Planning Commission Worksession   3/13/2025

Testing one, two, three.

Testing one, two, three.

Testing one, two, three.

Just so you know, if it doesn't work it is not my fault.

It's Scott and I.

If it fails, it's truly I've done everything in my power.

If it fails, it's truly, I've done everything in my power.

You're the master.

Audio backup, just in case.

Well, actually, I was I was too.

So I don't know why he left us, but I'm sure he has a good reason.

By the way, Ms. Buckler, thank you very much for these for everyone.

Appreciate that everyone has now printed copy of the bylaws for your light reading and study.

This is the current version.

All right, I'd like to call the March work session from Louisiana County Planning Commission to order.

We're going to start today's or tonight's business with retail sales of controlled substances.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Chairman, members Planning Commission, what we had talked about last meeting was just the concept of retail sale of a controlled substance is not something that we differentiate between other retail uses in the county.

And this is something that we think we should get ahead of and making sure that we do treat it differently.

So we worked on a definition that you all have in front of you.

And then what we also have worked on is

Based on the different zoning districts, we had provided a recommendation of which one should be allowed with a CUP and then kind of just note on the side of it as to our reasoning.

So for example, A1 and A2 within or out of a growth area, it still doesn't fit just because there's limited commercial capability and not allowing this type of use in that zoning district.

would help protect the rural character of the county so of course if you go down you'll see C1 and C2 in the growth area or out of a growth area we'd recommend requiring a CUP it's limited commercial intensity and then

The CUP would allow to review neighborhood impacts.

C2 is designated for high excess general commercial.

So I did put a star next to C2 that if we're going to allow a buy right use, I would suggest the C2 and probably the C2 in a growth area.

would be the most likely area for it to be allowed by right based on definition and then IND it's you know industrial focus this you know retail is not really appropriate for those zoning districts and then RD same thing control compatibility with the

We did exclude alcohol and tobacco, and then we included agricultural activity passive.

And I remember it was a good idea initially, but I cannot recall.

And I don't have it in my notes why we added it, but I do know that that was added.

So just in the definition, it does say an activity devoted to bona fide production of crops, including the production of fruits, vegetables of all kinds, nuts, tobacco or floral products, or the production harvest products of silviculture activity.

I don't know if we need it.

And I really I'd have to go back and see if I had specifically added it in there.

But I don't know if I have a specific note about it.

Because I do know, you know, we're talking about the retail sale.

So yeah.

Part of my recollection of the meeting was that we were dealing with things like farm stands and that sort of thing, or roadside stand, or something that might have been under agricultural operation.

But as I read, and we didn't have the definition of agricultural activity passive in front of us at the time, I don't think.

I can't recall.

But as I read that,

That appears to be specific to production of and we're regulating sale of, so it looks to me like it's two different pieces and this probably would not apply because I don't think there's anything under agricultural activity that has to do with sale of from the standpoint of roadside stand

It might just be agricultural operation and should not be the activity passive.

But the question is, if you do that, are you in what I thought we were attempting to do in terms of regulation was not allow the loophole for a farm stand if we have somebody raising controlled substance that however much is legally allowed and then selling it from a farm stand.

So it was trying to close that piece so that it would

And I don't know if A1 or A2 prohibition would do that as well.

It may or may not.

But you're not able to have an agricultural operation in anything but A1 and A2 without, I guess you can do it with a CUP.

I can't recall.

We did an A2 with a CUP in R2, I think it was, down

Further down, further down off of Gum Spring up in that area.

Owens Creek, there we go.

We did it there.

So I think maybe we would need more of a, and the idea behind exempting or excluding alcohol and tobacco here was to not put undue burden on grocery stores and that sort of thing.

So, you know, I'm not sure

I'm not sure we need anything other than that exclusion.

I don't know.

Is there any other controlled substance that we'd be concerned about that, aside from alcohol and tobacco, that would not be a part of what we're trying to do right now that's currently sold?

I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

But I guess based on the definition, other than the last couple words, which we'll try and tighten up and get the reasoning behind that, because I'll have to update you all on that.

I just unfortunately didn't get a chance to review that email until today.

So I just didn't have enough time to dig into it.

But at least on face value, the other commissioners that are looking at the definition, is there

questions or concerns about the definition or any thoughts about the chart as well where the suggestion of allowing it by CUP or you know should we talk about having it by right in C2 or C2 in a growth area or just go what would end up happening is if

If Planning Commission is ready to move forward, we could advertise for public hearing.

And then this is the basis that, essentially, we would use to move forward with that.

Right now, pharmacy is allowed in what zoning districts?

C2?

I guess the reason that's what I was allowed in now

If they're already established, they wouldn't have to go get a CUP because they're already in operation.

Anybody new would need to go through this?

We did have a long discussion about that and about how do you capture and not affect these other things that

Can sell this sort of thing.

So normally DEA is the one who licenses the sale or the prescription medication or the narcotics.

That's the DEA licenses what the your primary care physician and normally the pharmacists have to have a DEA license as well to fill those prescriptions and handle them.

So it's already governed by the pharmacy now to self controlled substance.

Well, just we're not controlling their operation.

We're just controlling where they can.

Correct.

It's the same thing that you know, pharmacy can't open in Blue Ridge shores.

It's the same concept.

It's just where is an appropriate use for pharmacy at you know,

Is an R2 district a reasonable place to have pharmacy, or should it be C1 or C2?

It's the same thing.

If it's a general store or just a general retail store like a Dollar General, it might be more appropriate to have in a little bit more residential area than a pharmacy.

Essentially defining it just because it's

It's a higher level of intensity than a normal retail shop.

And we just don't differentiate right now.

So we're just differentiating saying this is a more intensive use.

We don't define pharmacy.

One other thing, under your zoning districts here, since we have a new one, and I don't know if this applies or not, but do we need to add the TOD?

It is not a zoning district.

It's an overlay district.

This would not apply.

All right.

I know you've got the overlays for the other ones, but I guess overlay covers it all.

Yes, sir.

And Commissioner Brooks, we actually don't have pharmacy defined.

We don't at all.

I will provide the update on the agricultural activity passive or if that needs to be amended prior to us doing the advertisement.

Understand it just and and if it's if it's not something that Really is in effect.

We just strike that and make it alcohol and tobacco and we're done Yeah, very well then so this myth because I don't do this often am I looking for a motion at this point to Move this to public hearing yes, I

Very well, I thought so.

Move.

Moved and seconded.

Mr. Egglund.

Oh well, any further discussion on that?

Very well, Mr. Egglund.

Absolutely, Chairman.

Mr. Brooks.

Yes.

Mr. Disosway.

Yes.

Mr. Kersey.

Very well.

All right.

Motion passes.

We will move this forward to public hearing in the April meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Coon.

We appreciate that work on that.

The only thing I did want to give you all that you don't have is to let you know that in terms of cash proffers, Louisa County qualifies as a

Well, does anybody want a copy?

And then just so you all know, what's in your agenda packet, this is something that we want to, we're going to go ahead and laminate and have before you because there's a difference between the proffer and the condition of approval.

So if we're dealing with the CUP, it's a condition of approval, which is supposed to directly link to the impact of that

if it's a residential development or some it's that direct impact of that similar to the proffer but the proffer is normally during a rezoning and it's voluntary from the applicant so there are some slight distinctions because this is something that I know Planning Commission has done where there'll be a CUP before you all and there's a crux that you are like the only way I can approve it is if

They were to move the entrance 150 feet to coincide with somebody else's entrance.

If it's a CUP, condition of approval could just be, I move to approve with the condition that they move the entrance 150 feet across from this entrance.

It doesn't have to be the back and forth with the applicant to try and get them to voluntarily move the entrance.

So that's a big distinction between a CUP or special exception, and a rezoning.

And that's one of these reasons why we had, you know, legal framework and the voluntary accountability.

So you all can have it and reference it that okay, is this a CUP that's in front of us?

or is it a rezoning?

And a big question I think that you all will have this for and probably yield to the attorney for is if it was a rezoning and CUP.

We have to differentiate if the condition of approval is on the CUP where a proffer would have to come from the rezoning.

So if we're doing it at the same time, we have to be very careful with the wording in the motion.

But of course, the attorney can assist with that.

So I know there's been a couple times Planning Commission's got wrapped around the axle about something where if it's a CUP, you don't need to.

Move to approve with this condition of approval, and you're done.

It goes on to the board.

And if the applicant says, well, I'm not going to do that, well, you have an approved CUP if you abide by these conditions.

If you don't, you can't do it.

It'll be a violation.

Very good.

Thank you for that.

And thank you to Smith for all the work.

There's a lot of work that went in pulling all this together and appreciate it very much because this is a question that it's good to get the final understanding.

I'm just sorry.

Commissioner Quarles wasn't here tonight since he asked the original question to get the final answer on but thanks to him as well for pursuing it also.

Mr. Brooks, one question that's come up a lot of times going on the CUPs depending on the language of the approval and maybe project specific and not always transfer property on.

Have you got it for instance on that where we've approved the CUP that did not go with future property owners?

Let's say it was a special occasion facility.

They wanted to get a CUP for a special occasion facility and they said that they would limit hours of operation of a special occasion facility between 9 in the morning and 8 o'clock at night.

But the special occasion facility never got off the ground and they sold it and it's an operational farm.

That CUP is not going to transfer to the new owner unless they

wanted to operate the special occasion facility, but that's just off the top of my head.

So then if Kinetic Multisport were to be bought by

Otherwise it goes with the crop.

And it depends on what it is.

If it's changing the entrance of the property, well, if they're going to do anything on that property, it's where the entrance needs to be.

So there's some that would automatically be transferable.

But depending on the situation, that's one where the attorney would probably help.

And we want to make sure that this is, if they're going to just get the plan and sell it to somebody else, we want to make sure that the end user is going to be the one to have to abide by this.

I do think it would be really important as we have the discussion on each one of these in the future that we clarify which one it is, whether it's

It's permanent with the title or whether it is just for the use or whatever.

All the applicants that come before you, if it's a rezoning, it starts out REZ.

But this is under CUP side, right?

That's what I'm saying.

That particular, when we have one of those conditions we're going to apply, we need to clearly state whether this is going to be just for this use or is this going to be permanent.

All right, next up focus area plans

So good evening, Chairman and members of the Planning Commission.

You'll see on page three of your work session packet the bottom paragraph.

So back in 2024, I met with many of you to go over the focus areas in creating a draft for discussion purposes, which we're going to do tonight.

And staff is here to work with you on any necessary additions or modifications to those drafts.

What these plans came out of the originally in 2019 we adopted the 2040 comprehensive plan and then staff was tasked in 2020 before COVID really broke out to work on these plans and it imagine the comprehensive plan is basically a giant meat cleaver.

of guidance, and then your focus areas can be your scalpel.

So you can put things in the focus areas to explain to developers what you are looking for when you get applications in those areas to guide them for that growth.

And because we'll start with the Gum Springs growth area, but what we want in Gum Springs might be totally different from what we want in the Gordon Spill growth area, for example.

And so I just want to tee us up with that thought process.

And so you have on your packet, the Gum Springs area, it starts with packet page 4.

In order to talk about the focus areas, we're probably going to also speak about the future land use map, which designates parts of the growth areas, either pink, mixed use, a yellowish orange is your low density residential, and gray is industrial.

And in the Gum Springs growth area, for example, we have no gray industrial.

And if it's not one of those three categories, it's considered rural.

You can see in the case of the Gum Springs growth area, which I can enhance on our GIS map if we need being, I might just do that here.

a majority of it is pretty much split 50-50 between low density residential and mixed use and if you all will remember recently we had a Loves Truck Stop application that came through in this area and we looked at the comprehensive plan at that time to determine you know did it fall within the definition of the 2040 comprehensive plan for mixed use and so

Again, hand in hand, part of the conversation might be, is the future land use map appropriate for this area?

And in the pink mixed use areas, what type of businesses, what type of guidance are we looking forward to give to the developer?

The low density residential area, the orange-yellow area.

The county is basically saying at this time that that's an area we expect low density residential growth to be in so I leave it up to y'all based off of

Page 5 of your staff packet where we talk about character.

That's probably a good place to start off with.

We have things listed such as promote small-scale mixed-use commercial development as opposed to a large commercial developer.

Promote shared driveways and interpersonal connectivity.

promote agritourism and avoid commercial strip development layouts that encourage development design and creates a sense of place and community.

Because this exit, as we're all aware, will probably see development pressure in the coming decades as the Richmond area expands further to the west.

And it's also a pretty good gateway for those that are living in both Goochland and Louisa to travel to Richmond for work or for other things.

Any comments, questions, recommendations?

One of the things we keep running into is promote shared driveways.

So it's mainly from a commercial standpoint or industrial standpoint is that if you're going to have, I'll zoom on down here.

So I'm just going to pick a random parcel, assuming that these are zoned commercial and you have perhaps a medical office that applies to this parcel here.

It would be good for in their development to leave T. Hammerhead on either side of their site plan to allow for them to connect to a future commercial user that might make sense to do that.

It doesn't always make sense, and obviously topography and drain field and other things get in the way of that.

I think it makes perfect sense in commercial and industrial driveways where, and if that were clear, I wouldn't have any issue with it at all.

Where it gets applied is residential houses and what we run into is

You have the requirement of a shared driveway, so, and we talk about this all the time, you got one person pulls in that driveway, stops, goes to the mailbox, next person goes and they're sitting in the middle of the road.

So what I convinced VDOT before we have our new people here was that you have what we were calling consolidated driveways.

In other words, you bring them in close proximity to one another.

that you don't want, but an easement, which is an encumbrance on both lots, and you have one driveway that, even if you, what we've run into is, if you make the darn thing wide, you know, enough to accommodate two vehicles, you still have somebody to pull in the middle of it and stop and go to the mailbox.

Whereas, if you have, you can move the driveways close together, but each one has

you don't have to put an easement in for each person to share so that to me needs some clarification and if you're putting in a commercial entrance for an industrial commercial then you know it's more like a street it makes perfect sense but I think it needs to be clarified

so that that doesn't carry over to individual residential lots.

I mean, I ran into this years ago when Gooseland tried to come up with a access management plan, which they no longer have because it got to be such a mess.

Supervisor Barlow, I've already added to the sentence you see on your screen here promote shared driveways and interparcel connectivity for commercial industrial uses.

It'd take me literally two minutes to do.

So did you all want to talk about anything you were looking for?

I guess Supervisor Barlow and Commissioner Brooks, are there certain themes or businesses or uses that you're looking to discuss within the focus area so when a developer comes to speak with you at a pre-application meeting, you can go, you know, we have our 2040 comprehensive plan, but

One thing I want to speak to is back when we met the concerns I had was traffic issues and widening of 522, the bridge improvements and also had concerns about whether at the time it was a truck stop but

if a new developer was coming in so little different distance from 64 to 250 on that stretch of road.

It's almost like when the plan on a master plan to align the emphasis to to avoid what we had going on, potentially.

And I think john is hit on a lot of it.

And I think you've done that with under transportation what you added in that is anticipated that additional traffic improvement projects will be needed near the Interstate 64 exit and bridge crossing to address increased traffic of the growth area.

Future development of the interstate should contribute toward transportation solutions.

I think you nailed that right there.

Thank you.

That that tells them what is to be expected.

I guess I'm asking on the alignment of entrances or access across lining up that point to that doesn't promote shared driveways doesn't necessarily

I would address that but I'm guessing that last part of that statement is additional traffic improvements may be made but in most cases I feel like we need to address the alignment of access to the property

I agree.

Oftentimes when a developer comes to reach out to community development department, there's usually nothing around them.

And so obviously we talk to them about making sure that, and they're usually very receptive because they want people to share and go from one parcel to another because it helps their business if that quarter becomes successful.

It is a bit challenging, especially if you don't, if the user on the left or right hand side, if they reach out to them, they don't have a plan.

have what they want to do

It's one of those things where I believe it's kind of interesting that we talked about proffers and conditions before we moved into this segment is that if a user comes to us with a conditional use permit or rezoning, we could ask them to either voluntarily proffer or condition that they will, if they share an entrance or decide to interconnect with another industrial commercial user, that they

do it in a manner that's amicable between the users with an easement or however they're going to do that and so that way if you have two individual users and neither of them want to connect you can say well there's a condition that requires it.

So that's something that we could tackle through a rezoning or conditional use permit, but unless we update our code, all we could do is add a little more language to this focus area plan saying that you could go promote shared driveways and interpersonal connectivity between industrial and commercial users.

I'm trying to think of something we can say that lets them know what we're looking for when they come to look at the property.

And I think you've nailed it under the transportation policy.

And I guess within that, I don't know if we need to expand on the alignment

What I'm trying to get to is, besides having 20 accesses between 64 and 250, we could have one where you could possibly have a light and access both ways east and west of 522.

But I don't know what we can really get that site specific in here.

But I think you've done a good job of

hitting the points that I brought up when we got together about a regional large scale development of business should not be encouraged if central water and sewer services are not available.

That would

Let everybody know what they're looking at when they come in.

No, I think they're all good points.

The only thing I'm wondering is, should it say, until such time as water and sewer becomes available or something like that.

Maybe it can be addressed further down the road, but for

You know, all of these interchanges ever since they went in, 64, have been our targeted growth areas, gum springs included.

So if somebody is going to maybe proffer to run oil and sewer down to gum springs, then

Staff can make that change.

Since we're opening that up, is there a desire on the county's behalf to bring water and sewer to that area?

We promote a rural county, but yet we take actions that encourage growth.

It is.

As I just said, each one of these interchanges are targeted growth areas, so I would say that

At some point in time, yes, it is.

But we do have an agricultural forest or district that is adjacent to the residential area.

I just bring it up as an area of concern.

I think we promote growth and we say we want to remain rural.

Well, I do know that Gum Spring and Zion were both considered and the choice was made to go to Zion at that time.

at that time, and one of the significant things that Zion was at historic Green Springs basically put a roadblock into anything else, but then we moved and brought water now if it ever gets here from the James River, so we're going to encourage more growth.

And that's just the question that I have.

It just seems that we

I would say that we encourage it in those growth areas.

And the whole idea is to protect those areas outside of that.

So rather than having it sporadic all over the county, you put it where you have the infrastructure.

Anyone have any general questions?

So the next one we have is Shannon Hill Focus Area.

We're all very well aware that this exit is within Gishland County, Office 64, and then we have the Shannon Hill Regional Business Park.

along with a small strip of mixed use.

And then we have a larger swath of low density residential.

There is a resort development in this location, I believe from around the 90s that has not been developed.

It's about 2000 acres.

We do spend a lot of time talking about the

the business park here but I think right now I'm going to follow up with Commissioner Kersey.

So I know we pull up the GIS and I can give you a better view

Yeah, it's listed as Clark Country, yeah.

Mostly.

Staff can look into that to verify and bring that information to you.

I'm going to switch on to the zoning layer.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what to say about that since that's already zoned for RD.

I think we have, it's good that it's on the edge of the county but

Spring Creek's on the edge of the county too, and it has driven a lot of things going on around it and within the county as well.

So I'm not sure there's anything can be done about this now at this point, but it seems to me like it's a threat to the continued agricultural nature of the county.

As I say, I'm glad it's on the periphery of the county, but that generally find that that creates a lot of expectations when people move.

And they don't want to drive.

I mean, they want to live here.

But they want all the amenities that they had before they moved here.

And that has to come from somewhere.

And as we found with Spring Creek, as nice as that is, all the amenities that Spring Creek provides are not all the amenities that people want when they move here.

I really don't know what to do with that.

So I'm not sure that's a beneficial thing to tell you.

But it's just a concern.

I think so.

The other one is this.

Although, just out of curiosity, could you go back to the map you had, Mr. Eglin?

That pink part that's mixed-use there.

Oh, I see.

I see.

I was thinking of it differently.

So we have

So we have it on either side of 605 right now, which runs down right where the arrow is.

But if you want to get further back into those parcels, there's going to have to be some interior roadway to get back in there, because you've got to go down to 250 and back west and come back under 64 to get to the other end of it.

So it's not a lot of good road access to all of it.

So it's interesting.

It almost begs the question, why is all of it still in mixed use?

Does it all need to be there since it's not easily accessible by road?

I'm not sure that you know that if you were to me when you do and I could be wrong when you do mixed-use any kind of light commercial or stuff like that right around an area where you're going to have this kind of residential development in the business park you want to be able to easily drive

from your house to where you're going to get your restaurant or your shop or store or whatever.

And if you got to go out 605 and go south of the interstate to 250 and drive up west and then go back north of the interstate to get back in the other end for two or three, they're probably going to be self limiting anyway, it's probably not going to be a lot of people wanting to put up

Any kind of commercial use or whatever out on that end.

So it just kind of wondered why we go that far with it.

I don't know.

To move up the interstate, we're at the Ferncliff Growth Area.

This is a larger growth area.

And you have your central core at the interstate of 64 that is designated mixed use.

You have the Ferncliff Business Park, which is in this area right here.

And then you have a large swath of an

Industrial designation along route 250 It kind of dies off right before the Shannon Hill exit and continues all the way into the Zion growth area and then Moss Knuckles Elementary School Reedy Creek is in this area designated low-density residential so going to You again you you have

Similar characteristic concepts in this area.

Several attempts to apply for roundabout at 250 and 208 through the smart scale process.

And then there's a little bit more of the conversation I had.

Or that larger regional sized businesses and residential development must mitigate their impact to fire EMS, sheriff schools, and general services.

As a new character trait that came out of discussions in this area.

The closest fire and EMS and share of response is in this building and right across the street.

There is a school actually very close to the intersection but it's a very popular intersection due to the fact that you have a lot of traffic from both Richmond and Charlottesville and those that are visiting Lake Anna come through that in the summertime.

Just that particular characteristic.

It's just a statement that could be shared with the other focus areas or it could be specific to this one.

Yes, and Chris has politely reminded me that I'd be remiss without mentioning that not only do we have the 2040 comprehensive plan currently active, but in fall, or sorry, spring of last year, the Board of Supervisors adopted a public facilities chapter to go along with the 2040 plan, which, you know, if you struck that bullet point down there, you still have your public facilities plan when someone comes in to apply for a rezoning or a conditional use permit.

They need to provide us what they believe their impacts to fire and EMS, sheriff and schools, those departments, whether it's a small wedding venue or a large planning and development.

So I'm trying to remember back, and Linda might be able to help me, back to 2019.

I actually believe this growth area shrank in 2019.

If I remember correctly, the growth area actually went further up to 2008 to around this point.

I don't think it shrunk a lot, but I think it kind of morphed a little bit.

expand that back out just again just a moment like no no the other way I'm sorry you expanded in sure we'll get the right terminology here so you can see a lot of the green dots those are addresses which you know most likely indicates not all the time that there's a house and so you have the Reedy Creek subdivision and in here but you also do have a lot of farmland that is designated low density residential yeah you just now turn on the zoning layer as well to help out

So you can see that the purple is the R2, and then everything else, your dark green is your A2, and believe it or not, your light green is your A1.

So if we designate A1 to low density residential, what are we saying that we are, what are we communicating to people coming in that we want to do there?

So we're looking to go to R1?

Just to get a sense, because right now with A1 we'd have what, three lots in the parent parcel?

Point of clarification.

Okay.

The focus areas that we're discussing tonight, most of the information that's before you is just factual based.

The future land use map, if we've started having a couple conversations about the future land use map, if we want to amend the future land use map, that's going to need to be a different conversation.

Not saying that the questions are irrelevant or not pertinent to what we're talking about,

That's not something that we'd be able to change today before public hearing.

The main stuff that we'd be able to change tonight for the focus areas would be when you look at the character, the bullet points that are after it, you know, we want to do the interconnection of the parcels and stuff like that.

That's really the stuff that we could change before public hearing.

But all the other items, future land use and stuff like that would

I understand.

Yeah, how many per parent parcel?

It's an acre and a half minimum lot size.

All right.

So that's not going to... A future land use map doesn't have any bearing on what they can come and do.

I understand that, but what I'm trying to get to is we're telling them we want this to be low density residential.

Well, is low density residential, is it strictly an acre and a half?

And as many as you can jam in for that?

Or is that high density?

Because you've got to have at least an acre and a half for anything.

So is it how many houses per square mile?

I don't know.

What is low density compared to high density compared to whatever?

So if the planning commission bear with me, I'm going to pull up the 2040 comprehensive plan, and we can take a look what it says.

And I would like to add an error here.

I did not have the overall transparency cranked all the way up.

The light green is actually A2, because the dark green was A1.

So I apologize for that.

Switching between layers there.

Sure.

So I'm going fast.

That's right.

So I'm going to bring up the land use designations from the 2040 comprehensive plan adopted in fall of 2019.

OK, thank you.

Yeah, I couldn't remember that.

That's what I was trying to get to.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's less than one for two acres.

Okay.

Good.

So moving on to, we're going to jump away from 64 all the way up to the top.

We're going to go into Commissioner Dickerson's world.

So we have far more character bullet points than this particular focus area and I believe Commissioner Dickerson could probably give us a little information on some of the items that you see here that you don't have in the others or could possibly be added to the others.

One of them would be promoting small town and mixed-use development, supporting walking, biking, and on-street parking.

So since it bumps up to Gordonville, we're trying to continue that into this area.

The one really odd thing, when you start looking at the parcels, and I know this isn't totally what we're talking about, you've got a bunch of houses

Zoned as commercial, right?

Yes, I'm going to pull that up.

Really?

So I'm going to remove...

So you can see... You have like 30 or 40 houses.

The green dots are your addresses.

So you have a strip of pink here that's C2 with many houses on it.

And then over here, sorry, that's C1.

The pink is C1 and then your orange is yellow is a C2.

And you can see the green dots along both sides of Route 15 here.

And just to switch back to the future land use map, so this R2 area is designated mixed use.

This agricultural A2 area is designated as mixed use as well.

And then of course going down the spine rotor 15 into the intersection.

In the gray you have RSA, Rapid Antiturves Authority over here, you have Dominion Energy, Klokker Pentaplast, and some other power users as well.

Indomitably.

I'm not sure, maybe you all can shed some light of why we did that in the past.

When we're there looking at different projects, it really is tough.

And that may be another time we might want to go back and address some of this.

We've talked about it for the past two and a half, three years.

And I'm glad you brought that up because we've had solar projects in this district that have come and before us and you know that way if future projects come before you obviously they have to meet the requirements of solar

ordinance and the new solar siding policy, but you could direct them in a pre-application meeting that, you know, if we're going to have solar, our preference would be to be on top of existing impervious as opposed to on agricultural land or timberland that we have now.

And so that's a great example of using the focus area as a scalpel of directing, even though you have your code as your law, your 2040 comprehensive plan as your guiding document, and this allows even further development

I'm happy with them.

Most of that commercial zoning you were seeing was initiated back in 69 when they did the first maps and they just picked places and the county did it so it wasn't like that somebody came in

and pick these places.

Wasn't a developer or anything.

The county just picked, kind of like we have the growth areas now, they picked at these interchanges where there was going to be commercial and that type of stuff.

Many of those have never turned into commercial or anything.

And it would be a cleanup thing, but the county hadn't done it because then you'd be going back, initiating a rezoning

Nobody's bothered to fix up, clean up.

A little treat for you.

See if I can put the both of them together here for you.

It's going to be a little hard, but I think I can do it.

Yes, I'm sorry.

I have the future landings map on.

Thank you, Linda.

We still have that strip of C1 commercial in here, some of the C2 you see right in here, and then you have a large swath of industrial over here.

And it looks like in that time there's been some R2.

There's a little bit of R2 you see in the blue here, but it's kind of developed out a little further.

Again, this is an old color map.

Questions?

Chairman, we're going to move on into your world.

We're going to move to Lake Anna.

Okay, so there's a bit more wording in this one because Lake Anna has a lot going on.

We have our North Antinacula power plant.

It's a lot of tourism in this area.

We recently have constructed the Lake Anna fire and EMS station.

And there was the 522-208 roundabout.

It was recently finished and constructed, which was a smart scale project.

And so you're going to see a lot of the characteristics that you just witnessed in the Gordon's Field growth area.

It's really about creating a sense of place.

And also, there's going to be future commercial development in this area, especially at the roundabout at 522 and 208.

You're going to see you have undeveloped commercial properties, which I can pull up in the zoning here in a second, that are along the 208 corridor heading to the bridge.

Yeah, we really need in this district to minimize driveway connections as much as possible for future development.

There's just so much going on and so much we can have going on.

And if you all remember back in right around 2020, 2021, this is called the Gateway.

It's a commercial development that has not been constructed.

The backside was designed to be like a cul-de-sac for different carpet, tile for you to build out your houses.

You have cut along here, which is

actively working on this development.

Your Food Lion Shopping Center and again I was talking you have some some of these are rezonings within the last 10-20 years.

You're seeing a couple of C1 zone parcels my hands hovering over and then of course you have the plaza down here along with Lake Hannah Resort.

And if I zoom out, the zoning, unfortunately, you have your North Antinuclear Power Plant and then you have a lot of R2, which is designated by this purplish blue color.

And just to kind of give you a better idea, I'll switch that off and go back to the future land use map.

Now slowly

Travel down the lake towards the southeast, so grab it and if you're following what I'm saying, yeah, keep going, keep going.

You can take it a little quicker than that.

I know how fast you normally go, that's why I said slowly, but keep on going.

Because all I'm doing is just trying to get a sense of how developed that is, and that's exactly what I thought I remembered seeing.

Largely, a lot of this is already developed.

There are a few areas, but so much of it already has a lot going on, even with the

Even with the larger parcels, there are very few that aren't developed in there, so yeah.

Yeah, I think when I think of things, your phraseology, sense of community, sense of place, I mean, sense of community from the standpoint of Lake Anna, I agree with.

And maybe I don't understand the terms entirely, but if we're trying to think of real small scale kind of neighborhood stuff, this stuff's way too sprawled out.

So any kind of, I do, I agree we want to stay away from, I like the way a lot of this is phrased, we want to stay away from a lot of just

commercial strip development we want to have a little bit better looking kind of commercial development through there but you know most people that are a part of the lake there

I don't think it's going to be any kind of walkable thing and I don't think it's going to be, we want it to be attractive and again particularly that corridor down 208 minimize driveways on that to the extent possible because there's already so many interconnections on that right now.

Staff does, when we talk to prospective users of these parcels that are commercial industrial, we do work with them to encourage them to leave that ability to do it.

For the most part, they're very receptive because again, they want people to go from one business to another and not just drive out on the road and leave.

Yeah.

Alright, well then moving on away from the lake to Zion's Crossroad.

Back to 64.

So I think we're all very well versed with the Science Crossroads over the years.

The map that you see here is from the 2022 Zion Crossroads Small Area Study Plan that was between Flavana, Louisiana, and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

You can see there's

a suggestion to have interpersonal connectivity due to the condition that's out there and the planning or developments that have not been developed that have been approved in around 2019, 2020.

And so we have, as a county, been requesting through SmartScale for at least the last three rounds of submission for a roundabout of 250 and 15.

And then you see a lot of similar characteristics as Lake Anna and mainly Gordon'sville have because this growth area is actually shared between two election districts.

It's shared between Greensprings election district and the Patrick Henry.

So going down here, as I mentioned earlier, Ferncliff has this swath of commercial designation in the future land use map and then it segues into mixed use heading up into Poindexter and then we get to 250.

Come on over.

The majority of it is going to be low density residential or mixed use and kind of similar to what Chairman Disosway was mentioning is that the low density residential portion, as you can see, is fairly well built out in this area.

There might be a couple of parcels of Zone A2 that don't have single family houses on them.

And then you can see, I'll go ahead and switch the layer from future land use map to

Zoning, so that you can see the RD, this is Spring Creek, a lot of agricultural, and then you have your C2 commercial, your brown is your industrial, and your red is your planning and developments.

Mr. Chairman, a couple comments.

Definitely the VDOT Park and Ride needs expansion.

I'm glad to see that in there.

It's full quite often and you can't put another car in there.

And then, Commissioner Brooks, I want to commend you for something you had in yours that I'd like to borrow or steal, whichever I have to do.

Tom came up with a good idea.

I know you motivated him.

Why don't we start with that and every one of them?

And so now we're looking at it together as a group for the first time, happy to add things, delete things, modify things to help you do your job, to guide developers for what is your constituents are looking for in those areas.

And I will say there's probably a lot more talk about planning and development in this focus area than the others simply because there has been so many planning and developments that have been gone through.

Anything else?

Obviously, I'm sure we could get some input from Commissioner Quarles in the next meeting he attends to.

I'll holler.

Meneral.

Meneral.

Back to the chairman.

One thing, Mr. Egglund, as you get this set up, as soon as you get this set up, do you still have the comprehensive plan definition thing?

I do.

So just, okay, hold up right there.

Yes, so we don't actually define medium and high density here for residential for mixed use, but it's got to be something more than one dwelling per two acres.

So it would be on the scale of

At least an acre and a half per dwelling for single family or moving into like apartment condominium, that sort of thing.

So, okay.

Good.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

I've got too many tabs open.

Let's see.

I'll start with the Citroenius map here.

And again, if you would just kind of zoom in on the low density residential area around.

Yeah, that's all right.

That's all right.

Yeah, I'm just trying to get a sense of the way the lots are structured and you can just kind of pull it on around here.

So in this one, you move away from the streets and you've got a lot of space.

It's undeveloped.

Okay, that's fine.

Thank you.

So in reading through this, I mean, I like a lot of what you have here.

I agree with a lot of what you have here.

I mean, my whole sense of the thing is Mineral is a nice small town right now.

But Mineral needs some things to make it a nicer small town, probably.

And I think

My sense of it is that whatever we do here, we should wind up with a walkable town to the extent possible.

We should have some more light commercial services around so there are more choices for things like nice small local kind of restaurant shops and maybe food purchasing, prepared or unprepared.

and just some of the kind of businesses that support some of the small town stuff.

I made up a list here out of the, I'll leave for you Tom, out of the uses that just strikes me as the types of uses that would support a small town atmosphere that you could and give people most of the services that they would need to

live in a small town and not necessarily have to drive all over the place, but they could if they wanted to.

But whatever development we do around there, we should do it such that we extend the sidewalk network into those sort of things.

We do have traffic as an issue, so it'd be good to reduce the amount of traffic and to have whatever roadway connections make sense.

I mean, you've got a pretty good grid network there.

But as you move out around, the area around Mineral should, to the extent possible, I think encourage, if you need to go somewhere, you're going somewhere around the town as opposed to through the town necessarily.

I don't know how that's possible.

I'm giving you ideas because I know you have a great way of taking those ideas and putting them into the proper phraseology that makes sense because I don't have the phraseology.

But I do think part of looking down the road is looking at the size of this low density residential because this is right in the middle of the county and I think

in order to keep this from becoming insanely developed.

A future action needs to be looking at making sense of that low density residential area and the mixed use area there because that could be a phenomenal number of residences.

And what we would be doing, aside from creating

A greater difficulty between Mineral and Louisa on 22 there and jamming up 522 through town is we would be creating a tremendously larger demand for services that we're not going to provide.

if we do all that in residential, but we're not getting the commercial.

So I think, I don't know, Commissioner Kersey, if you agree or not, but I think a future look at this, not something for tonight.

I mean, I'm telling you what I think the thing ought to look like.

For a small town tonight, it should have the sense of a small town, the feel of a small town, and the ability to get around like a small town.

But to support that as next steps, we ought to look at trimming that low density residential area and maybe making a change to how that mixed use is done.

Because medium to high density residential through there, you're going to create such a constriction on services and transportation if you dump

I think the same applies around the town of Louisa, and you question the designation of the development

I really think that that points us to that probably the county needs to look at minimum lot size.

I know it's been discussed over the years, but I'm not sure that eight and a half is large enough.

If we truly want it to remain rural, we're just going to pack folks around these towns and demand services, and we're experiencing what that is like in tax increases and the burden that's placed upon taxpayers.

Thank you.

So I guess Mr. Egglund, notes for future work then, at least from the standpoint of town and mineral, or not town, I'm sorry, mineral focus area, we would request, or I would request that we look at

Do we have any statistics that would indicate to us how much low density residential lots we could potentially get countywide with what we're designating here?

Well, I mean, that's going to tell you what your potential growth is.

Yes.

You know, what are we talking about if we turn this thing loose completely?

It's an excellent question.

And I know there's concerns.

There's always concerns when you make a change to a map like this.

And we can't make the change now.

We're not asking for the change now.

We're saying this is future work.

But the comprehensive plan was produced over a long period of time with a number of public meetings.

And once it was produced in draft form, it went back to a citizen committee for review as well.

And then it was voted on in two public hearings.

So there's a whopping amount of community input put into it.

And the community said the number one goal is to maintain the rural character of the county.

So if that's really what the community's goal is, then we should be informing our decisions with that sort of thing so that we're not maybe leaning one way or another with one or two individuals' concerns.

We're considering what the county has asked for as a whole.

If we don't look at what the impact to the county as a whole is, then we're probably not going to have all the information we need.

So yeah, thank you, not necessarily for next meeting, but as we move into the process of considering what to do, which I think is the next logical thing to do is to look at what to do with these these land use maps and such.

Then it will help us to understand.

I think the board as well, Mr. Barlow, I'm not going to speak for the board, but a conversation I've had with some of the board members, I think the board has some concern about what the potential future growth could be as well.

So it would be good to have that information, not only for us, but for the board.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Moving down the road, we'll swing by the Cook Rail Business Park, which has a conditional use permit for a solar facility.

And we'll go by School Bus Road, which is a spilt solar facility by the airport park and into the town of Louisa.

A lot of the same things, if not very same with the characteristics, walkable network,

You see something similar.

We saw large regionally sized businesses should help mitigate impacts, which is part of our public facilities section.

Solar being encouraged in areas that already have impervious surface so that we are not eating into any agricultural areas that are being used for that purpose at this time.

and Promoting Agritourism.

We have a lot of agricultural tourism businesses here.

I would consider regional, national, and local regional businesses within the town that support agricultural.

I don't have anything to add.

I met with you.

I think it covers it.

I do think we have to look at that residential portion of the package.

And we'll put on that to double check.

So there is more residentially, the purple here, R2 zoned.

All right, well, moving on.

I think we're running out of focus areas.

I think we ran out of focus areas.

You got that, though.

It's been a pleasure speaking with you this evening about it.

Why don't we bring this forward as a work session item for next time as well?

I don't know what else we're going to have for work session, but we've proven we can carry it along month by month.

At least we can have it in the package so we can review any changes and think about it.

And I would encourage anyone who has further comments for Mr. Egglund to reach out individually and I think we can

So let's do this.

Because we don't have Mr. Quarles and Mr. Goodwin tonight, let's bring it back for work session next month, give them a chance to comment on as well.

And if everybody's happy, then by next month, I don't see a reason why we probably couldn't go to a motion to a public hearing.

I would.

Is that acceptable to everyone?

Yeah?

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

So, um

Good evening and what we have here is a very very rough draft of the next phase of amendments that we've been working through and looking at and along with some of the other amendments that have been talked about these will probably

We need a lot more discussion, more work session, review by legal because they

I was out for a little bit sick so that I didn't get them out as fast as I had anticipated to give you all more time to look at them and for legal and county administration to review them.

And what we've handed out, I'll talk about in just a few minutes, but I'll run through just the memo really quickly.

And then we can just kind of scan through the individual

amendments.

So in the definitions we've deleted buffering and screening yard only because we previously added a definition in phase two, I believe it was, of vegetated buffers.

We amended the definition for division parcel.

We amended emergency shelter.

We added an off-grid construction for residential.

We amended private lane, religious assembly, residue or residue, parcel or lot, subdivision and vegetative buffer.

For short-term rental of a dwelling, this is just some cleanup items.

We added the resort development zoning district as having to meet the criteria and we corrected the effective date of the original ordinance.

For yard regulations in the A2 district, we removed the increase setback for other permitted structures greater than 50 feet in height.

For the number four provisions for subdivisions in the A2 zoning district,

And we will talk about this a little bit.

We currently the ordinance allows for a density bonus of three additional lots if they are designated for affordable housing purposes.

We have removed that from staff.

It's up the Planning Commission and the board, you know, if you all have other thoughts about that.

We've had one project that went through this process when it was first adopted.

For the three lots, they created a document.

And eventually they sold those lots to the Louisa flue van, a flue van Louisa housing foundation.

We have now been getting more inquiries about the density bonuses and we have one subdivision that's in the process that is working to obtain those three additional lots for the affordable housing density bonus.

At the time this ordinance was originally adopted, there was an affordable housing committee that met and they could meet with and talk to.

We no longer have that affordable housing committee, if I'm correct.

I don't think it's been reestablished.

It was disbanded quite a while back.

So what we're running into is the developer is asking the county how we are going to enforce this density bonus and their response has been if you want the density bonus, it's yours that that you need to enforce, you need to come up with the mechanism and present to us how you are going to

We have gotten more inquiries.

one that is actively pursuing it now and we're trying to work with them through that process but they want us to enforce their density bonus so like I said we've put this in there just because it's something that we haven't seen utilized very much and we currently don't have any provisions in place or guidelines of

How to make this work?

What do we tell these developers?

This is what they need to do.

Under subdivision plant requirements and standards, we've included language to require submittal of a performance agreement for new subdivisions that would require completion of improvements within a set time.

Going forward, there wouldn't be these developments that set out here for

10-15 years that aren't completed.

They would have to complete them within a certain amount of time.

They would have that the county has we've added language that clarifies that the county has no obligation to install or maintain any improvements or roads that are part of a subdivision development and that is based on language in the state code of Virginia.

It permits a maximum of two private lanes to be used in a subdivision development and requires that the security or guarantee posted with the county be renewed and is reviewed every 24 months to ensure that there are sufficient funds remain in place for the project completion.

Under plat approvals, we are proposing to add language that requires the private road disclosure state language be included on all subdivision plats.

That indicates that roads are private until such time as they have been accepted into the state secondary road system.

So that if they never get taken into the state system, it is clearly on the plats that those roads are private.

Under the... What we have been doing in conjunction with London, and I realize we're looking at the subdivision plat requirements, but then when we go down to plat approvals

So that's for roads that are intended to go to the state system.

Correct.

That's fine.

I just want to make sure because I think it's because of the request we've had to take over roads and stuff.

These notes that she's talking about is something that needs to go on every private road.

It's already in the ordinance that requires it on the plats we put them on now, like the private lanes, the family subdivisions, that sort of thing, the estate divisions.

This would now require it to also be on subdivision plats, where the intention is that the road will be taken over by the state.

But just so that if we get into any situations where we're putting in so many different safeguards between the performance agreement, reviewing the security every two years, and and the notes on the plats, just to try to prevent situations where

lot owners buy on these roads, for some reason, they don't get completed.

And they they want the county to finish them, complete them, maintain them.

We want to make sure that the message is there that these are private roads.

This is how they're going to be unless the state takes them in.

Is that okay?

Good.

Under Lake Anna shoreline use and design standards, you all have heard a gentleman speak several times here about the requirement for dry hydrants and restroom facilities.

And so what we've done is just

clarified and added language that these would only be required if the Department of Fire and EMS or the Virginia Department of Health in their respective roles required the facilities

based on their regulations or their requirements.

It would not be a requirement of the county under the shoreline regulations, but if the health department under the marina regulations, if it met that criteria and it required a restroom, then they could require the restroom but it would not be the county.

So we've taken that part out.

Under telecommunication regulations, I have one thing here.

I'll let Tom address another item that has come up.

But what is in this package clarifies that generators may be located on site, but only operated during power outages or testing.

Right now it says that generators can't be on site.

Just about every tower has a generator on site for the purposes listed, so we wanted to just clean that up.

Sign regulations.

We were at one of the board meetings.

It was brought up about electric message signs.

We do have provisions in our regulations now that require them to be dark sky compliant.

But we have added some language to strengthen

the electric message or illuminated signs and we've looked at other localities when putting this together and have come up with some percentages and from at nighttime but we can put hours between certain hours if it's your all's choice but just these are like I said are in very draft form to give to begin some discussions on these things

Item 10, we included for your information the current interim road maintenance agreement that we use right now for subdivisions when the roads are intended to be taken into the state system and there's a draft subdivision performance agreement

That was drafted quite a few years ago, so it probably needs some updating, probably needs a lot of legal review, but it again is just a draft to get us talking about these processes and how we would implement them in the subdivision ordinance.

And that's the memo.

We can go through any of the items specifically.

Like I said, I apologize.

I've intended to get them out in advance of the package.

I did have one question, Ms. Smith.

I was going to give you a heads up ahead of time, but I was unable to reach you all through the phone system and there was no answering machine or whatever.

If you look at packet page 28, these are the definition changes.

This is the definition for religious assembly.

The addition here

says a religious assembly may operate an emergency shelter as defined in this section for the duration of a state or locally declared state of emergency without benefit of a CUP.

I just wanted to ask a question for clarification.

I can't imagine that there would be an impact, but considering this is zoning type ordinance, but

Is there any way that this statement may run afoul of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act?

I don't know, but I thought I'd ask because it's just a little bit more than zoning kind of thing since it's talking more about how you operate the thing or when you operate the thing.

So it allows the operation, but at certain times, I don't know whether there's an impact there.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

And again, I didn't want to surprise you tonight, but I wasn't able to reach you, so the next meeting is fine.

How would anyone like to proceed?

While you on page 28 of private lanes.

down the third sentence that says private lanes are restricted as to the hours of access by the public or by those who may use it and are maintained by the association.

The way I'm reading that is a time limit on when we can get on the road.

I am, that is the current language of the definition.

Okay.

All right.

And that sentence you just asked, Mr. Brooks, is something that has been in the ordinance.

It came about because of a definition difference between private and public, which I believe was a VDOT, original VDOT definition, which had to do with heirs and stuff.

In reading this, where we have the, and I realize this is draft amendments, but under the division parcel, maybe mine's the only one that says this, yeah on page 27

Well, it is actually a strikethrough line in the 4, but it hits right where the 4.

I'm just saying, well, maybe I missed something.

We looked at that.

I tried to look at other ways to strike it, but it struck.

Right.

This is after our meeting.

We took out

And they were keeping the 300 feet is in line with our requirement of 200 foot lots.

And the third having to have 300 feet up right now.

I think it's fine.

It does look like 4300, but that is a straight through.

That, I think, gets across the original intent.

Where we had that five acres and 400 feet of frontage was originally put in there to clarify that if you had that on a residual portion,

You didn't have to do the right-of-way dedication.

So if you had 100 acres and you had 5 acres and 400 feet of frontage, you only had to dedicate across the two division parcels.

So I think this clears that up.

And now if you have a tract of land, for instance, if it had 9 acres, you could get

Three lots out of it, so to speak, as long as that third one had five acres and 300 feet of front, which was the original on the tent anyway.

You got two lots.

Two division parcels and the residual, but because of that wording that we put in there requiring the dedication or not requiring it, it got construed to be that your final lot, the residual, had to have five acres and four hundred feet of frontage.

So I think this clarifies that.

Question to that, Linda.

As I read this, I'm guessing I'm in an A2.

When I say it's a minimum, the residual is a minimum of five acres, then we could have two more lots at an acre and a half a piece.

That would be right.

It's the way I read it, you need a eight acre parcel before you can get a residual and two lots, right?

You have to have at least at least maybe more if you got dedicated, right?

Right.

So if it was a situation that this was in our zone, or to say,

But if it was in R, it's the same restriction.

Right, and we have taken out the and so it's five acres or more or has a minimum of 300 feet of road frontage.

We took out the and and made it an ore.

It's one or the other for it to be a residue.

Okay.

All right.

The 300 actually, when I was thinking about it, was

Alright, okay.

I just wanted to confirm that.

I think I answered one of my own questions later on in the interim road maintenance agreement.

So I'm not even going to take your time up with it.

Same thing for subdivision agreements.

That's all I've got right now.

I will point out

With the definition of division, the definition of residue or residue parcel or lot was changed to reflect the same changes that were put into division parcel.

That's out of both.

It's out of both, which was a problem before because I gave George, Mr. Goodman was, you know, if he were to cut out two lots in the third parcel had a residue and it was his driveway, the likelihood of that residual piece, having a V dot approved

So the sheet that Tom handed out when we first started this is based on a meeting that staff had today with VDOT.

This was a directive from the board for staff to

look at removing VDOT from the subdivision review process.

But we've met with them today.

We'll be meeting with board members.

Two by twos, I believe it is what they're what they've talked about so far in the next couple of weeks.

But we wanted to bring this along with the changes that we already have

proposed for 86567, which is in your package on page 33.

And then with the handout, so recently, I believe it was in the phase one amendments, we

added that subdivision streets would be reviewed by a third party firm.

We've taken that out.

This is on the handout that Tom put at your seats to an engineer licensed in Virginia.

Item 4A, 4D, we removed third party and E, we removed by third party engineer.

This is in the handout.

Right, this just happened today after a meeting with VDOT, so that was not in the package that was sent out.

Two comments, one of which Linda beat me to it.

Because of problems we've been having with B.DOT reviewing sub-visions, plans, what have you.

This is one I can explain to you coming to the Planning Commission.

Because I've headed it in that direction.

We have on all of our subdivision plans a title, I mean a signature block for VDOT sign off.

Here of late they've decided they're no longer doing that.

We had the emails from him.

Mr. Thornton cited an office of attorney general ruling that they should no longer be signing off on plats.

So, what has happened is, we've been sending them plats that they will not sign off on.

If they're not going to sign off on it, we're not going to...

The last one I had, they made, there were arbitrary decisions made as to where the driveway should go.

When there was, nobody went to the field or went out, there was no review.

One of the locations, there was a power pole sitting in the middle where they wanted a driveway.

Round on the other side there was a five foot cut when on 522 there were already two VDOT approved entrances which they shifted away from both of those so how I thought at the board level was if they're not going to review them and they're not coming out to the field then why should they be part of the review process?

and have to send it to him for 45 days and then not

be willing to sign off on a plat.

So the other part of that, so I started putting on our plats that go to my office a notation, which I believe, Linda, you've got in here, that notes any, our ordinance calls for the entrances to be shown, so that any entrance that's shown

Ultimately it has to be approved by VDOT at the time the entrance application is made.

And that's when they will look at it and sign off on it.

What I'm, right now, our ordinance currently says they have to go to VDOT for review and approval and they're not doing that so that's the reason this is being sent to the Planning Commission to look at revising our ordinance requirement.

Certainly we've got to change something in it because if they're not going to sign off on it then

What's the point in having as part of the review process?

And I do think that just like Linda has suggested here, we do add that notation that the entrances will be approved at the time the entrance application is made to VDOT.

And then they can sign off on it.

But if they're not going to be reviewed,

And that's why it's coming to you.

So this one you know about.

You're very welcome.

I'm not sure if Chris is still here.

I just texted him, yep, here he comes, from the meeting today.

So some of the information that came from our meeting today with VDOT and I may have to look at the preliminary and final plat requirements and remove the requirement that you show the entrance locations.

But what was suggested by VDOT during our meeting today was to not show the entrances,

That may be a very good way of doing it because

That way we're not putting something on the plat that, you know, ultimately if they have to approve the plat, then that doesn't put the county in a position of having approved something that conceivably they may not approve.

But what really was frustrating is

We had to get VITA approval when they wouldn't come out and look at it.

And so now I think what they may very well have just don't show an entrance at all.

and it'll be taken care of at the time the entrance permit is applied for.

That may be a very good way of putting it and still put that note on the plat that says that's when the entrance will be approved.

This is a question.

The plats would still go to VDOT for the concurrence, which is what they are giving us now.

So in the last couple of years, rather than giving us an approval or signing the plats, they give us a concurrence letter.

And from that concurrence letter, staff puts a note or label on the plat that it was sent to VDOT per the county regulations, per the county ordinance.

That may be what their response was to it but it still sounds like in other words if we remove the entrances which on these things unless it's a stage back road they're reviewing

The entrances are all that they're looking at.

So if we remove the entrances, why do we make it a requirement that it go to VDOT for approval, which they're not going to approve?

In other words, if the approval comes or the review comes at the time of the entrance permit, then I don't see the need for it to go to VDOT.

We'll have to look into that some more.

The notation on the plat says that VDOT is only approving the entrance.

That's what the note currently says by account ordinance.

So if we remove the entrances, then

They're not approving anything, but it's 45 days that they have that it's going to them for.

And if they're not approving it until the entrance permit is applied for, then I just don't see the need for it going to them.

Well that's a help, but if they're not going to review it anyway, what's the point of them having authority?

One more little thing, I said I had two, the other one was on

My license and surveyor's license, the E1B section, unless it gets into curb and gutter, which virtually none of our roads do, then surveyor can review or do the plans, do the road plans.

So I think in our other section of the ordinance that got changed years and years ago, it should be

If we're going to do the third party thing that it should be a surveyor or engineer license in the state of Virginia.

Give all that money to an engineer.

That's right.

One question, Linda or Chris, one of my concerns is

If the plan is done and we move on in the process, then the plan gets recorded and nobody still hasn't applied for an infrastructure permit.

We've got eight lots down here that's already been recorded.

Then they go out and they say, well, y'all can't get no driveway on this lot because it doesn't have sight distance or whatever reason they come up with.

When I had that battle's gonna play out.

They gonna say, well, the surveyor engineer didn't put it in the right place, so they should have done that.

If there is a parcel that connects to State Road, BDOT cannot deny access to that roadway.

I've never heard that, but I've never put it to test.

I can tell you what we do is... What was that said today in the meeting?

Was that said today in the meeting?

That's a, VDOT cannot, once a parcel is established and someone wants to use it, they can't deny access.

Now, if it's a situation where it can't meet site distance on either side, VDOT's going to dictate where it goes, so you might end up having some developmental issues if the surveyor or they don't take that into consideration because you've got

When we are laying these things out

You know, I know what the required site distances are, and we try to get these done in driveways, private lanes.

I had to shift, you asked why I put one way to hack over on the corner of the property, and it was simply to get, or why I was even using a private lane, and it was simply to get the required site distance.

You know, we don't want people coming back at us because we laid out something that won't work.

So we worked pretty hard to make darn sure that what we got would be usable.

But then my whole point in this is if VDOT is not going to come out, they're not going to do a review until they

Interest permit is applied for, then I don't think they need to be part of the review process.

If they're not going to review it, which I've got emails that you got them too, they're not review.

So anyway, it's another one.

Y'all, it's coming to the Planning Commission.

Look at it.

And this is not a change that Louisa County did.

Right.

This is a reaction to what is currently going on and trying to figure out a way to address it.

It has worked

Fine for the last 30 or 40 years, which that signature block has been on the plant for as long as I've been doing them.

And that's worked great.

VDOT's people, we would meet them in the field.

We'd put the entrances at the best location.

And so when it got to VDOT,

It wasn't held up because they'd already reviewed it, but if you're no longer going to come out in the field to review it, you're not going to review them.

They simply don't need to be holding up things or be part of the review process if you're not going to review them.

Just one comment, Mr. Disosway.

Mr. Brooks.

So we do have one other change that I was going to let Tom mention that came from our telecommunications consultant that is also not in the package that we just received today by email.

But as I stated at the very beginning,

Very good.

Well, it's certainly something that we'd like to see at the work session in April as well, and I think by then had a little bit more time to digest this and think about it.

Yeah.

Very well.

No, Mr. Egglund.

Yes.

Good evening again, Chairman and members of the Commission.

So recently, Louisa County switched consultants, and our new consultant has asked us to make a change to the telecommunication ordinance to help them provide a thorough review for either new cell phone towers, or in this case, mainly existing towers that are swapping out.

So imagine this is your tower.

And you have four RAD points, which we're very familiar with, because we require in our conditional use permits at least four points for, let's say, AT&T, Sprint, TMO, Verizon, whoever to locate on.

Well, there are some industry standards that require a telecommunication tower company to inspect their tower every five years.

Now, let's say we have existing equipment or new equipment and we're putting it on a tower.

The consultant would like to have in our code that an applicant is required to provide us that five-year inspection report so that we're not relying on a structural analysis for each time a company swaps out their equipment that has assumptions in it.

based off of what the other company had done.

One company does it, the next year another company and then it changes the structural load of that tower every time.

So we just got some drafted language.

We were working very diligently with our consultant who started to look at applications since we brought them on board and we'll have that language

to share with you.

I have it, I can show it on the screen tonight, but we can make sure we put it in our work session for the next meeting so that you can review it.

But that's essentially it.

They want the ability to request a five year study to prove that a structural analysis for new equipment

going on the tower that we're not using the word assumption, that we can prove that the tower's been inspected and that it matches what the assumptions or non-assumptions are on the structural analysis.

It would be within the telecommunication wireless communication section.

We haven't determined what subsection.

So we've been talking back and forth.

There's been some talk about what the language would be, and this is the latest.

Well, just a curious question since there is a recommendation.

I'm looking for, there it is.

If you follow the standard, the NCTIA 222, it recommends inspection once every five years.

I wonder if assumptions change over the five years.

But this would allow them to request, because it would be in our code, that information.

Right.

Think about that one.

Understood.

Yes.

Anyone have any further questions on the proposed amendment changes?

Ordinance amendments, I'm sorry.

Very well.

Yes.

I don't think we have anything else for tonight unless anyone else has anything else for tonight.

We may have just one item for public hearing next month, which will probably be the item on drugs.

So what we'll have, we'll have drugs will be a public hearing item for the next meeting.

Sounds like Yeah, sounds like we may be able to put more time to finish up.

All right.

If there's no other no other items for business tonight, share it entertain a motion to adjourn.