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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFinal PC Minutes Work Session 04252023ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 1 Albemarle County Planning Commission Final Work Session Minutes April 25, 2023 The Albemarle County Planning Commission held a work session on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at 4:00 p.m. Members attending were: Fred Missel, Vice-Chair; Karen Firehock; Julian Bivins; Luis Carrazana; and Lonnie Murray. Members absent: Corey Clayborne. Other officials present were: Kevin McDermott, Acting Director of Planning; Andy Herrick, County Attorney’s Office; Tori Kanellopoulos, and Carolyn Shaffer, Clerk to the Planning Commission. Call to Order and Establish Quorum Ms. Shaffer called the roll. Mr. Missel established a quorum. Other Matters Not Listed on the Agenda from the Public There were none. Work Session CPA202100002 AC44 Land Use/Transportation Ms. Tori Kanellopoulos, Principal Planner, stated that the work session would focus on Phase 2 of the AC44 Comprehensive Plan update. She said that there were three intended outcomes for the second phase. She said that the first outcome had been completed where they identified the main topics for the comprehensive plan and gathered information and data on existing conditions and trends. She said that they shared a series of topic reports. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the next outcome would be to develop planning toolkits for coordinated land use and transportation planning. She said that the toolkits would be further refined in Phase 3. She said that at the end of Phase 2, there would be updated goals and objectives for each topic which would inform the next steps. She said that they would request community input at the end of the phase. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that for each step, there would be a meeting with the working group before beginning public engagement. She said that there were work sessions and planning sessions with the Commission and Board after public engagement for steps 2 and 3 to seek guidance and share community input. She said that to gather community input for Phase 2, they had an online questionnaire, a series of pop-ups, and community chat kits. Ms. Kanellopoulos explained that community input would be used to inform the drafting of goals, objectives, and a framework for an equitable community. She said that they received 532 responses to the questionnaire, and the results were available on the AC44 Phase 2 webpage. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 2 She said that pop-ups were held in each magisterial district, and they distributed flyers and had conversations about what community members wanted to see in the future. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that community chat kits were available on the website which contained a series of questions on transportation, housing, economic development, parks and recreation, natural resource protection, and climate. She said the chat kits allowed community members to host meetings and discussions on their own. She said they received about 15 chat kits with about 130 total participants. She said staff was working on an engagement summary to summarize the responses. She said the summary would be posted to the website once completed. Mr. Vlad Gavrilovic, EPR PC, said that the toolkits were a series of analytical tools and best practices that assisted in updating the comprehensive plan policies. He said that they were intended to support the current growth management policy by integrating transportation and land use. He said that they continued to build on the community input that they received. He said that they would require significant input from the Commission and the Board. Mr. Gavrilovic explained that the centers of activity and multimodal networks were to be the focus of the discussion, and they would discuss other topics in the fall. He said that the multimodal systems planning approach was from the state-wide multimodal guidelines from the DRPT. He said that the guidance was developed from several recommendations in the comprehensive plan. Mr. Gavrilovic said that about 50 centers were identified across the development area master plans. He said that the criteria for the centers was not uniform across the plans because they had been updated at different times. He said that moving forward, the proposed approach was to have a consistently applied set of updated center types. He said that activity centers would provide additional guidance on scale, form, and intensity and serve as a focus area for future multimodal networks. Mr. Gavrilovic said that there were three basics steps to build a multimodal plan—identify locations of current and potential activity centers; develop guidelines and typologies to show the scale, intensity, and character for the centers; and connect the centers to the multimodal networks. He said that locating the centers and developing a typology would require significant input from the Commission, the Board, and the public. Mr. Gavrilovic said that activity density was the sum of jobs and people in an area. He said that they used County datasets and commercial datasets to determine the locations of people and jobs in the County. He said for future projections, they utilized the land use buildout analysis. He said that the activity density used the [Trans-Sect 00:13:10] in the state-wide guidelines, and they were called T-Zones, from T-1, one or few jobs and people per acre, to T-6, 100 or more jobs and people per acre. He said that the tiers were calibrated to Virginia place-types, and several hundred place-types were used to come up with place-types of P-1 to P-6. He said that most of the County was in the lower end of the spectrum. Mr. Gavrilovic said that there were two basic types of corridors key to multimodal networks. He said through-corridors were higher speed roads focused on mobility to travel between activity centers. He said roads like Route 29 or Route 25 were examples of through-corridors. He said placemaking corridors were slow speed streets that emphasized walking and biking and built a walkable sense of place in the activity centers. He said that both corridors were multimodal, but the types of multimodal infrastructure would differ. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 3 Mr. Gavrilovic said that activity centers would be different in the rural areas and development areas, but in each activity center, there should be a gathering place to meet daily needs. He said that the recommendations in the current comprehensive plan for areas of activity in the rural areas focused on crossroads communities and adaptive reuse of existing buildings. He said that the current plan discussed seven crossroads communities, but they were not limited to the crossroads communities for centers of activity. He said that they needed community input to help define where the current centers of rural activity were located. Ms. Firehock said that Covesville was not necessarily an activity center, but to the north, Crossroads was an activity center because it had a fire station, post office, bank, health center, and other businesses to meet daily needs. She said that the examples of current activity areas in the rural areas were out of date. Mr. Gavrilovic said that there were several options to address activity centers in the rural area. He said that they could keep the current recommendations. He said that they could update the recommendations for adaptive reuse and historic preservation, or they could identify other crossroads communities, rural villages, or other centers. He said that they could create criteria for when and where new buildings and uses would be appropriate with standards for form and scale. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they would be looking at criteria for future development area expansion. She said that the current comprehensive plan provided guidance for the timing of a future expansion by using a land use buildout analysis, but it did not provide guidance on identifying locations. She said the updated comprehensive plan was expected to have criteria for timing and identifying locations. She said that input from the community, the Commission, and the Board was needed to refine the criteria. Ms. Kanellopoulos said the approach was connected to the framework expectations for new development. She said for future expansion areas, new development would be expected to include a mix of uses, a variety of housing types, parks and trails, preservations of sensitive environmental features, green and resilient design, a safe and accessible multimodal network, and opportunities for employment centers and jobs. She said that they were consistent with the expectations in the neighborhood model principles. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that the land use buildout analysis would continue to be used to estimate the availability of development area land with projected growth and demand. She said that based on the 2022 analysis, there appeared to be sufficient land to accommodate for projected 20 years of growth and demand in the development areas. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that full buildout was dependent on the upper end of density and intensity ranges, and constraining factors would limit buildout. She said that a detailed analysis of site- readiness and infrastructure availability indicated limited options to meet economic development strategic plan goals. She said that other areas they could consider would be the cost of housing or vacancy and rental rates for non-residential uses. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that for rural interstate interchanges, there were specific recommendations in the comprehensive plan focused on land uses to support agriculture and forestry and avoided tourist destinations. She said that the current comprehensive plan identified Shadwell as the most feasible location for additional development out of the four rural interstate interchanges. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 4 Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they were reviewing the matter with the comprehensive plan update because there were some types of businesses which required access to an interstate which may not be suitable to the walkable and compact development expected in the development areas. She said that two of the four rural interstate interchanges had existing non-residential development, so community, Commission and Board input was required to determine whether the current comprehensive plan recommendation should be continued or updated to recommended additional non-residential uses. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that rural interstate interchanges had the potential to support local food systems and food distribution processing along with job opportunities. She said that while they did not meet the expected development pattern, framework, or neighborhood model principles, they would avoid disrupting those development patterns in other places. She said Shadwell and Yancy Mills had the highest density of people and jobs per acre, and they both had existing non- residential properties and development for commercial and industrial uses. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they would hold a series of in-person events in May and June to discuss multimodal centers and networks, areas of activity in the rural area, criteria for development area expansion, and rural interstate interchanges. She said that they expected to host an open house and a round table component. She said there would be online engagement opportunities, and over the summer, staff would draft updated goals and objectives. She said the AC44 team would continue to meet with staff across the organization to share community input and collaboratively draft plan recommendations. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that in the fall, there would be in-person online engagement opportunities to provide input on draft goals and objectives and other areas such as the planning toolkits. She said that there were 24 land use designations across the master plan, and many had similar recommended uses, heights, and footprints. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that the comprehensive plan had a recommendation to create consistent land use designations that were the same across the master plans, and the proposed approach was to consolidate the 24 designations. She said that the updated designations would be applied to an overall future land use plan across the development areas. She said that they expected many of the changes would apply to the various mixed-use designations. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they would seek input on the neighborhood model principles. She said that they would continue to use the neighborhood model principles, but they would be refined into several categories instead of 12 separate principles. She said that categories and updated guidance would make the zoning process more efficient. She said that they would seek input on how density was calculated for future land use based on the comprehensive plan recommendations. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that the recommendation was primarily used for reviewing rezoning applications to calculate the recommended density. She said that the comprehensive plan recommended using the density for land use designations by calculating the net developable land, but the zoning ordinance utilized the gross acreage. She said the proposed approach would be to evaluate the comprehensive recommendations and share an updated approach in the fall. Ms. Firehock clarified that they did not want feedback on drafting specific criteria. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 5 Ms. Kanellopoulos said yes. She said that the intent was to share what would be covered, and they were seeking feedback as to whether other topics should be included. She said that they would come back in July to receive more feedback from the Commission regarding criteria and rural interstate interchanges. Ms. Firehock suggested a longer work session to discuss rural interstate interchanges. She said that the resiliency goal should be refined because it was broad, and connectivity should be a goal that was included. She said that the climate change report could inform the resiliency goal. Mr. Murray said that they should consider the locations of high-quality natural resources, such as habitats and forests. He said that the growth management strategy restricted services in the rural area, so expanding services in the rural area was in conflict with the current strategy. Ms. Firehock said that they should better define services. Mr. Murray said that they agreed some services should be provided, such as high-speed internet. He said that there were costs and benefits to providing services to the rural area. He said that they needed to document the existing multimodal transportation in the rural areas, and they were missing regularly used pedestrian routes in the County data. Mr. Bivins asked for more information about the source of funds for the transportation planning. He clarified that there was a private and public sector piece. He asked if they were seeking to use public policy to influence the development of the land. He asked if they would utilize an overlay. He asked how they would apply the equitable and resilient framework to a planning document. He asked how the County would incentivize the outcome. Mr. Bivins said that they should reevaluate the local economy to determine what the business needs were. He said that he did not believe the Supervisors were willing to change the zoning. He said that the community would not support changing the rural development criteria, and they would not support increasing the development area. He said that the discussion was not worth it because it would not happen. Ms. Firehock said that they should consider joint work sessions with the Commission and the Board. Mr. Carrazana said he agreed with Mr. Bivins, but having the discussions could change opinions. He clarified that the activity analysis map included current activity centers. Mr. Gavrilovic responded that it included current and future activity centers. He said that it was a cumulative total. He said that they did have separate maps for current and future activity centers. He said that the combined map was used to plan for a 25-year horizon. Mr. Carrazana said that it would be helpful to show the separate maps. Mr. Missel said it was important to see where the data was extrapolated and where it was based on real data. Mr. Carrazana said that his understanding was that how it occurred was due to the density that they were now planning. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 6 Mr. Bivins asked if Mr. Carrazana was referring to density that was available. Mr. Carrazana said no. He said that this was land being planned for future land use designations by the County. He said that they may not be codified. He said that it was useful because it gav e a visual of the densities they were planning for. He asked if Mr. Gavrilovic could provide the answer as to why developers were not taking advantage of the high-density areas available for projects. Mr. Gavrilovic said that if there was enough land and titlement available to build at lower densities, it was preferable because of the higher costs associated with building at higher densities, particularly with structured parking and other infrastructure. He said that market forces of the value of land, which was when land became rarer, the value went up, and that value made it more profitable to develop at these higher densities. He said that developers often wanted a project that would be approved easily, so they would build at that density in order to achieve a more expedient and cost-efficient approval process. Mr. Carrazana reiterated that sometimes the market drivers resulted in lower density or smaller- scale developments being proposed and constructed. Mr. Gavrilovic said that this was especially true when the land values were not acceptable for building at that high density. Mr. Carrazana asked what would allow them to achieve those higher densities if the parameters were not changing. Mr. Murray said that Charlottesville in many ways had achieved a density in which things were walkable and there were commercial and residential developments mixed together, as well as improvements in parking. He said that developers did not build parking garages in Albemarle County because the density was not present. He said that they should not expand the growth area if they still had areas that were not walkable and developed out. Mr. Bivins asked if Mr. Murray had read the Places-29 Small Area Plan Mr. Murray said yes, but not recently. Mr. Bivins said that Mr. Murray’s suggestion was within that plan. He said that Albemarle County had within it a mindset that it was a suburban community, and those plans would not be able to be fully realized if that viewpoint shifted. He said that there was a community aspect to the local development of the area, and many of the more innovative developments had been brought forward by outside developers because they were unaffected by that local development ethos. He said that the Board of Supervisors had to be more open to asking staff to create narratives for how to use density to achieve their goals. He said that he did not know how to realize that in a built environment. Mr. Carrazana said that the analogy to Charlottesville was absolutely right. He said that allowing sprawl would not allow density to be achieved, and there were plenty of areas existing that could be much higher in density than they were today and had the ability to provide access to services. Mr. Murray said that if they saw density in terms of density of services, it was more palatable than thinking in terms of density of people or density of businesses. He said that density now was ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 7 associated with a loss of service in that it caused overcrowding and degradation of community infrastructure, so until they were willing to invest in infrastructure to support that growth, they would be unable to change the way they talked about density. Mr. Carrazana said that it was true that the bad outcomes of density were overcrowding of roads and schools because the infrastructure was not planned to meet the density. Mr. Murray said that there should be substitutes for some of the things that would help them achieve the form in the growth area that was more walkable and accessible to services. Mr. Missel said that on page 15, they discussed using the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit’s multimodal systems design guidelines to help inform center types. He asked how this approach was putting transit first, if they looked at other approaches, and why they chose this approach. Mr. Gavrilovic said that it was not an approach that put transit first, because it was intended to be an integration of land use and transportation, and a total multimodal transportation for bicycle and pedestrian in the most rural areas as well, where transit may be unavailable. He said that the lowest activity unit was less than one job or person per acre, so they did not look at the full spectrum, but he mentioned South Boston and Tysons Corner as the upper end of the spectrum. He said that what was permitted in the Places 29 plan, some of those were even higher at the upper end of the multimodal spectrum. He said that this system was scaled to Virginia, with the highest intensity places in Virginia and the lowest intensity places, with Albemarle somewhere in the middle-bottom end of that spectrum. Mr. Missel asked if their community input also included representatives of VDOT, RWSA, and other entities. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that references to staff and external partner agencies was meant to include schools, RWSA, VDOT, TJPDC, and a long list of groups. Mr. Missel asked if there was any rationale as to when they were plugged into the process. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they checked in at key points as they approached community engagement to share topics they would be covering and ask what was important to those stakeholders. She said as they continued to review comprehensive plan goals and objectives, those groups would be part of drafting the updated ones. She said that they had tried to share community input along the way with staff as well, so as they drafted the goals and objectives, staff was aware of all of that information and themes as they created those goals. Mr. Missel said that VDOT had a plan and funding source, which did not always coincide with the County’s plan and strategy in terms of development and density, and that historical disconnect had meant they did not have the level of infrastructure support they needed to support the County’s growth policy and plans. He asked if the strategy of engaging those partner organizations had been able to employ any tactics to effect alignment of those two separate entities. Mr. Carrazana asked if the Smart Scale program was meant to bring more collaboration into plans. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 8 Mr. McDermott said that he understood the Smart Scale program to be an effort to better align the County’s transportation needs with the available funding. Mr. Bivins said that they had a governance structure in which some things came from TJPDC, some from the City, and some from the County, so there were three jurisdictions raising projects that competed for funding, with the hope that they were coordinated, but concerns and planning among groups varied greatly, and there was sometimes a loss in meeting community goals when the collaboration between groups began to fail in this way. He said that he did not know if there was a funding and development structure that allowed that kind of pointed solution to development. He said that the intersection at the old K-Mart had been discussed for multiple years, but developers had been unable to agree to losing an entrance in the intersection as part of a plan to make traffic flow more efficiently. Mr. McDermott said that he would answer Mr. Missel’s question. He said that VDOT did agree to the principles in the multimodal systems plan, and VDOT had created a road design standard related to what they called urban areas, and if a locality went through that process and identified where they called activity centers or urban areas, they could apply the urban design standards to those. He said that by doing this, they would be able to align the County’s desires to how the roads developed with the land use system. Mr. Gavrilovic said that was correct, but it did not include funding. He said that VDOT did not have a plan, as there was no state-wide or locality-wide development plan for that at this time. He said that the County had a right to impose things that went to the MPO, the MPO could put all of those together, with a limited number allowed to go into the Smart Scale, and the Smart Scale process used data-driven criteria to see which rose to the top. He said that that process did not necessarily align with Albemarle County’s plan for these, but it was a way of making things objective across the state through the process filtering. Mr. Missel said that it also extended to RWSA, the schools, and other partner agencies. Ms. Firehock said that in the past, VDOT had said that they could have a different road width but were not maintaining it. She asked if this were the case, or would they maintain that if they followed their urban design standards. Mr. McDermott said that they would have to follow the urban design standards, which were incorporated into the road design plan. Ms. Firehock said that the roads themselves created issue in developing a walkable community, because they were designed for going very fast speeds. Mr. Gavrilovic said that sometimes the state had to convey that to districts. Ms. Firehock said that many roads were designed without allowing for street parking, meaning that more parking lots and large driveways would have to be constructed instead. She said that it was unacceptable. Mr. Gavrilovic said that these were adopted in 2013, and what Mr. McDermott was discussing was fairly recent, and not many localities had applied it. Ms. Firehock said that she was excited. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 9 Mr. Bivins asked what the gaps were in this multimodal network, and how they were able to fill those gaps in order to optimize the developable land and reduce sprawl. Mr. Gavrilovic said that the centers was an attempt to do such, in that if they were able to prioritize the more walkable, higher-intensity growth to go, a network could be built to connect those neighborhoods. He said that Hollymeade Town Center was an example of an area that could serve as a placemaking corridor, where traffic was slowed and it was a walkable and bikeable area. Mr. Bivins said that would give people an opportunity to go to the shopping center without driving to each end. Mr. Missel asked if there were any other comments or feedback on the proposed approach to the planning toolkits. Mr. Bivins asked if the Supervisors had received this information yet. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they had not yet. Mr. Bivins said that he would like to hear the Supervisors’ feedback after it was provided in order to help shape next steps. Ms. Firehock asked if they still had to create the meat of the toolkits. She said that she could share examples of connected versus disconnected developments. Mr. Murray said that connected resources were an essential component to planning the connected developments. Ms. Firehock said that she hoped that the County would use the biodiversity action plan maps that were not currently in any system, but was in the process of being made available to developers and the public on the GIS system. She said that similarly, the Acquisitional Conservation Easement program was supposed to include the habitat corridors as part of the criteria for requiring them, but the County disbanded that committee and it had not met for two years. She stated that the language drafted for the code change had been developed, but now sat unused. Mr. Bivins said that every time a new community came to an existing community, they found a core who said that they did not want the connectivity. Ms. Firehock said that many existing communities feared having new connected developments because they had prejudices against lower-income households that they stated publicly. She said that it was offensive to hear, but she as a planner still tried to connect those communities. Mr. Missel said that the value that they assigned to things such as connectivity of roads was an important part of this process, because there would continue to be people who would disapprove of that connectivity. Mr. Murray said that they had to be mindful of how they pitched additional uses in the rural area, because there was no public water or public sewer, and the police did not enforce the speed limits ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 10 in all areas. He said that because there was not services to support that infrastructure was an important piece of this. He said that there were opportunities that could be explored in terms of rural interchanges. He said that there were many tourism activities that supported the rural area, and they could capitalize on recreational tourism that supported the area and its natural environment. Mr. Missel asked if there were any additional topics or areas that should be considered with the planning toolkits. Mr. Bivins said that regarding historical preservation, there was implicit value of preserving historical structures, but there was an unknown community value if the structure could not be accessed easily. He asked if they were doing it because it was the right thing to do, or because having historic structures in the area did something for the community. Ms. Firehock said that the Historic Resources Committee discussed the matter recently in reviewing the language added to the comprehensive plan. She said that they specifically elaborated on that they did not want it to seem as if historic structures were only important if they were tourist attractions, and that the places and structures had an integrity in and of themselves, whether or not accessible to the public. Mr. Bivins said that he agreed with that. He said that it should be stated that the context between linking a place that existed in that manner to the values in the comprehensive plan. Ms. Firehock said that the Historic Resources Committee would soon be reviewing the letter that was sent to residents who had a historic structure, which in the past had not been helpful in giving resources. She said that the County had proposed to protect these structures without an ordinance and without providing tools and resources to residents who owned them, but many of the structures were in need of assistance, so they must be more proactive in their action rather than just saying they cared for them. Mr. Missel said that on historic resources, on page 19 of the presentation, it talked about focusing on adaptive reuse of historic structures, which he completely supported. He said that they had to be conscious of the cost of preserving and maintaining a building that was a historic resource. He said that this related again to identifying the value of the historic resources and how it bolstered the rest of the community, differentiating Albemarle County from other places. Ms. Firehock stated that there was a concern that this aspect had been overpromoted. She said that at the Historic Resources Committee meeting, a concern was voiced that the County was telling people to preserve their structures and capitalize on them as venues. She said that it was desired for people to protect historic structures, but there was question as to if everything should be promoted as an event venue as a way of saying the structure was still standing. Mr. Missel said that in defining the value of preserving the historic structures, they must delineate the pathways to getting to that goal, and one of the pathways was ensuring the residents had access to resources to achieving that goal, such as historic tax credits. Mr. Murray said that they should expand what the term historic resources applied to. He requested more information regarding Albemarle County’s towns incorporated by freed slaves, because those historic communities should be recognized as historic places in the same way that ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 11 Albemarle County’s plantations were. He said that these places were valuable and contained a lot of history and gave the same access to funding and support that some other historic areas did. Ms. Firehock said that the County recently had funding of historic markers with a goal of recognizing communities of color and other histories that had been suppressed within the County. She said that funding for five markers had been obtained, and three had been completed. She said that the completion of the remaining two was an issue being addressed by the Historic Resources Committee, because it was important to ensure that these underrepresented histories were recognized. Mr. Missel said that cultural resources should be integrated throughout. He said that methods and tactics for implementation must be made for infrastructure. He asked what incentives were needed in order to in-fill. He said that a developer would likely prefer a green field site over a brown field site, because there was less risk, so they should research that. He said that he also wanted to know how in-fill was related to open space requirements. He said that one of the differentiators of Albemarle County was that the City was dense, but the County had incredible natural resources, so they must preserve that and leverage the in-fill argument parallel to the value of open space. Mr. Missel said that economic development had not been raised as an issue, but as the County entered a new economic development realm, guided by some of the new leadership at the County, they should think about how they integrated that into the process. He said that he recently discussed with Supervisor Price this past week about housing incentives for affordable housing, which must be included in some way in this planning. Mr. Bivins said that there was also question as to how they enhanced the areas left when development took place. He said that around Knoll Wood and Hessian Hills, there were many areas without public sewer and public water and was unwalkable in that it had no sidewalks. He said that there was some value to trying to improve the existing inventory so that people could stay there and did not have to choose if they wanted to have sidewalks or not. Mr. Murray said that in the discussion of how to expand the growth areas, in the past when the growth areas had expanded, it was because development rights were created and new property owners received a big windfall. He said that there was an option to transfer development rights so that if they were to commit ahead of time to making any future major expansions of the growth area, they could avoid the situation for creating a big windfall for some property owners and could create conservation for some property owners at the same time. Mr. Bivins said that was somewhat of a combination of land trust and conservation. He said that it could be given to an entity that could develop it in a more conservation-minded way. Mr. Murray said that it could be larger than that. Ms. Firehock said that they had spent about two years discussing this and could not make it work. Mr. Murray said that he could identify issues with that process that resulted in its failure. He said that if they expanded the growth area, they should consider downzoning portions of the rural area to compensate for the additional density created by expanding the growth area. He said that if the free market could not do it, they should do so. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL WORK SESSION MINUTES - April 25, 2023 12 Ms. Firehock said that she would rather rezone everything how they wanted to, and she did not prescribe to the County’s current approach to that. She said that it would make it easier for developers to do the density that was desired, because there would be less vagueness. She said that developers had often left because the process was not efficient in that way. Mr. Carrazana said that they could think about how to mitigate factors or incentives in order to get to the full allowable density. Ms. Firehock said that they made an in-fill density bonus that matched the City of Charlottesville, where there had to be so much low-impact development in order to get the density bonus, and they were able to get some in on small lots. Mr. Carrazana said that if they figured out exactly why it was happening, they could figure out what to do. Mr. Bivins said that the questions should be directed so that people shared not only their own interests but what might be possible 25 years from now, because many projects would not be completed until that time. Mr. Missel said that the Climate Action Plan must be integrated into this plan. He said time was an issue, as well as market influences. He said that if it took two or three years to get a rezoning, the market influences could change to the point where the developer could not accurately plan a pro-forma or business plan to meet them. Adjournment At 5:31 p.m., the Commission adjourned to 6:00 p.m., Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting, Lane Auditorium. Kevin McDermott, Acting Director of Planning (Recorded by Carolyn S. Shaffer, Clerk to Planning Commission & Planning Boards; transcribed by Golden Transcription Services) Approved by Planning Commission Date: Initials: