HomeMy WebLinkAbout05 11 2021 PC MinutesALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
1
Albemarle County Planning Commission
FINAL Minutes May 11, 2021
The Albemarle County Planning Commission held a public hearing on Tuesday, May 11, 2021 at
6:00 p.m.
Members attending were Julian Bivins, Chair; Rick Randolph; Daniel Bailey; Corey Clayborne;
Jennie More; Tim Keller.
Members absent: Ms. Karen Firehock, Mr. Carrazana (UVA Rep).
Other officials present were Charles Rapp, Director of Planning; Rachel Falkenstein; Tori
Kanellopoulos; Kevin McDermott; Bart Svoboda; Jodi Filardi, Amelia McCulley; Andy Herrick,
County Attorney’s Office; and Carolyn Shaffer, Clerk to the Planning Commission.
Call to Order and Establish Quorum
Mr. Bivins 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 on the Community County Calendar, when available.
Ms. Shaffer called the roll. All Commissioners indicated their presence, except for Ms. Firehock,
and Mr. Carrazana (absent).
Mr. Bivins established a quorum.
Other Matters Not Listed on the Agenda from the Public
There were none.
Consent Agenda
Mr. Bivins asked the Commissioners if they wished to pull anything from the consent agenda and
heard no requests to do so.
Mr. Keller moved to approve the consent agenda.
Mr. Bailey seconded the motion, which carried 6:0 (Ms. Firehock absent).
Work Session
CPA202100001 Crozet Master Plan: Connectivity and Conservation
Ms. Falkenstein, Planning Manager, presented the staff report. She said she was joined that
evening by her colleague Ms. Kanellopoulos and also Mr. Kevin McDermott, who would not be
formally presenting but had agreed to attend to help answer technical transportation questions.
Ms. Falkenstein said their agenda for that evening was a quick land use update; this was an
informational item, as they had some changes they wanted to share since the Planning
Commission last reviewed this content, but the bulk of the meeting would be focused on
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
2
transportation (they had changed from calling it connectivity because it was a little clearer) and
then conservation. She said they would have two presentations and after the transportation
presentation would pause for discussion, then would do the same after the conservation content
and would wrap up with next steps.
Ms. Falkenstein said the purpose of that evening’s work session was to receive the Planning
Commission’s feedback on the transportation and conservation chapters that were provided, and
they had two questions—whether the content was consistent with the County’s comprehensive
plan and whether they had any feedback or suggested changes to the draft content.
Ms. Falkenstein said before getting into those two chapters, she wanted to talk a little bit about
the plan organization and how the chapters relate to each other. She said the master plan would
have five chapters, which is similar to the Pantops master plan that they did. She said t he first
chapter would be introduction and then would have three main body chapters: land use,
transportation, and conservation. She said the fifth implementation chapter would take all of the
recommendations together and provide some direction on prioritization.
Ms. Falkenstein said the three main body chapters do interrelate quite a bit to each other, so she
wanted to take a moment to share each of the main maps from each of the chapters so the
Commissioners could see how they build upon each other and how the networks relate to each
other.
Ms. Falkenstein said first was the land use plan. She said the land use chapter features a future
land use plan which establishes a 20-year vision for the community. She presented a color-coded
map showing the areas of concentrated growth, the surrounding residential land uses, and then
a green network. She said the green network relates very closely to the content within the
transportation chapter, and that is the future bicycle and pedestrian network. She said the map
which is within the transportation chapter shows both on-street facilities (bike lanes, sidewalks,
and shared-use paths that run along streets) but also shows off-street facilities which are trails
and other shared-use paths that do not necessarily follow a road network. She stated they were
shown on one map because they are both integral parts of a transportation network, but the
transportation chapter itself focuses on those on-street facilities, and the conservation chapter
focuses on those off-street facilities, but they are important to look at together because they
provide a complete network when shown together.
Ms. Falkenstein said one of the maps within the conservation plan is the parks and green systems
plan, and this pulls those off-street facilities of trails and paths and shows how they relate to the
parks and green systems and environmental features (those protected resources such as
floodplains and stream buffers and critical slopes).
Ms. Falkenstein showed a map of green system connections that was more informational and not
within the plan, but she said it is a map they use quite a bit in their planning processes and pulling
together recommendations, especially related to green systems. She said they pulled the green
layer from the land use plan that shows open spaces and protected environmental features and
the green network on the land use and overlaid that with parks and trails and environmental
resources, and this helps to show important networks and connections. Ms. Falkenstein said she
wanted to share that all of this content relates to each other, and each chapter builds upon the
next one.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
3
Ms. Falkenstein said she would talk about the land use plan and some of the updates that they
have done to this content since the Planning Commission last saw it. She said it was just a
summary, and the Commissioners had quite a bit of time to talk about and discuss and provide
feedback on this content. She said based on their feedback and some of the feedback heard from
the community, they have made some revisions to the content that are incorporated into the
chapter that they attached to the staff report. She said she would go through some of the major
topics, which should sound familiar to the Commissioners.
Ms. Falkenstein said for the downtown neighborhoods topic, staff previously had a downtown
neighborhoods overlay within the draft plan that they had shared with the Commission, and based
on their feedback and community feedback, they had removed the overlay and instead
incorporated recommendation for a downtown neighborhoods cultural resources study. She said
they hoped this would provide the baseline for future regulatory tools that could help preserve
historic resources, could look like an historic zoning overlay if there is community support for that,
or there could be other zoning changes such as allowing appropriate scale infill or accessory
dwellings. She said there was some narrative about that as well.
Ms. Falkenstein said they also included some narrative about use of downtown itself. She said
there was a market study done about what the retail market is for downtown Crozet, and based
on that information, they have added some narrative that single-use residential may be
appropriate on the periphery of downtown given what the market had shown it could support
currently.
Ms. Falkenstein said for the middle density residential category that the Commission had
discussed and provided feedback on, they had reduced the density from 24 units an acre down
to 18 units per acre and have provided some more definitions and specificity about housing types
that are being recommended in that land use category. She said related to that, they had changed
their urban density residential category to have a density of 12 to 34 dwelling units per acre; this
is only applied in Crozet in the Old Trail where the apartments are currently being built.
Ms. Falkenstein said that additional updates relate to green space parcels. She said they have
improved the alignment with the environmental features of where green space is shown on the
map and have also revised the names of two of the land use designations to provide some clarity;
they now have a green systems designation and then a designation called public lands. She said
that was to provide clarity that not all lands owned by the public are meant to be parks; previously
it was called parks and green systems.
Ms. Falkenstein said Old Trail changes include the development area boundary adjustment that
had been discussed and then a change to block 19 where they have changed that land use to be
a hatched land use to allow both institutional and residential land uses.
Ms. Falkenstein presented an updated map. She said there were not many map changes since
the Commission had last seen it. She pointed out the hatched block 19 in Old Trail and the western
Development Area boundary that skirted the clubhouse where it had previously cut right through
it. She said this map was better aligned with where the jurisdictional area is for public water and
sewer. She said the green systems change was just a name change to the darker green being
public lands and the lighter green being green systems.
Ms. Falkenstein said lastly, they had added a little bit of narrative about housing choice. She said
this was some clarifying language about the importance of housing choice. She said they have
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
4
always that in their guiding principle; based on some feedback they had in a Board work session,
they really wanted to understand how affordable housing fits in with Crozet, so they have added
that and are still working through some of the Board’s feedback as well.
Ms. Falkenstein said the middle density guidance is within the appendix of the master plan, and
that is just definitions of housing types and some visuals and some 3D modeling showing what
the expectations are for these housing types with middle density category.
Ms. Falkenstein said she would give a chapter overview of transportation; it would be pretty high
level just summarizing what is in the chapter, but they would be happy to dive in deeper on any
of the topics during the discussion and question and answer.
Ms. Falkenstein said their master plan process had been broken into four phases. She said they
had started high level and gotten more specific as they have gone along. She said the first phase
was visioning, and that started in the fall of 2019, and the outcome of that phase was their draft-
guiding principles and goals. She said they then moved on to more focused topics where they did
quite a bit of engagement and analysis. She said they started a parking study and a transportation
analysis in phase 2. She noted that both of those studies used pre-COVID data to ensure that
they were capturing accurate counts. She said they did workshops with the community on more
focused transportation topics such as bicycle and pedestrian connectivity and roadways and
transit. She said out of that, they had some refined goals and some more firmed concepts, and
then they moved into phase 3 where they were drafting maps and recommendations. She said
she had a good bit of feedback online and working with the CAC in their virtual meetings and had
a good set of draft recommendations based on that feedback.
Ms. Falkenstein said they were now in phase 4 where they have a draft chapter on the
transportation content. She said they have had an opportunity to bring this draft out to the CAC
and had a workshop on that the past month and have had an online feedback opportunity. She
said they had not had a ton of feedback but have had some comments that they have tried to
incorporate from both the CAC and online participants on the public input site that they have. She
said much of the feedback they are finding will relate to the next topic they will bring out for
feedback, and that is implementation. She said they will start to prioritize these topics with people
really wanting to see them really focus on a couple of key areas. She said after the implementation
workshop and prioritization, they will probably go back and do another round of revisions to the
chapter to highlight what the community wants to see as their priorities.
Ms. Falkenstein said the chapter overview provides a summary of the content in order in the
chapter, and she would go through each of these topics briefly and give a high-level overview of
what is in each of these topics and categories.
Ms. Falkenstein said she would start with their guiding principle, and that is to create a multimodal
transportation network that is safe and accessible for all community members regardless of age,
race, income, and ability. She said building on that, the plan starts off on the topic of bicycle and
pedestrian connectivity. She said they started there because they had heard that is a priority for
the community, maybe even more so than vehicular transportation. She said they had
recommendations related to sidewalks and shared-use paths, and what they heard from the
community on these topics was that downtown should be a focus for new sidewalks; there are
several older neighborhoods surrounding downtown where streets were built before the current
standards, and they do not have sidewalks, so they should focus on that area providing
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
5
connectivity with the neighborhoods near downtown and to and from those neighborhoods to
downtown.
Ms. Falkenstein said there were some shared-use paths recommendations within the
transportation chapter, and these are the ones that parallel roadways. She said one of the
priorities of the community was the eastern portion of Three-Notch’d Road connecting some of
those neighborhoods in eastern Crozet to points west such as downtown. She said there are no
sidewalks on that road now, so they have trouble getting anywhere on foot or by bike, so a shared-
use path there is recommended. She said they will further prioritize these projects in relation to
the larger recommendations in the master plan as they move into implementation.
Ms. Falkenstein said they also have recommendations related to bicycle lanes and what they are
calling rural shared roads; this is a new concept for them in the County but something th ey have
seen in their regional planning efforts. She said they were proposing bike lanes on several
roadways, mostly the avenues, which she would talk about briefly in the next section. Ms.
Falkenstein said rural-shared roads are those that are designed with respect for the surrounding
rural environment. She noted they are typically the roadways that do not have curb and gutter;
they do not have a sidewalk; they are not in urban areas; most of them are on the periphery of
the development area, and the recommendation there is that for bicycle facilities on these roads,
ideally there would be a wider shoulder so that bikes could ride separately from traffic, but where
there is not space for a wider shoulder, it would be pavement markings or signage.
Ms. Falkenstein demonstrated the bicycle and pedestrian network that is recommended. She
described the dotted lines for recommended future facilities and the solid lines for existing facilities
and demonstrated that they had tried to create a connected network of these facilities; where they
do not exist already, they tried to provide some of those important connections. She said they
could come back to this if the Commissioners had questions on specific areas when they get into
the discussion portion.
Ms. Falkenstein said the next section of the transportation chapter is the street types and street
network. She said they have three street types recommended for Crozet, and they are local
streets, avenues, and arterials. She said these are based on the function of the street as well as
the capacity, so local streets would have the lowest amount of traffic and mostly serv e just
neighborhood traffic, but it is also the majority of the street network; they have low speeds and
are within neighborhoods.
Ms. Falkenstein said avenues are streets that have two travel lanes but are designed to carry a
bit higher volume of traffic, both automobile and bicycle/pedestrian traffic. She said they would
expect to have dedicated bike lanes on avenues because of that higher traffic volume, and the
cyclists should be kept separate from the automobile traffic. She said an example of an avenue
is Jarman’s Gap.
Ms. Falkenstein said lastly, they have the arterials, which in Crozet, the only arterial is Route 250,
and these are high-capacity roadways that typically connect different towns and cities and can
traverse the entire state.
Ms. Falkenstein presented a map of the future street network showing the different streets with
local streets, avenues, and the arterial Route 250. She said a couple of street connections were
also identified; Eastern Avenue was one of them and several others on the street network as well.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
6
Ms. Falkenstein said the next topic in the chapter is intersection improvements. She said much of
the recommendations in this section are based off of a transportation analysis that was completed
by a local firm, EPR, where they did traffic counts (pre-COVID data) and then did projections
based on study year 2045 using projected land use, so what traffic they expect in the year 2045
based on the land use. She said they found two trouble areas, which was not surprising to staff
because it matched closely with what they had heard from the community that downtown and
Route 250 are the trouble areas; they are starting to be trouble currently and will just continue to
get worse over time.
Ms. Falkenstein said there are some recommended intersection improvements to address those
trouble areas within downtown. She said there is a recommendation for a quadrant intersection
at Crozet Avenue, Jarman’s Gap, and Library Avenue. She said there are new street connections
provided from downtown to High Street and then from Dunvegan Lane to Park Road and a study
for a potential railroad crossing because they found that while they do not have a location
identified, that would help relieve some of the traffic, especially on the Crozet Avenue-Three
Notch’d Road intersection. She said again that requires more study because they have to work
with the railroad on that.
Ms. Falkenstein said for Route 250, they were recommending three roundabouts along that
stretch of Route 250 at Old Trail Drive and the high school and then at Henley and Brownsville
entrance and at Crozet Avenue and Miller School Road.
Ms. Falkenstein presented an aerial of the downtown improvements to give an idea of what is
being recommended within downtown. She said that they were recommending adding a
connection between Carter and Crozet Avenue and a roundabout at Library Avenue and Crozet
Avenue, and then a traffic movement that would restrict left turns, and that would clear up a lot of
the congestion issues, especially the queuing issue on Jarman’s Gap for left turns, so instead of
making a left turn, one would go around the quadrant. She said other connections she had
mentioned would be a connection from High Street to downtown, and then the next parallel street
south of Tabor would be Dunvegan, and there would be a recommended connection there.
Ms. Falkenstein demonstrated a street level perspective of what the roundabout at Library Avenue
and Crozet Avenue would look like. She said it still prioritizes and accommodates bicycle and
pedestrian movement in this area because that is really important, especially in downtown.
Ms. Falkenstein said the last section of their transportation chapter covers transit and downtown
parking. She said right now in Crozet, there is existing JAUNT service that provides commuter
service to Charlottesville, but it is an informal service; they do not have formalized infrastructure
at their stops, and most of them are either nothing or a little sign that says there is a stop there .
She said that some formal planning to figure out if those are the permanent stop locations, or
where those are, is the recommendation because, at least pre-COVID, it was extremely popular
and likely will continue to be. She said there are recommendations that commuter service
continue to be formalized and additional planning to do that. She said there are recommendations
for transit internal to Crozet; there is no existing permanent transit service currently, and so there
are recommendations about exploring that and opportunities for transit internal to Crozet.
Ms. Falkenstein said lastly, she had mentioned they did a parking study, so they looked at
downtown specifically and what the needs are for parking currently and in the future. She said
what they found with the parking study was that there currently is quite a bit of open parking
downtown, but most of it is in private lots, so their recommendations were based on the current
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
7
status of downtown and future. She said right now, the recommendations are for the short term
to look at shared parking with some of those vacant lots; however, that will change as downtown
redevelops and a lot of that parking supply will go away, so there are longer term solutions as
well such as shuttle service or possibly additional parking provided in future phases of the
downtown development.
Ms. Falkenstein said that the last slide she would show is about their comprehensive plan and
how this chapter relates to the comp plan. She said she had a question for the Commissioners
so she would touch on it briefly. She said the comp plan is high level and has recommendations
related to quite a few topics, but the topic of transportation really touches on three chapters at the
end of the comprehensive plan. She said that is a development area chapter and specifically
thinking about the neighborhood model and the importance of connectivity within the
neighborhood model. She said they tried to be consistent with those recommendations.
Ms. Falkenstein said as far as the transportation chapter, it does focus on bike/ped and multimodal
accessibility, so they have tried to be in line with those recommendations. She said transportation
really points to the master plans as to how to plan the specific recommendations, so they are
trying to do that with this process. She said lastly parks and greenways guides them to think about
connections between parks, schools, and other centers of activity when they plan trails.
Ms. Falkenstein said they had tried to do their best with those high-level recommendations from
their comprehensive plan. She concluded her presentation by putting up the two questions for the
Commissioners that evening. She said the first is whether the draft content was consistent with
the County’s comprehensive plan, and the second is whether they had any feedback or suggested
changes to the draft content.
Ms. More answered the questions by saying she did think it was consistent with the
comprehensive plan, and she thinks it is great how much staff have incorporated bike and ped in
this chapter. She said the community is anxious to get into something that probably is what will
happen in the implementation parts where they will see some rough dates about when to expect
some of these projects and ranking, and she understood that was not the purpose of this chapter.
Ms. More said she just had one suggestion. She said in the goal #2 in A, there is a statement
about sidewalk connections, and she thought it was a general statement, but it does say Park
Road, Hilltop, High Street, and it has missing segments of these particular roads. She said she is
not really sure where the missing segments are; they are just missing on Park Road and High
Street, and she is not aware of any sidewalks at all. She said she does not know if it is a wording
thing, but on Hilltop, it is more of a sidewalk improvement; there is existing sidewalk there that is
in tough shape. She said this one stood out mainly to her because of the conversations they have
had around the park and because of its central location and because it is something that a lot of
people walk and bike to (it would be great to see bike lanes on some of these roads too), but the
missing segments jumped out at her.
Mr. Keller said he appreciated all the work and tweaks that have happened and the clarity of each
of these chapters. He said when it is all said and done, he imagined they would go back and think
about the language about the community involvement. He said he understood why it is important
right now to have that piece up there, but it almost has a defensive tone to him, and he thinks as
a longer-range document, they would want to hit all the points but just look at the wording. He
said it was not necessary; they had done a great deal in these times to try to engage, and he
thinks they have been remarkably successful.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
8
Mr. Keller said he knew they were trying to break all these pieces out, but it seemed to him that
there is a recreational destination component for people who are interested in environmental
vacations to Western Albemarle. He said it seems to him that the piece that is kind of missing
here with all of the trailway system (which is quite interesting) is that there is not a transportation
hub for bicyclers and recreational folks like transit centers have in other places. He said he has
been as a vacationer to places like Jackson Hole, places in Wyoming, Colorado, West Virginia,
Montana, where in that greater downtown, there is kind of a point where one can get oriented for
these various trips that one might do, for instance, the visitor that might actually want to cycle to
Mint Springs and spend a day at Mint Springs, or Beaver Creek, or whatever. He said Crozet is
the potential hub of an economic development component that would be based on recreation. He
said it could be a trail head for alternative ways to get to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline
Drive since it is so close to the beginning of both of those (or the ends depending upon how one
thinks about it). He said he would encourage them to think about that.
Mr. Keller said the critique he hears consistently from his cyclist family members and friends is
that they have not thought enough about separated bicycle areas to at least get people started.
He suggested since this was future planning and they were laying out groundwork for the future
that there might be some more thought to the pieces within the development area of Crozet that
are then going to lead out to the rural areas, where there may not be that separation, that there
could be more separation for the destination tourist recreationist and that at the same time would
benefit the local community as a separate space for them to use and maybe even commute from
neighborhoods to where JAUNT or some future transportation system circulates to the greater
area.
Mr. Keller said his thoughts were just additive and positive in nature, and his overall feeling is
quite positive to what staff has done.
Mr. Bivins addressed Mr. Keller and said in the report there was some conversation of perhaps
taking Route 76, which is the biking route, and perhaps redirecting it downtown, which would get
to what he was speaking to.
Mr. Keller said he was suggesting that they think about formalizing that and going full bore; he
suggested this could be a transportation departure center that serves this other constituency,
which may be addressed and talked about under economic development, but he thinks under
transportation is where it all comes together.
Mr. Bivins said there is a bike shop that is squatting in what will perhaps become the new
downtown. Mr. Bivins said as Mr. Keller was speaking, he was thinking it would be interesting if
that, in fact, became the sort of rallying point, much like the running store next to Grounds as sort
of a rallying point for people who want to run and those kinds of things.
Mr. Keller mentioned the Outdoor store at the other end of the tunnel on the Waynesboro side
and recommended something with access to Beaver Creek, access to Mint Springs, access to
Afton, something that is a center that is saying all of these things; this can be the center with the
spokes out to all of these different areas of Western Albemarle.
Mr. Randolph told Mr. Keller those were some really good thoughts. He said generally speaking,
in communities he has visited as a cyclist, one really depends on the local bike shop to provide
the maps, that kind of information, and of course Crozet offers the opportunity for road cycling
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
9
and mountain biking simultaneously; both of those sports facilities are there to lend themselves
to that, so the bike shop will be a critical aspect.
Mr. Randolph said in terms of separated bike areas, his comment would be that the most
important thing to think about longer term to accomplish that is to have a dedicated bike/ped trail;
the key to the success of Summit County in Colorado, which is the county where Breckenridge
and other skiing communities are based, Silverthorne, Frisco, etc., is that they really committed
themselves to building a dedicated trail so people can walk on them, run on them, and cycle on
them, and really it has been a godsend recreationally; he does not know what it does as an
economic stimulus for the county, but he is sure it is high multiples of millions that get generated
during what used to be a very quiet time in the mountains, where if you did not play golf or tennis,
there was no real appeal to be there.
Mr. Randolph said that an organization he is part of called Adventure Cycling out at Missoula is
really committed to building that infrastructure of more bike paths nationwide, so it would be good
for the County to link in with them if they were considering relocating Route 76. Mr. Randolph said
he applauds the idea of moving it to downtown and adjacent to downtown Crozet because it is a
natural then for people to plan to spend maybe a night in Crozet but definitely to have a meal in
Crozet before either going over the Blue Ridge Mountains and heading into the valley or before
heading east into Charlottesville, so he felt Mr. Keller had made some really good suggestions.
Mr. Randolph said overwhelmingly yes that the recommendations were consistent with the
comprehensive plan; however, he had one proviso. He said in the draft transportation chapter, he
thinks there is a need for a cycling facilities organization in Crozet similar to the Crozet Trails
Crew identified in the report. He said they need a local group there to take on some ownership
with cyclists to implement some of the potential changes that are spelled out. He said there are
so many organizations in Crozet where citizens feel ownership, and this would be a great way to
get them involved in planning out on a local level how to interface with Adventure Cycling national
organizations, the League of American Wheelman, all of these different organizations that date
from two centuries ago in some cases that are really interested in cycling.
Mr. Randolph agreed with Mr. Keller that he thinks there is a treasure there that recreationally can
be built upon and expanded. He said the only other note he would make is that he found it
unfortunate that on page 11 where they show the potential High Street connection, that picture
there has a cyclist visible in the road; there is no bike lane there, and they are just riding down
the road. He said maybe the picture was taken hypothetically when the rear red light was not
beeping, but they are barely visible in the picture. He said one of the things that needs to be done
to make people feel comfortable in using the roadways to cycle is to have paths along the side of
the road or a dedicated path separate from the road, but neither is shown in that picture, and that
is unfortunate.
Mr. Randolph said he wanted to go to the draft future land use chapter, and he heard that week
that the median U.S. house cost for a single-family home had now jumped up to $330,000. He
said on his last recollection, it was around $240,000 back maybe when he was previously on the
Planning Commission. He said he jumped online and looked at all the sources he could find for
the median Albemarle County housing costs; what was interesting was that it went anywhere in
a range on Zillow of $403,381 through 410,500 for Long & Foster, $439,600 on another website,
and Rocket Homes (which is not necessarily a place he would want to go to get a home, a rocket
home, anyway) came in at $449,548. He said the point was that housing costs in Albemarle
County are way beyond the median U.S. housing costs.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
10
Mr. Randolph said that he was going to channel his inner Neil Williamson and come to the opening
page on land use, and where the goal states 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 Albemarle County community members, they have to be
thinking that Crozet is part of Albemarle County and want to ensure that they are looking at
housing choices that work for the whole County, not for just one single community.
Mr. Randolph said he would come back to the typology, and he compared these very closely to
what was generated before and immediately picked up on middle density residential, and it went
down from 24 units per acre to 12 units, but in the building types and form guidance for both
middle density residential and urban density residential, there was no mention of apartments,
none whatsoever. He said Mr. Williamson and he may not agree on a lot of things and differ going
back a long period of time, back when he was last on the Planning Commission, where Mr.
Williamson maintained that it was really critical that rentable housing be provided in Albemarle
County, and he came back and argued they should try to provide housing where there could be
ownership.
Mr. Randolph said based on these housing differentials between the median cost in Albemarle
County and the median cost nationwide and put together with the effects of the pandemic on
millennials and generation Z where capital accumulation is going to be even harder, the reality is
that there is going to be some real demand for apartment living as people cannot put together
capital to be able to buy a home. He said the gap between being able to buy a home currently for
those in their 20s and actually accomplishing that compared to 20 or 40 years ago or 50 years
ago is considerable, and the Planning Commission has to be sensitive to that. He said he was
just noting what he feels to be consistent with the comprehensive plan and the discussion the
week prior about affordable housing that they have to factor in the need for apartments also to be
part of the typology in middle density and urban density design.
Mr. Bivins commented that he would resist the urge to remind his colleagues that they were talking
about the transportation and conservation chapter because his esteemed colleague was very
skillful in how he tied it into the comp plan. He said he was also happy that his esteemed
colleague, Mr. Randolph, had picked up on his comments about how not everybody was going to
have the ability to own a home with the question of how to accommodate and welcome those
individuals into the community no matter where they are. He said he could imagine a lot of people
would like to take advantage of all the green space in Crozet and asked how they would let that
happen.
Ms. More said that her impression of what they had talked about with land use and the drafts with
County staff was not to say that apartments could not happen. She noted she was not saying it
was enough but said they do have 190-some apartments over at the Summit in Old Trail and 126
apartments available at the Vue; she thinks there are 20-some rented since September. She said
she wanted to point out that that is a need that they have had, and with these two developments,
it is making a dent in things even though it is not to say that is all there should be. She said
downtown area which does allow for density that would be apartments has always been where
the understanding for apartments would take place, and that is a very central location.
Ms. More pointed out that per their conversation the prior week with the mention of apartments,
they have had a recent application where people did not seem that friendly (and she was not
saying that was because of apartments), but it seemed to her that sometimes the things that come
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
11
along with apartments are also things that some Commissioners had issue with, so that should
be part of the bigger discussion when they are talking about land use and affordable housing and
apartments where they have to also be okay with what it means to have apartments, the parking
and the green space and the things like that.
Mr. Bailey said he appreciated the comments by Mr. Keller and Mr. Randolph. He said he agreed
on making sure there was accessibility and a centralized opportunity to make available all the
natural sites that Crozet has to offer. He said he wanted to expand on what Mr. Keller had said ,
that it not be just a place where people come and can go do recreational activities but also
understanding where the JAUNT stop happens and where people may be coming from the outer
areas of the affordable housing to get to a place so they can have connectivity into Charlottesville
through JAUNT and others.
Mr. Bailey noted there was a mention of enhanced transit facilities in the report, and he was not
saying it had to change, but it would be good to identify how that multimodal system works in
concert with the idea that people coming in on their bikes have a place to put their bikes. Mr.
Bailey said It mentioned that they have sheltered waiting areas, benches, and wayfinding signage,
but it does not have any type of storage facility centralized or anything like that if people want to
get on JAUNT and go into Charlottesville for their occupation or something of that nature. He said
it was something to think about—how does the multimodal system work and how does that
provide for people who may not have a car, though may be coming to get into that connectivity.
Mr. Bailey said in the transit plan (page 6), he noted a dotted red line on the map but no dotted
red line in the legend. He asked if that dotted red line was supposed to indicate future sidewalks
or sidewalks that need repairing; he said he was making an extrapolation that since existing
sidewalks were red, a dotted red line has some change from an existing sidewalk.
Ms. Falkenstein said that was correct; it was future sidewalks, and that was a last-minute addition
that they failed to get into the legend. She said they were planned, but they did not have identified
funding yet.
Mr. Clayborne said when looking at the pedestrian and bike, he wondered if they had taken into
account the demographics of the community and where they might live, so in other words, if there
is an area of town that has individuals more senior in age, maybe more sidewalks would be
indicated since they are probably not inclined to bike on the street, or if it is an area where there
are more families, maybe more bicycle paths would be. He asked how those things, the
demographics, and the transportation piece, talked to each other.
Ms. Falkenstein said they did not do a super nuanced analysis looking at demographics and
transportation; it was more anecdotal. She said there are some areas in Eastern Crozet that are
larger single-family homes, and they heard from a lot of families that live there and want to be
able to bike with their kids to downtown, so they focused on on-street connections and shared
use paths to get people in those neighborhoods west toward downtown. She said there was
another community, the Meadows on Crozet Avenue, that is a senior community, and they talked
to some people there who really wanted to be able to get around, and many of them cannot drive,
so they looked at recommendations again for off-road shared-use path facilities for them to get
downtown and to Old Trail, which is not very far away, but there is no really direct connection right
now. She stated that anecdotally they looked at that, but it was not a complete analysis.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
12
Mr. Clayborne asked if they should be talking about any kind of lighting in terms of transportation
as they talk about safe transportation and increased pedestrian and bike traffic. He asked if
lighting should be mentioned anywhere in there or if that was not the appropriate place for it.
Ms. Falkenstein said she thought that was something that could be incorporated into that chapter.
She said in land use, they have some language about dark skies, so the community does not
want a lot of lighting, but there are measures that can be done for safety with light types that are
full cutoff and have automatic turnoffs if there is no motion (it could be motion-detected). She said
there could be some recommendations in this chapter associated with that if the Commission
thinks that is appropriate.
Mr. Bivins told Mr. McDermott that he understood from looking at some of the roundabout work
that they have been doing, particularly for Hydraulic and places like that, that the idea of having
a roundabout at Old Trail and then one at the elementary schools might be too close. He asked
how they would figure that out given that they have people on an arterial coming through at a
reasonable speed. He asked Mr. McDermott if that were something that would actually happen
or whether they were actually thinking about a different way to accommodate the traffic queuing
that takes place there several times during the day.
Mr. McDermott said they had a transportation engineer with the EPR do that evaluation for them,
and they had actually looked at it a couple of times now, and their recommendation did include
those dual roundabouts. Mr. McDermott said they had actually modeled that through a
transportation modeling program and found that it worked well. He said his assumption with that
is that they determined they were far enough apart that they could operate. He said anytime they
move further along in that, it will continue to be evaluated to make sure it will work, but he thinks
they have enough space in there.
Mr. Bivins added his voice to his colleagues’. He said it was an enjoyable read. He said when he
looked at the map on page 6, though, the future bicycle and pedestrian network, he was struck
by how isolated the various communities are from each other, and that even within some of the
communities, they are isolated from each other. He said he does not think that is done by income;
he did not notice that disparity in housing types except in Old Trail. He said in Old Trail, it is
apparent that the houses that are up on the hill are clearly more expensive than the houses which
are not on the hill. He said there was a piece of him that struggled with what they were writing;
what he was reading was that some of this is the way communities have grown up because staff
were not adding a lot of roads; they were talking about multimodal and connectivity and bike/ped,
and some of that could have been dealt with if all these cul-de-sacs did not exist.
Mr. Bivins said as they move to their next comp plan, he hoped they are really clear that cul-de-
sacs are not the way to create communities or the ability to move from one part of town to the
other part of town. He said when he was thinking how to get to Wickham Pond just to the western
part, there would have been a nice easy way to do that if there had been more connectivity
between those communities that were established. He said they now were having to do this sort
of retrofit of multimodal when it would have been really nice to have it baked into the process as
they were going forward.
Mr. Bivins said as they start thinking about infill and other parts of the County, he hoped that the
people who come after them, and as staff is maturing in their roles there, the ability to cut off a
street because the people on one side of the street do not want to go to the other side of the street
has to be dealt with. He said what they are doing now feels as if it is solving a problem that could
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
13
have been baked in at the beginning as opposed to having to retrofit it now, and that is going to
be problematic.
Mr. Bivins said one of the things that struck him was the question of what would happen to the
older communities, how they were going to be connected, what is going to happen to the older
developments, how are they going to be connected so there is a unifying flow among the
communities. He asked if there were possibilities for easements and if it was possible to cut some
of the chains between the bollards so that people can walk between them or bike between them.
He asked how they were going to get to that part because a lot of what he sees is they decided
they wanted to be self-sufficient communities, and now they are saying that they want something
different from that, and the County is having to step forward.
Ms. Falkenstein said she did not have much to add, especially with existing neighborhoods that
have cul-de-sacs; they did not spend a lot of time there because it is not something they heard
much of from the community, but they have identified some areas that are not fully built out that
have potential for future connectivity, and staff has not gotten the map together yet. She said that
is work they were still doing, but on page 11 of the draft chapter, Mr. Bivins identified some street
connections that are difficult to show on the map at the current scales, so they will do a couple of
inset maps showing where those are. She said there are areas where some future infill
development could occur, and when that development occurs, they would expect connectivity.
She said not necessarily within neighborhoods but between some of the neighborhoods,
connections are not there because there are quite a few streams in Crozet and some topography
that make connections in some areas difficult.
Mr. Bivins said his concern is if they are waiting for the development, that does not help to advance
a solution. He said they probably do have some solutions, even if it is with some of the trail people,
because he noticed somebody had put a nice bridge across a street; they can get a ped and they
can get a bike across the street. He said if possible, one thing he would ask would be to challenge
the community to ask how they can come up with solutions for one of these existing
neighborhoods, how they can connect across the neighborhoods which are already there as
opposed to having to wait until someone develops a piece of land.
Mr. Keller said for his almost eight years on this body, staff has been really bold in encouraging
connectivity in and amongst different neighborhoods new and old; they have really worked on
that. He said that is something that has been pointed out in the staff reports consistently, and
often it has been the existing adjacent community that has it that has been resistant to those
connections, but staff has really worked tirelessly on this topic.
Mr. Keller said maybe something for Mr. Herrick to think about and chew on, but as they are
looking at covenants and having read that HOA piece in HOA Today, maybe there is a component
of discrimination that maybe is still inherent, and with state legislation, maybe even federal, they
could think about going to some of these HOAs and asking if they could find an easement in
logical places, at least for the kind of connectivity that Mr. Bivins was talking about. He said this
was just food for thought for the future, as certainly Jordy Yager has made them all think about
covenants in a different way in the Greater Charlottesville-Albemarle area.
Mr. Keller said with regard to the transportation topic, he thinks there is an obvious one that is
referred to in a negative way, which is rail, and there is the question of how to get people across
the rail, but that is a potential positive. He asked where they were going with rail and where will
they be if they are successful in having a major infrastructure bill. He queried whether there would
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
14
be some in return for some of those improvements that the few large remaining train companies
have that would allow for local train traffic and whether they want to think about that for Crozet.
He asked if they want to think about an Amtrak stop since Amtrak comes through several times a
day.
Mr. Keller said he knew these were really controversial and future but noted that throwing out
future ideas was what they did at the end of most of these plans with speculations about what in
50 years they might see, so he would encourage staff to think about how that rail line can be a
positive. He said he knew at one point there was thought of it being a positive in terms of economic
development and a brewery there or a cidery and being able to ship their product by rail. Mr. Keller
said the rail is a pretty significant component because of the way it bisects the town, certainly the
way the town has grown.
Mr. Bivins said they had mentioned that the AVNU was not going on right now (the autonomous
vehicle). He asked if Mr. McDermott had any sense of whether it was possible or were the results
such that it was not feasible.
Mr. McDermott said it was very possible. He said the trial period that they had with that was
managed with Perrone, and if the County wanted to continue working with something like that,
the County actually does own the vehicle itself but did not purchase the software, so they would
have to get the software going. He said they also had to work on contracts with who would be the
operator of that service, but it is very possible that it is something they could look into doing in the
future again; it just would require some funding and identifying who the operator of that would be.
Mr. Bivins said that might be one of the tasks that they put in the goal to try to come up with a
more permanent solution for that technology.
Mr. Bivins told Mr. Keller that his spouse’s family member owned a big piece of property in Crozet,
and he took the train to UVA every day as a student; he commuted from Crozet to UVA and back
every day to go to classes, and so there was a time where that little train station where the arts
center is was the place where people went into town and came out of town.
Mr. Keller said that was the case all over the County; people used to go from Campbell in the
Keswick area all the time daily.
Mr. Bivins said maybe they were coming back to something that they knew. Mr. Bivins said on
the conservation chapter (goal 4E, page 25), Ms. Falkenstein had spoken to something that he
thought was quite interesting and wondered how that might impact the transportation. He asked
about the first part of the sentence, “update the residential zoning requirements to eliminate
cluster and bonus cluster lot size and frontage requirements,” and what impact that might that
have for on-street parking or for the width of road, and whether they had a sense of where that
might happen, not in the conservation but with the infrastructure or the road system in Crozet.
Ms. Falkenstein said to think about bungalow courts or cottage courts with this one that allow
smaller lots, or maybe they do not need individual lots like condominiums and can cluster around
a central amenity space, and then parking can be off to the side or in a little garage and does not
have to be on the street necessarily nor individual driveways for homes, so there can be some
creative solutions for that.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
15
Mr. Bivins said he knew that some of the conversation in the City had been wanting to put more
density in the lots but were not creating more parking, so all of a sudden, there would be more
cars on the streets with already a lack of parking in some parts of the City. He would not like them
to back into a similar situation in a place where on-street parking may be challenging, but he liked
where Ms. Falkenstein was going with that.
Mr. Bivins summarized that all the Commissioners thought this aligned with their comp plan,
particularly being sensitive to the fact that the median house is way above what the more
frequently hired salary is able to afford in the community, so he emphasized making sure that
there was not an exclusion of people by not figuring out having different housing types.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said she would be presenting on the draft conservation chapter. She said the
engagement process was similar for transportation so she would briefly recap that. She said in
phase 1, they had three community workshops in the fall of 2019 to do the visioning for the
overarching guiding principle and goals for this chapter. She said that helped inform phase 2,
which consisted of the focus areas and design strategies. She said after getting back into things
and adjusting to the virtual world with COVID, they had a virtual workshop in August 2020, and
with that, they had the outcomes of refined goals, concepts, and strategies.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said with phase 3, they had a review of these draft recommendations with the
Crozet CAC in February of 2021, and there was an associated feedback form on public input for
everyone to go ahead and provide additional feedback; that was open February to March. She
said with that, they had more refined draft recommendations to build the draft chapter with phase
4, so they also had a work session with the CAC in April 2021 to talk about the draft chapter, and
there was an online feedback form open from March until April as well.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said again there were pretty similar levels of attendance and comments in this
phase, but some of the things they had heard more recently were the importance of preserving
existing tree canopy and planting new trees, so they did add some more specific
recommendations about that, distinguishing between County-owned property and then possible
opportunities to collaborate on privately owned property, trail connections and creating as strong
of a network as possible, and then they heard the need to include some kind of recommendation
for lighting and protection of dark skies, so they did that with the land use chapter since it is really
more related to an ordinance update for zoning.
Ms. Kanellopoulos presented a slide with the main sections of this chapter: the overview and
background, talking about some of the unique environmental features in Crozet where there are
a lot more stream buffers than other areas of the County since it is in a water supply watershed;
the parks and green systems plan that brings the trail and environmental features and parks
recommendations all together; the park and trail typologies that are used to inform specific
recommendations for activities and uses throughout Crozet; other County-owned properties like
the stormwater management facility off of Crozet Avenue; biodiversity, natural resources, and
green systems, which includes tree canopy and water quality; cultural and scenic resources,
which includes connections to the rural area; and then the guiding principle goals and the
recommendations to implement this chapter.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said the guiding principle for conservation is to enhance Crozet’s natural
beauty, existing environmental resources, and the surrounding rural areas with an integrated
network of parks and gathering spaces, trails, and natural areas that offer increased opportunities
for outdoor recreation and protect natural resources.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
16
Ms. Kanellopoulos said there are two trail typologies that they have identified. She said first is a
typical nature trail, usually about five feet wide, that is a more natural surface, and then a shared-
use path which is more accessible and has space for both pedestrians and cyclists is usually
about 10 feet wide and usually paved. Ms. Kanellopoulos said a specific recommendation that
has been talked a lot about with the communities is extending and upgrading the Crozet connector
trail and making it more accessible, especially since it is so highly used and is really a major trails
route throughout Crozet.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said putting those two typologies together, they have the trails and shared-use
path map with future connections showing dotted, and then the Crozet connector trail is existing
as a trail, but the dots show the recommended upgrade in the future.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said they have three park types: natural areas are really intended to be less
intensive uses where people are walking and observing nature and things like that; plaza would
be a central amenity space that has an outdoor civic space that could host events (and so in
Crozet, this would be the plaza in the square, which is also the center of the town center on the
future land use plan); and then for recreational parks, providing a variety of spaces for more
intensive recreation and formal activities.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said that Western Park is an example of both of those typologies, so on the
western side, there are more of the intensive recreation uses, and then on the eastern side is the
natural area. She said this was a priority they had heard about from the community, and so there
is a specific recommendation to implement the Western Park master plan in this chapter.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said that Lickinghole Basin is unique as it has a variety of uses and purposes,
so there are multiple recommendations regarding the basin. She said it is a natural area with a
variety of wildlife but also has trails and also serves as a sediment basin for stormwater
management. She said putting all those recommendations together, they have the parks and
green systems plan. She showed the trails connectivity getting to the different parks, the school
recreation areas, and all the important environmental features to preserve.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said in the biodiversity and natural resources section, the chapter talks about
the Department of Environmental Quality and the total maximum daily load study regarding the
impaired streams in Crozet, and so that study will provide more specific recommendations to
address pollution there, but they also have recommendations about enhancing stream buffers
where needed and studying opportunities to better protect those, and then protecting steep
slopes, especially along waterways to prevent erosion, having more natural drainage processes
with stormwater management, and enhancing the County-owned facility which is next to the vet
clinic on Crozet Avenue. Ms. Kanellopoulos said there were multiple recommendations for
enhancing tree canopy, which is also connected to the biodiversity action plan and the climate
action plan and of course contributes to water quality/better stream buffers.
Ms. Kanellopoulos demonstrated a map showing the important features all together. She said the
purple showed those impaired streams, which are a Parrot Branch tributary and then Lickinghole
Creek and Slabtown Branch, and the map also showed a forest block which was identified in the
biodiversity action plan also identified as a priority site, and there are over 200 species of birds
there and a bald eagle’s nest.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
17
Ms. Kanellopoulos discussed rural and regional connections. She said they had heard from the
community that it is really important to try to connect to these rural area parks, especially Mint
Springs and Beaver Creek, so there are recommendations in the transportation plan for rural
shared roads, but there are some recommendations in this chapter as well more long term to see
if there are other trails and off-road connections that could be made and then of course the
opportunities that they had talked about with Bike Route 76 and if that could be rerouted through
downtown, or at least wayfinding signage so people know they can stop there.
Ms. Kanellopoulos demonstrated some of the connections to the comprehensive plan. She said
the development areas chapter talks about developing parks in accordance with the development
area master plans and then preserving those important environmental features; the natural
resources chapter talks about air and water quality and then improving tree canopy, especially
along waterways; the parks and greenways chapter talks about those bike and ped connections
to parks and centers of activity, and so those are of course included in the land use chapter so
making sure that they connect to the centers and districts, preserving parks and important natural
areas, and then providing those parks and amenities that have a variety of uses, so that is
consistent with the park typologies, expanding the greenway and trails network; and then of
course relevant recommendations with transportation for bike and pedestrian projects.
Ms. Kanellopoulos put up the slide with their two questions for that chapter.
Ms. More said during the meeting where they talked about this with the community, the idea came
up that maybe the County could be more proactive in acquiring land for parks and for other
purposes. She said they had an email about this, and she thought the person who sent that email
was an attendee and wished to speak at some point. Ms. More said the idea that came up in the
community meetings was specific to the older neighborhoods that are around downtown where
parks were not required to be built when the neighborhoods were made, and specifically the older
section that is where St. George Avenue is and that area. Ms. More said she walks around over
there, so she is familiar, and there is really no playground, no park area like a pocket park or
things like that for people to use.
Ms. More said they suspect that pressure to do infill in those areas as the development area fills
up will be greater, and so they may see that there is some infill, and little parks might spring up
as a result of some infill projects because there are some parcels available (not tons but some).
She said one thought she has had about that (that is interesting or somewhat disturbing) was
related to Mr. Bivins’ observation about the lack of connectivity as neighborhoods have
developed. She said certainly there are neighbors who probably wish they were not connected
with other neighborhoods, and that really is unfortunate, but she also thinks some of that has
happened where developers have been allowed to develop in those ways and make these cul-
de-sacs.
Ms. More said in her neighborhood, which is also an older neighborhood around downtown, they
are fortunate enough to be able to walk to neighborhoods that allowed them to use their parks.
She said one of the newest developments in her neighborhood is excluding anyone who does not
live there by way of signage from using their neighborhood park. She said she was not aware of
anywhere else in Crozet that does that, and she certainly hoped that was not the way most people
would choose to behave, but she was concerned about all the older neighborhoods that cannot
take their children to play on these nicer parks that are built in the newer neighborhoods if that
happens.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
18
Ms. More said it had her thinking a lot more about particularly that side of the downtown
neighborhood area and the lack of access to not a huge community park but a neighborhood
park. She questioned if there was a role that the County could play in having something like that,
not just in Crozet but all over the place. She wondered as things fill up if they should be thinking
about that instead of just assuming that it will come along with the development community’s
responsibility, particularly if HOAs can say only certain people can come here.
Ms. More said a lot of people really like seeing the Western Park push forward in this plan as it
should be. She said some Commissioners were around when the master plan for that park was
redone, and she wanted to point out again that she thought that park was unique because it would
create a more passive recreation opportunity. She said in the conversations about a future Crozet
park, it is important that they recognize that not only do they have Mint Springs and these other
parks, and they are trying to create those connections, but in Old Trail there will be a park that is
much more rural in nature and has more walking trails and that sort of thing. She said they can
balance that with choices they make as they move forward with other needs.
Mr. Keller said in terms of the natural resources, it is excellent. He said there were interesting
comments from the public about whether they are under parked for the amount of people that
there are and then Mr. Bivins’ point about whether there should be more parks, and that gets to
County responsibility for infrastructure.
Mr. Keller said he would encourage thinking of conservation in the more European British manner
in that land use would have a cultural resource component in it as well as natural resource and
that they move the recommendation from land use about the cultural resource study. He said the
cultural resource study should be done for the whole of the area of Crozet; now with the national
register using a 50-year cutoff, there were a lot of houses that were built in the ‘60s and
neighborhoods that are type fabric that would qualify. He said in the conservation area, he would
have a component that is talking about the historic resources and doing the study that would allow
for these recommendations and interpretations.
Mr. Keller said Scottsville has an historic district with the local ARB, so it is not unheard of within
the greater area of Albemarle County to have an historic district. He said they need an historic
district for the greater downtown area with ARB and ARB controls. He said he watched the Cville
Plans Together, and it was really interesting how the consultants talked about the importance of
the ARB as a way to deal with urban form of the older areas with new construction coming in. He
said his concern is that downtown, the residential and the commercial areas of Crozet are going
to go the way of Fifeville and 10th and Page in Charlottesville and that they are not going to be a
place where regular folks can afford to be and live.
Mr. Keller said the downtown overlay that was discussed conceptually was an interesting idea
and one that if it had a local historic district and an ARB in place might have some degree of
success, but otherwise he thought they were just writing those areas off for low-hanging fruit for
development.
Mr. Bailey said it was mentioned in the document that there was an opportunity to explore a pocket
park in the Old Crozet Elementary School; he echoed that he thought that was good and
consistent with the comprehensive plan. He said he thought there were opportunities for the
County to look at outdoor park facilities like that north of 240 and all that area, especially given
the connectivity issues with the railroad and other things.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
19
Mr. Randolph said it is a tight CIP every year.
Mr. Bivins said on page 18, there was reference to an image on page 22, and he could not find
an image on that page.
Ms. Kanellopoulos asked if that was the tree canopy map. She said they have a placeholder for
that. She said also when they were doing the draft and moving images around, that might have
altered the page numbers.
Mr. Bivins noted it was on page 20 now. Mr. Bivins said on page 14, the lime green was hard to
see compared to the lime green on page 6. He asked staff to remember that everybody does not
have young eyes like the three of them, and they may want to make it easier to see in the future.
Mr. Bivins asked about the DEQ identifying waterways as impaired in Crozet (Lickinghole,
Slabtown, and Parrot Branch). He asked what that meant and who was responsible for it being
impaired and who would be responsible for improving it.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said they did work with their natural resources team on this, so they are the
true experts in answering this question, but her recollection and understanding was that DEQ
assesses the waters for pollution. She said if there are things that are harmful to the aquatic life
or things that would be harmful to people if they are out there recreating and if the levels of
pollutants like nitrogen are above a certain level, then they designate the waterway as impaired
and then in their report identify ways to improve those waterways. She said she believed there
would be some state funding that could be associated with that, but she thinks some of it is also
up to the locality to work on addressing.
Mr. Bivins asked if they were talking about cattle being in water or runoff from the vineyards.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said they looked more focused on the development area but did not rule out
pollution from the rural area. She said she thought some of it was probably related to some
stormwater management runoff, so trying to address that better was a good priority. She said it
did appear that there may be some older septic systems that may contribute to some of that
nitrogen pollution as well.
Mr. Bivins noted it could be E. coli or something like that if it were coming from septic systems.
He said it would be helpful to have their people give them a footnote. He asked if cattle were
sitting upstream as the water comes into the development area or whether fertilizers were flowing
from the vineyards into the water coming into the development area, and if so, who would be
responsible for correcting it. He said given Mr. Randolph’s comment about the CIP, he did not
know necessarily that the Supervisors were going to feel like they should correct something that
could be altered upstream before it hits the development area.
Mr. Randolph said the Rivanna Conservation Society does testing on a biannual basis, and they
help the County also evaluate the condition of streams and ascertain whether the stream is
impaired. He said Ms. Kanellopoulos gave a very good answer about what impairment means
and how to measure impairment. He said he used to work with three watershed organizations, so
he has some familiarity with the topic.
Mr. Randolph said living in Glenmore, it is often cited that the golf course is the source of most of
the major pollution, and he has had active conversations with Don Franco, who worked with Real
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
20
Estate III in the community, and Mr. Franco had pointed out to him when they had served together
on the Planning Commission that the reality was that the golf course contributed very little in terms
of runoff. Mr. Randolph said recently it has segued into low potassium, but there is, however, still
a lot of nitrogen that flows in mainly from lawn fertilizer, so certainly the Board should not be in a
position of trying to address an issue which can be handled on an individual basis by homeowners
trying to mitigate the amount of fertilizer they use and moving into much more of a traditional lawn
emphasis rather than trying to emulate Churchill Downs by having Kentucky bluegrass in the front
yard and the backyard and all around.
Mr. Bivins said his piece on that is where they are trying to look at these resources which would
have people coming to for recreation that they want to make sure that they understand whose
responsibility it might be to try and improve the condition of that resource. He said if children are
swimming in streams and rivers as children are wont to do, then they must be cautious and aware
of what the conditions are of those streams and who is responsible for the mitigation of those
conditions.
Mr. Bivins said on page 18, they talk about fragmentation of the mature trees. He asked if they
had a sense if the fragmentation is taking place by site design, by the way people have laid out
larger communities. He said he wanted to ensure that they were not doing some of the things that
he has heard his colleagues talk about, being sensitive to the way stands of trees or mature trees
are preserved.
Ms. Kanellopoulos said yes, it is difficult since there is not anything in the ordinance for
development that would prohibit people from doing that type of clearcutting. She said that is what
typically happens with development unless the developer chooses to try to preserve those trees.
She said they do have standards for tree canopies with residential development for a percentage
and then street trees and things like that, so there is some replanting.
Mr. Bivins said as they think about the updating of the zoning ordinances, perhaps there was a
way to sort of think about how to discourage clearcutting and encourage the maintenance of
mature trees and forest stands of trees if that is possible. He mentioned the ashes being wiped
out, and he just read something about another tree in the northern part of the state that might be
too, so he asked that they preserve what they have if it is possible to do that.
Mr. Svoboda said these things kind of all go together with water quality also, so the more
clearcutting, the more quantity and quality regulations are implemented; some of the impaired
streams are based on the maximum daily loads that come from runoff that has not been regulated
in the past, so some of the newer regulations (stormwater, tree canopy, all those things combined)
help to improve that particular situation.
Mr. Bivins said as they are thinking about some of that, perhaps there should be more focus on
how to preserve these stands so there is not this fragmentation.
Mr. Bivins mentioned on page 21, he needed to share he struggled greatly with how there was a
full paragraph on vineyards and breweries under cultural and scenic resources and only four
words on “pick your own fruits.” He said when he hears the people talk about that area, it is about
the ag business. He said he understands and is sure people will say in some tweet that
Commissioner Bivins does not like wineries, but they need to see his cellar and then they can
have a conversation about whether or not he likes wine.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
21
Mr. Bivins said his real conversation was that ag businesses typically were in that area, and if he
thought about cultural resources, they would be farms and orchards. He said he was
uncomfortable with two businesses which have little or nothing to do with the cultural resources
of Crozet getting a full paragraph, so his comment would be please either balance it out so that
they hear about livestock or orchards or family farming, those kind of things, or minimize the Starr
Hill Brewery and the Monticello AVA, which is actually not that old—it is less than a decade old
that they even have that designation—and go back to the things that make them really an
agriculturally based and rural-based community and blend that in with these things which are
really discretionary income tourism.
Mr. Bivins summarized that the Commission was saying yes that it was in keeping with, in fact
advances, the comp plan, but is squarely in the comp plan.
Mr. Bivins opened for public comment.
Ms. Sandy Hausman (Parkside Village, 5577 Hilltop) praised the County for its overall concept of
concentrating population in Crozet in order to protect the scenic resources around it, but she
thought that the whole approach was seriously flawed in a couple of ways. She said first of all,
they did not have anything on the books to protect their trees, and many thousands of trees have
been lost in this age of climate change, and it is very distressing.
Ms. Hausman said second of all, the County has not acquired enough new public land in the
development area to meet the community’s recreational needs. She said she does not see the
master plan being put forward to encourage that to happen. She said they are already seeing
controversy over construction of a fairly large recreation center at Crozet Park and the addition of
115 parking spaces there; the neighbors are pointing out that access would be via a fairly narrow
residential street with no really usable sidewalk, and they object to covering the green space that
is there with impermeable pavement, and that is an action that is bound to make the quality of the
streams worse.
Ms. Hausman said the National Recreation Association suggests community parks be 25 to 50
acres and supposed that varies with the size of the community. She said the reality is that Crozet
Park is 22 acres, which makes it on the small side, and it raises the question of whether a large
new structure even belongs at that location.
Ms. Hausman said there is general agreement among planners that 30% to 50% of parkland
should be set aside for active recreation; Crozet is devoting less than 12% of its parkland to active
recreation, and she is not counting Beaver Lake or Lickinghole Creek in that calculus, so actually
the number could be even smaller. She said since land in Crozet’s development area is now very
limited and very expensive, what she would like to see is some encouragement in the master plan
for the County to acquire additional acreage outside of the development zone to supplement the
existing sites for designated recreation, to make some property available for construction of a new
recreation center but also to reserve some land for ballfields, pickleball, tennis courts, all that stuff,
the arts and crafts show, because right now she lives on the border of Crozet Park, and that place
is just crammed and overused, and she thinks that the comprehensive plan really does not make
allowance for the County to get involved with acquisition of additional land.
Ms. Hausman said she guessed staff might have some ideas of properties that could be acquired.
She said she just wandering around has wondered about farmland behind Crozet School, about
the wooded property above Mint Springs, which is now in danger of being clear cut; the County
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
22
could also designate the Old Crozet School for recreational use and not for housing or school-
related needs as the master plan is now suggesting. She said since it was the County’s decision
to create residential density in Crozet, she feels that the County really owes residents additional
open space. She said if the CIP is the problem, please raise their taxes.
Mr. Neil Williamson (Free Enterprise Forum) thanked the Planning Commission for a very vibrant
discussion that evening. He said he had a couple of clarifications and then three very pointed
questions that he hoped they would delve into as they move forward in this process. Mr.
Williamson told Mr. Bivins that he had done some work in the Virginia wine industry for some time;
the Monticello AVA was actually designated in 1984, which is much more than a decade ago. He
said they are very proud of the work they have done in the Monticello AVA and was not
discounting any other agricultural use (equalize all the paragraphs), but he thought it was
worthwhile to mention they have been around a while back to Thomas Jefferson trying to grow
grapes at Monticello, unsuccessfully.
Mr. Williamson said #2 clarification was that cul-de-sacs have been often required by Albemarle
County in order to maintain the integrity of the site and the topography; cul-de-sacs are a great
place to collect the dirt in order to make the site work. He said there was another conversation
about loss of trees, and mass grading required by interconnectivity requirements was important
to recognize; these are engineering things and not opinions.
Mr. Williamson said he was now headed to opinion: 1) When does the missing middle land use
density become so reduced as to become simply missing; 2) How does question #1 square with
Albemarle County’s new equity lens; 3) Is Crozet under parked given the challenges that have
been raised about the CIP and operating expenses of various parks—he is not certain that the
parks can support the things they have. He asked if Crozet as a development area community is
under parked. He said he thought that was a fair question for them to answer. He said he is
thankful for this very frank conversation and sincerely appreciates all of their perspectives on this.
Mr. Bivins closed the public comments.
Mr. Bivins thanked Mr. Williamson for correcting for 1984 and said records can show that the
Chair misspoke about the establishment of that area.
Ms. Falkenstein said she had a few last remarks about next steps but nothing formal. She shared
that their next step as they hinted at is community engagement opportunities on the
implementation, which will be their last chapter in the master plan, and then they will be coming
back to the Planning Commission hopefully the next month in June with the full draft including the
implementation chapter for another work session, then they will move on to the Board for a work
session and then wrap it up with public hearings hopefully toward the end of the summer/early
fall.
Committee Reports
Mr. Randolph said the Village of Rivanna CAC met the previous night, and they took a look at the
application of Breezy Hill, which he alluded to not fully accurately the previous week as he tried
to summarize it. He said they are proposing R-1 status on the ZMA, which works out using a net
density measure to 1.34 units per acre; the developer submits that he should be able to use gross
density in determining the appropriate number of units. He said they will have an opportunity to
examine that and go into depth on it.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
FINAL MINUTES - May 11, 2021
23
Review of Board of Supervisors Meeting – May 5, 2021
Mr. Rapp said there was a Board meeting the previous Wednesday; there was a work session on
private streets discussing some of the history behind that and some ways to help potentially
address some of those concerns in the future. He said they also had a work session on the
community development department’s work plan for the next year. He said a lot of busy projects
were headed their way, primarily with the comp plan with this Commission, so as they wrap up
this Crozet master plan, they will switch gears towards the comp plan. He said there were no
public hearings for development applications that evening, though.
Mr. Bivins said he would issue a very polite and hopeful request to Ms. Filardo to come and
present that to the Planning Commission.
Old/New Business
There was none.
Items for Follow-Up
There were no items.
Adjournment
Mr. Rapp said at the next meeting, there would be a public hearing and another critical slope
waiver.
Mr. Keller asked Mr. Rapp because of another potential conflict with another committee if there
was a week in June that they would not be meeting.
Mr. Rapp said usually it is the last week of each month, so for the June 22 meeting, they did not
have anything.
Before adjourning, Mr. Bivins noted he had been bitten by four ticks since they had met and said
to be aware. He encouraged everyone to be safe, wear their bug spray, and he said he knew
everyone has been vaccinated but still wear masks.
At 9:22 p.m., the Commission adjourned to Tuesday, May 18, 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 and transcribed Golden Transcription Services)
Approved by Planning
Commission
Date: 06/01/2021
Initials: CSS