Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call to order the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for our May six twenty twenty six one PM meeting here in Lane Auditorium. With us at the dais, we have supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, supervisor Ann Malik of the Whitehall District, supervisor b Lapisto Kirtley of the Ravenna District, supervisor Sally Duncan of the Jack Jewett District. Supervisor Missal is traveling, so he will not be joining with us today. We also have our county executive, mister Jeff Richardson, and our county attorney, mister Andy Herrick, Our board clerk, miss Claudette Borgeson, and our senior deputy clerk, mister Travis Morris, are also with us.

With us, in addition to the folks that are joining us for some some things we're doing today with our normal folks here at for meeting purposes, offers officer Jawan Woodson and officer Tavon Richardson. Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us this afternoon. And with that, if everyone will please rise as you are able for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States,

and to be the republic of which is sentenced by nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice.

Thank you. And if everyone would please join together in a moment of silence. Thank you very much. Alright, board. Next, we have the adoption of the final agenda. I'm not aware of any changes or edits. Are there any changes or edits, additions to the agenda? Is there a motion to adopt the final agenda?

So moved. Second.

Alright. The motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk would please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?

Yes.

Miss Lapiste Kirtley? Aye. Miss Mallet? Yes.

Thank you. And that will take us to brief announcements by board members. Supervisor Pruitt?

Not much to add other than to point out that there is currently a call for artists out from SCAN, the Scouseville Center for Arts and Nature. They have a gallery space on Valley Street. The current theme of the or the theme of the upcoming exhibit is going to be called create, fabricate, construct, and they're accepting submissions through the May 17. All I got?

Alright. Thank you. Supervisor Duncan?

No comments.

Supervisor Malik?

Yes. Just two thank you. Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival is this weekend, May ninth and tenth, ten to five. Over 100 juried artisans from around the country. Music, food, entertainment, and lots of wonderful crafts for taking home, especially for Mother's Day.

And, also, the Afton Express has re recorded a 38% increase in ridership in February compared to February 2025. This is a really big improvement in helping a lot of people who work live in the valley, work in this area or the reverse commute as well. So they've added another bus in the reverse commute direction to help to bring more people off of the road and get them there on time. I also was fortunate to attend the High Growth Coalition meeting in James City County last week, and I will present my some of my notes to everybody at the end of the meeting. Thank you very much.

Right. Supervisor Lapiston Berndley?

Yes. I attended the EDA meeting, and there was a lot going on there. The big thing is to make sure that we have a Charlottesville to Boston connection. That's what they're working on now. They've received input, and we're really trying to make that happen.

That will help connect all of our biotech, bioscience industries that we're planning for along with some other areas. And I will say the we're connecting with PVCC, Afton, AstraZeneca, the Manning Institute. All those connected are really, really going to make a big impact. And AstraZeneca is going to have the most advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing in the world. Lots of robotics.

So any young people there that are interested in robotics, that's gonna be the place. So they will bill be building a state of the art facility. Also, our region wine coalition update, that's going very well. Wegmans has lots of, Virginia wine because you can't always find it in every place, but Wegmans has a lot of it. But I will tell you with the freeze that's happened not recently, but about few weeks ago, there's about a 20 to 10 to 20% loss of, crops, with the freeze.

So that's something that, there'll be wine, but just not as much, which some people would be very happy about. Others will be very sad. Just FYI. We've also, we approved a $15,000 the board, EDA board approved a $15,000 grant match for to support life sciences, through the Biohub. So things are are happening there.

On April 24, myself and supervisor Malik attended the pinning of chief fire chief Puckett. That was very nice. And, that's up about we had a a pantop CAC meeting, but I'll let, supervisor Pruitt talk about that if he wants to. I think he already did.

Well, that would be for board reports at the end of the meeting. Pardon? That would be for board reports at the end of the meeting.

We'll do that later. Thank you.

Alright. I have no announcements today. That will move we'll move to item number six, which would proclamations and recognitions. And we do have three proclamations this afternoon. The first, a proclamation recognizing May as bike month and Peter Krebs with the Piedmont Environmental Council, and some well helmeted folks are here to join to support him. How this will work is we will, mister supervisor Duncan will read the proclamation in the form of the motion. The board will take a vote, and then we'll invite mister Krebs to come up to make some remarks and accept the proclamation.

Proclamation recognizing May is bike month. Whereas bicycling is a healthy, clean, and affordable mode of transportation and recreation used by thousands of community members and residents of all ages throughout our great Commonwealth and county, and traveling by bicycle has been proven to alleviate traffic congestion and reduce pollution associated with vehicular travel and offer significant mental and physical health benefits to bicyclists themselves, and whereas the County Of Albemarle set an ambitious, appropriate, and necessary goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, and reaching that goal requires providing more accessible, safe, and affordable multimodal transportation options for all residents, and whereas a rich sense of a bicycling community is essential in shifting our transportation systems away from automobiles and building community support for new and different infrastructure and broader mobility options And whereas throughout the month of May, Albemarle County, Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, alongside a cohort of businesses, agencies and community groups, are hosting many bicycling events that promote awareness, safety, new travel options as well as building community, and whereas these groups and many others are also promoting the use of the bicycle as both a means of transportation and recreation year round to improve community health, economic vitality, environmental stewardship, and the simple joy of being active outdoors.

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize the month of May 2026 as National Bike Month, encourage all who support bicycling to participate in the events planned, and urge all road users to share the road safely. Second.

Alright. The motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?

Yes.

Miss Lapisto Kirtley? Aye. Miss Malik? Yes.

Very good. The motion carries. And do we have mister Krebs or others that are going to come join us for some remarks?

Good afternoon, board of supervisors and members of the public. I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

And I'm Jip from Cambic, the Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club.

Hold that microphone down there. We have to Sure.

Yep. And my name is Jip, and I'm from the, Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club.

So on behalf of the entire bicycling community, we would like to thank you for this recognition. Before we say anything else, it is important to recognize that bike month is not the product of just one person or one group. The proclamation mentions that bike month is actually the work of a coalition of groups, businesses, and organizations that are committed to healthy streets for everyone and promoting public health and connectivity. The proclamation doesn't name names, but I'll name some. Of course, there's Albemarle County, the planning district, and several UVA offices.

Charlottesville City Count Council issued a similar proclamation just a few days ago. Staff from all four groups have contributed mightily to this effort. Four different bike shops and dozens of local businesses have made significant contributions. Most of them are locally owned, and all of them are working year round to feed, clothe, and equip area residents to live their best lives. Groups like CAMBIC, BPAC, the Climate Collaborative, the Mobility Alliance, PEC, and many others are working on the ground to pull people together and to actually build stuff.

Both hospitals, the health district, and many doctors have pitched in, and the reason is obvious. They know that movement is effective preventative health care for both your mind and body. Besides improving the health of cyclists, though, cycling also reduces congestion, air pollution, and water pollution for everyone and reduces the need for parking and expensive road infrastructure. I love how cycling removes barriers between people. How often do you exchange pleasantries with people in other cars?

I'm not saying it never happens, but I expect that cycling is a more supportive situation. People often say that they would ride more if it were safe to do so on area roads. That's actually ironic because the growth area of the county is actually not that big. It's just eight miles to the northern tip of the development area and four to the east, west, and south boundaries. So if we had good infrastructure, but for the hills as well, One could get around easily without a bike.

But it isn't actually about getting people to give up their cars. It's about getting people to try new things. Just the other night, a farmer came up to me and told me that he uses an e bike to herd sheep. I'm hoping to parlay that into a invitation to do some wrangling of my own on a bike, but it was exciting to hear that. And just an example of how bikes can be used in creative ways.

You'll find a whole wealth of information about bike month and cycling at the website, bikecville.com. There's a full schedule of events, activities, groups of people to ride with. County staff is leading some ebike demonstrations. All the local bike shops are having repair clinics. So there's a lot that that can be done and new adventures to try. So that's bikecville.com. Thank you so much for this proclamation, and thank you for the good work you're doing in the community.

I'm good.

Any remarks as well? Before you go away, I'm gonna invite the board supervisors to see if they have any remarks, and then we'll bring the proclamation down to you. Supervisor Pruitt?

Thank you so much for for both of y'all and all the advocacy that you individually and in your organizations do. I was just sharing before the meeting started the the work just in my own backyard that Cambic's been doing. I I I live at the intersection of I have Biscuit Run-in my backyard, and I have the Avon Street corridor in my front yard, which I think really illustrates the role that biking can play in our community. It is it is an easy enough matter for me to just distance wise commute here from my home, and it's also should be an easy enough matter for me to bike around recreationally in Biscuit Run. But both of those require intentional public investment and intentional public partnerships to actually make them feasible and safe.

I I can't just get into Biscuit Run without crossing certain easements and and land ownership issues, and I can't get here on a bicycle without having to hazard some pretty fast roadways that don't have protected shoulders or anything. So I bring that up just as an illustration for the incredible possibility we have, the incredible work that's going into this right now, and the necessity of this being something we continue to prioritize as a government. Thank you all so much for being here.

Supervisor Duncan?

I just wanna say, you know, I know how hard it is to change people's minds on things and the work that you guys have done over the years for a really long time to advocate for bike use. It has really changed my mind and has made me, you know, more pro biking. It's made me a better driver. So I really appreciate just sort of the slow drip of bike advocacy and also, a plug for the ebike lending library. And if anybody has never ridden an ebike, they are so much fun to do.

I wish I actually you know, I wish we had paved shoulders throughout the county that, you know, more people could ride their bikes safely. It would be I would love to ride a bike more. So, yeah, the need for infrastructure is really there, You know? But I just I really wanna thank you guys for the continuous work. I know it's can be very annoying to kind of get people to, you know, appreciate bikes more. And so it it really has, you know, changed my views on that, so I appreciate that.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you very much, everyone. This is reminiscent of my beginning bicycling commuting in 1971 in Boston where I rode my bike to Harvard Medical's area in ten minutes, whereas it would have been a thirty minute walk from my assigned parking space at the convent. So that was an easy choice. But even in rain and snow, it was safer and much more enjoyable than sitting in a car. And I found that the manners of the Boston drivers even that long ago were far better than what I found when we moved back to the farm in 1982.

We put the bikes away except to ride on the farm or drive to some place where you can go on a trail. Because when the people are speeding by in a 16 foot road wide roadway with three foot deep ditches and no place to go, that is just not a place. And it scares me all the time to see cohorts of bicyclers riding through Earleysville on the very popular, you know, Way Day ten. But I we have a long way to go to get our drivers to go back to the manners of the nineteen sixties, really and truly. That that scares me a lot.

I will remember also that officer Utz and his bicycle patrol during the the time that he was working in the Crozet growth area is still very fondly remembered, so maybe someday that will come back as one of the assignments for you all. Thank you very much.

Supervisor Lapisto Kearny?

I just wanna say I know Camping has done a lot in with Biscuit Run, just to let everyone know, they're they are building trails. So I just heard from supervisor Pruitt that evidently the mountain bike trail was supposed to be fifth on the list of getting done. It looks like it's gonna be first on the list because the camp began all the volunteers. So kudos to you. You saved us time and money, so and we really, really appreciate that. And then Peter, he is with the Parks Foundation and char and he's overseeing the fee bridge project along with, Mills, Mills Creek.

Old Mills.

Old Mills Trail. I knew I would get it wrong. The Old Mills Trail. So that's going to be hopefully completed, soon, and so I commend you on that also. So we really are doing you all are doing a lot and to make sure that we we have plenty of opportunity to walk, bike, ride. Electric bikes are great except if you wanna make a u-turn. I have personal experience on that, and you've gotta be careful.

Yeah. I guess bikes don't do 80 on a turning radius.

That's fine.

Let's get off and walk. Thank you both for being here and making comments. You know, I just had to walk up the hill the other day while I was having a phone conversation to go to Bodo's, and I almost didn't make it for bagel time. So the bike may not be in my future, especially unless I'm going downhill, I suppose. But these ebikes are interesting to me because that does open it up that if you do perhaps have issues that would prevent you from being able to ride a regular bike that you could ride the ebike.

So I I'm I'm fascinated by the folks that live in my district that I know who are using them really just for for recreation and pleasure more so than commuting and things like that. So all the efforts that are behind that to help educate folks and give them a chance or an opportunity to try it out, I think they'll be surprised once they do experience it. So, we'll have the the, proclamation brought down to you. Couldn't read your mic. Right?

Sorry.

Thank you.

Alright. With the next proclamation today is a proclamation recognizing May 2026 as public service recognition week. We'll follow the same order, and supervisor Malik will read this proclamation.

Thank you very much. It's an honor to read this as a motion. Whereas admiral I'm sorry. Whereas Americans are served daily by public servants at the federal, state, county, and city levels, these unsung heroes do the work that keeps our nation working, and whereas public service is among the most demanding and noble of professions. Whereas public service week is observed annually to celebrate and recognize the valuable service that public servants provide to the nation, Whereas over 900 Albemarle County local government employees work tirelessly to serve our residents, businesses, and visitors, providing them with outstanding customer service while maintaining careful stewardship of the resources with which they have been entrusted.

And whereas we appreciate the many accomplishments and contributions made daily by these public servants. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize May 3 through 05/09/2026 as public service recognition week and call upon the Albemarle County community to recognize the significant and important contribution that public employees make to our community. Signed this May 2026, Ned Galloway chair.

Is there a second?

Second. Second. Alright.

The motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?

Yes.

Miss Lapista Curtley? Aye. Miss Malik? Yes.

And motion carries. With us today, we have Mark Wilson, it's Ashley Perry, and Joe Clark to to make some remarks. Did I get all the I'm sorry. Ashley Perry Hernan Derina. Missed the last name.

Holy mackerel. That's a lot of words there. Good afternoon. Sorry about that that I missed the last the last truck. Sir, good afternoon. Yeah. Good evening. My name is

Mark Wilson. I'm the recreation supervisor for the Amar County Parks and Rec Department. We'd like to thank you for this approximation. In addition to that, we'd like to thank you for your service as a public servants and the time and effort, you give this community. On behalf of the committee and employees, we appreciate very much and indeed the support of the board for the work that you do every day. It is indeed an honor and, means a lot to us to, be a part of. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Hey. I'm, Jill Clark, recreation, manager at Parks and Rec. We're excited about this week's activities, which started with their annual employee picnic last Friday, which is absolutely amazing. Hope you're able to make it. There's no rain, lots of sun, and some epic games of kickball, bingo, and trivia. This week, we had employee snack breaks on Tuesday and today, Wednesday, and an opportunity to tour the stream restoration work on our newest, park biscuit run on Monday and also tomorrow on Thursday.

Thank you. Good

afternoon, and thank you for having us here today. I'm Ashley Perry Hernandez Arena, economic development office and business development manager. So there are a lot of employees who have joined us here today to hear this proclamation read aloud. So would anyone that's here representing the county as an employee please stand?

A lot of people.

On behalf of everyone who's here today and everyone who's out there grinding and serving our community, we wanna thank you so much for this proclamation and for the hard work that you all do. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. I gonna before you go away, I'll ask the supervisors if they'd like to remake remarks. Supervisor Pruitt?

Thank you so much for being here. I say every day that we have truly there are a lot of things, and we have to, as politicians, sometimes run on things that are going wrong in Albemarle County because we're gonna fix them. Right? One thing, though, that I don't think anyone is leveraging criticism is on the quality of our county's staff and professionalism. It is something I bring up every opportunity I can get.

I think the number one thing I would say about county government is that we have profoundly high levels of customer service, of of professionalism, of organizational quality, and that is because of every person in this room. I would also say, you know, this was something that was talked about on a podcast I was listening to recently. You know, back in the eighties, nineties, you graduate from a fancy school, and, like, the cool thing to do is to go work in municipal government because that's where a lot of innovation is happening. That's where a lot of exciting work is happening. It seems very prestigious.

And now increasingly, we're in a role where that is being sucked up by, like, your big three consultants. Right? That's where everyone wants to go work. But the reasons that made local government exciting then are all still true. This is still where the exciting work is happening. This is still where people can make the most difference at every stage of their career. And I am so grateful that we have the quality of talent that still sees the incredible value of the work that we do in local government here, working here in Albemarle County. Thank you all so much. Thank

you. Supervisor Duncan?

Yeah. I got into this mostly because of my family's experience with local government and understanding how important local government is and how hard staff works. And now that I am on this side, I have even more appreciation for how hard public servants work and how everything that you guys do. And so, yeah, I think kind of agreeing with everything supervisor Pruitt said that local government is really, really important. It's it literally is what makes people's daily lives work. And so I just am even more appreciative and grateful of all the work that you guys do.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you all very much. I began my experience home again in the audience in the eighties, and I've had the good fortune of having watching and listening to the contributions of generations of county staff people in this room. And it has been amazing. The values of the board evolve and devolve over that time, but the contributions of the staff continue on. And I'm very grateful for all you do for us every day. And I know I send you lots and lots of questions, and I appreciate your work. Thank you.

Supervisor Lapisto Kerling?

I've said it before. I'll say it again. We, and I specifically mean me, but I think all of us, we could not do this job without the staff that we have. You guys are absolutely incredible. You have the knowledge, the experience. You help us. You make us sound smart, and you make us sound like we know what we're doing, which, actually, I think we do for the most part. But I'm so appreciative. And like supervisor Perth said, I hear from my constituents. And even if there's a complaint, I hear the person was really nice.

The person that I called from the county staff, county office was very, very nice. Even if they didn't get their way, they they compliment the professionalism and how nice and kind everybody is here. And I think that says a lot for our county because, you're displaying to all the people out there what local government what local government should be should be doing to help everyone. I think there's a real sense that they feel that, I'm hoping. But I I thank you 100,000 times over because you you all make this job, frankly, easy. Thank you.

I joined in the remarks of my colleagues, and I would add that, you know, two things. One of the big tasks we have to do as a board of supervisors is to put in place a strategic plan, and then everything really threads out from that. And you can only aim as high as you are able to with the folks that are going to be able to execute that plan. And we have what I think is a phenomenal strategic plan that is reaching high and aiming high, and that's because of the work we know you all are gonna be able to do. So I'm very thankful for that.

The other thing that I would say is that, you know, last year, we did a tax rate increase. This year, I was one of a handful to to support doing another tax increase, and often find myself explaining to constituents what those resources will be used for. And in like fashion, what it my point about the strategic plan is true about a tax rate increase. When you can stand in front of a community and say, here's what these funds are going to go forward for, and then know that you've got an a a ace all star team behind you to be able to pull the plan off, that's a level of credibility that not every jurisdiction can claim that they have. So I wanna speak to all of you that are doing that work day in and day out and hope you will share that, the remarks of the board with your colleagues as you returned to your offices and your different departments throughout the day.

So thank you again for being here with us and everybody else who came to join to join with this moment today. And I'll ask supervisor Malik. She'll bring the proclamation down for you all. Thank you again. And I did hear about the kickball.

I was unable to attend this Friday, but even if somebody not there is like, kickball? This is what's

kinda right. Oh, we spotted them.

I hope there's some video out there.

Yeah. We it was really it it was a great game?

Yeah. I heard something about the game that supervisor Lopez O'Courtley participated in.

Okay. Somebody missed second base. It wasn't clear enough. You know what? When you're as high as the grass, you don't see second base. It was in the grass. So, otherwise, I coulda had a run anyways.

Stealing on a diagonal.

Jeez. Wish I'd seen that.

Our next our third and the the final proclamation for today is a proclamation recognizing May 10 through the sixteenth twenty twenty six as National Police Week, and supervisor Lapisto Kirtley will read this proclamation.

This is a great honor for me to be able to read this proclamation. Whereas in 1962, president John f Kennedy signed the first proclamation recognizing May 15 as peace officers Memorial Day and the week in which it falls as National Police Week to pay tribute to the law enforcement officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and to voice our appreciation for all those who currently serve on the front lines of the battle against crime. And whereas the safety and well-being of Albemarle County citizens being of the utmost importance to the prosperity and livelihood of Virginia's families and communities and police officers throughout Albemarle County are dedicated to protecting and serving Albemarle County communities, our neighborhoods, schools, families, and whereas police officers risk their lives each and every day in order to ensure public safety and enforce the laws of the land. And whereas Albemarle County values the courage and devotion of our police officers as our collective prosperity depends on the integrity with which our law enforcement officers maintain peace and security. And whereas police weekend police and peace officers Memorial Day are opportunities to honor the officers who have fallen in line in the line of duty and recognize the sacrifices made by the families of those officers and the families of those who continue to protect and serve our communities.

Now therefore be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize May 2026 as police week and 05/15/2026 as peace officers Memorial Day in Albemarle County and call these observances to the attention of all our citizens. Sign the May 2026, Ned l Galloway, chair. Second.

Alright. Motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?

Yes.

Miss Lapiste Kirtley? Aye. Miss Malik? Yes.

And very good. Motion carries. And with us today, we have our deputy chief, mister Randy Jamerson, and we also have our twenty twenty five ACPD officer of the year, master police officer Ryan Sheridan, and ACPD detective of the year, senior police officer Scott Godfrey. I've invite all three to make remarks, mister Jamerson deputy chief Jamerson, I should say.

Good afternoon, chair Galloway, members of the board. As you mentioned, I'm Randy Jamerson, the deputy chief of police for Albemarle County Police Department. National Police Week twenty twenty six is upon us and runs from Sunday, May 10 through Saturday, May 16. National Police Week originated in 1962 when president John F. Kennedy designated May 15 as peace officers Memorial Day and the week of May 15 as police week.

On behalf of the men and women of the Albemarle County Police Department, I thank you for your continued support. With your support along with the support of our community and our county executive's office, our department has overcome numerous significant challenges over the past year. From work workforce stabilization and strengthening ACPD staffing levels to ensure our services keep pace with the demand, to committing resources to the joint public safety and department of social services mental health and crisis response initiative, these these are just a few examples of the board's commitment to supporting ACPD's mission of safeguarding our community. While this week is a time of recognition and appreciation for law enforcement professionals across the country, it is also a time of remembrance for those in this profession who have lost their lives. According to the officer memorial page, one hundred and fifteen law enforcement officers gave their lives in '20 in 2025.

Tragically, included in those numbers are four enforcement law enforcement officers from Virginia who lost their lives last year in the line of duty. Today, I ask that we remember corrections officer Jeremy Hall, who was attacked and killed by an inmate at the River North Correctional Center, Master police officer Don Gothart, who died as a result of cancer he developed following his response to the Pentagon on the morning of 09/11/2001 and during his subsequent assignment to the search and recovery efforts after the nine eleven terrorist attacks. And Virginia Beach police officer Chris Reese and Virginia Beach police officer Cameron Girvin, who were shot multiple times while conducting a traffic stop for an expired registration. These submarine losses serve as a grim reminder of the real dangers associated with our profession, profession, yet our community is fortunate to have the dedicated women and men of ACPD who continue to answer the call to serve and protect. Thank you.

Any other remarks, you choose? You're welcome. Nothing. Just thank you all for having

us.

Absolutely. Appreciate the support of the board and our community members. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm gonna invite the supervisors to make remarks, then we'll bring the the proclamation down. Supervisor Pruitt,

thank you again so much for being here. You know, I'm thinking maybe next year we could have a bicycle patrol officer, and just have the same person accept all three proclamations in order. You know, kind of in a similar theme to what I was just talking about with public service recognition. There are probably two offices, departments that your average citizen is likely to interact with, and that's tax assessments, and that's police. Those are, in so many ways, the face of government for people, and they're often interacting with them for for reasons they'd rather not in both cases.

That is the place where I think the the exceptional quality of service is most important. You are, in so many ways, the face of this government, and your ability to help our citizens get the the help they need, get the protection they need, and meet their just daily needs in in a way that is professional and accommodating, I think, is one of the incredible strengths of this organization. Thank you all so much for your continued work.

Supervisor Duncan?

Yes. Thank you for your what you guys do. And, also, I'm especially grateful. I don't know how it gets designated, but whoever is in charge of Albemarle High School traffic lights every morning, I really appreciate the work you do. And it's very clear when you're not there how much of a difference it makes. And so I really do appreciate that level of service.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you all very, very much. And over the last decade, as policing and law enforcement around the country has been so tumultuous, I have been so proud of the department you represent and of your and the department you have become, all of you. In my childhood, there was one sheriff, George Bailey. He told me once that he parked near Barracks Road to wait for a call because there was no other way to be knowing where the next action was going to be and how different it is today with those 90,000 plus calls that you reported on in 2025. Shocking.

Also, in the last twenty years, I've really appreciated the high standards, the careful training, the strong accountability that you processes have developed and your leadership maintains for good performance and how responsive you are to citizen concerns and providing that kindness on their worst day, whether it's, you know, some holiday or an accident or any number of catastrophes that you have to deal with. So I'm very fortunate that, you know, I've had only limited need over the last, since we've been back in '82, but, always know that we're very glad to see our neighbors with the police patrol cars in their yards because that's always a great deterrent, and, very glad to have them as neighbors as well. So thank you all very much.

Supervisor Lapista Curley?

Unlike supervisor Malik, I've had plenty of interaction with the police both here and in California. So Not many tickets. Uh-huh. Now I get well, we won't go into that because you know? Anyway, I'm so appreciative. I will tell you when we voted to raise the taxes last year, 4¢ and 3.2 to public safety. When I had constituents calling me saying, why are you doing this? And I told them that 3.2¢ was going for public safety. That ended the conversation. Nobody said nobody said anything after that.

They're all supportive. They're supportive of police, fire, EMTs, ECC, everything that protects them. That's what's important to them, and that's what you all do. You all protect our community, and they're very aware of that. And we're all extremely appreciative of having such a professional, well trained force. Thank you for that.

Well, I joined again in the positive remarks and just wanna add that it's interesting. A few weeks ago, I had shared a year or two ago that my grandfather, when he returned from World War two, was a police officer. He became a police officer in Wheeling, West Virginia, where I'm from. And a few weeks ago, there's a news podcast kinda, you know, social media thing that tells stories of Wheeling history and all of that. And just a few weeks ago, the gentleman that runs that had resurfaced a story, and that was about how the Wheeling the mob was infiltrating Wheeling.

But they were talking about one particular story where officer Reinbold had responded to a call that was part of that story, and that was my grandfather. And it was just kind of fun that that popped up, and then I saw the proclamation come up that, you know, it's a it's a nice memory. Because often when I think about my grandfather, don't think necessarily of him as a police officer. I think of him as as my grandfather. But I'd I guess I would make two comments, relative to building on some remarks that were that were made.

You know, I think we're incredibly grateful for everything that y'all do day in and day out, but not just the service you provide, but but the quality of individual you all are. Because when you combine the quality of individual that you are all are and then how well and how you do your work and how you do your service, it really makes it easy for us to be able to, stand with confidence and stand behind and say we have a top top notch first rate police department. So thank you for all of that. And then I would the second point is and you're doing all of that in the face of being tremendously understaffed. And this board has been working and trying to work.

We still have a lot of work to do to continue to get the resources for you all that are already hired, but to do all the things that we need to do to support getting you up to full staff. Because we'd I do think it would be, or I think it's important for you all to know that we do recognize the strain that being understaffed puts on y'all given the nature of the job that you do and the size of county that we have. So we're gonna continue working on that and, appreciate your patience as we continue to try to find that success for you all, to get you up to up to up to full staff and then beyond. Because we once you're there, we gotta keep going, right, in my opinion. But thank you all for being here today. I'm gonna ask supervisor Lapisto Curtley to bring the proclamation down.

Did you get someone smaller? Is there any officers that are, like, little?

No. I think you guys.

Alright. As supervisor Lapista currently rejoins the next item, we again appreciate everyone that's, that that joined with us today, so we hope you continue to enjoy public service recognition week as well. The next item on our agenda, number seven, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than what's scheduled for public hearing. We do have two folks signed up for in person comment today. During the time set aside for public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than those scheduled for public hearing, individuals may address the board of sir supervisors concerning those matters.

The individuals are allowed one opportunity of up three minutes to speak at each board meeting. A sign up sheet is managed by the clerk's office, and up to 10 persons may speak during each matters from the public session. Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time. The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking. The red light indicates your time has expired, you will be asked to end your comments. In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines. When addressing the board, state your name and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district. Address comments directly to the board as a whole. Any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the clerk.

If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted, and do not speak from your seat or out of turn. All comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website. And we do ask when you're called and you come down to please adjust the microphone and or the podium, which can be controlled with the controls on the left, to your height, so that we can hear you appropriately. With that, mister Tom Olivier is our first speaker, and Philip Reese will be our second speaker.

Good afternoon. I'm Tom Olivier from the Samuel Miller district. All of us should know that the planet is suffering from a host of ecological crises. The crises are interacting and sometimes worsening rapidly. Scientists warn that our current state is unsustainable, and we must change the way we live to avoid triggering more and worse ecological catastrophes.

By mid century, our planet will be a dangerously different place, but our, our new twenty year comprehensive plan failed to acknowledge and address the severity of current and emerging ecological crises. To put us on a better path, I have several recommendations. First, complete the hiring of the previously planned second staff member in the climate action program, one who helps develop programs and policies that move us to a more sustainable state. Second, hire a rural areas planner. The county has committed to developing a rural areas protection plan, but we now have no rural areas planners.

In the recent past, we had one to three on the county staff. Third, create a department that develops integrated thinking on climate change, biodiversity protection, and rural areas protection. We need this to navigate the environmental challenges that lie ahead. In February, I sent you a proposal for such a department. Between now and the fall when work on the next county budget begins, you have a window in which you can consider the best form for a natural resources planning department and its staffing and funding needs.

Given the press of environmental crises, I hope you will seize this opportunity. Thanks for your consideration. Thank you. Philip

Thank

you, chairman, members of the board. I'm Phil Reese from Ravana. I can't be at tonight's public hearing on the proposal to change the county code, so I'm using this afternoon's public comment to share my thoughts on the sign on incentive ordinance and a related problem behind it. The proposal being considered tonight removes the $5,000 cap on sign on bonuses and lets the county executive approve any amount. It could be 10,000, but it could also be $50,000 or more. Paying competitively to recruit good people makes sense, but removing the cap entirely does not. So I encourage you to keep a cap, whatever cap you think is reasonable. Make it 10,000. Make it 15,000. Make it whatever you want, but don't remove the cap entirely.

I'd also recommend adding language to the ordinance requiring an annual report. County staff would provide it to the board each year. It should clearly show the amount of sign on incentives paid. I trust mister Richardson to make the right decisions when it comes to sign on incentives. But in ten or twenty years, we might not have as good leadership making these decisions.

That's why it's so important to carefully consider the changes to the county code being considered. Now I wanna talk about the problem that this ordinance is trying to solve, and that's recruitment and hard to fill positions. Last I heard, there were 20 to 30 vacant police officer positions that the county has been unable to fill. Increasing the amount of sign on incentives can help, but it can also encourage officers to jump around to different jurisdictions every few years chasing large sign on incentives. I believe all of you have in your email inbox a proposal to create a housing allowance for our police officers who live in Albemarle.

70% of our police officers do not live in our county largely because it's more affordable in our neighboring counties. But we want and need our police officers to live in the county that they serve. If there's a major crime at two in the morning, I don't want a detective who lives in Greene County having to travel an hour or more to get to the scene of the crime. I want him or her to live in Albemarle. And I think a police officer housing allowance kills two birds with one stone.

It makes housing more affordable, and it improves recruitment and retention. This would be a win for the board, a win for police, and a win for our community, and I hope this board seriously considers it. So I have three asks. Keep a cap on sign on bonuses, add an annual reporting requirement for these bonuses, and have staff bring back an analysis to the board on implementing a housing allowance for county police officers. Thank you.

Thank you. That was our last speaker today, so we will close matters from the public. Thank you both for joining with us. And we will move to the next item on our agenda, number eight, the consent agenda. Comments here, we've added agenda item 8.4 a. That resolution is changing the start time of the May twenty twenty sixth meeting of the board of supervisors. The new start time that day is 02:30. And are there any other items that need to be pulled or changes to the consent agenda? Alright. Is there a motion to, approve the consent agenda?

So moved. Second.

Alright. The motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?

Yes.

Miss Lapiste? Aye. Miss Mouse? Yes.

Very good. Thank you, board. And we will move to item number nine, a presentation. We are on the comprehensive plan amendment request review process, and we have David Benish and Michael Barnes joining us at the desk. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Afternoon. And just make sure you pull that mic in close.

Soon as I get the mouse to work, we'll get started.

Here we go.

Thank you, mister chairman. David Benesch, development process manager, and this is a presentation on the comprehensive plan amendment request, review process. An action item of in the updated comprehensive plan, AC44 directed staff to consider establishing an application process for public initiated comprehensive plan amendments, CPAs. Since the adoption of a c e 44, staff has been evaluating the need for a CPA application process, including benchmarking other localities. A little bit of background here for you in consideration of the public initiated application process.

This was based on interest from property owners and developers and their representatives and having a clear, efficient, and predictable method for presenting proposed changes to the comprehensive plan, to the board of supervisors. And two, to have the ability to address warranted modifications in a timelier manner than waiting for the next comprehensive plan or master plan update. Briefly wanted to touch on some of the legal parameters of comprehensive plan amendments and then a little bit of the history on, dealing with prior CPA application processes. The code of Virginia, does not require a locality to have an application process or public initiated CPAs. Further, the code authorizes only the board of supervisors to initiate amendments, to the CPA, to the to the, comp plan.

Citizens cannot directly initiate such amendments. Therefore, any application process from a citizen is is simply a a method to bring a proposal to the board for the board to act, on that proposal. Okay. This mouse, I think, is dying. That's not helping.

There you go. There we go. Regarding

Okay. Here we go. Thank you. The county had an application process, for CPAs until 2018. Most applications, received during that process, were not deemed to be valid.

We had a number of them that were submitted and were not approved. So in 2018, the board agreed to discontinue that process and put into place the current process that we have now, where applicants, need to approach the board of supervisors directly, to initiate a comprehensive plan amendment. So after performing an evaluation of the possible approaches, again, benchmarking other, localities, staff does not recommend establishing a separate application process for CPAs. Staff has concluded that such requests should instead be through one or two existing pathways. The continued use of the current direct contact process by the board of supervisors whereby individuals, again, bring their request directly to the planning commission and the board, and, the board then determines whether to further study that CPA.

If a formal application process is preferred by the applicant, then they can submit a zoning map or SP application with the proposed CPA embedded as part of the submitted materials. I would point out that the direct contact approach is still the preferred approach. The SP process is primarily for the purpose of reviewing amendments to the land use map, the the FLUM, future land use map in the comprehensive plan. The basis for, this recommendation, as I've mentioned already, the previous experience with the CPA application process did not result in viable proposals by the board and diverted resources from other work priorities. We believe the same would occur again if that were reinstituted.

Requiring also requiring individuals to seek direct board support through the existing direct contact approach helps prevent frivolous and nonviable proposals and ensures there's a demonstrated, board interest, before significant staff resources are committed. For those, again, seeking a application process for a CPA proposal, the z m and a ZMA and SP applications approach provides the following advantages. It's a familiar process, both for developers and, at least relatively familiar for residents and citizens. The applications, an SP ZMA application provides more specific in information in detail on development proposals, and so the potential impact of the CPA can be better evaluated. CPA and, or ZMA and SP applications already considered consistency with the comp plan as part of the evaluation criteria.

So it's already a process that's embedded, that evaluation of the comp plan. It may allow for quicker reviews of some viable CPA requests, but I would caution on that statement as it obviously depends on the scope and scale of the CPA that's embedded in that review. Some may not be recommended for approval, or some may be recommended for further study. Neither would expedite the process, review process. And I think most importantly and kind of burying the lead a little bit on this is that, the ZMA and SP application process is already in use by applicants.

We already receive applications that are inconsistent with the Flum, or aspects of the comprehensive plan, and they are essentially, de facto CPA request. Recent ones that you reviewed are Chestnut Grove, ZMA, and SP. You have a Beaver Hill mobile home park ZMA coming before you, and another one that's recently submitted. And over my time here, this is not an unusual occurrence. And the county, must accept and review, any complete ZMA and SB application that is submitted.

Staff cannot reject an application solely based on its consistency with the comp plan. So these are reviews that we must undertake and manage. And in many ways, this process is really about how to better manage that process and and deal with those requests that we get. The impacts to the SP and ZMA process if CPAs are embedded embedded or there's really, there'd be no significant changes to the existing review process that's guided by state code provisions, and, that really would not change. There would be some modifications to internal review practices, including development, review criteria and factors to consider to, better help, staff review these types of proposals.

It is likely PC planning commission work sessions would be used as needed in the early stages of the review to provide additional input and guidance on the proposal in the CPA component. What we envision is that staff comments on the CPA component would be provided within the first round of comments, and and staff, would identify most likely three, scenarios for the this proposal. One, that the conference the the SP and ZMA with the CPA component is acceptable, and that application would continue to move forward for review and action by the commission and board. The second option would be that, the CPA warrants additional study before action on the c, CMA and SP is taken, and a separate CPA study should be conducted would be the recommendation there. The third option is the CPA, is unacceptable, and there'd be a recommendation for denial.

That request would probably move forward quickly to the commission and the board for action and guidance. So, in summary, staff has concluded that utilizing either the existing board direct contact approach, again, which is the preferred method, or utilizing the special use permit application process for those who want to submit a specific plan, provide the most effective means for evaluating public request for comprehensive plan amendments. This two option framework addresses the key reasons, that were identified originally for considering a CIP application. So, again, in closing, this approach really is essentially just recognizing what we do right now, the preferred approach that we have, and the process that we have to accept. When an applicant makes an application for a ZMA or SP that may not be consistent with the plan, we're compelled to review it.

So this approach really is our hope is to improve that process so that we can get a better handle on those processes when they do those applications when they do become before us. No action is required by the board here because there essentially is no change in our process, But staff does, request that the board indicate whether it supports this approach or if it has, any other recommendations or requests of us. And that that's it for me, Michael. I don't know if you wanna add anything.

I'll wait for the board to discuss. Yep.

Thank you, David. Alright.

We'll go through with questions, comments. Supervisor Pruitt? Sure. So to begin and this is a comment, but if you take it as a question, an answer could be helpful. I I've been under the impression that we had kind of disposed of this as an issue and a question kind of on the last day of comprehensive plan talks because we had had some community feedback on an interpretation of, like, a paragraph at the last page of the comp plan. And I we had some back and forth saying, no. We this is what we currently do, and I think this is what we're envisioning in the comprehensive plan. I I've been under the impression it had been settled at that time, but it it is helpful to revisit it and reconfirm that it's settled. So I see you grabbing Mike.

Yeah. First of all, I would say that, thank you for the question. As far as comprehensive plan amendment changes, I think you all discussed about them as they relate to the rural area and expansion of the growth area. And I guess, David identified two rezonings that we're getting right now that are in the rural area for mobile home parks.

Mhmm.

Those are analogous to me what you're talking about. I mean, we're getting those applications. We're required to take them. I think this would enable us to to come to you early on in these these on that sit situation to get your guidance and really help us so that what we don't end up doing is, staff recommending denial on an application based on the conference of plan and but there are all the other issues that might be surrounded on the individual project. If we can get a clearer guidance from the board earlier on, then when we come to you for the actual your action on that re rezoning, we can deal with all the other issues, the minutiae that often goes with one of these projects.

You'd still be making the decision on both the land use comprehensive plan decision, but also the minutiae. So I think we were worried on a couple of applications we've seen before that we were recommending denial, and we weren't really getting into that level of detail. We probably should if you all elected to approve that little home park. So that's one advantage. But the other real big advantage is in the development areas.

We have, numerous applications that have come in that somebody wants to have a different land use designation in their future land use map or, and so this may be something to say they wanna change something, for example, from industrial uses to a residential uses. Is that okay? Is that something we should even be processing from a county standpoint? And if that the board's willing to entertain that, then it may be something that either we have to do a conference plan amendment to let that move forward if it's a significant change. Or there's been several ones that we've had along Birkmar over the past several years that I've been here where they were designated the land use plan as commercial.

But we went ahead and approved rezonings for, residential uses there. So there are nuances that happen in the development area where sometimes the developer wants to do something with their property that the future land use map hasn't changed in the development area. Maybe other market conditions have changed, other things have happened. So this it allows an avenue for, dealing with that, future land use map inside the development area as well. And I think that the real thing that we're trying to, those ones that we sort of had along Birkmore Drive, staff sort of recognized that the change seemed like it was, you know, it could be handled.

It wasn't a significant deviation potentially from the comp plan. There may be other ones in the development area where the proposal is a significant deviation. And in those that latter case specifically, we'd really like the opportunity to come talk to you all about the proposed change early on. So, again, as we work through the minutiae of the application with the applicants, we've sort of gotten some guidance from the board, and we

can deal with the details. The what you call the direct contact process. I wanna make sure I'm articulating what's imagined here, and the follow on question is going to be, has it ever happened? So I'm imagining you're saying a landowner and prospective land user is going to reach out and do direct person to person lobbying to the board, and then we bring it to a sponte, put it on the agenda for consideration. Staff reviews that.

It gives us a recommendation on its feasibility for comprehensive plan changing, then we change it on the comprehensive plan. The zoning hasn't changed, so there's there's I guess I'm now going to have two questions. The first is going to be, has that ever happened? Because I can't think of an example of that in my time of county government watching. And the second is, why would that, which creates two processes, be the preferred method as opposed to a unified process like we currently do, where we don't really talk about the comprehensive plan other than saying it's out of it's out of accord?

Well, first of all, I think you identified how it would work. Uh-huh. They would approach you. You'd work with the rest of the board to to to to bring the item forward. Part of the reason why that is is, we sort of identify that is because that's just a dynamic that exists regardless outside of, what staff purview is.

You know, that is your all's purview if a constituent wants to talk about changing it. So we just we're acknowledging that. And that was and secondly, that was kind of the process when we sort of left it, in 2018 when we took away the application. I think what we're trying to do here in this particular one is, that would remain, and that, again, is your all's purview. If they come to this a little bit more formal route of staff review, we wanna try and create a process again where we can really deal with that with some of the fundamental questions with the with the comprehensive plan and primarily with the land use map to meet some of the, concerns that have been identified either by, the developers or sometimes even things we've noticed ourselves.

Over over time, it's been used that way a number of time. It is is I think the information in the executive summary that went to the board in 2018, there were actually 12 requests that were generated by the board of supervisors. Some of them were actually generated through that type of process where there was more informal information that led to a board conclusion. If you want, I know, miss Duncan, you weren't here, but if you recall the sweet spot Mhmm. Discussion,

that It kind of was like that, but it was also in the process of Bloom adoption.

Exactly. A CPA was already open, but the way that process worked pretty much mimicked it. The applicant, discussed it with a board member who then discussed it with the, full board at a discussion. There was an opportunity to make a decision in that CPA, so there didn't need to be a directive to for us to do that and hold public hearings on. Public hearings are being held. Sure. But that's pretty much how that process looks, and it's been used a fair number of times over my time here. Maybe it's

a shift in board culture over years and just, you know, institutional memory dying. But I I will also reflect to you that with the sweet spot, there was one of the big critiques of what was happening with that discussion was that it felt inconsistent with board process. Mhmm. Like, it felt like an end run, which I, as someone who ultimately supported the compromise, thought it felt like an end run ground process, which I feel like would be a comparable critique of if the direct contact approach were to surface even today. It would still I think with the current just knowing that our own policies and practices change from year to year just as people change, it would feel almost like an end run if that started happening.

It would feel like, oh, we're we're reauthoring the comprehensive plan every year. I don't know. I I say this just I agree that these should be the two processes. I mean, one is always effectively available because we are the absolute authority. And at the end of the day, we can always change our own culture and our own processes at the drop of a hat.

I'm I'm telling y'all as senior planners, I would personally and I've told applicants that I would expect that two is what this board is currently comfortable with, and that would be, if I were an applicant, what I would think to do. And frankly, as a supervisor, I think it's what I would prefer seeing because I I hear what y'all are saying about it helps y'all dig into the other parts of the application, but I've also seen that y'all still dig into the other parts of the application. What it's gonna do is it's going to affect what your recommendation is. Right? Like, Chestnut Grove is going to be a staff recommends denial no matter how well they handle fire and water management because at the end of the day, it's in the rural area.

I think if we're going to adopt policy, and I say this to someone who voted in favor of Chestnut Grove. Right? If we're going to adopt policy that says the rural area is the rural area, I I do value the reminder you're violating your own policy even as I lean forward and do it for x y z reasons, if that makes sense. Right? Like, I think it's it's helpful to and we can always ask as we did on that day, is this a but for but for it being in the rural area?

Would the recommendation have differed? And I think staff knows that that question is I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I would expect most senior planners would know that that request would be coming and would be able to anticipate something like that. And that seems the only saving ourselves that question feels like the only benefit of doing one over two. So I don't know. That that's me ex extemporizing for probably too long on this. I appreciate y'all's time. There's anything you want to respond to in that

I'll I'll wait for other comments to see if we

Supervisor Duncan?

No comments. The way you guys have it laid out makes sense to me.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you. How I wish that I had had this staff report reminder when we were finishing the complaint, because this very eloquently puts forward all the reasons I tried in my rambling shambles to say we should not be including that paragraph of reconsidering. And this is know, twenty years in the audience and nineteen years on the board seeing these things happen over and over again. So let me call out some particular things here, such as the 11 CPAs that were generated by by people and applicants without fee, lots of staff time spent on them, and they none of them were approved or advanced as opposed to ones that came through the process that has been in action. And this does not mean backroom.

Let's go, you know, win somebody over. People raised it with their supervisor. The supervisor raised it with the board, and then there was a general, well, maybe, in which case then staff might look at it. So this is not a, number one is not a weird process. It's something that has worked really, really well over many years and has kept, I think, the responsibility where it belongs.

I was fascinated to the the paragraph about the code of Virginia authorizes only the board to initiate. I mean, that would have been nice to know because it would have saved you all a whole lot of time. But, anyway, that I didn't have sense enough to ask that question at the time, and that's too bad. So I am, I guess, very concerned about collapsing the process because I've seen a couple that have come through altogether, but they were not in the rural area. They were in the growth area.

There were but many that have had the goods good approach to do the CPA first before investing the time in doing a whole coda development, etcetera, etcetera, like in the old days when you had more requirements at the beginning. They would nail down the CPA first and then proceed with the ZMA or whatever was appropriate, and that was, to me, the right way to do it. Because, otherwise, you are saying at some person's request, we're now going to say, we're just gonna forget all the public input that we had on all those years of the comprehensive plan development. And, oh, no. We're gonna change and do this instead.

So that troubles me a lot that we would do that. The I don't see how it would be fair to put staff in a position of making policy, which is not fair to them. And to and so I think that whatever debates need to happen need to happen at the board level in order for the people who are elected to make the decisions are made responsible to make the decisions. And if people don't like it, they can throw us out. It's not fair to put staff in that position.

I'm very concerned back in the early teens. There was a huge I mean, with after the recession, the 75 staff people diverted to other things. It was very difficult to have staff diverted, and they still have a huge workload in CDD now. So I think it's really important to remember that we cannot be sending routinely staff down a rabbit hole for something that has no chance. And I don't think it's it's they shouldn't have to decide it has no chance.

So that's why I'm very much in favor of the number one continuing that. The other problem with number two, with a combined well, there are many, but, anyway, I'll focus on one other one right now. Requiring a separated process is far better because of the timeline issue. That's on page four. Hold on.

Let me go find that. So it turns out if it's combined with the ZMA, then there's the timeline, the shot clock. You have to respond in a certain amount of time. And so, therefore, the CPA analysis is not gonna have, I don't think, the sufficient time that it could if it needed it in a very, you know, highly contentious situation. But even worse than that, with legislative applications, the applicant, not the county, controls the timing and must agree to any deferral or withdrawal.

So the applicant would have to agree to a recommended deferral to allow timing for the more detailed CPA review. That's not a good idea in my opinion. The board the the that's why the separation is important. I'm also aggravated, frankly, that there's no fee for any of this because of the hours and hours and hours that staff is gonna be putting into these things. And then to say, well, never mind.

You know, the the the preschools have to spend $2,500 to get a special permit to add 10 kids. And yet we're saying to a developer or an applicant, you know, never mind. You don't have to pay a fee for all this staff work that's gonna be done. I mean, I will remember five years of Elaine Echols' time was charged to $1,250 application for Northpointe, and that was her job for five years was to deal with that. That's turned out fine in the end, but it was a lot of evolution.

And one of the elements of it was the change in the CPA that was needed. And, you know, somebody walking out of the planning commission slamming the door and saying, I'm going straight to the board of supervisors. And, fortunately, the board at the time, I was not there, sent it back to the planning commission and said, do it over. That was how it turned out to be so much better. So I want to avoid the trap of having to accept an application that's willy nilly, and you then have to deal with it.

And it puts off other things that we've been working on for years, like all these ordinance amendments that we have to keep saying to people, oh, it's coming. It's coming, but it's been coming, coming for ten years. So there is a long, long list of chores that we have already assigned to you, and I want to keep if I were, I would really like to keep the responsibility of this where it belongs. And I have rambled on enough right now, but it may come back later. Thank you very much.

Supervisor Lapisto, Curtin.

Could we go back to the other slide where

Where I was? The last

The last one for the words.

Oh, no. Keep going.

Oh, yes. Right here. Okay. So I appreciate what you've done, and I concur with with number one. I have no problem with that. I think it should come to us, as opposed to using staff time when perhaps there'd be no chance whatsoever that of something going through. So it comes to us. We can always ask the questions to staff. We can say, you know, we received this. What do you think?

That type of thing. But I I do, very strongly support the current approach, the the direct contact with the board. That's number one. Number two, a formal application of CPA proposal to Flume is desired. If it goes to the CMA or SP, the application, would then would that then go back if the ZMA or SP, if that's approved, would it then go to the planning commission and then to the board?

Yes. ZMAs, SPs, and comprehensive plan amendments are required to have public hearings with the planning commission and the board. So one that's embedded with all of those would would as well. And just real quickly, this this concept is really intended to take that first part of that ZMA review, and as part of that, give some attention to the comprehensive plan component so that advice can go to the applicant early in the process. If the app if the applicant, for example, does not want to defer for a more in-depth study that we recommend, then more than likely, the staff would just make a recommendation of denial, and it would come to the board for commission the board for discussion.

So the idea is to get the comprehensive plan issue resolved within that submittal process as soon as reasonable. I just thought that was worth clarifying.

Okay. Thank you. That's what I gathered from the other one. I just wanna make it clear for myself. So I concur with supervisor Duncan. I approve what is here.

Yeah. I mean, I don't have any disagreement. This is not I was working to in my memory to try to figure out why we had this on the agenda. I mean, I don't mean to be you know, I wasn't meant to be rude, but I couldn't remember what the initiating thing was that led led for it to be here. I figured it was requested or it must have come up, and I couldn't remember when that was.

My first board meeting in 2018 was when this was a presentation was made on this in January, like, third of two thousand eighteen. And and I have to admit, my brain hasn't changed a whole lot since then on this. It made sense to me. I I really approach it from a cost savings standpoint. You know, I don't want staff burning their time on things that the board could if the board has no interest in even exploring the review, then let's not spend the time.

And that's just basically where I'm at. I guess, Mike, I can see there would be more concerns for folks when it's a development area, rural area part. But, I mean, I don't recall when we changed the rezonings on Burkmar, there being a lot. I mean, we talked about it moving from commercial to residential. I don't remember any CPA or any of that process being involved. So why would there even need to be an extra step? We made the change, and then I'm assuming those things got updated when we did the comp plan amendment or the comp plan update.

And and I think the the point here is it's that nuance. Of course, it's it's hard to capture all the different options that might happen. There's lots of different applications you come in as a wide array of circumstances. I think this is for those ones that are a little bit in the development area, especially. They're a little more complicated that we wanna touch base with you all early, and I I think it's a way to save the applicant has to pay a rezoning fee to begin with, so they're paying for some staff time.

And it gives us an opportunity to only really central questions of the conference of plan to bring it to the planning commission if need be to the board quickly and be like, you know, staffing, this is a really, you know, bad idea. We our recommendation is to die this. And so, hopefully, while the applicant David's being, you know, maybe not as direct. If if the the staff is recommending denial and the board and planning commission are agreeing this is a bad idea, it's a way to sort of just tell the applicant it's this is probably not going to go forward. They have the option under the state law to keep moving forward, but they're probably gonna end up with denial. No. I get it. But, you know, so it's it's I'm just saying that

there wouldn't have been a bunch of extra work done on those brick mark. What would have been extra?

Those ones were so much easier. We were exactly. There's one that was fairly simple. We were analyzing that with the rezoning at that time. You know, smaller, you know, relatively minor change that staff could see something. We may come straight to you with the rezoning.

I I think an example might be, a change in comprehensive plan land use designation, let's say, residential to industrial, and those happen to be sites that are are felt to be important industrial sites. So a larger Yeah. Discussion of are there replacement areas? Are we getting a high level of affordable housing? Is the proposal meeting other comprehensive plan or county policies? And how and so when there are those complexities and it's not, I think the Burkmaar drives were clearer answers because those uses approved were secondary

releases. Yeah. I get it. And, I mean, that's what That's the option that's available. When there aren't CPAs, we have people approaching us when in our districts about what would you think about and tell, and we have those conversations. And that's exactly what the what you're saying is for the CPA. So I don't Okay. See any reason. I just don't recall one ever happening since 2018. Right. It was initiated by through that process. I've had plenty of what if conversations with people, but none that got me to the point where I brought it to the board for my district and said, hey. Let's do this. So it was has there been any since 2018?

I I don't think since 2018. I think Stonefield actually was generated through that process. And then the board member kinda brought that forward. And and subsequently, an application was made, but it was because of board interest in seeing a change in that. So that's that's the biggest one I recall.

I would just my only concern being that there haven't been any is do people really know that that's what they're supposed to do? Like, if they knock on your door and they say, hey, Michael. How do I go well, you need to go contact supervisor Galloway and start the conversation. But if they don't get to you and they're just there are people that will look online, and if they don't see that defined, don't know to call or who to call or to make a call. Right. So is it a defined process out there?

Well, that's why I believe that's one of the other reasons we're coming back to you because what you're essentially doing or what we hope you do is sort of reinforce what the board did in 2018, and you understand the process that we would apply in pre application meetings or when we get a call. And this could be something that once we articulate can can be put out

our information. I guess the only other thing to be concerned about is if a or a person knocks on my door and I'm like, hell no. We're not doing that in the Ryo District, but five other supervisors would be a heck, yeah. We're doing that in the Ryo District. Then I guess they'd have to go knock on other supervisor doors if they're not satisfied with the district specific supervisor. So, I mean, all of that has I mean, that gets into some politics, which we're fine. We play in that a lot. But you have to you you have to be ready to tell people that. It wouldn't be like, well, sorry. Supervisor Galloway said no because supervisor Galloway can't can't say yes or no to anything that means anything without three or four others coming along with them.

So that part just has to be defined to people as well. And that happens now too with rezonings and special use permits. So the the frequent flyers know that know this bit. It's the ones that don't necessarily apply to us on an annual or regular basis that need to know that if they're going to do it, how how that process is supposed. So I just wanna make sure we're clear with potential applicants of how it should work.

And we've worked to create a clear system, you know, in preparation for this that ideas we're thinking about how to make it clear for the applicants, especially come to the second track.

Great. Is there I think you got direction. Is there any additional questions that we have?

I think I think I am hearing a general consensus certainly with one and some concerns, but agreement on two, but concerns about how that's processed to make sure that it's it's done efficiently and effectively.

And that staff time is is is managed carefully.

So Yep.

I'm I'm hearing consensus.

Supervisor Malik, different different

different question. The, transfer from industrial to residential. We're always being told we don't have enough industrial land because we gave away a thousand acres in ten years to that same process. And so we don't need to repeat that mistake now that the acreage is even smaller than it was in 2010. So that is not blaming this on any other process.

It's just that we I I'm not in favor of making this easier. This is a public process, a huge investment of time and resources in the comp plan. There is a separate process that can be done for applicants who are determined to try something. And I I'm very concerned about this timing trap that number two establishes where you cannot say and I don't know quite what you just described about doing an initial look and coming to the board. How are you gonna fit that in with the in the ninety days with all the other demands you have and not shortcut all the elements that have to be done? It's just I don't see it possible.

It's it's making the comments within the context of the process that we have now, which is first round of comments are due generally to an applicant within thirty to forty five days. And then what if there was a major concern about a proposal, the recommendation might be a negative recommendation, which we we would then advise to move forward to the planning commission and the board for guidance. So I I I understand your concern, but I think the the process would allow for that. We we we can make accommodations for that to go to the planning commission for a recommendation or for the board of supervisors for ultimately, board of supervisors for action.

Without the complete review being done. Because people will complain and say, well, you didn't finish the analysis, and then you went to the board and said, this is our early look. So that I mean, I just I'm seeing traps everywhere, and I just don't understand how we would avoid them.

Well, it is complicated. It's difficult to explain because there's nuances in every

new

zoning application. But I think the intent would be if we see that there's a project that is kind of we can't recommend approval for it. I think the applicant would also want a definitive answer about what the board's decision was, and they would accommodate scheduling it for action.

Yep.

If I may, I just want to make sure I'm thinking about this correctly. Like, we could have six out of six up here saying, I don't like two. It's fraught with errors, and we can't really get rid of it.

That's right.

Because at the end of the day, a ZMA is someone's right, and a ZMA can be in conflict with the comprehensive plan. And this is basically just the process of a ZMA that's in conflict. Can't Not the process. Right?

What we're

Two is just It's the how land use decisions proceed, and it's just how we entertain, how we think about the fact that it's noncompliant with the comprehensive plan. Either way, we have to hear it. We are legally required to hear it.

But what this is saying is that now the CAPA can be combined and slide through at the same time as the ZMA, which was not the case for thirty years.

I mean, we

So that's what I'm worried about is the compressing of these things into one already very short process and when they should have two because of all the time that's I mean, I take the comp plan very seriously, and I've got it's just, because the community thousands of Albemarle County residents have worked on it over the last fifty years, and it's important to remember that.

I mean, I think the case point, I brought it up already because I think it's it's indicative of the of the really explosive tension that this contains, I think, for both of us, right, is, like, Chestnut Grove. And I don't think you could say we shortchanged the comprehensive plan element in the Chestnut Grove conversation. I think it was very much centered on the comprehensive plan element because it was a it was a high density development in the rural area and and also the the practical implications of that philosophical change. So I think I hear your concern. I I we can't make it go away, and I I also don't think we shortchange it.

It it it's just we talk about it at the decision day, and we don't have two separate decision days.

I guess the last thing I will say is that nuance is a term that gives me the heebie jeebies because what it does is establish a public perception that different people have different rules. And it took twenty years to get rid of that for a while, and I'm really reluctant to see it come back in any way. So that's why we need to have really clear obligations and benchmarks, etcetera, etcetera, and not have the 2004 thing come back where, oh, don't worry about those conditions because they could go away. And you you as a citizen just don't get your knickers in a bind. So my knickers are continually in a bind. Nothing like that. And that will not stop either for at least twenty more years. Thank you very much.

I didn't see a look of shock on anybody's face. That's right. I know. But not to undermine or even counterpoint the point you just made, there are times where it's not about nuance or rules or different for different people. Context means that don't add the extra time. You don't want the extra time because of the cost. And that's what we got on Burkmar when we flipped those to residential that passed unanimously. Nobody was voting against that stuff to not change the land use function of the comp plan And all the housing that's going along Burkmar, all of that was not residential. So in that case, I would not wanna be adding extra time and don't think it's changed the rules. So it's it's just a matter of where it's at.

And, I mean, I I don't like when politics has to be interpreted by staff. That can get problematic. But I think there that anybody in that lives in this area knows that if it's a development area or rural area conversation, that it's gonna be a political element. Whereas if it's something inside of the development area that's moving from one to the other, the context is gonna be important as to whether or not it really flares up as a political item or not. But I don't want things being added time or cost to things, especially if it's if it's a matter of going from LI to residential or vice versa in some ways or changing it to multiuse if it's one or the other to get both because it just that seems to fly through the board in a lot of times, and and we're spoke focused more on impacts than land use changes.

I mean, steep slopes can be adapted to residential, whereas they can't for factories, for example. So you that I do agree that that was an important part for some of those things along Birkmar where you could put in separate buildings, but they would absolutely not work for what it was originally intended for.

But the conversation was more about the impact. Yeah. I mean, those would have had to come in for rezonings even if they weren't to get the density. So all of those other things would fall into play. Let's just not, you know, add an extra time or process. Alright. I think you guys got what you need from us.

I think I think we have our consensus that there's general agreement with this approach, and thank you very much. I apologize for not being able to manage a mouse early.

I know. We we keep track of things like that.

We do. Do. Won't get my ratings.

Thank you, David. Thanks, David. Alright. Board will go to the next item, which is item number 10, the affordable, rental housing incentive program, r a r a r alright. From and this is on Premier Circle Apartments, and doctor, Pethia is joining us. I see khaki moving up to is Stacy here? I thought I saw her. Oh, she was hiding back there too soon. Jacob moving forward as well.

I also am about the side the same height as grass, so I understand supervisor and. Even see her. Good afternoon. I'm Stacy Pethia, director of housing, and we are here today to speak with you about the affordable rental housing incentive program or RHIP for Premier Circle Apartments. I am joined with Jacob Sumner, chief finance officer, as well as Kaki Dimock, chief of human services.

And they are both here to ask, answer any questions you may have. So, as many several members of the board remember may remember, back in February 2024, you, the board approved, an incentive program, for affordable rental housing. It was, the the RHIP program was created to implement appendix 8.2 in the, county code of ordinances, which allows the county to provide grants or loans for the construction of affordable rental housing. Under the RHIP program, projects can be eligible for a grant, which is equal to 15% of the total taxes paid on the property each year, and that, incentive lasts for a total of thirty years. And to be eligible for, an RHIP incentive, the project must construct new affordable rental homes, or preserve them, in this form of, site acquisition.

Projects must contain at least 11 residential units, must be located within Albemarle County. The applicant must own or control the project site. The applicant must also have an approved rezoning of the site if that is applicable, and at least 20% of the total rental units in the project should be affordable, to households earning incomes at or below 60% of AMI. To apply for an RHIP incentive, the application process is noncompetitive, so applications are taken any time. The applications are then reviewed by housing staff and Department of Finance and Budget for program compliance and to determine what the amount of the incentive would be if approved.

The applicant's project budget must demonstrate that the affordable unit construction would not be feasible without the incentive. And again, final board has the final approval on whether or not the incentive is granted. So staff has been in contact with Piedmont Housing Alliance about an RHIP incentive for their premier apartments. Those are the apartments located at Premier Circle. It's the second phase of the project there. So once the Vista 29 or 80 units of permanent supportive housing is completed, PHA, which is gonna happen really soon, PHA will then start phase two and construct 60 units of low income housing tax credit financed apartments.

They will

be a mixture of one and one, two, and three bedroom units with the rents ranging from $733 a month for a one bedroom unit, which is affordable to households at with incomes at or below 30% of area median income up to a monthly rent of 1,962 units for a three bedroom apartment, and that's affordable to households up to 60% AMI. And there is a range of rents in between there for each bedroom size. Each unit and the building in general will be, designed to high energy efficiency, to save money on not just the, utilities for individual tenants, but for the property as well. And universal design, which is makes units accessible for persons with disabilities. Those universal design is applied to all units in the building itself.

Staff is recommending that the board approve an incentive for this project. The total rebate would be approximately $400,000 over the entire year incentive thirty year incentive period. And if the board approves the the incentive, then staff will work with the county attorney's office, Department of Finance and Budget, and Piedmont Housing Alliance to enter into a performance agreement. That performance agreement would outline the term of the grant, the annual grant amount, timeline for payments, and the affordability period. So we'll now open up to the board for any questions.

Alright. Supervisor Pruitt?

Thank you. I I have a a few questions about the instant project. And then because as as far as I can remember, this is the first we've had for RHIP, I have a few questions, and maybe comments also about the program. For for the first, can you remind us, this board has already, allocated monies for for Premier Circle. Can you, kind of give us a quick project history on that?

Certainly. The the the board did award, $2,025,000 several years ago to the project. Approximately 1,100,000 of that has been used for site acquisition. The remaining funds will be used toward will be put towards construction once that starts.

I I obviously am a huge supporter of the SupportWorks mission and this project. I also I I have to be thinking about, you know, board solvency and and funding use. Were we always expecting to pay more at this stage in the project, or is this kind of a this is a funding source that is available now, and they are always trying to figure out how to lower costs, and so why not apply for it? Like, which which of those buckets is it in, or is it a third secret option?

This would be the second option. This this helps to give them a stronger application for the low income housing tax credit financing.

K. So the the null hypothesis of us denying this is that the project moves forward, but its its pro form a is weaker, and it struggles more at at the LITECH application stage, which could delay opening, shift cost to a different government level. What what what is the what is the harm that is realized for the prospective tenant?

So with this project, it it it could potentially harm their low income housing tax credit application, which would mean they could potentially not get funding, and therefore, the units would not be built.

K. So the either the project as a whole or the total unit amount would be jeopardized by not having the the LITEC component, and this in turn benefits the LITEC component? Correct. Okay. Heard I have some minor frustrations. There's always cost creep in these. I don't think it's going to stand in the way of my support of it. But, I mean, this is a thing that is, I think, a perennial thing. We're like, ah, we we have a a big discussion and debate over whether or not the value for the first decision makes sense. We decide for it, and then in for opinion for a pound, we feel like we have to to obligate future requests.

Anyway, so you mentioned that this is the the first RHIP application that we've had.

That that is correct.

Or the first that's come to the board.

The first that has come to the board. I

can think of one other developer who I think is looking at our hip and has made an our hip application. I'm thinking of Bonaventure. Are there others in the hopper that we are expecting? Not at the moment. We've had two or three developers that have come through since the since we adopted the new inclusionary zoning standards that this also is kind of partnered with. Am I correctly understanding that none of them have applied to it also?

True. Correct. Not at this stage.

It looks like the application is literally, like, two pages and pretty plug and play, like, something I could do in five minutes. Is there additional developer staff work that is going on the back end that might be invisible to me?

They are required to provide a copy of their thirty year pro form a. We do not share that, but we don't want that to be public information since it is finance related. And so that is where a lot of that back end work goes into.

Has have developers expressed TBGBs on giving their pro form a to you?

Not not I mean, they don't they're fine giving it to us. They're not fine having it Right. People like. Yeah. I mean We have that information.

To now where I'm thinking with this. I remember in the, like, three years almost of discussion on developer incentives that happened before I was on the board. I I think we adopted developer incentives, like, on my second meeting, it felt like a thing where if I said no, I would be thumbing everyone's eye. But I remember in the years prior to that, it was mentioned several times that, like, the main thing that developers wanted to see was predictability. And it does feel like we then settled on something that gives the least amount or at least the developer perception is that it gives nonpredictability.

Because when I've had conversations with developers, they've said, oh, well, I don't know anything about that project or that funding opportunity, and it is explicitly discretionary to a board vote, which does not scream predictability to people. I had to like, with with Bonaventure, I had to very forcefully say to the CEO several times, like, I think we look at that as being, like, fait accompli if you're otherwise submitting something. Like, we are down to clown with this. This should not be where you're looking at uncertainty for him to believe it. And and so I I guess this is me just editorializing a bit.

I this is a applicant. It's the first one we received. It is also someone who knows they're going to get approved because they're a nonprofit partner that we are already in $2,000,000 in in the in the tent with, and we talk about and work together and have ribbon cuttings with the organization all the time. They know they're going to get the money, And they're the only ones who have come forward so far, which I think gestures to how this program needs to be restructured or reimagined if it's going to be able to be useful for anyone other than support works or that kind of person because I just don't think that expectation for it to succeed, it needs to have an expectation that it will be approved if anyone's going to go through the effort of applying to it, I think. And I don't think there's that expectation.

Yeah. And it also, I will just remind this board that I think there was an understanding that the inclusionary zoning standard is untenable but for this developer incentive, which I I I don't think that's unfair to say. We know it's very challenging. Developers have said even if they get the full amount, it's still challenging. It's just less challenging, which I think I combine that to understand a buck for the developer incentive.

The inclusionary zoning is impossible. I will say that Occam's razor in me almost says, do we just reduce the inclusionary zoning standard and get rid of this? Because that becomes instantly predictable and gets us to the same place as far as their pro formas. And if if that's out of whack with SaaS analysis or they think there's a a dimension or an objective of this that's being missed, I I I would love to hear it. Right?

I I see this as being kind of like a the pay for inclusionary zoning model, but but we're not fully offsetting the cost. So it's doing its own thing. So if there's an objective that I'm missing, help me out here. You lean forward, so I assumed you want to say something.

That's why

I was making my cut.

Jackie Demick, chief human services officer. I wanted to just offer that on August 5, we'll be having this opportunity to have a fulsome discussion with the board about housing Albemarle, including other components around developer incentives.

Okay.

Sorry. I didn't I I kicked us off too early then. We'll revisit it then. Thank you. Yeah. Just seeding that in the air for for some of the thoughts I have on this so far. Yeah. Appreciate you letting me go down that, that tangent.

Alright. Supervisor Duncan?

Well, I was gonna go down the same road as well. I this feels like a dumb question, but I don't understand why we're not just doing this by right for all affordable housing projects. Like, why are we not just basically funding the incentives with the future property tax? And if a developer, whether they're nonprofit or for profit, says we're gonna build x amount of affordable housing, then great. Here is, you know, the incentive grant just automatically, and then you know that you're gonna your affordable housing units are gonna be offset by some of this, which helps make it more affordable.

They don't have to raise as much prices on the market rate to sort of, you know, subsidize the affordable housing. Why are we not just sort of by right subsidizing affordable housing?

Miss Demick or

Well, I mean, it's a funding decision, so that's rest solely with us. So we have to if we just carte blanche did that, I mean, you could, but I don't know how that would, you know, when you set up these type of agreements, there are a lot of legal documents that get put in there. So it's gonna add process and time even if the approval might be a slam dunk. No different than when we give something to the y. And if they don't do what they say they're going to do, they need to get there needs to be the recourse and have that come back.

So just like spending x amount of dollars on a department, we need to know, well, what is it? Who's it going? Where is it going? What is it gonna be used for? And then, otherwise, we would just be relinquishing over our authority over the funding responsibility we are charged with.

Right. I mean, because, yeah, this has a performance agreement, but but you could have a performance agreement for every development that has affordable housing.

Well, you could, but we tried to make a process where to some of the stuff supervisor Pruitt was talking about was that they would know if they had the incentive before they put their application in. So that was the predict answer to the predictability piece. And I've yet to have a developer explain it back to me the correct way. So I know there's some out there that just go, I don't know what it is, so I don't ask for it. And it's like, well, you know I've said that in public multiple times.

I'm not gonna get in trouble by saying it again. I mean, you could. You could do that. I mean but it's it's no different than economic development projects. We it's tax dollars. We're gonna have to answer for it. So if you're saying that you're okay with just doing it without any sort of oversight and just allowing it to happen as a matter of automation, well, then that would be have to be a different discussion that the board would have.

We had that discussion when we adopted it. I think I'd said the same thing that supervisor Duncan had been, and this counterpoint was raised. I even, like, went through the stages of of loss. I bargained and said, what if we, what if it was on the consent agenda? And I think where we came with is we would need to see a few of these first before we start moving them to to

Now it was also specific to filling the gap between the parameters we were changing. So we had a project that we just the only one that we've done under the new one or one of the few, if you remember on Woodbrook Road, we had the small project where we allowed the residential up top over the dental dental offices. And I think there's only gonna be, like, 10 or 11 units. Well, they could do the 20% because it was one unit, and they didn't need developer incentives to do it. So part of the reason we collect the pro form a is that they have to prove that it's what is needed to close the gap.

So if it's just done by right, we they they might it just might be the extra cash versus the the proofs in the pudding of going, we actually need it to get to 60% AMI or get it to the units. So there's at least that check on it, but, I mean, I don't know. Haven't thought about it other than these last few minutes.

Just a minute.

Was that all you had? Supervisor Malik?

Thank you very much. Many of my questions are already answered. The so going back to the original award, which supervisor Pruitt asked about, so the 1.1 has been delivered to them already, and that's been spent. That's correct. And the rest will what are the benchmarks for the rest of the distribution on that that's already come, and what information will you have about the origin of tenants, etcetera, to make sure that the county residents get a shake to live in?

That is all collected annually from nonprofits. We do the same thing for performance agreements with Brookdale, and and there was another rental housing with Southwood performance agreement. So annually, we collect the information on the households, the renters, and the homebuyers, what their incomes are, how large they are. So all

of that will be provided to us. And the other question is how how what information do we have that these are Albemarle County residents who are gonna be benefiting from the $2,000,000 in tax money as opposed to someone who comes from So

we cannot limit who applies to live in the building. That, would be a violation of fair housing, regulations. So it is generally we have a lot of Albemarle County residents that apply. They call us all the time, one waiting list open. So we will have their information, as much as we can get about where they came from, but we generally do not ask for their originating address.

Okay. I mean, somehow, I was just listening to the radio all the way in, and counselor Snook was talking about how they had identified x percent of the the homeless in Charlotte and the city were from Albemarle County and the city. And I'm thinking, well, how did they find that out? So that prompted me to ask you how you find out, because somebody obviously has the information, but that would not be part of our original award. I mean, it's been a concern for a long time because the county's put in the grand majority of the money for this and diverted from other things to do this.

And it's a good idea of I mean, the crossings over here is a spectacular success from all the people with whom I've spoken from its opening day when we toured over there to recently. And so I get that how important it is. I just really would like to make sure that somebody's keeping track. The I am sensitive to the concerns about this is just the sort of LITEC game, and we're just one of the, one of the players in there. So I hope that there will be some other applications that come forward, and I get it if it's mostly nonprofits who are actually delivering the housing that we actually need instead of more 80% stuff that we probably don't, then, I'm I'm happy with that.

The 20 of so somewhere I wrote down right before Kaki spoke, reduce inclusionary zoning standard and get rid of the process, gets us to the same place. I don't know what that means. Was that something you said?

That's something I said.

20% in thirty years, is that the standard that we were talking you were talking about particularly?

Yes.

Oh, okay. That was my guess, but I wanted to verify that. Alright. Well, thank you. That's all my questions. Thank you.

Supervisor Lapisto, currently?

This is the 60 proposed units as part of a phase two. Correct?

That's correct.

And is that but the 144 that is phase one, those are completely separate. Correct?

Right. So phase one is 80 units, which are under construction now, and they should be, beginning to lease up by the end of this year. And then phase two is the 60 units that Piedmont Housing Alliance

will will Okay. So this is all part of the 140 total units. Okay. Just going by there. Because I'm I'm fascinated by what supervisor, Duncan said regarding why can't we do it for profit and nonprofit agencies. Is the is the thinking and please let me know. Is the thinking that if we go with nonprofit, it's going to be less expensive that they can build affordable housing that's less expensive than a for profit?

The incentive is is available to for profit developers as well, and we are under discussion with one at the moment. Part of the reason going back to supervisor Duncan's question as to don't we just do this automatically. There is some flexibility baked into this program, which is part of what we're doing now with with the the current applicant is walking through the exact mix of units. So it it allows there to be some flexibility in what they provide and how they provide it. So instead of just providing 20% of the units at 60 of area median income, it could be, you know, 5% of the units at, 30% of area median income.

So there were the the program has some flexibility to to alter, to to meet that 20% benchmark. And it it's the process of going back and forth and working through that with the developer and their pro form a and our department of finance to find that nice sweet spot that lets everything work. And so that's that's why these can sometimes take a long time to to come to the board because there's a lot of back and forth and discussion between county staff and the developer.

Well, I do commend you because I have I I know I've spoken with developers who would like to have that kind of flexibility. They can't meet the strict 60% or 80%, but a combination of both, you know, certain percentages that they can, meet that. Are they going more do you see that the developers are going more for rentals rather than homeownership?

Well, this program is only available for rental units.

Okay. And do we have a list a ready list of renters once these all these become available?

We do have some. Yes. But we so we shared the information with the people that we have on our list, but they still need to qualify for that property. You know, each rental property has tenant tenant standards, for lack of a better word. So they they have to meet, you know, their their income qualifications. You need generally two and a half to three times the monthly income than what your rent is. They generally have credit score minimum credit scores to rent. So everyone will still need to meet the the rental requirements for that property.

But we don't have the same requirements for Premier Circle that we do for other nonprop other affordable rentals, other developments that are being built, or do we?

No. No. So the only requirement that the county really focuses on is household income. So to qualify for a rental unit that is subsidized with county funds, whether it's through RHIP or or the housing fund, then rental properties, the household would need to make, at this point, 60% of area median income or less for their family size. And if it was for home ownership, then they would have to their income would need to be 80% of area median income or less. That's the only requirement that we set. Rental requirements, tenancy requirements for each individual property differ by property, and and if it's a nonprofit by the funding mechanism that they use.

Okay. So now that we are having a a number of affordable units both for homeownership and rental being built, I know I've asked you this probably at least 10,000 times, but do we have a list for Wait. Wait. People that qualify. Enough Hornfield what we what is coming online.

Correct. So we have a list of people that are interested in renting or purchasing an affordable unit that the county has supported in some way or developers have proffered. But all we do is say that they meet the income guidelines for the county program. Then they have to go and qualify for a mortgage, or they have to go and qualify to rent that unit. So we have names that we can, that we can send the information to, and then those people, individuals, need to go to that rental property and apply.

Okay. Do we have the data as to how successful that's been or or is in the process of being?

It it it's a it's an ongoing process. The proffer units are very slow to come online, particularly the the ones to purchase. And so we have not had many come through since we've had people since we've started that list.

So we have so we have a list, but we don't have a lot of people applying for that?

Don't have a lot of units coming online Coming online. To purchase or rent. Okay. Do we

know how many units are coming online for affordable units coming online? Either rental or There were not off the top

of my head. No. I would have to go find that.

Okay. Thank you very much. That's all.

I don't have any questions. Most of my commentary of why we haven't seen more of this for for developers, but I don't need to weigh this conversation down with that. The remember is the tax rate as we're thinking about how we can help support that that the cash that we put in is one thing, but this is deferred revenue. This isn't actual cash coming out of the coffers. So this doesn't come out of AHIP. This this doesn't need a line item budget other than adjustments when we do our revenue projections based on what's in our inventory. I was a little surprised because it's just this. This is the front property, the one that's right on 29.

This this

There's, like, three lots there. Right?

Correct. So this is the site where the motel used to be, the red carpet in.

The one they're building now?

The ones they're building now, they this this these 60 units will be located behind that.

So it's the back lot.

Because there's three

plots. So this would be for the third one that's all the way in in the I was trying to when and looking at the land value, trying to when I saw 400,000 over thirty years, it didn't seem like a lot. Is that the full 15% just for that plot of not it's not all three. It's just that one. It is. It's just off the the back lot, and it's based off of the estimate of what we think the assessed value will be After it's built. After it's full build out

price.

But for the whole property? I mean, it's a 100% affordable anyway. Yes. For the for this back parcel. I mean, I understand how it makes them more competitive for LideTech.

It's just the the frustration's not with us or that they've even asked. It's the fact that it was designed to get for profit projects going further. And the fact that, you know, the fact that that hasn't been happening with some more frequency or for us to be able to figure these things out at the board level has been frustrating. I'll just make the one point about serving whether I think I see this a little differently about whether they're Albemarle or where they live. Because once they live there, they're Albemarle.

We're turning them into Albemarle residents. Now there's a lot of people that call themselves Buckingham And Greene County and and Rockingham County residents right now that used to call themselves Albemarle. So this these are the mechanisms by which we're trying to get them back to be able to be called an Outmoor County resident. So I'm fine with supporting the affordable place to live, and this is for 60 units and what that whole project's gonna do and with the supports that Virginia supportive housing's gonna have on-site for the folks living there to make them be successful because the idea is that they move on to the next unit from that success, and then this unit gets turned over to the next person to help them transition. So I'm all in on on the investment on this one. Did you have additional comment?

Very quick question, practical, about this application and also, I guess, about eligibility generally. On the slide where you talked about eligibility criteria, one of them was universally accessible design. I know that's a term that gets used a lot in local government and government, like, design elements, but I'm thinking about it in the housing context. Is it any additional criteria on top of what's already implemented in the fair housing amendments?

I I don't have an answer for that. I'd have to go and and read the fair I I don't have the fair housing amendments.

I also know that accessibility is a place where people's language gets the frequency with which I encounter the phrase ADA unit in my work, which is not a thing that exists for the public. Their ADA units don't exist. It is extreme. And so I I know that the language around here can be messy. So I I would if there is a additional criteria on disability accessibility that we are requesting that differs from FHA, I'd I'd just be curious.

Yeah. I I I don't believe so. So, these would be not fully 100% accessible, but they do what they the these units will have sort of the wider doorways and and larger bathrooms and kitchens. They do not go the full sort of UFAS, which is the uniform yeah. Forgot what UFAS stands for. Sorry. That would be the the the the federal standard for accessible units. So universal design doesn't go quite that far, but it makes it easier for those units to be converted into full accessible units in the future.

I was just thinking, like, the the disability accessibility standards of FHA would automatically apply to any unit that this applies to because they would be built since '91. And so I yeah.

I I think with I I could be I know most federal funding programs require a certain percentage minimum to be built to accessibility standards, and so this surpasses that, that requirement. Thank you. That's all I had. Any others?

Just could you talk a little more, maybe or Stacy, I always assume that the wider doors, you know, the wheelchair accessible drawers, lower counter lowers. Mean, I is that what we're talking about, or are we talking about something else?

So universal design standards are really geared towards making sure that anyone can access the unit and visit it. And so the full accessibility standards, which is where you have countertops that can lower or or built lower to begin with, the the roll in showers, there's there's there's sort of the there's minimum standards, and then universal design is a higher standard, and then you go to the full accessibility. So this is sort of in the middle, and and and it surpasses surpasses what federal regulation funding reg funding programs require at the percentage of units. Okay.

Wow. Thank you.

Alright. If there are no other questions, this is a a action item. We would look I'd be looking for a motion to approve the resolution as in attachment b.

I do have a motion if you would like to.

I would suggest that the board simply adopt the the resolution attached as attachment b. Yes, sir.

K.

Motion? Sure.

I would like to move that the board adopt the resolution attached as attachment b.

Second.

Alright. Without further without objection, if the clerical please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?

Yes.

Miss Lapides secretly? Aye. Miss Malik? Yes.

Alright. Very good. Thank you very much. Board, we're at our recess point. We're running a little behind schedule. So if we could do a ten minute recess, we'll come back for the next item. Yes. Thank you. And we'll move to the next item on our agenda, which is number 10. Nope. Number 11, climate action program updates and proposed projects presentation. And mister Dumars from the our director of facilities environmental services is joining us. Good afternoon.

Thank you, board members. Happy to be here today. So, again, I'm Jeff Dumars, director of facilities environmental services. Also have Greg Harper, the chief of environmental services here, and, Jamie Powers, the climate program, manager.

And, Jeff, I'm just gonna ask you to either point those mics up or raise that podium a little bit.

And use your teacher voice.

Thank you. Excited to be here today to talk about, the climate program. We're gonna, on the agenda is to give you an update on the overall program and then talk about our f y, '26, successes of projects and then also, outline the proposed use of the f y '27 funding. Agenda for the presentation, give you a climate action program, updates regarding staffing, and the overall program objectives, and then, go over the emissions inventory status, as well as f y 2627 projects. So the program updates.

Albemarle County's commitment to sustainability is deep, and albo Albemarle County uses a whole budget or whole organization commitment to sustainability. This includes greenhouse gas emissions reductions and long term climate adaptation, goals. Rather than isolating climate action, into a single budget line item or program, we integrate sustainability and climate action priorities throughout the organization, including, our annual budget process and most all of the services provided to the county to achieve sustainability goals and serve our residents. The key investments that were in the f y twenty seven budget approved in April, this for next year include a a litany of of key investments, including, substantial investments in public safety, transit, affordable housing, water resources, community services, and the like. These are multimillion dollar investments in critical funding and actions, and these all are needed to achieve, our sustainability, climate action, and climb climate adaptation goals and targets.

Again, this is a whole budget, whole organization approach, ensuring that climate readiness is not an add on, but a core operating principle aligned, with fiscal responsibility and our community expectations. Today, we're gonna talk about specifically the climate action program, and this program is led, by dedicated staff within the facilities environmental services department, which I'll refer to as FES. We coordinate planning, implementation, and reporting on climate action goals and initiatives across the organization and broader community, and we partner with community stakeholders to advance, very broad climate goals. Our group provides technical expertise, strategic guidance, and project management support to ensure county initiatives are efficient, effective, and aligned with priorities of the organization. We are committed to excellent stewardship of public resources to advance countywide greenhouse gas emissions reductions as well as county operational emissions reductions.

This works includes clear clarifying the strategies needed to achieve the board emissions reduction targets and squarely focused on reducing reducing emissions 45% below 2008 levels by 2030. This is coming up. We developed focused, measurable approaches for achieving both community wide reductions as well as our operational reductions. Last year in FY '26, we shifted our our focus from planning and outreach efforts towards implementation of efforts, and projects that directly reduce, greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, and prioritize our efforts to deliver deliver measurable on the ground emissions reductions. To best implement this, this focus, FES recently executed a strategic organizational update to provide additional project management capacity, expertise, and technical support to the climate action program.

FES recently did a a FES, organizational assessment, and you'll probably hear more about that later. But, lots of recommendations came out of that, including additional staffing for the climate action program. This, this recommendation was the first thing we attacked and and actually tried to, provide, and looked to, to satisfy, the staffing needs of the climate action program first out of this assessment. We did this through a reorg to accelerate the delivery of initiatives and produce measurable return on investment, based on emission reduction, resilience resiliency or adaptation targets or other, appropriate metric. So we've, dedicated two new project manager positions focused on sustainability and climate action efforts, one within, our our project management group and one within public works.

Both new positions are dedicated to climate action and sustainability. The first position is a senior project manager energy, sustainability, and resilience. Fundamentally, this position is an energy management professional and, focused on, facility upgrades and operational initiatives to drive efficiencies in kill in county building operations as well as similar countywide initiatives. The other position is a project manager for sustainability environmental projects, and this position will add project management and implementation expertise to the program. We're looking, to develop expertise in advanced, green building rating systems, such as USGBC lead or Virginia Energy Conservation Environmental Standards or other, building standards, green globes or others, and also apply the expertise, throughout the department.

This this position would report to our deputy chief of project management, and this is the group that is implementing our $200,000,000, capital project program. So we're really looking to ex fully use utilize the department in supporting the climate action objectives. So in f y twenty seven, there is climate action funding from the board for $300,000 in onetime special board appropriation. In addition, the the department will invest a $150,000 in operational funding to support projects. We will address, focus this these funding on addressing the two largest sectors of emissions producers, one, transportation and, two, buildings emissions.

Transportation emissions fundamentally are reduced by developing projects that decrease vehicle miles traveled. We gotta get folks out of single occupancy vehicles into other modes of travel or improve vehicle efficiency, I. E, electric cars. The building emissions sector, are reduced by developing projects that decrease energy usage, improve energy, efficiency, or transition energy sources. So to implement these projects, we've updated our objectives of the program, and they're listed here on the screen.

There are six updated objectives to guide the implementation of of projects with this funding. The first bullet, we're staying results results oriented. Similar to last year, we intend to implement projects that directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower in energy consumption. We wanna prioritize efforts that deliver measurable on the ground emissions reductions. The second bullet, we wanna lead by example.

We're looking to advance reductions in our county operational GHD emissions by implementing projects that directly support achieving the county's twenty thirty operational emissions reduction targets. We can achieve this target, we can be a leader in doing that. We wanna do that. As part of that, we wanna capture the savings as a part of those projects to support additional work. As we implement, projects with the board funding and use it for operational improvements on our on ourselves, so to speak, we wanna calculate the the cost savings and track that and seek to reinvest those savings in long term as a long term funding source for future climate action initiatives.

The fourth bullet, we wanna build momentum through strategic pilots. Again, this funding is not the entire climate program. We have a much broader whole organization, whole whole budget process. But with these funds, we wanna use the board funding to implement well designed pilot projects that prove concepts, accelerate broader implementation, and strengthen strengthen the county's ability to secure future funding. And then the last two pull bullets are really good housekeeping.

We're gonna improve our program reporting by strengthening the evaluation and the reporting, in general, by developing developing clear metrics, documenting measurable emissions reduction outcomes, and assessing the the return on investment ROI. And you'll see that today when the the projects are presented. And then lastly, with the reorganization and other efforts, we look to, improve program performance and capacity, really leverage the full capabilities of the entire organization, the community as well, but especially, the FES project management and operational expertise to build capacity and enhance the overall performance of the program. With that, I'm gonna hand it over to Greg, and he'll talk about the emissions inventory and the f y 26 and f y 27 projects. Hello?

Thank you, Jeff.

I think I've maxed out the height of this table. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm gonna give you a little bit of context as I usually do when I talk about climate action at the county by talking about the the emissions from the community. This board in 2,017 set targets based on 2008 emission levels of a 45% reduction by 2030, which is only four years away at this point, and a net zero emissions by 2050. And, the last inventory we've been able to do is from 2022.

That's not unusual because there is a delay in getting the data necessary to do the inventories. In fact, I was just at the EPA website today, and their last inventory was from 2022 as well. I know the city of Charlottesville has done one more year, '23, recently. But as of 2022, this is how the emissions from community wide sources look. Most of them are in transportation.

We have a big county, lots of miles of of roads in this county. The next biggest source is from buildings, 31. The next biggest source is from the landscape, including agricultural activities and, forest reduction. When you lose forest, you lose sequestration. We've factored that into our inventory.

And then there's a small amount of emissions associated with organic waste that produces methane when it's landfilled. So that's the general proportions, and you could see here that over time, our emissions community wide has has dropped fairly significantly. The target line is actually the target or the the the numbers necessary to reach the 2030 target. So you could see in 2020, the year of COVID, we actually were below our target, and we've unfortunately been coming up since then. I think just coming out of that that period of of less activity during COVID.

So you you get a sense of where we're at. So we're we're kind of near, I would say, the the target level in order to reach our twenty thirty emission goals. And it you could also see on the, y axis there the the greenhouse gas emissions totals. So we started above, 1,800,000 metric tons of c o two equivalent, and, we need to to from today or from 2022, we still need to drop about 400,000 metric tons of, of carbon per year, in order to meet that 2030 target. So I'll review our fiscal year twenty six projects now, and you probably remember this.

But there was a a special appropriation of $300,000 in fiscal year twenty six from from this board. That was combined with $200,000 that was carried over from previous years to equal $500,000, and that's that first column. In addition to that, and Jeff mentioned this a a minute ago, there there have been additional sources of of climate funds. The the bottom two rows are essentially the $100,000 in operating funds that we typically get per year, and there was actually a $150,000 contribution from housing to one of the programs that we'll talk about next. So there was actually a $750,000 investment just from FES programs last year towards climate action.

So the the first item on the list was this 387 total thousand dollars committed towards, some energy improvements in low income housing. This is, kind of piggyback on some AHIP work that is typically done. So it's it's just kinda builds on that work. If they're there to do some work on a roof or structural work, they and they see a need for some energy efficiency improvements, they'll they'll use some of this money to to make those improvements happen. So today, they got started a little late this fiscal year, but today, they've, did 26 retrofits in, homes.

And, there isn't a funding, however, to do probably a total of closer to 74 home retrofits, so they haven't nearly completed the work this fiscal year with that funding. With the completion of 74 homes, there will be a 75 metric tons of c o two equivalent reduction. So that's about one metric ton per home. And and we're talking about weatherization work. We're talking about replacing a an old heat pump with a new one, things like that.

So that's the kind of work that we're doing, and and this is a kind of a combined effort between AHIP and LEAP for this this work. We've also invested a $100,000 into some upgraded lighting fixtures at four fire stations and outbuilding at at the NC Community Center. I was just looking at a New York Times article earlier in this week, and believe it or not, twenty five years ago, lighting was the biggest energy consumer in homes and businesses. But since compact fluorescents have come around LED lights, it's dropped, like, to the to the lowest, you know, user. So but but still, when we're talking about old lighting and old buildings, if if you replace that lighting, you could see a a seven year return on investment.

So in seven years, we'll have paid for that work, and then another seven years, we'll have saved a $100,000 roughly or more. We're also supporting the second year of the energy resource of I know you've heard about this before. We're coosupporting this with the city of Charlottesville at a level of $63,000 per per entity. That is a that is a website, but it's also a a staff person called a navigator who can help people connect to funding from federal, state, local levels. Because it's really hard if you're a homeowner to to know where the money is, to know where the incentives are.

So this is a way to kind of, like, leverage that external outside funding in order to do improvements here in the county. So so far in the first year of its existence, there have been 31 homes and 15 businesses that have actually followed through with with energy upgrades using funding from external sources, and that has resulted in about 33 metric tons of, c o two reductions. We're also, using about $50,000 to to support various, community and county initiatives, to, kind of change people's behavior, including our own. For instance, you'll see that little, UTV there that, we're helping Parks and Rec purchase. It's an electric UTV.

It's gonna replace, one of those dirty, smelly, you know, whatever, just regular gasoline powered UTVs. So, just little things like that. We're trying to get parks and rec staff hooked on the idea of electric electrifying their their fleet of of vehicles like this, their chainsaws, and whatever else they use. We're also working with organizations locally to do some tree planting and native vegetation planting, at Western Park, in order to sequester carbon in the soil and the trees. And we're working with the community bikes organization locally to, to promote biking through education, helmets, things like that, especially geared towards kids.

So I know you have heard of Resilient Together. That's a cooperative, thing between the city, county, and UVA, to develop a climate resilience, plan. We are using some of the money to replace a terminated EPA grant that we had at one time and lost to support organizations to service liaisons for us to outreach to their constituents in the community so that we have a more robust community engagement process that is going to inform this climate resilience plan. So they've conducted three events. There were a total of about 60 attendees.

And from that, we have about a 160 resilience recommendations to consider as we put together our resilience plan. Those three events did not cost $50,000, by the way. That is what's available. That costs much, much less than just the single thousands, but their work is not done. Leap, as you know, we annually support Leap through our operating funds, to do home energy audits.

Those home energy audits often, result in homeowners deciding, well, I I now know I have enough information in order to make a decision about what I should do to make my home, more efficient, whether it's weatherization again or whether it's replacing equipment like a heat pump or something like that. So, again, like, the 39 home energy audits have resulted in 11 retrofits, and that's basically probably six months of this fiscal year's work. There were there is more to be done. It has not, again, used the total $86,000 yet. But after all the work is done with that $86,000, we anticipate 96 metric tons of c o two emissions reductions.

We're also using a little bit of money of operating funds to to just do annual outreach and education oftentimes towards students. So, we support, c three's work to put together climate action kits for fourth graders, and that's been very popular, and it's probably in year four now. There was also, for the first time, a climate summit for AP environmental science students. Some of you may have participated in that. That was really successful.

There were, like, a thousand students or 1,100 students that participated in that event. And we also use some of the money just to support local community climate events. So, yeah, so some of the, work we do, some of the most important work we do doesn't require funding because it's it's just like it's things like this. It's it's county code review. So Jamie's been working with folks in our CDD department who, as they review as they do their zoning modern modernization work, he's gonna he's gonna apply a climate lens to the the zoning code to see if there are opportunities to change zoning in order to change the way we build in this community to to be more climate positive.

So that's some that's some long term work that will pay off in the long run more than this fiscal year, say. We're also working the next bullet is internal climate action support. The intent of that is to kind of connect with people as they come in to do business at the county office offices. So, whether it's CDD or or any other group, as somebody comes in for a building permit, as somebody comes in for any other thing, maybe it's real estate, we, wanna offer them some opportunities to change the way they think about how they're planning to build and improve and develop and things like that. So it's it's a it's a it's long work.

It's it's like trying to figure out, what levers to pull, to make our community, a little bit more climate friendly and climate resilient, by by, you know, working with people at the very beginning of of their in intended, projects. We've also developed sustainable operations policies or not policies, but, yeah, recommendations that we're going to continue to try to incorporate into the way we do business here at the county. So that, includes fleet. It includes the way we build our own buildings and maintain them, and it also includes the way we manage landscapes. You probably also heard about the the Cobb 5th Street, solar installation that is is kind of still in design.

It's last I heard, the schedule was gonna be, like, construction begins late this calendar year or early next calendar year, and that's through a PPA, a power purchase agreement, where we're not paying for it, but a company is going to install it and own it. And we're gonna get reduced rates on electricity, and they're going to make a little bit of money too, obviously, to pay off their investment. But it'll save us money. It'll certainly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our operations. The charging smart, sole smart certifications, kinda build on that second bullet where we're trying to basically reduce barriers to people trying to either put solar on their home or businesses or to in install charging infrastructure.

We wanna make it as easy as possible to lower those those hidden costs to doing that kind of work and make it easy for people. And we can get a certificate certification at different levels for for the the amount of work we do in in that realm. And then, of course, we're we're still working on the development of a climate resilience plan, and that will probably play out all through fiscal year twenty seven as well. Okay. The last slide, and then we can open it up for questions.

But as Jeff mentioned earlier, the main buckets we're focusing on are transportation and building energies. Those are the the big sectors of community emissions. And so the the transportation bucket is a $125,000 roughly. We envision incentivizing or building EV charging infrastructure either at our county properties, or we can assist commercial properties within the county urban area to build public available charging infrastructure. I think he already mentioned community incentives, or maybe I was just talking with somebody in the audience about this.

But we're we're thinking we're imagining an incentive program here at the county office building where, you know, if if we can get people to to ride their bike to, you know, to work, lower emissions, maybe we can offer some sort of incentive to for people to do that. And then the infrastructure connect neighborhoods, this kind of, like, builds on the the bike bike week thing we saw earlier where sometimes people would be happy to to walk or get on their bike to go from point a to point b, but maybe there's something that blocks them for doing that. Like, it's a a creek or something like, that. So, this project would, support, the construction of a bridge, for instance, over a creek to allow folks who live in a neighborhood to access businesses and other types of things like on the other side of that creek, lowering, you know, if you close miles traveled, lowering greenhouse gas emissions. In the building energy use category, the city has been offering these residential and commercial micro grants.

So grants up to $22,000, I think, is what they cap it at. So the idea is to model on the city's program something for county residents because we heard through the energy resource hub that there were a lot of people very interested, who just, like, lived right outside the city, and they thought they lived in the city, but they were told, I'm sorry. You you you don't have access to this grant program because you live in the county. So folks don't even know that. So we're trying to, you know, reduce that big jump of services and incentives when you cross that that city county line.

We want to put a little bit more money into some building energy efficiencies as as was already discussed. Maybe not lighting this time, but maybe something else. And then we wanna continue to support the energy resource hub because it's been very successful in getting people to to change the way they do things. And then other things, the last category is really our operating funding for this year. And, again, we're gonna continue to support LEAP's energy smart program, which we already talked about, continue education and outreach, and, for the first time, really look at, what we could do to reduce the amount of organic waste that is going to a landfill, whether it's curbside pickup or some other programs, so that we're not creating that that gas, that methane gas that's gonna add to the carbon emissions.

I think that's the the last slide. Be happy to take any questions from anybody.

Yeah. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt?

Sure. So I've I've got a few. I hope you'll forgive me. I wanna start with the the transportation infrastructure piece that that y'all are investing in. And let me kind of

27?

Yes. Okay. Let me kind of back into this by saying I've had a had conversations with Josh Karp, the ebike library operator and biking advocate. He once lobbied me for a comparable program to what the city has and has since changed his tune. I don't wanna misrepresent his position, but he has said, basically, I now think that every dollar you could invest in knee bike program would be better spent on building better bike transit infrastructure because the latter doesn't help without the former.

And so I'm excited to see the level of investment, but I'm also thinking, you know, you're setting aside 70 k. And I know we spent, what, 2,000,000 just doing the ADA upgrades to the bridge at Wood Woolen Mills and a a bridge, which is what's mentioned in the summary that's sent to us. So I guess I would ask, can you give me a picture of what you can accomplish in a year with that amount? Because I I feel pessimistic.

Mhmm. So I I do

not think we can build a bridge for $70,000. This is more envisioned, and we don't have the details now. So, the the intent of this presentation is to, present the buckets of money and so that we're ready on July 1 of being in the fiscal year to, work on projects. The 70,000, again, could not fund a full bridge.

This is really It might have been contemplating, like, a bridge like we have on the Ravana Trail. Those are bridges that have been built too.

Yes. So either a smaller project or leveraging some other funding in combination with transportation funding or CDD funding or other funding or private funding, but generally looking for that type of project to support with this funding. Sure.

Okay. I this is one of these things that I'm almost wondering if the amount we're setting aside almost becomes more symbolic than productive. I'm, like, trying to think of the greenhouse cutting transit or transportation investments that we could make that would actually be impactful at this level. Right? Like, I put a curb cut at every at every corner of an intersection, one intersection, I've probably blown my budget. Right? Because the a curb cut and a bump out cost about a a Honda Civic is what I tell people all the time. And correct me if you think I'm wrong. Y'all y'all are the professionals, but that's that's about right. Like, 20.

Think, well, I guess, civics are more expensive than that now. So I I guess I'd I don't need an answer on this. I would be interested to know if we're trying to shave it so thin that it's no longer accomplishing anything and should either be repurposed somewhere else, or we should cut other projects in order to actually contribute more to to transportation infrastructure so that it can be meaningful. And maybe that's, like, a post year evaluation question of what were we able to accomplish with this bucket. I I just am curious, and this is also a a get back to me on it.

In the proposal that's in the packet, right, Leap is has three different buckets that it's benefiting from. And I'm also thinking Leap is a beneficiary of home and CDBG funds, which I'm not actually sure. This is more of an Andy question. If that even shows up on our books because we're not the entitlement community. I don't know if we show up as the pass through for that or not, but it it could be helpful at some point to have a a fuller picture.

They also don't currently receive agency funding request funds, but I think they had in the past. A fuller picture of all the directions funding is coming from the county and local government toward LEAP, because I I am not sure if this is all of the funding we're giving to LEAP, but there's other directions other like, I just happen to know about the CDPG funds, and it wouldn't be discussed in here otherwise. So that that could be helpful at some point. Is is availing yourself of the energy hub, is that a means or income restricted thing?

The energy resource hub? No. But the energy smart programming is

Got it. That's

The

this could be a question or it could be a comment depending on if you have already thought about this. I know our our friends over at the university have a commuter program. It's it's software enabled. There's, like we receive presentations on it at the RTP and now Carta somewhat regularly. They have internal tracking.

It's used to, like, quantify amounts of rebates, I think. If if you have not touched base with opposite numbers at the university, it could be valuable, especially if the if this is a commercial off the shelf product that could be acquired at low cost or is open source for free, that would be even better. But if that's something we could just drag and drop, I just want to point that out for for your utilization. Now just a few kind of bigger picture things. First, kind of directly on this because we talked about resilient together.

Can you give us an update on the the nature right. Together is in the word for it. What is the nature and status of the collaborative and combined planning component of that? Because I know the project has changed both because the federal floor dropped out from under it, and, also, there's been some scoping changes. Can you and and I've also heard some community concern about this. Can you kind of ground truth us on this?

So, resilient together is proceeding. It was always envisioned, from the start that the three agencies would produce separate resilient together plans or resilient, climate resiliency and adaptation plans, and that plan is is moving forward. So, each entity will develop a separate plan, but we will continue to reengage and coordinate priorities, implementation, hopefully, into the long term. Absolutely.

When is the is there a specific step in the parts to come of, like, noggin touching with the other government stakeholders, or is the understanding that we we touch noggins at the beginning and now we stay in our respective Nope.

So we will definitely, coordinate and and are coordinating with leadership, at the from the city and county level, and we'll reinstitute the monthly, coordination meetings at the project staff level as well. And that will go throughout the, plan drafting stage as well as implementation and approval stages. And we, coordinating with the city, we're on the same timeline, similar timeline as they are for drafting for reviewing a draft plan, and, planning for some sort of, ad ad up type of a plan in the into this calendar year. Great.

And the last thing, not sure I would have talked about it, but it was talked about at the beginning. And so I do think it's worth also addressing because it's something I hear from the community a lot with normally try and stay in my lane and leave staffing decisions exclusively to staff and policy decisions exclusively to us, but there's intersections in there that are inevitable. And I also recognize that the role and scope of offices can change. Right? Like, the our office of equity inclusion has changed significantly and is being refigured around accessibility.

Mission is changing. Scope is changing. Org charts are changing, and it's doing good work. And I understand and appreciate the work it's doing there. And I also recognize that our our climate office and the work that's done in climate has had some rescoping and some changing of job descriptions and how those are moved in in the department.

I have heard some community concern about this, and and, frankly, the way it has been framed to me, I am inclined to agree with on specifically the the newly advertised positions that have recently been filled focusing being heavily interior looking, interiors and looking at the county's own organization in what was I think, and correct me if I'm misapprehending this, originally envisioned as a more programmatic and external policy focused role. I I do see some that seems like a finite work list that that that these roles will have in the future. It it is a solvable problem of our own facilities emissions concerns, whereas I think the community planning role is going to continue to exist. We are going to continue to want climate input on things like comprehensive plan questions, ZMAs, grant opportunities that we may not be seeking after, and just in general community collaboration. And so I just would take this opportunity to kind of voice some support of what I've heard community concerns with how the office is being structured.

And I'm trying to be mindful of my lane here. I've shared this previously, this level of concern with the county executive. And so while we're discussing this, I I think it's I think it is appropriate for me to to bring up that level of concern and kind of a transition away from a planning and policy vision of how we address climate and more of a facilities and emissions focus on how we address climate. I see that as being limiting our own scope and impact. And if I I can leave it there. If there's feedback or disagreement you wanna offer on that, I I also invite it to you. Otherwise, I I'm done with my time.

I will offer back that there has not been a a change from community wide admissions to operational and building level missions. The reorg is squarely focused on providing the expertise to do the things that you're talking about and develop develop the best team that can do the the most with the resources that we have. And I think there were some inaccurate characterizations in the community about the reorganization, and it really is about adding expertise to solve the actual issues in front of us. And it there's not been a a change towards operational or building level. We want to add expertise in energy management, sustainable building practices, and those absolutely will be an ad to the operate reducing operational emissions, but we are squarely focused on on the the bigger, broader picture.

I'm not trying to argue with you, and I recognize you know so much more about your own department than I can hope to. I feel like the description of the role of the the project manager role that was recently created, that the way it was described to me sounded very much focused on county facilities and less focused on externally facing policy considerations.

The positions are focused on energy management, absolutely, and that will be a benefit to, our facilities on on the public work side. On the, project management side, we do wanna develop expertise in sustainable building, practices, certifications, the like. But all of these skills and expertise will directly support, the the community wide emissions in these other, aspects as well. K. Thank you.

Alright. Supervisor Duncan?

I just have a question on the micro grants program. Is that up and running yet, and, how can people apply? And do you have an idea of what sort of projects you envision people using the grants for?

So none of these projects are up and running. So this, we would not be, able to even, initiate funding and and these projects until July 1. And we would mirror the similar projects for the microgrants that the city it it that would what is currently envisioned is that we would mirror the the program at the city. And, fundamentally, they maximum of a $2,000 investment, to support home improvements, such as a heat pump, or other energy efficiency, upgrade. They do not currently have a commercial program, so we will be working with them to possibly coordinate a program, developing a similar program for commercial brands.

Do you know, like, how long it'll take to get it going once you get the funding in July?

It will probably take through this summer, so would be my estimate estimate.

That's cool. Okay. That's all I have for you.

Supervisor Malik.

About moving from talking to action. Sorry. I was coughing, and I moved my mic. Thank you. I'm very glad to see hear the movement from talking to action because that will really get us somewhere.

Have should be big changes from when LCAP was adopted, and Greg will remember, when we were focused totally on survival and adaptation, and now we're starting to figure out how we can do it. And I'm really excited about that. So let me start with the bottom and work my way up. You mentioned mirroring the city program for the microgrants, and heat pumps was an example. So you would use a funding and a grant, and I would assume hand it off to do the peep to the people the agency who does that.

In other

words, funding LEAP for the amount to the project. If somebody applies to the micro grant, then that could be added to their task to get it carried out.

We could do it that way, or we could do stand up our own program where we do it ourselves, but Uh-huh. It's to be to be coordinated.

Okay. So you'll give us some feedback on that when you get it sorted out.

But the program is already getting requests from county residents and being turned around, that that there's no funding for county residents. So it would be a really, hopefully Yeah. An easy way to add on to that program and support county residents.

Great. Because they're if they're hiring up, then that they will keep on working, which is good. I I'm looking at the chart with the funding. For some reason, I I had remembered, probably wrong, that there was over 300,000 going into the weatherization program at LEAP. Now maybe that was a 126, a 125 from 2026, and more from next year, but what looks like that I've seen here today is, like, 75 and 75. So can you help me up update me on where the money is?

Are you referring to previous years?

Well, I thought going forward until I was trying to scramble back and look at the budget to see

So the the slide on the screen outlines the funding. And so line one, residential energy improvements. There's $387,000 currently contracted to LEAP for NAHIP for energy improvements. In addition to that, we have line item six, which is the energy smart program. Right. So there is $4.70, actually, for

that y the current fiscal year. That is the current as you said, got a slow start, but now they're up and running full list and catching up quickly. The so then going forward to '27, can you help me remember where we were? Because that's wonderful momentum to be creating all of these agencies who have been doing this for years and have lots of expertise and all the connections and contracting.

So in in our proposed, funding, we have, the 75,000. It's, in the table in your attachment a

Right.

Is the 75,000.

Excuse me.

But that's a really big drop.

It's from

the current

That is incorrect. That's for the energy resource hub. So it is in table, two project eight. It's the 75,000 for the energy smart program. In addition, and this is relevant to supervisor Pruitt's comment, there is funding in the the housing bucket as well for the LEAP that they applied for the the housing grant as well.

Right. From when we had that discussion a couple months ago. I remember that. So but as far as a budgetary allocation to LEAP for operations as has been done in the past, that's not happening, I

guess.

That's 75,000 for the EnergySmart program and 75,000 for the Energy Resource Hub.

Okay. And, my understanding in regard to another question, the CDBG funds do not come through, so they would not show up in those numbers at all. This is strictly county dollars. And I will say that to me, it's way more than symbolic because the benefits for these individual families, whether they're a 100 of them or 50 of them or whatever every year, is significant. And especially in the improvements which have been made in Southwood, helping people to survive in a few more years until their place is ready, has been unbelievable.

So I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for your work as well. The, I was excited to hear about the front desk training. So people who come in from for other things would have some extra information. And I think there are a lot of people as fuel costs go up.

I remember in 2010, whenever it was, that we had $4 a gallon gas last time, and there was a huge outcry from people in my district about when can we get a bus so that I don't have to drive all the way to town, you know, 40 miles a day to go to work. And it was the beginning of the Cross Day Connect and all those and the Afton Express that, you know, took a number of years to get them pulled off. Those things are doing fantastically well now. And I would expect that people who are on the margin about trying to figure out if they should jump and get their weatherization done after they're that they're sitting on an audit that the cost of energy, which we've already seen over 15% in Dominion in the last year, which was what they promised us over ten years a couple of years ago, and now it's already happened. That's, I think, gonna make this a really crucial thing for people, for affordability, especially for lower income people who are spending such a huge percentage of their meager income to keep themselves from broiling in the summertime or freezing in the wintertime.

So that'll be great to see, and thank you very much.

Supervisor Lepisto Carlin?

Yes. You had mentioned that lighting really helped out regarding energy saving and such. What's the next big thing you see that would work?

It it it really is focusing on the the two big sectors. So The what? The two emissions sectors, so transportation and buildings. And the the notion of of changing the the transportation system is is the big, big thing, but it's hard to do because it's it's expensive, and it's challenging to coordinate with VDOT to do, different types of projects. But I think developing pilot projects and and developing examples of that is is a strong candidate for for showing the way.

And are you referring to for buses, electric vehicles?

Yeah.

That yeah. Those are very, very expensive. I know. So okay. Well, good to know that. I see that organic waste feasibility study, you're allocating about $50,000 to, for a study assessing the, analyzing the feasibility of doing this. So I commend you on that. I'm wondering, what about just recycling in general

So I think

in the urban area.

We have added talked about adding that scope of work to this study. So include including organic waste, which which is a spectrum. Right? It it can be true, organic waste pickup, food pickup, all the way down to leaf pickup in the fall. Right? A spectrum of of of, so we'll have to evaluate that. But recycling service in the urbanized area, could be added to this scope if we can

I I would love personally, I would love to see, recycling in the urban area, added to that because we don't really have anything that's, that works? Yeah. So that'd be something I'd I'd really be interested in seeing as part of this. Thank you.

Alright.

I don't really have that many questions. I I think I I mean, I don't think I agree with supervisor Pruitt. He started to surface as others likely did. Highest and best use of any funds that go to something and how you make that comparison. Like, I could pick any one of those items out and go, okay.

You know, if it's if it's from an ongoing funding source, that could be a position. Does that position yield us the emissions reduction doing the work of the position, or does breaking up a 125,000 into four different mini grant programs yield us a bigger break? So I'm just I have to operate under the assumption you've all done that at work because I don't I don't I can't I don't have the expertise to look at this and make that that judgment call. And when we first passed the climate action plan in terms of funding, I mean, climate action is one of those things that there is lived experience and behavior that we can do under what's under our control. And then then there are there are certainly outward facing education behavior influencing, I suppose, that could be done.

But beyond that, it gets real tricky to be able to say, well, okay. If you expend the resource, what is it actually doing for you? And then with finite resources, regardless of what the numbers are, are we picking the things that actually yield us the most movement to the goal that we set for the emissions reduction? And it's hard for me to, you know, to I'm happy to have this forward. I trust that the programs we're doing, especially the ones that say if if this use continues and this how it changes it.

But is there something that yields us a bigger change over that? Because I'd be happy to consider that. If you that's all I mean, I don't I think we all operate that way. However far we can stretch a dollar to get the biggest impact is the thing that we're going to want to do. And this is no different in in in this area.

So I'm not really looking for any response or anything, but, I mean, if you would like, you you can respond to that. But, you know, I feel like we've made progress in the the school buildings are all separate. I mean, they were doing low flow and lighting fixture changes and purchase power agreements with solar ten years ago, twelve years ago. So those type of things are moving forward. But has that level of scrutiny been done in a kind of a comparative way?

I I think it's something we're we're continually doing, and struggling with because there is not a a silver bullet that, we can provide to say, hey. By 2050, we will be net neutral. We are looking at this as a as a as a small bucket of money to do pilot projects, to do research, and to test things out. And we are now clearly saying, one, it's gotta have emissions reductions. And two, we gotta look for the future. How does this snowball? How does this create bigger and better opportunities? And look at it, this funding in that way rather than we're just gonna continually, you know, hand out, bike grants.

Mhmm.

You know? We we want to use this money in a strategic way, and that's why we're framing the the objectives and the program in this way is so that it can be research and development more funding rather than just handouts.

Mhmm. And I have a bridge for you. So when this gets up and running, I'll knock on the door for a bridge in in the Rio District that'll work, that the community's been trying to get for a while, and I think it's one that would immediately connect them to the downtown area without having to take an extra two miles to get to the same point walking. So I'll be excited. I'll be knocking on your door in July 1 with that one. Are there any other questions or comments? Thank yep.

Comment I forgot to say. In the energy crisis in the early seventies, Travelers Insurance, which has a giant forty, fifty story building in Hartford, Connecticut right on the main drag, blue shaped in a big crescent on both sides. They got all sorts of criticism because everybody was told, you know, don't leave your lights. There were no Christmas lights on trees, and it was just awful in New England. And they said, look. We heat our building with our lights because of the how much heat was thrown off those old fluorescents in the old days. So that was the first inkling that I was given them. Oh, it's not just yes or no. It's all sorts of different ways to go in. So that was just what came to mind when you talked about how lighting used to be the big deal, and now we've gotten away from that, thankfully. Thank you.

K. Alright. Thank you very much. Thank you. Alright. Board, that should bring us, yep, to our closed meeting. Do we have a motion to go into closed meeting?

I move that the board of supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to section two dot two dash three seven one one a of the code of Virginia under subsection one to discuss and consider appointments to various boards and commissions, including without limitation, the Blue Ridge Committee for Shenandoah Park Relations, the Crozet Community Advisory Committee, the Equalization Board, the Joint Board, Police Department Citizens Advisory Committee, the Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee, and the Village of Arvanna Community Advisory Committee.

Second. Sorry. Sleeping.

Got three seconds. Alright. Motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?

Yes.

Miss Lapisa Curtley? Aye. Miss Malloy? Yes.

Alright. We'll meet in 02:41. We're going to come out we're coming out of our closed session for evening portion. Do we have a motion to certify the closed session?

I move that the board of supervisors certify by a recorded vote that to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting. Second.

Alright. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?

Yes.

Miss Lapisto Kirtley? Aye. Miss Malik? Yes.

Great. Thank you. And I will go ahead and we have a motion coming out of closed meeting to appoint the following individuals to the specific boards and commissions. To the Jaunt board, Heather Marcel. To the police department citizens advisory committee, Jody Falardo, to the solid waste alternatives advisory committee, Peggy Gilgas, and to the village of Rivanna community advisory committee, Sue Bell Friedman.

Second.

Alright. Motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mister Pruitt? Aye. Miss Duncan? Yes. Mister Galloway?