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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFinal PC Minutes 08082023ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 1 Albemarle County Planning Commission Final Minutes August 8, 2023 The Albemarle County Planning Commission held a work session on Tuesday, August 8, 2023, at 6:00 p.m. Members attending were: Corey Clayborne, Chair; Fred Missel, Vice-Chair; Julian Bivins, Luis Carrazana, Karen Firehock; Lonnie Murray; Commissioner Nathan Moore was attending virtually via Zoom. Members absent: None. Other officials present were: Kevin McDermott, Director of Planning; Andy Herrick, County Attorney’s Office; Tori Kanellopoulos; and Carolyn Shaffer, Clerk to the Planning Commission (present via Zoom). Call to Order and Establish Quorum Ms. Shaffer called the roll. Mr. Moore stated that he was attending virtually due to a personal medical condition and was calling from his home in Albemarle County. Mr. Missel motioned the Planning Commission to allow Mr. Moore to participate remotely. Mr. Murray seconded the motion, which passed unanimously (5-0). (Mr. Moore abstained from the vote.) Mr. Clayborne established a quorum. Other Matters Not Listed on the Agenda from the Public Mr. Tom Olivier stated that he was a resident of the Samuel Miller District. He stated that they lived in demanding times, and the next two decades were to present them with new and larger challenges. He said that they needed to develop and install their best innovative thinking in the new comprehensive plan so that it could provide guidance into troubled and changing times that surely were ahead. He said that many of the ideas they needed would come from intense dialogue in which key issues were critically examined, and to this end, yesterday he emailed invitations to the Planning Commissioners to meet with environmentalists and other members of the public to a meeting sponsored by the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club, the Cville 100 Climate Alliance, and 350.org. Mr. Olivier said that they were invited to attend and share their personal thoughts on challenging issues in the comprehensive plan update and engage in dialogue on these issues with members of the public. He said that in case the invitation was lost from their inboxes, he provided paper copies for them on the table this evening. He stated that two members had responded already, and he thanked them for that. He said that he hoped to hear from all of them. Mr. Neil Williamson stated that he was representing the Free Enterprise Forum. He said that it felt like they had been working on AC44 for three years already, but they were only into the second year. He said that they were well into the second year, because he had had a number of posts ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 2 describing the [05:11 mass city?] analysis they received last May. He said that one of the issues there was the planning horizon they were dealing with in the comprehensive plan. He said that Albemarle County took the idea of AC44 to focus on 44, the planning horizon. Mr. Williamson said that if they utilized the numbers provided in the capacity study for what was available in terms of residential units and multiplied it by the loss between the comprehensive plan and approved plan densities, which was 58%, they were short 1000 units on the low and short 3000 units on the high end. He said that that was the planning horizon, and he had not heard it discussed that they were short. He said that they were not short until 42 or 44, and if they were planning for 44, he was hopeful that as they sat down and discussed the development areas that were sat down during the Carter Administration that they looked at 44 compared to 79. He said that there was a big difference there. Mr. Williamson said that in addition, in their other topics tonight, he encouraged them to be descriptive rather than prescriptive by discussing the impacts, how they could do things in adaptive reuse crossroads communities that would allow them to not have to go to town for a dentist appointment. He said that those types of things were critically important to their rural character and rural lives, and that went to simple things like an oil change. He asked if they should have to drive 30 miles for an oil change. He said that if they were looking through a lens of equity and climate change, he would ask how forcing rural area residents to drive more was going to work. Ms. Paula Beasley stated that she was a resident of the Samuel Miller District. She said that Charlottesville and its growth area currently comprised 20,180 acres, and the growth area was 3.5 times the size of Charlottesville. She said that even during these times of phenomenal growth, that was enough capacity for the next 10 to 20 years. She stated that if the growth rate continued, she asked why they needed it. She asked what happened to the concept of sustainability and encouraging more growth, which would be the end result. Ms. Beasley said that all of these proposals were for expanding the growth areas, designating rural villages, rural crossroad communities, and expanding the uses in these areas, and at rural interstate exchanges. She said that these proposals would diminish resident input and voices as [08:28 inaudible] in their communities. She said that for decades, Albemarle County, the state, local, and landowner resources had been to preserve their rural areas. She said that there had been an enormous citizen participation in the 2015 comprehensive plan redraft which imposed an affirmative obligation on the County to preserve and protect their rural lands. Ms. Beasley said that preservation enabled the County to focus its resources on Charlottesville, were they were needed, and rural communities provided it themselves. She said that there was no need to designate additional rural villages or crossroads communities, and the communities did not want them. She said that two on the list for consideration were Keene and Esmont, whose residents totaled 149 and 519, respectively. She said that it was not enough to support services economically, and unnecessary when a commercial and industrial area provided these services nearly 10 miles to the north or 6 miles to the south in Scottsville. She said that what they needed was internet for communication and to expand other options. Ms. Beasley said that further, expansion of transportation options and more frequency such as what JAUNT provided, would serve most of their needs. She said that preserving rural areas was consistent with and promoted the County’s objectives, specifically its climate action, biodiversity, and other objectives. She said that the flora, fauna, open spaces, tree cover, agricultural land, ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 3 and wetlands provided carbon sequestration and cleansed the air and water. She said that they respectfully requested that they not expand the development areas or add rural villages, crossroad communities, or expanded uses there or at rural interstate exchanges, as those would only promote unbridled growth and sprawl. She said that more than ever, preservation of the rural areas was needed now. Ms. Sandy Hossman, resident of 5577 Hilltop Street, Crozet, Virginia, stated that she liked that Albemarle County established development zones and put other areas off limits, and it worried her that now they were talking about adjusting the boundaries of those areas. She said that if they did not stick to their guns on this, they would have sprawl that local government tried to avoid in establishing development zones in the first place, and they had to insist that developers limit their projects to designated areas if that strategy was going to work. She said that it was the only way that they were going to save what was special about Albemarle. Ms. Hossman said that U.S. public officials were not obliged to ensure that everyone who wanted to live here could afford to do so, and it might sound callous, but their obligation right now was to current residents and to the land that they wanted them to protect. She said that if they started expanding the development areas, they would have broken a contract with the people they represented, the people who had bought into different parts of the County with certain expectations. She said that along those lines, she did not think that they had reserved sufficient space within development areas, specifically Crozet. Ms. Hossman said that she lived near Crozet Park and they were seeing deer and bear in places they had not seen them before, there was a buck living in her backyard, a doe just gave birth in the park; they had to make provisions for wildlife and for recreation. She suggested that the Planning Commission recommend the County acquire more acreage in areas that were not earmarked for development. She said that she knew the cost of parkland maintenance was of concern, but it was something they would take up in the future. She said that the first thing they had to do was ensure sufficient habitat for animals and sufficient open space for active and passive recreation around areas where density would only increase. Consent Agenda Mr. Clayborne stated that there were no items on the Consent Agenda. Work Session CPA202100002 AC44 Land Use/Transportation Mr. McDermott stated that tonight they would be going over four very dense and important topics that set the direction for everything else they would be talking about throughout the comprehensive plan. He said that they were asking for the Planning Commission’s direction on these four topics because they would be going to the Board of Supervisors in about one month with these same topics, so they wanted to be able to provide the Board with the thoughtful consideration that they received from the Planning Commission members. Mr. McDermott emphasized that tonight, these topics were being viewed from a high level, and they were hoping that the Planning Commission could help set the direction. He said that these topics would filter through all of the other topic areas that they would be talking about, specifically over the next two or three months of this project and up until December when they were getting into the goals and objectives. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 4 Mr. McDermott said that they were trying to set the direction for how the team could get into the details of how the County might want to grow into the future. He stated that he appreciated everyone’s consideration of these areas, and he hoped that the Commission could provide that direction. He said that they would have a follow-up to get into the details with three Planning Commission meetings scheduled before the end of the year where they would get into the meat of how they grew, and tonight was just setting that direction. Ms. Tori Kanellopoulos stated that she was joined by Mr. McDermott as well as Mr. Vlad Gavrilovic, Principal Planner with EPR PC and Selena Cozart with Cozart Consulting who would be facilitating this meeting as a project consultant. She said that they would be focusing on four planning topics as part of AC44, and because a detailed staff report and packet was provided, she would briefly cover each topic and leave most of the time for discussion and input for each item. Ms. Selena Cozart stated that in terms of the meeting format and flow, it should be kept in mind that this was a work session for guidance and no formal vote would be taken. She said that they wanted to hear the Commission’s direction so that staff could present it to the Board of Supervisors on September 6. She said that there would be continued opportunities for input, and they needed to hear their input for recommendations for these four topics during this meeting. She said that her role was to move forward smoothly and facilitate conversation so that they could get through all four topics in a relatively timely fashion in order to give time to discuss the direction they wanted to go. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that based on the community input received and the Planning Commission’s review of these topics, the purpose of this work session was for the Commission to give specific recommendations to the Board and staff on how to carry forward each of these topics into the goals, objectives, and action steps in the updated comprehensive plan. She reiterated that they were asking for the Commission’s input on which option should be pursued for each toolkit topic. She clarified that the option could be one of the options presented or an option with minor changes. She said that more broadly, since these were topics in the current comprehensive plan, they were asking if updates to the plan were needed or if the current recommendations should be carried forward with no or minimal changes. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that the planning toolkits started as growth management options in Phase 1 for how the County could grow in the next 20 years, they were topics that could support the growth management policy with coordinated land use and transportation planning, they were also ways that the AC44 framework could be applied, and they were topics that cut across many plan chapters. She stated that displayed on the slide was a workflow for the four phases of the AC44 process, and they wanted to highlight how the four toolkit topics they were discussing this evening fed into the updated chapters, including goals and objectives. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they would also help inform some of the upcoming discussions for fall engagement including land use designations, neighborhood model principles, density calculation recommendations, and natural and cultural resources mapping. She said that they would need updated goals and objectives for all plan chapters, including these four topics, before moving into Phase 3. She said that in the most recent round of engagement, which took place from late-April through late-July, the AC44 team hosted five total open houses with about 86 total attendees. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 5 Ms. Kanellopoulos said that there were also four online questionnaires for each topic, and total responses ranged from 19 to 52 for each. She said that several working group members also hosted four meetings with about 40 total participants. She stated that they wanted to recognize that the total number of respondents for this round of engagement was lower than the first round of Phase 2, which could be in part because these topics were more detailed and complex, so they wanted to emphasize again that there were more opportunities for community input as they moved along. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that once they had direction from the Commission and Board, they could draft the relevant goals and objectives. She noted that there seemed to be a significant number of visitors to the website who may have been interested and wanted to learn more but did not provide their input through the questionnaires. She said that they had very thoughtful discussion at the open houses and reading through the community chats, especially on transportation, housing, natural resource protection, community health, and building community resilience. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that the first topic for this evening was activity centers and multimodal networks. She explained that activity centers were locations in the development areas that were either now or in the future had a mix of residential, business, and recreational uses, and had a higher intensity of concentration of uses than surrounding areas and underlying land uses. She stated that they should be walkable with a variety of destinations to walk to and with safe and accessible multimodal transportation options. She stated that they were similar to the current plan recommendations for designated centers, however the activity centers used a more focused approach with fewer total centers and standardized center place types applied across the development areas. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that during engagement, they heard overall support for the activity centers concept, especially a mix of uses, housing choice, redevelopment, and safely being able to walk and bike. She said that the barrier should be reduced for small businesses to start. She said that there was concern that a mix of uses may not always be feasible. She said that centers needed amenities to balance the higher intensity of uses, more frequent and reliable transit service, and more destinations to walk to. Ms. Kanellopoulos noted that at the Commission’s April 25 meeting, the Commission shared comments related to infill development in the development areas, including that incentives were likely needed for infill as it could be more challenging than green field development, and encouraging use of the existing development areas was needed. She said that Commissioner Murray described a density of services that should be paired with higher density of development such as transit, access to quality open space, and access to more amenities and businesses. She said that the Commission also discussed the benefits of using the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit’s multimodal street typology guidelines as they had been reviewed and supported by VDOT. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that there were two options for this topic. She said the first option was to not change any of the currently identified centers during AC44, so the currently identified 50 centers in the master plans would remain. She said that a f uture step could be updating centers during each master plan update, which could also use the draft activity centers place types and locations as a starting point. She stated that the second option was to update all of the center locations in the development areas during AC44 using the activity center place types. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 6 Ms. Kanellopoulos said that staff was recommending this option as the approach would give a consistent format and terminology for all centers across the development areas, would provide more direction for future projects and redevelopment, and would encourage efficient use of land in the development areas. She said that given the time it takes to update each master plan one at a time, this option would also provide consistent center types and multimodal transportation planning across the development areas during AC44, with additional recommendations developed during future master plan updates. She said that districts would be used to identify single-use areas of activity such as employment centers. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that with this option, the next steps during AC44 would be to continue revising the activity centers and district place types and locations, and to draft multimodal street types and networks for centers using the Department of Rail and Public Transit guidelines and coordinating with VDOT. She said that they were happy to take any comments including those on center locations, but noted that if the Commission recommended Option 2, they would continue to share updated center maps for additional engagement and comments, so they did not have to be the final centers. Mr. Carrazana asked if they would be discussing the specifics of any one center area. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that any high-level comments about any of the centers were appreciated, but these did not have to be the final ones. She said that the main question was if the Commission recommended moving forward with the activity centers during AC44. Mr. McDermott stated that there would be further opportunity to talk about the specific locations. Mr. Gavrilovic stated that he would provide high-level summary points from their discussion, and he asked the Commissioners to correct him if he misrepresented anything. Ms. Cozart said that as they moved into discussion for each of the topics, each Commissioner had received three color cards that they would use as a first round to get started on the discussion, which would be used as a straw poll to get an idea of where t hey felt in relation to the recommendation offered by staff. She asked where the Commissioners were in relation to the recommendation of Option 2 for the first topic. She said that the Commission was invited to add anything different from what had already been said or to express their agreement with what had been said. Mr. Moore stated that he would hold up a green card if he had one. Ms. Cozart thanked Mr. Moore for his input. Ms. Firehock stated that she had comments on the staff report. She said that she agreed with Option 2, but wanted to make the caveat that they had to consider the proximity of the existing commercial areas so that they did not put centers in the middle of neighborhoods that were adjacent to commercial areas that were already serving this function. She said that in the overview of Option 2, there was a point about updating them, and she would comment that they already had too many centers. She said that the number of centers designated should be reduced overall. Mr. Gavrilovic asked for clarification about Ms. Firehock’s first comment. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 7 Ms. Firehock clarified that she was referring to areas already adjacent to a major commercial center, because those did not need another center in the middle of the neighborhood. Mr. Gavrilovic asked if she meant there should not be an activity center where they already had a commercial center. Ms. Firehock said that yes, if everyone was already in the habit of going to one location, they should not try to artificially make a center in the middle. Mr. Gavrilovic asked if she was referring to an area adjacent or actually in the activity center. Ms. Firehock said that some of the planning boundaries were arbitrary. She said that when drawing a part of eastern Rio Road and indicating there needed to be a center there, it ignored that everyone was going over to Route 29 and Rio Road, and that served as the center. She said that it as an artificial construct, because their map had a C in the middle of the area, but there was an actual C that existed. She said that she did not want to make artificial centers and there were too many already. She said that she agreed with staff’s recommendation with the caveats of location and quantity of centers. Mr. Carrazana said that he agreed with Ms. Firehock’s comments and felt that they needed to take a closer look at evaluating the centers and the processes outlined made sense. He said that they diluted what they already had if they created all of these centers, and they had too many of the C’s already, so they must be intentional about where they were going to have them so they could think about infill, adaptive reuse, and densify the ones that they did have. Mr. Carrazana said that would be better for their infrastructure, and in places without infrastructure it would densify and create the opportunities to develop that infrastructure. He said that he was concerned about too much dilution instead of densifying and making use of what they had, as well as being able to connect them better. He said that by densifying, they would be able to provide public transportation and other things they did not have in many of these areas. He reiterated that his main concern was that they were diluting too much. Mr. Bivins said that he agreed. He said that his comment would be that these reflected a lived-in environment that was narrowing out. He said that these were projected and predicted as a way they would live as a community, and he would like them to spend time validating if it happened, and if it did not happen, was that an element that could be used to evaluate whether or not it would function in the future. He said that it should set up a sort of evaluation matrix to identify if those past projections came to fruition. Mr. Bivins said that they heard a lot about the dissolution of community, and as they built activity centers, one of the things he would like them to be cognizant of was how they created community and let community move among the places in the County. He said that in his district, it was very difficult to understand how things were connected. He said that Stonefield was right in the middle of a big center, but it was impossible to access without driving and was difficult to navigate as a driver. He said that the centers still felt like they were automobile-centric, and while it may be acceptable if that was desired for the community, but he did not think it helped them extend the community. Mr. Missel stated that it was mentioned that there was expectation to follow the neighborhood model principles, including a variety of housing types and a mix of uses. He said that they must ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 8 be aware as it was tied to this macro versus micro review of these different centers of the need for flexibility depending on market influences. He said that to require all mixes of uses within a center could be unsustainable because of the market and needed to be flexible when thinking about a long-term comprehensive plan. He said that regarding impacts and responsibilities with activity centers, there was discussion of adding amenities and transportation networks, and he would like to know how that was factored into incentives, proffers, etcetera. Mr. Missel said that regarding affordability, a lot of these centers could be beautiful places to be and live and thrive, but there was question as to how they served all aspects of their community and not only those who could afford the highest costing homes and the amenities that came with them. He said that having an overall understanding of a concept plan as it related to these different centers was important. He stated that he agreed with Mr. Bivins’ comment about assessment of where they were and how they had done in order to inform where they were headed. Mr. Clayborne asked if more detail could be provided about how the districts overlayed and interacted with the activity centers. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that those were designations in the Crozet and Pantops master plans, but not currently in the other ones. She said that they were intended to highlight areas that were more focused on a single use but still had a lot of activity; they might be almost completely dedicated to employment or office flex uses, so there was not really expectation for them to be as highly mixed in use. She said that they recognized those areas as well as parks that had regional importance and could connect neighborhoods to each other. Mr. Clayborne asked if it was uncommon to use that same concept to inspire or incentivize some of the things they were looking for, such as affordable housing or combating climate change and the impact of buildings. He asked if it was uncommon to use a district to incentivize some of that. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that staff could look into the matter. Mr. Missel stated that under the recreational district, employment district, and institutional district, and under form and design guidance, it was chosen to have 2-4 stories and up to 6 for an employment district. He asked how they arrived at the densities for those. He said that there was also DRPT’s guidance, and more detail on the form and site design guidance. He asked if it was tied at all to creating as much density in the centers as possible. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that the district place types as presented were kept with the same recommendations as Crozet and Pantops for consistency, but for the centers, they did the activity center analysis and matched with the DRPT guidelines. Mr. Gavrilovic stated that the DRPT guidelines had a statewide look at different place types and their densities from Tyson’s Corner to a small village, then broke those into six categories. He said that those had FAR density, typical building heights as examples of each place type. He said that then those were used as the basis for the three activity center types. Mr. Missel asked if there was a point at which they would entertain more than eight stories to help with the discussion about development expansion and increased density. Mr. McDermott replied that the eight stories were what had been noted in the DRPT guidelines that seemed to align with the development they saw in Albemarle County. He said that something ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 9 like increasing those types was a detailed topic that could be talked about more when getting into the goals and objectives related to land use. He said that it would be entirely up to the Commission as to whether to recommend increased heights. He said that it was not necessary now but was a great consideration for them to be aware of. Mr. Bivins stated that in the Rio Small Area Plan, remind [42:22 inaudible] court buildings were. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that six stories was the current maximum recommended. Mr. Carrazana stated that it may be too prescriptive for this process, which went back to Mr. Missel’s point of flexibility in terms of the types of mixed use they might have due to market forces, but also areas that could be densified. He said that they must find how to incentivize density in areas that could be mixed use, adaptive reuse or infill. He stated that they could go eight or ten, particularly in areas where they had transportation and the network, so they should incentivize that. Mr. Clayborne noted that Mr. Murray had indicated his thoughts with a yellow and a red card. Mr. Murray stated that while he agreed with the concept, his concern was that CACs already played a role in deciding where these were. He said that he would be concerned with reducing them without a lot of CAC involvement and making sure that they were on board with that direction. He reiterated that he appreciated the concepts. He said that it seemed that when developments were approved, part of the decision about whether something should be mixed use or not and including commercial or not was the distance of the activity centers. He said if they were going to reduce the activity centers, and they had projects already approved that were predicated on their proximity to the activity center. He said he was unsure if that was true or not. He said perhaps it was not a concern. Mr. Murray stated that he liked Mr. Bivins comment that the utility of the activity center depended on how they accessible it was so that it could be accessed from a multimodal standpoint. He said that in terms of recreational districts, there were comments about the desire for more green space in their urban areas, however, a model for greenspace was reliant on removal of green fields so that some small percent of that can be covered back as green space. He said that they should consider transfer of development rights as a mechanism for flexibility to preserve larger areas and shift the development to where they wanted it without having the current “sacrifice-to-protect” methodology they currently did. Mr. Murray said that he agreed that flexibility was good, but he had concern that they had seen proposals where they had mixed use developments and the developer came back to remove all of the commercial out of that, taking a mixed-use property and rendering it as only residential, and he was not in favor of that. He said that if flexibility resulted in something that was more mixed-use, he would be in favor of that, but if flexibility was reducing something mixed-use to only residential, he would not be in favor of that. Mr. Murray stated that he understood the desire that in a time such as now, there was not as much desire for office space or commercial space, and some people may want to convert that to residential uses but leaving it as office space or commercial space helped the prices go down so that people could afford to find office space or commercial space. He said that if they jumped in and allowed it all to be converted to residential, they had removed the opportunity for the prices to come down. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 10 Mr. Bivins said that if they were going to look at town centers and activity centers, he felt that the County had to make a decision to put more green space in the developed area. He said that they were currently ringed with recreation space that they could not access with a bus. He said that if the County wanted to send a message to a developer that if they came there, they would put a park there and maintain a park there. He said that he would have preferred for the library to not be on the western side of Route 29 but the eastern side of Route 29 because that was where all of the people were and could walk to the library. Mr. Bivins said that they needed to think about what the signals were that they sent to people and the development community to make investments. He said that if they did not allow a lot of flexibility, developers would push off investment if they did not believe they could lease it immediately or soon. He said that many projects had come before the Planning Commission during his tenure that were sitting up there for years, and then all of a sudden, the developer could make the calculus that they could go forward. Mr. Bivins said that some of that had backed off since 2020, but it was interesting to see the developers decide to move the project forward and then suddenly stop because the numbers changed suddenly. He said that it was not about them, but about whether money was available to do it. He said that he hoped that part of what they were trying to suggest was how to create a set of regulations that not only was sensitive to the market forces but also engaged with developers so they would take the risk. He said that they wanted to give them enough freedom so that they could make a decision as to whether they could get the risk financed. Mr. Murray said that it depended on balance. He said that there had been discussions about Fashion Square Mall and that space and should they allow residential uses by right. He said that if residential space went into the Fashion Square Mall area, it would be great, but if it all became residential, that would be a horrific loss. He said that it was about balance. He said that at the end of it, they wanted a walkable community, and they could not have a walkable community if they ended up with all one type of use. Mr. Bivins said that the other part of the balance was jobs. Mr. Murray said that was right, they needed jobs. He said that to get tax revenue, the best way to fund schools and roads was with commercial development. He said that affordable housing was great, but affordable commercial space was also very important. Ms. Cozart stated that five more minutes were allotted for this topic. Mr. Moore stated that he agreed particularly with Mr. Bivins’ comments about the recreational areas. He said that if they were not accessible, there was question as to what they were doing. He said that he mentioned at the last meeting they had together that those who they reached out to were the people they heard from, but if they were hearing from less than 100 people in person in a County of over 100,000, it bothered him. He said that he wanted to think about how they got people more engaged in this kind of discussion. He said that he was very in favor of activity centers that were mixed use and walkable, and it was a great thing overall. Ms. Firehock said she endorsed the idea that as a County, they must put public infrastructure in some of the places they wanted to become centers. She said that she had been working with different cities that had had some successes with wanting to have more families come into a ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 11 commercial area, so they put a water park for children in the area so that families would come there. She said that the business district was no longer dead at night, and that made restaurants want to be there, which in turn made other businesses want to be there too. Ms. Firehock said that the infrastructure in that case was invested by the locality, and the developers did not put in the pool for the kids or nice landscaping, but that was what made those activity centers successful. She said that the County had to put money on the table to make them attractive places, and they could not only do it through incentivizing and proffers, which had not worked. She said that she agreed that making the sacrifice of green fields in order to have a small green space provided in developments did not get them much. Mr. Moore stated that he agreed with Ms. Firehock’s comment. Mr. Murray stated that an area they should invest in was structured parking. He said that it was expensive, and developers were not necessarily going to want to build it, but if someone wanted to redevelop an area such as Fashion Square Mall, they should get some skin in the game and agree to help pay for the structured parking to make that happen. Mr. Clayborne noted that they were thinking 20 years out, so they must imagine what the world would look like in 2044, including how they lived and how working from home impacted activity centers. He said that he posed the question to contemplate as they worked through this. Mr. Bivins stated that many firms were asking employees to come back to work. Mr. Clayborne stated that they would see how long it lasted. He said that people who worked on Wall Street could not turn down the money. Mr. Bivins stated that even small firms were saying they had an investment in office space, and they were seeing auxiliary services around office spaces shrivel up, which affected small stores that could not take the risk because of the lack of foot traffic. He asked what foot traffic would look like 20 years from now. Mr. Murray stated that Columbia, Maryland had done a great job in terms of what they were talking about regarding focal points in the community, such as a recreational water feature, a bunch of shops, the ability of walk from here to there, and a network of trails. He said that he would love to see that as the future of their community. Mr. Bivins noted that in that case, it was one person in one family who bought all that land and did a planned community from scratch, planning where all of the hotels, office spaces, and fairgrounds would be. He said that he would contrast that with Greenbelt, Maryland, which was done by the federal government, and was the antithesis of Levittown. He said that there were planned communities around the United States, and most of them were done by commercial people. Mr. Bivins said that Columbia and Greenbelt in Maryland were places that were planned communities with a different spirit of what it meant to be a community. He said that they could do that in Albemarle, but he did not know if their development portfolio today was similar in type. He said that he did not know how they could buy 200 acres today. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 12 Mr. Moore stated that the County did just buy a whole lot of acres, but he understood Mr. Bivins’ point. Ms. Cozart asked if the Commission would recommend Option 2 with these comments. Mr. Clayborne asked Mr. Gavrilovic what the checkmarks on his notes were in reference to. Mr. Gavrilovic clarified that the checks marked when another Commissioner had expressed support for a previously noted point. He said his takeaway was that there was substantial agreement and concerns about whether they could make this work, how they incentivized it, what an activity center was and its mix of uses, as well as the concepts of flexibility and density. Mr. Murray said that he could support it if it was in the form of a draft that explained what they were going to do, then run it through the CACs and master planning process to see if the communities actually support this. He said that he would not support forcing this upon them without that process. Mr. Carrazana said that he heard that these were not set in stone now. He asked what was meant regarding the topics coming out of CACs. Mr. Murray stated that his understanding was that in Crozet, there was a general idea of where people wanted activity centers to be. Ms. Firehock stated that the comprehensive plan predated the CACs existing, and there was no CACs formed when the comprehensive plan. She said that the master planning processes that had gone on since the comprehensive plan in which CACs had participated. Mr. Murray said that was what he was trying to say. Ms. Firehock said that some of the Cs on the comprehensive plan map were newer. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that because Pantops and Crozet were done so much more recently, those centers were mostly unchanged and recognizing what was there. She said that while the Village of Rivanna was done a little bit longer ago, it was still recognizing one center of the same scale. She said that Places 29 and Southern and Western Master Plans were a little different in part because they were updated more than ten years ago. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they were hoping to continue to get CAC engagement during the comprehensive plan process but recognizing that those were fairly outdated and needed the most consolidation of centers. She said that they had quite a few CAC members attend the online open house, which was also a joint CAC meeting, and they would be happy to continue engagement through the comprehensive plan. Ms. Firehock clarified that tonight’s discussion was not about where they were going. She said that they had gotten more specific than what the facilitation team was asking for. Mr. Carrazana said that a master plan could inform these, but the conversation had not happened yet. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 13 Mr. Murray said that this was colored by Crozet being the area of most concern because they had been way ahead of the other areas. Mr. McDermott said that if they decided that activity centers were the way they wanted to go tonight, the next steps would be looking at the draft areas identified, and they could refine those in the upcoming months of this plan. He said that the idea was that when they did have a master plan update, primarily for the Southern and Western and Places 29 areas, they would reevaluate the size and type of development, and the function of those centers. Mr. McDermott said that to address Mr. Murray’s point, what they did in the Crozet Master Plan update was what they recommended to move forward with throughout the County now. He said that they were not asking to change what was in Crozet, but taking the Crozet, Pantops, and Rio 29 Small Area Plan and saying that this was the model they should go with for the rest of the County. Ms. Cozart asked if there was substantial agreement that for Topic 1, they would recommend Option 2 to the Board of Supervisors. Mr. Clayborne said that it was not a green card. Mr. Bivins stated that there were two pages of high-level comments from Mr. Gavrilovic. Ms. Cozart clarified that those comments would be compiled by staff to present to the Board of Supervisors. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that the second topic was factors for future development areas expansion. She said that the current plan recommended [1:03:13 inaudible] development areas estimated capacity for future residential and business demand, and the high-level guidance of when an expansion may need to be considered. She said that while an expansion may not be needed in the near future, as part of long-range planning and in the context of uncertain and changing conditions, the possibility that the current development areas many no longer have sufficient capacity to accommodate housing and employment needs was clearly considered in the comprehensive plan and in AC44. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that the current plan did not have guidance on how to identify locations for expansion if an expansion was found to be needed. She said that the updated plan could include factors for how and where to expand, including infrastructure considerations, protection of natural resources, protection of water supply watersheds, access to amenities and services, and expectations for future development patterns. She said that these factors could also be taken a step further during AC44 to be applied to map possible locations for future expansion. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that during engagement, they heard that protecting natural resources and water supply watersheds, preserving the rural area, enhancing tree coverage, and addressing transportation impacts were all high priorities when considering expansion. She said that infrastructure should be in place or planned before additional growth, and overall support for using the development areas efficiently and promoting infill and redevelopment and only expanding when necessary for residential and business needs. She stated that however, the already-high price of housing and limited housing choice was of significant concern. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 14 Ms. Kanellopoulos said that in the April Planning Commission meeting, the Commission asked the AC44 team to consider locations of high-quality natural resources in the rural area, including resources identified in the biodiversity action plan, so the team had provided the following map on the back wall as a reference to show a series of natural resources in the County. She said that green indicated areas that had requirements in place that preclude significant development, including steep slopes, stream buffers, and conservation easements, orange indicated areas that had temporary restrictions such as Agricultural and Forestal Districts and open space agreements. Ms. Kanellopoulos continued that the color pink on the map indicated areas that were identified as important resources for County policies but without requirements that preclude development, such as the forest blocks and the biodiversity action plan, water supply watersheds and scenic streams. She noted that at the previous meeting, several Commissioners discussed a desire not to expand the growth area if there were remaining developable areas in the development areas as having more limited land to encourage efficient use of that land and infill developments should be prioritized. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that there were three options for this topic, and Option 1 was that there was no change to the current plan recommendations with AC44, so future steps after the comprehensive plan could include continuing to update the land use buildout analysis approximately every two years and continue to monitor and analyze development trends. She stated that Option 2 was to develop a set of factors for consideration in potential future Development Areas Expansion to include both timing and location factors, without identifying potential timeframes or locations for future expansion at this time. She said that future steps for AC44 could be to continue to update the building analysis, applying the factors for evaluating locations if expansion was found to be needed in the future, and using small area plans for recommendations in expansion areas. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that Option 3 was to use those draft factors during AC44 to conduct an analysis and identify possible locations for future development areas expansion with possible timeframes for future expansion. She said that staff recommended Option 3 as knowing where future development may occur was important for infrastructure planning needs was important since agencies such as RWSA planned for infrastructure improvements and extensions years in advance. She said that additionally, this option could help address gaps or possible changes in land use capacity by identifying primary land use needs and expansion areas. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that the level of detail in mapping could be very general on location or could show specific parcels depending on the level of detail needed for infrastructure planning. She said that with any option that was pursued for this topic, staff wanted to emphasize that efficient use of the development areas should be continued to be prioritized over expansion, while recognizing that at some point, it was likely that the development areas would need to be expanded to accommodate future housing and business needs. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that staff also wanted to note that with any of these options, there could be some changes to the development areas’ boundaries with AC44 for minor adjustments in unique circumstances, such as a portion of an existing neighborhood that was just outside of the boundaries or County-owned property such as several schools that were just outside of the boundaries but were on public water and sewer. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 15 Ms. Cozart stated that the color cards could be used again to give an indication of where the Commission was with recommendation for Option 3 for Topic 2. Mr. Carrazana asked if the only difference between Option 2 and Option 3 was the overlay of a horizon timeline. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that Option 2 would be having the factors of the timing consideration of the land use build out and also if they expanded what should be considered, but not going further than having them in the comprehensive plan. She said that Option 3 took those factors, applied them, and actually mapped out possible future expansion areas. Mr. McDermott clarified that Option 3 was not actually recommending that they expand right now but was identifying the areas where expansion would be possible if in the future or if the Planning Commission decided it was prudent. He reiterated that they were not recommending expansion but identifying the areas where it could happen. Mr. Moore said that he would use green to yellow, meaning it was a good idea for the most part. Mr. Bivins said that it was prudent to create a model that could be used by future Supervisors and Commissioners now when they were not under pressure to make a decision. He said that right now, since there was agreement that there would not be an expansion of the development area today, but it was helpful to be able to say that if that should happen, they knew where it could happen. He said that in the future, there would be an analysis of their decision-making at this point in time, and it could be helpful for future Supervisors and Commissioners to know how they made the decision of not expanding the development area, because there currently was no context or justification. He said that he supports Option 3. Mr. Clayborne said he agreed with Mr. Bivins’ comments. He said that Mr. Bivins used the word prudent, but it could be seen as foolish. He said that he worked in Washington, D.C., and at some point, there was a conversation about how far they should extend the metro. He said that someone suggested Gainesville and was laughed out of the room, but today, they would be dying to have a metro in Gainesville, Virginia. He said that he would caution them as a collective group as they had this discussion that there may be something they were not seeing in foresight that would get them laughed out of the room today, but 20 years from now may be seen as a great idea. Mr. Clayborne said that as he looked through the data provided, he saw something regarding development of tier 4 sites, there was only one that could be brought to market, and that was problematic. He said that his rhetorical question to that was what kind of amazing jobs and employment they were sacrificing because of that, where people could now buy a house or rent. He said that part of the issue of affordable housing was income as well. He said that the second item he saw was about the rezonings hitting 58%, and they already talked about incentivizing and maximizing that. He said that he had a question about the 20-year demand forecast for office space. He asked if that took into consideration the numbers reflected after the pandemic. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that it was something the consultant Kimley Horn looked at, but they mostly based their predictions off of past trends, and acknowledged in the text, but felt like they did not have quite enough information to drastically change predictions off of past trends. Mr. Bivins said that another part of the metro question was that at one point, the metro was going Route 7, which was Annandale, and the people of Annandale pitched a fit, so it did not go down ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 16 Route 7 and was diverted. He said that all of a sudden, the property on Route 7 went completely down because those people could not get into Washington, D.C. to work. He said that they now had to come in and get buses to get people on Route 7 when they could have had a much more vibrant community if the metro had been allowed there. He said that there was a balance that they must find with the economy when a community said they did not want it there and then all of a sudden it was diverted and had an impact on the future of the community. Mr. Moore said that he approved of the recommendation. He said that they knew the land in their development area that could be developed was a small percentage of what was there, around 7%. He said that it made a lot of sense to plan for when they might grow that. He said that he was not saying that they should grow the County, but if they wanted enough land for the people who lived there and those who would live there and move there because they needed to from all kinds of things, they had to think about when that might happen and what might trigger it. He said that even looking at their growth area map now felt like there were some areas that were not in it that could be, such as on Route 29. He said that suddenly there was a growth area, but it was not in theirs. He said that they should absolutely consider how and when they made that call. Mr. Missel said that he was mostly supportive of the recommendation. He said that one of the things that the whole discussion came down to was timing. He said that if they were talking about a five-to-ten-year thing, that was one thing, but 20 and beyond years was a different story. He said that he tended to turn closer to a green card when thinking about a longer timeline because it needed to get pushed out. He said that his general feeling was that the idea of expanding development areas first triggered a reaction of people wanting the County to stay the way it was, and if they did that it would be all over. Mr. Missel said that however, by doing this it would allow them to be thoughtful about preservation as much as it was about development expansion. He said that it was challenging to think about the benefits of expansion as well as the challenges or potential impacts to natural resources. He said that it was incredibly important that if they moved into this discussion that they did so with an understanding of what the infrastructure would be, such as if it was possible to get water and sewer to these places. Mr. Missel said that they must determine if there was capacity in finance, service, and reservoirs, and if not, what was the 10- to 20-year timeline for those. He said that where he began to feel a yellow or red card was appropriate was when they discussed mapping, because it made him nervous, and rather than parcel identification that was very defined, they could think of it in a way more like a heat map, with red, green, and yellow areas with a blurred boundary as opposed to very defined boundaries. Mr. Missel said that the benefit of doing so would be two-fold, one in that if someone saw their parcels identified as the future development area, it would mess with the market a bit, and there may or may not be ways that water and sewer could be extended efficiently that were more topographic than anything else on a certain parcel, and they began getting into the weeds very quickly when thinking about that. He reiterated that a heat map sort of approach would be better than a specific approach. He said that he would agree with the recommendation more if they were seeing efficient use of existing development areas, and they should make sure that was absolutely of focus. Mr. Carrazana said that he was not opposed to Option 3 with caveats. He said that he referenced his yellow card, which did not mean it was a no from him, but simply that they knew there was a ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 17 tendency of developing the low-hanging fruit. He said that if there was less cost to develop a green field, then that would be developed, so they were not incentivizing infill density and all the other things they wanted to promote. He said that the cautionary note was that if they did start to identify the areas through mapping, developers would buy them. Mr. Carrazana said that if they wanted to look at what was even more dangerous to their rural communities, they should look at solar fields. He said that what was happening right now was that people were buying any land next to high-distribution powerlines. He said that they had to think about how much acreage was necessary for expanding in 20 years and how much additional development they had beyond the 20 years. He said that they were not incentivizing efficient use of the development area, and there were large areas of land that were sitting. Ms. Firehock commented that there was sprawl of storage lockers. Mr. Missel added that one thing to consider was that as the plan moved forward, if there was a way to build into either the comprehensive plan or another instrument a system of checks and balances. He said that if they were ten years out and not doing well in terms of densifying the existing development area, then they should push the entire conversation about development areas out in order to keep themselves in check. Mr. Carrazana said that they knew they were at 58% of their density. Mr. Murray stated that he leaned towards setting thresholds for redevelopment and the form of development in order to ensure they were building walkable, livable development in the County. He said that it was not by Charlottesville’s choice, but when annexation was stopped, Charlottesville became more livable with underground parking garages, more sidewalks, and things that helped it become the place that it wanted to be before. Mr. Murray said that if they said that if they used it up, they would expand the development areas and specified where they were going to do it, they would have removed any chance that people were going to redevelop these underperforming areas. He said that if they set a threshold such as a percentage of redevelopment of underperforming areas before making a heat map, he could support that. He said that they had to have set thresholds reached before even having the discussion, because otherwise they were sending the wrong signal. Mr. Missel stated that everything they were discussing was driven by development economics. He said that in the phases of development, there was surface parking, then above ground or structured parking, and then underground parking such as at Tysons Corner, and all of that was driven by the economics of the land and what the land could support. He said that it was the pressure on the development community or on the County from the development community because at some point, they may say that they were 75% full and it was time to look at expanding development areas, but it was blurry as to what the trigger point was. Mr. Bivins stated that he was unsure of what they had in Albemarle that would be the nucleus of a Tysons Corner sort of experience. He said that in Tysons, they had one person put up all the land and the confluence of a bunch of roads that would always be there. He stated that in Tysons, they had created an economic playground for some pretty tiny people that had flipped back into the district now. He said that the average income had increased in Tysons, but the goods and services moved into the district’s city center. He said that what had happened was that Tysons ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 18 was still very expensive but had moved down because the population that needed Tysons needed it for the transportation. He asked what they had in Albemarle that would cause that. Mr. Missel replied that the closest he could think of would be Hydraulic and Route 29, which were existing roads that would always be there. He said that Stonefield had parking structures in their master plan. Mr. Bivins stated that it was across two jurisdictions. Mr. Missel said that was true. Mr. Bivins said that if they could have the entire jurisdiction, then they had the opportunity to come to having this, but where it would likely happen was at Hollymead because of all of the roads near the airport and gas stations. He said that that would be different than the Tysons example. Mr. Murray said that there was a significant downside due to the way revenue sharing was calculated with the City of Charlottesville, which through assessed values of property. He said that if they specified on the map where the future growth area would be, developers would go out there and buy it up, and because it was in the rural area, a whole lot of that was under land use evaluation, so they were not collecting taxes based on the assessed value but collecting on the land use value. Mr. Murray said that it would mean that they were paying a lot more money to the City of Charlottesville in revenue sharing. He said that it was an expensive proposition, and it was already seen on Route 29 that places in the rural area close enough to the growth area that everyone anticipated that they would be developed, so they would see properties worth millions of dollars that paid less property taxes than he paid on his 2 acres. Ms. Firehock stated that she agreed primarily with Mr. Missel and completely agreed with Mr. Carrazana. She said that she did not support Option 3 because she did not want to see a map. She said that regarding the metro, she rode the first metro that drove in the city, and she recalled that as the future metro stations were announced, all of the land got snatched up and became extremely unaffordable. Ms. Firehock said that even when they had the Deschutes Brewery proposal, which never did come because the site was inappropriate and unready, the County felt obliged to expand the development area, so they rezoned that. She said that developers came and gave out slick brochures to people more than a mile past that area that indicated they were interested in buying land because potentially if they were going to rezone that area, they would probably do this. She said that those were not places mapped, but places adjacent and down the road from what the County was saying they were willing to change the growth area for. Ms. Firehock said that her concern was that if they put it on a map, someone would go out and buy all of the land like in Mr. Carrazana’s example of the solar fields, and it would be an affordable housing problem. She said that they would not get affordable land by putting it on a map and signaling that they were open to this particular area. She said that she understood the County would love to have certainty of where they were investing their funds for wastewater treatment, water supply, future roads, sidewalks, transit, and schools, but unfortunately, by putting them on a map, they were going to make it a large speculation problem where people would get ahold of that land even if it had not been changed. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 19 Ms. Firehock stated that she was in favor of developing specific factors for consideration. She said that when they first started this, she wrote to the folks in Portland Metro and asked for all of their information related to how they made decisions on how they expanded the growth area. She said that she did not send it to the consultants because they probably had such relevant information, but they had a very detailed process and criteria because they had expanded the metro area. Mr. Bivins asked which Portland Ms. Firehock was referring to. Ms. Firehock clarified that she was referring to Portland, Oregon. She said that they had expanded their growth area over an amount of time with a very specific process for how to make it happen, and they could have something like that in Albemarle, but she was not in favor of the map. She said that in order to live within their means of what drove the market, if they were signaling that they were willing to keep putting notches in their belt, their diet was not going to work. Mr. Carrazana said that if the rationale was so that they could have a projection of where to expand those services, the reality was that they had 20 years of need now within the growth area, including expanding the roads, transit services, schools, and other infrastructure just to catch up. He said that they still would not be getting to all of the things they needed to. Ms. Firehock said that if so, they would be building new schools and other infrastructure. Mr. Bivins stated that the speculation would take place whether or not a map was there. He said that Route 29 was owned by two entities, and they knew who the entities were. He said that they did what any good businessperson would do, which was take a birds-eye view and determine where there was the least amount of pressure so they could buy up land, and that was what they did. He said that he liked the heat map because he was not thinking that they would have parcels, but he did think there was a way of saying that if they were going to move in a direction, they should find a direction that had the most options to it. Mr. Bivins said that along with that had to come the fact that they had been seeing people converting industrial and commercial land into residential, and they could no longer continue to do that. He said that whether or not it was mixed use, they had to have land that attracted developers and businesspeople who wanted to come there and stand up some sort of business, and they were not going to come if they did not have a sense through economic development or community development that they would have the resources necessary. He said that they would not come here for grey zones because those were expensive for that kind of development. Mr. Gavrilovic asked Mr. Carrazana to clarify his comment about 20 years of need or backlog. Mr. Carrazana said that any single issue they had and any single SUP they had roads, which was infrastructure that could not support the development, and schools, but they were within the growth zones and in the comprehensive plan, and it said that they could develop and up-zone, but there was not enough infrastructure there. He said that it was practically in every case, so they had a lot of catching up to do to meet the needs of the infrastructure for the growth they had today and for the planned growth in the existing growth areas. Mr. Gavrilovic asked if it moved Mr. Carrazana more towards favoring or not favoring criteria for expansion. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 20 Mr. Carrazana said that they should have criteria for expansion because it would be irresponsible not to have them. He said that it was necessary to outline what they would need to meet the next expansion. He said that the conversation he had with the Commissioner to his right was if they should incentivize infill and adaptive reuse or not, and that was a fundamental question. He said that if they did, they should not send signals to the opposite. Mr. Gavrilovic asked Mr. Bivins if his comment about the mixed use of commercial and housing related to this expansion. Mr. Bivins answered that when they tended to talk about expanding the development area, people focused on the housing piece, but his piece was that it was more holistic and a mix of land types there. He said that they also needed to think about what kind of commercial or light industrial entities needed to be there to sustain that kind of housing stock, otherwise there was concern that they may become a community totally focused on retirees or people coming from other jurisdictions that they could cash out and buy a $400,000 to $600,000 without being significantly cramped by a mortgage. He that they could promote that type of community, but he did not believe that was the type of community that was beneficial for the long term in Albemarle County. Mr. Bivins said that regarding the 58% density, some Commissioners had been on the Commission long enough to recall that someone wanted to bring a higher density project and were basically shouted out of the room. He said that the issue was not that the developers did not want to do something, but that their community went after them if they suggested something close to 90% density or 80% density. He said that he would not invest his dollars in a place if he felt that he would be beat up for the idea, and he would go someplace else to invest his money. Mr. Bivins said that Albemarle County was not the only place that people could invest money in, and the Supervisors could make the decision to pull up the rug and say no one else was coming here, but he did not think they would do that. He said that people could go put their money elsewhere, as they had seen in Greene, Louisa, and Fluvanna, and while it had not happened in Nelson, it would. He said that they had to find the balance they wanted about how it expanded. Ms. Cozart asked if Commissioners could summarize their thoughts on what their recommendations were. Mr. Carrazana said that a tangible example regarding the question of infrastructure was Crozet, which had a master plan that intensified Crozet quite a bit with a lot of growth planned. He said that they had nowhere near the infrastructure necessary, and there was question as to how many years it would actually take to get the appropriate streets to bring the amount of traffic and density to Crozet that was planned. Mr. Bivins said that even if they agreed to implement the infrastructure today, they did not know how to get VDOT and the Commonwealth to agree. Ms. Firehock said that if they allowed the growth and made maps so that everyone knew where it was going, they got leapfrogging in which the first suburb was nice and everyone liked it, but then the built the next one and it was a bit nicer, and so on and so forth so that there was deterioration of the inner ring suburbs. She said that the effect was well-documented. She stated that if they did not invest in the suburbs, they already had with more infrastructure to support them, they never would. She said that perhaps they needed bigger and better schools so that ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 21 they wanted them to go through the process of densifying and putting in housing, because there would be a great school inside the area. She said that there was plenty for the County to spend their money on if they wanted to upgrade water and sewer and schools in the growth area they had. Mr. Bivins said that they had a suburban school model where everything was one level. Ms. Firehock stated that they were single-story and had acres around them that was just mowed. Mr. Moore said that he would push back on the notion that the inner ring suburbs were not fine, as he lived in one himself and they were fine. He said that also, he saw her point in that when he looked at County zoning maps, he lived in an area that was all R-1 and R-2, and it was true that it could be used more efficiently than it was. He said that it was in the growth area, and they were not growing in his neighborhood or the next neighborhood over, or even the next neighborhood over from that, but they should. Ms. Cozart asked what the Commission’s recommendation to the Board would be at this point. Mr. Missel said that he would go for Option 2 with a tweak after the word “factors,” so instead of saying without identifying potential timeframes, locations, or future expansion at this time, he would say timing and location factors rigorously tied to successfully measuring and achieving density within the existing development areas and defined by general and regional location. Mr. Clayborne said that he supported that. Ms. Cozart asked Mr. Missel to repeat his answer. Mr. Missel reiterated that they should develop a set of factors for consideration of a potential future development area expansion to include both timing and location rigorously tied to successfully measuring and achieving density within the current development areas, and locations defined generally or regionally. Mr. Gavrilovic asked if it was fair to say that a shorthand would be support of Option 2 with generalized mapping. Mr. Missel said that was better. Mr. McDermott added that mentioned was tying it to evaluation factors for densities within the development area or how they were developing. Mr. Missel said that it was successfully achieving the densities within the area. Mr. Gavrilovic asked if it was tying it to thresholds within existing areas. Mr. Missel said yes. Mr. Murray stated that it should not only be about density but also quality. Mr. Missel said yes. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 22 Mr. Murray said that it should not be only about density of people but about density of service. Ms. Cozart asked if there was substantial agreement for Option 2 with the addendum. Mr. Clayborne said that it was a yellow card for himself. Ms. Firehock said that she still was nervous about the heat map. She said that she ran a mapping firm and all she did was make maps, and she really would have to see what it would look like and if it was something that would lead to speculation she was concerned about. She said that she liked what was proposed but would like to see what the map would look like before giving a green card. Mr. Carrazana said that having the recommendations that they had to meet certain things for development in the current growth areas, and then they start to move out. He said that Mr. Bivins was absolutely right that people had already figured out where the next growth area would be. Ms. Firehock said that was what was thought, but some of that had been thwarted in reality. Mr. Carrazana said that it was more important to have those requirements that they needed to meet certain expectations because they had to be at certain densities and could not be at 58% of development. He said that there had to be those benchmarks, and that was important. Ms. Firehock added that they had to be measurable and quantifiable in order to determine if they were achieved or not. Mr. Murray said that the generalized mapping should not even happen until they met those benchmarks, and that would help address Ms. Firehock’s concerns. Ms. Firehock said that was correct. Mr. Murray said that once they reached those benchmarks, then they could say they were ready to do this. Ms. Cozart asked if Mr. Gavrilovic had captured the Commissioners’ comments. Mr. McDermott stated that to address Ms. Firehock’s issue, when they proceeded with any mapping, they would start with something so generalized that it was not telling anyone anything additional, and then they could trim it back as the Commission would prefer so that they did not go overboard in identified places, and could start with a very high level of mapping, and if they determined that was not enough, they could bring it back. Ms. Firehock said that she would have to see it, and she knew that that would happen during this process. Mr. Missel stated that what they would all find, as they already knew, that RWSA had a plan, VDOT had a plan, and there were influencing plans that were already looking at where the development was going. He said that they were kind of acting like they were going to create this new map that would be a revelation, and everyone would go buy this stuff, but the reality was that it was already moving there, and they could learn a lot from those plans and be able to expand on them. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 23 Ms. Cozart asked if there was consensus for a recommendation so that they could move to the third topic. Mr. Clayborne called for a five-minute recess. Recess The Planning Commission took a recess. Mr. Clayborne called the meeting back to order. Ms. Cozart asked Ms. Kanellopoulos to introduce Topic 3. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that the third topic was rural crossroads communities, which were recognized as places in the rural area with a small commercial center that may or may not still have active commercial uses or community gathering places. She said that they could provide businesses and services for surrounding community members and were intended to encourage adaptive reuse and historic preservation. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that they could potentially have community resilience hubs, which were places that could serve as community gathering spaces and emergency response and preparedness locations. She said that the current comprehensive plan identified seven crossroads communities but did not have a clear definition, and community input had reinforced the need to look at how these communities were designated. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that during engagement, they heard interest in small-scale businesses or services in some crossroads communities, such as medical services and healthcare, country stores, small grocery stores, community centers, post offices, fire and rescue stations, and parks. She said that there was a general preference to have input on what community members would like to see in their crossroads community prior to any changes to underlying zoning and by-right uses. She said that Esmont, Scottsville, North Garden, Earlysville, Keene, and several other communities were asked to be designated as crossroads. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that there was overall support for community resilience hubs, with a preference to use existing buildings and to include classes, food access, senior and youth programming, and emergency shelters. She noted that during the Commission’s April meeting, the Commission asked the AC44 team to better define what would be included with services in the rural area. She said that the service aspect of crossroads communities would be focused primarily on health, safety, wellbeing, and emergency preparedness. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that public water and sewer would not be expected in crossroads communities. She said that the Commission also discussed the importance of preserving historical and cultural resources, even those resources not visible from roadways or publicly accessible, and that support may be needed for adaptive reuse of historic structures, such as historic tax credits or other needs, and that underrepresented histories in the County should be recognized, including through the historic markers program. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that there were two options for this topic, the first being that there would be no change to the existing plan recommendation for crossroads communities. She said that future steps for this option could include engagement with the seven current crossroads communities to delineate those boundaries and implement the zoning ordinance updates ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 24 recommended in the current plan. She said that Option 2 was to have a clear definition of crossroads communities and apply the definition during AC44 to have an updated list of communities. She said that this could also include a narrative in the comprehensive plan that highlighted the histories of several of the communities. She said that there would also be recommendations for the community resilience hubs and historic preservation of existing buildings. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that staff recommended this option as it would provide a clear and consistent definition for crossroads communities across the rural area and would also encourage the resilience hubs. She said that community input indicated support for those resilience hubs, and staff from Fire and Rescue and the Virginia Department of Health were interested in pursuing these hubs in the development area and rural area, especially as they were becoming more common across the country, were important for building resilience to climate change, and could provide more equitable access to services and places for gathering. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that future steps after AC44 could include engagement to individual communities to delineate crossroads boundaries and to identify more detailed desired land uses to inform possible zoning changes. She summarized that this option was intended to be primarily focused on the historic preservation and community resilience aspects of crossroads communities, and land use changes did not appear to be needed at this time. Mr. Moore stated that he was supportive of staff’s recommendation. Mr. Murray stated that his concern with Option 2 was that there were a lot of uses listed. He said that staff mentioned hardware stores, auto, households goods, banking, and restaurants. He said that this would be a significant impact to the rural area. He said that some of these uses already were in the designated crossroads communities, but he did not see a compelling need to change those or do anything other than acknowledge they were in here. He said that some of them were very problematic, such as auto uses. He said that it may seem that an auto repair shop or gas station might be a good thing, and they had had those in the past in the rural area, but the problem was that when there was a leaking fuel tank or someone was dumping oil into a nearby stream, it was noticed in the growth area but did not get noticed in the rural area, so the contamination issues did not get addressed. Mr. Murray said that an example of this was that in Crozet, there were reports of contamination of a stream next to a gas station and it was noticed, but if the same situation happened in Batesville, it would not have been noticed until it was a serious contamination issue that required the EPA. He said that some of these other things like restaurants had a high-water use associated with them, and it would drastically change the character of the rural area. He said that some things he would not be opposed to items such as emergency services and medical services. He said that he would be opposed to a large medical practice, but a small family practice or dentist office he would not be opposed to. Mr. Murray stated that the whole dialogue about providing services to rural area should include that the primary use of the rural area was not for residential use, and the past comprehensive plan explicitly stated that a primary method of controlling sprawl into the rural areas was by restricting uses. He said that now they were talking about changing that and providing services to the rural area and were undermining the primary thing keeping the rural area rural. He said that even something that sounded like a good idea such as a fire station in a crossroads community ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 25 would cause development by lowering insurance rates and would make it easy for people to build houses in that area. He said that they had to be careful. Mr. Clayborne said that while he respected his opinion, he disagreed with Mr. Murray’s approach. He said that from an equity standpoint and climate action standpoint, it did not make sense to not have basic services in the rural area. He said that if he wanted to open a coffee shop and bakery in a rural area, he should be able to do so because it supported the local area, and he did not understand the connection between that basic service and keeping the rural area rural. Ms. Firehock said that she agreed with Mr. Clayborne. She said that a lot of people lived in the rural area and were not all farmers. She said that there were many people living in the area near the Howardsville Turnpike who were on 2-acre lots and included families looking for affordable housing, tradesmen, teachers, and firemen. She said that a lot of those people lived in the rural area, and in regard to sustainability, if she had to drive her car 45 minutes each direction for a total of 90 minutes of driving just to get an oil change, it was not necessarily supporting their climate action goals. Ms. Firehock said that they should spend some time elucidating what some of those things that those centers could provide, and she agreed that they did not necessarily need more restaurants in the rural area, but Crossroads Store had a bank, doctor’s office, a pizza restaurant, a post office, a fire station, and a number of small businesses operating there that were providing local jobs. She said that it still remained relatively compact, partially because there was not zoning around it to allow people to put more stuff, but they fit a lot of services in a very tight footprint. She said that she could support a model such as that. Ms. Firehock said that with more people working from home, people did not go to the dry cleaner as much, so a number of them had closed down and it was not as common of a need in the rural area. She said that she recently had to drive from Scottsville to Charlottesville to copy a document for a bid for 80 pages that had to be copied and scanned, and it would have been nice if she could have accessed a copy machine closer than a 40-minute drive. She said that there were small, compact things that could go on. Ms. Firehock said that if anyone had been to the doctor’s office at Crossroads, there were three physicians there, nurses, nursing assistants, and other services for people in an incredibly tiny footprint. She said that she believed that they could provide some of these things that could allow people who could not afford to just live in the Charlottesville area to be able to access services. She said that she understood Mr. Murray’s point about gas stations and leaking tanks, and there were many tighter restrictions than there used to be on how gas stations disposed of things and stored things, but a small-scale type of shop she would not have a problem with. Mr. Missel said that he agreed with Ms. Firehock’s comments about keeping things concentrated to reduce sprawl and that they were called crossroads for a reason, because there were roads there. He said that regarding the regulations on gas stations and automobile shops, he had seen so much degradation to streams in rural areas that was caused by farming that sometimes it appeared there were more stringent regulations on gas stations than those farms, or that those regulations were being followed through more on gas stations. He said that there were more people working from home and having that close by would be potentially important. He asked why Crossroads on Plank and Route 29 was not a crossroads. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 26 Ms. Firehock stated that it was because it was an historic crossroads. She said that it was a weird study in which these were historic communities, but because Covesville had an apple packing plant, the second leg of Route 29 slicing through it really hurt it. Mr. Missel stated that it seemed that a lot of what they were discussing was similar to the Crossroads Store. Mr. Firehock stated that Howardsville was a crossroads community and they used to repair bateaus there. She said that that was a long time ago, but there was still a general store that people still walked to as well as a gas station, but no one would suggest that it was a crossroads because there were no bateaus to repair. She said that the fact that it was historic was basically irrelevant, and that was why it was not on the list of places to be a crossroads. She said that the list needed a lot of work. Mr. Carrazana said that they were not talking about the list. Mr. Bivins clarified that the option did say to refresh the list. Mr. Carrazana said that they were not refreshing the list today. Mr. Moore stated that this seemed like the least controversial of their four topics, and with respect to Mr. Murray’s comment as well as notions about any petroleum product, he knew how much ACSA had to monitor some gas station sites, this option made a lot of sense. Mr. Bivins said that the community swirled around historic as a big word for them, and everything was historic there. He said that some places were actually historic crossroads communities that at one point in the community’s history had life where people gathered there and did all of the things communities did. He said that because their lives became what they did, those communities had gone small. He said that if they could say that Esmont for instance could be reinvigorated because of the Keene convenience center, post office, veterinary office, and community center, they had this place where they could become and recreate the elements together for community. Mr. Bivins said that it was a very big issue, because when they discussed the densification of the urban area, they were by subtraction leaving those communities outside of the area that predated the newer crossroads. He said that they were there being the part of Albemarle County that all of these folks had been attracted to, but they had created something else. He said that for himself, part of the investment in the crossroads communities was like going home again so that they could invest in those communities and say they were a rich part of who they were as a community. He said that he would love to be able to say that he could go have lunch in Esmont because there were options that were not winery-based or not equestrian-based, but about who they were as a community. He said that it was going back to going forward for Albemarle County, and he was fully supportive of the recommendation. Mr. Murray stated that he had previously lived in Batesville and was fully supportive of the changes there to revitalize the store there, but there were a lot of challenges they faced in terms of septic and parking to make that possible. He said that there had also been a past history in the County of well-intentioned efforts to enable things they wanted and inadvertently creating loopholes to allow [2:07:57 someone to drive a Mack truck?]. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 27 Mr. Bivins asked if Mr. Murray could provide an example. Mr. Murray stated that the water protection ordinance was an example. He said that they had created situations where people could grossly exploit their ordinances and put things that were not appropriate in places they should not be. He said that a lot of his concern was about scale. He said that if they allowed restaurants, they had to define what they meant by restaurant, as well as items such as a country store, because both of those could apply to a Cracker Barrel. Mr. Bivins stated that a Cracker Barrel would never happen, just like they would never get an Olive Garden. He said that there was a way that they could say to someone who may be a small entrepreneur and be interested in selling muffins there. Mr. Murray stated that he was not opposed to that. Mr. Bivins said that there were market forces, and no market force was going to turn Esmont into some Dollywood. Mr. Carrazana said that it was important how they defined this. He said that he understood the option they were acknowledging was that it gave them the opportunity to do that. He said that before, they did not have that clarity, but now they were able to do that. Ms. Firehock said that there was some real angst about the historic crossroads being designated for this use. She said that Batesville was in her district, and there was no room in Batesville for anything other than that store, and the residents were satisfied. Mr. Bivins said that it created community. Ms. Firehock stated that was true, and there was nothing else to be added. She said that that was it for Batesville, and they were not going to designate Batesville as a crossroads hub. Mr. Bivins stated that it was a community. Ms. Firehock said that it was a community, and they did not need to say it. She said that they did not need to anoint that Batesville was a community with a community center to it, but they were not going to propose anything else went in Batesville. She said that there was angst about Keene, which had a community center, post office, a gas station, and a veterinarian that had adapted an old building for their use. She said that she had heard from her constituents that they did not want that to be more things added. She said that there was a good amount of stuff there, but they must ask if that was where they wanted to put expansion just because it was on Route 20. Mr. Bivins stated that people in Esmont who said it would be helpful to have that development. Ms. Firehock said that she attended the planning meeting in Esmont, and there was a lot of support for that as well as people asking why they could not have apartments there so they did not have to move to Charlottesville for assisted living that they could not afford. Mr. Missel said that unless he had missed it in the staff report, he would include that any review of a crossroads community or community hub needed to have some form of traffic study built into it, because the intersection of Route 29 and Plank Road at Crossroads Store was dangerous. He said that as they thought about developing these areas and concentrating those areas, they would ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 28 be concentrating traffic and turning movements at intersections, and it should be woven into this process. Mr. Bivins stated that he had just saw a study that they could use cellphone pinging off of towers to determine how many people drove through or stayed in a particular area, and if they stayed in the area, what they stayed to do. He said that it was an interesting use of technology that was not invasive and found what uses people frequented in these areas and for how long they were staying in a particular area. He said that it might be helpful to get a sense of if everyone was just driving through or if they were staying there and doing something. Mr. Missel said that he was also thinking about that as well as traffic calming. He said that the turning movement off of Route 29 south and northbound at Plank Road had gone from a yield sign to a stop sign, back to a yield sign, then back to a stop sign. He said that he was trying to figure out which one created less accidents. Mr. Murray stated that groundwater was another issue that should be considered. He said that if there was not public water, then these would all be off of wells, and they had a past history of running out of water. Mr. Missel said that was true. Mr. Bivins stated that he assumed that if someone put a business in one of these areas, he assumed they would have to be inspected by the health department to see if they had enough water flow. He said that he knew that there was a lot of stuff in the County that felt like the wild west, but there was not a lot of new stuff coming into the County that had that ability anymore. He said that there was a group of people that acknowledged the idea did not work in that location. He said that there was a famous French restaurant going into Crozet that was sold, and the next owner thought they would put another French restaurant in the space but could not get the waterflow. He said that it was still empty because they did not have any water or sewer. He said that they would see the same thing out in various places if they kept growing. Mr. Murray stated that there was a big difference between keeping the special use permit process, which allowed some of these things to occur, and saying that they were going to do away with the special use permit process and make them by right. Ms. Firehock said that they could still be enumerated as appropriate for the area by special use permit and would still have to go through that. Mr. Murray replied that he could agree with that, but there were some notes in the staff report that suggested additional by-right uses, which concerned him the most. He said that if they were talking about special use permits, he was okay with that, but talking about by right, he had concern. Ms. Cozart asked what the recommendation from the Commission would be imagined for the Board. Mr. Clayborne asked if that detail could be covered later on. Mr. McDermott answered yes that detail could be covered as they moved forward. He asked Ms. Kanellopoulos to clarify what they discussed about by-right uses in the staff report. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 29 Ms. Kanellopoulos said that overall, the option was saying they would have a clear definition of crossroads communities and apply that in order to recognize those communities and encourage the historic preservation aspect, lifting up some of those underrepresented narratives and helping identify places that could be community hubs using existing community facilities. She said that in the future, they would possibly do extra engagement to go to individual communities and to say that they were interested in changes to land use or zoning to allow some of these other uses, but not doing that during the AC44 process. She said that whatever was allowed by right today was allowed. Ms. Firehock said that in the narrative was checking in with the immediate neighbors. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that staff received the comment from the community, Ms. Firehock said that she supported that but cautioned that they were trying to make it land for the County, and they could not say that because five neighbors did not want it that there would not be any services provided to the community living around the area. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that doing a more in-depth study of individual communities could also weed out some of the uses that may not be appropriate in a certain community, whether it was traffic, groundwater, or whatever the issue may be, versus a blanket statement. Ms. Firehock said that she wanted to avoid just listing the things that were acceptable and the eight areas that any of them could go into. Mr. Moore stated that his feeling was that he would still recommend this. Ms. Cozart asked if Mr. Murray’s concerns had been addressed. Mr. Murray said that he was still a no on the option, but he would not hold up the meeting. Mr. Gavrilovic stated that he had noted everyone’s concerns, including that some total of this was substantial agreement but with substantial concerns, too. Mr. Bivins stated that he did not have substantial concerns but felt there were issues that had to be fleshed out. He said that his comments did not include any category of substantial concerns. He said that he would be substantially concerned if they did not do it. Mr. Clayborne clarified that there was consensus to recommend Option 2, but Mr. Murray had concerns regarding the nuts and bolts. Mr. Murray stated that he was not at the point where he could say he supported it without knowing the details. Mr. Bivins said that was fair. Mr. Gavrilovic reiterated that the last comment was that there was general consensus. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that the fourth topic was rural interstate interchanges. She said that these were interchanges that were identified in the current plan as I-64 interchanges that were ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 30 located in the rural area. She said that the current plan recommended land uses that supported agriculture and forestry at the rural interchanges without public water and sewer available, and only identified Shadwell as being an option for a higher intensity of development. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that the Shadwell and Yancey Mills interchanges had existing commercial and planned industrial development, and these rural interchanges also had existing zoning districts that allowed for by-right commercial and industrial development, which was not consistent with the current plan’s land use recommendations. She said that allowing nonresidential development at some rural interstate changes could provide space for new and expanding businesses in a way that made efficient use of land and infrastructure by concentrating these uses adjacent to the interstate. She said that it should be noted that agribusiness and food processing was a target industry identified by the current comprehensive plan for rural interstate interchanges. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that during engagement, they had heard a variety of comments both in favor of and against possible changes to the rural interstate interchange recommendations, with a fairly even split among the community members who responded directly to the question of whether or not changes should be made. She said that those concerned with changes cited the possibility of additional traffic and pollution, pressure for more growth, impacts to scenic and historic resources, and impacts to groundwater supplies. Ms. Kannellopoulos said that those in support of changes identified employment-generating industries as a preferred land use, with Shadwell as the highest priority for future commercial and industrial development and Yancey Mills as the next priority. She said that at the April Commission meeting, several Commissioners expressed interest in further discussing the rural interstate interchanges, though there was concern that the Board may decide not to move forward with updating the recommendations for this topic. Ms. Kanellopoulos said that there were two options for this topic, with the first being to keep the current comprehensive plan recommendations for rural interstate changes with no changes. She said that the future steps for this option could include a small area plan or similar plan for the Shadwell interchange based on the recommended land uses in the current comprehensive plan. She said that the second option was during AC44 to draft high-level recommendations for the Shadwell and Yancey Mills interchanges for general land uses, transportation needs, protection of natural resources, and infrastructure needs to guide future small area plans. She said that there would be no changes to land use designations during AC44. Ms. Kannellopoulos said that staff was recommending this option as there was existing development and by-right commercial and industrial development potential at both Shadwell and Yancey Mills. She said that the land use buildout analysis found very few locations in the development areas close to being site-ready for new or expanding businesses and allowing additional development in these interchanges supported efficient use of land and existing infrastructure. She said that after AC44, future steps could include a small area plan for each of the Shadwell and Yancey Mills interchanges, with Shadwell prioritized. She said that future small area plans would allow for a more in-depth study of these interchanges and for additional community, Commission, and Board input during the small area plan process. Ms. Cozart summarized that the staff-recommended option was Option 2. She asked the Commissioners to indicate their preference of this option with their color cards. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 31 Mr. Moore stated that he would endorse a green card for this topic. Mr. Murray stated that there was a lot of concern in Crozet about the development in the Yancey Mills area. He said that there had been past proposals to expand the growth area and have additional uses in that space, and as the comprehensive plan said, they wanted uses that supported agricultural uses, and that was exactly what Yancey Mills was doing right now. He said that it provided a great service that supported the rural area and was great for climate change as well, because if they had to take their trees to be processed in some other locality, they were trucking the trees to some other place. He said that it was a consistent thing, and if they added additional and more profitable uses, it would probably drive the lumber mill out of business, because they would find it more profitable to do something else. Mr. Murray said that the other concern Crozet had was that they were trying to attract businesses to downtown Crozet, and if they expanded a bunch of uses around the interchange, then there was a lot of fear that it would pull attention away from Crozet and towards the interchange. He said that it was already happening because of the grandfathered uses that were there. He said that as with the crossroads communities, he had some concerns about some of the uses that were suggested. He said that the devil was in the details, and there were ways that he could support expanding the uses. Mr. Murray said that he was supportive of tourism uses at those interchanges, and he did not understand the past reservation regarding tourism at the interchanges. He said that it was free money, where people came in, spent their money, and left, so he did not understand why they did not want that, and it was consistent with rural area values. He said that anything that in terms of things done by right that supported agricultural or light industrial in the rural area, they did not have a zoning category for that, and he did not know if it was possible to create that. He said that things such as canning facilities or small-scale meat processing should be by right and they should be encouraged at those places. He said that he was in full support of that as well as tourism activities. Mr. Bivins asked if Mr. Murray could provide examples. Mr. Murray said that he was not opposed to the fact that they had a campground in Crozet. He said that he lived near one in Crozet, and he knew there was some controversy with neighbors around that campground, but he was not opposed to that as a use. He said that he was not opposed to some of the river accesses that were not too far from interchanges, and if someone was to rent kayaks or had a use related to the river there, he would not be opposed to that as a use of that area. He said that his question was if the use was consistent with their rural area values and purposes, and if it was, he was okay with it, but if it was subverting that primary intention of the rural area, he could not support it. Mr. Missel asked for clarification as to what Mr. Murray’s key concern was. He asked if his key concern was in Option 2 where it talked about commercial and/or office flex, research and development, and light industrial uses. Mr. Murray stated that yes, there was a lot of stuff in there like bioscience and medical devices. Mr. Missel asked if Mr. Murray was focused more on the specific uses. Mr. Murray said yes. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 32 Mr. Missel asked if Mr. Murray was against the development of that interchange. Mr. Murray said that he was not against the development of the interchange, but by identifying things that they agreed with that they would want there proactively, they may avoid some of the things that may be more concerning coming up in the future. He said that they may be able to keep some of the uses they wanted in that area. He said that he was concerned about some of the things listed such as bioscience and medical devices. Mr. Missel asked where those uses would be better suited to be placed in the County. Mr. Murray said that it was a great question. He said that they had had a past history of things being zoned for light industrial and then converted into residential use, so it was much like the conversation they had before where they had this growth area but had been very wasteful with it, and now people were saying that since they had been wasteful with it, but now the growth area should be expanded. He said that they had a very similar conversation about light industrial sites, which was that they had been very wasteful with their light industrial sites and now had said they used them up and they should now make more of them. He said that perhaps they should not, and they may need to hold the line on this so that they did not keep losing these sites. He said that until they could demonstrate that they were using the light industrial sites they had, maybe they should not be adding more. Mr. Bivins said that some of the light industrial sites were on roads that were major roads, and then it changed. He said that those places were on significant travel roads, and the travel had changed. He said that they had not been good about creating opportunities for different kinds of light industrial to come up in those places. He said that it was not about Crozet, but when he looked at the rural interchanges, the one that had the most opportunity was the Yancey Mills exit, because he did not know what could be done at Shadwell. Mr. Bivins said that there was a thoughtful way to use an area that was a major east-west transportation corridor that would at least put something in a way that would not compete or overburden the residential or rural part of the County. He said that they were being called to figure out a way to accommodate in a natural way to get people out there without pushing them through the community. Mr. Clayborne asked if small area plan development would help uncover some of that. Mr. Bivins said that it would. He said that they had allowed a particular agribusiness to grow in that part of the County, and they did not have a lot of stuff that supported it. He said that looking at the other places he knew that had viticulture, there was a whole suite of things lined up with them, and they had none of those things up there because there was not enough there. He said that he did not know how they figured that out. Ms. Firehock asked what Mr. Bivins meant by a suite of things. Mr. Bivins said that lodging and the people who supplied the wineries, such as bottling. He said that there was not what he would call an ecosystem around viticulture that was in other places in the world. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 33 Mr. Murray stated that if grapes were agriculture, there was question about what they were doing to support that agriculture of people growing grapes in Albemarle County. Mr. Bivins stated that they were supplying them. Mr. Murray stated that there were a lot of cattle in Albemarle County. Mr. Bivins stated that there were not that many cattle in Albemarle County. Ms. Firehock stated that if someone wanted meat processed, they would take it to Harrisonburg. Mr. Murray stated that it was inhumane to the animals and bad for climate change. He said that his grandparents had a feed mill, but they did not have a place for that. He said that there were all of these industries that supported agriculture, and if they were serious about agriculture in Albemarle County, they had to be able to have the places that did that to support them. Ms. Firehock stated that she looked at the list the County had for this, such as financial services, defense and security, and other items, and it felt like a lazy and generalized list that came out of the economic planning process that was subpar. She said that their County did not receive the type of economic development plan that she would have liked for them to have received, and they did not get their value out of that, so they had this very general list. She said that they had an argument about Deschutes and if beer was food, and it was defined as food during the process. Ms. Firehock said that she did not believe that just because they had an interchange that every time, they should have economic development there. She said that she liked when she got off the highway and it was a rural area. She said that there were other counties in which every single interchange had an Arby’s, a gas station, and other stuff. She said that it destroyed the character. She said that she did not know why they would want to promote more blobs of development just because they had an interchange. Ms. Firehock said that yes, it was good for transporting factory goods, but they had already talked about the fact with industries that they did not have enough flat, inexpensive land for them to want to put one of those types of businesses in their County, so it was not an attractive place, nor would it realize the economics they thought it would. She said that she agreed with the comment about having things there that did help the agricultural areas or rural area uses, such as the lumber mill. She said that it made sense to have the lumber mill there because they could get the truck on and off quickly, deliver to the mill, get supplies quickly, and workers could get to work. She said that unless it was something that actually had to do with supporting the rural area, then she was not in favor. Ms. Firehock said that when looking at some of these tech firms, they were said to be desired because of their equipment and high-paying jobs that could be taxed for revenue, but they did not want to be out in the middle of nowhere, and that model was dead. She said that they had just approved a facility for biosciences that was supposed to have tenants, but that was near Charlottesville in the southern part of Albemarle County. She said that the workers that they wanted to attract were not going to be excited about jumping on and off of the highway as much as they were about going to get a beer on the mall after work or going to a winery. She said that they should think about the industries they wanted to attract and what those workers wanted in a work environment, but she did not think the answer was highway interchange necessarily. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 34 Ms. Firehock said that a lot of big office parks had been built out in rural areas outside of Albemarle County, and those were dead because workers did not have amenities nearby, so they were now difficult to rent. She said that there were some things that were appropriate there, but she did not think the list from the County’s past economic report was the list, and she appreciated the fact that they did not just put some sprawl in every interchange in the County. She said that she was not saying that nothing could go there, but the proposal seemed liberal in application. Mr. Missel stated that staff’s recommendation stated Option 2, add recommendations for specifically commercial and/or office flex, research and development, and light industrial uses. He said that they were specific there about Shadwell and Yancey Mills. He said that in subsequent paragraphs, it talked about the small area plans, and said that with this option, separate planning efforts such as small area plans would be recommended for Shadwell and Yancey Mills to provide detailed guidance for land uses and infrastructure needs for future development. He said that they were not saying there that all of this flex and research and development, but it was a general catch-all thing. Mr. Missel said that then, three paragraphs down, it said that if this Option 2 was pursued, staff would develop comprehensive plan recommendations through AC44 for the general land uses, transportation needs, and protection, so it was pretty general. He said that then, two paragraphs down was small area plans, etcetera. He asked if they could still achieve the same option by removing those specific references under Option 2 or were they specifically asking for their input relative to commercial and/or office flex resources. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that Option 2 as it stood was a general, high-level yes that they thought commercial and industrial flex type of things could be appropriate here, which they could then through AC44 get into more detail on what those could include. She said that the Commission could also modify the option and say they thought right now that only specific uses would be more appropriate there. She said that through AC44 they would not get into any of the actual parcel- specific designations, but with a small area plan they would identify the types of things that would be appropriate at the interchange. Mr. Missel asked if it was potentially true that out of that small area plan, none of those under Option 2 could fit. Ms. Kanellopoulos indicated that was correct. Mr. Bivins said that was right. Mr. Missel stated that they were getting too hung up on specifics, and if they began thinking more generally about whether it was worth looking at those two areas for future development, they should do it and focus the lens a little more because they would learn more as opposed to not doing it. Mr. Missel asked if what Mr. Missel was saying was that they would have a small area plan that may say the current uses were actually appropriate, and the recommendation was not to add any additional uses. Mr. Missel said that was correct. Mr. Clayborne asked if that was a possible outcome. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 35 Mr. McDermott answered yes. Mr. Bivins stated that they only got there if they did an analysis. Mr. Missel said that was right, because if they did not do an analysis, they did not know if it was or was not. Mr. Murray stated that the problem was that the way it was phrased right now, it said commercial and/or office flex, research and development. He said that if they struck all of that stuff, it was appropriate. Mr. Missel said that then they would talk about focusing on whether any of that was actually legitimate. Ms. Firehock stated that there was a lot that was not legitimate there, which was what she was trying to express. Mr. Clayborne asked if it was fair to say that they thought the areas were worthy of exploration for feasibility as presented in the staff report. He said that they would not tie anyone’s hands but would go through a process to see what was appropriate versus not appropriate. Mr. Carrazana stated that he had indicated a yellow card because he agreed with the language was too specific and some of these uses may not be appropriate for some areas, and as they dove into a more careful study of observing them, they could identify them. He said that he agreed with that except that these were not equal interchanges. He said that they did have an area in Crozet that businesses keep [2:45:33 inaudible] Mr. Bivins asked if it was in Crozet. Mr. Carrazana said yes. He said that they were having a hard time getting commercial. He said that they were diluting a current development area by starting to create another center. Ms. Firehock stated that they were saying to put a biomedical thing not in Crozet but out on the interchange. Mr. Carrazana said that was correct. He asked what they were going to add there, as there were already three gas stations next to each other, a mechanic, the mill, and a brewery. Ms. Firehock noted that there was a historic neighborhood there. Mr. Carrazana stated that there was a historic neighborhood, church, and cemetery. He asked how far this option would go and how much they needed it. He asked if at every intersection they had to do a small area plan. He said that staff had a lot to do, and he did not know why they would spend the time doing this for Yancey Mills, which did not need it. He said that he agreed that Shadwell needed it because he did not know what was going on there. Mr. Bivins asked for clarification that Mr. Carrazana’s point was because they had this vacant square in Crozet that would be developed at some point in time, they should not put anything there that challenged its development. He said that he was not convinced that anything was going ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 36 to be there that was not going to be precious, and that was his concern about the square in Crozet. He said that yes, it would be developed out, but they were not going to see a boutique hotel. Mr. Bivins said that he would like to see them do something like opportunity zones to find what the economic benefit of this particular location was, and Crozet Square would be one of them. He said that it was not essential business, and may be many small businesses, but he did not know if they were going to make an impact in people’s daily travel time. He asked if they should be discussing whether it should be an opportunity zone to attract the types of things they were trying to attract. Mr. Carrazana said absolutely, and it should be discussed along with infrastructure. He said that almost every single option had been recommended as more work to staff. Mr. Bivins stated that someone may say they should do the prioritization, but they should not be doing the prioritization. Mr. Carrazana said that at the same time, there was question as to what about Yancey Mills needed this intervention. He said that Shadwell would benefit from a plan because stuff was there, and a plan would help densify that. He said that Yancey Mills was a completely different situation. Mr. Clayborne asked if staff had any details about the recommendation for Yancey Mills. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that both Shadwell and Yancey Mills interchanges had existing industrial and commercial development as well as underlying zoning districts that were not rural area. She said that at the same time, they were recognizing that it seemed there was more potential for possible changes at the Shadwell interchange, and that was also what they had heard more input on. She said that if both were going to be pursued for a small area plan, they would recommend Shadwell being prioritized, which was also what the current comprehensive plan recommended. Mr. Carrazana said that he would be in favor of that. He said that the other thing he would add about Yancey Mills was that there were a lot of family farms all along that stretch that would be lost. He said that multiple farms were already being lost because they could not pay their taxes, so they were selling off pieces. Mr. Bivins stated that this was a continuation of what they had seen with what once agricultural land in the County was. He said that it could possibly be that that business model was no longer going to exist in this particular place. Ms. Firehock said that it had a lot to do with what was put next to it. Mr. Bivins said that it had a lot to do with how farming was done and what the ecosystem was for farming in a particular place. He said that there was lots of farming in Augusta County right now, and his contention was that the personality of the people who made up Albemarle County wer e not farmers per se, and that was where the cultural run-ins occurred in which they drifted into a different kind of blend of personalities in which farmers could not necessarily get the kind of financial inputs nor did they have proximity to markets that they once had. Mr. Murray stated that he would encourage Mr. Bivins to attend a stormwater conservation meeting sometime so that he could meet people who were actively farming in Albemarle County. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 37 He said that he thought the opportunity he saw for Yancey Mills was to create a zoning district customized for a light industrial and agricultural support. Ms. Firehock said yes, they just had to create an overlay and decide what went there. Mr. Murray stated that that was the opportunity that he would propose, because there were applications that came before the Planning Commission regarding people wanting to get a special use permit to set up a canning facility or another similar use. He said that having an area where that was by right would be beneficial, because it would send a signal that they wanted agricultural support industries in these locations. Mr. Moore stated that they were getting deep into the weeds in this topic, and he understood they did so because they cared, but what he read in the staff recommendation was to see if they could study this thing and open it up to possibility. He said that he believed that some of the objections that were brought up early in the conversation about traffic felt silly because it was an interstate corridor, and while he wanted to respect everyone’s views, there was a lot of considerations of what goes where that would be very useful, but he wanted to move forward on this idea so that they studied it and did something. Mr. Murray stated that he would approve of adding recommendations for land uses at the Shadwell and Yancey Mills interstate interchanges, especially that were supportive of the rural area. Mr. Missel said that he disagreed with that language. He said that he would agree with taking those items out of Option 2, but it needed more study. Ms. Firehock asked if Mr. Missel was referring to the commercial, office, and other items. Mr. Missel said yes. Ms. Firehock said that that was her problem with it as well. Mr. Missel stated that if they were taking those out, they were saying they still would study it, and there may be opportunities for something more light industrial in those areas, but none of them knew because it had not yet been studied. He said that maybe nothing was appropriate, but to say it had to be focused on rural was of issue. Mr. Murray stated that he was fine with that. He said that his main objection was that these specifically enumerated things in the list. Mr. Gavrilovic asked if something more general to consider was additional nonresidential uses at these locations, then the subtext would be area plan studies to ensure appropriate uses. Ms. Firehock stated that there was nothing wrong with having a plan about an interchange, but it sounded like a giant development plan to stick stuff in the interchange. Mr. Missel stated that they may be limiting it by saying it was just those uses, and it was better to give them the options. ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 38 Ms. Firehock said that it should be determined what, if anything, would be appropriate to put there that would support rural uses. She said that rural uses could include tourism or lodging, and she did not know why the County disapproved of hotels and tourism. Mr. Carrazana stated that they had to look at the adjacent communities to see what was happening, because it would not all be the same to what Albemarle did. He said that one of his concerns with the Yancey Mills was the Crozet development area that was there. He said that Yancey Mills was developing and there was actually fairly new businesses that had opened up in the last four or five years in that crossroads. Mr. Bivins asked if it was on Route 250. Mr. Carrazana said yes, it was on Route 250. He said that there were things happening there now and there would continue to be. He said that they had to have a lens beyond the interstate intersection to inform that plan. Mr. Bivins stated that was fair, but it was not inconsistent with what they were considering. Ms. Firehock said that it was inconsistent with the way the option was worded. Mr. Carrazana said that I did not say anything about taking two considerations. Ms. Firehock said it only said commercial and office flex, research and development, light industrial land use was at these interchanges. Ms. Cozart asked if there was some agreement around Option 2 but editing of the language about the specific uses. Mr. Clayborne stated that it was worthy of study as proposed, not to call out any specified uses, but to let the study inform the feasibility. He said that per Mr. Carrazana’s comment, the study should also be considerate of what was happening around it. Mr. Gavrilovic said that he had circled in red the note about recommending being less specific with uses in this option and deferring uses to a small area plan. Ms. Cozart asked if there was agreement on the recommendation for the fourth topic. Mr. Clayborne stated that if the small area plan had the ability to give the outcome of no changes, then yes. Ms. Firehock said that if they did the uses for the small area plans for the interchanges, things were happening and had to be done in a coordinated fashion but did not want to enumerate all of this stuff that they would try to squish in there as opposed to saying what was appropriate for this, if anything, then she could agree. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that the next steps would be to summarize all the input from this evening, both the general consensus and where concerns were noted, and would get this together for the Board’s packet for the September 6 meeting so they could give direction on these topics as well. She said that they had three upcoming Planning Commission meetings and rounds of engagement in the fall where they would share two different chapters at a time with updated goals ALBEMARLE COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FINAL MINUTES - August 8, 2023 39 and objectives for community input. She said that Phase 3 would be next year and would include the action steps for each chapter and planned topic, metrics for implementation, and big moves, which was to prioritize the recommendations in the plan at a high level of big things to be accomplished in the first five years. Mr. Murray asked if staff would consider presenting the Commission’s changes to options as changed language or as a separate option. Ms. Kanellopoulos stated that staff would meet and discuss whether they had captured all of the comments, and they would look at sharing a modified option for the Board to consider so that they did not have to go with the exact language proposed by the Commission, and the proposed changes would be passed along as an option to consider. Adjournment At 9:10 pm, the Commission adjourned to August 22, 2023, Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting, 6:00 p.m. in Lane Auditorium. Kevin McDermott, Director of Planning (Recorded by Carolyn S. Shaffer, Clerk to Planning Commission & Planning Boards; transcribed by Golden Transcription Services) Approved by Planning Commission Date: 09/12/2023 Initials: CSS