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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09 15 2020 PC MinutesALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 1 Albemarle County Planning Commission FINAL Minutes September 15, 2020 The Albemarle County Planning Commission held a public hearing on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. Members attending were Julian Bivins, Chair; Karen Firehock, Vice-Chair (arrived at 6:07 p.m.); Tim Keller; Rick Randolph; Daniel Bailey; Jennie More; Corey Clayborne; and Luis Carrazana, UVA representative. Members absent: none. Other officials present were Kevin McDermott; Jodie Filardo; Amelia McCulley; Andy Herrick, County Attorney’s Office; and Carolyn Shaffer, Clerk to the Planning Commission. Call to Order and Establish Quorum Mr. Bivins called the regular electronic meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. and established a quorum. Consent Agenda There were no consent agenda items. Work Session Transportation Projects Before beginning the work session, Mr. Rapp announced that Mr. Kevin McDermott had been recently promoted to Chief of Planning. He acknowledged Mr. McDermott’s hard work and skills. Mr. Kevin McDermott, Chief of Planning, said he would be giving the Planning Commission a presentation on Transportation Impact Analyses (TIAs). He said this presentation had been requested by the Commission, and that he would present information regarding how the TIA process works and what the analysis consists of. He offered to answer questions after the presentation. Mr. McDermott said he would cover the background on TIAs, their purpose, the process, and the elements that are typically included in a TIA. Mr. McDermott said TIAs are also sometimes called Traffic Impact Statements and evaluate a proposed project’s effect on the transportation system. He said TIAs are done for rezonings and special use permits because these are things for which legislative decisions are made, and so these give staff an opportunity to reflect on how the impacts will be assessed. Mr. McDermott said TIAs are requested when staff believes a development will substantially affect public transportation on roadways. He said “substantially affect” was somewhat of a questionable term, but that typically, the County thinks of this as 1,000 vehicles per day, or 150 new trips in a peak hour, as a threshold on public highways. He said VDOT typically requires TIAs at a much higher threshold of 5,000 vehicles per day and in the past, the County used to rely on VDOT’s thresholds. He said as transportation became more of an issue, however, and as many more ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 2 questions arose about transportation impacts, staff began looking at the 1,000-vehicles-per-day threshold. Mr. McDermott clarified if a TIA is not required (such as on smaller projects or with site plan reviews), staff does require the applicant to provide trip generation numbers so staff can review the impacts immediately adjacent to the development for site plans. He said there are also other analyses that are required for entrance permits onto public highways, which are usually done at the site plan stage as well. Mr. McDermott said in terms of what would generate 1,000 vehicles per day, he would present examples of projects of a certain scale that would do this. He explained that for single-family detached residential, for example, it would take about 105 units, but that apartments would be 150 units. He said for general office, this would be about 95,000 square feet. He said if there is a drive-thru, essentially any fast food restaurant will generate about 1,000 vehicles per day, as would a hotel of 125 rooms or a high school with 600 students. Mr. McDermott said other uses such as a daycare facility or private school tend to generate over 150 vehicles in the peak hour. He said although these uses do not generate many vehicles throughout the day, during the morning rush, they generate a high peak hour level of trips, which is why staff tends to have those applicants supply TIAs with their applications. Mr. McDermott said these estimates all came from the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), which is the standard used across the country and updated every so often with new studies. He said although the estimates were constantly improving, he would caution that they were just estimates and that every development has its own specificities that may generate more or less trips than what ITE would assume. He said staff does try to review all projects so they make sure they are capturing the ones they believe will truly have an impact. Mr. McDermott pointed out that with the 1,000-vehicles-per-day limit, when going below this and looking at smaller development, there is much more fluctuation in those numbers. He said as one can imagine, the bigger they get, the easier it is to estimate those trips. He said when smaller things come into play, there are many individual features that may change the trip development. He said when looking at small developments, it is difficult to get a trip generation estimate. Mr. McDermott said the purpose of TIAs is to provide staff and decisionmakers with the information necessary to evaluate potential impacts to transportation. He said a TIA identifies both existing and emerging transportation issues in the area, and recommends potential transportation improvements that would address those issues. Mr. McDermott said just because staff asks every TIA to provide recommendations does not mean that they expect that applicant or development to provide a proffer for those improvements, but that this was another thing staff looks at with these. He said those TIAs may be used by an applicant as a basis to propose reasonable proffers that would address transportation impacts. He said when staff looks at the TIAs and proffers, they must make sure that they are specifically attributable and that they are reasonable. Mr. McDermott said staff also requests recommendations from the applicant without expecting a proffer, such as in the case of a small development adding a small amount of traffic, where there is a lot of background traffic growth going on. He said staff would not expect that developer to be ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 3 responsible for improving the situation on a road that has existing problems, but that it was nice to be able to evaluate it in light of those existing problems. Mr. McDermott said in terms of the process of TIAs, during a pre-application meeting (which is required for every rezoning and special use permit in the County), staff reviews the proposal and assesses the potential need for a TIA. He said if one is determined necessary, staff will schedule a TIA scoping meeting with VDOT, the applicant, and their representatives. He said during this scoping meeting, they review the elements, methodology, and assumptions that would be used in the analysis. Mr. McDermott said that during the scoping meeting, the group discusses project phasing (i.e. the timing of development and if there are future phases to expect). He said they also look at intersections that would be evaluated in the area that would be impacted and agree on pass- through or internal capture rates. He said they list known approved developments in the area for consideration. He said they agree on a background traffic growth rate and discuss any other special considerations (e.g. existing safety issues in the area). Mr. McDermott said once the TIA is complete, all this information is summarized and is provided in the staff report to the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors. He said while the Commission and Board are always welcome to review the entire TIA, staff always reviews and summarizes it for them. Mr. McDermott said regarding the elements of the TIA, the first element was background information. He said this is generally a description of the proposed development and identification of planned transportation improvements, such as the ones from the master plan surrounding the area. He said they look at the geographic scope of the study area, which should include all the affected facilities within the area surrounding the development. Mr. McDermott presented a picture, noting it was the TIA from Southwood. He indicated on the picture a blue area, which was the Southwood development site. He said the numbered circles on the roadway were the intersections that staff asked the applicant to analyze, as they looked at how far the impact of Southwood would be. He said Southwood was generating a significant amount of traffic between the two phases, and staff looked at all the intersections they believed would be affected by it. He said these went all the way up to the interchange with I-64. Mr. McDermott said the next element was having the applicant perform an analysis of the existing conditions. He said this included current traffic counts, and so the applicant would send someone out to do physical traffic counts at all the intersections being evaluated. He said staff also asks the applicant to do this during normal operations – generally, Tuesday through Wednesday in the peak hours when there are no other events going on. He noted that they have not been doing these during COVID due to the change in traffic patterns. He said they did rely on existing traffic counts for the few applications that came in during this time. He said COVID was an example of when they would not want to get traffic counts because it was not under normal operations. Mr. McDermott said staff then looks at the existing operat ions of the analyzed facilities. He presented a picture from the Brookhill TIA. He said for this application, they looked at the lane assignments at the two intersections they were evaluating, and listed the peak hour counts for each of those movements. He said the picture showed the current traffic counts for the Brookhill development. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 4 Mr. McDermott continued that they then analyzed the operations of the existing facilities, explaining that this is done with modeling software (typically, SYNCHRO) that analyzes intersection operations at signalized intersections. He said those operations list the level of service, the delay in seconds (i.e. the number of seconds it takes from the minute one approaches the intersection to get through the intersection), and the queue length in feet. Mr. McDermott said the next element was the analysis of future conditions. He said the first thing staff wants the applicant to do is justify their future traffic volume estimates. He said this includes the background growth of traffic within the area, which is determined with VDOT and is typically 1-2% annual growth rate of traffic on all of the roads in Albemarle County. He said they also look at the significant known developments in the area that are already approved, but have not yet come online, so that the applicant can consider the traffic those would add to the system. Mr. McDermott said staff then has the applicant analyze the future operations, similar to how they analyze existing operations. He said they develop a future level of service, future queue length, and delay at all the intersections. He said staff wants this future operations analysis to look at the year built for the proposed development, so if the applicant thinks the proposed development were to be completed in 2024, for instance, staff wants the applicant to analyze the future operations if that were not to be built so that this can be compared to what they believe the future operations would be with the development. Mr. McDermott said the next element was the trip generation estimate. He said the applicant looks at the proposed buildout and gets the trip generation estimates from ITE. He said staff always asks the applicant to look at the maximum buildout of the development. He said at times, there is a rezoning where the applicant proposes one thing, but where the rezoning would actually allow them to build at a higher level. He said therefore, staff asks them to look at the maximum amount possible under that new zoning, which is what the applicant reports in their trip generation estimates. Mr. McDermott said staff also has the applicant justifies things like modal splits, internal capture, and pass-by percentages. He said modal splits would be the percentage of the traffic staff believes will come by bike, pedestrian, or transit. He said the applicant can reduce that from the amount of traffic they are adding to the roadway. Mr. McDermott said internal capture is for mixed-use developments, where people are expected to be making a trip into the area, but perhaps going to more than one store, or going from their office to an adjacent store, or from home to office. He said if there is a larger mixed-use development, that percentage of internal capture would be much higher because while the traffic estimates look at each individual use, putting them all together reduces the amount of total traffic volumes. Mr. McDermott said that pass-by is another reduction, and that these trips come with uses that are not generally new destinations. He said these include uses like coffee shops or gas stations where people do not typically go out of their way to go there. He said they are stopping at those places on their way while passing by and already on the road, and so it is not actually a new trip. He said the only change to that trip would be that they are turning into the development from the road they were already on. He said this could be a reduction for some uses. Mr. McDermott said staff then has the applicant do the site traffic distribution and assignment. He presented an example on the screen from Parkway Place, explaining that there were percentages ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 5 assigned as to where it was believed that the site would either send trips to it, or where it was believed that trips would arrive to it from. He said in this example, it was assumed that 31% of the people coming to or going from Parkway Place would be going down John Warner Parkway or coming from that direction. He said 32% would be coming from Rio Road towards Route 29, and that another 32% were heading all the way down to the City on Rio Road. He said these are estimates staff and the applicant work out together during the scoping meeting as they are talking to VDOT, the developer, and planner. Mr. McDermott said staff then has the applicant analyze future conditions with the development. He showed the Parkway Place example again, looking specifically at the Rio Road/John Warner Parkway/CATEC driveway. He said the first line shown was the existing 2018 traffic conditions, and that it had the no-build and build scenarios. Mr. McDermott said with Parkway Place, there was the scenario of “build with improvements,” and that they showed some of the improvements proposed to demonstrate how these would benefit the area. He said each line of the lane group represented a turning movement (eastbound left, eastbound right, and the storage length of any turn lanes). He said this also listed the peak hour numbers for both AM and PM and for each movement, a level of service, a delay, and the length of the queue in feet. He said it also included an overall operations analysis for the level of service to give an idea as to what the average level of service was with each intersection. Mr. McDermott said staff always asks the applicant to make recommendations as to how they can improve traffic in the area. He said they assess the potential transportation improvements that would address the issues identified by the TIA. He said the roundabout shown on the screen was analyzed for the Albemarle Business Campus (ABC) application. He said applicants look at adding a signal, turn lanes, or reconstruction of an intersection and then analyze each one of those, eventually leading to a conclusion. He said they then summarize the impacts, operations, and recommendations from the assessment. He reminded the Commission that in the ABC application, they settled on the fact that the roundabout was the best solution at the intersection at 5th Street and Old Lynchburg Road. Mr. McDermott concluded his presentation and offered to discuss the information further or answer any questions. Mr. Clayborne said the presentation was great, and congratulated Mr. McDermott on his promotion. He asked if there were a national credential to do the TIA work and if so, what it was. Mr. McDermott replied that the state has a requirement for TIAs, and that the County goes by these requirements. He said a TIA has to be done by a professional who is qualified to do this. He said there are a number of firms in the region that staff works with generally. He said this does not require a PE but that often times, they are done by PEs or led by licensed engineers, who sign the documents when they perform TIAs. He said although these were not specifically required, they were who typically performs them. Mr. Clayborne asked Mr. McDermott if he felt comfortable with the quality control and results. Mr. McDermott replied yes. He said it is a legislative requirement that the work must be performed by a qualified individual. He said the County has an agreement with VDOT that they will review every TIA. He said VDOT has professional transportation engineers, and one of the requirements is that the submitter of the TIA has to provide the modeling data for VDOT to take this data and ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 6 run a quality control check on it. He said that almost every time, they find some problem with the TIA. He noted that this was not done nefariously, but that these were typical mistakes that VDOT does catch. He said on nearly every TIA, staff will find a small problem and asks the applicant to reevaluate, which they do. He said the TIAs go through a thorough review process and that staff are ultimately confident with the results. Mr. Clayborne asked to see the slide on elements again. He said the table on the slide was one he had seen before with data. He asked Mr. McDermott where he should be focusing his attention on this document to make informed decisions. Mr. McDermott replied that staff provides a summary in their report that points out the major issues they want the Commission to look at. He said there were a couple of things he would keep in mind with this. He said he did not tend to put much weight in level of service because these were somewhat randomly chosen. He said for one person, they may say that 30 seconds is far too long to wait at a signal and for another person, they may be used to waiting 2-3 minutes. He said one may go through multiple intersections and if every one of those intersections has a significant delay, it becomes more annoying than if one only had to go through one intersection. He said this was why he did not put much credence in the actual level of service, although it did make it easier to read. Mr. McDermott said he looks at what the major movements are, and if the delay was longer or shorter than what one would expect in that spot. He said another point was looking at the queue length to see if it will interfere with other operations. He said if there is a queue length that goes back into a second intersection or that blocks another intersection that comes into that major road, those were things that he would point at. Mr. McDermott acknowledged that the table on the screen contained a great deal of information, but that the main points they were looking at were the build conditions the applicant was proposing, along with the “no-build” scenario. He said existing conditions did not have any effect, nor if there were a “build with no improvements” because staff would not be telling the applicant to build the development, but not build the improvements they were recommending. He said they look at “no-build future” versus “build future” and then find out what specific areas are the worst movements for those. He said staff will always point these out in their report. Mr. Clayborne said this was very helpful. Mr. Randolph asked Mr. McDermott if he could go back to the slide about ITE. He said as engineers approach the world, they look at the deltas, which are the changes. He said they are not really interested in what is existing. He said the normal assumption was that they were looking at a zero-value field. He said they may add 1,000 trips per day, but that there was no factoring in of existing traffic. He said it was up to 1,000 in addition. Mr. Randolph pointed out that this kind of estimate does not factor in existing levels of congestion, and the cumulative effect of adding additional traffic, which may not be 1,000 trips per day, but perhaps 500. He said 500 trips per day on an already highly congested transit corridor, however, can have a tremendous impact in terms of the ability for existing residents to utilize the road. Mr. Randolph said the other problem he saw with this was that they were treating each project in isolation – separate, but equal – but not looking at how the combination Project A in a corridor ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 7 and Project B in the same corridor (which are at different points in the development process, i.e. the permitting process with the County) can have an impact of greater than 1,000 trips per day. Mr. Randolph said currently, by looking at each of these projects in isolation, they are not factoring in the cumulative impact of projects on already congested corridors. He said instead, they are relying on engineering science to say that if it is up to 1,000 trips per day, this will be acceptable. He pointed out that methodologically, there was a problem there in terms of what they were dealing with. He said residents in these congested corridors where the roads have not expanded to deal with the density and volume of traffic now on those roads know and can feel those effects. He said as a Planning Commission and Board, they were trying to be responsive to those effects, knowing that they are there. He said the science did not necessarily reflect that. Mr. McDermott agreed. Mr. Randolph said when a TIA is required, and as Mr. McDermott pointed out in the discussion section on page 2, “The County staff holds a scoping meeting with VDOT staff, the applicant, and their selected qualified transportation professional.” He said looking objectively at an existing congested corridor, if the applicant has an opportunity to meet with VDOT (which is willing, under their standard, to say that up to 5,000 vehicle trips per day is acceptable to them), he wondered if there should not be some allowance somewhere in this process for the community, or for at least the CACs, to be represented in that discussion so that they are able to weigh in and express their concerns. He said it certainly looked as if the process was heavily biased towards the applicant. Mr. McDermott reminded the Commission that staff was not saying that 5,000 trips was acceptable. He said 5,000 trips is the threshold that triggers a state requirement for a TIA, and that the County uses 1,000 trips per day as its threshold. He said this was not written in the regulations, and what was written was that the Director of Planning, at his discretion, can require a TIA. He said on occasion, the County has required TIAs for numbers below 1,000 if the project were going on a corridor that was already experiencing significant congestion. Mr. McDermott said when staff looks at the corridors that have major congestion due to cumulative effects, as opposed to something that is driven by a single development, this is where they look at some of their other tools that should be evaluating this. He said these tools include the master planning process as well as the Long-Range Transportation Plan that is done through the MPO, which models the entire region and how traffic operates there. He said these are considerations staff takes into account when assessing impacts from a certain development and that they try to provide the Commission with information on as well. Mr. McDermott said the TIA was one of the many tools they try to use to evaluate transportation, and that it was good for one specific thing: to evaluate the impact of a single development on the facilities that immediately surround it. He said it was not the tool they would use to evaluate a larger corridor, necessarily. Mr. Bivins asked Mr. McDermott when a development is not by right and goes before a CAC, if this type of information would be shared with the CAC. Mr. McDermott replied that if staff has required a TIA, they usually require this to be submitted with the application. He said many times, the applicant has this information by the time they hold the public meeting, and so this information can be shared with the CAC, generally. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 8 Ms. More said when Mr. McDermott answered Mr. Bivins, it made her wonder about by right developments and that it was her understanding that those were not required to have a TIA. Mr. McDermott confirmed that for by right developments, staff does not require TIAs. He said they do, however, require entrance permit analyses that look at the impacts immediately where their entrance to a public highway would be. He said with any by right development, VDOT could require certain things, but that the County does not require the applicant to look at offsite facilities with by right. Ms. More asked if the applicant does not, then, do a TIA in the traditional sense that Mr. McDermott was describing to the Commission. Mr. McDermott said this was correct. Ms. More said she understood that they could only require what they can, and that often times, they associate by right with plans that are less dense. She said there are situations, however, where there are some by right developments that are quite dense. Ms. More said getting back to Mr. Randolph’s comment about looking at these projects in isolation, she had a huge concern about this. She said she wondered when there is a development that is actively building, if the existing conditions were the same thing as what Mr. Randolph was pointing out about either looking at things in isolation or having a development building that may not have generated traffic yet. She said if someone is coming in and using that same main road, it seemed like the TIA would somewhat neglect to add the potential impacts of that new development into what they know is coming. She said it was not just about the application that was in the process and that they know may take longer, change, or go away. Ms. More said if there are by right developments in the same corridor, although the County knows they are happening, they may have not generated traffic yet. She said she wondered how this works and if this was in VDOT’s arena. She asked if they have hopefully identified road improvements through master planning and other processes, it would take care of some of that congestion. She said some of this congestion has occurred in places where it was not anticipated, and that the surrounding roads were never anticipated to support that much traffic. Ms. More added that on some older roads, it is very difficult to expand those roadways. She said in Crozet, for example, there are natural barriers that make it so that those roads cannot be made wider and they do not meet VDOT standards but somehow, as larger neighborhoods infill and as these roads that were never meant to take that on and are very difficult to expand, what she has seen is that alternate access points are made, and that perhaps even more than two access points are created so that there are choices for drivers to take. She said one single road cannot handle all of that traffic at peak times. Ms. More said knowing there are existing conditions with developments that are actively building, and knowing there will be impacts, she wondered how the TIA information can inform potential impacts of a new request. Mr. McDermott said those existing TIAs are considered. He said going into the scoping meeting, staff has established what they believe to be existing conditions as well as the background traffic growth rates. He said they consider things such as how development is going into the corridor ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 9 overall. He said if they have numbers for developments that are already approved, it is easy for staff to say that they can assume it will be a full buildout, and that those numbers are all considered. Mr. McDermott said if there are other projects that staff believes will happen, they can require the applicant to put those in, and that how staff requires this depends on how confident they are in knowing the amount of traffic it might generate. He said if they have a good idea as to what density or number of units the applicant may be developing, they can tell the applicant to include that number of units on that location and assume it will be built. Mr. McDermott said they have between a 1-2% annual increase in all the roads in Albemarle County, so if the application is in a corridor that they think they will see a lot of future development on, they can tell the applicant to go to the maximum and include a 2% annual growth rate on that. He said if it is a corridor, they do not expect that in, staff will keep it down closer to a 1% growth rate. He said they can go anywhere between 1-2% (e.g. 1.25%, 1.5%). Mr. McDermott said getting to the by right issue, it would not do any good for staff to request TIAs for by right, as they do not have any regulations that would allow them to. He said even if they did, they cannot make a decision that would change how the applicant would develop because they were by right. He said unfortunately, they were stuck with those by right numbers. Mr. McDermott said in the master planning process when they look at land use, they should be looking at how traffic operations are in that area, and then the recommendations in those master plans should be reflective of those conditions. He said in Crozet, when making recommendations for higher-density land uses, they want to consider what traffic will look like and what the maximum is that the roads can handle. Mr. McDermott said they may not be able to widen roads, but that most of the problems with roads are the things that are holding back travel on roads or at intersections. He said they often find ways to improve intersections without having to widen roads, which will allow the traffic to flow. Mr. McDermott said there are also many questions about peak hour movement and that, as a County, they need to accept things like “D” and “F” levels of service at peak hour times. He said they do not want this to be the norm, however, as far as the level of service all day long. He said they do not want to build roads to make sure that everyone leaving their houses between 8:00- 9:00 a.m. will be able to move through a level of service “A” corridor the entire way because it was not worth it for the County when it comes to the cost. Ms. More said that for the by right developments that have been more dense than what is typically seen by right, and with an example of this she has seen in Crozet, she was under the impression that VDOT requires these developers to widen roads that did not meet VDOT standards. She said she assumed this was an interaction that occurred between that particular development and VDOT (not the County) that required them to widen the road and do curb-and-gutter sidewalk. She asked if this was correct. Mr. McDermott replied that the County can require sidewalks with by right developments, but that VDOT has a higher ability to make requirements of a developer, even in a by right situation. He said if the applicants are causing a major problem with the traffic right in front of the entrance or on a small segment there, VDOT can make requirements to ensure they will not cause major safety issues. He said generally, VDOT is looking to require new turn lanes and similar types of ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 10 improvements. He said it was not something they were able to typically require as far as a major reconstruction project. He said he would have to dig deeper with VDOT to find out how far they can push that, as he was not exactly sure, but that they do have a much higher ability to require things from the developers than the County does. Ms. More said that from her personal experience, it seemed that even if VDOT may not have been requiring major construction, they did require work before something became a problem. She said VDOT had looked at where an entrance would be and the line of sight, then quickly identified the need to widen the road so that this was handled from the start. She said although this was good, this was not always the way things work with VDOT. She said the issue was around making things safe to start with, but that they were dealing with some older neighborhoods and some strange things that VDOT would have never built or approved. She said they are working closely in trying to get this place prior to traffic impacts occurring. Mr. Keller said he would like to build on the cumulative issues that Mr. Randolph and Ms. More spoke to. He said part of the reason for having this presentation was the questions around the cumulative set of issues, which are seen consistently on almost every project of size. Mr. Keller said since Mr. McDermott has presented and heard from the Commission, he wanted to know if Mr. McDermott had a suggestion beyond it being at the discretion of the Planning Director for the TIA to kick in in these kinds of situations. He asked if Mr. McDermott could suggest another set of numbers to the Supervisors to consider than the ones that he presented. Mr. McDermott reminded Mr. Keller that when dropping below 1,000 vehicles per day, the estimates become sketchy, and so many more considerations need to be made as to how much traffic a smaller development would generate. He said the numbers improve and become more exact as the development grows in size. Mr. McDermott said staff cannot ask for traffic studies that go beyond what would be evaluating the impacts of the single development, per state law. He said staff is not able to ask for much more from the developers than what they do ask. Mr. McDermott said something staff has been moving towards that the Commission and Board has shown a lot of support for is that they, as a County, need to be looking at the corridors ahead of time in trying to figure out what is happening in the corridor overall so that they can get a grasp on those cumulative impacts. He said they are currently doing this with the Rio Corridor Study. He said looking towards those kinds of studies was a much better option than looking to developers of smaller developments to analyze the impacts of their own, as it makes it much harder on those developers to try to assume what is going on throughout the corridor. He said the developer also often will not have the money to be able to put into those studies. Mr. McDermott said when the County looks at those corridor studies, what they can then do is use the information from the corridor study and supply it to developments as they come in so that they can consider the existing conditions and what the ultimate recommendations are for that corridor when they are developing. He said he believed this was a more important way to evaluate it, rather than asking smaller developers along corridors to perform their own TIAs. He said the developers will look at the impacts from their own developments at specific intersections, but that they were not considering how these fit into the overall corridor. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 11 Mr. Keller said this made sense. He asked Mr. McDermott if, because of the state regulations, he saw within his set of recommendations that there may be one for the County to consider working with other counties on a legislative initiative that would possibly change that round rule with VDOT. Mr. McDermott replied that he did not think this was necessarily the way that he would look at it. He said if there were anything he would look to the state to help the County with, it would be to give them more resources to perform the additional studies on long-range impacts in larger regions and to help the County fund additional studies that would evaluate how traffic moves from one area to another and what major improvements they may want to look at that would assist in addressing those things. He said he preferred this over changing the law to allow the County to require more from smaller developers. Mr. Keller said he would be interested in hearing what the other Commissioners thought, but that it seemed that what Mr. McDermott just said was something that was a logical policy recommendation that might be part of this presentation for the Supervisors. Mr. Keller said his last question was going to be the discussion of this with adjacent jurisdictions. He said obviously, the primary one would be Charlottesville, which is where they were thinking in terms of Route 29, Rio Road, and 5th Street Extended. He said more and more in the future, however, there may be issues with Greene on 29 North. He asked Mr. McDermott if he could speak more about the shortcomings of how the data across the jurisdictions work with the TIA (e.g. 5th Street), and whether this would be another reason for him to consider and perhaps retool that recommendation for the Supervisors when they are thinking about their legislative agenda for the next year. Mr. McDermott said the MPO, with their most recent study, they did start to include Greene County in that assessment, so they were assuming that there was a lot of traffic coming from Greene County. He said the region obviously already includes the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. He said when the Long-Range Transportation Plan was created for the MPO, the movements between those jurisdictions was included. Mr. McDermott said what would be more helpful to staff was to be able to put in more analysis and get more of a public involvement process as they move through the Long-Range Transportation Plan. He said many pieces of that were already getting at some of the questions Mr. Keller had, but that this was not the best process for allowing everyone to participate like the County would like to. He said trying to mimic the master planning process with the Long-Range Transportation Plan would be much more beneficial. He said the County can start pushing for that in their next update of the Long-Range Transportation Plan and have them look more at how the travel between the jurisdictions is affecting the infrastructure within Albemarle County. Mr. McDermott said the County was starting to better work with all the neighboring jurisdictions, and even with those just on the other side of the mountain. He said they recently received funding for a new bus service that goes from Shenandoah Valley, Waynesboro, and Staunton to Charlottesville and the County. He said things like this were good opportunities to start moving towards a more interregional network that allows for addressing some of those impacts. Mr. Keller encouraged Mr. McDermott to consider a final slide in the presentation that would point to some of these issues that he had obviously been thinking about but did not include in this presentation. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 12 Mr. Bailey said he had read a couple of the TIAs and different applications, and that he was curious to hear Mr. McDermott’s thoughts on the data that goes into these. He said it seemed like a manually intensive effort, which he assumed added to the cost, to send someone out to manually count cars. He said he was curious as to Mr. McDermott’s thoughts on how that data is collected and what alternative data approaches would be. He said he knew there were questions around mobility data, and that VDOT has done some work around alternative data approaches to understand traffic movement and the beginning and end of trips. He asked if the County has been exploring those types of approaches. Mr. McDermott replied yes. He said the traffic counts staff receives generally are not done by hand. He said a camera is set up and can count those movements automatically. He said staff receives good data from those. Mr. McDermott said perhaps what Mr. Bailey was referring to is that they get a lot of data from phones these days, and when they work with VDOT through the MPO, they do have access to some of that information. He said this data can tell them how people are traveling by tracking their phones so they can see where they are coming from, where they are going, and how many people are on the road at certain times. He said this information improves every time they look at it. Mr. McDermott said he, Mr. Rapp, and others in CDD have talked about this internally in terms of possibly partnering with some of the companies that collect that data, and about using this data to give them a better idea of what is going on in a regional market. He said the data becomes handier when looking at the Long-Range Transportation Plan that looks regionally at how movements are made. He said they will continue to evaluate this, but that they do access this data occasionally already when they work with VDOT. Ms. Firehock said she thought the staff memo Mr. McDermott provided made for an excellent fact sheet to send out to citizens. She said they receive the same questions over and over again about how the traffic counts are done and what is considered. She said she would use this as her go-to piece to send out, and that perhaps the County should post that on the website for people to find easily and to use over and over again. Mr. McDermott agreed. He said they could find a place on the County website, such as the transportation page, to summarize the process in an FAQ format. Mr. Bivins said he did a dive into the 2020 survey that went out earlier in the year and was struck by the fact that most respondents worked in the County, with only 17% working in the City. He said as Mr. Keller was trying to say, there may be a nexus to the other jurisdictions (e.g. Louisa and Fluvanna to the east, and Greene and Orange to the north). Mr. Carrazana expressed that the presentation was informative and answered many of the projects that UVA receives in terms of where the numbers come from. He asked if he could have a copy of the presentation so that he could borrow the information for some of the UVA projects. Mr. Carrazana said his comment went back to Mr. Keller’s last point. He said this was an opportunity to be forward-looking, to take this information, data sets, and tools and think about how these apply to master plans in order to look into the future and be proactive instead of reactive. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 13 Mr. Carrazana described the “proactive” approach. He said that when making master plans, looking at the totality of an area under development and beginning to understand what types of projects can go there, they can then use these tools to assert the types of traffic flows and potential areas that need additional infrastructure. Mr. Carrazana said the “reactive” approach was to look at these projects as they come about and used the example of Light Industrial use serving as a trigger (with 1,000 vehicles per day). He said he did not think Mr. McDermott was suggesting that this was how they would use the TIAs, but that they would use them in a broader sense. He said he applauded the forward-looking nature of this, as this was how he understood it, as well as the collaboration piece as they start looking at other jurisdictions. Mr. Carrazana said he did think this was a great opportunity to be more encompassing and apply it to master plans, as he did think more of this was needed, and particularly with how they partner with VDOT to ask the state for money for infrastructure. He said if there is a forward -looking approach and a master plan that begins to identify areas where infrastructure is needed, this is an opportunity to partner with the City and UVA. Mr. Carrazana said they were all in this together, as traffic impacts everyone, and they all have a role to play whether it is UVA, the City, or the County creating the traffic. He said together, they can potentially come up with solutions. He acknowledged they have had issues in the not-so- distant past where they are all going after similar projects that are competing against each other as they ask for state funds (e.g. Smart Scale projects). He said this was a great tool to help the entities be more collaborative in how they go after the funds, adding that it will take large amounts of money to deal with the existing infrastructure issues and the ones they will be creating as they develop these development zones. Mr. Bivins opened the public hearing. Hearing no speakers, he closed the public hearing. Mr. Bivins said Mr. Keller had suggested Mr. McDermott including an addition in his presentation to the Board of Supervisors. He then realized that Mr. McDermott had already made this presentation. Mr. McDermott said he had, but if they wanted to continue this discussion with the Board about other things they would like to see, they could bring it back to them. Mr. Bivins said there was a piece to this that was preparing the Board regarding how to have conversations about continued development opportunities presented to the County, and what skills or approach they would need to be engaged with. He asked if, looking further down the road, whether this was the between the MPO and the Culpepper District, this could be something to look at in terms of traffic flow across the community. He said this may be something that would be interesting for the Commission to hear at some point, in looking at their contiguous communities and understanding what some of the larger-scale projects were that were coming in 2021 that would be focused on coming through their community. Mr. Bivins said that in Greene County, a number of people were building there because they could not afford to live in Albemarle County. He said having some sense of what the inflow of traffic could be in the County would help lift up Mr. Keller’s and Mr. Randolph’s points. He said nearly every Commissioner had talked, in some way, about looking at the major delta as opposed to the project delta. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 14 Mr. Rapp said he believed the answer to the larger picture was in local, regional, and state coordination and planning, as mentioned. He said if there was one thing that was clear with the proffer legislation over recent years, they can really only tie improvements to those specific impacts of a development. He said as Mr. McDermott, when looking at TIAs, it was somewhat of a narrow focus and limited in terms of how far they can go in that scope. Mr. Rapp said although each development does what they can with their specific impacts, when talking about system improvements, many of those are much more expensive. He said a roundabout cost $5-10 million, for example. He said unless one has a large-scale development, there is only so much they can do to cover the impact. Mr. Rapp said the Rio Road Corridor was a great example the County was currently studying. He said there were so many TIAs done over recent years that they have a wealth of information that was not only useful when they came to the Commission and Board, but they were now very useful to staff and consultants in evaluating and projecting future impacts that may happen from those developments that are underway. He said they were also taking a broader view of the future land use designation of those parcels that are highly likely to be redeveloped in the future and what the growth of those might be. Mr. Rapp said that as Mr. Carrazana had mentioned, this would be a more proactive approach as to what this corridor might be in the future and what they want it to be. He said this was more about planning for the long range rather than what would fix it in 10 years, and what would give it the best chance of succeeding long-term for all modes of travel. He said it was important not to only think of the vehicular travelways, but about multiuse paths, public transportation, and the other multimodal options. Presentation JAUNT Transit Mr. Brad Sheffield said he wanted to discuss an initiative related to a revolution of what JAUNT already provides for the community, and that expands what they can continue to do. He said this was the concept of on-demand transit. Mr. Sheffield said he would give the Commission an overview of a list of the presentations JAUNT was making across the region with a focus on Charlottesville and Albemarle. He said they would continue to try to engage the public and decisionmakers and start the discussion. He said as they begin to move into more of the implementation of the concept and platform, they want to make sure they are headed in the right direction to respond to expectations as well as to many of the questions that would come from it, as it is a fairly new approach to providing transit. Mr. Sheffield said if the Commission had any suggestions after the presentation, they could share them with he and Ms. Jody Saunders. Mr. Sheffield noted that the Places29 (Hydraulic) CAC was on the list of organizations to present to, and that he intended to engage some of the other CACs in the County as well. Mr. Sheffield said the next slide would provide a sense of what the concept of on-demand transit is about, and especially for JAUNT. He said on-demand transit is customer-focused and looks at ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 15 responding to the different needs that would pop up, rather than deploying a service and hoping that people adapt to what is being put out on there on a set schedule. Mr. Sheffield said when looking at on-demand, they know that it will be able to adapt to not only where they would pick people up and take them to, but also when. He said current transit has those limitations where they are not able to adapt as quickly, which is where on-demand separates itself. Mr. Sheffield said from an availability standpoint, the concept of immediate available takes on not just the service itself, but the ability to adapt to those requests that come in, which start to shape where transit could actually be more successful. He said instead of going through any kind of schedule changes, they can get that availability up and running as needed. Mr. Sheffield said one of the more profound examples of this was during the pandemic. He prefaced by noting that JAUNT submitted for a federal grant around this concept, adding that it was one that had a strong meaning to him and to JAUNT itself around food security. He said with the pandemic, they are seeing a spike in the need to access food security. He said one of the top limitations of securing this is transportation and connecting people to those locations where they can access food. He said something like on-demand could immediately be shaped around what those types of needs would be for transportation connectivity and make that connection. Mr. Sheffield said in JAUNT’s mind, they were not just putting something in that meets whatever they see happening now, but that putting a platform in place allows them to adapt and change. Mr. Sheffield said another aspect was being more rider specific. He said during the pandemic, it becomes more difficult to talk about on-demand and fares because they are running fare-free to minimize the level of contact their drivers have with passengers. He said that even beyond the pandemic, they will see the opportunity to be able to offer these types of services shaped around the needs. He said when talking about the socioeconomic limitations of people getting mobility, they can take that into consideration when they are offering different services, versus the partnerships that they might develop that also help to shape the services. Mr. Sheffield said for JAUNT, it was good for them to have printables (referring to the RIDES acronym) that they shape what they are doing around so that they do not lose focus, and that there were five principles that he would touch on to give the Commission a sense of where they were going with this. Mr. Sheffield said responsiveness was about being responsive to customers, partnerships, the community, and what the needs are. Mr. Sheffield said another principle at the core of JAUNT was being inclusive. He said this ranges from having a platform that is accessible for some sort of disability to the services themselves being inclusive of all types of needs that may be there. Mr. Sheffield said from a dynamic standpoint, the platform that JAUNT was looking at putting into place would allow them to offer a range of partnerships and opportunities. He said they were able to not just look at one solution for one problem, but offer a range of opportunities, including unforeseen needs that may emerge. Mr. Sheffield said the principle he liked to talk about best was “empowering.” He said the concept ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 16 of on-demand flips transit on its head in the sense that instead of a passenger looking at a schedule, going to a bus stop, and waiting – or even in the sense of calling ahead of time and scheduling a trip with JAUNT – they are now putting that power of requesting the trip immediately in the hands of the passenger. He said the passenger will feel more empowered with the service they are requesting. Mr. Sheffield said on the app side, the passenger is able to track the location and ETA of the services as well as any other connections they may be looking to make. He said this will change how people approach accessing transit because they will feel like they are directly communicating with a driver. Mr. Sheffield said the last aspect was one of the major benefits of on-demand in the public transit world, which was safety. He said transit is held to a very high level of safety standards that he did not believe even the private sector could match. He said he wanted to make sure the public understood, even during this time of COVID, that the levels or extent by which JAUNT goes to look after the safety of its passengers goes far beyond what one would comprehend, and that they will continue to focus on that aspect. Mr. Sheffield said the next slide offered a teaser of what JAUNT saw happening with this type of platform. He said before he would dive into talking about the concept of the convergence of opportunities, he wanted to say that as he began bringing this concept forward to different discussions, he started receiving many questions about where else on-demand was happening in the country, or even in the world. He said he stumbled over this somewhat because he was perplexed. He said it dawned on him one day that when he looked at the on-demand platforms out there, what he saw was a range of opportunities for applying technology to a commitment to services for a community. Mr. Sheffield said what had been and still was happening in the transit world was that transit comes across a problem where they try to connect seniors on the weekend to shopping, or late- night services to college students to get home safely, and they see on-demand as a solution to that challenge. He said he didn’t actually see it that way. He said he saw this platform as offering endless ways to meet the emerging needs the community. Mr. Sheffield said as he talked more about it, he began coming up with the concept of the convergence of opportunities. He said this is a platform that is layered with many opportunities where it does not have to be something the user understands. He said the user just needs to access the platform and that the platform, based on the user’s needs, offers up what services are available. He said it simplifies the initial barrier of, “Am I able to ride JAUNT?” He said their number one question is whether or not one can ride JAUNT based on where they live and that sometimes, they do not even ask but assume. Mr. Sheffield said one example was connecting people to jobs. He said JAUNT has partnered with Network to Work and other entities to look at how on-demand can connect those initial jobseekers to the jobs that may be off of some main transit lines. He said on the transit growth side, there is a huge opportunity to act as an incubator for the potential of fixed-route services. Mr. Sheffield said in Mill Creek, JAUNT wants to see some sort of fixed-route service go out that way, but if they started to implement an on-demand approach, they could start teasing out what kind of interest there is in transit and what kinds of parameters or expectations might come along with that to then eventually put something more fixed in place that satisfies those needs. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 17 Mr. Sheffield said with the agencies they work, the opportunities can broaden, and with any kinds of gaps in the transit or transportation network, better connections can be created. He explained that if he were trying to get from his house to a transit hub on Route 29, for example, on-demand could help make that connection and then, he could take CAT the rest of the way to his destination. Mr. Sheffield said one of the more recent opportunities was the employer partnership where JAUNT can work with employers who seek the stay in the area, but are looking to offer their employees a new way of getting to work or to other destinations. He said JAUNT can shape their services around those needs, as well as around the needs of the general public. Mr. Sheffield said there were many opportunities JAUNT was continuously coming across. He said when he first made this presentation in front of the Board of Supervisors about a year ago, he attended a Chamber event the next evening and about three different people came up to him and asked him, “Could your concept do this for us?” He said this was great because they were coming up with opportunities themselves, and that JAUNT hoped this would continue as they looked to move forward with the implementation of on-demand. He said the hope was that people would connect the dots themselves and begin approaching JAUNT with their thoughts. Mr. Sheffield said in closing, when JAUNT looks at moving forward with anything in transit, it is so important to get these concepts in the County’s plans (e.g. Comprehensive Plan, Long-Range Plan). He said this was not only about going after funding, but to be transparent with the public about what the intentions are. Mr. Sheffield offered Crozet Connect as an example. He said the state wanted to make sure that Albemarle wanted that service. He said to him, this was obvious because it had been talked about for so long, but the state wanted to see where this existed in the plans so that it was documented that the plans would support it. He said at a later date, JAUNT would come back to the Planning Commission with discussions on how to modify and expand County plans to include the concept of on-demand to help JAUNT continue to move it forward. Mr. Sheffield concluded his presentation and offered to answer questions. Mr. Randolph said it was great to see Mr. Sheffield moving this concept forward, as he knew Mr. Sheffield had been shaping it for years and getting it in the right configuration before he could present it. He said he believed Mr. Sheffield modeled it the right way and was overjoyed to see he had Ms. Saunders assisting him in the effort, noting that both were County alums and were very much active in this area. Mr. Randolph said when he attended the yearly meeting of the Virginia Association of Planning District Commissions in Roanoke in July of 2018, there was a presentation by Ms. Jennifer DeBruhl of DRPT, who was talking about a single statewide plan with regions not defined by PDCs to get involved with coordinated human service mobility plans. He said he wondered if there were a funding opportunity, as it sounded like there was money available through the state to be able to do human service mobility, and if this could be a component of the on-demand transit. He said this money could be helpful in terms of implementation. He acknowledged that Mr. Sheffield’s concept was broader than this and was much more multidimensional. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 18 Mr. Sheffield replied that it definitely touched upon the concept of convergence of oppor tunities because it provides the platform to go after those kinds of grants for a specific purpose. He said the type of planning Mr. Randolph mentioned was under the mobility management concept that comes down from the Federal Transit Administration, which does offer funding for the transportation needs that would fall into the use of this type of platform. He said this provides a backbone that would show that type of grant potential that they have the infrastructure and resources to provide the service they need the funding to actually get operating. Mr. Sheffield said that with the recent General Assembly legislation that was passed with transportation, there was some funding created to provide free transportation to residents trying to seek jobs. He said it was intended to make transit free to those trying to access jobs. He noted that with the pandemic and making things fare-free, however, this was somewhat odd. He said JAUNT did partner with the City’s Economic Development Office and Network to Work, went after the grant, and received a substantial amount of money. He said in part, this was because they would have the on-demand platform in place that will help manage offering the opportunity of connecting those individuals from their homes to jobs. Mr. Sheffield said this approach is almost like a palette where one can paint whatever they want based on the opportunities coming up, and JAUNT being able to adapt to what those are is what was really significant when it comes to the difference of what they do now. Mr. Carrazana asked if there had been a pilot program, or if there were specific areas Mr. Sheffield was looking at for potential pilot programs. Mr. Sheffield replied that there were a couple currently before JAUNT that they would be working on. He said one was with Loaves and Fishes and their challenge of getting people to access food security. He said when JAUNT applied for the federal grant, the scope included Loaves and Fishes. Mr. Sheffield said JAUNT was also working with WillowTree on the connectivity between Woolen Mills and downtown so that WillowTree maintains the sense of connecting to the vibrancy of downtown with relocating its offices into the County. He said the concept of on-demand took things to the next level for them because the initial concept was a shuttle back and forth. He expressed that WillowTree was excited about keeping people from having to drive and park, where they could be picked up at home, brought to work, and be taken downtown when needed. Mr. Sheffield said these were the two more immediate pilots that JAUNT could build on. He expressed that there were others who contacted him, but that he had to act slowly and carefully so as not to overwhelm his staff with work. He said there were plenty of opportunities in terms of pilots. Mr. Carrazana said he was sure Mr. Sheffield knew Ms. Deborah van Eersal from UVA Foundation. Mr. Sheffield replied yes. He said converting the park connect shuttle into an on-demand approach was already in the works. He clarified that his efforts to get them to understand how the concept could achieve their goals was in the works. He said it was so new in the scheme of things with transit that it was sometimes hard for people to understand exactly how this is an evolution of transit that can still meet the needs. He said it would take people seeing the results more than just hearing about them. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 19 Ms. Firehock said she enjoyed Mr. Sheffield’s presentation. She said she has brought up the importance of transportation in moving people towards more of the County’s far-flung affordable housing (i.e. Scottsville). She said she knew that JAUNT wouldn’t run back and forth to Scottsville with on-demand, but wondered if Mr. Sheffield had some thoughts on how the County might invest in something like a commuter bus service, or perhaps something that JAUNT could participate in. She said there is a lot of affordable housing in Southern Albemarle, but people may not have the funds to afford to have enough cars to go back and forth from the jobs in Charlottesville. Mr. Sheffield said this goes back to the versatility of the platform in that hybrid approaches can be created where there is still the sense of a traditional fixed route or commuter route, but still with an on-demand or customer-based approach. Mr. Sheffield said he would go back to the example of WillowTree where a bus or service would still go back and forth, but instead of the users waiting at a defined schedule and stop, they would make a request and then be able to see when the service would come back around to get them. He said it wasn’t as if there would be a car or bus waiting for them to make their request, but it would know that someone was waiting at Woolen Mills to be picked up. Mr. Sheffield said similarly, this could happen with Scottsville – they could run something all day long not empty, but in response to the needs. He said they would not publish a schedule and say it would be there at a certain time, but make it clear that the bus was running back and forth. He said if the bus just left Scottsville and someone made a request, for example, they will see that it will be almost an hour before the ride comes back. Mr. Sheffield said this was part of the communication and why he brought Ms. Saunders on board, to help put those things in place and make sure they communicate to someone in Scottsville that the bus would generally come in around 8:00 a.m. and that they can get their request in early enough so that JAUNT knows they are looking for service. Mr. Sheffield said that then, over time, the system starts to predict those needs and helps tell JAUNT where to best position their resources to help maximize the expected demands. He said this was why when one opens the Uber app and looks where they are, then sees where all the Uber cars are, those cars are hanging out in places where they know the rides will eventually occur. He said this was what the Uber platform was built on and that it was not uncommon, as almost all on-demand and rideshare platforms are built on those similar algorithms – even to the point where many of them are starting to factor in congestion or traffic level information, or to start building up predictive traffic information based on estimated versus actual arrival times and slower drive times that result from congestion. Mr. Sheffield said serving a place like Scottsville involves shaping a service where JAUNT can respond to the needs to eventually get to the point where a more fixed service is in place based on the most common types of needs that come up, whether this is in the morning, middle of the day, or whatever it might be. He said the power in this was that during this time, the users feel like they are building their own system by using it. Ms. Firehock said she was excited for this. She said she remembered learning about these ideas in graduate school many years ago, and that they sounded fanciful at the time. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 20 Mr. Keller said it was great to see where these things were going, and that it was unfortunate that COVID-19 was interfering. He said this must be a challenging time for Mr. Sheffield and his crew on many fronts. Mr. Keller said in building upon Ms. Firehock’s comments, he reflected some conversations he had with Mr. Sheffield a number of years ago. He said he was thinking about when he was back from a recent trip from Tuscany and from a trip to the midlands of England. He said in these rural areas, he was seeing significant travel to places of work. He asked Mr. Sheffield if he could paint a picture of the possibility of what Albemarle County might be able to have in 10, 15, or 25 years. Mr. Keller said as Ms. Firehock mentioned and as everyone knew from the housing study, much of the low-wealth community was far dispersed. He said often, many of those people have to find vehicles to come into town. He said they are coming in alone to town and have to pay for parking, which cuts into their wages, in addition to maintaining their vehicles. Mr. Keller said they, as Commissioners, often speak about these things, and that he would appreciate this dialogue with Mr. Sheffield in the future with more specifics. He said for now, because the public were hopefully listening to this, he wanted Mr. Sheffield to paint his vision for the more rural area for connectivity through mass transit. Mr. Sheffield agreed this was a trying time for JAUNT, but that he had such a great team that allowed him to focus on what the future holds. He said he did see a role of this type of approach coming out of COVID-19. He said because of the disruption COVID-19 has caused, people will be reassessing their transportation choices and if they are offered something new and innovative, it is an opportunity to reshape travel habits. He said he was optimistic about what JAUNT’s future looks like because this approach was exactly who they were and was the next step in their evolution. He said it was coming at a time when they need to offer some better choices. Mr. Sheffield said it took him looking at Europe and the way they handle these things to better understand what it meant. He said he had to go to a workshop in Vienna, Austria to better understand what all of this meant because the U.S. could not understand it well enough. Mr. Sheffield said this opened his eyes to the potential, and he saw much of Mr. Keller has seen where they are focusing on those who need it, shaping the services around those needs, and making sure people know so they can respond and immediately know if it is the right type of package of service or connectivity. He said if not, they redeploy the resources as quickly as possible so that they are not lingering. He said the key was to be as responsive as possible. He said if someone makes a request and they do not have a service, and then a second and third person do as well, they can see a pattern and start to respond to that to get ahead of the issue so that someone doesn’t get frustrated and stop looking at it. Mr. Sheffield said as far as the future view, he believed it would be a mix of trial and error in putting out what works, pulling what doesn’t work, and redeploying those resources. He said it was about communicating the best they can about what opportunities exist, with layers of potential services, without making it complex for the user to understand. He said currently if one wants to ride JAUNT, they visit the website to try to determine whether or not it is right for them. He said he wanted to remove all of that and make it simple. Mr. Sheffield said his vision also included working on the partnerships of where people are going to (e.g. work, services) and firming up those partnerships to help them communicate how to get ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 21 to their destinations. He said with UVA Research Park, for example, they want people to come there either for work or for services, and that using the platform to get there and then promoting that is one of the key arrangements that they can put in place. Mr. Bivins said they could talk for a long time about how Europe has a common approach to moving people without vehicles that is absolutely not supported in America, and about figuring out how to brand that opportunity as being a social good as opposed to only focusing on those who “do not have.” Mr. Bivins said while he appreciated the Loaves and Fishes piece (as he was afraid for much of the traffic he saw there and wanted to see it cleared up), the one piece he would want to figure out and have Mr. Sheffield and Ms. Saunders speak to was how JAUNT will distinguish themselves from CAT. He said currently, there is confusion as to whether JAUNT is CAT with another name, for instance, and that CAT’s reputation was not one he would think JAUNT would want to have attached to them. Mr. Bivins said JAUNT was moving into a space that feels like public transportation and away from how the community may have viewed them in their other role, and that how JAUNT would rebrand themselves was something that he believed would be important. He said it was something that was important to him in saying that on-demand was a good idea, as opposed to simply saying it would be a larger Uber or Lyft and wondering why they couldn’t give people vouchers to do that. He said certain communities were giving people vouchers to do Uber and Lyft as opposed to building new infrastructure. Mr. Bivins asked if Mr. Sheffield could give the Commission a sense as to what the distinguishing factors would be so that JAUNT was not just seen as a variation of CAT but will, in fact, be seen as a new way of crafting the way people move around the community. Mr. Sheffield said he would let Ms. Saunders speak to this. He said when she went through the hiring process, he put her through the paces of shaping the communication around this very concept. Ms. Jody Saunders said the on-demand service was a matter of enhancing transportation throughout the region and was not meant to replace anything. She said one of the things that will be gained with this service was the data and insights Mr. Sheffield spoke to, and that with those insights, JAUNT can share these with CAT and allow them to expand their services to respond to demand. She said it was not a matter of quickly putting up a fixed-route service and hoping that someone will want it. Ms. Saunders said across the board, this was an opportunity for JAUNT to position themselves as a transportation solution for everyone. She said her job will be to help people see JAUNT as not only sticking to their core principles of standing by the ADA community and helping those who need to get to their doctors or to Loaves and Fishes, but as a solution for people who are environmentally conscientious and do not want to own a car, but also do not want to feel like they have to live downtown. She said JAUNT has their work cut out for them, and perhaps the bright spot of COVID was that it was giving them an opportunity to pause and work this out. Mr. Bivins asked if he would anticipate JAUNT looking at places like Brookhill and North Pointe and saying that as a lifestyle option, one thing JAUNT can do is either get people to a fixed route to UVA, the Downtown Mall, or the military institution up Route 29. He said this would be thinking ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 22 about how JAUNT can fill the gap, while honoring the ADA piece, to make living in a particular location something that works for people. He said there were many applications that the Commission has been concerned about in terms of how people will be moved through the corridors. He said much of this becomes a red herring for the community to say no about a project. He said being able to have JAUNT engaged with some to the projects, as they begin, may help to bring a different view other than, “No more cars on our road.” Mr. Bivins said he also understood JAUNT was looking at electric buses, which he spoke about with Mr. McDermott to the MPO Tech Committee that day, and so someone from there may be following up with JAUNT about what this would mean for the region. Mr. Bivins said his real concern was about how JAUNT will distinguish themselves from a transportation entity that does not have a positive view among those who do not need to take them. Mr. Sheffield said he had more recently come to the realization that UTS and CAT focus on volume operations. He said this was a business model that was a common approach. He said when looking at JAUNT, however, they are more specialized, which is what they should stay focused on with this type of approach, which will help to distinguish them as well as honoring what JAUNT is about. He said JAUNT started because there was no other way to provide people with no transportation that mobility. He said they will build on that customization approach and that this will be successful. Mr. Sheffield said JAUNT wants people to have a variety of choices in getting around and not just JAUNT, CAT, or UTS. He said it actually should be all of them together, and it could be that the platform allows one to ride JAUNT to a CAT hub, then ride CAT the rest of the way. He said they want people to know that the service they would get from JAUNT would be that more customized, customer-focused approach, with the approach of UTS or CAT being volume operation. He said both come with their pros and cons, from a user standpoint, and that this is where JAUNT will distinguish itself. Mr. Randolph said that his comment was not to take anything away from what Mr. Sheffield and Ms. Saunders had presented that evening on on-demand, but that there was a national growth of e-bikes and a value in having a fairly affordable means of transportation. He acknowledged that the rider would have to be someone with a certain level of fitness and that e-bikes were not appropriate for people with mobility issues. He said e-bikes were already supplanting other means of transportation in some communities because of the ability to have one’s own self-mobility powered with an electric motor. Mr. Randolph said he felt it was important for the Commission, as they support this idea of on- demand, to look to build the infrastructure that will support e-bikes and bicycles. He said this was part of a multimodal strategy that needs to be implemented regionally in order for the County to be effective in helping people move from their residences to job opportunities in the County. He said he did not want the discussion to take place without inserting this as an important variable. Mr. Sheffield said this touched on the fact that in Europe, they define this as Mobility as a Service (MAAS). He said in the U.S., the Federal Transit Administration is calling this “Complete Trip.” He said one can do a Google search on this to see what they are funding and defining this as. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 23 Mr. Sheffield said it embraces exactly what Mr. Randolph was talking about and bringing e-bike into that. He said to imagine having the option to drive, being told if parking is available and how much that is versus riding transit and making that decision, noting that while Google may let one look at things in isolation, if they were looking at four different ways of getting from Point A to Point B and based on the particular dynamic of that day, they could choose one without having to worry about how to pay for it and coordinate it. He said this will increase multi-modalism tenfold. Update on Board of Supervisors Meeting – September 2 Mr. Rapp said at the September 2, 2020 Board of Supervisors meeting, there were several public hearings, with the first being the ZMA for Proffit Road, which had come to the Commission some time ago and was an amendment to a previously approved ZMA. He said the applicant definitely heard the Commission’s concerns with the application and came back with a much more detailed plan with modifications, including the removal of the accessway to the east. He said after a lengthy discussion with the Board, the applicant will be coming back to the Board soon with a revised plan and proffers to try to save more of the undisturbed areas in the second parcel that is closer to the North Pointe subdivision, which had been a concern with the Commission. Mr. Rapp said the Board also spent a few hours on the Breezy Hill ZMA, with a great deal of good public comment. He said at the last minute, the applicant requested a deferral to try to address some of the additional concerns with traffic and other impacts to the adjacent neighbors, as well as affordable housing. He said this application will also come back to the Board at a future date. Mr. Rapp said the Board also had a hearing on the ZTA for landscape contractors. He said there was a discussion late in the evening on this and that it was finally approved. Committee Reports Ms. More said the Crozet CAC met the previous week, and that they did not cover much content in terms of the master plan review [inaudible] the community meeting. She said she wouldn’t go into details, as this would be coming the Commission’s way. Ms. More said the CCAC was updated about a work session that the Planning Commission had about the specific questions around Crozet, including the question about the new land use category that was discussed and considered could possibly be used Countywide. Ms. More said the next CCAC meeting will be on October 14, and staff wants to be back in front of the Planning Commission on October 20 with input from the group. She said her understanding was that the group did not have much detail about the new land use category, nor did the public, other than what they may have read or seen on the news, to which she felt they could probably get more detailed information to help inform them. She said the group has a [inaudible] other than this was going to be brought to them, and that [inaudible]. She said they were concerned with the CCAC meeting on October 14 to have a discussion about what the new land use category means, what it hoped to accomplish, the concerns about what it may not accomplish, and having a community understanding about it. Ms. More said additionally, there are other site-specific land use discussions that need to take place. She said the concern is that having staff collect the information from the CCAC on October 14 and having it ready for the Commission on October 20 will not work. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 24 Ms. More said therefore, the CCAC would have another meeting in one week. She said she hoped the information would be released to the group soon, as the meeting was a week away. She said [inaudible], as many of the questions can be answered in the packet and the discussion can move more swiftly. Ms. More noted that her audio had been poor and asked if her audio had improved. Mr. Bivins replied yes. Ms. More said while she was willing to go with the flow, her concern was that with a week away of having a special CCAC meeting where they will cover an entirely new land use category, and with some comments at the last meeting from savvy community members that they want to know more about this other than what they are getting from news sources, she wanted to ensure that this information from the County is made available to community members so the group can have a discussion at their special meeting on September 23. She said in that hour-and-a-half-long meeting, they are supposed to cover questions about the new land use category, where it may go in Crozet, and other site-specific changes, and that this felt like it was something that would not happen in an hour and a half. Ms. More said by the time the CCAC meets again in October, the concern was that there would not be time for staff to process feedback before being in front of the Planning Commission if their target date is October 20. She said of course, there are community members who want to have access and input, and oftentimes hearing the Commission’s input, having it open to the community, and then bringing that to the CCAC so they can react on the feedback on behalf of those they are trying to represent is helpful. Ms. More said she felt somewhat concerned about the timeline, and that she expressed this at the meeting. She said she was willing to work through it to see how it would go, but she wanted to bring this up to the Commission and staff. She said as they head towards that date (which she didn’t know was certain), her hope would be that they might have a little more time on a very important topic (land use), particularly when Crozet is the guinea pig for this new category, which has not necessarily been well-received in some of what she has read in social media. She said perhaps there are misunderstandings or concerns about what the objective is in creating this category. Ms. More said it sounded as if everyone was willing to work hard, and that the County would hopefully get some information out to the community in order to move forward. Mr. Clayborne said he attended the Rivanna River Corridor Steering Committee meeting on September 4. He said the key takeaways were where they were in the entire master planning process, which was in Phase 2 and which seemed to be highlighted by benchmarking and public outreach. He said they created a new website specifically for Rivanna River content, which he thought was unique. He said they will hopefully be finished with Phase 2 (benchmarking and public outreach) by the end of 2020. Mr. Clayborne said there was a discussion about connecting the City and County via a bike/pedestrian bridge over the river. He said the committee hired a consultant to review this and that nothing had been decided in stone, but the consultant had an option that puts a bridge at Riverside Avenue in Charlottesville and connects to the State Farm area in Pantops. He said there is a second option from East Market Street to that same general area in Pantops. He said ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 25 staff and the team would vet those options for various conditions. Mr. Bivins said that at the MPO Tech meeting that day, what he felt was interesting for the Commission was the TJPDC was putting together a working group on charging stations. He said it is in the initial stages, and there was a conversation about how this would happen and where they would be (i.e. public versus private spaces). He noted how England has converted lampposts into charging stations so those people who do not have garages can have a place where they can charge their vehicles on the street. He said he was not sure if anyone from the Commission or staff would be involved in that. He said the only thing he would ask would be if the TJPDC does not use Tesla as the example, and that they use a vehicle that the typical consumer can purchase. Old/New Business There were no items. Items for Follow-Up Mr. Carrazana said one of the things that occurred to him as Ms. More was talking about the Crozet Master Plan was that he was curious as to how the tools Mr. McDermott had brought up in his presentation could be used to overlay on top of something like Crozet, where they are beginning to understand the potential possible density there, and determine what impacts there will be on the roadways to then come up with some clear infrastructure requirements to then superimpose on a development. He said if they are going to develop certain areas, then A, B, and C need to be at some level of development in terms of the infrastructure piece in order to trigger those additional densities. Mr. Carrazana said he would see more rigor on the transportation piece. He said as Ms. More said, in some cases, there is a pilot for new ideas, and he believed the transportation piece needed to be layered onto that effort sooner rather than later. Mr. Keller said he would encourage everyone to look at the City Council meeting and the presentation by the architect and developer for 218 West Market Street. He said it was a very interesting discussion on the architectural side, with shadow studies (which was something a number of the Commissioners had talked about needing to consider in their new development areas along Route 29, for instance, where there will be a lot of density). He said this was about how one can have mountain views and a taller building, but needs to think about where the shadows would be on the ground plane and on shorter buildings. Mr. Keller said the second part was the part he would call the Commission’s attention to. He said this was the developer of the “Blue Moon” property on West Main Street, who had an interesting series of slides that talked about profit margin and the implications to that profit margin by doing social initiative projects. He said except for when he was on FIAC, he had really not seen a development community talk to that level of specificity and the ramifications of that bottom line by doing different things, especially because of the way that this fits with the discussion of having affordable housing both offsite and onsite, and because of the Commission’s and Board’s discussions they have had around business incubator projects (e.g. with Southwood). Mr. Bivins said he would be interested in looking at this and would encourage the other Commissioners to do so. He said the City’s website was not always easy to navigate, and perhaps Ms. Groesch could send the link to that meeting to the Commission. He said he had not been ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES – September 15, 2020 26 able to find the developer’s narrative and his argument about the return on investment, and that he was interested in this as the Commission is often put in positions of hearing developers say they cannot afford to do certain things, and the Commission takes them at their word. He said it was refreshing to have Mr. Keller share that someone actually provided numbers and made an argument that one could perform calculations on. Adjournment At 8:13 p.m., the Commission adjourned to October 6, 2020, Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting, 6:00 p.m. via electronic meeting. Charles Rapp, Director of Planning (Recorded and transcribed by Carolyn S. Shaffer, Clerk to Planning Commission & Planning Boards) Approved by Planning Commission Date: 10/06/2020 Initials: CSS