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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSP201900015 Narrative 2019-12-16Blue Ridge Swim Club and Field Camp Amendment of Special Use Permit Request Project Narrative December 1, 2019 Written Description of the Proposal: In Accordance with Section 10.2.2 of the Albemarle County Zoning Ordinance, Tupelo Honey LLC would like to apply for an amendment to Special Use Permits 2010-00035, 2010-00041, 2015-00028 and 2015-00029 to operate a swim club and day camp in a rural area district. The property consists of one 12-acre parcel. Parcel 58/75A is owned by Tupelo Honey LLC and Todd Barnett operates the Blue Ridge Swim Club and the Field Camp there. Blue Ridge Field Camp This request has two components. First, the existing facilities are far away from access to transportation, and we want to be able to build facilities that are closer to the driveways for safety. We operate there exclusively outdoors during the summer, but afternoon thunderstorms can create considerable risks on the heavily wooded property, and we would like to have safe refuges there close to transportation. As such, we would like to build a second pavilion (including bathrooms and a kitchen to serve our camp meals) not to exceed 1200 s.f., and a garage/storage facility (we currently have minimal storage there), also not to exceed 1200 s.f.. Our second request is to relax the conditions limiting our months of operation so that our space can be a local resource for environmental education. The property is not winterized, but we would like to be able to run camp -like programming there from 8:30 a.m. through 5:30 p.m., from April 1st through November 15th (we are currently limited to Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend). This would double our open days, though we would not realistically have nearly as many visitors on these additional days. We are currently limited to 100 campers per day or 200 people onsite at any one time, and we remain happy with those limits. Our goal is to make the camp space available for school field trip programming, for students to have a meaningful, educational group experiences in the outdoors, for them to learn about where they are, both culturally and ecologically, and for them to return to their school communities with renewed commitment to their missions. Our program would like to be able to use the property in these extended hours, but it is not realistic that we will have nearly as many people as during the summer when we have about 75 daily from 9 to 4 (mostly children) on the property during the week, and then about 50 people for 2-hour periods on the weekend days for ten weekends. We will be fortunate if we can have 10 days worth of activities, with as many as 100 children on the property for perhaps 4 hours from 10 to 2. We will almost certainly have a Spring Break program, and will likely be able to have groups interested in our program in the early fall and late spring when the weather is most inviting. This will be a new program, one that we are hoping will draw schools for its educational and ecological values. I would think it would be the sort of programming the County would be inclined to support as it is consistent with the goals of promoting responsible land use. The 12 acres includes critical slopes and a stream buffer, neither of which would be disturbed by the proposed buildings. The property is zoned Rural Areas and the Comprehensive Plan Land Use is also Rural Areas. The site does not lie within an entrance corridor and ARB review of the application will not be required. Vegetative buffers exist on the critical slopes and elsewhere between the proposed buildings and neighbors. These buffers will not be disturbed by construction of the proposed buildings . Consistency with the Comprehensive Plan: The Blue Ridge Swim Club was added to the National Register of Historic Places recently, through the work of its current owner, and we have had success in renewing its use and prolonging the longevity of the facilities. The pool and camp serve as a summer destination for hundreds of families in Western Albemarle County and the Charlottesville area. In addition, we run a scholarship program that makes our camp more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. In 2019, our program, supported by our scholarship foundation, provided 21 area children with full scholarships for two weeks of camp. The pool use has been in place since 1921 and the camp use has been in place since 2011 (the space originated as a camp in 1909). To this date, we are not aware of any complaints regarding its uses.. Impacts on Public Facilities/Infrastructure: This use will have negligible impacts on the public facilities and infrastructure in the area. Environmental Impacts and Features: The environmental character of the camp and pool along the north fork of Ivy Creek is a local treasure and the construction of improved facilities there near the parking lot will only enhance the quality of the operation and will in no way compromise the environment. One of the camp's primary goals is to expose area youth to the outdoors, with much attention to promoting responsible stewardship of our environment. It is abundantly important to support and encourage youth engagement in programs like this one in order to bring about more long-term commitment to protection of local outdoors spaces. Our younger generations will be left to address international environmental issues (like the climate crisis), and educating them about local issues is vital to long-range changes in attitudes toward our environment. Sewer: As we would like to add a kitchen for our food program, we spoke to the Thomas Jefferson Health Department officials about the prospect of adding that to our engineered sewer system. They said that they would be interested in the input of the engineer who designed our system, and in discussing the plan with Mike Craun of Old Dominion Engineering, he said that our current system had excessive capacity for a kitchen and that he would likely design a grease trap basin in the line to the sewer system when a more thorough site plan was developed. Neither the health department nor the engineer expressed any concern about the plan. Concept / Sketch Plan: Please see attached application plan.