Planning District Commission Meeting   12/7/2023

Supervisor O'Brien.

Here.

Mr. Smith.

Here.

Ms. Wilkinson.

Supervisor Jones?

Here.

And we do not have anyone that needs to be voted in for electronic participation.

No.

All right, before we go to manage on the public, the agenda this evening, and there will be a change to the agenda.

So number eight, which is under business, we're going to remove that section this evening.

And we will need to have a closed meeting tonight.

So we will get through all of our other items and then finish the meeting with a closed meeting.

And with that, did we vote on the agenda?

We've never voted on the agenda.

How do I expect that to get in my brain?

Probably because there's a change to the agenda.

So that will take us to number two, matters from the public.

Anyone here from the public who wishes to speak this evening?

Anyone online who wishes to speak?

Sean Tubbs making a visual appearance.

So that will move us quickly to number three.

We have some applications this evening.

So last year I was before you presenting the regional transit vision plan.

which presented some options for adding to transportation services in Region 10.

And part of that plan, there were recommendations to do a governance study to identify new resources for transit and also how to manage them and fan regionally for public transportation.

So we were

Leckyena to get support from the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and the Department of Rail and Public Transportation to conduct a regional transit governance study.

Thank you, Lucinda.

And thank you all very much for this evening.

Thank you for your time and giving us a chance to share with you the study that we've been working on for the past year.

Now, this study has really been a way to investigate what options there are for the Charlottesville region.

And so it's been a discovery process of what exists, what is possible, and what is allowed under the current legislation.

and so for today we have only about 10 minutes and so my objective is just to give you a very high level overview.

The draft report I believe has been provided to you all for review and so thank you again and I'll begin at this time.

This project has been a collaboration between us like Lucinda mentioned and the TJPDC

as well as my colleagues also from AECOM.

Now this study really came about as a follow-up from the transit vision plan that Lucinda mentioned.

The origins of this study however since 2008 there have been efforts in the region to consider regional transit.

Now that effort led to the development of the establishment of the Regional Transit Partnership in 2017.

After that, different studies have also looked at transit in the region.

But from last year, the Transit Vision Study was really monumental in the sense that it presented two different types of networks for

that can be reviewed by the region in terms of the constrained and the unconstrained network.

So this study was based on the assumption of going along with the constrained analysis, which has improved transit service in terms of number of days of service provision and the amount of service provided for both the rural and the urban networks.

So moving along, the objective of this study really was twofold.

First, to understand and identify potential ways in which regional transit can be governed, looking at the presented model from the transit vision study.

And two, to identify those potential funding mechanisms to fund the increase in

And so to do this study, we went about looking at four main ways.

The first was to look at the existing conditions, which involved a lot of discussions and interviews with our

Providers, so John Katz, and also talking with the University Transit System.

We also looked at, we did a peer analysis of regions across the United States that have similar characteristics to the Charlottesville area.

And so we looked at regions that have a major university and also have that urban rural characteristic as well.

Following that, we investigated what are potential revenue streams to fund this increase in transit.

We looked specifically at what

options that are currently being used in Virginia, looking at the Hampton Roads example, Central Virginia with a CVTA and Northern Virginia.

And with further discussions with some stakeholders, we came down with a shortlist.

And then finally, with more stakeholder engagement, we looked at potential governance options.

So

This study throughout the year, we've also done extensive engagement with stakeholders throughout the region.

We've talked with both local and regional entities from staff members as well as elected officials from the localities.

We had engagements with members from DRPT, from VDOT, as well as some of the other transit authorities throughout the state that I mentioned before.

And lastly, we also had the engagement with the other

Regional Transit Authorities across the country.

And so we took all of this information and synthesized it.

And we came up with different, several findings.

And so this is just a way to summarize them all.

The first thing we understood was that generally across both the urban areas and the rural areas, there is that general desire

for improving transit, increasing investment in transit, and even looking at regional transit as an alternative.

And so what we saw was that there is already some momentum from this study and also previous efforts.

And so what we suggest is that this momentum is kept on with a sort of forming a work group made up of volunteers, a volunteer work group,

that can dive into some of the details for designing or coming up with the organizational documents required for such an authority.

And so we suggest it be a small committee to look at some of these issues such as drafting bylaws and engaging, continuing to engage the different localities to make sure that everyone's voice is heard.

We also want to make sure that we have agreements from the different stakeholders as you look at drafting these documents or finalizing them so that it's developed in a way that everyone's voice is heard at this stage.

Secondly, we identified a big need for a rural transit needs assessment.

We saw that many of the localities in the rural area still need to understand

what kind of transit would best serve them having an understanding of where the residents that need transit are located what kind of transit would serve them and even for different types of cross boundary connections maybe even outside of region 10 considering maybe some neighboring counties to the some of these rural localities and so

Further study into that would be beneficial in continuing these efforts for regional transit.

Next, we also identify that just generally in speaking, and this is not uncommon, that there was a general sense of perceived value or who would receive the most benefit from a regional arrangement and transit governance.

There was this idea of not having your voices heard or

being localities that invest more into the system but then have their input diluted and so what we suggest is as these efforts continue to look at those rural needs assessments and feed that into the next steps of this this study including also including accountability mechanisms into

how whatever funding is raised can be spent making sure that there's equity in decision making as well to all the stakeholders that choose to be involved in the regional transit authority.

And we also want to encourage continuing the educational efforts on the benefits on the regional approach and improving transit generally.

Throughout the study, we had different discussions with representatives from UVA, but we think that there's more discussion and more engagement that needs to be done.

And so for the next steps of this study, we hope to engage UVA on a deeper level and try to understand the ways in which we can collaborate and how they can be a partner

in this regional approach.

Now, from the peer studies we looked at, in each of those cases, we saw that the universities were a crucial member of their regional transit system.

And so even regardless of what kind of governance structure they had.

And so there was variety in the governance of the systems we looked at, from some being just simple city departments like Cadiz,

to independent authorities with taxing authority.

We also saw one that was a public transportation corporation similar to John's structure.

And there was even a nonprofit.

But in each of these circumstances of governance structures, the university played a crucial role in providing service for the region.

The university is also in a position to work with a region to leverage potential grant funding that can be available to the region, whether it's at a state or federal level, it could position the region to receive more funding.

Other mechanisms that can be looked at for cost sharing to exist.

For example, in some of our discussions, what came up is a cross training program for drivers from the UTS system to the localities.

This is something that can be explored more or

sharing maintenance garages or other types of administrative responsibilities.

But as the next steps are taken, we really suggest that UVA be brought on as an important partner in these further discussions.

Now, one of the main objectives of this study was to look at potential funding mechanisms for increasing the local portion for transit investments.

And so what we saw, what you're looking at here is two lists that show the different revenue sources from the transportation authorities currently in the state of Virginia.

And through discussions with the stakeholders at the state and local levels, we were able to come up with a short list of feasible options that you see to the right.

And so what we did then was to come up with some potential estimates of how much each of these

options could generate and the details of those estimates are also provided in the draft report which you have.

Now this is by no means the final list.

It's just a starting point for discussion.

And so if there are other options to be looked at, we certainly encourage the region to continue this discussion on what everyone is comfortable with as well.

Finally, in looking at the governance solution, we saw that there's a potential to have the interim step, like I mentioned before, of having a working group to sort out to discuss some details

of what would work currently, but in the ideal solution that we are looking for is an authority that has power to do transit planning as well as manage increased

D'Oronzio.

And so currently there's legislation that allows the city of Charlottesville and the county of Albemarle along with the surrounding rural localities to

Set up a transit authority if they wish to do so.

However, it does not include a funding mechanism.

And so this ideal solution is based off of the existing legislation with a few modifications to allow for

I did revenue, the revenue function.

And so what you're looking at here is just a highlight of what that could look like in terms of representation and how it would start and the governing body being made up of elected officials from the members of this authority that choose to join.

Again, like I said in the beginning, this is really a starting point in the discussion of regional transit.

And we are hoping that the region continues the momentum in going into the details and discussing how to move to the next steps.

So what is next for this region?

Now, this study is coming to an end at the end of this month.

However,

There are several things that can be done, details of which are outlined in the report.

But we definitely want all the localities to review the final reports and have it as a point of discussion with their boards and their localities.

And then setting up that working group that was

That was discussed before, a small working group that can keep the momentum in the efforts to set up this transit authority.

Now, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I would like to add that this report is long and I don't anticipate everybody has time to read it.

We do not have a meeting in January but we will come back to this in February.

What we'll be asking from you all is really action related to would you like PDC staff to continue putting allocating resources and time into moving this initiative forward and accepting the draft report as a final report.

around the transit portion.

We already have resources allocated for this fiscal year to just keep working.

One question might be, with the speed at which we have proceeded, we were looking to establish, to use Title 33 Chapter 28 of the existing legislation, which is sort of an abandoned red-headed stepchild, from what I can tell.

But I think the consultants made the not so subtle argument that we could start with brand new legislation and try to stand that up and include money.

Or you could try to slip in and make yet another attempt to slip in some money.

What's the next calendar year?

Yeah.

Yes.

That is our hope that that would be the timeline.

And it would require, you know, to actually stand up the existing authority would require action at the governing bodies of the localities.

But one of the recommendations coming out of this study is almost a working group to keep things moving forward.

Let's look at bylaws.

So one of the things that this study says is that some of the rural counties have to do a better assessment of the needs that they actually have for transit and the linkages and how something like this will be able to serve them.

And John's hosting a rural transit needs assessment study on December 12th.

So I'm wondering how that

links into this.

We know that they're conducting that study within parallel with all these conversations where folks were saying the idea of this is great.

We're not sure we get no in our county.

If there were more transit, would folks use it?

You know, where is the demand?

How are we demonstrating with quantitative data where the demand is?

That was my question, to make sure that there's someone there that can make sure that this doesn't get lost.

Yep.

Thank you.

All right.

And I'll also add, sorry to interrupt, we have already come before city council, we've already come before Albemarle County and Fluvanna County.

We have already scheduled for the other three to be coming before your governing boards to give us a more presentation.

All right, we will move to the new presentations, watershed improvement program.

Hello, I hope everybody's doing well this evening.

I'm Isabella O'Brien, a planner one with the TJPDC.

A large part of what I do with the TJPDC is manage the Chesapeake Bay PDC locality implementation program, or WIP for short, because it's a bit of a mouthful.

And as a high level overview, the goal of WIP is to support meeting the goals of the TMDL, which is a total daily maximum load set in place by EPA to set a pollution diet for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment, and the amounts that can reach our local streams and eventually the Chesapeake Bay and still meet water quality standards for drinking water, recreation, fishing, and a lot of other uses.

So as a little bit more background, after decades of restoration efforts were sparked by the Clean Water Act and the Chesapeake Bay Agreement of 1983, the Chesapeake Bay was still suffering from water quality impairments like nutrient and bacteria pollution from agriculture,

Sewer treatment plants and urbanized areas and sediment pollution from agricultural land and construction sites.

And this was leading to harmful algal blooms, smothering aquatic life, destroying valuable habitat and harming the economy for the region.

So in response, the TMDL was the federal strategy that was developed to accelerate restoration efforts and hold all jurisdictions within the Bay accountable to those pollution reduction goals.

So watershed implementation plans were developed for each state within the Bay that outlined the specific actions for each jurisdiction that they would take to achieve those pollution reduction goals.

And it's a culmination of legal obligations from the Clean Water Act, the Chesapeake Bay Agreement, also the federal commitment from EPA, jurisdictional requests, and the need for a coordinated approach to address the pollution across the watershed.

And the efforts of PDCs across the watershed and in Virginia is included in WIPP and the two-year milestones that are set in place by DEQ.

So very recently, DEQ has developed their draft milestones for the next two years, and they're available online for public comment if you're interested to learn a little bit more about what those programmatic and numeric milestones are for WIP, keeping in mind that the TMDL and that pollution reduction diet is to be met by the end of 2025.

We're currently not slated to meet all of those goals, although a lot of progress has been made.

And some of the numeric milestones look like increasing tree plantings, forest buffers along streams, increasing livestock stream exclusion in agricultural areas.

And then as part of those programmatic milestones, the way that PDCs are involved is we'll be sharing information about environmental justice with the localities, and then working to engage our state and local partners to increase

BMP implementation, which are the practices that help us meet those pollution reductions.

So tree plantings, the livestock stream exclusions, et cetera, et cetera.

So diving in a little bit deeper to our specific program and the programs within all PDCs in Virginia, there's 58,000 allocated from DEQ alongside local match.

And historically, we've provided regional leadership related to the plan, technical support and administrative assistance for implementation.

We also hold discussions and continue relationships and continue the momentum of the programmatic milestones as part of WIP.

But most recently, we are working to transition into greater implementation through the directive of DEQ.

And what's important to note here is the PDC program focuses on non-MS4 areas, which is really the rural areas because urban areas, what MS4 stands for, I think, is municipal storm sewer separate system, which might have mixed up a few S's there.

It's basically

The drainage pipes that are in those urbanized areas that collects water from hard surfaces like streets and roofs and takes it directly to our streams without any treatment.

And because there's no treatment there and they can point to the source of where the pollution is coming from, there's more regulation involved in the urbanized areas, more funding and more staff.

So we're in place to help fill the gaps that exist in those rural non-MS4 areas.

So as I mentioned, DEQ and EPA is hoping for PDCs to move towards greater implementation.

And I hope that you now kind of have a better handle on the federal and state guidance that's informing our program.

But some new funding became available to PDCs this year to help support that transition.

through the IIJA.

And so eight of the 15 PDCs within the Chesapeake Bay watershed in Virginia received additional funding for shovel-ready BMP projects at almost $2 million.

And we have received an update from DEQ that

EPA plans to make this funding available to us for the next three years.

The exact amount is insulated until we get the update each year from EPA, but we can expect future funding to support implementation.

So this is a high level overview of the scope for this year.

With our deliverables on the left column and then some of our accomplishments for each deliverable on the other side.

And you can see here that some of our deliverables did include that continued coordination and outreach and education, while others are transitioning more towards implementation and identifying opportunities to support our partners in that.

So I'm going to go into a little bit more detail about the highlighted deliverables to just share some of the information that's been developed for the public and as well for you all this year.

So that first deliverable was to document and analyze partners that can support implementation of BMPs and other green infrastructure techniques.

So we first collected BMP contractor lists from our partners at the soil and water conservation districts as well from BDH.

But the larger aspect of what we've been doing for this deliverable

is known as the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project, which we partnered with the US Forest Service to complete and Stew Map for short has been carried out in over 15 different regions and cities across the globe.

But basically,

The STU-MAP is a process for collecting data on environmental stewards within any area to better understand who those environmental groups are, where they work, the type of work that they do, and who they collaborate with.

It starts with a survey to the environmental groups, and based on the information that they share, we're able to map and develop a database that will be publicly available

We completed the survey to over 140 local environmental groups and had over a 30% response rate.

And we're working currently on the data visualization phase and we'll have public data available later this winter.

And to kind of show you what the data results are going to look like this is known as the STU-MAP dashboard.

This is in New York, but each orange dot represents an office location of a different environmental group.

And then each blue highlighted area represents a stewardship turf or where each environmental group is carrying out their environmental work.

And this helps us to identify gaps in where certain types of environmental stewardship are occurring and are not occurring.

And then when you click on either a turf or a specific office location on the map, it will pop up the box, which includes

The information that that environmental group shared through their survey.

And this can support partnership building of other environmental groups in similar sectors, again, help to identify those gaps and where we aren't meeting certain needs.

And really just provide a all encompassing database for the public, as well as local stakeholders to explore who the environmental stewards are in their region.

Another aspect of what we completed this year was developing a green infrastructure toolkit for local leaders, including elected officials as well as planning staff and environmental staff.

But this is packed with resources to deepen your understanding of WIP, green infrastructure, and resilience in general.

The training resources that are provided in that second section were developed by local leaders for local leaders to better understand their role in restoring the Chesapeake Bay.

In the land instruments and green infrastructure section, we share information that includes planning and regulatory tools that promote resilience and support the goals of the WIP.

You can also learn more about environmental justice, local related planning initiatives like the TJPDC Green Infrastructure Study and local water quality data and indicators.

That is available on our website and linked here.

We'll share the PowerPoint so that you all can take a look.

We developed a separate toolkit.

As part of our work this year, we had partner meetings with local staff in the non-MS4 areas to identify pipeline projects and opportunities for implementation and hear about their goals for the program.

And we received feedback that there was a lot of interest from the community in learning more about opportunities for conservation on their properties and the many funding opportunities that are available to help them implement BMPs and sometimes will cover 100% of the cost.

So in response to this feedback, we developed a toolkit for homeowners to learn about the small scale residential BMP projects and each different BMP that's presented is associated with at least one grant opportunity available to homeowners or homeowners associations.

And to help share this information and other pertinent information with the public, we are in the process of developing a public outreach education and participation plan that will be shared with regional staff.

And this will include at least four social media or newsletter posts per month.

Print materials to be shared at public locations like libraries or county office buildings.

It will also provide current updates on engagement opportunities for the public, such as rain barrel workshops, which is a common residential BMP.

And by providing additional materials, continuing our regional coordination and carrying out the 2024 scope of work seen here,

We hope to continue to increase capacity towards BMP implementation in the region.

You can see our scope here is a little bit smaller than years past and that was purposeful with the DEQ to allow more resources to identify implementation opportunities, but we'll continue our outreach and education efforts, continue participating in local watershed meetings, continue to share environmental justice.

Part of our implementation for next year will be

Collecting information from the septic repairs, replacements, and pump out projects that occur through our housing programs and making sure that the eligible projects there are entered into the BMP warehouse, which models reduction towards the Chesapeake Bay by inputting those BMPs.

Hopefully that's not too technical.

And then we're also going to continue to share information about the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project.

Once we have the database available, we'll have a public meeting to share that information first with our stakeholders and then with the rest of the public.

And we look forward to continuing to work with you all and your staff to identify additional BMP opportunities.

So we're in the process of going into the data visualization phase.

This is an example from New York.

But all of the databases developed in all different parts of the world have a similar structure.

We might use a few different colors, but it will be similar.

Yes.

There will be downloadable data so that people can create their own maps if they'd like.

We'll also have a network map that shows how organizations receive funding, who they receive their knowledge and information from, and then just the general organizations that they collaborate with.

And then we'll have the public database and map.

Here are some regional examples of BMP funding opportunities.

Yeah, so a few other planning district commissions have already received the additional implementation funding.

And some of their projects look like developing septic pump out programs regionally.

Another is promoting the Virginia Conservation Assistance Program, which is available through the Soil and Water Conservation Districts.

And it's a program that is available for landowners, homeowners, the public, as well as

De La Raza, and then we have local governments to implement the small-scale BMPs, and they're partnering with their local jurisdictions to do a pilot project at a public site like a local park or library to display what a residential BMP could look like.

Oftentimes, they're very beautiful.

They just look like gardens or tree plantings, things along those lines, and then sometimes there'll be like an informational plaque to share a

You know, Isabella's done a lot of really great work on this, but I want to particularly call out the

Resources for homeowners.

A lot of these resources are available directly to homeowners and landowners.

And a lot of folks are not aware of them.

And so the toolkit that you put together, this resource is really an incredible comprehensive list.

And so that'll be communicated through your staffs, but also through working with your communications departments to help your constituents learn about all of these resources that they can access directly.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, just a few highlights, I guess, becoming general assembly session.

So 60 days, at the first part of March, probably the most significant thing heading into the session is there's going to be so many new faces among the legislators.

There's going to be this historic turnover with a lot of longtime legislators, as we talked about before, that were tired or were not voted back.

and members of the House that ran for the Senate, but over 50 new members out of 140 total.

When the dust settled after the November elections, very, very slim margins from the Democrats in both the House and the Senate.

The Senate actually retained its Democratic majority, they've been 22 to 18, so they lost a seat in 2019.

The House has been 52 to 48 Republicans, so it was an important three seats there.

So all that means in the House, new leadership, you'll see new committee chairs.

I think talking to some folks here recently was trying to look down the list.

We think it's possible that you could have freshmen, delegates, lead chairs, or subcommittees in the House.

It's not around the possibility.

With the change in leadership in the House as well, there could be changes in the rules and how they operate.

There will be some bill introduction limits.

Again, session, I think it's 25 in the Senate.

It's probably 15 in the House.

New delegates were encouraged to go even below that.

So we'll see how that goes.

Next slide, please.

Probably the most significant thing in the coming session will be the budget.

Now, if you think we just, seems like we just did the budget at the state level, we did.

The budget was approved in September for the current fiscal year.

But in less than two weeks, the governor will produce amendments to the current fiscal year 24 state budget, as well as his proposal for fiscal year 25 and 26, which is like this most significant budget, any governor's most significant budget in the middle of their term, because it's the one that they get to introduce and then basically see through for most of its time.

We've had some pretty good years,

The past several years with the state budget.

Budgeting was very conservative.

You can look at uncertainty about the economy and where things were headed during the pandemic.

Plus you have the infusion of a whole lot of federal money.

So we're going to be returning to normal.

And when I say normal, 1%, 2%, 3% growth in revenue for fiscal year 25 and 26.

That last bullet I put up there is

Something I always like to say because I hear a lot from the legislators and that is the Governor proposes and the General Assembly presumes.

So the Governor will submit his budget by the time we get to the end of the first week of the session while members of the House and Senate will have had an opportunity to introduce budget amendments to make changes to his proposal.

So, and particularly with Republican Governor, Democrats in charge of the House and Senate, probably going to be some pretty significant differences in what you see on December 20th versus what you see in the middle of February.

That being said, people don't really, you hear so much about where the differences are in the budget, but quite frankly,

I'd say probably 85% of what's in a budget that's introduced stays in the budget.

So if we're trying to get something in the budget, much better to have it in the introduced budget than trying to get it in the budget.

So a little bit deeper dive on state budgets.

There's some structural balance issues, I think, heading in in terms of that balance of revenues and expenditures.

Again, there's going to be some challenges with the ongoing revenues being sufficient

to meet the expenses of the General Assembly, you know, months to pay for.

Anticipating there will be enough to pay for required mandatory spending, and if you think about Medicaid, you think about K-12 education, but high priority items, probably not too much left after that.

You can see there a couple of weeks ago, I guess the middle of November, the staffs for both the House of Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees had their annual budget retreats.

And this is just kind of the range of estimates of revenue growth for 25 and 26 that the staffs were running in.

So there you can see, you know, for 25, basically a one to three, and then in the threes were fiscal year 26.

Budget pressures.

You know, agencies throughout the fall and they submit their requests for expenditures through the process through their secretariat, part of the Canadian budget mixed with the Eleanor.

You know, $3.7 billion requested with fiscal year 25 and 26.

And about the time

About the time that those came in, it seemed like that the news then came out that the agencies were then being asked to show where they could pull back, about 10%, because of what was anticipated to be a very tight budget.

Again, those budget pressures, those budget drivers, as they're called, Medicaid, probably another $700 million in state funding is going to be needed over the next five years.

K-12, this would be benchmarking year when the

So I think that's going to be a really interesting one.

Then, of course, the advance of human services, behavioral health, public safety, and pay rate is all well and well in mind, I think.

And then that's all against the backdrop of what's going to be happening in our world, in our state, with the economy, with job growth, with what the economy is going to be a slowdown, and of course you add in new global events, geopolitics, those are all kind of cautionary things that are on the minds of the appropriators as they go through the budget process.

All right, well, quickly, just a few legislative items.

Not anything really specific that I wanted to get into, but just, again, with being in the middle of the governor's term, there will certainly be some initiatives that will be coming out of the executive branch.

I think we'll see the Democrats approving some signature legislation.

You've already seen a couple of bills and resolutions out there.

We're talking minimum wage, we're talking constitutional amendment on abortion, we're talking some firearms things.

Things that probably will stand a pretty good chance of getting through a democratically controlled legislature, and then we'll see once they hit the gunner's desk.

That being said, I think that anything, there's going to be any needles moved onto the major initiatives, certainly there's going to have to be compromise, there's going to have to be agreement between the legislative branch and the executive branch.

Local governments, you know, we play a lot of defense, you know, talk to folks, you know, this fall, we did the legislative approval process, could get our local governing bodies picking an unused area.

It just seems like we just spend so much time having to try to get things killed.

So don't expect that to be any different, even though we got new members.

And then I just highlighted a couple of local initiatives that I think

The majority of folks are familiar with.

First being the one-cent sales tax for school facilities.

That is an initiative that has been out there for several years.

There's a group of nine localities that have the authority.

There's been some attempts to add different localities to the existing authority.

There's been some statewide legislation.

There will probably be multiple bills, but the House has to set aside politicalities, statewide bills, Republicans, Democrats, said immediately this afternoon with the Albemarle Board and Senator Dees will be carrying one of those bills, and delegate elect Carson will be carrying one as well.

The Senator Dean said that he expects that a once-it-sales tax bill, again authorizing localities to do it if it's approved and a voter referendum, would probably pass the general assembly.

And then, of course, we'd have to go to the governor for his approval as well.

And then the only other one that I wanted to mention, our folks from Nelson County are here, have done a great job, I think, in the past six months advocating for a change in state law that would allow

officers employed by private police departments to be eligible for line of duty and benefits.

And I will expect the legislation to be introduced and hopefully make its way through the General Assembly on that as well.

Yeah, David, I know we're still waiting for the draft to come out.

You haven't seen it yet, have you?

As soon as you see that, I would agree.

Well, yeah.

I mean, had a conversation and just kind of

probably try to lump both the college campuses pieces.

And I guess, Mr. Chairman, as a reminder, as we head into the session, I have a point of contact in each of your localities on legislation, when I'm looking for feedback or something comes up, there's a question from a legislator, but then also begin to look for

legislative updates coming out on a more regular basis in addition to probably some email communications with your staff.

The budget comes out on December 20th.

I'm hoping to have by Friday the 22nd, this is the latest budget coming out, have kind of a high-level view of what the major things are and build the additional analysis that will come out after that.

Yes.

Yes.

Great.

The JMR study of the composite index and the school funding.

Have you seen any

The initiative and the momentum from that study, you see that turning into something else.

Yeah, there were like across the region, the six jurisdictions, three of you went up, a couple of them pretty significantly.

Actually, I think the three of them were all pretty significant.

The three that went down were not significant declines, but you know, I think that

You know, the General Assembly will probably tread somewhat lightly in trying to move, you know, take too big of a step, because I think they're probably going to move in the direction of setting up their own group to take a deeper dive on what those recommendations are.

But, you know, just as an example, of course that came out in July,

We did a budget in September.

There was some additional money in the September budget for those sport positions and trying to move towards eliminating that cap, which I think is, you know, implied, or maybe even, you know, set out in the J-HARP report is one of the things that need to be addressed.

So there may be some focus on things like that, but

Any other questions, Adam?

Thank you, David.

Okay, we'll move to number four in the same agenda, especially these,

Item of the minutes of the November 2nd finance executive committee meeting, and then the minutes of the November 2nd meeting.

All the abstentions that will be posted in the executive committee meeting, so everybody can vote on those.

Is there a motion to approve the minutes of the November 2nd, 23, finance executive meeting?

So moved.

Second?

I guess just Tony and I are going to move on.

Everybody else put in the same one.

This is interesting.

Everybody else abstain.

All right, the minutes of the November 2nd, 23 meeting.

That's the whole commission meeting.

Any edits or changes to that set of minutes?

All right, and all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstentions?

Abstentions.

and I have this guy tell me, he said, it's actually, yes, because we had an issue because you never had a quorum to vote on the minutes because we were ending the year too, we were changing, this is a big word, profit world, right?

And we learned it actually is this now, of course, maybe stick with the government and the entities that we work with.

They have best practices to abstain if you aren't there, just for transparency purposes.

However, you can't

Well, technically speaking, the finance executive committee meeting, then it should be approved in the next finance executive committee meeting.

Because in our IT committee, it's approved with the next meeting.

So that's what I like to do.

All right, new business, wait, October financial reports.

Yes, October was a very, very strong month.

We had a net gain of just $54,000.

We have nine months of operating expenses on hand.

Just under two of those are unrestricted.

From the approved revenue report, you can see that we have ample funds to be able to cover all the projected expenses throughout the year.

We have about $182,000 on average in a month, and our 12-month average is $136,000.

So we anticipate having more than enough to get through the year.

That's all.

Any other questions?

Is there a motion to accept the October financial

So moved.

Seconded.

We've been seconded.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Tensions?

Great.

So we'll go to number five, new business.

Yes, we actually have two new appointments to the Regional Housing Partnership.

The first is replacing Anthony Harrow's appointment as the non-profit housing representative.

We have a recommendation to make Shambel Washington, who is the new executive director of BRAC.

And then the second appointment is replacing Taylor Frum, who was the appointed citizen resident representative from the urban area.

And we are recommending Emily Dreyfus, who is the interim executive director of PAR.

Great.

Thank you.

Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Seconded.

All in favor, say aye.

Opposed?

And that will take us to the calendar year 2024 calendar meetings.

Let me put a draft before you of the purpose of it was just to set the dates and times for the meetings in calendar year 2024.

It also includes a draft of topics subject to change based on the timeliness.

If you all approve this calendar

Then after January, once any new commissioners are put into place, I'll send out calendar invites for the entire year to populate your calendars for you.

We do not meet in January or July.

Great.

Is there a motion to approve the calendar year 2014 calendar?

Second.

And motion made and seconded.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The extensions?

The calendar is approved.

Very good.

That's the first one I'd like to do.

And I'd like to do it informally now and request doing it formally later.

But I want to make sure to thank Dale.

Dale, this is your last meeting as a TJPDC commissioner.

I'd like to, since Andrea is also, this is her last night, she wasn't able to be here, I'd like to invite both of you guys to come back to a meeting just to be formally recognized if you're willing in the beginning of the calendar year.

But I want to make sure to thank Dale, not only for his leadership and his service on the TJPDC, but also for his mentorship through my tenure.

I really appreciate all that he's given.

of his time, of his resources, of his energy, of his wisdom to help through the executive director transition.

So I really want to thank you, but also invite you later to do more of a celebration of the service that you gave us.

Second administrative item is this year we participated in our annual gingerbread contest.

Again, staff did, so you'll see them lined up over there.

We would love just to keep the fun in the season if you guys before you leave would vote.

There is ballots over there for three different categories.

We just really enjoyed making fun of this during the season.

So if you'll turn in your ballots before you leave.

Next one is staff were able to go to the Virginia Association of Counties.

So many of you guys there, as well as the Governor's Housing Conference since the last time we met.

Body 22 gave you the monthly update of all of the details, but also wanted to remind you guys that Body 2024 applications are due December 19th.

So we're working in close partnership with Firefly for that application.

You've seen Firefly come for many of your boards asking for support for the application.

Several transportation updates detailed in the agenda.

The director's report is not going to go through those.

An update to the Housing Virginia Eviction Reduction Pilot.

We submitted an application to continue the program into calendar year 2024.

We were notified that we were awarded.

So that's $326,550 to continue the eviction reduction efforts that are going on.

And then Regional Housing Partnership.

Oh, we're not going to do Roundtable, but the Regional Housing Partnership

helped facilitate, or not really facilitate, helped organize the joint session between Albemarle Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission in helping get attendees to participate in that work session, and say, well, I thought that later if you'd like, but I wanted to mention that.

Really?

Thank you.

Well, before we go any further, since we are unexpectedly not having the round statement,

We certainly have the opportunity to do your portion of the round.

Well, first of all, I'd like to thank everybody for their past eight years.

My wife is here with me tonight from our last meeting and she's here because she hear me say, when I decided to run again, her and I had a conversation.

As you know, Rick Randolph came to me at a housing meeting at the Army.

and wanted me to chair, or want to chair, this organization.

And I was debating with that to run again, and I ran for office again because I wanted to be part of this organization, to be the chair of this organization.

And her and I had a conversation, and she was supportive, but she was often very avid if you don't run again.

And so, I was always here to not have to be left out of all of those problems.

Thank you guys for everything that you've done.

Everything you've done for our community and our county.

A lot has been accomplished through your county and through your efforts.

I am hopeful that the new board will see the value of TJPDC.

I have something else that that would happen, but I hope that they will see the value.

I know the previous board members before I came on board all of those, but it's been a great subject meeting.

Each of you worked

Breard, and this is an organization where I come to you, and I feel like I can hear your viewpoints, learn from you, and get to that healthy conversation.

And the incredible comments are back.

And both of you understand this, but thank you very much for letting me be part of this conversation.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

I know there are members here who have served with you for many of those years.

I will say this.

There's an unprecedented amount of better camaraderie of course for many of you, but especially over COVID.

At that time, in the delicate time where we're trying to reenter the many questions that we've all had, I think there were many days.

And I mean, some can also say some PDC staff know that I call a lot, but

Dale and I had a lot of great conversations about how to conduct ourselves.

And I've always looked at Dale in many different ways as to how to conduct myself.

And it's true.

I know.

I made out of words, got some really good advice though.

But seriously, I think there's one thing of value that I can attribute is that in my young life and looking to some level of mentorship you've been in that.

And when we had hard work,

Always had no problem calling me for sure.

He's always been a mentor and saying, and a few times he called me stupid.

It was good, it was good.

But it challenged me in a lot of ways.

And of course, you know, when there were moments where I was challenging myself that he either, you know, gave me good cautionary advice or said, man, you're in the right spot.

You know, and those are good things to have at any point

I echo a lot of what Mr. Rutherford said and just appreciate your quiet sort of style of leadership and your demeanor and kind of looking at the literature and you know like I said we all work hard to bring our accounts forward and I think collaboratively we do so and

We're going to ask you for sure.

We have a question, I think.

You were the chair when I came on with this, TJPDC.

What I'm hearing from both Tony and Jesse, I concur with your, not just even keel nature and either handiness with the way you ran the meeting, the way you helped transition your members on, is always appreciated.

I think we all also appreciate your strides to help Green County see the value in the TJPDC.

We may have to shoulder that responsibility moving forward, but I appreciate your efforts on the front, for sure, over several years.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

I'm not sure that that would happen.

Well, thank you again, Mr.

Herring, and you get to finish off with a wonderful closed meeting.

We should get one more closed meeting.

Any other comments you'd like to make?

We'll bring her back.

She's like the founder of this whole thing that I got on here.

I mean, it is kind of strange to kind of say that there's only been a few of us on here now who's stretched some years, some years,

You know, Tommy over here is being like, and Keith, for some of the last of the beginning of that new transition and Andrea's knowledge of finance and her ability to bring that to the table in the hard conversations, you know, is a huge asset in as big as it was.

Commission still exists.

It's funny, Greene might be going the other way, but Greene is partially responsible for continuing to exist.

So, but yeah, I think that

Whenever it came to the Treasury reports, the finance things are in my little bit of participation of that.

I didn't have any questions when Andrea had no problem.

Institutional knowledge is certainly important.

Yes, I agree.

I think I've been on this commission 10 years now.

And I'll state for Andrea that she has been

She really enjoyed being part of the convention.

She had talked to me, I think it was two days ago, and you know, resigning was something not easy for her to do.

But in her life, it was something that she felt she needed to do.

So she won't express that they're reviving fathers for the years.

Many of them, she was on this committee.

Which, Keith, you're longer?

I think she wants to.

Well, it will definitely happen.

Hopefully she will be available so everybody can have her.

Thomas, let me add to his reputation.

Y'all said all the details.

The biggest thing has really been, like, common sense, getting out of the way.

The nice, calm way of making sure of different stuff.

And Audrey Anner, as well, her accounting background started the night of the evening.

All right, commission.

I'm going to make the motion here.

I move that the commission be convening to a closed session pursuant to the exemption found in section 2.257.11a, one of the Code of Virginia to discuss a personnel matter involving discipline of their employee.

I just had it in the motion.

I will second.

We have an amended motion.

I move that the Commission be convened in close session pursuant to Exemption found in Section 2.2-371A1 of the Governor of Virginia to discuss a personnel matter involving discipline of an employee and pursuant to Exemption found in Section 2.2-371A19

Supervisor O'Brien?

Yes.

Supervisor Herring?

Aye.

Supervisor Reed?

Yes.

Yes.

Commissioner D'Oronzio?

Yes.

Councillor Payne?

Yes.

We're going to stop recording.

Supervisor Galloway?

Yes.

Supervisor Andrews?

Yes.

Supervisor O'Brien?

Yes.

Supervisor Barlow?

Yes.

Commissioner O'Durantio?

Yes.

Yes.

All right, we should be curious, thank you.

Second.

Supervisor Galloway?

Yes.

Supervisor Andrews?

Yes.

There are no motions coming out of closed meeting and I would simply add that we do have

So time on the agenda, the original roundtable was scheduled to go until 845.

We have any members who want to do a roundtable participation.

Not going to force them out of it, but you all want to do a quick roundtable, you can do it.

I have a lot to discuss, but we'll take a go for it.

Well, then I'll start on this side.

Supervisor Andrews, you want to do a quick roundtable?

Let's see.

When did we talk about housing, affordable housing in the centers?

We had our latest set of sessions today.

So, you know, it's been a busy week.

We had a very long session with our schools to talk about the five-year capital improvement plan.

The needs are great.

Dornanworth, joint strategic or five-year financial plan.

And so that was big.

This past Monday, we met out at Northport.

It was the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, the Planning Commission.

So there were 10 in there.

So between the Regional Housing Partnership and then others who are in the development community, both for-profit and not-for-profit,

It was a conversation around developer incentives in Albemarle County and trying to arrive at a conclusion of what we're actually going to do.

It was a nice, open, frank conversation between developers, planning commissioners, and supervisors.

And we left that meeting with a consensus that tax abatements for the longevity of the time frame you're looking for, for the affordability.

Previously, we had it at 10, but it can be 30 years of affordability that needs to be a tax abatement

should match that 30 years.

And predictability was the other item the developers chalked up as their first.

So that will go to our planning commission for a final review and then come to our board for sign-off, not to the exclusion of other incentives, but as the primary incentive to help with affordability specific for rentals.

And then there was a brief confrontation about an opening of the door to the conversation of the county acquiring land specifically for affordable housing.

I suspect will come back.

Not that that was tied directly to developer incentives, but is the biggest impediment to home ownership is the cost of land.

So the county buying and then providing that for housing could be something that helps get home ownership handled.

That was a good conversation and hopefully by February they'll put the cap on that conversation.

A hundred speakers.

A hundred speakers, which was a lot less than I thought it may have been.

So yeah, zoning is a big thing.

We had a public hearing Tuesday on the grass-eating ordinance.

We had a little over a hundred speakers.

That was actually nowhere near it.

Yeah, well, the Planning Commission has held previous public hearings that have been going on for so many years.

I think a lot of people, a lot of people at a lot of avenues have made similar arguments over a period of several years.

But this was another public hearing.

We're going to have at least one more work session and still hoping to get a zoning ordinance passed before the end of the year.

But that's really the major thing.

I know in our Inclusionary Zoning Report, they did an analysis of the longevity of affordable housing.

One of the conclusions was that period of affordability doesn't really have a big impact for the developer of the AMI, that's the big one.

So our inclusionary zoning, we're at 99 years for affordability, and that was found to be totally financial principle, depending on the AMI level.

So if longevity is the goal, then maybe that's what

Yeah.

But yeah, likewise, I anticipate this budget cycle land acquisition for Charlottesville will be another topic for affordable housing and kind of thinking longer term, is there a way to have land bank combined with land trust to really get to both home ownership and rental affordability long term.

That's it.

More or less, I attended that year and I spoke from the shadows.

It was, yeah, it was a hundred, I think it was a hundred even.

It was a hundred and four people signed up and four people told it to you towards the end of it.

Towards the end of it.

So I think you were exactly on the board, maybe a hundred and twenty something like that.

Our authority to that had a hundred and, it wasn't a lot, more than one in 1415.

I will say that Mayor Snook was savage about enforcing the time limit.

which our own share was more kind to each a little bit.

So we ran a little later than we needed to be.

But anyway, and I'm excited to hear about your thinking about the possibility of forward motion on the firing of land and affordable housing.

The land bank has been my own particular hobby horse.

We're making a noise about doing that as well, or at least restarting that conversation.

We also had a companion commission for a shot at ACIP, and you will be shocked to learn there's a lot of things we want to do, and there's quite a lot of money to do it.

It's sort of, although it was considerably less brutal than the prior year, we made some enormous commitments to schools.

So that's about where we are now, just sort of trying to slam it all in three lines, Amy and Tom.

What were the general, certain nature of the comments you received?

So, to compare and contrast, I think, and Councillor Payne will certainly jump in, they were largely, I think, majority supportive in general.

Is that your count too?

On Tuesday, I would say throughout, it's probably split relatively towards when you receive probably about half and half.

I would say there's a camp of people who are broadly support saying both increased height and density are critical for affordability.

There's a camp of people who just don't are apprehensive about the speed of change within their neighborhood.

And then there's a camp of people who say

You say this will help affordability, we don't believe that it actually will.

But there's a, we don't want our neighborhoods to change that.

I mean, just before they represent a vocal, those folks, those sort of show up.

And some of them, some of the comments that we received, some of them were sort of borderline disturbing in that sense.

But, you know, and you know, you sent me this,

A lot of us.

The best thing we had was on the 20th, we had Christine and Dave come out and help us with that legislative prize, and that went really well.

And as I predicted, when we finished, or the rest of the board actually voted on SDRs,

I predict that we have heard the last of them.

This week, one of the major subcommittees revisited their HOAs.

And now they have disallowed SDOs, which had all started out as my first question.

The very first night, it was drop dust.

This seemed like an HOA issue.

and Warren Schallheim.

If you don't want it, or if you do want it, address it.

But, well, we can't enforce it.

We don't, you know, we don't have any ordinance.

So by the time we got through with it, it was so warm down, we had an SDR ordinance that virtually said nothing.

And, but I thought we were trying to follow it this week.

Williams, one of the remaining cyber patients, and of course, it was Freddie, and that's what said it was out of hand, and they did it.

With their notification, everybody else in there, but they passed a new revised HOA that does not allow SGI.

And I think we're going to see a whole lot more of this.

So I don't think that's going to win.

Supervisor O'Brien?

Well, aside from the fact that Jesse was a shooting boy, I think our candidates would really want to.

We passed short-term, you know, that total ordinance.

If you were at a short-term value, you would not have only x percentage of your house dedicated for it on the property, so that's no longer the case.

It's more flexible than it used to be.

It wasn't being enforced in any way, per se, and we didn't really have the mechanism to do it.

It had come up, but here, a year and a half ago, where an individual had built a treehouse, very nice, elegant treehouse operation, and was then

confronted by the planning commission.

They had gone through all the steps, not the planning commission, planning department, gone through all the steps and made sure that they had done the applications and hold what they could not print it out.

It didn't fit up with the ordinance.

In this case, it's one of the people in the Treasury Department who also had an entry house rental.

It was very simple.

I mean, we said it totally passed and we're not going

We decided we weren't going to let the dogs out, so we've got a leash law now over Pleasant Road for the majority of the park, but about a third of the park is still un-leash friendly.

And as would be customary if it's a care child, very anti-growth, you know what I'm saying?

And I guess with people, you get these dog issues.

Omaha has a few people in Tocqueville, Virginia, not very many, but you know,

For those who don't know, a lot of it is asking for the rain ones, 33.8%.

They currently have about two and a half times the increase in typical water and sewer individual.

You know, the rates in the lake, if you've got water and sewer in the $150 plus range, they're asking for a 33.8% increase, which would give up.

O'Brien, John O'Brien, John O'Brien, John O'Brien, John O'Brien, John O'Brien,

Again, the lake represents about 50% of the county, so it's a huge deal.

Yeah.

Just a few things.

We have some issues with our water authority.

Most people in Greene County know that this is a waste.

It's a waste of water.

It's a waste of water.

It's a waste of water.

It's a waste of water.

It's a waste of water.

It's a waste of water.

Obviously, they were not happy it was built, so they were working on those issues.

We had a supervisor in design.

We replaced that individual on the board with their process there.

We went through a process for the reservoir project at Dembs and Brock, and that was a very proper meeting.

But we had to get through our process to try the extra night because our licensing

or May, it's coming to an end in so many years.

So it's not very popular, or it's under the desire of a lot of board.

And that board is changing quite a bit, but we're starting in January.

We will have two brand new members, and I suspect iteration of the board.

Two brand new members, we have one returning board member who served about eight to 10 years ago.

He's currently on the board, he plays some staff and everything.

I believe that our world will change directions from point A to point B. I'm not sure which direction to go on, but it's not in the same direction where everyone wants to stay.

Thank you.

It was too early.

This usually happens when we've already started making motions.

D'Anzi and occupancy tax, and we're going to fight over school zone cameras.

It takes about as contentious of a December as we can get it.

So we have a, we're making our own pizza.

It's part of the rules this coming meeting.

Once we're going to be stuck in there for 18 hours straight probably, we're going to have to move up with a time start.

So now it's just us.

Now we just kind of have a little bit of not really a board change.

We have a new member coming off in our board, replacing the south districts and the president's department.

One thing that has really impacted us is the change in the

That's going to have probably a 1.2 million dollar impact on our budget.

We're speculating just kind of with that.

It was essentially a .07 change.

It was really rough, really hard.

I mean, we're talking 10K of student change.

It's an insane situation for us to be in.

But we have to figure that out.

It's kind of a budget session.

And other than that, we're going to be revisiting some internet stuff, see where we're at.

Big deal that we're getting into, and more so, Mr. Parra and I, West Lisa District, are fighting on

is the conquering of a cell tower approval to the point of its completion.

We've had a major issue, and this is serious, like where we've approved towers and they don't get done for four or five years.

It's almost as if we've sold them the CECOC interest thing that they have approval for.

Then they go and they sell whatever it ends up being.

And so at ACO, I had a very long, pretty loud conversation with Verizon and a couple other entities that were there.

I said, you know, guys, we're approving your stuff.

And you're using some third party to get these approvals for a tower for you to do it.

And we know it's really about you.

And five years later, we're not getting anything.

And all we're doing is lying to our constituents.

And, you know, one of the things that we started saying, and I think this will just, once we have firefly everywhere, this will probably be a little bit less of a conversation, but you know, man, start putting timetables on that stuff.

No, you're not.

We do.

But the thing is with self-damage, it's almost as if it just keeps going.

They'll do the simple bare minimum just to keep the clock ticking.

It's going to change.

They have taken advantage of three very particular areas that are in high demand with a very large, much larger population today than 10 years ago.

and you know what these entities are also doing they're cutting the deal with the landowner and then they're stuck no compete clauses and all that stuff and they got this like that they can't change you know they can't even go to the next pack who's actually going to clean it up so i think it's gonna we're gonna rework that too coming down some but that's all i got thank you uh we had Gary Wood for saying he did say that 98.8 percent of

New counties now covered.

Thank you.

Well, thank you everyone.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

Second.