Planning District Commission Meeting   6/1/2023

I'll call the time service and planning district convention to order our June 1, 2023 7 p.m. meeting.

And we don't have a vote, so I'll allow Christine to participate.

She can just participate, right?

We'll skip that.

I did not see anyone here.

Is anyone online?

We wish you your comments.

Let's see if you mind.

Alright, so we'll go to 3A, presentation of the House.

Should be a roll call.

Oh, sorry.

Councillor Payne.

Commissioner Russell.

So now we'll go to 3A, the housing preservation grant.

So this is one that you guys will write on the paper, a presentation for it.

Yes, I am here.

Fantastic.

Thank you everyone.

I'll be really brief tonight.

I know I saw you last month.

So tomorrow our goal is to put in our pre-application for the HPG housing preservation grant for the coming year, which starts on October 1st.

This is something that we have administered for the past, well, since 2015, when PAJ asked us to take it over.

It mostly provides rehabilitation.

For folks who are low income or very low income it's through USDA.

And we complete about 40 projects per year, a lot of roofs and electrical wiring work and ramps.

You can only spend 5000 from this grant per project.

And our rural areas use it a lot and do some great work with it.

This is just looking at the past year so far we're a little bit over halfway through.

And this is how much has been spent of the $250,000 that we have for the year by county.

And you have that in your packet so you can look at that in more detail.

And then all of the sub-recipients who can use these funds are only the counties because the city of Charlottesville doesn't count as rural for USDA.

And this is what we're asking for for this year.

It's a little bit lower than last year because the amount allocated to the state of Virginia is a little bit lower.

And so that limits us in how much we can ask for.

But overall, so it's 212,000 that we'll be asking for.

So that leaves after admin work that goes to a little bit to the sub-recipients a little bit and then 31,000 with TJPDC.

That leaves $174,000.

And then all of the nonprofits contribute their own match funding, non-federal dollars of the same amount of 100% for the project amounts.

So our goal is to, this is not officially a public hearing, but our goal is to, if you guys

Resolve tonight to put in the pre-application as soon as possible.

It's due on the 5th, which is very soon.

And then assuming that we are able to be awarded again, then the program year will begin on September 1st, October 1st.

That's a wrong date on there.

So thank you so much.

Yes.

I want to say we had about 50,000 left earlier today when I sent all of our sub-recipients an update.

And that's great.

Any other questions?

All right, we'll come back to this item here in a little bit.

Thank you.

That's right.

So as you know, we apply for and were awarded a comprehensive economic development strategy or SEDS grant.

Last year from U.S. Economic Development Administration, we jointly procured Camoin, who's with us today, along with Region 10, Rappahannock, Rapidan Regional Commission.

The said steering committee was kicked off in February.

Camoin recently prepared a data report for us, and that data was presented to the steering committee, and we thought it was a good time for you all to be updated on the project.

Alexandra Tranmer, and Darryl Hooker from Des Moines are here to present to you today.

Hi, everyone.

Thanks for having us and letting us jump into your meeting tonight.

Before I start, can everyone hear me okay in the room there?

Okay.

Head nods.

Good.

Just stop me at any point if there's any sound issues.

So

What we've got on tap for tonight, like Ruth mentioned, you know, we're really at the beginning stages of this comprehensive economic development strategy, or what we'll be referring to as the SEDS.

We'll back up and talk a little bit about Camoin, who we are, and sort of how we come to this project, but just to give some context as to

You know, what this says is all about, the role of the commission, the role of the commissioners, and really what it's going to mean for the region in terms of economic development opportunities.

So like Ruth mentioned, we have put together our initial data analysis.

So that includes a broad range of

indicators that we will talk about tonight in a high level manner.

We want to bring you through some of the top five findings of that data analysis.

We'll share the full analysis after this so you will have

pages and pages of data to go through.

All of that is at the, we're looking at things at the regional level with certainly context at the county and locality level.

So we've got some of that granularity, but really understanding that we're looking for sort of, we're looking for regional opportunities, shared opportunities across the region.

So we'll talk a little bit about data.

We'll talk a little bit about what the SEDS is all about.

and then if we've got some time, get into a little bit of a conversation just to get the context of the commissioners and get some feedback from you guys initially at this stage.

Again, just by way of introduction, so I'm Alex Tranmer with Des Moines Associates and my colleague, Daryl is with us, Dan Gunderson, who is the strategy advisor for us on this project,

Unfortunately, I couldn't make it tonight, but some of you may recognize him.

His previous role before Des Moines was at VEDP.

So he is very familiar and integrated with economic development and workforce within the state of Virginia.

I will play the role of project principal as we go through this project.

I have worked on strategic plans with Des Moines Associates for the last almost 10 years.

Many of those actually within the state of Virginia,

We work all over the country.

I'm based in upstate New York.

Dan is in Richmond and Daryl is down in Columbia, South Carolina.

So we've got the Yurika Moiners sort of covering the country here and we're excited to get down into the area and visit and really see what's happening on the ground.

Yeah, thank you, Alex, and good evening, everyone.

As Alex mentioned, I'm Darrell Booker, and I'm the project manager with Camoyne Associates.

Been with Camoyne for just a little bit under a year, but my background is in economic development, particularly here in South Carolina.

Alright, so just again by way of introduction for those of you who might not be familiar with COIN, we are a full-service economic development firm and I say this just so that you can sort of understand how we come to

This says we do strategic plans, we do economic impact analysis, grant writing, grant administration, real estate market analysis.

We really have a holistic view of economic development and that's what we intend to bring to this process as well.

Been in business for

You know, just over 20 years and have grown rapidly really in the mid-Atlantic and so Southern States, we are a fully remote company.

We were sort of one of those companies that took the pandemic as a sign to give up our office and have hired remotely ever since.

So that's really opened up our opportunities across the country.

This is just a quick map to show sort of the experience that we've got within the state.

Like I mentioned, Dan is in Richmond and has previously worked for DTP.

And as Comointes Associates, we've worked in, I mean, you can see nearly every quarter of the state.

So we've really got an understanding of really the macroeconomics of not just your region, but the state and country as well.

Okay, so now that we are through introductions, let's talk a little bit about what a SEDS is.

Has anyone been involved in a SEDS or the planning process or been involved in this type of strategy before?

It doesn't look like it.

Okay, I just wanted to get some context.

The SEDS is essentially a tool, a resource that is

Sanctioned by the Economic Development Administration or the EDA that really focuses on regional strategic planning.

So planning across sort of political jurisdictional boundaries in an effort to really work toward the collective vision, a collective goal, really look at resource sharing,

Understanding sort of, right, we're all not just little islands, not just little economies sort of moving on our own, that really looking at a broader picture across a region, in this case, Thomas Jefferson Regional Planning Commission, that those boundaries, that's what we're working with here, and really looking to understand sort of what the economic opportunities are across that region.

So this is sort of the technical

You know, definition that the EDA gives, you know, if we really just want to put it in sort of plain language, what a SEDS really is, we're really looking to create economic opportunity across this region, really understanding the data behind that, making informed decisions about where markets are going, where the economy is going.

So that's one piece, the data looking, really making informed decisions, engaging with businesses on the ground, which is part of our process and really understanding what factors are impacting those businesses.

And then the third sort of pillar I would say is the partnerships, collaborations, the economic developers, the commissioners that are really gonna be collaborating to execute this plan.

The lifespan of the plan covers five years, but that's the timeframe that we're working within.

And I think it's important to point out here that the commission is sort of the convener and facilitator of this plan, but they are not tasked with completing the entire thing, right?

This is really meant to be a collaborative effort and ultimately the economic development and workforce items that are likely going to come out of this are going to be a collaborative and joint effort.

So I point that out to say, right, there are going to be some subjects and themes that probably are not

may be typical of what the commission might oversee, but it's really important to still include those and still look at those as part of this process and understand therefore then how the commission would facilitate those actions over the next five years, even if they themselves, their staff, the commissioners are not the ones advancing that work.

At the same time that you guys, Thomas Jefferson is doing their SEDS, we're also doing one with Rappahannock-Rapidon, as Ruth mentioned.

And so at the, they're gonna have their own project.

At the end of this too, we wanna look across both regions and look at what the opportunities, the alignments are across

the two planning districts, what we're calling super regional strategies.

And that's a pretty unique approach.

I have not seen that in many other cases.

So I think it's an exciting opportunity to really work across boundaries and really in some cases build up a concentration of opportunity really across the region.

So let me, oh, let me just tackle this and then I'll pause.

This is just, again, sort of summarizing what the outlook for the SEDS is.

Just to put a finer point on the role of the commission and the commissioners themselves, I think I would just emphasize the sort of role as facilitator and convener even if

The subjects or topics are not ones that the commission would typically take on.

There's going to be a lot of other partners and collaborators involved in this, but I think the biggest role is going to be championing the plan once it's done and the strategies, right?

The execution is really going to be where momentum picks up and where

a real difference is going to be made in terms of economic opportunity in the region.

So I think thinking about this process, it's sort of building momentum, looking at opportunities.

And then at the end, the commission really owning the plan and continuing to almost project manage it and continue to move it forward with the appropriate parties is going to be really important for the success of the SEDS.

We're good?

OK.

I will keep moving then.

All right, so the data, which is what we're gonna focus on a little bit tonight.

Again, this is, we're taking you through a lot of data in a short amount of time, but I think this gives a pretty good summary of essentially what we're trying to get at at this point.

And again, this is just the beginning stage of our analysis.

I imagine we'll get more into the detail of some of the industry that we go along in this process, but we wanna determine and

clarify who is living in the region.

So look at their age and household composition, their income brackets, and other characteristics that really give us a picture of who was living in the region.

We want to evaluate the economy.

So that means, of course, looking at jobs, specific industries and subsectors,

Wages, commuting patterns, who's leaving, who's coming in, you know, why are people maybe living here commuting out or vice versa?

All of those sort of market shifts that of course the pandemic have exacerbated in some cases.

So we're working to sort of piece together what that latest story is because the data in some cases not necessarily catch up with reality.

And then lastly, looking at market trends in terms of

Real Estate.

So industrial, office, retail, understanding what the market is like right now.

And then once we determine what the industries are that are best suited for growth, really making sure that there's alignment between where industries have to grow, that they have a place to grow essentially.

So that's the sort of quick overview of how we're using the data.

Like I mentioned, we wanted to focus on five key takeaways from the report and then go through some of the specific data points that help us get to these five points.

So first one focuses on population.

We've had in the last decade, the Thomas Jefferson region has, their population growth has outpaced both the state and the US.

So it's just over 12%.

Again, that's in the last decade, 2010 to 2020.

We'll look at the breakdown there because that's obviously different between counties and localities and understanding, right, the differences and unique factors within the region is important.

We're not looking at the region of the monolith, right?

There are really unique factors across the region.

So that's population.

In terms of the economy, the data really reflects what I'm sure everyone perceives, that the public sector in terms of education and hospitals really drives the economy in terms of GRP, gross regional product, gross regional product and employment.

Clearly UVA is sort of a powerhouse

on and to itself and then sort of spreading throughout the region.

But there are other subsectors that are showing positive growth that I think are interesting to connect to other opportunities, whether that's agritourism, agribusiness, the innovation corridor that I believe it was Louisa County that has just instituted or is working towards.

So some of the industries

besides the public sector that show growth for transportation and warehousing, professional scientific and technical services, and then manufacturing as well.

So we'll get into a couple of those nuances just to show what else is growing in the region.

The third takeaway here, again, just looking at some of the other industries that are contributing to the region in terms of

Gross Regional Products.

So in terms of overall economic activity, there was major growth in wholesale trade, management of companies and finance and insurance.

So again, I think sort of interesting, I believe that's yeah, 2017 to 2021.

So quite recent, really trying to understand what that recent growth is focused around.

Takeaway number four focuses on the top occupation for the workers that are commuting into the region.

So again, probably not a surprise necessarily, but important to have those figures and data behind it, but teachers, nurses, and sort of office personnel, major commuters into the region.

And then the last one, number five, focuses on real estate and seeing strong demand

both in warehouse and distribution space, which has drawn vacancies down to just about 1%, which is clearly a very, very tight market, which obviously has implications for potential growth or expansion or attraction into the region.

And so that's gonna play a big role in sort of looking at the future opportunities of the region as well.

So what we've got here is a few slides that's going to elaborate on some of those data points.

Daryl's going to go through that data.

At any point, feel free to jump in here and

That's a question.

We are going to cover it relatively quickly.

And like I mentioned, you are going to get the full report after this.

So you'll be able to dive in more.

Thank you, Alex.

So this, as Alex mentioned, just want to take a little bit of a deeper dive into some of the data of how we pulled away our key takeaways.

So this is just looking at the population of the region and the localities that make up the region going back to 1990.

So as Alex mentioned, the entire region grew by 12.3% from 2010 to 2020.

and when you look at the chart you can see that the region has really had steady growth since 1990 and that growth is still projected to kind of continue into 2030, 2040, and all the way up to 2050.

When you look at the individual localities within the region, we do see some strong growth.

The largest growth was in the city of Charlottesville that saw 15% growth from 2010 to 2020.

And then on the other end of the spectrum, the smallest percent change was seen in Nelson County that lost 2% of their population over that same time period.

In the report, you will see that we did note that Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville does account for approximately 6% of the recent population.

And when you compare those two localities going out to 2050, that percent share of the population will hold steady.

Next slide, please.

So this one is trying to take a different look at population change.

In this chart, we are looking at the changes in households from 2010 to 2020.

Once again, the region as a whole grew at about 12%, which outpaced the growth of both the state and the nation.

All localities in the region, except for Nelson County, kept pace with or grew faster than the state and national growth rate of 9%.

So region-wide, strong household growth, and then pretty much all the counties or all the localities had some signs of growth, which is a good sign.

So in keeping kind of with the changes in the household, the migration chart looks at household migration patterns from each locality in the year 2020.

So when we aggregate the locality's net gains, we do see that the region as a whole did net about 776 new households in 2020.

And then outside of Albemarle,

Add in 489 households, Louisa saw the biggest jump in net household migrations with 564.

I'll just make a note on the data here too.

So this data is actually from the IRS.

And so basically when someone changes their address on their taxes, that

Basically, our data sources sort of capture that change, and so that's how we're able to get to migration numbers.

And so it's particularly interesting, I think, for 2020.

Obviously, that was a outlier of a year based on historic patterns.

And so you see the movement out of Charlottesville in that one year.

Thank you, Alex.

So now we're kind of moving to the age trends of the region.

So when you're looking at the region, the age distribution does skew towards teens and young adults with the greatest share of your region's residents being age 15 to 24, when you're also comparing that to the state or national average.

We do account that being skewed

That way because of 20% of Charlotte's population does fall within that 15 to 24 year old age range.

So that's the reason why we feel that is skewing younger.

When you're looking at the other age cohorts, the region has slightly fewer younger adults when you're looking at age 30 to about 49 years old when you compare it to the state or the US average.

And then slightly, the region has slightly more adults than the state and nation when you get into 65 years old or plus.

So

In our report, we do break it down by median age for each county.

And so you can see in our report that, of course, Charlottesville will be the youngest county in the region by median age.

The region as a whole has a median age of 39.5, which is a tick older, which is a slightly a tick older than Virginia at 39.2, and then the US average at 38.9.

So transition to kind of looking at the employment of the region.

As you can see, Albemarle County is leading the region in total employment for 2022 at just over 64,500 jobs, which is followed by city of Charlottesville at 44,200 jobs.

The entire region for 2020 had about 133,000 jobs.

And once again, when you account for Albemarle and Charlottesville, they make up more than 80% of the region's employment.

So a lot of concentration of employment in those two localities.

And then this is just kind of looking at the growth of the employment from 2017 to 2022 in the region.

The region as a whole grew by 3%.

And once again, this is outpacing the state and national growth rates.

The state grew at 1.3%, while the US grew at 1.9%.

Now in the previous slide, we saw that Albemarle and Charlottesville held pretty much the lion's share of employment.

But in this slide, you can see that in that timeframe from 2017 to 2022, Fluvanna was actually the fastest growing locality within the region at 5.7%.

Albemarle did come in second with 5.1% growth, but Charlottesville only grew by 0.8%.

So not as much growth as you would expect from Charlottesville, but it still is growing.

So that's always a positive when you're growing.

The only outlier was Nelson County during this time period that saw a negative 5.4 in their employment change from 2017 to 2020.

from 2017 to 2022.

And so this is a little bit of a busy, busy chart.

So probably just take just a second to kind of explain this one.

On the horizontal axis, you have percent change in job growth from 2017 to 2022.

On the vertical axis, you have the location quotient for 2022.

And so location quotient or LQ, which you will see referred to in the report, is really just a measure of job concentration in the region compared to that job concentration to the nation.

So an LQ of one means that the region has the same amount of concentration of that job and industry as the nation does.

Anything above a one means that that particular job and industry is more concentrated in the region than in the nation.

So we have four different categories.

Leading industries, which include government and office services.

Those are industries that have experienced job growth over the last five years and also have a location quotient of greater than one.

Emergent Industries, which as you can see are the rapidly growing industries.

They saw positive growth over the last five years, but do not quite have that LQ of one, that concentration of one.

And then the maturing industries in the yellowish color, where you see utilities and agriculture, they have a LQ of greater than one, but

had negative job growth over the last five years.

And then the last sector we have is the lag in industries.

And they saw an LQ of less than one, so low concentration, and then also saw negative job growth over the last five years.

So this kind of is a good

visual to show you what industries you might need to focus on as far as targeting or maybe even focus on seeing if you can maybe give them a little more assistance to turn them from an emerging industry to a leading industry.

And then so on this one, we just kind of want to take a deeper dive into the two leading industries, which you have with government and other services.

And then you see the jobs in the government was right at 41,800.

And then the other services accounted for about 8,200 jobs.

When you look at the emerging industries, which are the ones that are growing, but not as concentrated,

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services accounted for 8,200 jobs, and they saw 11% growth from 2017 to 2022, and within the region, they held about 6.2% of the region's job share.

And so the LQ is just right at a 0.9, so really just shy of that 1% concentration from the region compared to the nation.

And when you're looking at the sectors that make that industry up, you see computer systems designs, scientific research and development, so that can all be probably tied to UVA, the hospital, and industries like that.

Healthcare and Social Assistance have a little bit more jobs in the region at 12,400.

They also saw strong job growth from 2017 to 2022.

They grew 11.1%, also hold a high share of jobs at 9.3%.

And once again, has an LQ over 0.7.

So really this industry probably the next five to 10 years

And just something to point out here too, right as we look at the top subsectors and sort of change in job growth over that five-year period, you know, we're not

This is sort of our initial scan, right?

So we're certainly interested in these.

in these subsectors, but really understanding the supply chains of the subsectors and who works in them and where might there be opportunities that are particularly suited to this area because of certain strengths, maybe based on the pipeline with UVA or other educational institutions in the region.

It's really all about sort of looking for the,

connections and opportunities between some of these subsectors and maybe some jump out more than others.

So this is really our starting point.

And, you know, we want to make sure that what we, that our work aligns with Go Virginia.

and looking at the subsectors that they highlight as well in terms of growth targets.

OK, I'm sorry.

I thought I heard somebody ask a question.

This slide, with the public sector being such a large industry in the region, we wanted to kind of drill down on really what subsectors make up the public sector.

So as you can see, in 2022, the highest job counts that come from colleges and universities and professional schools with 18,000 jobs are just over 44% of the job share.

Hospitals were next with 7,000 jobs, and they made up 17.4% of the job share.

So when you look at the education industries with the colleges, universities, and then elementary and secondary, their total job count is over 24,450.

So almost more than 50% of job share is in the education industry in the region.

And so looking at the other top subsectors, this looks at the subset of job growth from 2017 to 2022.

Government and health care subsectors in particular have seen strong job growth over the last five years.

They had added a total when you combine them over 4,041 jobs.

The high number in the education hospital subset years is, as you all know, is driven primarily by UVA, which is a huge economic engine in the region.

But you also do see individual and family services, which is being driven by services for the elderly and disabled.

They have seen pretty strong growth over the last five years as well.

If you take out the state government, you can see that your region has a lot of diverse industries that are adding jobs, which is pretty good for the region.

And so now we're looking at kind of the GRP growth I said is from 2017 to 2021.

The top growth sector was wholesale trade, which grew by 73%.

And this job growth was being driven by wholesale trade agents and brokers.

Second largest growth sector was management of companies that grew by 54%.

And then when you look at the largest two industries of government or public sector in healthcare,

Public sector grew by 19% and healthcare grew by 17%.

But once again, you can see that your region has a good mix of subsectors and good strong growth in a lot of different areas.

So this map is just kind of getting into the commuting patterns of the localities and whether they are net importers or net exporters of commuters.

So as you can see from the map, Albemarle and Charlottesville are net importers of commuters.

And that's probably to be expected with them having over 80% of the region's employment.

This kind of shows just where the top, yeah, you can go to the next slide.

I was thinking that this kind of shows where the top occupations are driving into the region from, not only driving into the region, but residents are remaining in the region for work as well.

So the top one was post-secondary school teachers that had net commuters of 1,232.

registered nurses came in at 935 net commuters and office clerks came in at 510 net commuters.

So having post-secondary teachers, registered nurses and office clerks being the top three makes sense with once again, UVA and the hospital system being such a big driver in the regional economy.

And then this one dives just a little bit into the real estate of the region.

Non-residential real estate inventory in the region is right at 3.1 million square feet in 2022.

Retail is the largest share of that and that represents 11.3 million square feet.

Industrial is at 17%, but they are such a strong demand for warehouse and distribution in the region that the vacancy rates for industrial sector has gone down to 1%.

When you compare that with the US average of 4%, the region really is running out of available industrial product to market.

Office space is the second largest sector at 30%, and that's 10 million square feet.

They are seeing a vacancy rate of 8%, which is ticking up, but it's still quite a few basic points lower than the US average of 16%.

So with the trend of remote workers, remote work still being a hot topic issue, seeing more vacant offices

More of a trend than an anomaly.

All right, I think so that is our last data slide.

And I know we covered a lot here.

I'll just wrap up and say, you know, this

I think our next step really is sort of the so what, right?

With all of this data, we've got a lot of different pieces and are starting to put the story together, but ultimately, right, we know the question is, well, you know, what does this mean for our localities and for economic

potential moving forward.

And so that's sort of what the next couple months will look at.

But let's pause there before we go to any discussion or conversation and just see if we've got any initial questions.

I'm sorry.

I'm in Nelson County, so looking at your numbers was really interesting.

What is the trends?

And the reason why I'm leading this is discussion of young families in rural communities.

That's more difficult as time goes on.

I had a discussion with some school people today and one, they say, we'll bring the families.

Well, I think even

Well, yeah, changing household composition and smaller, in general, smaller household composition sort of delay timing and having kids, I think is

I think they're to say a nationwide just trend, but to the point of more rural communities, the community element of schools and housing and really the combination of those two things are almost stifling.

Like the movement into rural counties in some cases just because housing is so limited.

And so we didn't necessarily touch on that today, but I imagine that's going to be quite a topic moving forward in terms of employers need workforce, even if there's a trend towards remote work.

I think it's fair to say a majority of work is still happening on site.

One question.

Sorry I'm too late, but seeing the slide about the vacancy rate for office space, I'm curious if you have any thoughts if that number is higher in Charlottesville and Albemarle in particular, and if you're looking at that trend line in comparison to other localities in Virginia, one of the conversations we hear from people in the community is, well, you might want to start speaking now about

future for these new office spaces that have been built that is not going to be office space or exclusively office space.

Are you seeing that as kind of the trend line?

So I think my initial response is to the, I think it's been a slow rebound.

There's been

Upward or I guess downward movement on the vacancy rate.

So some, you know, positive in terms of moving back to the office, but certainly not at a rate that, you know, is going to fix the vacancy problem, I would say, particularly in sort of more central business district areas.

Yeah, so really the vacancy, when you're looking at office, we did break it down by county and really what is bringing down the office vacancy rates for the region is Louvanna County,

which is really at a zero vacancy.

They don't have any office space available, but on the other end of that spectrum, Albemarle has vacancy rates over 10%.

So it does vary strongly when

depending on the county or locality in the region.

But as far as office space coming back, I think as Alex said, it's gonna be a slow trend.

And I think we're just tying a wait and see pattern right now.

A lot of companies want to be back in office, but I think the workforce is kind of banded together and holding the ground with remote workers.

Alright well there's going to be a lot more to dive into and there will be a lot more at the local level so again we want

This information is meant for you all to make an informed decision in your community as you need.

This is going to be the most up-to-date labor market, workforce, real estate information that's available.

Feel free to reach out.

I'll put our contact information on at the end of the slide.

You've got that and don't hesitate to reach out with any questions on that as it applies to the region or to your community.

I know we just have a few minutes left here and we've covered a lot of data, but I'm interested, maybe your mind sort of got warmed up there with how some of this applies to your community.

And I think I just wanna focus on the first question there, maybe do a round robin of just folks in the room of maybe one economic or community asset.

And I mean that really in the broadest sense,

What's one thing that's underutilized or that has a lot of economic potential in your region or one that you know of sort of in the Thomas Jefferson, Clinton District Commission region more broadly?

I think we can pick out sort of the obvious economic drivers and the data tells us certain things, but I'm curious about maybe the things that don't get as much attention or are emerging that really have

Potential in the region.

It could be an industry, it could be a particular business, it could be... Well, it's not really an industry or it'd be more of an asset, but the way our, specifically Albemarle and Charlottesville are intertwined with transportation industries,

that it doesn't even function well for cars, which is what it's designed for, but the multimodal deficiencies that exist truly in those two jurisdictions prevents certain economic activity from happening.

So we've just had two, like we had one development in a very high computer area who cannot fill their office space.

If you were the owner of a person that wouldn't go into that office space you'd be out of your damn mind and put a business in there because nobody's going to come there because of the transportation issues and there's no other way to get it there but by far because you'd be except for the hundred and so people that live live right next to it so you know we have a bike or a big bridge it's going to go over a Rivanna River like the Rivanna River is an asset that's underutilized

because we don't really have great access to it in a lot of places.

I'm not saying we want to develop along the river and put things along it, but we just wanted to connect two economic zones in the county to the city from our Pantops location with a big bike head bridge and it's 42 million dollars, we put out our 51 million bucks or whatever it was.

But that would be an economic

Boone, because it would connect two areas in a way that doesn't rely on a car driver.

And is that, so particularly the multimodal is bike and pedestrian infrastructure in particular.

Making sure that

And my two were literally, I was literally going to say a bus system, but reading through this data, I mean, it's clear how it's created a regional transit authority.

There could be a huge positive economic impact, especially on the university and hospital system and major employers in particular.

And definitely agree.

Navigation.

I think one thing that is also mentioned is in a rural context and work from home aspect has definitely changed a lot of different factors, especially real estate demand and whatnot.

I don't know how familiar you guys are with the regional internet hookup with Firefly and other entities.

Nelson County certainly has seen a change in economy and commerce when the work from home aspect came to play, especially in, my goodness, I mean, there's so many people now who work nationally and internationally in Nelson County.

I don't know where that fits in there, but it's definitely something that's a big enough percentage.

It wasn't, this is the number for Nelson, like 10% or 15% or something like that.

Yeah, I was going to say, when you're looking at employment data with the remote workers, could we had to do a little bit deeper dive on this from our committee meeting?

The remote workers, even though they are housed or live in Nelson County, if their company is located in New York or California, their job counts where that company is located.

So it could be even higher, yeah, than you guys are feeling.

Is that in, and that did come up in the subcommittee meeting that Firefly in particular had, it just sort of changed, you know, the opportunities that were available.

I mean, I can't really name a committee working from home

Maybe some startup people who did and you just had no clue.

But I'd eventually say it's the latter.

Well, that does get, I mean, we're still figuring out and, you know, how to most accurately quantify work from home is difficult.

It's challenging just because it's sort of a new landscape.

All right, so we've got broadband, transportation, particularly in a regional context, the Fluvanna River in terms of connecting to economic zones.

I mean, that was a category I forgot to add, but yeah, natural resources or natural assets.

Anything else?

Yeah, Allison, this is Christine.

Online, I just wanted to underscore, I think I couldn't tell who said it, but the Amtrak station, you know, the size of that facility compared to the amount of through travel going through there, I think is there's a lot of potential there that hasn't been realized for bringing people, especially related to the university, whether that be, you know, professors bringing people into the region for work.

Gotcha.

Yep.

Okay.

Well, I think we'll probably end with that then and just sort of wrap up with these next steps.

This is just looking out really until the beginning of, well, the first quarter of next year, 2024.

You know, we've got

Engagement that's sort of coming up next.

So we'll be on the ground at some point during the summer, really looking to see a wide range across the region and talk to businesses, economic developers, workforce development professionals.

You know, maybe some of you all, we really want to get the flavor and

unique factors for each of the localities.

So we've got some engagement coming up in addition to some additional data.

All of the comments and sort of feedback that we got today help sort of put together the theme and channels we need to go down for additional work.

But we are working towards early next year in terms of

Final Four, implementation plan, all that good stuff.

And you'll be hearing from us throughout the project.

And I will leave, I'll go back to this at the end too, but again, don't hesitate in between when you see us to reach out to Daryl and I with any questions or contributions to the discussion.

Yeah, so as Alex kind of mentioned, our next focus will be kind of getting that stakeholder engagement.

So we have a lot of the data, the quantitative data, but we really need to mirror that with the qualitative data so we get a full picture.

We are in the process of doing the business climate resiliency inventory just

Looking at different ways that the region has been resilient in different sectors.

Of course, our on-site visit and then our situational assessment.

So really we are, I think we're in a good place with the project, but we still have a little ways to go.

So having these meetings is valuable to get your feedback.

Sure.

I just want to, you know, just thank Alex and Daryl and y'all's team for the work that you're doing on this.

The SEDS kind of came about from a request from economic development staff in a couple of our jurisdictions to pursue a SEDS plan since one had not been completed previously.

Many regions pursue a SEDS in order to then pursue

becoming an economic development district.

That isn't necessarily our goal.

However, it can leverage opportunities to get additional EDA grant funds that are only available if there is an existing SEDS plan in place.

And so we see this as a good way to look at the synergy that's occurring and looking across jurisdictional boundaries to create these regional and super regional strategies.

But in no way is that intended to usurp

or by the local economic development decisions that are made.

And like Alex said, a lot of the work that's going to be happening to implement will still be done at the local level and not necessarily at the regional level.

So while I think a regional approach on this is incredibly valuable, it is not in place of the local, the very necessary local approach to economic development.

So just thank you to Alex and Darryl for being here tonight.

And we will send out to you all as commissioners a copy of their full report so that you have access to all of the data and all of the tables in a lot greater detail even than tonight.

That'll go out when?

The report?

Would you like it tonight?

Yeah.

Any other questions or comments, Erin?

Thanks so much, guys.

So we've got a number four, we've got a form now present.

So just in time to the consent agenda.

So we have the minutes of May 4, 2023.

No, I can do a quick comment on the financials if that's okay.

We have just under 8.5 months of average operating expenses available.

Five months is the goal, so we're in good place there.

We've got just over two months of unrestricted cash on hand.

And then as you'll see in the financial dashboard report, we had a very strong March and April.

with very large net gains, actually atypical gains for us.

But I want to make sure to couch that with the idea that that is inflated because again, we're going to be doing the cleaning up of all the legacy payables and receivables and the fiscal year bonuses.

All right, moved and seconded.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

And we do not have any new business tonight, so we'll move to our resolutions.

Any other comments or anything there?

Yeah, motion to approve the resolution of intergovernmental review and project support for housing preservation grants.

Anyone?

So moved.

Second.

And all in favor say aye.

Aye.

and A&E under resolution, resolution to elect officers for fiscal year 2024.

The committee brought forth the slate of the same votes in the plan positions from the prior year.

It didn't seem like there was objection to that.

So is there a motion to elect the officers for fiscal year 2024 as presented?

All right.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

That is approved.

Thank you.

And that will bring us quickly to the executive director's report.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

Quick couple of updates for VATI.

I did send around to you all that we were not awarded the VATI 2023 grant.

We have attended listening sessions on BEAD, which is the new federal broadband equity access and deployment program, the federal BEAD program.

We are under the understanding that, you know, a few hundred million dollars will be coming to the state of Virginia related to broadband.

And so we are paying attention to that funding along with all of the ISPs that are paying attention to that funding.

So we'll have more of an update.

They are still in the process of developing the program guidelines, both for this next round of body state funds, but also for what they're gonna be calling body BED funds.

And so staff will be paying attention to both of those programs as the program guideline drafts come out.

They will open it up to public comment before releasing them.

in their final form.

Other comment is for transit, the mobility management program, we did issue an RFP for that and received proposals and we're now in the negotiating phase to get a partner to help us staff the call center for mobility management.

Also related to transit, for the transit governance, we're in the stage now where we're

scheduling meetings in each of our local jurisdictions so that we can have more one-on-one discussions rather than in the large steering committee, just to talk about goals for transit and as Councilor Payne suggested, the movement towards a regional transit authority and whether or not there is interest in the rural areas for participating or if the urban areas wanna do that.

And then the safe streets and roads for all,

Grants that is now in full swing.

We are under contract.

We've issued the request for proposal for a consultant and we have met with all six of our jurisdictions and then now we're in the process of meeting with VDOT so that we can look at the full scope of work and make sure that we map into that process all of the correct touch points with VDOT and their traffic engineering team.

so that the work that they're doing with local jurisdictions and the work that we're doing with safe streets and roads for all dovetail together and don't work against one another.

And then another small thing is I just wanted to bring this up.

I talked to Christopher Wilkinson about this a bit before the meeting, but one thing with our new finance director and Hansman Wiebel that

has given us a slight pause.

We're not in any way having heartburn over it is often we're bringing to you all the financials to approve.

And then it is often the case that we then have to go back and amend those financials because of the timing of the commission meetings being the first week of the month in order to get those financials prepared a week in advance and get them out to you all.

There are often changes that need to occur.

And I just wanted to make sure that you all

We're still comfortable with that.

The alternative would be to delay those financials another month.

So for example, we are now in June, you would be getting March's financials in June.

And so we recognize that that's a long delay for you all to have, you know, fiscal responsibility of looking through the financials.

And so I'm not suggesting a change necessarily.

I'm just calling attention as our new finance director, Anne Kansman and we will have noticed that what you're approving often gets amended.

and if that is still okay with you all, we will continue to proceed as usual.

If that causes you pause, then we might want to think through a different process to make sure what it is that you're approving is the final set of financials.

Only, I don't know if it's important to say or it would be changing the meeting date

This has been brought up many times in the past, but the date that we have is one that does not have a board meeting in any jurisdiction on that date.

And I don't know if we can get around it, but the fact that this has been an ongoing problem forever that the meeting was so early in the month.

At this point, are all most of the counties designing their schedules?

I kind of think we have, I don't know, I think a long way to begin is what I can say.

Historically, I can say that we used to have a three month lag on energy statements, much more engagement.

Now that we don't, I mean, go back the other way.

So we managed to, if it isn't perfectly right, and it needs to be fixed later, well, at least we have something that we can see to help the ship steer in the right direction.

And one example of that this year is you were talking about a particular affordable housing grantee, grantor, that was very late paying.

And so it was very clear to us as well as you that that was not a thing that could

go on just the way it was, but we hadn't seen the statements for, if it were three months delayed, that may not have been as clear to us, certainly, and maybe not even to you.

So I think it does serve, that's certainly not the only example that we give.

Many times in the past, we got in a bad spot.

David can remember all the stuff.

I've put it out of my mind.

The thing is, we've been,

Great.

The only other thing I can say is there's sometimes

detail getting in the weeds of when something should properly be in the financial statement.

So, you know, if somebody had some particular vendor come across with their invoice, why does it even belong?

Where does it, what month is it really belonging?

Yeah, that's definitely something we're looking to revise because the practice has been in the past under Mr. Reed.

That if we receive something three months late and they say, oh, we forgot to invoice you and they send us a bill, he would go back and amend the financials three months prior.

We think we'll help solve a lot of your problems.

Yep.

Okay.

Okay.

Nope.

The only other thing I have is that you're gonna, is after the round table session, you're going to talk about the next commission meeting being a special session to discuss the strategic planning.

That's Thursday, June 22nd.

And I wanted feedback from you all on your thoughts on that work session being in-person or virtual.

The purpose of that would be to share the survey results and to look at the feedback that we're getting from our six jurisdictions on what our priorities should be for the next three years, and then a discussion.

I would not expect it to go longer than an hour.

And I think that is under the assumption if I may be so bold as to say that I don't necessarily anticipate our strategic

O'Brien.

Great, we'll advertise that as virtual only.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And folks, we're at our roundtable.

Yes, I can send out, oh, that's a great question, Andrea.

Sounds like it's seven o'clock.

Before we go to the round table, just to clarify, I think there might have been something in the packet, different title, the slate of officers for 2024 would be Ned Gallaway as chair, Nunez and Ryan as vice chair, Keith Smith as treasurer, and Christine Jacobs as secretary.

It was the same chair, if James wanted them all.

We started with the budget, so hopefully Ernie's going to work real hard over the next couple of weeks and get it done.

We pretty much agree on everything already, it's just weird to see that file scratch.

You know, we're in the middle of a comprehensive plan, which is still a big deal.

Hopefully, we will get that done this year.

There's no doubt in my mind with the comprehensive plan.

We have a lot of zoning updates we're looking to make, and I believe, and Ernie, you can maybe touch on this from the zoning perspective, but a lot of that looks like to be resolved when we're looking at right after the comprehensive plan

Jones, and also our staff, what we've got from the public.

So hopefully we're going to take a lot of that injury and put it all on a moment, you know.

So if you're going to have a meeting with a lot of medical decisions, you kind of will put them in a little high school and start a new line.

Right, Todd?

That's right.

To see if you're going to do it, do them all.

That's going to be a big part of our year.

As it relates to water and sewer, we do have a pretty big jump looking up in the future.

There's 15% increase in the valley.

Water and sewer is having a hard time keeping up with infrastructure costs.

A lot of us understand the cost of that is significant.

Still a lot going on, but it should be done in a bigger service.

We were awarded a TAP grant for Gladstone Depot.

And so Gladstone Depot on the far south part of the county is being relocated.

It's going to have a new foundation.

and we're going to be applying, it looks like a phase two construction on that.

So that's something that the county still appears to be fully supportive of.

So that's going forward with us getting the federal and the state money for that.

The other thing is that this month we're going to be initiating our adult drug court

It's all pieces that are finally in place.

We have our administrator for it and the project coordinator.

Yes, speaking of Virginia, he is on vacation.

He did hire a new county administrator.

Yes, he did.

Her name is Kathleen Shaffer and when she starts June 26, she comes to us from Fairfax, where she worked for 28 years and did almost every job they had.

Her educational background is

BA in economics, two master's degrees, public administration and science management of information systems.

Social, undoubtedly, we have some ideas, we have an avenue forward to that.

Baker and Tilley helped with the research.

You know, we haven't been finance director for a while because our finance director retired.

She's still hanging in there, and we would start interviewing as soon as our new county administrator

has had a chance to get on the board and is ready to participate.

So she can help with that selection.

Okay, that shows two things.

The comp plan did approve our comp plan.

It was a four to one, which usually devoted to a five to O, but in this case, it was a four to one.

Not exactly stated what the problem was, but there was some general,

controversy over the clustering comments in the comment plan.

Not necessarily multiple, but in general out there in the comment process.

My answer would be that.

Nobody can really tell you.

We had not heard anything from SEC about the war on the garden.

So that's still going to be exactly where it's been then.

And sheets opened up on the 27th of May.

So now we're

You know, it's going to be kicking your cigarette jacks and everybody else's into it.

Very good, thank you.

Well, we finalized that budget and voted on it and rather than change the tax rate, we pulled $3 million to fill out the budget immediately and it gave up.

Drickson, Actor Lee, with placement through me, and getting that, but at least it's all the way done with it.

We have, we've been working with you to build some economic development, so in place, we're going to have technology all the way through to

We accommodate the things that we have coming in.

One of which is like a mass production lettuce.

And it's their problem with that.

And we've got a couple more things that are coming in.

Southwell, and we started it very quickly.

So in our economic development plan, kind of a declaration, what's funny is we've spent millions and millions of dollars in the regional visitor department.

And of course, none of us knew that.

No, I mean, it's embarrassing.

I mean, it was most of the state, and whatever one is that it's been, but still.

Yeah, nothing.

It's, we got in, they got out of the business box, and we were getting some kind of people there coming in.

Huh.

That's one of the, you know, this is a discussion we had as a county, you know, the velocity of building and will they come, you know, we have an industrial park that was built back in what, early 2000s, early 90s or whatever.

And yeah, there's an industrial park, just like how every county was told, if you don't do this, you're falling behind.

Before we even get into anything, we've got to do all sorts of bills.

Yeah, you've got to amount to four or something like that.

The only thing we did do, we found out we were going to spend thirty-one million dollars to get to the end of the business, and it's now ended, spent in the park.

To get more into that,

Are there any rewrite processes chugging along with this point of problems?

Late July, early August, I expect our Planning Commission to deliver to Council their final draft that would be pointedly from Council's deliberations and decisions.

possibly adopting sometime around late fall to early winter, but that is still underway.

We just received a grant of about $20 million from the state for the renovation and modernization of Pupa Middle School, which is very good.

Our bus drivers are officially unionized now.

They held their election and won.

We expect that our fire department will shortly follow as well as successful elections.

So we are seeing the first actual unions for public employees in our nation, which I'm sure will be very indirectly a new ship for Charlottesville.

And finally, it's folder news, but I don't think we ever do.

We did get our wage compensation study delivered to us.

Gallagher did it and unsurprisingly it showed significant wage compression issues as well as

But that's it.

I'll start with some more issues with our city.

And you're sharing it with the government department.

I think the art is being ambiguous in all of our counties.

Yeah.

took on the right to purchase George Gjorgjievski, Jim Andrews, adjacent to the Urbana Station, along 29 Norton, very close to Green.

It's sort of, well, apparently they built it and they were kind of buying it and they had to stay.

But it's been a work of art on the news, and certainly something that's been going on in our lives

It's seen as a tremendous opportunity, major, major impact on the county, I believe, but also not a lot of interest.

And we have to have a public hearing because of the possibility that we will distribute, you know, sell off some of the sacred and, you know, I could all make it.

And that requires public hearing, so we have that this month.

See I don't even see what people were looking for.

Otherwise, I also similarly, if we had one action, that was a five to one one was originally three, three of all the things and we're close, where

neighborhood model type of development recognized several years in that their commercial space, retail space wasn't going.

They wanted to convert it to residential.

And so it sort of backed up a little bit on the idea that this was a neighborhood that was going to have a certain amount of retail now still going to have

It's essentially what's equivalent right now to the rest of it on the property sheet.

But the rest of it is now allowed to be converted to residential.

I'd like to say that necessarily.

That's what they were asking for.

Very silent, so right next to the door now.

More financially beneficial to the development of non-residential engineering.

The second is so long to get into the engineering and say, well, why can't something go in?

I think it's because of its commute around.

There's 120 people out there that I got shot by then, but nobody else can walk there to get copies.

They'd be running across basically eight lanes of people, you know, going up and down 20 and end costs.

The public hearing for the economic landing purchase, you can put public and educational type things on it.

Anything for business activities, that's the thing that needs the public hearing.

So we're just going to do a public use or an educational use that would necessarily require the public hearing.

But, you know,

That was a big step forward for our project, which is our economic development plan.

And if you're interested, if you made it prior to that decision, you did have a report that was completed by the Defense Affairs Committee, the Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce, the Royal Cooper Center completed about half of the impact that the defense industry has on the region.

So that one, we do get our budget finalized right at the start of May.

We do not equalize up or down our rate, you know, our property, the real estate state where it's at without our car tax where it was at.

So the car tax, the values come down.

So if we want to save revenue from the car taxes, then we want to do your report, we have to raise that rate.

McCollum, 30 cents.

So we got that one.

And that was about, we're going about $5 million.

We'll leave that where it's at, just didn't feel like that these carbines while they're dropping are not dropping as fast as they can up.

So we're leaving that one where it's at.

And then we'll do two mini-schools about Albemarle.

Not built a new school in quite a while, but we had one in Southern Peter pattern and one in the quote one in the Peter pattern.

So that's a big deal.

We'll have some new education buildings coming in.

It also has room for a second center for our high schools, which is a different priority, but we're instead even building a new high school.

And then the final thing that I'd share would be the regional housing partnership.

I think I reported just past, at the past commission meeting, that they agreed to take on the conversation about housing, about morals, and set a package program.

I believe that's going to occur in July.

And then partnership members will be able to participate, but it will be opened up.

The basic idea is that we'll have table participants who will engage the conversation, developers, partnership members, et cetera.

But then anybody would be welcome to join in the conversation.

And then it'll be set up with a networking session in the middle.

So the idea would be to make these folks that aren't necessarily sitting at the table that have a chance to interact and everybody can talk and discuss, come back at the table for further conversation.

So, as the chair of the Regional Housing Partnership, I'm thrilled that they're taking this on.

We've got to take good luck with jurisdictions and see how the partnership can be used to address all the policy issues from other jurisdictions.

So I would certainly invite those of you who are like this to see how that conversation goes, even if it's not necessarily developer incentives, maybe it's some other housing topic, and you can see how the structure goes.

So that's all I have in Sweden.

Yeah, I have two really quick ones.

Chair Galloway, as you said that it dawned on me, I did not send that defense sector report around to you all.

So I will do that following this meeting so that everybody has a copy of it.

And then the second thing is the strategic plan survey that was sent around to everybody.

If you could please take a moment to fill out that survey as commissioners, that would be really helpful to us.

It shouldn't take more than five minutes and it's

you know, smartphone friendly.

So you should be able to do it pretty quickly if you haven't already.

Good question.

What did y'all do for your employees?

Five or seven or seven?

Five and a half.

Five and a half.

I should qualify.

We did four basically for non-public safety.

Got phone messages.

We hadn't caught them up in previous budget cycles.

So the 4% was specific for everybody else on the local government side to get them where our clients say.

Did we do the VRS?

I don't know if we did the VRS.

I know we did the insurance.

I'm not remembering what I was supposed to put down.

I did something higher than I was seconding.

Okay.

Well, then our next meeting will be Thursday, June 22nd, a special meeting.

That'll be a Zoom meeting set at the end for the strategic planning work session.

And with that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

All right.

Moved and seconded.

Opposed?

Awesome.

Thank you everybody.

Have a good evening.