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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06 14 1994 PC Minutes6-14-94 1 JUNE 14, 1994 The Albemarle County Planning Commission held a work session on Tuesday, June 14, Meeting Room 7, County Office Building, Charlottesville, Virginia. Those members present were: Ms. Babs Huckle, Chair; Mr. Tom Blue, Vice Chair (arrived at 8:00 p.m.); Mr. Bill Nitchmann; Ms. Katherine Imhoff; Mr. Bruce Dotson; and Mr. Tom Jenkins. Other officials present were: Mr. Wayne Cilimberg, Director of Planning and Community Development; Mr. David Benish, Chief of Community Development; and Mr. Larry Davis, County Attorney. Absent: Commissioner Vaughan. The meeting was called to order at 7:00 p.m. and a quorum was established. The approval of minutes for the May 31st meeting was deferred. ----------------------------------------- Mr. Cilimberg briefly summarized actions taken at the June 8, 1994 Board of Supervisors meeting. ----------------------------------------- WORK SESSION The Commission discussed staff's summary of the May 31st work session. They offered the following comments and changes to the summary. Statements on which there is consensus: [NOTE: Both categories and numbers used in this transcription refer to the same numbered statements and categories in staff's summary. Also, there was discussion as to how much amendment to staff's statements were necessary, or expected, at this time. Mr. Dotson offered several changes, as are shown below. It was ultimately decided that any suggested Commission changes would be reflected in the minutes.] (1) Growth is inevitable due to the attractiveness of the area. Mr. Dotson offered the following rewording: "We should recognize that for the past 2 decades we have been one of the state's rapid growth areas and continued growth may be inevitable due to the attractions of the area --it's beauty, the work ethic, the lack of crime, the lack of regulatory constraints." The Commission agreed with staff's statement and offered no objection to Mr. Dotson's rewording. (2) At a minimum, there is a willingness to accommodate growth (rather than to resist growth). Mr. Dotson agreed with this statement. He suggested the following addition: "This means, providing suitable acreage for each use and serving these areas with public facilities and services." Mr. Nitchmann expressed ov? 6-14-94 2 agreement with "accommodating growth," but he stated: "But I haven't seen this County being too willing to accommodate any industrial growth, at least in the last 4 or 5 years...." He questioned whether there is a "willingness to accommodate growth in general." Ms. Imhoff, after hearing Mr. Nitchmann's comments stated that perhaps this statement needs to be moved to the category of Statements on which there may be consensus. After Ms. Huckle explained that she felt the statement referred to just the Commission's position, and not the County as a whole, Mr. Nitchmann stated: "Then I disagree with the statement." Ms. Huckle asked the Commission: "Are there any other Commissioners who are not willing to accommodate growth?" There was no response to her question. (3) In order to understand "wbo we are," we need more information regarding existing businesses/industries. Mr. Dotson suggested the following addition: "We must recognize that we are not an average community; we have special characteristics as a university community and as a rapidly growing community." No other comment was offered. (4) We need to encourage/nuture existing businesses/industries. Ms. Huckle questioned the meaning of "encourage/nurture." Ms. Imhoff recalled that she had "brought that up." She said: "I brought it up in the context that we had spent a lot of time talking about attracting new businesses and I said 'we need to make sure that we retain a climate that is attractive for our existing businesses as well,' through infrastructure, through decisions we make, through the CIP, whether it's about land use decisions we make. I think I used a couple of different broad examples. But I want it on the plate that our existing industries are as important to us as attracting new industry." Ms. Huckle expressed the hope that "these things could be defined a little bit more." (5) We need to seek replacement for lost or declining businesses/industries. Ms. Huckle asked that "seek" be defined. Mr. Nitchmann responded: "Seek means we need to go out and look for some that fit in with all the criteria that we are going to have set forth after we go through a number of things that were presented in the plan that was put forth before the Board of Supervisors last year and regarding who we are, what we are, and what we have to offer. My feelings are that we do need to be pro -active in this area." When Ms. Huckle asked: "How do the rest of you feel about that," Mr. Dotson responded: "I think I would move it down to a non -consensus statement." Mr. Dotson offered the following re -wording: "While some sectors of the national and local economy have contracted, i.e. manufacturing, others have expanded with the result that there are more jobs in the community than at any point in the past." He noted that his was very different than the statement in the staff summary. Ms. Huckle stated she could not support the statement with the word o 6-14-94 3 "seek." It was agreed this statement would be moved to Statements on which there is not consensus. (6) We do not need an office of economic development, but there should be a person to come to for such information. Mr. Dotson suggested that the words "person to come to" be changed to "designated county staff person to come to for information on planned zoning, taxes, available sites and buildings." (7) Manufacturing is a significant and important mainstay of our local area. Ms. Imhoff did not feel this had been the point of the Commission's conversation. She felt the focus had been more on "saying manufacturing is important too, but we know it is kind of nationally declining." She did not feel this has been a consensus point. She suggested that it be either rephrased or moved the category of Statements on which there may be consensus. Mr. Nitchmann recalled that a statement had been that "manufacturing has always provided higher paying jobs than what the service level or retail level have, historically; therefore, they are a significant part of our economic well-being because they help support the wage base in the area." Ms. Imhoff had felt that the consensus, at the end of the meeting, was that "service is a larger and more important ---it wasn't just low - paying jobs, either that or we needed to change the definition that we were going to use in the future." Ms. Imhoff and Mr. Nitchmann both felt this probably belonged in the category Additional Information Re ested. Mr. Dotson offered the followed wording: "In addition to manufacturing, our economic base includes tourism, the university, regional retails sales, and a variety of special services," so there are a number of parts of the econmic base. Ms. Huckle expressed a desire to change the words "important mainstay" to "an important part of our local economy." (8) Growth has both positive and negative implications. There was no disagreement on this statement. Mr. Dotson offered the following addition: "Our standard in addressing the question of growth should be whether it makes the county stronger." (9) Economic diversity is important, including different types of businesses/industries providing for various income ranges. Mr. Dotson suggested the addition of the words "and work patterns." (10) Lower paying service jobs are necessary due to the demand for them. (They will not "go away.") Ms. Imhoff suggested the addition of the following statement: "But we must understand that the service industry is more than just lower paying jobs and it is a very important part of Virginia's growth, Albemarle County's growth." Mr. Nitchmann felt it would be interesting to have some data on "services jobs that relate to the higher educated types of service jobs, e.g. legal secretaries, 12-2/ 6-14-94 4 paralegals, etc." He expanded: "If the service jobs in the community contribute $10 in wages to the economy, what percentage of those wages is attributable to jobs that require more education... and how much the higher paid jobs are driving the lower paid jobs to come up with the wages." Ms. Imhoff pointed out that a lot of small business growth gets defined under the service sector. Ms. Huckle suggested the wording: "Some lower paying jobs are necessary, due to the demand for them." Ms. Imhoff felt there had been two different ideas, i.e. the need to always have some lower service jobs, but "we also were recognizing we've had a lot of growth, we'll have a lot more growth in the service sector, just because of how it's defined and what kind of extraneous jobs get lumped into that category." She suggested that perhaps this should be broken into two different consensus points. Mr. Dotson pointed out that more information is needed and he also noted that "we are recognizing that every community needs these jobs to be done and these are valued jobs...." (11) We do not want to destroy the characteristics of the area that make it attractive to businesses. There was no disagreement on this statement. Ms. Huckle expressed disappointment that the statement We do not want to exceed the capacity of our natural resources, especially water resources had been placed in the May be consensus category. She expressed the hope that the Commission could agree with this statement. Ms. Imhoff felt the discussion had been more in terms of "when are we going to exceed our natural resources?" She felt there had been a "general consensus" that the Commission does not want to see the natural resources destroyed or built on past their capacity. There was no opposition to moving this statement to the Consensus category. Statements on which there may be consensus (1) We need to decide what kind of businesses / industries are best for this area, and where they should locate, rather than waiting to see "what comes our way." Mr. Dotson felt it was premature to decide on whether there is consensus until more has been heard from the Resources Committee. He stated: "I sort of agree with it. In terms of whether or not we can really do it, it seems to me most of our instruments are pretty blunt. I am not sure I do agree with it." Mr. Nitchmann felt the statement did not really commit the Commission to anything, rather "once we look through our list of assets, we are going to sit down and say these types of businesses would fit and these wouldn't and where would they locate --we're going to go through that when we look at the land use of where we have our industrial lands specified and it's really a statement that I don't know where it belongs because it's not one of consensus or non -consensus, it's just a general statement." Ms. Huckle felt that some land should aaA 6-14-94 5 be designated industrial, but "it seems to (her) that new businesses and technologies are being invented every day and we can't predict and plan for those to come our way and I don't think we should limit ourselves except that we want clean industry." Ms. Imhoff felt the statement should remain "untouched and where it is." (2) A regional approach to economic development should be supported. Ms. Huckle questioned the definition of "supported." Ms. Imhoff felt it was in this category because "we don't know yet what that regional economic development proposal would look like and I think there was generally agreement that regionalism is important but I think that is as far as we got." Both Ms. Imhoff and Mr. Dotson felt the statement should remain as is, in this category. (3) The Comprehensive Plan economic development sections need to be expanded to include objectives and strageties. Commissioners agreed this statement should be moved to the Consensus category. Statements on which there is not consensus (1) There is a perception that the County does not want new business. Because some Commissioners (Nitchmann) agreed with this statement and others did not, it was agreed it was categorized accurately. Ms. Immoff felt No. 3 might cover this because "we don't know how far we want to go to promote and recruit business industry development. We all have different thresholds for that and maybe we could just leave that (No. 3) and strike No. 1." Ms. Huckle stated she did not have the perception that the county did not want new business. Responding to Ms. Imhoff's suggestion to strike this statment, Mr. Nitchmann stated that he had perceived from the public that it is felt "this county does not want new businesses." He concluded: "So there is not a consensus on this --you don't feel this way, I feel this way. I think it should be left in there and we will just move forward with it and see how the data comes out." The statement was to remain. (2) The fact that we are losing manufacturing jobs and how the County should address this situation. Mr. Dotson felt this was repetitious of No. 5 under Consensus items. Ms. Imhoff felt this was more an area for more investigation and should be moved to the Additional Information category. There was no objection to Ms. Ihmoff's suggestion. (3) The extent to which the County shall promote/recruit new growth. (There was no specific discussion of this statement.) (4) "Economic development should help the people already here," rather than encourage an increased population to help the existing businesses." (It was discovered that this comment had 6-14-94 6 been made by a member of the public. Some Commissioners felt it should not be included in this list.] Ms. Imhoff felt the Commission "had had a more positive feel for it than this statement indicates." She felt this idea had been covered in a more positive way in other statements. Mr. Nitchmann felt the statement was confusing as stated. Mr. Dotson agreed. Ms. Imhoff recalled that she had made the point "that we ought to build on existing industries for the people in the area." There was no opposition to Ms. Huckle's suggestion that the first part of the statement --"Economic development should help the people already here." --should be placed in the consensus category. Additional Information Requested The Commission did not discuss each item listed, but rather offered the following additions: --More information on small business growth, "particularly the size of businesses which have been created, the theory being that if we are following the national trend, we're having lots of 30-people or under, employment, rather than the 500-person industrial firm." (Imhoff) --Mr. Dotson questioned whether it was desirable to attempt to define "accommodate" and "promote," since he felt those were more policy -type, rather than definitional, questions. Ms. Imhoff agreed. It was agreed the request for a definition of these words would be deleted from the list. --Ms. Imhoff asked if staff could grapple with "high wage vs. low wage" and "how wages translate into being able to buy the average home." --Mr. Dotson asked for more information on the "comunities which have participated in the state's Certified Business Community Program" and more information on the economic conditions of those areas. ("What are the communities? What's their unemployment rate? What's their average income?) Mr. Nitchmann suggested that the State Employment Department should have information on the success of this program. He also expressed an interest in information on what would have happened in these communities if they had not participated in the program. Ms. Imhoff expressed interest in knowing which localities the state feels have done a good job with the program, including the benchmarks which are used to measure progress. Mr. Dotson suggested that it would be helpful to have a representative from the State Office of Economic Development address the Commission to answer these questions. --"What skills and education do businesses need for their workers to have?" (Imhoff) [Ms. Huckle called attention to an article she had read on an industry which had located in the Stuart's Draft community. Said industry had been more interested in the work ethic of the community since they felt if the work ethic was strong, the employees were trainable.] ;q;z7 6-14-94 Staff Analysis 1. There is acceptance that economic growth will occur and is necessary, and that a more proactive approach needs to be made to deal with that future development. .... Ms. Huckle expressed agreement with the first part of the statement but not with the second, i.e. she was not in favor of a more proactive approach. Mr. Dotson expressed the feeling that this part of the report was not necessary --that it was premature. He felt the statements already discussed should be allowed to speak for themselves. Ms. Imhoff agreed. She expressed an appreciation for staff's analysis, but she felt discussion should be postponed until the additional information requested has been gathered. 5. Prior to more specific discussions of the economic development section of the Plan the work committee on the economy/employment will need to provide further information on: analysis of the existing economic base; economic/employment forecasts; identification of strength and weaknesses in the economy; determination of the appropriate "mix" of employment addressing, to the extent feasible, the issue of under- employment; and consider implications of tourism, agriculture and forestry activities, and new local business development/incubation/spin-offs to the local economy. Staff asked specifically for comment on this statement. It was suggested that these items be included with the Additional Information list. Staff briefly reviewed the summer work session schedule for review of the Comp Plan and also discussed the outline for regional public meetings to be held at various locations throughout the County during the month of September. Mr. Nitchmann expressed the hope that the regional meetings would be presented so as to be clear and understandable by County citizens. ------------------------------------------ The following members of the public offered comments: Mr. Bob Watson -- He asked if the fiscal impact model would be a part of the consensus process. (Mr. Watson was mistakenly under the impression the model was almost complete.) He urged the Commission to use modern technology in its review process. Mr. Tom Olivier (Citizens for Albemarle) - He urged the Commission to try to use accurate data in its discussions as he felt "hearsay causes heated arguments." On the issue of accommodating growth, he commented: "Within our organization we accept that growth will occur and in the short run we do indeed have to accommodate the process. I think, though, that we also view growth in the long run --the continuation of it --as not being pragmatic, i.e. at some point we have to stabilize in this region. I think a very broad statement about being willing to aas 6-14-94 accommodate growth, without some other way, I think our pretty strong exception to Ms. Treva Cromwell (Le the hope that there would b review process. However, s meetings will realize that for controversial topics wo participate. 8 qualifying it about time p organization would have to at some point down the line. ague of Women Voters) - She e good public participation he was skeptical that the r hope. It was noted that mo uld be helpful in getting pe e riod or in take IF expressed in the egional re press ople to Ms. Lynn Wood (Piedmont Environmental Council) - She distributed copies of PEC's statement (dated June 16, 1993) on the Economic Development policy which had been discussed one year previously. ------------------------------------------ The work session ended at 9:15 p.m. DB ;?, RG