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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01 12 2021 PC MinutesALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 1 Albemarle County Planning Commission FINAL Minutes January 12, 2021 The Albemarle County Planning Commission held a public hearing on Tuesday, January 12, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. Members attending were Julian Bivins, Chair; Karen Firehock, Vice-Chair; Tim Keller; Rick Randolph; Daniel Bailey; Corey Clayborne; and Jennie More. Members absent: Luis Carrazana, UVA representative. Other officials present were Bill Fritz; Rachel Falkenstein; Michaela Accardi; Tori Kanellopoulos; Charles Rapp, Director of Planning; Andy Herrick, County Attorney’s Office; and Carolyn Shaffer, Clerk to the Planning Commission. Call to Order and Establish Quorum Mr. Charles Rapp, Planning Director, said the meeting was being held pursuant to and in compliance with Ordinance No. 20-A(16), “An Ordinance to Ensure the Continuity of Government During the COVID-19 Disaster.” He said opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting will be posted at www.albemarle.org/community/county-calendar when available. Mr. Rapp explained that as elections were being held that evening, he would be leading the meeting. He called the meeting to order, noting that all Commissioners were attending the meeting virtually. Mr. Rapp called the roll. All Commissioners indicated their presence except for Mr. Carrazana, who was not present. Election of Officers: Chair and Vice Chair; appointment of Secretary (if needed) Mr. Rapp asked if there were any nominations for Chair of the Commission. Mr. Randolph moved to nominate Mr. Bivins to be Chair for the year 2021. Mr. Keller seconded the motion, which carried unanimously (6:0). (Mr. Bivins abstained.) Mr. Rapp congratulated Mr. Bivins on his position as Chair. Mr. Bivins thanked the Commission, expressing that he hoped they would be able to meet at the dais in 2021. He asked for a nomination for Vice-Chair. Mr. Randolph moved to nominate Ms. Firehock for Vice-Chair. Mr. Keller seconded the motion. Ms. Firehock noted that she was happy to serve as Vice-Chair but that she would be fine with anyone else being Vice-Chair if they desired to do so. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 2 No other nominations were heard, and the motion carried unanimously (7:0). Discussion of 2021 Planning Commission Rules of Procedure Mr. Bivins asked Mr. Rapp if any changes had been made to the rules of procedure. Mr. Rapp replied that there were no changes, and the only item that had been discussed with Legal Counsel was if they should remove the year to the rules of procedure so that these would remain. Mr. Bivins suggested they could adopt them on an annual basis. Mr. Rapp agreed, noting that this way, they would not be year-specific. Mr. Bivins said the item before the Commission was if they could strike the year 2021 and have it read, “Albemarle County Planning Commission Rules of Procedure.” He said they could also be modified and changed as needed, since they have no prohibitions for doing that during the rest of the calendar year. Ms. Firehock moved to accept the rules of procedure, striking the year 2021. Mr. Bailey seconded the motion, which carried unanimously (7-0). Discussion of committees/boards/bodies to which Commission members serve as liaisons Mr. Bivins asked Mr. Rapp if they needed to have a discussion about a 5th and Avon CAC being added to the list. He said he would presume that Ms. Firehock and Mr. Randolph would be the liaisons to this. Mr. Rapp said staff made this adjustment when Ms. Firehock pointed this out, and so they were added at the top of the list. Mr. Rapp said there was still one vacancy for the Long-Range School Planning liaison, which was previously held by Mr. Bruce Dotson. He noted that as the Commission frequently discusses schools, this is an important role. Mr. Bivins said he would be willing to step off the MPO Tech Committee and into the role as the Long-Range School Planning liaison, with the full disclosure that he is on the Long-Range Budget Committee as appointed by Dr. Matt Haas. He said it would be a nice nexus for him if someone would like to take the MPO Tech role. Ms. Firehock said one thing to think about was equity. She said she is already on three committees and asked about everyone else. Mr. Keller said he would be glad to do it, but it would be moving out of CTAC and basically, they get the same information at both of those meetings. Mr. Bivins said he believed Mr. Keller would have an interesting input at MPO Tech. He asked Mr. Keller if, alternately, he wanted to take on the schools role. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 3 Mr. Keller replied no and that he meant MPO Tech. He said the CTAC meetings are not onerous and that there are four meetings per year, at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. He said it is a two- to three-hour commitment four times a year. Mr. Bailey said he was happy to cover it, but asked if this was the case, if an outgoing Commissioner would educate him on what is necessary to be the liaison for something like CTAC. Mr. Bivins said Mr. Keller would take over MPO Tech, and Mr. Bailey would take over CTAC. He said he himself would move over to the Long-Range School Planning liaison position if no one else (e.g., Ms. More) wanted to step into it. Mr. Keller told Mr. Bailey that Mr. Bailey went to a meeting that he didn’t go to, and that he went to a meeting that Mr. Bailey didn’t go to. He said they are both on the Rivanna River Corridor Steering Committee, and this is another meeting that is not terribly onerous. He said Mr. Bailey, however, was not showing up on his list. Mr. Bivins said they needed to get Mr. Bailey on the list for that, too. Mr. Clayborne said he attended the most recent couple of meetings. Mr. Rapp said he would add Mr. Bailey. Mr. Bivins said there would be a meeting the next week that he would send Mr. Bailey information on. Mr. Keller said in case there is a cross-up, he would send Mr. Bailey the information on CTAC when he receives an announcement in the next week. Mr. Bivins said the Commission needed to accept this as their 2021 committee membership. Ms. More said before doing so, she wanted to note that for the ACEA, she believed the packet listed her as a voting member with her term ending in December 2020. She asked if this was what it said. Ms. Firehock and Mr. Bivins replied yes. Ms. More said she reapplied and was reappointed to that committee as a voting member, and she believed it was for three years. Mr. Bivins asked if Ms. More’s term was now through 2023. Ms. More replied yes. She said this would not stop anyone else from being the liaison. She said Mr. Dotson had been a member, and when he stepped away from it to do other things, she took the role over and, at the request of the group, became a voting member. She said she was happy to continue doing this, but wanted to change the date to reflect her reappointment. Mr. Rapp said he would update this. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 4 Mr. Keller moved to accept the Planning Commission Committee Membership List as of 1/6/2021, as modified. Ms. More seconded the motion, which carried unanimously (7:0). Mr. Rapp said he would send out the updated list to everyone for their reference. Review and adopt meeting schedule for 2021 Mr. Bivins said the Commissioners had received the 2021 Planning Commission meeting schedule, which had them meeting typically every Tuesday except for when they do not have anything on their calendars (e.g., the next two weeks). He said he wondered if everyone had the opportunity to look at it and, if so, if they could adopt the schedule. He reminded everyone to let the Commission know if there is anything that would take them away from a meeting so that they know whether or not to expect them late or present at all. Ms. Firehock asked if this was just for February. Mr. Bivins replied no, noting that it was two pages. Mr. Rapp said it included all the tentative dates for 2021. Mr. Randolph moved to adopt the meeting schedule. Mr. Clayborne seconded the motion, which carried unanimously (7:0). Mr. Rapp said he would send the final schedule out for the Commission’s records. Mr. Randolph asked if they should note for any members of the public who may be looking at this schedule that there will be no Planning Commission meetings for the next two weeks. Mr. Bivins replied yes. He said the intent was to come back on February 2. Consent Agenda There was no consent agenda. Work Sessions ZTA201900008 Section 33-Zoning Text Amendments, Zoning Map Amendments, Special Use Permits and Special Exceptions Mr. Bill Fritz said he would not be presenting a PowerPoint, but that he would be speaking to the Commission to get their feedback where needed on Zoning Text Amendments. He said this will also be going to the Board of Supervisors for a work session on February 17, and then it will come back to the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors for public hearings. He said they want to try to work out any kinks at this time. Mr. Fritz said the proposed ZTA corrects some of the unintended impacts caused by the amendments that were adopted in 2018, tries to improve the submittal and review process, corrects many technical errors in the existing ordinance, and brings them into compliance with ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 5 State Code. He said as part of the procedural improvements proposed, it also removes requirements that applications must be acted on within 36 months (or the project is deemed withdrawn). Mr. Fritz said that in 2018, the ordinance was amended and that this was necessary. He said this was done to fix some deficiencies in the ordinance and to improve the process. He said unfortunately, the 2018 amendments did not have the desired effect in terms of improving the process and, in fact, it was found that the administration of the ordinance has been extremely complex and resource consumptive, which is the opposite of what was desired. Mr. Fritz said there was some support to simply repeal the 2018 amendments and revert to the prior ordinance, but as he said before, there was a reason why they got rid of the 2018 ordinance and amended it. He said they therefore have not reverted, and simply reverting to the prior ordinance would still leave the need to amend the ordinance again. Mr. Fritz said the proposed ordinance tries to keep the things that the 2018 amendments did that were helpful and productive while fixing the things that were not. He said one thing that happened in the 2018 amendments, for example, is that they removed the provision that allowed for public submittal of ZTAs. He said this worked and is fine, and so there is no change in that process. Mr. Fritz said in terms of reorganization, the proposed amendment does substantially reorganize the procedural provisions within the ordinance. He said it does not restore the process to the pre- 2018 issue, but it builds on the lessons learned. Mr. Fritz said the time limits for actions were a major issue in the 2018 amendments. He said at that time, a 36-month time limit was created, so everything had to be acted on in 36 months. He said the processing involved with this time limit is very complex and has created a significant administrative burden. He said the proposed amendment removes the time limit and replaces it with a clear statement that the County is not obligated to accept a request for deferral. He said this very much puts the County in the driver’s seat as to when it is time to act on it, and so if it needs to go longer, it can, and if it is time for it to be heard, it can be. Mr. Fritz said the proposed amendment also clarifies the procedure for reactivating applications and review of applications when in a state of deferral. He said currently, a deferred application is not to be reviewed, and this is part of the procedural problems that exist. He said this is often the primary purpose of the deferral – to allow issues to be identified and addressed. He said the deferral is only for the public hearing and not for the review. Mr. Fritz said the proposed ordinance provides that once a deferred application is reactivated, the timeline for review is reset, so one cannot request deferral on Day 89 and then say they have a day to act and be within the 90-day deadline. He said this fixes the potential problem. He said the current ordinance creates significant procedural difficulties because the timeline for deferred actions is not clear. Mr. Fritz said the proposed ordinance provides for the collection of a new fee for a reactivated application. He said sometimes, reactivated applications are substantially different than what they were originally, so much so that they constitute a new application. He said they could collect a new fee to cover the cost of that review. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 6 Mr. Fritz said the proposed ordinance provides that an application is deemed withdrawn as a deferral request is accepted and that the project is not reactivated within six months. He said this will allow the County to more easily administer the process and prevent applications from languishing. Mr. Fritz said in terms of submittal requirements, the 2018 amendments modified the submittal requirements and allowed the Planning Director to determine that some information may not be required in certain applications. He said the proposed amendments retain the submittal requirements and clarify the processes for determining what information is required. Mr. Fritz said the 2018 amendments allow for electronic filings, and this is retained. Mr. Fritz said another significant change with the 2018 amendments was the notice of certain easement holders on a property (e.g., an open space easement). He said if an application was submitted on that property for rezoning or a Special Use Permit, there was no notice to the easement holder. He said this was added, and this provision is retained. Mr. Fritz said the rejection of incomplete applications has been a problematic process. He said it was not implemented in a way that made it easy to do, and it has some problems. He said the proposed amendment clarifies the timelines for when an application is determined to be incomplete. He said it actually adds a provision to notify the applicant that their application has been deemed incomplete. He said it allows for a collection of fees and states how the fees are to be collected once an application is determined to be incomplete, which does not exist in the current ordinance. He said it also establishes the start date to calculate the time of review so that one cannot use the original submittal date as the starting date but rather, the date when the corrected application is received, which corrects the problem. Mr. Fritz said the 2018 amendment corrected some State Code provisions. He said since then, however, there have been some other State Code changes to the proffers, and the proposed amendment fixes that. Mr. Fritz said the 2018 amendment added a provision to allow revocation of special exceptions, and this provision has been retained. He said the proposed ordinance, however, also includes non-severability language, which will correct the problem of courts finding one condition of a special exception unacceptable and rendering the entire special exception void. Mr. Fritz said in 2018, there was removal of a reference to judicial review of denied application, and this has been retained. He said it is a self-executing provision in the State Code, and so there is no need for it. Mr. Fritz said the 2018 amendment made significant changes to how the Planning Director can require additional community meetings if they are needed due to changes in an application. He said these proposed amendments clarify and strengthen this position. Mr. Fritz said another significant issue that was identified in the 2018 amendments was the existence of many errors in references within the ordinance. He said for example, the exi sting ordinance requires that a special use permit for historic taverns and inns be reviewed, considering the factors in Section 33.8. He said this section, however, describes how to initiate a ZTA and has nothing to do with the review of a special use permit. He said all of those internal inconsistencies have been fixed. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 7 Mr. Fritz said staff has found additional changes they need to make. He said they are trying to make the ordinances and how they do all the ZTAs more consistent (e.g., correcting the word “shall” and using the term “must” or other appropriate term). He said Mr. Andy Herrick has been working on this, and staff will work on this. He asked the Commission not to focus on these, as staff knows about and will correct them. He said there are other minor issues, but none of them are substantive to change the content. Mr. Fritz said one thing he did that he hoped was helpful was that in the summary table of the Zoning Ordinance, staff tried to provide a comparison of the old and new ordinances for the Commission to see where things have moved around. He said staff considered showing the Commission a strikethrough version of the old versus new ordinance, but it was unreadable. He said there are things that are carried over, but the format was changed so much that the comparison was incomprehensible. Mr. Fritz said there was the ordinance, staff report, and brief outline he just provided, which he hoped was helpful. He said he wanted to get the Commission’s feedback and also answer any questions he could. Mr. Bivins thanked Mr. Fritz and said this had been helpful. He asked the Commissioners if they wanted to provide any feedback. Ms. Firehock said she had two very minor questions. She said on page 16-S, there is a clause discussing the judging of whether the application has substantively changed. She said she was curious as to who makes that determination. She said she has often seen where things have changed dramatically or are just minorly tweaked, and the question comes up. She asked who judges this or if there is a definition for it. Mr. Fritz replied that the Zoning Administrator makes this determination under the overall authority of the Zoning Administrator to interpret and enforce the Zoning Ordinance. He said the Zoning Administrator could determine if it is substantially the same application, and then an applicant would have to pursue an appeal if they felt this were inappropriate or wrong. He said it is the same language and that there has been no change to it. Ms. Firehock said on page 27, it talks about the fact that the County is not required to accept an applicant’s request for deferral. She asked if this has always been true, and why there is a need to specify this. Mr. Fritz replied that this has always been the case, but staff thought it appropriate to put it in the ordinance to be absolutely clear and make the statement that the County is not obligated to accept one’s request for deferral. He said the County can say no and proceed to public hearing. Mr. Keller said he had a couple of hypotheticals, after they go through it all, that he would like to go over. He said they could run through some hypotheticals based on things the Commission has seen to make sure Mr. Fritz caught them, adding he was sure that he had. Mr. Keller said he had one specific question about page 16-B. He said this is something where the Commission had found themselves in difficult situations, and he thinks that most (if not all) the Commissioners now understand the answer to this, as Mr. Herrick has worked with some of them for a number of years on this. He said in the “Recommendation by Commission,” when the applicant decides to ask for a deferral in the midst of this process, where (P) is specifically saying ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 8 that they are either going to approve or disapprove, he wondered if there might be a way that this could be how the deferral fits into that, even if it is an asterisk and a footnote explanation so that when new Commissioners are seeing this, they would get an understanding of what they can and cannot do. Mr. Fritz asked Mr. Herrick if he wanted to comment. Mr. Herrick said to Mr. Keller that he was not understanding the question in that both the Commission and the Board of Supervisors have the authority, at any time, to act on a deferral request when it is made. He said the ability to grant a request for deferral is always available to the Commission and to the Board. He said Subsection (P) that Mr. Keller referred to sets out the duty of the Commission to make a recommendation one way or another, be it for approval or denial, before an application is passed on to the Board of Supervisors. Mr. Keller said he understood this and asked Mr. Herrick if he could see what he was trying to get at. He said they have had a number of cases when the applicant is going back and forth with staff, trying to guess where the vote is going to be, and if there is going to be disapproval, they want to pull in a deferral there at that point. Mr. Herrick apologized to interrupt and said that as Mr. Fritz pointed out, the Commission and Board always have the ability to deny even a request for deferral. He said if there is a sense that a sort of gamesmanship is going on or that a strategic advantage is trying to be had through a deferral request, the Commission and the Board always have the ability to say no. Mr. Keller said he believed he and Mr. Herrick were talking across each other. He said Mr. Bivins was nodding, and perhaps he could weigh in. Mr. Bivins said he believed what Mr. Keller was trying to say was if there is a way to explicitly lay out if there is an opportunity for the Commission to take a path so that it is clear that when someone is reading it, it is one of the options that is available to the Commission. He said while Mr. Herrick is correct that the Commission does have that ability, his sense is that sometimes, the applicant is not fully aware of that, or they may have slid over that possibility. He said the clarity piece for all parties would be to have a sentence or something in there that says that this is always an option for both parties. Mr. Herrick asked if the suggestion would be to add the option of a deferral upon request of the applicant in Subsection (P). Mr. Keller said yes. He said the Commissioners know that they cannot do a deferral. He said another thing would be to say that if the Commission cannot do a deferral on its own, it has to be the applicant. He said this is something that new Commissioners (with he being one himself in the past) never quite understood. He said it seems that if they are trying to have a document that is a roadmap or dashboard and more comprehensible, he thinks that this happens fairly often (e.g., 1 in 10 times or 12 times). He said he would appreciate the clarification. Mr. Herrick said he thinks the main purpose of this is to spell out what the duties of the Commission are, but if clarity is sought in terms of the opportunity to grant a deferral upon request of the applicant, he thinks this can be added in without taking away from the main message of what the duties of the Commission are, to act upon applications that are before it. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 9 Mr. Fritz asked, in order to get the right comments to the Board of Supervisors, if this is something that would be best in the Zoning Ordinance or in the Rules of Procedure of the Planning Commission, to make it clear that a Commissioner may question an applicant on whether or not they want deferral of an action prior to taking a vote on a special use permit, rezoning, or special exception. He asked which place the right place was to put it. Mr. Keller said he would leave this to staff. Mr. Bivins said he did not know how many applicants would actually read the Commission’s Rules of Procedure, but he would assume that many of them would at least be guided through the document presently before the Commission. Mr. Keller said this was his major question. Mr. Bivins asked if Mr. Keller had other questions. Mr. Keller replied that he had a couple of hypotheticals. Mr. Bivins asked Mr. Keller if he wanted to come back to those. Mr. Keller replied that they may not want to spend time on them due to another matter before the Commission. Mr. Bivins asked if there was someone else who wanted to come forward with questions or observations. Mr. Randolph directed his comments to Mr. Herrick. He said there is frequent mention of days in the document in terms of the process. He asked if it is therefore implicit that these are calendar days versus business days, as the language is not explicit as to one or the other. Mr. Herrick replied that it is not specified, it would be calendar days. The reason for most of these deadlines is to follow State Code, which requires that there be reasonable timelines for County action on applications. He said this is why the deadlines are included. Mr. Fritz said he believed that Section 2 included something that says that every reference to days in the ordinance is to calendar days. He said Section 4, 32, and others have this. He said he believed it was either Section 2 or 3 that actually talks about the days. Mr. Randolph said he presumed it was and thought he would check. Ms. More said she did not have any specific questions. She said she thinks this is very straightforward and was presented in a precise manner, which she appreciated, including the materials provided. She said because they were having a work session on this and the Commission has made it their practice in the past, she wondered if they would be taking public comments. She said they were having another work session after this one, and so she thought she would bring up public comment during this work session and ask if anyone from the public wanted to comment. Mr. Bivins replied that they could certainly do this if they were moving along quickly with this, as he would appreciate that. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 10 Ms. More said she did not have anything else to add and that the ordinance was well done. Mr. Bivins said he had a couple of comments. He said it seems that out of the entire document, there is only one gender-specific pronoun, which is on page 14, under (J), and says “he.” Mr. Fritz said he thought staff had caught them all. Mr. Bivins said it was the second word on page 14 (J), on the third line. Mr. Bivins said the ordinance includes mention of the ability for an authorized agent. He asked if and how they verify the authorization and if they figure that if the owner of th e property does not come forward, then the individual has been authorized. Mr. Fritz replied that when making an application, there is a procedure that staff follows that includes who the owner of the property is and how they have designated (e.g., if it is an LLC, for instance, does the person have the authority to act for the LLC). Mr. Bivins said this was perfect. He said there is also another piece in the ordinance that says they cannot go forward if they have taxes or fees due, and so he assumes that the County internally verifies that the piece of property does not have any liens on it. Mr. Fritz replied that the County does what is required by the State Code. Mr. Bivins said on page 8, regarding the fourth item down that says, “One or more maps showing the proposed project’s regional context and existing natural and manmade physical conditions,” he wondered whether they would ever be looking at where there are cultural or heritage items that might be of interest in a particular area as someone is bringing a property to the Commission. He said there are viewshed pieces in the ordinance, but he wanted to know if they talk about the cultural or heritage pieces that may be changed or involved in a particular effort. Mr. Fritz replied that he did not believe they had anything specifically there. He said one thing is that there is an umbrella about anything else that may be appropriate, as staff simply could not think of everything. Mr. Bivins said he understood. He said thinking this through, he thinks there is some value in asking people about this, given some of the issues they have seen about abandonment (particularly in the City, where they stumbled upon graves that some people knew were there while others did not). Mr. Bivins said he made a point during the Premier Circle application that they are taking a commercial piece of property and potentially moving it to a blended or split residential with perhaps some light industrial or commercial. He said one piece he wanted to hear about is how they will ever get to a point where they know what the best and fair use of a piece of property and whether or not a decision to do something will take it out of that area. He said given that they have 5% of the County’s land mass in development, he would be cautious about losing any commercially viable land. He asked how this narrative gets in the ordinance. Mr. Fritz replied that this is not something that staff asks the applicant to do. He said it is part of what staff’s review is. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 11 Mr. Bivins asked if this is then the County’s analysis. Mr. Fritz replied that it is. He said under the State Code, looking at the current and future needs of the County for land use, it is actually in the State Code and in the ordinance (which parrots State Code). He said this is something that staff would need to analyze, and it is how they draft the Comprehensive Plan in terms of whether they need more or less of something. He said the applicant is free to comment on those things, but the analysis should be coming from staff. Mr. Bivins said he assumed this is the same kind of thing they would do in terms of equity and whether or not they are seeing blocks of land in particular communities being picked up and displacing people from those communities. He asked if this is something that staff would do as well. Mr. Fritz replied yes. He said it is covered by the things that they should be normally looking at in a special use permit and rezoning. Mr. Bivins asked Ms. Schaffer if there was anyone from the public lined up to speak on this. Ms. Schaffer replied that there was no one from the public on this item. Mr. Bivins asked if there was anything else to add. Mr. Keller said that at some point, when they have Mr. Fritz back, he is thinking about the land use history that Mr. Fritz gave at the lumberyard hearing, which he and likely all other Commissioners felt was excellent. He said he wondered if in the context of something that Mr. Fritz would be bringing to the Commission relatively soon, Mr. Fritz could refer back to something somewhere in the document about changes that were made that were approved in the early 2000s that have a legacy that lives on where, in many ways, the hope is to clean some of this up so that they do not have legacies in 2021, going into the 2030s. Mr. Keller said in a hypothetical manner, Mr. Fritz could share with the Commission (and so the public could hear) the bigger benefits of what this is cleaning up. He said that instead of point by point, it is almost like a paragraph. He said this was not for that evening, however. Mr. Fritz said he could see how he could try to do that. He said he has been with the County since the late 1980s, and they have made a lot of changes in how they process rezonings and the like since then. He said some were thrust upon them by the General Assembly while some were of the County’s own doing. Mr. Keller said he thinks the reflection of the legacies is something that informed this, and so he would like to have this in the public domain before Mr. Fritz’s retirement about the big picture of the legacies and what they are trying to do in cleaning this up, both for the development community and for the citizens. Mr. Fritz said he could give some thought as to how he might be able to pull something like that together. Mr. Randolph said he wanted to address Mr. Keller’s point. He said he himself and Ms. Valerie Long were the only two people who first met with Ms. Elaine Echols when she broached the idea of having a discussion about the need for tighter procedures on special use permits and special ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 12 exceptions. He said what drove this was not legacy projects, but the fact that staff was frustrated by the number of applicants that were suddenly dropping out, at some point, during the funnel of policy response from Community Development, and then submitting that they had an opportunity to suddenly get back in the pipeline after they were out, procedurally. He said there were then loose ends that were cropping up and a series of anomalies for staff members trying to figure out whether or not the application was going forward. Mr. Randolph said he was not doubting that legacy projects may be part of the dimensionality here, but part of what was in the field for staff, as he well recalled from the first meeting that talked about exactly what Mr. Fritz presented that evening, were significant staff frustrations with applicants moving in and out of the process without any implications (implications being in terms of obstacles that they would face in terms of coming back in). Mr. Randolph said his closing remark was that he thinks Mr. Fritz and staff have done a remarkable job in what he presented. He said it is comprehensive, very thorough and detailed, and current with state statute. He said he thinks it will position them, going forward, but as they well know, with the best efforts of everyone to address these challenges, there is bound to be something that falls through the gaps or will arise. He said they will deal with that when it comes, but he did want to compliment Mr. Fritz and staff, collectively, for the work they clearly invested in this, and on what a huge improvement this is. Mr. Fritz thanked Mr. Randolph and said he would pass this comment along to the team. Mr. Bivins asked Mr. Fritz if he had received what he needed from the Commission. Mr. Fritz replied that he did and that it was helpful. He said he would see what they could do about a history of what was done in the past, and how he could pull this together. Crozet Master Plan: Land Use Ms. More said she knew that Ms. Falkenstein likely had some introductory remarks to cover and that there were specific questions she would want the Commission to go through. She said she had some notes on each of those questions, but she was hoping that if Ms. Falkenstein was able to stop before getting to the first question, she could ask a process question. She said she was trying to keep her comments concise, and so instead of repeating some things over and over, she would rather talk about those things, and then they could dive into Question 1, if that worked for everyone. Mr. Bivins said if they could hear from Ms. Falkenstein and her team and pause, and if there are then individuals in the meeting outside of the Commissioners who could add something significantly different to what they have heard (as the Commission has received many deep and well-constructed thoughts from people directly involved and from those offering observations about the process), they could hear a bit from them and then spend the evening working through this exciting project. He asked everyone if this seemed reasonable. Ms. More said it did. She said if Ms. Falkenstein could start things off, perhaps the Commission could hear from a few members of the public, allow her to ask a specific question, and then have Ms. Falkenstein take the Commission through the questions and keep them on track. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 13 Mr. Bivins said that they could do this, but they would do so after coming back from the public. He said what he was expecting was that there was very limited public comment. He reminded everyone that this was a work session and was not a public hearing. He said there will be many opportunities for input, but currently, this is an opportunity for Ms. Falkenstein and her team to hear from the Commission in the same manner in which they have heard from people in the community. Ms. Firehock added that there were a number of comments sent throughout the day. She said that because she was not on the road, she was able to read all of them. She said she did not know if everyone was able to read those comments, and so she wanted to point out that if people felt the need to open their County email, they could check out some of those, as they were fairly detailed. She echoed that this was a work session, and the Commission was not adopting anything in particular that evening, although they were giving things direction. Ms. Rachel Falkenstein, Planning Manager, said she was joined by Ms. Michaela Accardi and Ms. Tori Kanellopoulos. She said if she understood what she heard, staff should first go through the background and initial few slides. She said before getting into the discussion, they would pause for opportunity for public comment and some comments from Ms. More. She asked if this was correct. Mr. Bivins confirmed that it was. Ms. Falkenstein said Ms. Accardi would start the work session with some slides about the project background. Ms. Accardi said she would provide a brief project background and a summary of engagement heard to date. She said they would pause, as mentioned, and then go through a series of questions outlined in the staff report that they will provide some background information for, then reiterate the question. Ms. Accardi said that as a brief background of the process, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to begin updating the Crozet Master Plan in September of 2019 through a four-phase process. She said the first phase, Community Visioning, lasted from September 2019 through December 2019, and the goals of this phase were to build an understanding of long-range planning and land use as well as identify community guiding principles and goals for the master plan. Ms. Accardi said Phase 2 was titled “Focus Areas and Design Strategies.” She said this process began in early 2020 and transitioned to a series of monthly workshops and focus conversations that aimed at diving deeper into the community goals that were identified during Phase 1 and drafting recommendations. She said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this phase was initially in person and transitioned to online workshops, feedback forms, and virtual Crozet Community Advisory Committee (CAC) meetings. Ms. Accardi said the project is currently in its third phase (Plan Refinement, Endorsements, and Drafting). She said staff is currently seeking feedback on draft plan recommendations and defining draft design and policy recommendations based on this feedback. She said they have held five land use workshops and two transportation workshops with the Crozet CAC, and upcoming meetings will focus on conservation recommendations and prioritizing implementation projects. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 14 Ms. Accardi said the final phase of the process is Master Plan Review and Adoption, which staff anticipates to begin in April 2021 and be complete in the third quarter of 2021. She said there will be ongoing opportunities for public input and participation throughout the rest of the process. Ms. Accardi said the slide on the screen was intended to show the list of engagement opportunities that were focused on Crozet’s land use recommendations that have occurred throughout the process. She said she would clarify “focused on land use” by noting that not all of these were at the recommendation phase, but were building upon each other to get to the recommendations that were before the Commission that day. She said more detailed information about these opportunities was included in Attachment 3 of the staff report. Ms. Accardi said that overall, throughout the engagement process, staff has documented a number of themes, including the importance of providing a mixture of housing types, with specific interest on missing middle housing types like multiplexes, accessory units, and bungalow courts as well as affordable housing. She said they have heard about the importance of respecting Crozet’s small town feel that attracts and retains residents. She said they have heard about the importance of balancing both form and density, meaning that form is consistent with Crozet’s small town feel, while also acknowledging the infrastructure needed with new infill and development. Ms. Accardi said connecting centers of activity, with a focus on Downtown Crozet as a primary development area center, has also come up as a theme. She said staff has also heard ongoing concerns about the County’s ability to provide infrastructure needs related to traffic and school capacity, consistent with development. Ms. Accardi said that based on these themes and community input heard during Phase 1 of this process, staff drafted a guiding principle for the land use chapter of the master plan. She read it aloud: “Support and strengthen Crozet’s history as a self-sustaining town, while ensuring that new and infill development is compatible in scale and design and provides housing choice for all community members.” She said this guiding principle was refined with community and Crozet CAC input over time. Ms. Accardi said there are also five goals for the land use chapter that are currently drafted, which reflect the themes that she shared previously. She said these include topics such as housing choice, development that is consistent with the design and scale of existing neighborhoods, and others. She said these were available for the Commission’s reference on page 5 of Attachment 1. Ms. Accardi said she would transition the slides to Ms. Falkenstein to talk about the purpose of the evening’s work session. Ms. Falkenstein said the purpose of the work session that evening was to go through the draft future land use recommendations and take the Planning Commission’s feedback to inform and help staff update the draft recommendations. She said there is a work session with the Board of Supervisors scheduled for March 3, and so staff will carry the Commission’s recommendations forward to that work session on the same topic. Ms. Falkenstein said she wanted to make one point about the recommendations before the Commission and attached to the staff report that was sent earlier. She said they share the same future land use map and plan that they shared with the community and the CAC at work sessions ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 15 they had in September, October, and November. She said staff decided not to make any changes to this in order to get the Commission’s feedback before going back and making any changes to the map. Ms. Falkenstein said there are areas that can go either way based on the guiding principle and the goals they are trying to achieve. She said they are trying to strike a balance between the goal to provide more housing choices for the community that staff heard was important in those early in-person workshops they had with the community with the concern of growth of the community and the infrastructure to keep up with that growth. She said staff looked forward to hearing the Commission’s feedback that evening on some of the topics highlighted in the report and some of the concerns they have worked through, especially from the CAC at their previous work sessions. Ms. Falkenstein said she would pause for public comment, and the next slides will get into the topics of discussion. Ms. Firehock asked Ms. Falkenstein if this would be comments from the public and not from the Commission. Mr. Bivins replied yes. He said they would be using some of this time for comments from the public, and then they would let Ms. More kick the Commission off before they comment and discuss the various questions. He asked Ms. Schaffer if there was anyone from the public who wished to speak, adding that the Commissioners had received thoughtful pieces in their mailboxes, both that day and prior to that day, that lay out some important and well-crafted thoughts. Ms. Schaffer said there were three people who wanted to speak. Mr. Tom Loach said he strongly objects to the format that County staff has chosen to present the land use segment of the Crozet Master Plan. He asked why staff would put the Planning Commission in a position where they would essentially veto the votes taken by the Crozet Advisory Committee. Mr. Loach said the initial requestion regarding the new cliché missing middle housing asks the Commission to take a position on a policy not supported by any votes by the Board of Supervisors. He said that after consulting with Supervisor Ann Mallek, he was informed that there have been no specific votes based on a newly developed affordable housing policy that deals with missing middle housing. He said additional questions asked by the staff would require Commissioners to comment on upcoming development proposals that will appear before the Commission without the benefit of a full staff report. Mr. Loach said perhaps a more important question would be, “Is Albemarle County abandoning the concept of the model neighborhood as a mechanism for incorporating affordable housing into the fabric of the community, which was the basis of providing affordable housing in Crozet?” He said if affordable housing is an important issue, on the other hand, the community would like to know where the missing 300 affordable homes that were supposed to be built under the County’s 15% proffer agreements made by new developments disappeared to. He said he did an analysis of the past 20 years of development based on the County’s yearly building report. He said he removed all homes built by right, then applied a 15% proffer and came up with an affordable housing number of 330 affordable units that should have been built during that time. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 16 Mr. Loach said that according to the County, there have been a total of 21 homes sold as affordable in Crozet. He asked where these homes are. He said reading the staff report, it appears as if the votes taken by the Crozet Advisory Council are, at best, incidental finding. He said it has been very evident since the beginning of the master planning process that the County staff wanted nothing more to do than stuff as much housing into Crozet as possible to cover up the 20-year failure of its affordable housing program. Mr. Loach said what should have happened at this meeting was for the County staff to redo their original land use matrix plan based on the recent votes of the Crozet Community Council, with an adequate explanation of those votes by their representative, Ms. More. He said what staff presented that evening was not the voice of the Crozet community. He said at this point, he thinks it would be better for the community to take a vote in no confidence in the County Planning staff and complete the master plan themselves. He said that, after all, it is a community master plan (or is it). Ms. Rebecca Elliott (Wayland Drive, Crozet) said she did not represent any group. She thanked the Commissioners for their time that evening and for allowing the public to speak during the work session. She agreed with the previous speaker in that she thinks the CAC’s input has been disregarded, and that the affordable housing model proposed has been tried and tested and has proven to be a failure. She said there is not affordable housing in Crozet, and collaboration with grassroots affordable housing groups would be the best way to move forward. Ms. Elliott said the infrastructure in Crozet is not at a level to support the amount of development that is being rammed through without the support of people in Crozet. She said they do not have the roads, schools, or water. She said she thinks there is a strong, united feeling that this plan is being imposed on the people of Crozet rather than being something that is supported by the majority of the community. Ms. Elliott said that in particular, a couple of steps aside from more collaboration with grassroots housing groups would be to remove the Downtown Overlay, which would cram a ton of development into the heart of the town, and that removing the middle density designation would also be important. Ms. Elliott said Crozet is a welcoming, beautiful community, and although it has the opportunity to continue growing in a welcoming, beautiful way, it is not this proposed way. She said she thinks there is widespread awareness of that fact. She thanked the Commissioners again for allowing the public to speak during the work session. Mr. Bivins said before moving on, he could tell the public that it is helpful when they say they agree with a previous speaker. He said they are seeing this as it comes across, and if they were wondering whether or not the Commission was seeing those comments that they are in agreement with individuals, the Commissioners are aware. He said this is a way for the public to lift up their voices in that manner. Mr. Brian Day [inaudible] Greater Crozet, outside of the Development Area, and that he also serves on the CCAC. He said he wanted to support the statements that had been made. He said he thinks that on one hand, the staff has been very professional in conducting a good process. He said at this point, however, the real voices of the people from Crozet are not being heard. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 17 Mr. Day said he thinks there is an effort by the staff to not make changes in what they are seeing to get their input, but the public wants the Commission to know that there has been meeting after meeting after meeting in Crozet, with lots of participation, and an overwhelming concern about infrastructure not keeping up with development, as well as an ever-increasing density. He said when the density happens within the Development Area, it is okay, but it is often happening on the edges instead of where they want it. Mr. Day said the County has made significant investments in Downtown with the Barnes Lumber project, improvements of the streetscapes, and so forth, but Crozet is still getting an awful lot of fringe development, which is not in keeping with the County’s policy, the existing master plan, or the interests of the citizens who have participated in huge numbers, both pre -COVID and during COVID. Mr. Phil Kirby said that he and his family live in Parkside Village. He said he saw the document that was prepared by the neighborhood committee, and although he is not part of that committee, but he has attended some of the meetings. He said he agrees with the broad statement that it makes about the concern about following up a plan for infrastructure with actual implementation. Mr. Kirby said what he has seen happen and is seeing will happen again are ad-hoc things like emergency roads being [inaudible] by stream beds to accommodate emergency vehicles because the infrastructure was not put in. He said he sees a plan to build a jug handle. He said having been brought up in New Jersey, jug handles are put in because the road that was put in cannot handle the traffic of the development, and so it is the only thing to do. He said they cut through the neighborhood to build up traffic around it. Mr. Kirby said his biggest concern is that when the plan is not solved and is not agreed to, ad-hoc solutions start to define the town. He said in his neighborhood, he sees a road that goes down the hill, over the stream, and cut feet out of the green buffer zone to accommodate an emergency road that had to be put in as an ad-hoc solution because the infrastructure wasn’t thought of. He said his biggest concern is when they do not follow through with the plan. Mr. Neil Williamson, President of the Free Enterprise Forum, said he had one simple question. He said the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC) produced a report indicating that 11,000 new residences were needed to serve the needs of the community by 2040. He asked where those residences will be. As there were no more public speakers, Mr. Bivins asked Ms. More if she wanted to sum things up for her colleagues. Ms. More thanked Mr. Bivins for taking public comment. She said she would read her written remarks aloud, as it was the best way for her thoughts to be concise. She said she wanted to put out some things so that when the Commission goes through each of the staff’s questions, she would not have to repeat herself. She said she wanted those thoughts to sit with the Commissioners as they work through the questions and then, she would ask the question she had for staff about process at the end. Ms. More said the comments she had to make were overarching and were relevant to every question that staff had for the Planning Commission at this work session. She said the majority of the CAC and the community does not favor density, or even a change in greenspace designations, because people are very concerned about infrastructure projects that have been in the plan for ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 18 over ten years. She said many of these projects are still not funded, and it is hard to see a clear path forward on some of these critical projects. Ms. More said she did not know if the Planning Commissioners had seen all the emails, but there was an email that outlined some concerns, and then a petition that has 340 or more signatures on it. She said she wanted to touch on the petition, which calls out specific changes that the people signing it have had objections to and cites concerns about the failing infrastructure. Ms. More said she wanted to be clear that both she and the CCAC recognize that property owners have the right to seek rezoning, and they also have the right to have previously marked greenspace, in some cases that would be worked through that evening, given the land use designation. She said she does not support the notion that development should stop, but she does support the idea that in almost all the cases, the land use designation should either not be changed, or it should be put at the lower end of the density ranges. Ms. More said in the petition as well as in some of the public comments, the 12,000 population number was referenced, and so she wanted to try to clarify this. She said this number was not in the current master plan, and it would be helpful for staff to speak to this as it was a question from the public. She said the Commission has probably heard her talk about the 12,000 number before, which was the ideal maximum population at full buildout and came from consultants that the County hired years ago. She said that number was abandoned, and it is the basis for a lot of frustration that community members have when it comes to master planning. Ms. More said the Crozet community’s relationship with the County is fragile, and it feels like the County may be asking for feedback, but unwilling to listen to the feedback if it is in conflict with what they are recommending. She said this is a somewhat awkward position for her to be in, but she is willing to go through each of the questions and try to revisit each of them while being concise but recognizing that these topics are covered over a span of multiple meetings with CCAC, highly attended by the community, where lots of information and questions were brought up. She said staff has compiled a lot of that, but some of it in the report does not feel quite as accurate as what she remembers hearing at CCAC. She said she wants to work through those. Ms. More said Ms. Falkenstein had started talking about the process as far as the Board having a work session in March, and she wanted her to explain at what point the feedback of the CCAC and community is taken into consideration. She said she saw a couple of items that have a layer of discussion where staff has proposed a potential change from what was discussed at CCAC, but the majority of the items feel as if staff is trying to get feedback from the Commission that evening. She said they are stating that the community and CAC do not agree, but they are still asking the Commission for feedback, which is fine. She said she hears angst on the part of the community, and she wonders how staff will take what the community said and what they will hear from the Commission that evening, and how this will go forward to the Board. Ms. More said she is in her sixth year as a Planning Commissioner, and while she served, they did the Pantops Master Plan and had land use. She said when there was a tie with their CAC, it was brought to the Planning Commission so that they could say what they think and break the tie. She said she does not know where it happened in that process, but it felt like the Commission had been called upon in a situation where the community could not agree, to help sort that out. She said this is not the case here, with the numbers they have seen from the Crozet CAC. She said she wondered if staff could speak to that and talk specifically about what happens at the work ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 19 session, and if everything will be crafted into something to bring to the Board, or if staff would later come up with a draft based on the feedback they heard. Ms. Falkenstein replied that the draft before the Commission is the same that was shared with the CAC. She said it is correct that most of what staff is recommending was not supported by the CAC. She said staff found themselves in a place where they felt like the feedback that they received early on in some of the visioning workshops is in conflict with the decision to not support staff’s recommended changes. Ms. Falkenstein said that instead of tweaking the map a little here and there, they thought it best to get the Commission’s feedback on some of the concepts and the way they apply them before making any changes to the map. She said it is inefficient for staff to go into GIS and continue to make these new maps, and so rather than having several different drafts as the maps get out there, staff thought it would be easiest if they got all of the feedback from the Commission as well as from the Board before they go in and make another draft map. Ms. Falkenstein said this was staff’s approach, and they hope to package up and summarize all the feedback they heard and provide options for the Board to weigh in on. She said they will take what the Board says as their ultimate direction as to which way they should go with the land use. Mr. Bivins said what they were talking about was a three-legged stool process where the involvement of the community is laid out, and the Commission has received some good feedback. He said the Commission will have an opportunity to speak on this package, and if he understood correctly, the Commission’s comments as well as the Crozet community’s comments will then go to the Board of Supervisors, and the whole process will be wrapped in before significant changes or updates are made to the plan. He asked Ms. Falkenstein if this was what she was suggesting. Ms. Falkenstein replied that this was correct. Ms. More said she appreciated Ms. Falkenstein’s comments. She said she would speak to some of Ms. Falkenstein’s comments about getting mixed messages from the community, or about how something early on seemed like it changed. She said she will address this as they go through the questions. She said to the Commission that with this process, she thinks it is clear to her to see how community members might wonder what happens with their engagement and why they took the time to go through all of this if, ultimately, the Commission may agree or disagree with the community as a whole, and then the Board will ultimately decide these things. She said she thinks that this is potentially frustrating for many people, and she can understand seeing that process unfold. Ms. Firehock said she wanted to make an overarching statement before they get into the details. She said she appreciates the challenges that happen when one is getting lots of different perspectives from the community, and then, there is staff’s professional planning judgment. She said they now are throwing the Commission into it, which is another mix of background and knowledge. She said her goal is not to muddy the waters, but she did want to express some difficulty on her part, as a Commissioner, because she does not live in Crozet. She said she certainly has opinions about density and what makes a good neighborhood, and the importance of connecting greenspace to make communities vibrant. Ms. Firehock said that in terms of some of the questions the Commission was being asked to weigh in on that evening, however, she does not feel that she has the knowledge on the ground ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 20 to weigh in on answering all of these questions. She said she was being completely sincere, and rather than being arbitrary and capricious, she is going to, in many cases, defer to Ms. More and some of the CAC perspectives because she does not have enough information to make a judgment call on quite a few of these questions from staff. Ms. Firehock said had she sat through all of the CAC meetings and been intimately familiar with every twist and turn of Crozet, then perhaps she could answer the questions. She said these are very detailed questions, however, and she was not critizing staff for asking them, but she wanted to say at the get-go that as they go through this, there will be areas where she cannot make a judgment call because she simply does not have enough information to render what she would call an informed decision. Mr. Bivins said he thought this was fair, adding that the other Commissioners were in a similar position. He said his sense was that Ms. Falkenstein and the Commission’s colleagues are asking them for feedback, and they are asking the Commission for their thoughts on the things that are before them. He said they are not voting on anything that evening, but are offering a well-formed opinion on a number of things. He said he thought it was fair for Ms. Firehock say that on this matter, she was limiting her comments because she did not know the full details, but he would imagine there are a number of things that each Commissioner will say that they have a sense on. He said if they can figure out how to iron out some of the issues, he could say that something could be supported or moved forward with. Ms. Firehock noted that she wanted to be very careful that when they come to those conversations, some of her answers to those questions will be, “I do not know.” She said she did not want it to be reflected that the Commission was generally in agreement because someone did not object (e.g., if only Ms. More and Mr. Clayborne agreed on a matter). She said she knew they were not voting, but they were supposedly making recommendations, and so she was expressing a little frustration that the level of detail they were being asked to weigh in on is more than she feels comfortable and capable to weigh in on. Ms. Firehock expressed that if information is presented on these details while the questions are made, then she could possibly state that she has a strong or certain opinion. She said she did not know if she could, however, in many of the cases that the Commission was being asked to see. Mr. Bivins said that this was fair and noted. He said he would like the Commission to be able to have this discussion, as he felt that they will find time to express themselves. Mr. Randolph said he thinks it is totally appropriate for staff to come to the Planning Commission and asking them, as a sounding board, to respond to the concepts, ideas, and proposals that they were looking at. He said for the members of the public, the Commission was not a definitive body that evening. He said they are only there to provide feedback. He said it is totally appropriate for the Planning Commission to be doing that. Ms. Falkenstein said she would get the Commission started on their first discussion topic for the evening. She said there would be six questions for discussion that night, with subcategories in three different topics. She said the first topic was “New Land Use Tools,” with two questions. She said the first question was about the Middle Density Residential category. Ms. Falkenstein said the slide should look familiar to the Commission, as there was a work session on this topic back in September 2020, where staff brought the concept of the Middle Density ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 21 Residential land use designation to the Commission for input. She said it was before they had applied the designation to the map anywhere, and it had been only about concepts and guidance around what the category would look like. She said the Commission had been fairly supportive of the idea, but asked staff to come back once it was on the map so that they could weigh in further. Ms. Falkenstein reminded the Commission that this is a residential land use category that has what they are calling densities somewhat in the middle range, at 6-24 units per acre. She said the primary uses would be residential uses, with some form parameters around them (up to three stories, and building footprints no more than 5,000 square feet). She said this was to help cultivate the missing middle housing types that would be in this category and that the Commission has heard this term thrown around. She said essentially, what it means is that these are forms of housing that are a little smaller and, because of their size, are naturally more affordable than single-family residential units, but are not high density like a high-rise apartment or even a medium to large size apartment building. Ms. Falkenstein said housing types here would be multiplexes, accessory dwellings, townhouses, and live-work units. She said these are of a scale of housing that are in the middle category. Ms. Falkenstein said there are also secondary uses allowed in this category, similar to other residential categories. She said it is small-scale residential that would be appropriate in a neighborhood [inaudible] forms and uses. Ms. Falkenstein presented a slide showing examples of what the housing types would look like. She said the picture to the left of the screen was of an existing housing type currently in Croz et, at Parkside Village. She said this is a multiplex where there are 6-8 units in one building. She said they fit within the scale of single-family and are across the street from single-family housing. She said it is more of a matter of scale, but there are smaller unit types co-existing with single family. Ms. Falkenstein said to the right of the screen was the recently approved development that went through a rezoning process (Bamboo Grove). She said they are still working through the site plan, which consists of a bungalow court type of housing development where there are some single- family units clustered around a central courtyard. Ms. Falkenstein said the way staff arrived at the density recommendations was to look at some of the housing types in the local community, as well on the national scale, to see how densities would average out on these types. She said the Commission would see that the higher density (24-unit range) will not be as common in the community, but when they start to incorporate accessory apartments, they might start to see some of those types of densities. She said one example was shown on the screen, which was the Wickham Pond neighborhood in Crozet, which has some basement accessory apartments within townhomes and a density of about 27 units per acre. Ms. Falkenstein said another example from Crozet was Old Trail Village, with single-family units with accessory units in the back, and the density comes out to about 15 units per acre. Ms. Falkenstein said the way staff applied the designation to the maps (adding that this would be the first time the Commission would see staff’s application of this new land use tool in Crozet) is that they actually replaced Urban Density Residential with Middle Density Residential in every area of Crozet except for one, in Old Trail, where there is a large apartment building that would ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 22 not be in keeping with Middle Density Residential. She said that everywhere else, staff applied it where the densities exist in existing neighborhoods and already had an Urban Density category. Ms. Falkenstein said there are only two areas that are unbuilt or do not already have zoning approval on them. She indicated on the map to the location of these areas, which were White Gate Village (which would be discussed later), and the area north of Route 240 (where there is an active zoning application, but had an existing Urban Density parcel that is currently vacant). Ms. Falkenstein said the feedback that staff has heard on this has somewhat evolved over the course of this project. She said as she mentioned previously, there was a lot of support in the early workshops for wanting more housing choice in Crozet and more types of housing that are on the more affordable end of the spectrum so that all people can afford to live in Crozet. Ms. Falkenstein said there were workshops in which they looked at different housing types and asked for feedback on what would be appropriate housing types in Crozet. She said there was a lot of feedback for the missing middle housing type that she talked about earlier. Ms. Falkenstein said staff then developed the category and got some feedback. She said people thought it was an interesting concept to have the land use category, and there was some support for that. She said as staff started to apply it to the map, they r eceived a good bit of opposition to the way it was applied. She said she thinks that the theme that staff has mostly heard in terms of opposition is people not wanting additional density and growth in the community. She said there was pushback that it takes away from the small town character, and there were also infrastructure concerns (which the Commission would hear repeated throughout the evening) that infrastructure is not keeping up with growth in Crozet, so adding more density is problematic for that reason. Ms. Falkenstein presented the first question for the Commission that evening. She said staff wanted the Commission’s input on their application of Middle Density Residential. She asked the Commission if they were supportive of how it was applied, or if they think staff should change their approach. She reminded the Commission that they had previously given their support for the category. She noted if there is something now, once seeing it applied, that should be changed, or if there was guidance around the designation, staff would be looking for that feedback as well. She said this was Question 1 in the staff report. Ms. More said she would like to hear from others, but she was willing to make a couple of comments she wrote down in order to keep things concise to start off the conversation. She said she felt as if perhaps she should start first. Ms. Firehock asked Ms. More if she could first ask a quick question of staff. She said she lost Ms. Falkenstein when she was talking about where the missing middle applied and showing her cursor on the map. She said Ms. Falkenstein showed the Commission some new areas that it would apply to. She asked in what parts of Crozet the category would apply to, and if it would be all of Crozet. Ms. Falkenstein replied no. She said that all of the areas that were previously designated Urban Density Residential have been changed over to Middle Density. Ms. Firehock asked Ms. Falkenstein if she could give the Commission a sense of how much area that is. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 23 Ms. Falkenstein replied that she did not have the acreage calculation. She said she would not want to ballpark the number and be way off. She pointed out that there were only two areas not developed or were vacant properties, and she would guess that those together were probably less than 20 acres. She said staff could probably quickly get that calculation if it were helpful to the Commission. Ms. Firehock asked if other areas that are currently designated as Urban Density Residential could be redeveloped under this new category. She asked if whoever buys the property could tear down what is there and then redevelop it. Ms. Falkenstein said they could redevelop it, but they will likely first come in through a rezoning process if they wish to increase their density. Ms. Firehock apologized to Ms. More and said she had been confused. Ms. More said this was fine. She said she would like to break her comments out because as Ms. Falkenstein pointed out, many of the places where they are showing this designation are already developed, and so she would like to speak to those. She said the Whitegate Farm property is a separate question that staff had for the Commission that was specific to that parcel. She said she would then speak to the Old Dominion piece, which is undeveloped but has an application. Ms. More asked if she should start off with her questions and comments. Mr. Bivins replied yes, adding that these should relate to Question 1. Ms. More agreed. She said she wanted to point out that she understands how there is a conflict in some of what staff hears from the community. She said this has been happening for quite a while, and she appreciates that this is difficult to work with. She pointed out that early on, when people were putting stickers on large displays that staff had created with different housing types, it was a good exercise, and she thinks that a lot of the images that were shown were how multifamily homes and different housing types can be done in an attractive way. Ms. More said the community is responding to that, and there are two things that come to mind when she sees them going through those activities. She said it is somewhat out of context when the community cannot see where this will happen, so it is a little abstract. She added that staff was showing attractive ways that multifamily housing can be done, and they were getting a favorable response to that. She said they know, however, that it is not always that attractive, and that there is a difficulty in controlling the way it looks as far as architec ture. She said when staff shows these awesome images, they all know that this is not necessarily what is going to be built, and she thinks this is why staff gets some feedback when it starts to move into a reality situation for the community. Ms. More said she had some numbers she wanted to share, as well as two questions. She said for her, it is difficult to talk about the Middle Density category with the community because they got some numbers from County staff (since they are in the review process). She said some of the units that go in to make up this number are rentals, and a very small amount is future construction, but the majority of the number was supposed to have been built as affordable housing (386 units). She said this is just in Crozet. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 24 Ms. More said when going through the chart and pulling out the number, she pulls out that 21 units were actually sold as affordable out of all of those units. She acknowledged that there are some that are outstanding and have not been built. She said this is a devastating number to share with the Planning Commission and community, who thought that all of these units were going to be embedded in rezonings and the like as they took place. Ms. More said she understands that the County is working on an updated affordable housing policy, which would be adopted, but it is a hard sell for her to come to the community with this new idea and tell them that it is going to fix everything. She said she still worries, especially when there are two applications that have come forward (even though they are waiting to hear how the process goes), and it is difficult for her to explain to the citizens in the community, at this point, how this will be any different. She said this is where she is stuck on this. Ms. More said when she goes through the map to try to get at the question more specifically, she sees this category in areas where there is existing development. She said when she sees it in Old Trail, it does not bother her much because they have a code of development and maximum and minimum buildout numbers. She said in Old Trail, their number can fluctuate up and down, which makes it hard to track. She said this does not really bother her. Ms. More said her question for staff was about having the category in places where there is existing development (as Ms. Firehock had touched on), noting that much of this is not very old. She asked if the intention was that somewhere down the way, this would redevelop to be more dense at the 24-unit range. She said in all these places, the Urban Density for Crozet is up to 12, and so staff is showing a change there for that. Ms. More asked if the intention was for these neighborhoods (with some being actively built, and some not being very old) to redevelop under this category and if so, what the situation would be with sidewalks in those areas if they are encouraging redevelopment that is twice as dense as what is there. Ms. Falkenstein replied that this was not staff’s intention with this designation in existing neighborhoods, especially those that are fairly new. She said they do not expect those to redevelop in the life of the plan. She said she thinks what could happen are perhaps some small infill development opportunities. She said an example would be if one small lot wants to put an accessory dwelling on it. She said if they do the calculations, it will look like a high density number, but it would be very small scale. She said much of this depends on the neighborhoods, and many neighborhoods have homeowners associations that would not allow them to do a development anyway. Ms. Falkenstein said some of it is to capture the densities that are there now with this land use category, which it is 6-24, and so it would still be consistent if it were Urban Density previously and had something closer to the 6 number. She said it is to capture what is there, but also to show a vision for a future perhaps in areas that might redevelop or might be vacant now. Ms. More said she feels that in most of the neighborhoods where she sees the category applied, where there is already existing development, there should be decent sidewalks, since it is newer development where it is shown. She asked if this was correct. Ms. Falkenstein replied that she had not done the analysis to see if every street that has this designation has a sidewalk. She said staff was actually getting into the transportation and network ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 25 planning at that time, and so they could look at this and bring this information back to the Commission if helpful. Ms. More said her comment would be that in places where they want to apply this, she struggles to see the advantage in doing so. She said where there are existing neighborhoods, she would definitely want to see sidewalks, walkability, and multimodal transportation if they are going to encourage it to become more dense than what it is. Ms. More said she would not comment, then, on Whitegate Farm, since this was a specific question that staff had, but Old Dominion was another site that they show, and she would support this staying at Urban Density Residential, which is up to 12 units according to the maps in Crozet. She said staff is showing this as a possibility for the new category. She said she would let other Commissioners ask questions and make comments. Mr. Keller said first of all, he was still conceptually in support of the concept. He said secondly, there had been several questions asked in the chat about whether the density of this is actually higher than the preexisting urban density. He asked Ms. Falkenstein if she could answer this. Ms. Falkenstein replied that previously in Crozet, Urban Density was 6-12 units, which is inconsistent with how it had been applied throughout the rest of the Development Area. She said staff’s intent, as they go through the master plans and update them, is to create consistency because it is difficult to administer for staff and is confusing to the community. She said staff’s intent is that Urban Density in Crozet, moving forward, is changed to be consistent with other urban density categories throughout the County (6-33 units per acre), and the only place it is applied on the map, as shown, is in Old Trail. She said she could not remember the name of the apartments, but they were the apartments towards the center of Old Trail. Mr. Randolph said he thinks one thing that needs to be pointed out is that with the new typology of Middle Density Residential, what staff is looking to do is have a residential density zone that is much more appropriate for affordable housing, and they have cut back dramatically in the potential for office and institutional development in those areas, which is not appropriate in a residential zone. He said they have come up with a hybrid, which they are calling “Middle Density Residential,” which is much more residential-friendly than Urban Density Residential, which has much more of an urban feel to it. He said he echoed Tim’s remark to say that he was not the only person who supports this category. Mr. Randolph said the Commission was not there that evening imposing Middle Density Residential on a specific set of 2-3 communities in Crozet. He said the Commission was not making that decision that evening, and the question was not before them. He said the question before them is if this is a reasonable category to describe intent and purpose for certain sectors of Crozet to maximize residential growth, and he was echoing support for that that evening. He said this was all he saw that the Commission was called on to do. He said he was anxious to continue to move forward that evening. Mr. Keller said he has followed Ms. Falkenstein’s and staff’s work over the years, and there was no question that Ms. Falkenstein is committed to a higher-quality built environment in all aspects, from environment to pedestrian to housing types. He said he was not questioning this at all, and more of where he would be weighing in with specifics on how it might be improved was in the next question, in the Downtown neighborhood overlay. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 26 Mr. Keller said in terms of Question 1, if they do not pay attention to the following questions, which will be site-specific and will be just like what they were all dealing with with new projects all the time, and with what community members are dealing with if adjacent to existing neighborhoods. Mr. Keller said his single concern (which he believed was addressed by staff the last time) was that he was still wondering about the 5,000-square-foot footprint. He said it seems to him that the average house size is in the 2,500-3,500 square feet range. He said they then have to rely on what the standards are going to be, and this is all in an overlay district. He said he has some concerns about what the building forms are going to be, especially when they are trying to work towards the more affordably priced units, and whether they really want something as big as the 5,000-square-foot footprint. Mr. Keller said otherwise, he thought that Mr. Randolph articulated it very well. He said the question was first whether the Commission was in support of this zoning category, and he strongly is. Mr. Randolph said he thought Mr. Keller summarized this very well. Ms. More said she would not be rushed through the process, and so she would have her comments that are still specific to sites, even though the question she saw from staff was general. She said everything in the report that leads up to that is talking about where this would be, which is relevant in the Commission’s conversation, as this is a new category for Crozet, and they are under review. She said she would talk about this and would encourage any other Commissioner who might see where this would be placed on the map to react. She said they are reacting to this area, and so she stood by her comment on each of these matters as she went through. Ms. More said she understood that the question was general, but this was work that the community did that was now before the Commission, and she believed it was appropriate to make comments that were more detailed when this is all the content that leads up to that question. Ms. More said she was having trouble listening to everyone and reading what people were writing, and that she knew there were questions in the chat and perhaps they would have to get back to those later. Mr. Bivins said what he would suggest is that since the meeting was being recorded, and since he knew that there would likely be another CAC, the evening’s focus was about the Commission. He said he would ask staff to look at the comments and questions. He said he assumed Ms. Falkenstein had a Crozet listserv that she could push responses out to if necessary, or when she desires to do so. He said if they look at those questions that are being put into the chat, then somehow, those could be pulled together to include the Planning Commission in the responses. He said he would not want them to have to do an iterative process with the chat box. Ms. Schaffer said she could get a list of all the questions from the chat and share them with Ms. Falkenstein, who could then answer those questions the following day or at a later time. Mr. Bivins asked the Commission to concentrate on their observations so that they can move the matter into a place where it can continue on its discovery path. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 27 Mr. Bailey said he had a couple of clarifying questions. He asked if with a footprint at 5,000 square feet and a maximum height of three floors, the math would have the maximum building size at 15,000 square feet. He asked if the footprint is the place it is taken times the number of stories. Ms. Falkenstein replied that this was correct. She clarified that this was intended to apply to multiplexes, and so there would likely be more than one unit rather than one house that is that big. She said this recommendation was intended to keep the multifamily buildings on the smaller scale. Mr. Bailey said as a point of clarification, he remembered that in September, he said that this new Middle Density category is expected to address the missing middle as a Countywide designation that would extend beyond Crozet. He said perhaps it was being talked about being applied in Crozet at this time, but he wanted to know if he was correct in understanding that as subsequent reviews of plans come up, this would be a category in Rio or other districts that would be considered for doing things like this. Ms. Falkenstein replied that this was correct. She said staff’s intent is to apply it to other areas as they update future plans. Mr. Bivins asked Ms. Falkenstein to proceed to the next question. Ms. Falkenstein said the next question related to the topic “New Land Use Tools,” and was about the Downtown Neighborhoods Overlay. She said this was a category that staff had brought to the Commission in September 2020, and the content was similar to what they saw before. She said the intent of this overlay is to incentivize more affordable housing in the Downtown areas and specifically focus on the preservation of existing affordable housing, otherwise known as “NOAHs,” or Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing. She said it would apply to the areas near Downtown that currently have a Neighborhood Density Residential designation. She said this would be a tool staff would use when reviewing future legislative applications for rezonings of properties. Ms. Falkenstein said staff came up with some density and form criteria to pair with the overlay. She said the current Neighborhood Density Residential designation carries a density of 3-6 units per acre as a recommendation. She said staff was saying that within this overlay, if certain density and form criteria are met, one could go above the 6-units-per-acre density recommendation in these areas. Ms. Falkenstein said there are housing forms that are recommended with this overlay, which are similar to the Middle Density and those [inaudible] forms. She said they are recommended because they are similar in scale to the neighborhoods that are already there. She said some examples were shown on the screen, and the one shown on the left was a multiplex unit that coexists along single-family homes. She said it was a conversion where a house was converted to multiple units. She said this was in Belmont, in Charlottesville. Ms. Falkenstein said accessory units are also a recommended types, and the screen showed examples of different ways accessory units can be built on a lot. She said they can be within the house, a garage conversion, or as an addition as a detached accessory. She lastly, stacked townhouses were shown as a type of housing that can be within this category as recommended. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 28 Ms. Falkenstein said there were two different slides she would go to that talked about form criteria or the application of the overlay. She said the first were form types, with three different forms of development that would qualify. She said the first is converting an existing structure to multiple units. She said the second is the addition of an accessory on a lot. She said the third is infill development that adds new development units. She said the assumption with infill is that if there are any existing units, they remain. She said the same is true with the first two – if there are existing units on the lot, they remain. Ms. Falkenstein said the second slide talked about criteria for infill development. She said if infill development is being proposed, two criteria must be met: the development is in keeping with the prevailing development patterns of the surrounding street, and the development provides additional affordable or workforce housing beyond what is currently required. She said the definitions of the affordable and workforce housing were supplied on the slide for the Commission’s information. Ms. Falkenstein said the Downtown Neighborhoods Overlay map was similar to what the Commission saw last time, but the area outlined in the blue boundary shown was the proposed boundary for the Commission to consider. She said it would be the areas within the boundary that were shown in yellow that would be the Neighborhood Density Residential categories. She said staff came up with these boundaries on some of the existing neighborhood boundaries, using the Historic District designation boundaries as well as looking at historic plat data. She said Pleasant Green was included, and they would talk about this later. She indicated on the map to the location of Pleasant Green. She said she could come back to that slide later if there were questions about the map. Ms. Falkenstein said the map on the screen showed the Historic District Overlay, with the boundary in red and the Historic District in white. She said the district touches on some areas of Pleasant Green, areas off of St. George Avenue, and the Downtown area. Ms. Falkenstein said an example of what this could look like in an existing development pattern was that there was recently a rezoning approved on St. George Avenue, where the property was rezoned from R2 Residential to R4. She said while she acknowledges that R4 was still in keeping with the 3-6 density requirement, she wanted to show the form of how this looked. She said this was an existing large lot, and they added a second house on the lot and an accessory. She said the new house is in keeping with the form of the pattern of development on the street. She said this pattern could be repeated in other areas that might have smaller lots where one can see the density creep up above 6, even if they maintain this type of pattern of development that is consistent with the street. Ms. Falkenstein said there has been a lot of feedback on and quite a bit of opposition to including Pleasant Green in the Downtown Neighborhoods Overlay, and so she wanted to talk through what it might look like if they were to continue to include Pleasant Green. Ms. Falkenstein indicated on the map to a property that is currently being developed by right and explained how some of the houses were going up. She said there were townhomes being developed, and they continue the pattern of development by right, which is R6 Residential and can get up to 6 units per acre. She said if the property owner decided they wanted to pursue an additional amount of density on the property, however, they can ask to rezone it to something higher. She said if it were in the overlay, staff would look at the criteria and see how they were being applied. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 29 Ms. Falkenstein said there are scale parameters, a height of no more than three stories, and consistent housing forms to adjacent areas. She indicated on the map to Cling Lane and explained that if more housing were to be developed along that area, staff would look at the forms to se e if they are consistent with the prevailing development pattern along Cling Lane. Ms. Falkenstein said there are existing historic structures, and she understands that one has been torn down. She said the other one, if it were to be preserved with the redevelopment and reused, is something staff would look at as well. Ms. Falkenstein said lastly, staff would be looking at the provision of affordable and workforce housing. She said they would be looking at applicants to provide something higher than what is currently required through the rezoning process (or more than 15%). Ms. Falkenstein said the reason staff had proposed the overlay in the first place was a desire to preserve the areas around Downtown. She said there is a fear that as Downtown redevelops and becomes a desirable place to live (more so than it already is), they may start to see those torn down. She said this is already happening somewhat, and there is a fear that this will continue to happen. She said staff wanted to create something that would incentivize the preservation of some of the existing houses and neighborhoods. She said there is the Historic District, but no regulations to preserve historic structures right now. Ms. Falkenstein said to continue to support the guiding principle of providing housing choice and creating these housing types that the community has said they desire, the feedback heard from the CAC was twofold. She said there was concern about the inclusion of Pleasant Green, and the CAC largely did not want Pleasant Green to be included because of the possibility of additional density. She said they did not feel it was of the same category as some of the existing neighborhoods. She said this is a larger vacant property, and it did not seem to fit the way they felt it should. She said the CAC therefore felt that Pleasant Green should be removed. Ms. Falkenstein said lastly, there was concern broadly from the CAC about the category of infill development, and perhaps this should not even be a possibility to qualify for additional density. She said they wanted either additional restrictions around infill development, or removal of infill development altogether. She said there were people on both sides of that topic. Ms. Falkenstein said the question for the Commission that evening was if they continue to support the Downtown Neighborhoods Overlay as staff proposed, or if they recommend changes to the boundary and/or the criteria. She offered to go back to the slides if there was anything the Commission wanted to see. Mr. Keller said the more he thinks about this, the more problems he has. He said he understood the dilemma staff was faced with. He said they want to protect historic resources, provide the continuation of affordable housing in some of those historic resources, and they want to add density in the category of affordable housing. He said he thinks this would be much better accomplished by having a local historic district ordinance, a local historic district overlay with design review, and the ability to add ADUs to buildings in that greater neighborhood. Mr. Keller said it seems to him that there are two conflicts in terms of land use. He said there are areas that go from relatively dense, on a village scale, with older resources that are locally and historically significant. He said then, there is open land, and so to try to put a new development into it presents another problem to him. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 30 Mr. Keller said a third problem is that by creating the category this way, they are leaving open the opportunity for density bonuses. He said if they are doing density bonuses, then it seems to him that this is going to fly in the face of protecting historic resources. Mr. Keller said that conceptually, he was totally with staff, and he thinks they have been faced with a close-to-unsolvable dilemma if the County continues to resist having a local historic district ordinance with associated design review, like every other progressive community in the Commonwealth of Virginia has. Mr. Keller said this was where he was. He said he was with staff in terms of trying to accomplish both the built-out area and the non-built-out area, but he thinks they need to be divided into two categories and that there needs to be a different solution for how they deal with the historic area. Ms. More said she appreciated Mr. Keller’s comments, and she looked forward to hearing what others had to say. She said she did want to acknowledge what staff brought up about the Pleasant Green property so that they may break this up a little because if this moves forward and it is a favorable idea with other Commissioners and the Board, she still thinks it is important to address the existence of that property within the overlay. She said she thinks having it included, to her, undermines the intent of the overlay as a concept that staff brought forward. She said part of that is because this property is unlike no other property, and it is 30 or so acres. Ms. More pointed out that the property is by right, at 6 units per acre, but they used the gross calculation. She said she had calculated it before and although she could not remember what it ended up being, it is already above 6 if they calculate the buildable land and the number of units that have been proposed, which is upwards of 200 as a by-right property. She said she felt this was important to point out. Ms. More said Stanley Martin has expressed to her and to Ms. Mallek, since the beginning, that they want more density on this property. She said this is not something Stanley Martin has been shy about asking for or bringing up in conversation. She said there has always been the mention of an affordable component that would come along with that. Ms. More said just the day before, she was given information, and even during the present meeting, some things were coming through asking about this property. She said if there is an opportunity to do something with this property that has an affordable component that is innovative and different than what has been seen before, although she did not feel that it fits in the overlay, she would suggest that just like with property-specific requests (and even those that were before the Commission that evening), they could come forward with a request like that, which the Commission could consider separately and on its own merits. Ms. More said she was not suggesting that they stay out of the overlay, or even that there is no overlay to preclude them from pursuing an opportunity. She said at the beginning of this process, in some of the breakout sessions, having them come in with 60 more units was a question. She said she has asked staff over and over if they are still asking that question. She said it sounded like they were not and that they are counting on potentially being in the overlay, which she would suggest there is another path forward for them to pursue. She said this was her feedback about Pleasant Green. Ms. More said she agrees with much of what Mr. Keller said about the overlay. She said it starts to go sideways for her when they get to #3, which is where she worries. She said she understands ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 31 they have to incentivize people making this choice, but she worries that the incentive is accidentally a loophole or workaround that encourages more density. She said she has a lot of questions about what this would look like, if pursued. She said Mr. Keller brought up one, which is that she has not seen a number that says what it can be at the most. She said it just says they can have more. She asked if this is in addition to other density bonuses that they know people can get, and where it would stop. Ms. More said there are all kinds of questions she has that would unravel when they get to #3. She expressed that despite the good faith effort on staff’s part, without having those answered and knowing if there is a good answer, it may encourage more than just the 6. She said all the neighborhoods in it already have the potential for underlying zonings there, but the land use designation allows for the 3-6. Ms. More said the other thing she would point out is that the whole area wraps around Downtown, and there are parts of Downtown that have not developed, have a residential component, and are quite dense. She said those numbers will be brought forward, and this should be a part of this conversation when talking about getting to some of those housing types that are more inclusive of everyone. Ms. More said she wanted to hang onto the overlay and figure out a way to make it work better, but she did not know what that was. Ms. Firehock said she was interested when Ms. Falkenstein showed the picture from Belmont because this was where she bought her first house when she moved to Charlottesville when she was 27 years old. She said she was able to afford her house because it had an accessory unit in the back, which helped her make rent as a 27-year-old homebuyer. Ms. Firehock said at that time when she moved to Belmont, the City had banned all future conversion of single-family residences into duplexes and triplexes because they felt that it started to destabilize the neighborhood. She said the City has since reversed that position and is encouraging that to happen again. She said perhaps they may swing back the other way, and people will go back and unconvert many of these structures. She said it can, however, change the character of the neighborhood if it happens to a large degree, and so she is actually not in favor of this recommendation to take many of the single-family homes and allow them to be so easily converted into multi-units. Ms. Firehock said in terms of maybe having an accessory unit in the back, however, this is certainly something that can allow one to bring their elder parents to live with them, a college student who had trouble getting a job, or even just renting something out to the earlier affordable housing comment that then allows them to stay in their home as a retiree. Ms. Firehock said there is a lot of merit to the idea of the accessory unit, but she thinks they also have to be very careful with that because she has seen a lot of situations where accessory units end up taking up the whole backyard. She said if they were to create this as some sort of by-right allowance, then she thinks they need to put some kind of cap on it so that it does not take up more than 30% of the backyard. She said this way, it would not change the character of all the backyards of a certain neighborhood, and there would still be greenspace and the ability of the people who live there to throw a ball in the backyard. She said it would provide some of the affordability. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 32 Ms. Firehock said she was not in favor of the ability to convert, by right, all of these housing units to multi-units. She added that she had no comment on Pleasant Green, as she simply did not have enough information to possibly weigh in on that. She said this was another example where she would defer to Ms. More. Mr. Randolph said the responsibility of the Planning Commission was not only to look at today, but at where the community is going in the future. He said he gets what the Planning staff is recommending for a Downtown zoning district and the goal of seeing intensified urbanization, with all the intended features of that. He said he was supportive of the category. Mr. Randolph said he agreed with Mr. Keller and had it in his own notes as well is that he thinks a local historic zoning district or overlay is absolutely essential. He said he had a question for Mr. Herrick. He asked if Crozet was to seek legislative authority to become a town, if under the State Constitution, a town has the authority to create its own historic district. Mr. Herrick replied that he would need to look into this to be sure, but he believed that a town could adopt this as part of their zoning ordinance. Mr. Randolph said he believed it could because this was done in Scottsville. He said perhaps this would be a way to go, which would also address a comment that was seen repeatedly in the emails the Commission received and an argument that the County should be doing more in terms of road infrastructure. He said there is a lack of understanding that the County is not the master of road construction within the County limits, as they are dependent upon funding from the state because they do not have a roads department (like Hanover County). He said therefore, with the taxing authority that a town would provide, Crozet would be able to fund whatever it wants to fund. He said this might be one way for it to proceed. Mr. Randolph said another thing he wanted to bring up was that missing under the height and massing category for Downtown was any mention of a maximum square foot footprint. He told Ms. Falkenstein that he thought it would be helpful to have this fleshed out, going forward, to indicate what staff thinks should be the maximum with this category. He said he was little nervous about having it so open-ended when it can go 2-4 stories and up to 6, by exception, and they do not have any estimate of the square footage. He said under these terms, one could basically cut off the top stories of the Empire State Building and put up the first 6 stories, then say that this is Downtown Crozet. He said he was not sure if that was appropriate, and so he would recommend this be included as well. Mr. Bivins said if there is not a way to do the historic overlay, then his sense is this is an option that gets them somewhat there, but not fully there. He said that in doing so, he was not supportive and would have a hard time appreciating why Pleasant Green would be included in this overlay if, in fact, one of the pieces is to try to preserve, for instance, the area from Railroad over to St. George, then over to the right, to Wayland. He said if they are trying to preserve the area , plus the area over by Crozet Park, he was having a hard time appreciating how Pleasant Green knits itself into the look, feel, and vintage of those communities. Mr. Bivins said as a way of figuring out how to give some oversight into development that might go on in those areas, the footprint is something he is more in line with, as Mr. Keller mentioned, if it is around 2,200 square feet. He said he struggles with a 5,000-square-foot footprint, given that even if they were to do three stories, as Mr. Bailey brought up, they would be looking at a 15,000-square-foot structure there. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 33 Mr. Bivins said that even in this area, he would be more supportive of a smaller footprint, not including Pleasant Green. He said he did appreciate what Mr. Keller and Mr. Randolph were saying about what was needed here was to do a historic district overlay. He said he then would have some questions and concerns about what this will do for those individuals who do not realize that they can opt into the overlay. Mr. Bivins said they did not want to push people into having to change their houses in a specific way if that is not what they are trying to opt into. He said if one has a bungalow, for instance, and wants to add a sunroom onto it that looks like the bungalow, he does not want to have to push someone through a complex or burdensome process to get that done. He said he did appreciate that what they were trying to do here was to provide some consistency and room for this area to be preserved, but as he said before, he had concerns with both the footprint and the inclusion of Pleasant Green (which he would not support). Mr. Randolph said Ms. Falkenstein indicated at the end of this topic whether further criteria should be provided for infill development, and he wanted to be sure with something he has been talking about for a couple of years. He said he does think there is the need for spelling out exactly the criteria, as specifically as possible, for infill development here. He said this is reassuring for the neighborhood and community, and he thinks it can also serve as a prototype that can be used in other denser areas of the County. Mr. Randolph said he was thinking specifically of Broadway, in the Scottsville District, that it might be appropriate to be utilized there. He said certainly, it is a topic that the Town of Scottsville is currently dealing with around the former tire factory, with infill development and whether that could be a template that the town could use. He said he thinks there would be a number of benefits to rounding out the criteria and specifying them for infill development in this Downtown district. Mr. Bivins said while they are saying this for Crozet and Scottsville, the Jack Jouett District has a number of parcels that, when they look at them, they could actually be aided in their future development if there was, in fact, an articulated approach to infill development. He said it is not just about the border communities in terms of that. Mr. Bivins said if Ms. More were to be the last person to speak on this issue, he would suggest taking a five-minute break after Ms. More speaks for two minutes so that they could stop at 8:20 p.m. and come back at 8:25 p.m. Ms. More said she wanted to add to the discussion about the area that for her, if they were to move forward with this, perhaps they could clarify the infill part. She said she understands there are some vacant properties in this area, but not many. She said they are talking about lots that have an existing dwelling on them, for the most part, and so what they call “infill” and what is not considered infill here is very important. Ms. More said another comment she wanted to add that she had in her notes and did not say before is that there is a very real challenge in the majority of these neighborhoods (which are older) to have the roadway be wide enough. She said there are some places where the road simply is not wide enough, and there is nowhere to expand (so, forget about sidewalks). Ms. More said what they want to encourage, as there is already a possibility for redevelopment or infill here at the 3-6, she wants to put it out there for part of the consideration as this goes forward to the Board that they are talking about these older neighborhoods where there are real ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 34 examples of projects that the County has that they want to push forward, where part of the neighborhoods that are included that go out from this area to the park has an existing sidewalk, which is in terrible condition, that the County wants to improve. She said that getting the right-of- way secured to do that, however, has been difficult, and it is a very expensive project. Ms. More said her point was that when they want to encourage development or even have the overlay go above the 6, these are all neighborhoods that have travelways that do not meet VDOT standards in many cases, and there is an inability to gain the right-of-way. She said they would be going outside of the right-of-way and taking property from people to do curb-and-gutter sidewalk. She said some neighborhoods have a patchwork of sidewalks in this area, and to be robust, this area wants to become something that is more walkable and bikeable to Downtown. She said there is a real challenge there, and so they need to acknowledge that. Ms. More said she understood Mr. Randolph’s comment about the plan to look out ten years. She said the 2020 plan was about where they are, and the 2021 plan was about how to change it. She said she thinks the community gets that they are looking ahead, and so these choices and discussions are about what could happen and what they want to say about how it will happen. Ms. More said to the point that Mr. Randolph made about the infrastructure piece, however, it is the County’s responsibility to help secure funding to put those things in place. She said if she lived in the Village of Rivanna, she would be paying close attention to this and seeing how the community has a feeling about something and seemingly, it is ignored. She said she was not asking for nothing to change, or for there to be no development until certain projects are met, as she thinks this is an unfair expectation. She said she does think the County has a part to play in this process, however, before they move forward and create density in these places where it currently does not exist to secure some of this for the community. Ms. More said it does seem like what is fair for one place is not fair for another, and she thinks that another goal of master planning is to be consistent. She said staff brings this up in different areas where they want to make changes so that across all the plans, what they say means the same thing, and she thinks this is important. Mr. Bivins asked Mr. Keller if he wanted to say something before they were to go on break. Mr. Keller said he wanted to note that Nashville has shown that one can have a historic district and form-based code layers. He said the same could be done with the Downtown Neighborhood Overlay and historic district. He said one of the conflicts that is being set up, which Ms. Falkenstein and Ms. Firehock mentioned, is the possibility of demolition. He said a historic district ordinance in the Commonwealth of Virginia does have the opportunity to have a demolition deferral. He said it was not taking away an entity’s ability to ultimately tear something down, but it gives an opportunity for a “time out,” and if there was an interested party willing to enter into the marketplace, there may be a possibility in certain cases to not have that demolition. He said this is another reason for the historic district overlay. At 8:23 p.m., Mr. Bivins announced a short break. At 8:32 p.m., Mr. Bivins called the meeting back to order. Ms. Accardi said the next topic was about greenspace designations in Crozet. She said she would be sharing advanced materials for the third of six questions that evening. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 35 Ms. Accardi said the slide on the screen showed information about the 2010 Crozet Master Plan. She said the greenspace designation in that plan refers to all of the existing and proposed parks, the public open space, environmental features, and active park areas. She said the left side of the screen showed that “environmental features” refer to stream buffers, floodplains, and steep slopes. She said private open space is the greenspace required within residential developments, but is not accessible to the general public. She said public parks are owned and maintained by the County. She said the greenspace designation refers to all of these things. Ms. Accardi said additionally, the 2010 master plan has several parcels that are designated entirely as greenspace. She said many of these same properties are within private ownership and are zoned Residential. She said they are not planned for future public or private parks or open spaces, and they do not contain significant environmental features. She said this greenspace approach is not consistent with other Albemarle County master plans, nor the Comprehensive Plan approach for concentrating development in Development Areas. Ms. Accardi said additionally, showing entire parcels as greenspace on the future land use plan, when these properties are not planned for future parks and do not have any critical environmental resources identified for protection, can pose a couple of challenges for redevelopment potential. She said first, this approach can set false expectations for existing or future property owners who may be under the assumption that adjacent greenspace properties may not be developable when the underlying zoning may be in place to allow development. She said secondly, existing or future property owners who own greenspace parcels may be unaware of this designation and may wish to pursue development in the future. Ms. Accardi said that for these reasons stated, staff recommends restricting the Parks and Green Systems designation to properties that contain visual buffers, environmental features, and land planned for private open space. She said publicly owned parks are categorized as “public parks” on the draft future land use plan. Ms. Accardi said staff has revised the future land use plan for several of the greenspace parc els to reflect this approach, focusing these changes on larger parcels or groups of parcels and specific property owner requests, which would be discussed later that evening. She said the proposed changes to the greenspace parcels are described in Attachment 2 of the staff report. Ms. Accardi said the 2010 future land use plan show the parcels that were shown on the screen, along Route 250, as a mix of Neighborhood Density Residential and greenspace. She said the draft updated future land use plan shows these parcels as “Neighborhood Density Residential – Low” and parks and green systems for areas that contain environmental features, as well as a 50-foot visual buffer along Route 250. She said these parcels are all zoned R1 Residential, which allows by-right development of a density of 1 unit per acre. Ms. Accardi said for the area staff titled “Brownsville” along Route 250, staff heard feedback from at least one resident in this area who has a preference for keeping the parcels designated as greenspace (which is now called “Parks and Green Systems” in the 2020 plan to align with other master plans). She said the majority of CAC members would prefer to keep the parcels’ designation as greenspace, and much of the feedback staff heard that is related to this has to do with the density and infrastructure implications of this change. Ms. Accardi said another area where there is a proposed parcel change related to the greenspace designation is Tax Map Parcel 56-13, which is currently zoned R2 Residential and partially ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 36 contains environmental features. She said the 2010 plan, which was shown at the top right of the screen, shows a portion of this property designated as Neighborhood Density Residential and the rest of the property as greenspace. Ms. Accardi said that in the current draft, staff recommends expanding this area of the property designated Neighborhood Density Residential to include all of the areas outside of the environmental features. She said the lower righthand part of the screen showed more yellow color, which denoted an area that is not an environmental feature. She said this is approximately 23-46 dwelling units over the current designation. Ms. Accardi said the CAC did not vote on this change, though some committee members shared with staff that they had heard this property is in the process of being placed under conservation easement. She said several members of the CAC expressed their objection to the proposed change for this reason, and staff has reached out to local easement holders. She said staff is not aware of a pending easement on this property, and so this is the information they have, to date. Ms. Accardi said that overall, staff has heard several aspects to feedback about greenspace parcels, and it has been mixed. She said they have consistently heard support for a refined approach towards greenspace designation and for differentiating between environmental features and public parks, and they first began community engagement on this topic in early 2020. She said there is a preference from some residents, however, to retain the current greenspace designation in the areas of Crozet that they shared previously. She said the main concern is that changing the designation from greenspace to another land use category (e.g., Neighborhood Density Residential – Low) could encourage additional development. Ms. Accardi said that as she had mentioned on previous slides, at the November 30, 2020 CCAC meeting, a majority of CCAC members did not support changing the Brownsville Road greenspace designation, and they did not vote on the [inaudible] lane change. Ms. Accardi said in conclusion, this information was related to Question 3 in the staff report. She said staff was seeking feedback from the Planning Commission on which of the following approaches towards designating areas in Crozet as Parks and Greenspaces was recommended. She said the first was to continue staff’s current recommendations and update the Parks and Green Systems designation of other smaller parcels that contain environmental features, but outside of them, could be updated and have not currently been reviewed for a current property owner request. She said another option is to continue to limit greenspace designation review to larger areas and property owner requests. She said a final option was to retain the previous land use designations shown in the 2010 master plan. Ms. Accardi concluded her presentation for Question 3 and offered to answer any questions as needed. Mr. Bivins asked Ms. More if she felt called to speak to this. Ms. More replied yes. She said she would provide feedback about this, but leave out one property that related to a later, specific question. She said she appreciates why it does not make much sense to have that designation if it is going to cause confusion to people about what is around it and what can happen with the property if one lives nearby. She said she felt that as far as the properties are on Route 250, it was not a big deal to give this a different designation, although she does think that it could encourage development there. She said she does think it is a little ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 37 confusing to have it marked as greenspace, but that people who own properties in that area and who live nearby are well aware that there is a by-right potential that already exists. She said she does appreciate staff wanting to be more consistent with that. Ms. More said that for the other property staff talked about specifically (P3), she thinks that staff should talk to the property owner, since these are not specific requests, and they are requests that staff has brought forward. She said there is more to learn about that property in that area that she thinks would help guide where staff is headed with that request. Mr. Randolph said he wanted to speak in support of the first matter of updating the greenspace designation of areas of these other smaller parcels that are outside of environmental features and have not been reviewed per property owner request. He said he thinks this makes a great deal of sense, and this is very well explained in the staff report as to the reason for the change. Mr. Keller said he supports this as well. He said he thinks that the route is going down on this is much more clear. He said he remembers from the recent Pantops Master Plan that the public members who were not following this as closely as others were surprised when they learned there was a development planned for an area that was designated as potential open space. Mr. Keller said he believed there were two other factors, and as they are moving into the Comprehensive Plan, perhaps they were more appropriate there, but he wanted to mention them here. He said he thinks that if there are areas where, like one of the next questions the Commission would be dealing with, it makes sense to have public areas there, then there needs to be a plan for future acquisition for open space from the County. He said then, the question would be whether this should be showing up on the Comprehensive Plan or in the area plans. He said he knows Mr. Rapp has spoken to this question of whether it would be more reasonable to be projecting where there should be some open space, and he thinks this, in effect, is what has gotten the County into a dilemma that staff is shrewdly trying to correct here. Mr. Keller said the second piece was if they could have an opportunity in the next year to revisit the policy about net versus gross density coming off of the areas that should not be developed within a parcel, he thinks that if people in any of the growth areas had a better sense as to whether there would be better protection of those and it was not going to lead to density increases if there was development in these natural resource areas, that they would be more comfortable in the long-range planning. Mr. Keller said he was in support of what staff was suggesting. Mr. Randolph said one thing he did not add, as he was trying to cover one point, is the biblical adage of, “What the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.” He said he thinks if the County takes away some of the greenspace, there is a responsibility for the County to ensure that where development takes place, there is more open public space available for an increasingly dense population living in Crozet. He said if the Commission were to do nothing with this proposal there that evening and put it in the trash can, over the next 10 years, the density in Crozet will continue to go up. Mr. Randolph said he thinks one thing that would be helpful is if, in fact, they are going to take away greenspace (which he totally agrees with doing), he thinks it is incumbent on the County on every one of the projects coming down the line to ensure that there is more greenspace provided in that proposal. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 38 Ms. Firehock said she had a couple of overarching comments. She said one is that they have the same challenge coming upon them in Crozet that they are currently experiencing in the growth area around the City of Charlottesville, which is that they do not have enough greenspace. She said they keep growing, and they are not keeping pace with public space, walking space, trails, etc. She said she is actually not in support of a net decrease in greenspace. She said if the County wants to spend the time creating a green master plan for Crozet, she knows that there are parks and a network, etc., but to take another look at that and think about how all of these spaces connect, she would very much support this, and she would be happy to assist with that. Ms. Firehock said she would say, however, that there are other uses for greenspace besides taking care of environmental features. She said she thinks what staff was referring to earlier is that an area may be designated as greenspace, but it does not have a stream, wetland, steep slope, or other particular feature that has been designated as important. She said if one is a person who lives down the street from this, however, and it does become greenspace in the future, this now provides one with walking space to go outside and recreate, which becomes an important feature for that person even though, ecologically, others may deem it as insignificant. Ms. Firehock said if one looks at the data on aging in place, one of the number one reasons that people are able to stay in their homes is not just because of handicap accessibility, ramps, etc., but the ability to be able to take a walk and reach greenspace without having to get into a car. She said if staff wants to research this further, the Trust for Public Lands (a nonprofit) has a lot of metrics and indicators on their website for looking at how much greenspace there should be per capita and how walkable a community is. She said there was talk that evening about people not having sidewalks or places to take a walk, and so having the future greenspace is very important. Ms. Firehock said she could not debate that evening as to whether one particular greenspace is more important. She said she did understand the comments that were made about zoning and that someone might think the Comprehensive Plan says it is greenspace, but it is zoned for development, and so a development goes in by right. Ms. Firehock said in summary, she would like to not see a net decline in the amount and acreage of greenspace that is available to Crozet. Ms. Firehock said her second point was that she would like to see perhaps another look taken at the master connectivity of the greenspace that is there. She said sometimes, a patch of greenspace can actually become an important connector for a bird, pollinator, or person. She said looking at each parcel in isolation, one does not see the big picture of the connectivity. Ms. Firehock apologized, noting that she was very tired at that point, as she had been at work since 8:00 a.m. She said she was going to quote someone without naming the person. She said a County staff person said to her years ago, before Crozet was developed as a growth area or designated as such, that they wished they had had the opportunity to go in and created a master greenspace plan before all the areas were designated for growth because they could have created something truly spectacular. She said the County has missed a lot of those opportunities. Ms. Firehock said she has worked with the City of Richmond and other cities to take parcels that were zoned for development and use them to add to parkland, or to create new trail systems. She said it can be done, even when it may entail taking down an older house (not necessarily a historic one) and using that to then create a pocket park or to fill in the missing link that now creates a greenway. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 39 Ms. Firehock said she did not mean to go into professor mode and rant about connectivity and greenspace, but she did want to emphasize that she did not want to see a net decline of greenspace and that she would like to a coordinated plan with a look at how many Crozet residents can walk to a greenspace safely from their house. Mr. Bailey said he agreed with clarifying this with staff’s approach in terms of Parks and Green Systems so that they do not create confusion of what is developable. He said maps can be powerful, and if they are inaccurate, they lead to nothing but confusion and concern. He said one could think they live near something that is green, and then it goes away with development, which is not good for anyone. Mr. Bailey said he would, however, piggyback on some of the other comments, as they are facing the same thing across the County and in the Rio District. He said as they increase density (which is the goal in the Development Areas), the question is to what role the County will take in helping to ensure they have these green systems, the ability to maintain them, and make them open and accessible for all citizens. He said that as they look at this in the next phase, they are growing and will grow, and they need to have a good approach to maintaining, preserving, and increasing the amount of greenspace in the Development Areas. Mr. Clayborne expressed that he agreed with Ms. Firehock. He said what he has seen, especially in light of COVID, is that the greenspace has been a lifesaver. He said whenever he goes to Darden Towe Park, for example, there are more people there than he has ever seen in his life. He said he suspects this will not go away for quite some time, and so he would not want to see a decrease in the greenspace and quality of life. Mr. Bivins said he supports staff’s recommendation that the parks and greenspaces be designated as listed. He said it is funny how habit trails begin. He said he lives contiguous to Ivy Creek Natural Park, and all of a sudden, some people started walking across his property to go to the park because someone misread the park map and said that the park lane goes across his property. He said it was somewhat unsettling to see people stand in his face and tell him that this is a park lane and is greenspace that is open to everyone, while he would say that this was not the case and never has been. He said he would agree with staff that clarity helps, and particularly in this environment, to ease some of the habit trails that people are putting out during this period. Mr. Bivins asked staff if they received what they needed. Ms. Accardi replied that she believed so. She said they would come back on more of this topic related to the conservation factor. She said this conversation was related to the land use designation that they see the overlap, and they will have more in the future. Ms. Kanellopoulos said she would be presenting the first question for Topic #3, which is property owner requests, with the first being for White Gate Farm. She said part of the question is also about the adjacent Neighborhood Center. Ms. Kanellopoulos said this was a property owner request, and White Gate Farm was two parcels, shown on the map on the slide. She said the main one is located between Wickham Pond and Park Ridge, along Route 240. She said it is currently designated as greenspace in the 2010 master plan. She said there is also the adjacent parcel to the northwest, along Route 240, which is designated as Light Industrial. She said the master plan contains specific language for the ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 40 larger White Gate parcel that is intended to break up the appearance of continuous development along Route 240. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the property owner of these parcels approached staff in 2018 to request a land use designation change to allow for development that was more consistent with the adjacent Wickham Pond development. She said White Gate (the main parcel) is currently zoned Rural Area, which allows residential development up to 0.5 units per acre. She said a portion of the property is within a stream buffer, and the property owner has submitted a rezoning request, which has been deferred, pending this master plan update. Ms. Kanellopoulos said staff’s recommendation with the 2020 update is a split designation between Neighborhood Density Residential, Middle Density Residential, and Parks and Green Systems (for the area with environmental features, which includes the stream buffer and some preserved steep slopes, as well as a visual buffer along Route 240). She said this would continue the land use pattern on the adjacent Wickham Pond development, which is also recommended for this split designation and is currently split between Urban Density and Neighborhood Density Residential. She said it would allow for a potential connection to Park Ridge Drive, which would significantly enhance connectivity for residents in this area. Ms. Kanellopoulos said this proposed designation is consistent with several Crozet land use goals, including providing a variety of housing types in Crozet and ensuring that new and infill development is consistent in scale and design with existing adjacent development. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the second part of the question relates to the proposed Neighborhood Center. She said that during the January 2019 workshops, staff introduced options for potential designations of activity centers in Crozet. She said centers are intended to be the focal points of activity that serve the surrounding area. She said they typically have a mix of uses, a higher intensity of uses than surrounding neighborhoods, and are served by transit. She said Neighborhood Centers are intended to have residential and small-scale commercial uses with active ground floor uses, mixed-use buildings, and 2-4 stories in height. She said the 2010 master plan also included mixed-use centers. Ms. Kanellopoulos said staff’s recommendation for a Neighborhood Center would have the center point on the adjacent Wickham Pond development. She said there is an undeveloped parcel within Wickham Pond, along Route 240, which was shown on the map on the screen in orange, with the Neighborhood Center shown on top. She said White Gate Farm would be within a quarter mile walkshed, and so it would be included within center. She said this designation is intended to reflect the small-scale commercial area approved with the Wickham Pond rezoning and emphasize connectivity with Downtown and other areas of activity. She said the Wickham Pond rezoning allows up to 16,000 square feet of nonresidential uses in this block, including retail, commercial, and private schools. Ms. Kanellopoulos said Neighborhood Centers are also intended to provide opportunities for pedestrian and bicycle connectivity. She said that in the future, additional density in this area could allow for a potential transit stop. She said the designation is also intended to align with the center typologies established with the Places29 and Pantops Master Plans. Ms. Kanellopoulos said feedback has varied during the process for White Gate Farm. She said there has been support for providing the road connection to Park Ridge Drive. She said there has been mixed community support for the split designation throughout the process, but staff has also ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 41 heard a lot of concern with the potential for additional development to impact infrastructure. She said that at the most recent CAC meeting, a majority of members were opposed to the split designation shown of Neighborhood Density and Middle Density Residential, but agreed that the parcels should not be entirely greenspace and would support a lower density designation instead. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that for the Neighborhood Center, a majority of the CAC was also opposed to this designation and was concerned with possible competition with Downtown. She said staff has also heard support from the community for enhanced walkability in this area and support for connectivity to the Downtown area, connecting to this area. Ms. Kanellopoulos said staff’s question to the Commission was whether they support the land use changes shown for White Gate Farm properties or have a different recommendation, and whether they support or have a different recommendation for the Neighborhood Center on the draft future land use plan. Mr. Bivins said he had a question for Mr. Herrick and Mr. Rapp. He said if this was an active proposal that was coming before the Commission as a rezoning, if they should be engaging in this conversation that evening without seeing a plan. Mr. Herrick replied that it was appropriate and an option for the Commission to consider amendments to the Comprehensive Plan at any time. He said this is part of a systematic review of the Comprehensive Plan, and it is not inappropriate for the Commission to be considering proposed amendments to the Comprehensive Plan. Ms. More said she had a question for staff. She said the part of Wickham Pond that is developed that shows on the 2010 master plan as Urban Density Residential, which is up to 12 units. She asked staff how dense this part of Wickham Pond that staff showed on the new map and where staff expanded the Middle Density Residential color. Ms. Falkenstein said this might take staff a few minutes to look up. She asked Ms. More if she wanted to move on to other questions, in the meantime. Ms. More said she felt like staff had said it earlier and that it was much more dense than she had thought it was. She said she would base her comments on the notion that it is currently zoned for Urban Density Residential, which is up to 12, for the portion that is developed. She said they know that this can be a little higher with bonus densities and such. She said it is dense, but she thought that staff gave a number earlier that was over 24, and perhaps she misheard that. Ms. Falkenstein clarified that this was just the back portion of townhomes that have accessory units in them. She said not all of Wickham Pond has accessory units, and so she was just looking at one street in Wickham Pond rather than the entire neighborhood. Ms. More said this was helpful. She said there was one comment she wanted to make just from reading some of the chats. She said there was one comment in the chat that Crozet is a growth area, and if Crozet would allow development to happen that needs to, as in other Development Areas of the County. She said to that, she would say that they have taken on a huge amount of development, and as seen in the discussion that evening, there are still properties actively being developed, and they are quite dense and are producing more numbers. She said this was her response to that question. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 42 Ms. More said she absolutely thinks that this property needs to have a land use designation, and while she likes the split idea from staff, what she sees is having it be something a little more dense next to Wickham Pond, where it can expand over, and then have it go down. She said at the most, she would have the urban density at 12 and the neighborhood density at 3-6. Ms. More said in response to the question about the center and having it be a Neighborhood Center, she does not understand this because she supposed that with the location, she would first argue that they should not even be trying to encourage more commercial development outside of what is happening in Downtown. She said in this area where they are trying to push some more density, she thinks it could tolerate a little bit, but it desperately wants to connect to Downtown, and people are willing to bike that distance. She said walking is hard, however. Ms. More said that with all the money that has gone into Downtown, and with the County trying to partner to make something happen there, she struggles to see how they would develop this new center out there and encourage more commercial development that takes away from Downtown. She said not having it be accessible to Downtown when it wants to be is a concern for her. Ms. More said that if they had to put a center point out there, she did not under stand why they would put it in the location shown and not over where there are already some commercial activities. She said there is a Sentara satellite location for doctor offices and a daycare, so she supposed that if there were to be some commercial development, she would think it would center around what is already there. She said these were some comments about the category for land use and the development of another center. Mr. Randolph said he wanted to echo, in some ways, what Ms. More raised as a question and address it. He said he does think it is important that they are clear about the fact that they are talking about a Neighborhood Service Center and not a Village Center. Mr. Randolph said his second point was that he likes the split and thinks it is totally appropriate. He said he likes how this has been done in more than one locality in Crozet in trying to utilize where the space is available to ensure that there will be growth potential residentially, and seeking to preserve the high natural resource values that are on that piece of property as well. Mr. Randolph said he did want to give everyone a real case study of the danger of putting a center off of a major highway. He said where the center is proposed here appears to be at some distance from Three Notched Road. He said he would share more with the Commission that evening, but the night before, the Village of Rivanna CAC had a meeting with Robinson Development’s lead developer, Mr. Tim Culpepper. He said the question was asked, given that Rivanna Village has set aside up to 60,000 square feet of commercial development, if there have been any signees yet on lease arrangements for the property. He said the answer was no, and the reasons are due to COVID and to the fact that the center in Rivanna Village is off Route 250, and there is no visibility for anyone driving by. Mr. Randolph said where the center is proposed here (in Crozet) will also be away from Three Notched Road. He said in terms of Ms. More’s and residents’ concern that somehow, setting up a Neighborhood Service Center is going to drain economic vitality from Downtown, he did not see this being the case because it is not as though they will see three casinos going up here, for instance. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 43 Mr. Randolph said potentially, in Rivanna Village, they are looking at a daycare and medical users in that commercial space. He said if, perhaps, there is a coffee shop, perhaps this will service the needs of Wickham Pond and yet service the needs and interest of people living in Rivanna Village and the surrounding community. He said he thinks they need to be realistic that a Neighborhood Service Center off of Three Notched Road is not going to suddenly become a shining beacon of economic activity that is going to raise the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a result of its existence. Mr. Randolph said he wanted to come in in favor of the split and say that it should be a Neighborhood Service Center, being mindful that, as a cautionary note, it may not be a magnet for businesses to be attracted to because it is not on Three Notched Road. Mr. Keller said conceptually, he was fine with what staff was after, but he believed they were getting to the level that Ms. Firehock referred to in her opening statements. He said they have had amazing input from community members, with ideas on ways to refine this and think about this differently. He said Ms. More referred to some of those. He said Counsel’s advice notwithstanding, he believed this was specific enough for that they were seeing that he would defer to staff and the community on this. Mr. Bivins reminded the Commission that when they were looking at Southwood, they had a similar conversation about a Neighborhood Center and how at Southwood, they were very supportive of this. He noted that Ms. Firehock was shaking her head. He said he wanted the Commission to be consistent on each side of the County. He said he thought the partitioned approach to this was a reasonable solution. He said he also believes that business will drive whether or not people actually lease the space, as Mr. Randolph mentioned. He said this did not feel like his role as a Planning Commissioner, but it was about whether or not this is a set of services that would be useful for the community as it builds out. Mr. Bivins expressed when and if it ever comes, the Commission will give it a hard look, but as to the principle of whether it should happen there, his answer was yes. Ms. Falkenstein said staff was ready to move on to their next question, which was in the category of property owner requests. She said Question 5 was about the Railroad Avenue parcel. She presented an aerial view of the property, explaining that on Railroad Avenue, there are two existing units on the property. She said there is an area of woods and a small area of steep slopes within those woods. She said the wooded area also provides a visual buffer around an RWSA water tank, which is on a separate parcel behind the property. Ms. Falkenstein said the 2010 master plan designates the entire parcel as greenspace. She said this is also a property owner request, as the property owner approached staff at one of the workshops and asked them to look at the designation on the property. She said it is zoned Rural Area, and there are steep slopes on the property. Ms. Falkenstein said the change staff is proposing with the 2020 plan applies a “Neighborhood Density Residential – Low” designation on a portion of the property, as shown on the map on the screen. She said it encompasses the area with the two residences and saves the areas where the slopes are on the back of the property, as well as the large stand of trees that provides buffering around the water tank. She said the diagram shown was to reflect the approximate development potential of the property based on the Rural Area zoning, were it to be clustered ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 44 close to the street and closer to the Development Area, while maintaining the Parks and Green Systems (wooded areas). Ms. Falkenstein said there has been mixed support from the community with the change in designation on this property as well. She said there were the same concerns as voiced previously about encouraging additional development and density. She said at the November meeting, the majority of the CAC did not support this change on the property. Ms. Falkenstein said staff’s question that evening was whether the Commission supports staff’s recommended change, as shown on the draft land use map that was shared. She opened the discussion to questions and comments. Ms. More said she does support the change that staff is recommending, and having the owner make the request was similar to the previous conversation about having these areas labeled as greenspace. She said staff acknowledged this in the report, but she would like to say how important it is that there is a split designation and that there are critical slopes, as well as the buffer and trees there that will hide the view that people would have of the water tank. Ms. More said it looked like staff was designating a good amount of space to remain as Parks and Green Systems, and she would hope they leave as many trees there as possible because they know that everywhere, and especially in Crozet, it is very windy, and so they should leave more than what they think they should if the intent is to have a visual buffer for the giant water tank that is there. She said she supports staff’s suggestion. Ms. Firehock noted that looking at the 2010 future land use map, there is a ribbon of green going along the creek and then, a chunk of greenspace that would be designated. She said it could connect across that parcel. She said that in other words, they could connect to the ribbon of greenspace along the creek. She said in terms of ecology, if greenspaces are disconnected there, they are more susceptible to disturbance there and are more likely to experience species decline. She said that to her, there is a golden opportunity here to make a little stripe of green that would at least provide that connectivity instead of creating an isolated chunk of green by itself. She said this would be a very easy connection to make. Ms. Firehock said she would only personally support the recommendation if the little green line could be extended to make it more of a connected system, as this is a no-brainer to her. Mr. Randolph said he was sure that Ms. Firehock saw that past week there was a report issued that a bridge was built for wildlife to be able to cross over a highway, which provided to be exceptionally effective in allowing species to migrate. He said Ms. Firehock’s point was well taken here as they look at G-3 on page 11 and going in a southwestwardly direction to try to achieve some connectivity between one greenspace and another. Mr. Randolph said in terms of the question before the Commission about whether they like the split, he thinks the split makes sense, with the caveat that they should prevail upon the owner of G-3 to achieve ecosystem connectivity to the southwest of the site. He said he knew they were getting into specifics, but he thinks this is something that is appropriate, at this point, to raise as a concern when they go forward and look at any potential land use application. Mr. Keller said he believed his colleagues said it well. He said Ms. Falkenstein may recall, as she was so involved in Places29, that there was discussion of taking the waterways and even the ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 45 intermittent stream areas, plotting this, and letting it become the backbone for development. He said it seems to him that there really needs to be a layer in each area plan and in the Comprehensive Plan that shows what that ideal system they are discussing would be. Mr. Keller said that to Mr. Bivins’ point about ownership, he thinks that this is a very real one in the country and in the way that people feel about their personal property rights. He said he thinks it needs to be clear that they are unfortunately (from his standpoint) not like the U.K., where there are open space networks that cross private lands. Mr. Keller mentioned the ecological standpoint that both Mr. Randolph and Ms. Firehock were speaking about and informed Mr. Randolph that what he mentioned were being put in Montana in 1992. He said he did not know why this has suddenly become a big discussion point because Montana DOT was paying for it back then due to the migration patterns there and up into Canada, which had done it even earlier. Mr. Keller said nonetheless, his point was that he thinks they need to show this on the map, but at the same time, given what staff has said and what the Commission has discussed about the misconceptions of seeing it on this development map, that is not where it belongs. He said it needs to be an ideal that they are working towards and something that is called out to every developer. He said it is not just the one piece of their land, but the connectivity of that. He said it is the natural system variant on the connectivity between the developments that they were hoping they could at least have in a pedestrian-bicycle manner and is the equivalent thereof in natural systems. Mr. Bivins said he support staff’s recommendation on this matter. Ms. Kanellopoulos presented the final topic and question for the evening, which was a property owner request for Old Trail Village. She said staff received a request from the developer to look at the current land use designations in Old Trail with this master plan update and see if they could provide more consistency between the uses and densities allowed for the Old Trail rezoning, with the revised land use designations. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the Old Trail rezoning was approved in 2005, allowing between 1,600 and 2,200 dwelling units and up to 250,000 square feet of nonresidential uses. She said the developer put in a rezoning request in 2015 to revise the minimum number of dwelling units down to 1,000. She said this request was approved, and the expected buildout is about 1,200 units. Ms. Kanellopoulos said most of Old Trail has been built out, or has site plan approval and is under construction. She said there are two main areas that do not have site plan approval and have not begun to build out. She said the first area was a central area containing Blocks 26 and 6. She said the other area is along Route 250 and includes Blocks 19, 24, 25, 33, and 34. She said that evening, they would be talking more about Blocks 19 and 26. Ms. Kanellopoulos said most of staff’s recommendations in the 2020 updated categories are intended to align with the approved densities and uses allowed with the Old Trail rezoning. She said some of these changes include replacing the 2010 mixed-use designation with an updated Community Mixed-Use designation, changing the designation of several blocks from Neighborhood Density and Urban Density to Middle Density Residential, and changing the designation of several blocks from Urban Density Residential to Community Mixed-Use. She said Old Trail is also designated as a Village Center, which is a distinct and secondary center to ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 46 Downtown. She said it should be noted that the 2010 master plan also identifies Old Trail as a mixed-use center, but does not show the centers and walksheds on the map. Ms. Kanellopoulos said staff’s recommended land use designations do not change any of the permitted uses or densities in Old Trail, and changes to the uses and densities would require a rezoning, which would require Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors public hearings. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the CAC discussions have mostly focused on two areas in Old Trail, which would be discussed in the next slides. She said the first area is Block 26 in Old Trail. She said as she mentioned, this block is not yet developed. She said it is between Ashlar Avenue and Golf Drive, and it is currently designated Urban Density Residential. She said the Old Trail zoning allows between 20 and 150 dwelling units in this block, which results in a maximum density of 27 units per acre. She said it allows up to 20,000 square feet of nonresidential uses, which include restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and pharmacies. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the Urban Density designation does not match the allowable densities or nonresidential uses. She said staff’s recommendation is a Community Mixed-Use designation, which would better align with the potential density and allowable uses. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the second area that the CAC is focused on in Old Trail is Block 19. She said Block 19 is just behind Route 250, along Old Trail Drive and next to Henley Middle School and Brownsville Elementary School. She said it is designated Neighborhood Density Residential, and the Old Trail zoning allows between 12 and 90 dwelling units. She said there are no nonresidential uses permitted in this block, except for a farm stand. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the property owner has submitted a rezoning request for this block for a 90,000-square-foot sports facility. She said per the rezoning that is under review, the 90,000 square feet of nonresidential uses would be limited to a recreation facility or a community center and not allow other nonresidential uses. Ms. Kanellopoulos said staff’s recommendation for this block would be a split between Neighborhood Density Residential and Institutional. She said the Institutional designation would align with the adjacent Institutional designation on the schools’ property and would recommend the type of use that is proposed with the sports facility. She said the Neighborhood Density designation would align with the underlying zoning if the developer instead chose to pursue the current by-right uses. Ms. Kanellopoulos noted that the land use map has not been updated yet to reflect this designation, and so a reference draft designation was shown to the right, on the screen. Ms. Kanellopoulos said there was a later request that came in from the developer, which was to adjust the Development Area boundary on the western edge of Crozet. She said as seen on the screen, in the left-hand image, the current Development Area boundary goes through one of the buildings and leaves out the other. She indicated on the screen to the location of the clubhouse and restaurant that are at the end of Golf Drive. She said this area is technically outside of the Old Trail rezoning, as the restaurant and clubhouse were approved with a separate special use permit. She said both buildings are on public utilities. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the developer requested to adjust the boundary, then designate this area as Community Mixed-Use. She said staff is supportive of adjusting the boundary to include both ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 47 buildings, which was shown on the screen conceptually, on the right. She said staff would recommend a Parks and Green Systems designation, however, to be more consistent with the current greenspace designation. She said staff sees this as more of a cleanup than a significant Development Area boundary adjustment. Ms. Kanellopoulos said staff has heard support from the community for a sports facility on Block 19, but has also heard concern that other nonresidential uses should not be allowed along this area of Route 250. She said a majority of CAC members, at the most recent meeting, did not support the Community Mixed-Use designation for Block 26. She said they were concerned that it could result in more intense additional development. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the Village Center appears to be appropriate as a designation for Old Trail based on the feedback staff has received from the community throughout the process, but there is still concern that it may not be sufficiently secondary to Downtown. Ms. Kanellopoulos said there has been mixed feedback on whether the previously determined land use designations for Old Trail should be altered with this process. She said the Development Area boundary change has not yet been brought to the CAC for review, as this was a newer request. Ms. Kanellopoulos said staff’s final question for the Commission was whether the Commission supports the land use changes within Old Trail as shown on the draft future land use plan. She said staff welcomed the Commission’s comments and questions. Mr. Randolph said he had one question and asked Ms. Kanellopoulos to go back to the last illustration for the clubhouse extension of the Development Area line. He said they were looking to the right, with the black line. He asked where the black line goes. He said he sees it heading north. He asked where it goes from there. Ms. Kanellopoulos said she could pull up a map that was more zoomed out, if this was helpful, but the quick answer was that it just goes up to the property line to the north, then comes back and reconnects with the parcel. She said it does not include any other buildings with that boundary line adjustment. Mr. Randolph said in other words, what Ms. Kanellopoulos was saying was that it goes along the property line (i.e., the golf course). Ms. Kanellopoulos explained that it goes through the middle of the indicated property, then connects with the property boundary to the north. She said it does not extend all the way out to the west to include the entire golf course. Mr. Randolph said he was concerned about signing off on that potential. He acknowledged the Commission was not making a decision and was only making a recommendation, and noted that he did think it would be helpful to have a more definitive map of exactly where this expanded Development Area will be. He said if it just encircles where they need the additional jurisdictional area inclusion for the expansion of the clubhouse, he does not have a problem with that. Mr. Randolph said if all of a sudden, that line shoots to the north, however, they have indirectly expanded the Development Area here if the golf course should ever fail, for any reason. He said golf, unfortunately, is not an increasingly popular sport, although COVID has managed to put new ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 48 life into this sport. He said in a post-COVID world, however, they are going to see golf courses continue to fail nationwide. He said if the land were to revert back to be developable because it is in the Development Area, he thinks it is useful for them to know where the line ends. Mr. Randolph said he was happy to say yes to this, with the proviso that before the Commission actually formally approves it, they have a more accurate map before them. He said otherwise, his answers are yes, yes, and yes (with a more refined map). Ms. More said she definitely supports the first change that staff talked about for Block 26. She said the reason why is because, as staff already pointed out and as was discussed before with the Middle Density recommendation that is shown in other places in Old Trail, the type of development that would come along with that change is already allowed in the code of development. She said she was not sure why the Commission would disagree with anything that is already allowed, and this is being more honest to show what it could turn into, so she did not have any issue with that. Ms. More said the way that Block 19 was presented to the community and to the CAC was potentially changing the land use there to allow for the sports facility that people were favorable to and wanted to hear more about. She said people liked that idea, but it was opening it up to become other things if the sports facility does not actualize. She said she likes staff’s approach of having the institutional use partly, then having the residential piece that is there. Ms. More said her last comment was about the clubhouse and restaurant. She said she absolutely does not think they should be expanding or adjusting the Development Area boundary. She said she thinks this can stay Parks and Green Systems. She said it is already there and is doing what it is doing. She said she did not know why they would need to suddenly change their line to include it when it already exists and has been there for many years. She said she would just give it that designation and then leave it alone. Mr. Keller said he questioned the reason for doing this whole thing, because it was so far along in its development. He said he supposed they wanted to show as much reality as they could with these. He said that while he was supportive of staff’s changes, Ms. More’s last point was well taken. Mr. Bivins asked if on Block 19, if this is a split zoning with the righthand portion next to the school being Institutional use, and that happens when this comes forward, it means that it will only be something that falls into that framework, or if they would be having a conversation about shifting that back. Ms. Kanellopoulos replied that the intent of the split designation was to recognize that there is the existing underlying zoning for residential for the hatched part that is Neighborhood Density, if the developer wanted to go with the by-right use. She said the Institutional hatched designation on top does not specify exactly where those uses would need to go. She said there is a visual buffer along Route 250, but if the rezoning for that type of sports facility was pursued, it would be more in line with the Institutional designation. Mr. Bivins asked if the Commission and Supervisors would see this private sports club. Ms. Kanellopoulos replied that they would through the rezoning process. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 49 Ms. More said she believed the Commission had seen it, but it may have been a work session to get feedback. Mr. Bivins asked if they had done this for the private sports center. He said this is much like a place in Northern Virginia. He said he would like to know about that, as he has been looking out for it. He said if they will be seeing it as a rezoning, he is fine with the Comprehensive Plan being changed. Mr. Bivins said what he was feeling uncomfortable with was whether they are slipping in a commercial benefit to the landowner without the Commission having the ability to have a legislative review on it. He said Ms. Kanellopoulos just assured him that they would be able to have this review. Ms. Kanellopoulos clarified that the only uses the developer could do now would be up to 90 dwelling units and a farm stand. She said even if they change the designation to include Institutional uses, they will still need to go through the whole rezoning process to allow for that use. Ms. More said she believed they worked through all the questions, and maybe she just needed to email some of her points to staff. She said she understood there were some very specific questions for the work session that evening, but in the maps, tables, graphs, and charts, there were some changes of substance that the Commission was not being asked about that evening. She said she did not want to go through all of that in the work session, and perhaps there were some that she had not even picked up on yet. Ms. More said one point she did want to bring up and put out for the Commission to consider was that on the 2010 land use map, everywhere where there is Light Industrial, staff was showing the change to the Office/R&D/Flex/Light Industrial. She said she wondered about that when she read through what was allowed there, and there is a residential component of a secondary use at 6-34 units. She said it makes her wonder, and she understands why they want to change a category to be a little more flexible to have something happen there. She said this is a place where they want to have employment. Ms. More said when she looks back on her time as a Commissioner and all the places around the County where they have had the Board consider expanding the Growth Area to create more LI land, and they have heard over and over that there is a lack of inventory on the LI land, it makes her wonder about why they would change that and allow for the secondary uses to occur. She said she did not know if staff could speak to that and if it was a change that they were making Countywide as they go through and do these plans. She said it struck her as a little odd. Ms. More said one thing she has taken away from many of these meetings is that there is not enough land that is just for employment purposes that has the LI designation. She said this is something that she wonders about when it shows up here and all the land is switched to another color, with a whole new set of things that can happen on it. She said she wanted to put this point out there, and she would not go through all the other changes she saw as changes here. Mr. Bivins asked Ms. Falkenstein if staff wanted to wrap up the work session. Ms. Falkenstein said the next step was to summarize and package this feedback up to the Board. She said they would be coming back to the Commission for a couple more work sessions on ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 50 different topics, and then have a final work session to wrap it all together and to show the Commission how the parts work together. Mr. Bivins asked if staff would be going back to the community as well. Ms. Falkenstein replied yes. She said they would continue to meet with the CAC regularly, as well as provide virtual opportunities for the larger community to participate. Mr. Rapp expressed his appreciation for everyone’s input. He acknowledged that there were many details involved and said good feedback was gained that evening to help staff continue to work through the plan. Committee Reports Mr. Randolph said he wanted to report on two things he thought the Planning Commission would like to know about. He said the application for Breezy Hill will be before the Board on January 20. He said the applicant has the same application with only one change in it, which is in a proffer. He said in Proffer #6, “Climate Action,” they are proposing that the owner must install a minimum of 20,000 watts, which is 200 kilowatts of photovoltaic solar panels in the project. He said there is no change in terms of the density, which stays at 160 units. He said this is the only change the Board will see other than what the Planning Commission saw. Mr. Randolph said he also wanted to quickly tell the Commission about the Village of Rivanna meeting that occurred the night before, and that he had already made reference to the commercial district. He said the full buildout of Rivanna Village will be 340 overall units. He said Mr. Neil Williamson was probably listening to this, and he knew it would be ammunition for him to say that the Development Area should be expanded. Mr. Randolph said the primary reason why this number of units is far less than the 600 that were approved by the Board in 2007, however, is a change in Army Corp of Engineers qualifications and stipulations regarding navigable waters, which included the streams and wetlands on the site. He said this site in the Village of Rivanna, where Rivanna Village is, has a lot of wetlands and streams in it. Mr. Randolph said the second reason is that the market does not have an interest in townhomes. He said the only viable housing that they felt they would be able to sell was single-family housing. He said though there is provision for affordable housing units there, realistically, they are not going to see it happen because there is no transportation there out to Rivanna Village. He said lacking transportation, there is not the ability to have appealing affordable housing. Mr. Randolph said interestingly enough, a number of the residents that have gone in there, once they have purchased the property, have put solar units on top, and so they are abating their annual energy costs by taking advantage of the southern facing of the property and picking up some solar value from it. Mr. Randolph said he wanted to let the Commission know that the overall level is going to be below the 400 that the Planning Commission and Board approved in 2015 for this project, and these were the reasons why. Ms. Firehock said regarding the Acquisition of Conservation Easements (ACE) Committee, they ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - January 12, 2021 51 are not having committee meetings at present, but several members are working on developing an additional ranking criteria for future easements that incorporate some of the priorities espoused in the Biodiversity Action Plan, as directed by the Board of Supervisors. She said she did some work on that plan, and so she is well familiar with it. She said they spent about 90 minutes on this that morning. Ms. Firehock said the CIP does not include funding in this next round for the ACE program due to the financial uncertainty associated with the pandemic. She said nevertheless, they continue to work on the criteria, ever hopeful that they will have funding restored at some point in the future, and they are also looking into other grant opportunities. Review of Board of Supervisors Meeting: January 6 Mr. Rapp said that on Wednesday, January 6, the Board adopted ordinances supporting staff’s and the Commission’s recommendations for the two Agricultural and Forestal Districts (Batesville and High Mowing), and the Board also approved a special use permit for Seminole Trail Auto Dealership that came before the Commission with the same recommendation for approval for outdoor sales, storage, and display. Old/New Business There was no old business or new business. Items for Follow-Up There were no items. Adjournment At 9:40 p.m., the Commission adjourned to February 2, 2021, 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: 02/02/2021 Initials: CSS