.

And if we go

which that particular one you had to do 60 foot.

Prior to like the road furnace requirements we have now, we have a lot of older flag lots or pipes in lots in the county that aren't private lanes.

It's basically a stem that then opens up to the lot and because it's not a private lane, which has

its own set of setbacks from those like a 40 foot setback for subdivision street or whatever.

That front setback is taken from the state road because that stem isn't wide enough to build in.

The minimum lot width is not met for the length of that stem, whether it's 500 feet, a thousand feet.

So the front setback for that parcel becomes at the end of that stem

Yes, so what I would like to do is recognize two things.

Number one, that is an existing issue with existing platted lots, not that we can't have new lots platted with that kind of problem, but we're looking at ordinances for the future.

We can take that up as a cleanup item, but hang on.

It will apply.

I understand it will apply.

To a certain extent, going forward it will be a problem, but it might be a restraint as well on developing lousy shaped lots.

Now it may not as well, but from what we're trying to accomplish with this, I think that's an item that could be a cleanup item.

Can we incorporate this in or get it looked at before we go to public transport?

And the reason I'm asking is it's been a problem.

and it will, in other words, if you go back now and say you've got a perfectly legal locker that's 250 feet wide and you get back in, it widens there and that's where they want to build, that becomes the front yard setback.

So it's just something that I think we can address and clean up.

We've got a bunch of other stuff in here that's cleanup stuff.

that we could do while we're doing this.

And I don't have a problem with doing it while we're doing this, but if it can't be done, it ain't gonna be a part of this.

It'll be a part of the next cleanup because this is a package of things that we can go ahead and get done.

and get taken care of properly and Tommy you all can handle it at the board.

Without objection, staff will do our best to get that language in for this public hearing, and then if you all deem it's not ready, you can just table that one section for a future decision.

Thank you.

Chair, before we take a vote on this tonight, just out of consideration for the other commissioners,

If you have concerns not totally comfortable with what we're doing, I would, because I am, and I realize that not everyone is completely comfortable.

Don't forget that we still have the exception tool in the bag for the small percentage of people that

may have a problem.

Whether it's a real or imagined safety issue or whatever, there is a way to deal with that.

We're not seeing it will never, ever happen to anyone because there's always the exception.

The other thing that I take, and you all weren't privy to this, it was a conversation that I had when I talked about the paper I prepared and passed out to you with one of the supervisors.

I'll only identify it as saying not mine.

And he said, what you're talking about is utopia.

And I didn't really know what to say.

But I thought about it since, and with respect to what the comprehensive plan lays out for us, and what the board gives us as direction, it's our job

to look for and try to provide for Utopia as it applies to Louisa.

That's why we're here.

And you don't get to Utopia without, number one, a vision, and that comes from the comp plan and the board.

Number two, plans.

And number three is action.

If you don't have any of the three of those, you're not gonna even get to the outskirts.

of Utopia.

So when he told me that, I felt fairly good about what we're doing.

Maybe Utopia's a step too far for some people, but it made me feel pretty good that he described it.

I didn't wanna say he or she, but when he described it, you're talking about Utopias.

Well, you're right after I thought about it, yes.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

In that case, hearing no other complaints or concerns, I think then we'll be ready during, I believe it would be, let me turn the page here.

Very good.

That's a separate issue that we're going to talk about next.

That's just the, what we've talked about here.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you, Mr. Coon.

And I want to thank Commissioner Hicks and commissioners Goodwin, Kersey and Dickerson for their work on this.

Whether, you know, for months or for weeks, it's still been a big effort.

Mr. Chairman, I for one thank you for the opportunity to do it and for the other people that I've worked with.

I have found them to be very professional, very civil, very thoughtful in the way they've participated.

Now, Ms. Buckler, recognizing we like to take a little break between these.

We're going to talk really quick about these.

These are just some housekeeping items that we've been making a list of really about over the last year.

It's some things that staff has come across.

It's some things that we've been asked to look at by your planning commission or board member in the ordinance.

these are all written separately not as one document so they don't have to go as a whole group if there's something that the Planning Commission doesn't feel comfortable with we can have more work sessions but we did present them individually so that they don't have to go as a whole package

The first thing is right-of-way dedication.

This is something that came up last year in the last set of housekeeping amendments that the Planning Commission and Board took up and it is where ordinance currently requires, requires that right-of-way be dedicated for divisions and subdivisions along public roads that are not currently a 50-foot right-of-way.

This is not a requirement by VDOT.

That was something that staff was specifically asked.

Does VDOT require this?

They do not.

So we've given two options.

One is to take that completely out.

The second is to leave it in, not as a requirement, but only if our comprehensive plan designates certain roads in the transportation plan that we could require right of way dedication if the transportation plan of the comprehensive plan calls for it.

So that's just I'm just going to run through them really quick and then we can talk about any of them later.

The next one is just some language for boundary line adjustments and vacation of lot lines right now our ordinance doesn't really address them except we have a definition of a boundary line adjustment but as far as the processes and

How they are to work.

And we just thought it was necessary that we include some language we've had a couple of issues with flat vacations come up in the last year.

So we just wanted to make sure that we incorporate language and reference state code requirements for those processes.

Stepbacks in yard areas for public utility infrastructure and this is specifically for public utilities owned by the county or the Louisa County Water Authority.

There are requirements that are being put in place by DEQ.

out by Thomas Jefferson Elementary School.

There's a little pump station right before when you're going east, right before you get to it now has like a little cover.

There are little pump stations like that the DEQ is now requiring structural structures to be placed over them.

By our ordinance now they would have to meet setbacks.

There's no way that can meet 100 foot setbacks.

So this is to address some of those public utility structures that

Question?

Quick question.

Does this apply whether it's within or outside of the right-of-way of VDOT?

That one specifically I think is outside of the right-of-way and talking with that's the one that we specifically had the question on that miss we were working with Mr. Wade the Economic Development Director on and in that location on Route 33 I believe it is still a 30-foot prescriptive right-of-way.

There's still a lot of areas.

Does the right-of-way, excuse me, follow up.

I mean VDOT is going to dictate what can be placed in their right-of-way.

Well we're not going to anyway.

So yeah this language we've talked about before we originally included it with the growth management and rural preservation piece but then we felt it needed to shift.

This has come up from the PUDs that we've heard and specifically many of you have sat on and the question always comes up when are we going to see the

The commercial and then how much commercial are we actually going to see?

Well, guess what?

Now that you don't have a minimum and you're not going to get any more permits until you meet these timing thresholds.

So I think it solves both problems.

We came in a little high.

I think when we originally did it, it was 4000 square feet per 10.

After conversations in review, that was a little aggressive.

So we came down to 1500 per 10.

And then for each one above that, it'd be another 150 square feet.

That's something that seems to be a little more realistic and yeah standard answer any questions, but this is directly from

I mean, some of you have sat here and heard when are we going to see the commercial and what timing mechanisms can we put in the CUP to require it?

Now it's just in the ordinance.

So there is no question concern.

Very nice.

That is really good.

And the other thing I'd put out there as a future discussion is this is where I see we can make a debt on affordable housing.

is in PUDs.

And the commercial things can be things like coin operated laundries and things that are service things are included in that PUD.

And then you can go down to whatever you need to make them affordable.

Right.

Mr.

Chair, one question for staff on page twenty nine.

Section 86-123, item B. Scaping, buffering, and screening.

I think you may be getting ahead in the presentation two or three.

The next item is related to motor vehicle towing services and this is a definition I believe it was adopted

McPherson.

2019-2021 it was it allows currently the ordinance by right in A1 and A2 and in both of the A1 and A2 growth area overlay districts a motor vehicle towing yard and this is something that staff was asked to look at and

Removing those as by right uses in the ag district or that as a by right use in the ag district.

So that's what's being proposed here.

The definition is included for reference only there's no change to the definition.

It's just removing those that is a by right use in those four zoning classifications.

and those are the ones, that's the end of the ones that staff feels we're pretty set on as far as the recommendations.

The next three, or the next two items that you have in your package, the third one we have not drafted yet.

The first one is on non-conforming uses lots and structures or the non-conforming regulations and this was a request to clarify how

Leagley non-conforming lots and setbacks are applied and we haven't really talked with legal about clearing that up and we don't think we're there yet but this is just something to keep on the radar that we're going to be bringing back with some more information.

On this one

Okay, I just, I was curious.

I've seen that date twice tonight.

Yes, sir.

and the last item in the package is the growth area overlay standards and so and I will ask Mr. Egeland to also come up because he reviews a lot of the site plan, a little majority of the site plans where this is affected but what we have seen is the growth area overlay district standards that were adopted and the landscaping and buffering requirements

So just taking a look at that factor, what we've proposed is basically doubling the square footage

of instead of it being required for 2,500 square feet of development requiring that amount per 5,000 square feet of development and then reducing the number of shrubs as well and that's where we started.

And if Planning Commission remembers, we actually had come back about a year ago and allowed the zoning administrator to give credit for existing trees because we were having people clear cut and then plant just the requirements.

So then we allowed the zoning administrator to state, well, if there's three acres of trees, they're going to stay.

We'll give them credit for it.

But like Mr. Egeland said, we're still having issues with the number of trees and the number of shrubs based on the calculation.

Is it more shrubs or tree problems?

I agreed with the shrubs.

It's more of a shrub problem but the Board of Supervisors Monday night will be hearing a special exception permit for a seven acre parcel that has a combined around 1,200 plantings and a majority of those are of a shrub.

I think it's about 121 trees.

The one thing, Mr.

Chair, that I want to thank you all for, we finally have language in here, I believe, that says that it's got to be designed by a landscape architecture.

Thank you.

That's what, three years old?

And like I said these last two that we just talked about are still in the drafting stage but we just wanted to get them out in front of you and then the last item that we had on that list and something that we are still working with the county attorney's office on is we were asked to look at

if there is a time period that we can establish in our local ordinance from when the Planning Commission holds and makes a recommendation on an item and an applicant request that it be deferred or tabled before it goes to the board.

How if there's a time period of how long they can ask for it to be tabled before we take it forward.

Those are the items and like I said, they're there's they're done individually so they can be taken separately.

Very good.

Okay.

Thank you.

No.

Very good.

Alright.