Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon everyone. I would like to call to order the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for our August 5th, 2026, 1 p.m. meeting here in Lane Auditorium. With us today, we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Ann Malek of the Whitehall District, Supervisor Fred Missel of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Bea Lapisto-Kirtley of the Ravanna District, Supervisor Sally Duncan of the Jack Jewett District, myself, Ned Galloway of the Rio District. Also with us, our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our Board Clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgeson, and our Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris. We are appreciative and grateful that we have our Elmore County Police Department officers present with us, Officer Caden Painter and Master Police Officer Raymond Lilly. Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us this afternoon. And now, if everyone would please rise as you are able for the Pledge of Allegiance. Very good. And if everyone would please now take a moment, join together in a moment of silence. All right, thank you very much. Board number four, adoption of the final agenda. Are there any changes or modifications to the agenda that we need to do? We'll handle any consent agenda items at the consent agenda point.

Are there any other changes or modifications?

All right, hearing none, is there a motion to adopt the final agenda?

So moved.

Second. All right, without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan?

Yes. Thank you. And we'll move to item number five, brief announcements by board members. And Mr. Missel, you are up first. Thank you.

I do not have any announcements at this time. All right. Supervisor Lapista-Kirtley?

Yes. I just wanted to let everyone know that we've had an uptick in people stealing cars, vandalizing cars. And I have a report from the police department, and there were 49 stolen vehicles from January through June, and 17 in June alone. This is attributable to kids being out of school, going on a joyride, things like that. But remember, stealing cars and going into cars, that's a crime of opportunity. Most of these were The keys were in the car. The car was unlocked. The windows were down. But remember to leave no valuables in the car, including guns. Do not leave the key in the car. Do not leave the cars running unattended. And make sure you park in well-lit areas. But this is something that is advised, that the police department is advising for people to do. That's all. Thank you.

Supervisor Malik?

No announcements today. Thank you.

Supervisor Duncan?

No, in essence.

Supervisor Pruitt?

I would like to remind folks, as I always try to, when it's summer, that Scottsville has the Fridays on the Canal on the fourth Friday every summer. The next coming is August 28th. That's going to be the Drew Pace Band, which you can listen to for free while you enjoy some local food and some local music. I think we also recently had a bit of a viral moment from one of our most recent Fridays on the Canal. So show up. Maybe you'll find yourself on the internet. That's all I have.

Very good. I do not have any announcements today. So thank you board. We will move to item number six, proclamations and recognitions. We do not have any of these scheduled for today either. So now we'll move to item number seven, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled for public hearings. Board, it's come to my attention that we had an additional uh speaker or two a few speakers not many our rules state that we can only accept 10 speakers per public comment session um in order to allow what do we have three uh 13 yeah we have an additional three folks signed up to speak um if it's if there's no objection the board would need to suspend our rules and take a motion to that effect to allow those three speakers to speak All right. Second. Second motion. Any further discussion? All right. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik?

Yes.

Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes.

All right. Very good. Thank you, board. And now I'll hand things to the vice chair to go through our rules of procedure for the public comment. Great. Thank you. Could I just clarify, is there anyone online? Clerk? Clerk?

There is not.

No? OK. Let's see. During this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board or currently pending before the board other than items scheduled for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes. To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District, comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted, and speakers should not speak from their seats or out of turn. The podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains, and red indicates your time has expired. All comments are recorded, live streamed, and published on the county website. And just as a highlight, a couple notes. The sign-up period is closed once public comment begins. The podium is adjustable. Speakers may raise or lower it so they're able to speak directly into the microphone, please. So with that, we'll begin our list. Sarah Eck. Sarah Eck.

My name is Sarah Eck. I own a Warren Hill Farm in the Scottsville District. I'm here today in support of the resolution of intent regarding intensive livestock, dairy, and poultry facilities. This resolution does not ask you to adopt new regulations. It does not ask you to prohibit any agricultural use. It simply asks whether revisions to the zoning ordinance are necessary. I believe that is a reasonable question and an appropriate responsibility of this board. As an example, in 2025, this board proactively adopted a resolution to study data centers because you recognize they may have unique impacts and wanted to determine whether additional regulations were appropriate. I respectfully ask you to follow the same planning principles here. Good planning means having appropriate zoning standards in place before a land use is proposed, not after the county's options become more limited. This is precisely the purpose of this resolution of intent. It is my understanding that the Rural Areas RA Zoning District was created as part of a comprehensive rezoning in 1980. Over the past 45 years, the Board has amended the ordinance to address new land uses and changing circumstances. Today's resolution asks you to determine whether today's modern intensive animal operations should be evaluated through that same thoughtful planning process. As I review the current ordinance, I found that the minimum side yard setback for a principal building in the RA district is only 25 feet and the minimum rear setback is 35 feet. As the ordinance stands, if I understand it correctly, a structure associated with an intensive animal operation could potentially be as close as 25 feet from an adjoining property line, assuming the structure is 25 feet or less in height. I have not found zoning provisions for greater setbacks from neighboring occupied dwellings, homes, or adjoining private wells. Our code has not kept up with current agricultural practices. If those provisions exist, I would appreciate being directed to them. I believe many Albemarle residents would be surprised to learn that these are the current zoning standards. Whether those standards remain appropriate for this type of land use is exactly the kind of planning question this resolution of intent is intended to examine. This resolution does not predetermine the answer. It predetermines the process. If staff concludes that amendments should be considered, those recommendations will turn to this board through public hearings where farmers, neighbors, technical experts, and citizens can all participate in the discussion. How great would that be? As I read it, this resolution is not a vote for or against agriculture of any type. It is a vote for thoughtful planning. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Molly Angvine. Sorry if I'm mispronouncing that name.

Most people say Dean, so I appreciate that. Hi. I, too, am remarking on the resolution of intent regarding intensive animal agriculture in southern Albemarle County. Well, all of Albemarle County.

May I keep it? State your name.

I will. I'm so sorry. My name is Molly Angevine. I am a resident of Albemarle County. I also serve as town councilor for Scottsville, Virginia. I will be commenting on the resolution and I will first tell you I do not come before you to represent our town council, but rather to express my support for this resolution. i ask that you vote yes for this resolution of intent in order to create stronger protections against the type of intensive animal farming that has been proposed please know That I support farming. I'm not against farming. What concerns me are the consequences that develop as a result of these operations. First, I must attest that I'm not an expert on farming. very many of these issues. But it is my job to speak up and help to protect my constituents in Scottsville. People may feel that this issue does not have anything to do with Scottsville, but I believe that it does. Proximity to the town water source, Terrier Creek, brings concerns about water quality, groundwater contamination, and I can't read my own writing. And the overall welfare of the people in and around Scottsville. Thank you for your consideration. Vote yes for this resolution of intent. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And good going on the concert. It was a viral, fun concert. So come join us.

Peggy Gilgus and Tim McKendrick is on deck.

Good afternoon. I'm Peggy Gilgus, and I'm a resident of the Jack Jewett District. I'm here today in support of this resolution of intent for intensive livestock, dairy, and poultry operations. I care about sustainability, so I'd like to start with some context. According to the county's website, as of 2020, water quality monitoring by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality tells us that 59% of the stream and river miles that the agency has tested in Albemarle are currently impaired. That means they fall below statewide measures of water quality. They may have high levels of bacteria, have benthic impairment, which means they don't support healthy aquatic life, or they may be warming due to climate change. We should be concerned about how AFOs or CAFOs may impact our waterways because the animal waste generated by these facilities, if spread on site on a regular basis, can further degrade the water quality of our streams, rivers, and groundwater. As you know, we also need to have an ordinance to regulate PFAS contamination in water and soil due to the spreading of biosolids. Right now, the concern is with development of AFOs or CAFOs in Southern Albemarle, but any rural area of Albemarle could have animal feeding operations. A feeding operation designed to produce hundreds or thousands of animals for market can impose many new externalities and risks. For example, an example of scale, according to the Sierra Club, is a large broiler chicken CAFO typically houses at least 125,000 birds at one time, which translates to roughly 500,000 to over 750,000 chickens produced per year due to multiple short growing cycles. Considering the scale and practices of any animal feeding operation, what is needed to protect the rural community in the area? How can our watersheds be shielded? How close should AFOs or CAFOs be to their neighbors or to wells? How close should one AFO be to another? An ordinance needs to respond to these questions. Please take a precautionary approach and move promptly to safeguard our water quality and the health of our residents and environment. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Tim Kendrick and Jane Shute is on deck.

Good afternoon. My name is Tim Kendrick and I'm here today. I live in the Whitehall District. I am here today speaking on behalf of Albemarle County Farm Bureau and to ask you to vote no. on any resolution of intent regarding CAFOs or intense livestock, dairy, or poultry facilities and operations. I want to restate per EPA and DEQ regulations, both of which have been provided to the members of the board. We do not have any CAFOs in Albemarle County. For a medium poultry AFO to be classified a CAFO, it must also discharge waste into the waters of the state, which is in direct violation of state codes. There have been over 50 years of research dealing with animal feeding operations starting in 1972 as part of the EPA's implementation of the Federal Clean Water Act. In the early 1990s, Virginia General Assembly set forth state permitting requirements for AFOs and KFOs that were broader in scope than the federal government. resulting in Virginia having a head start in identifying and correcting issues on livestock and poultry facilities, such that pollution problems on farms didn't go unchecked. Today, the Virginia DEQ CAPO regulations are considered to be some of the most stringent in the country. Albemarle AC44, which was approved in October of 2025, specifically states its objectives under rural areas. develop and implement policies for protecting rural land use patterns in the rural area, especially for land conservation, agricultural, and forestry, while prioritizing large parcels and unfragmented habitats. support local and forestry production, and value-adding processing. According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, in Albemarle County, there were 866 farms, down from 913 in 2017, and the decline continues, having recently lost their last dairy operation a few months ago. We should be welcoming new farmers and their families to the county. Farmers are the original stewards of the land, as their long-term survival depends on fertile soil and clean water. Farmers actively protect and enhance these natural resources through voluntary implementing best management practices. Farmers feed the world. By over-regulating something that is already highly regulated, both at the federal and state level, you are directly impacting the survivability of family farms. Bottom line, no farmers, no food. Support your local farmer. Vote no. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Jane Shute and Dan Beeker is on deck.

Good afternoon. My name is Jane Shutt, Whitehall District, and I'm a member of the Claudius Creuset Park Board. For more than 67 years, Claudius Creuset Park has been the heart of community recreation for Western Albemarle County, and yet many of our residents do not realize that we are not a county park. Established in 1958 as a community-owned 501c3 nonprofit organization, the park is guided by an 18-person volunteer board committed to promoting health, well-being, and the social and cultural vitality of our residents. Our vision, high quality, affordable recreation for all, remains the promise we uphold today. Crozet Park serves far more than just Crozet alone. As the second most visited park in Albemarle County, we welcomed nearly 500,000 visitors last year. Families from 28 zip codes use our green spaces, baseball fields, basketball and pickleball courts, walking trail, dog parks, playgrounds, fitness studio, pool, festival grounds, and pavilions. 97% of those are actual residents of Albemarle County. With no other recreational facilities planned for Western Albemarle, Crozet Park will continue to be the primary destination for local families. For 46 years, we have hosted the Crozet Arts and Crafts Festivals each spring and fall, featuring more than 125 jury-selected artists, live music, children's activities, food trucks, and Virginia brews. This spring alone, more than 8,000 people visited the park over the festival weekend. Crozet Park is a trusted gathering place for everyday community life. We host birthday parties, corporate and nonprofit events, scout meetings, walking groups for young parents, and countless informal gatherings that strengthen community connection. Crozet is home to 25% more youth than the national average, and serving young people is central to our mission. Families increasingly face barriers to organize sports, safe after-school care, and affordable recreation. Our pool is home to the Western Albemarle High School swim teams, where their boys and girls teams have earned a combined 21 state championships. The Crozet Gator swim team recently won the Jefferson Swim League championship and enrolled 325 children. Accessibility is one of our core values. All of our programs offer sliding scale scholarships to ensure that cost is never a barrier. We warmly invite you to visit Claudius Crozet Park. It is a tremendous asset to Albemarle County and a true community treasure. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Dan Beeker and Susan Slednick-Lizano is on deck.

I'm Dan Baker. I'm a farm owner from the Samuel Miller District. It seems that there are loopholes and insufficient safeguards in the current zoning regulations concerning intensive animal operations. I'm just here to add my voice to those who urge you to address this, to stay ahead of it. We certainly don't want the current ordinances to be exploited to the detriment of our soil, water,

and overall environmental health thank you thank you susan slednick lozano and adelaide o'brien is on deck

Susan Skolnick- Good afternoon, my name is Susan skull Nicholas on Oh, I am a resident of scottsville and I have a small farm just outside scottsville so I could take maybe a half a mile and I would be in scottsville I love the area and I came here in 2000 with my family and my horses. I formed a 501 and I was able to work with writers of all different walks of life, box hunters, disabled people, little kids, the general public, and we offered all of this from the farm. Again, I came here from Boston, a pretty busy place, because I loved the quality of life that was here. And I thank you for your protection in our health, safety, and general welfare by voting yes, because we need to maintain the quality of life that's in this community, this wonderful community of Scottsville. Voting yes will discourage the CAFOs from overwhelming our area of the county. And the CAFO is concentrated animal feeding operation, where as you know, you've been told by lots of speakers, it confines animals, poultry, beef to a small area, which is a little bit unnatural because animals forage, hens, Cattle, they forage. And this leads to things that are problematic and what we're all worried about. That is the pollution of nitrogen, phosphorus, pathogens, hormones, and antibiotics. All of these things which eventually leach into our groundwater. And we are subject to that. We don't know, but we could be in trouble health-wise years down the road. And for this, I'm asking for your vote of yes. And I thank you for protecting our community. Good afternoon.

Thank you. Adelaide O'Brien and Rob McGinnis is on deck.

Good afternoon. I'm Adelaide O'Brien. I live on Hatton Perry Road in Scottsville. Thank you for bringing the resolution of intent forward to the board today. I appreciate your diligence in which you are enacting your responsibilities of protecting the public health, safety, and general welfare of county residents. Please vote yes on this resolution and consider amendments to the zoning ordinance to regulate intensive livestock, dairy, and poultry facilities. Voting against this resolution is a vote to encourage CAFOs to come to our county and take advantage of the lack of local regulations of harmful environmental practices. Voting against this resolution places Albemarle residents at a disadvantage to 52 other localities in Virginia that have passed ordinances regulating intensive livestock, dairy, and poultry facilities. Voting against this resolution may allow unfair competition with true agricultural farming due to economies of scale without the expense of local regulation to protect against environmental harm or cleaning up the damage to water, soil, airs, and public health. Voting against this resolution may result in extremely costly expenditures of taxpayer funds to repair the environmental consequences of unregulated intensive operations. Please vote yes on this resolution of intent. Please be proactive and enact an ordinance expeditiously, as the majority of counties in Virginia have done, many since the late 90s. Please vote yes on this resolution indicating that you have heard your constituents concerns with the lack of oversight of industrialized animal confinement organizations. Please vote yes on this resolution of intent so that you can begin to craft an ordinance that protects our groundwater quality, establishes setbacks and minimum acreage, requires zoning permits and stream, pond and waterway setbacks from land application of animal waste, and develops nutrient management plans that evaluate manure disposal as a function of soils, water, and number of animals. Thank you for the hard work you completed on the riparian buffer ordinance. Please vote yes on this resolution so you continue to craft an ordinance that protects our community from dangerous bacteria and other pollutants from leaching into our wells, streams, ponds, and eventually the James River. Thank you for listening to the legitimate concerns of your constituents.

Thank you. Thank you, Rob McGinnis and Susan. I think it's Susan is on deck.

Good afternoon, my name is Rob McGinnis, and I'm here representing the Piedmont Environmental Council. My comments pertain to resolutions of intent for agricultural feeding operations and biosolids ordinances. First, for over 50 years, PEC has been a strong supporter of agriculture across all nine counties in our service area, including Albemarle County. Protecting working farms is a key part of PEC's mission. PEC is asking the board to pass these two ROIs. Over 50 counties in Virginia have some level of protection above the DEQ protections to protect public health, safety, and welfare through ordinances. Albemarle should invest the time to consider why so many counties have done this. Biosolid ordinances that require the testing of biosolids for PFAS or forever chemicals before they are land applied will be a good step toward preventing PFAS contamination of soils, vegetation, water resources, animals, and humans. I realize that the county has a limited capacity to develop ordinances. Please consider prioritizing ordinances that protect public health, safety, and welfare. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And Susan and Cole Dickerson is on deck.

Good afternoon, I'm Ann Susan and I live in Southern Albemarle County in Esmond. As a resident of Southern Albemarle County in Esmond, I am concerned about that the county does not have a zoning ordinance protecting the water supply and thus the health of our residents from unregulated concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs. As the attack on Virginia farmland increases with pressure from Valley Link data centers, And CAFOs, I asked the Board of Supervisors to be proactive by voting yes for the resolution of intent to consider amendments to the zoning ordinance regulating intensive livestock, dairy, and poultry facilities. One need only to drive up Interstate 81 through Rockingham County to view and smell the CAFOs and their vast amount of animal waste overwhelming that area. Now picture the same thing happening on this side of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, except here the rivers and streams flow into the James River, which is a major part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Not only will CAFOs pollute Albemarle County wells, it will pollute and poison the mighty James all the way to the Chesapeake Bay. Right now, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors can be environmental heroes. by protecting not only our water and therefore the health of our citizens, but also the water flowing east all the way to the Chesapeake Bay. Please vote yes on the resolution of intent. I am also pro-farmer. Thank you.

Thank you. Cole Dickerson and Deirdre Casey-Kering is on deck.

First, I want to thank the board for the opportunity to comment and staff who helped put the resolution of intent together for industrial scale poultry and dairy in Albemarle County. My name is Cole Dickerson. I'm a community member. I also work at an organization that specializes in supporting communities that face harmful impacts from industrial livestock facilities. And I'm concerned that Albemarle County doesn't have specific zoning standards for industrial livestock facilities, as we've heard over 50 counties in Virginia do. And I might add that many of these counties have vibrant farming communities. So it proves these regulations aren't too much for farmers. I strongly support the resolution of intent to explore industrial scale agriculture zoning standards for the county. And I really hope the board passes this ROI. In my work, helping to protect communities I work with so many communities who wish they were more proactive before many of these facilities came into their community. And I know the board has a lot of questions, opinions, and even some concerns about producing these standards in the zoning ordinance. I think that's to be expected. That can be a good thing. And passing this ROI gives the county and its constituents the opportunity to explore these questions and concerns. And I expect it won't take long to realize how important they can be to protect what we love about the county, clean water and the ability to live a quality life with our friends and family. So quickly, there are two concerns about zoning standards for industrial livestock operations that I've heard from the board. I want to address first is there's limited capacity in the county to update the zoning ordinance. And I understand that there's limited staff time, limited funding, a lot of projects that you all are trying to figure out. I would argue that developing these standards should be a priority. And because so many other counties have similar standards, there's a lot to inform ones that are better, that are best for Albemarle County. And there are a lot of organizations like mine that have worked on things like these. that can help provide good resources to help the board and help the county staff. Now, I've seen many communities wait until wells are contaminated with E. coli to take action. Communities have waited until their property values have decreased to take action. Communities have waited until their children have developed asthma from poultry exhaust fans to take action. So this is really important to protect constituents' public health and quality of life. The second concern is that there isn't confidence that a significant number of industrial agricultural facilities are moving into the county. First, I would argue that one is significant. There's already one in the county. And in my work, when there's been one, there's been a lot more. So it's important to take proactive action. And I appreciate the board hearing my comments. I strongly support passing this ROI. And thank you.

Thank you. All right. Deirdre, Casey Kerrigan. And we then will go to our online attendee, Paula Beasley.

Hello, everybody. My name is Deirdre Casey Kerrigan, but I do go by Casey. Everybody knows me by Casey, but my official name is Deirdre Casey Kerrigan. I'm a resident of Albemarle County, Scottsville District. I'm vice chair of the Scottsville Planning Commission. I'm also a physician, and I'm a professor at the University of Virginia. First up, I just want to say thank you so much for bringing the resolution of intent forward to the board today. I appreciate your diligence in which you are enhancing your responsibilities of protecting the public health, safety and general welfare of our county residents. Please vote yes on this resolution of intent and consider amendments to the zoning ordinance to regulate intensive livestock, dairy and poultry facilities. I previously described to you the ever-growing scientific evidence on the health impacts of CAFOs. They are real. These studies continue to emerge. These facilities emit a complex mixture of harmful pollutants into the air, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, VOCs, and even bioaerosols containing endotoxins, as well as antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They also threaten our water. So this is separate from the air. Large volumes of animal waste contaminate our groundwater with nitrates and antibiotic resistant bacteria such as MRSA. Nitrate-contaminated drinking water has been associated with increased risks of colorectal and gastric cancers. And this nutrient runoff also fuels harmful algal blooms that release potent neurotoxins. We think about, you know, everyone talks about these algal blooms. What they do, it releases these neurotoxins that kill fish. If there's neurotoxins, there's an algebra, you can't swim, a little bit of a mouthful of water. And, you know, that's potentially fatal. This isn't a chronic disease or slow growing cancer. This is fatal. and it kills fish, and actually, if the neurotoxins gets into a fish, and you catch that fish, and you eat that fish, you could die from that. This is serious, and we want to act on this before this happens, so we know that prevention is always, always better than treatment, and I And once someone develops these issues, it's very, very hard to treat. So protecting our clean air, clean water, and the health of Albemarle County residents is one of this board's, I believe, most important responsibilities. And I hope you vote yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And finally, Paula Beasley, who is online.

Hello?

Ms. Beasley, are you there?

You may begin speaking, Ms. Beasley.

Ms. Beasley, if you're speaking, we can't hear you.

Okay. Can you hear me now?

Yes.

I'm very sorry. My name is Paula Beasley of Coleswood Farm in Samuel Miller District. On behalf of myself, my husband, Jerome, and Save Old Albemarle, thank all of you Board of Supervisors members for unanimously directing at your last meeting for staff to draft the resolution of intent to consider an ordinance for regulating intensive concentrated animal operations. Thank you also staff for your time in drafting the intent resolution. We urge you to pass it today to consider adding performance standards for industrial scale animal agriculture in the county zoning ordinance. Federal and state regulations contemplated localities would enact appropriate regulations to deal with animal size, setbacks, minimum acreage or other requirements in light of the impacts of the differing geographic features, soils, water supply, et cetera, in their particular area. 52 counties have passed ordinance to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of their residents and the environmental quality of their county, including counties surrounding Albemarle, Fluvanna, Madison, Nelson, Louisa, to name a few. These counties also have few AFOs and CAFOs, as does Albemarle so far, but appreciate the unique public health and environmental harm from industrialized concentrated agriculture. We are not asking for regulation addressed to any particular person, entity or land acquisition, but merely to the business of industrialized concentrated agriculture. We also are not asking to prohibit this type of industry. However, there are hundreds of studies and you have heard from folks today regarding and in prior meetings regarding the public health and environmental risks of this business and the harms and enormous cost to taxpayers of cleaning up the damage done if left unregulated. Hence the reason so many counties who have faced the prospect have enacted ordinances. Albemarle County, which provides itself in being ahead of the curve, needs also to act before the damage is incurred. It's important to understand that these operations are not normal farming, such as we have been blessed to experience in Elmore County. Our farmers have followed best management practices and contribute to the healthy environment and food supply in this county. Industrial animal operations are a totally different animal, pun intended, from our farming community, including Farm Bureau members. Industrialized operations colloquially referred to as factory farms, that is what they are. As a result of the intense confinement of their animals, the massive numbers and massive waste they create, studies have proved they present health and environmental harms that our farmers do not. In addition, because of their economies in scale, in counties where they exist, the number of normal farms have declined. Thank you for your attention and cooperation.

That concludes our list. All right. Thank you for all those who came to speak. If you hang on tight, the next item will make clear when this discussion will occur today by the board. So we will move to item number eight, the consent agenda. There was a request from Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley to pull item 8.6, the resolution of intent to study concentrated animal feeding operations for discussion. and we're going to add that to the agenda item after item number 11, which is the fiscal year 27 community development work program. Basically, that work program was brought up in the conversation at our last meeting to be relevant to the discussion of the ROI.

So we will have all that discussion at one time on the agenda.

So with that, are there any other items that need to be pulled from consent? Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended minus item number 8.6? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All right. Motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lapisto-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan?

Yes.

Very good. Thank you board for the consent agenda passage. We will move to item number nine, which is the Shenandoah National Park update. And we have Kristen Gibbs, the deputy superintendent of the Shenandoah National Park with us this afternoon.

Hello, thank you. So my name is Kristen Gibbs. I like was introduced. I'm the deputy superintendent of Shenandoah National Park. I'm new to the position. I've only been in it about two months, but I will just share Shenandoah was my very first National Park Service position 20 years ago. So it feels really nice to be back. I will also say I have another member of our park leadership team here with us today, Mary Catherine Grady. who is right over here. Mary Catherine is our administrative officer. And we just wanted to take some time with you today to, one, share and represent how important the relationship with the neighboring counties to the park are to us and the managers of Shenandoah, as well as the National Park Service as a whole. We talk a lot in conservation about how You know, we know the water and the air and the wildlife, they don't pay attention to the park boundary. They don't care about park boundaries. And just like that, our visitors are coming to experience the park, but you all are part of that experience by giving them good places that support them, things that they could do with their families, places to eat, places to stay. And so I just want to say that I recognize the park boundary, but I think in the work that we do, it extends into the counties. And so thank you for your time today. I have a couple of just kind of pretty basic updates about what's been going on in the park, things that might be relevant to you all, and then I'm happy to answer any questions that I can as well. So the first thing we always like to touch on is about visitation, and I will tell you our visitation numbers have remained pretty average as they have for the past five years or so, particularly the entrance closest to the county, Rockfish Park. That's been pretty stable. Now, granted, it's it's very weather dependent. Right. So we can have like a rainy Fourth of July weekend. And so Fourth of July isn't what we thought it was. But then we had an outstanding Father's Day weekend with like record numbers. And so I just want to let you know, visitation is kind of kind of on par where it has been. We're hoping for a really beautiful October to bring lots of more visitors to the park as well. Some other things you may have heard kind of in the news is that a couple months ago, the Department of Interior had decided to consolidate wildland firefighting services into a new agency called the United States Wildland Fire Service. And so I know wildland fire can be a big concern for all of us. What I want to tell you from the Shenandoah National Park perspective, our direction is that things remain business as usual. So even though some of our staff and employees are getting direction and guidance and supervision from this new agency, what they're being tasked to do is the same stuff that the park would have them manage and do. So they're still doing things. fuel reduction work. They're still available for initial attack. You know, our vehicles and our fleet and our equipment is up to the standards it needs to be. And so it's a little change. We're trying to figure out kind of how it looks in the long run.

But for this year, things are business as usual.

The other thing I'll point out is that the park is exploring doing some what we call kind of automated entry gates. And so this doesn't take away the ranger that people would meet at the entrance station when they come in. It's more of a way to manage the access into the park and Skyline Drive during times of bad weather. We have a lot of issues, particularly in the southern part of the park. One, that's our main area where we get people icy roads, ice storms, bad weather, trees falling, that sort of thing. And so we are exploring an option. We're currently to kind of close the drive. We need somebody actually to drive from wherever down to Rockfish, close the gates, clear the drive, make sure nobody's stuck in the park before you lock the gate. And we're trying to get some automated gates. And so that'll allow us, one, to close the road in a more timely fashion when weather or hazards are coming in. But it's also going to allow us to open the road automatically once that passes a lot quicker too. And so we're just kind of exploring that option. We're talking about what does this look like, you know, how to communicate with visitors. But it's a big safety issue for us. You know, if somebody drives up on the drive because the weather's shining, but, you know, we've got trees down all over the road or an ice storm coming in. And so that is one thing that would eventually make its way down to Rockfish that we would try to implement. And then kind of the other big news at the park is that we do have a new concessionaire coming in to run our concession operations. And so that includes things like the Big Meadows Lodge, the Skyland Lodge, the wayside operations, the campgrounds, kind of those types of real heavy visitor services. that the park offers. The current concession contract with Delaware North expires at the end of December. And so the new contract has been awarded to a different company. Their name is Explore US. And so we basically have weekly meetings with them to talk about the transition. The piece I wanted to share with you all is that I don't know how many county residents are employees of Delaware North or have been in the past or looking for employment there within the park. But Explore US is actually making arrangements where if any of the current employees would like to transition to this new company and continue working in those locations, they will have the opportunity to do so. So, you know, they're not looking to kind of replace everyone or, you know, anything like that. They also do, this company will be taking on some additional operations that the former contractor did not. And so there's actually even a need for, for more employees than are currently on the roster up there. And the company is also willing to do some pretty significant investment into some of our historic structures. So updating the lodge, updating some of the campgrounds. And so that's going to provide a lot of opportunity for construction contracts and things of that nature. So with that, I am open to any questions that people have. I'll just preface it. I can only answer as a representative of Shandong National Park. I can't answer on behalf of the entire National Park Service or another park, but I'm happy to take any questions that there may be.

Well, you just killed the question I was going to ask.

Sorry. Yeah, I mean, you can ask. I can tell you the Shenandoah answer.

Yeah. Supervisor Misser? Yeah, thank you. And thank you, Ms. Gibbs, for the update. I've got so many questions. I love Shenandoah National Park. I'm going to make it quick, though, in the interest of time. How many counties adjoin Shenandoah National Park? Do you know?

Oh my gosh, this is an excellent question. I should know, and I apologize for that. I want to say seven, and I feel like I could rattle them off in my head. I'm like thinking of a map. Yeah, yeah.

I'm a visual thinker too, though. Are there short, is there a short list of ways that we as a county could be either more engaged or appropriately engaged? Oh, sure. Yeah. activities with Shenandoah National Park that you've either learned from our already being engaged or counties?

So I can tell you, so two things I can think about. One specific to here in Albemarle County, I don't know if you know or not, the home of our partner group, the Shenandoah National Park Trust, their headquarters out of Charlottesville. And they do amazing work for us, both in providing resources fundraising opportunities that says the park service can't partake in, but they're doing really amazing things with youth programs, bringing youth from the Charlottesville area up to the park, helping us buy things like bear-proof dumpsters to support our conservation efforts, which I know dumpsters are not that glamorous, but they're needed. And so that's actually a really important thing, things that you can do to support the trust really directly comes back to benefit the park. The other thing I'll say is we've recently hired a, basically like his position is kind of like a park fire marshal. It's one of the few permanent positions we've been able to hire recently. But a big part of what this individual's job is, is to work with the local counties to help kind of coordinate and I think plan for response situations. And so again to um you're probably aware we utilize our county resources a lot whether it's local ems fire department um you know helicopter support from uva uh and so that particular individual his name is andrew addy he is starting a process of working with all the counties to provide uh basically communications outlining some plans but we also want to do site visits with those entities so like local fire departments that maybe were calling up to provide support we want to give them a site visit of here's the access road to take here's how to unlock the gate here's the quickest way for you to get from where you're located to where the incident might be and so that's a really big thing too just kind of that mutual aid support is something we really are relying on the counties for great answer okay thanks yeah a few of my other questions okay i'll just pass i'm good thank you supervisor lapisto currently

I'm really, pardon me, I'm really excited to hear about the fact that you have a fire marshal. Yes. Because with, you know, climate change and everything, and fires going everywhere, I think that's a really, really important position that's going to help us a lot. I did want to know whether or not you're, because I think Shenandoah Parks have a lot to do with our tourism. And are you working with our...

charlottesville at memorial uh tourist bureau in any way yeah you know i will tell you off the top of my head i don't believe we are um i think that would be a great conversation of what that looks like um you know there's you know it's kind of funny like the park like we don't advertise but we were allowing you all to advertise for us So I think too, yeah, if we could have conversations around events that are coming up, you know, things that could drive the park, maybe even stuff that happens in the off season that people aren't as familiar with. And then I'll flip with that, you know, October's coming and it's our biggest time. And so working with counties on like the best way they can communicate with people about visitation in October, maybe, you Like, try not to come between the hours of 10 and 2. Enter the park before or after. Or which entrance stations to use so the lines don't get outrageous. I think that's a great kind of way that we could partner. And so at some point, if I could, I just need to know who on your end to contact first.

Just so happens I'm on that committee.

All right. Perfect. Yeah.

Just contact me and I will give you all the information and pick you up with the executive director of that.

That would be perfect. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's some like the way we can kind of get information out to visitors so they can trip brand appropriately and have a really good experience. I could see that's where we can come together a lot. Yeah.

They could do some advertising on your behalf also.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of our bigger events, like in September, we do the kind of artists in the park events. You know, those are coordinated with the Shendo National Park Trust. So that's another person we can bring into that conversation. Yeah.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks.

Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much, and thank you for all of this news. And a couple of follow-up questions. So I understood there was earlier a discussion about the federal decision to waive Entrance fees, I think, did that actually happen? And if so, is it impacting your...

I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

I think I just missed a word. Removing the entrance fees to drive in?

Or are they still... Oh, I have not heard anything like that. So that has not happened. Not a discussion on the table right now. Our entrance station money is very important to help keep that park operating. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you.

And I was very interested as well in the fire... cooperation and that kind of thing, because there have been many times when due to the terrain, things get away fast. Yes. Does your equipment also go to bulldozers and things or do you rely on the Department of Forestry for that kind of thing?

So we tend to use a lot of, you know, it kind of depends because, right, like a fire breaks out and it ends up being pretty much an interagency response in a sense. I will say like our Shenandoah team, we have a couple engines, we've got staff to actually go out and do the work, but we don't have that heavy equipment. And so if it escalates to that level where you would need that type of equipment, that's a bigger incident that probably would involve a bigger agency like the Forest Service. Yeah.

And I'm interested also in your digital gates. Oh, yeah. So currently, does someone do a final sweep like they do on the ski mountains to make sure everybody's out? Kind of.

Yeah, yeah. They're really old gates that like are the swing gates and, you know, you like kind of chain them up and stuff. So, yeah, like what would happen is like it's like, OK, an ice storm's coming. We got to close the drive. So so we tried to sweep to like get people off the drive. But again, it takes a physical person to close the entrance side. So it just is not the most efficient. And I know, again, I haven't I haven't spent a winter season here in my new position. But from what I hear, too. So just kind of the way it is, Rockfish is way down there from park headquarters. So even when it's like, oh, like the drive could open. All right. Like an hour, somebody can get down to open the gate. And we kind of want to limit that time that the drive is closed. So these particular gates would be wired into our communication center where they can kind of do the controlling. Yeah. Yeah.

So we're going to see how they go. It's a new thing for us.

But we want to be able to get people out of the park safely. Don't have them come in when it's unsafe, but then when it is safe, get it open as soon as possible.

So you can close the entrance side, but leave the exit side open.

Exactly. Yeah, we can close the exit. Somebody can sweep, get them out. Yeah, yeah.

And I know a couple of years ago with the more ample funding that was required, you were able to complete the retaining wall repairs and all that kind of thing. Yeah. A really big project visually as well as safety to keep people from tumbling down.

Yeah. Yeah. And we are working like we just completed this year. The focus has been in the North District. We kind of have a cycle. So we just finished North this year. So next year will be Central. So the year after that, we'll focus on the South and then there'll be repairs again for the North. But yeah. Yeah.

It goes round and round.

It goes round and round, as you all know.

And your farm marshal's name is less, is it Andrew Abbie? Abbie, A-D-D-I-E. Okay, well, that's good. That's a good connection to make.

Yeah, if anybody wants to like, especially the communities that are close to the border of the park, that would be really helpful to connect with.

In the Whitehall District, so many of the rural residents there are using the trails up Browns Gap and North Fork of the Mormons River to get up in the park weekly. People in this room will go almost every day. So it's really fun and ways to keep eyes on property as well. That's awesome. Do you have any dark skies programming up there now? Because if not, that would be fabulous.

We so we do. We currently have it at Dickey Ridge, which is the most northern visitor center and Big Meadows for the summer season. Those occur Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. So we have I mean, like, as you can imagine, they're like the number one program. I think we do. Yeah. And those will go pretty much until kind of the fall when it starts getting a little too cold and, you know, people don't want to be outside as much as the sun goes down. The one thing I will say is that we recognize, though, based on where the visitor centers are out in the park, kind of that South District from Route 33, Swift 1 to Rockfish, we don't have a lot of visitor services there. We have a wayside, we have a campground. So one of the things that... We've been able to purchase, I think last year, we actually have a mobile visitor center. And so we try to on the, especially the busy weekends, we'll take that down kind of into the South district. So that doesn't answer your question necessarily about dark skies, but we're providing ranger contacts, information, junior ranger books, kind of that sort of thing. And trying to provide an option where there isn't an actual visitor center. Yeah. That's wonderful.

Yeah. Well, even when it's cold lying down on the ground and looking at the stars, they're pretty amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for being here.

You're welcome. Thanks.

Supervisor Duncan?

I just have a question sort of about staffing. You've read that there have been a lot of cuts kind of nationwide to the parks. And so, you know, what does the staffing look like? Have you guys lost people? Are you all staffed?

Excellent question. So I'm going to break it into two parts. So when we talk about our seasonal employees, so those are temporary employees that are pretty much only on board from, let's say, May till beginning of November. Our seasonal staffing is kind of where it needs to be. We have seasonals. Being able to hire them, those processes have run smoothly like they have been. The area where the park is deficient would be in our permanent staff. There is some new processes in place that require several levels of approval, I'll say, to fill a permanent position. And so the one thing I always like to bring up, too, is our, you know, our seasonal staff is so important. They're the ones that are running the visitor center, working the entrance gate, completing search and rescue, you know, out there chasing bears and being biotechs. But what we lose without the permanent positions is a lot of that expertise and subject matter expertise that is really needed to run the park as a whole. And we do have several of those positions that are vacant for various reasons. Some of them retirement, some people chose to move on based on like the deferred resignation program. Uh, we do currently looking up with hiring though. We are, um, in the market for a new law enforcement chief ranger, and we were able to get that request passed through. And that is currently open, um, and taking applications, but overall our permanent staffing is down.

Yeah.

And, and I would say too, it's down in all areas. So it's, it's maintenance, it's administration, it's resource management. It's kind of everywhere. Yeah. That's all. Thank you.

Thanks. Supervisor Pruitt. In the interest of time, I think I'm going to say thank you for coming here. And that's all I have.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Yes. Thank you very much for the information today. We appreciate that. But yeah, we're all set.

Great. Thank you so much for your time.

Have your contact info. If we do have follow-up questions, we'll be able to reach out.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Come visit. We'll see you guys in the fall. Cool. Thanks.

All right, board, we're going to move to item number 10, housing album or policy review. We have three pretty heavy lifts that are going to usually like to elicit a lot of conversation from supervisors. So I'm just going to ask you all to be mindful of that as we move through the next three items. For the public, there will be a recess between this item and the ROI piece. So I'm just saying that if you all get up, walk around, you're not going to miss something, that there will be a short break before we take that item up. Good afternoon, Ms. Demick.

Good afternoon. I'm pleased to finally be before you this afternoon for a review of Housing Admiral after a number of conversations leading up to this one. I'm joined today by my very competent colleagues, Christy Shifflett, Jacob Sumner, Stacey Pethia, and Bart Svoboda, who are all right there available to you and also will each cover a couple of slides. As you are aware, Housing Albemarle constitutes a number of policy and program levers that the county employs to increase the number and availability of affordable housing. In the last five years, Housing Albemarle and all of these subsequent levers has resulted in the production, proffer, or preservation of over 5,000 units of affordable housing. We'll start today with a review of Housing Albemarle's objectives and accomplishments, and then move on to identify the status of remaining items, including a discussion of a housing advisory committee and additional developer incentives. I'll note that the housing advisory committee charter attached to the executive summary was meant to serve as an example only. It was not meant to get ahead of the board's discussion and guidance, which we'll look forward to today. and will use to return to the board for formal adoption at a later meeting on consent or regular agenda as you wish. Before we move on, this is a good time to revisit Dr. Pethia's affordable housing continuum, which has served as a guide over the last several years for our programming. This reflects the variety of tools and strategies required to address affordable housing needs. The continuum moves from the most vulnerable to the least vulnerable, tracking a long percentage of area median income with the housing interventions identified in the middle. What's critical about this continuum is that many interventions, many levers in many areas are required to adequately address affordable housing. Not surprisingly, strategies addressing the needs of the most vulnerable members of our community require subsidies for their development and ongoing operational subsidies such as project-based vouchers in order to sustain. Housing Albemarle was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in July of 2021 after some discussion that began in 2019, interrupted by the pandemic, as you will note the timing. But it was prompted by the release of a regional housing needs study that identified the need for 10,070 additional units of affordable housing to meet the projected need by 2040. Housing Admiral included 12 primary objectives focused on increasing the production of affordable housing with a focus on reducing barriers to production and ensuring the needs of the most vulnerable members of our community. The policy document identifies many ways of accomplishing this, including financial, housing, regulatory, and human services tools and interventions. Housing Admiral identified six priority actions in addition to the 12 objectives, and they include exploring use of county-owned land, providing incentives to increase production, developing an affordable dwelling unit program which would codify policy and establish a cash-in-lieu amount, the creation of a housing trust fund, establishing a housing advisory committee, and expanding permanent supportive housing. I'll now share data on the various objectives and priority actions resulting from Housing Albemarle. The first of course is objective one, which is the production of affordable housing. Admiral County increased affordable housing stock by 5,439 units, which is approximately 54% of the target of 10,070 units established by the policy. This leaves the need for an additional 4,631 units by 2040, which amounts to approximately 331 units per year. As you are aware, a comprehensive regional housing needs assessment is right now in the final stages and will be released late winter, early spring 2027, and that very well may change our target numbers. In addition, it's important to note that not all proffered units will be built. Some may not be built at all, and others may be built many years after the proffer agreement is made. The Board of Supervisors has committed $46 million for affordable housing in the last six years in five distinct categories, including the Affordable Housing Investment Fund, ASERP, Human Services Funding Process Grants specifically for housing-related activities, tax relief programming, and the cost of housing staffing that is not covered by HUD. If you add CARES and ARPA money to this, that amount is well over $50 million. Included in that funding deck is funding for the Affordable Housing Investment Fund, which has resulted in a number of practical funding, I mean, unit increases, which I'd like to discuss now. A formal structure for a competitive awards process for the AHIF was initially approved with the board in May 21st, 25, and then modified again earlier this year in March. The amount approved by the Board of Supervisors for the Affordable Housing Investment Fund is steadily increased, with over $7 million budgeted for fiscal year 27. AHIF funding has directly resulted in the creation of 506 affordable units, with 574 currently in progress. Many of these units reflect a focus on deep subsidies to maintain affordability, so more on that left-hand side of the housing continuum discussion. Mr. Sumner will now talk about finance-related affordable housing levers.

Good afternoon. Jacob Sumner, Chief Financial Officer for the county. I will be taking just a moment to talk about the Expanded Tax Relief Program for the elderly and disabled. This addresses Housing Albemarle Objectives 1, 4, and 12. This program provides tax relief for the elderly and disabled that qualify on the real estate tax bills. The program is tiered based on income and offers reductions at 50%, 75%, and 100% relief. In 2007, the income limit was increased from $50,000 to $69,452, and the net worth was increased from $125,000 to $200,000, and these limits remained in effect for 16 years until they were changed in 2023. In 24, the county began using 80% AMI for a family of four for the county for the maximum income limit. Then in 2025, we began using the inflation adjusted value of that initial $200,000 cap or limit from January, 2007, And then we came back to the board again in 2025. The county ordinance was updated to begin using both of those economic markers to determine the minimum income and net financial worth limits going forward for each year. So a steady increase in those limits beginning in 2022. Since 2022, the program has continued to expand every year, and we expect to provide about $2.8 million of relief in fiscal year 2027. The second program that I wanted to address this afternoon is the Affordable Rental Housing Incentive Program. This program addresses Housing Albemarle Objective 1, and it addresses one of the priority actions that Kaki listed earlier today. RHIP was approved by the board in February 2024. With the eligibility criteria listed on the screen, this program offers an incentive grant for program participants equal to 15% of the real estate taxes on the property. Through RHIP's incentive, the participating properties are required to provide 20% of the rental units as affordable and remain so for 30 years. Thus far, we've had one applicant representing 60 rental units complete the process back in May of this year, and we do have another application making its way to the board later this month. While not necessarily related to the RHIP program, the county has entered into a couple performance agreements in the past, both with Habitat for Humanity and Brookdale Partners to provide affordable units in the Southwood and Brookdale communities.

Housing Admiral specifically called out as a priority action the development and support of permanent supportive housing. This has been a significant investment from the AHIF since 2019, with AHIF funding directly supporting the development of 80 additional units in this community. As a reminder, permanent supportive housing is a best practice solution for people who've experienced extended periods of time in homelessness and who also have a documented disability or significant medical vulnerability. There are three permanent supportive housing projects operating in our community. Albemarle County has provided support for construction, purchase, and operations for these programs. So the crossings, which would be just around the corner from where we are right now, we have supported with ongoing operational support with project-based vouchers. region 10 has been the recipient of hud funding for 25 or 26 years in this community to support permanent supportive housing in the last year and a half has required some operational bridge support from both the city and the county based on hud reductions in funding in addition of course you all will be most familiar with vista 29 previously called premier circle which is going to start leasing this fall with folks moving in hopefully in january Albemarle County has contributed substantially to this project in both purchase, construction, and with ongoing operational support through project-based vouchers. And of course, you all adopted an employer-assisted housing program ordinance in July in recognition of staff affordability concerns and in an effort to improve staff recruitment and retention. This is important modeling for other employers in our community will hopefully follow suit. Christy Shifflett will share the next one.

Good afternoon. I'm Christy Shifflett, Chief Operating Officer. So I'm here to talk to you about the county and land point of view within Housing Albemarle. So let me make sure I can hear me. So to, you know, one of the priority actions was to increase the supply of housing to meet the diverse focusing housing needs of current and future Albemarle County residents. So in order to do that, we first have to make sure that we understand what do we own and what do we have at our disposal. So the staff have worked together across several departments to pull together those different lists, because as you can imagine, Parks and Rec would look at county owned land. They'll have their list and community development has a lot of tremendous information, but so does our facilities and environmental services team. We've worked together as a group. We now have a full list of county-owned land. We have 214 parcels identified, but within that, those parcels are both, some are in the city, some are in the county. These parcels are also owned and partially owned by the county. So that 214 is not just county owned. We share and have some different relationships. And then as well as it includes schools property so that while we are not the direct owner, it's also important that we look at that indication as we partner and work with our schools. And so this team of subject matter experts has almost completely annotated the information of all of these parcels. We understand how we acquired them, what is intended with the parcels, and that is information that we'll continue to use with our housing office.

Thank you. There's a subcommittee of this group working to identify what it would mean to select some of these parcels specifically to prompt or incentivize the use of them or incentivize affordable housing development on those properties. What it would require of the attorney's office, of staff, of the community development office to try to prepare for that process. so that once this work project is done and we know what all those properties, where they are, how much site control we have over each of them, and identify spots that might be good for affordable housing, we could move to potentially incentivize their use in that way. Bart Svoboda will share the next thing.

Bart Svoboda, Director of Community Development. This is pretty brief because in the zoning ordinance, we have this one area bonus densities for affordable housing, which is about all that exists within the zoning ordinance for bonus densities. Section 2.41 contains that provision. Those bonuses include specific increases in allowable densities over the requirements of that particular district. So you don't need to rezone to get these densities. But you can do it as a buy right thing as long as you meet the calculations. So as an example, if I had a development that was for 100 units, my bonus density of 30% would give me 130 units. 15 of those would have to be affordable. So it only applies to the overage. We don't see this often. So I'm not sure how much of an incentive it is. It's probably more of an option. A lot of times we don't see developments built out enough to try and get to that point, right? So we might approve a development for 600 units, but when it comes down to the engineering, they might only get 400. So it just depends. So those are one of the things that kind of we'll be looking at as we're moving forward. And we'll talk more in a little bit about what's going on with the zoning modernization and maybe some incentives.

Thank you. In addition, reflecting Housing Admiral Objective One and was listed as a priority action, immediately following the adoption of Housing Admiral in July of 21, the Board adopted policy guidelines for developers regarding affordable housing, setting goals of 20% of affordable units for any new development or rezoning process, lengthening the period of affordability beyond the previous 10 years. and defining affordability as below 60% area median income. This exists as a policy guideline only and is used to inform and guide developers in the proper process. Stacey Patheo.

Good afternoon, Stacey Pethia, Director of Housing. This is moving on to the Housing Policy Advisory Committee, which was identified as a priority activity in the housing policy itself. And a Housing Policy Advisory Committee can be used to inform decision making in a number of different ways, including providing feedback on housing policies and initiatives that staff have developed. and need some feedback on, identifying emerging housing challenges and opportunities, specifically because those members will be actively living within the community, potentially needing affordable housing as they're moving forward with their lives, reviewing Sorry, I cannot see my sheet reviewing housing data trends and best practice approaches and providing that feedback to staff and soliciting feedback from tenants and developers to provide to staff and the board.

Thank you. One of the things we heard in the last six months of conversation with the board was an interest in hearing more from tenants about their experience in affordable housing and an interest in hearing more from developers. That is a complicated and staff intensive kind of work to get done around community engagement. And so we have seen that there are models in which housing advisory committees do that kind of work and deliver that feedback directly to leadership in either elected leadership or staff leadership. Mr. Svoboda again.

So I'm back. Talk about incentives. Affordable housing is a key priority as part of phase three of zoning modernization. These efforts will align with the comprehensive plan and those objectives that we have there. It's important to know that development of the incentives and fee reductions are typically policy tools. So we want to be careful that we put land use type incentives and things within the zoning ordinance. Community development will still participate in the policy part of that when we talk about maybe a fee reduction, rebates, expedited process, those sorts of things. So the land use based standards such as parking, setbacks, any kind of physical similar requirements is what will end up in the zoning ordinance while the finishes, internal fixes, rebates or other policies will be separate. We talked a little bit in this last slide about how we qualify or what we would qualify for expedited review, reduce fees, refunds, rebates, affordable housing, you know, those incentives in phase three, we'll, we'll, we will focus on those staff will evaluate many of the options that are feasible for us. We want to remember that, um, What we implement as both practical, resource appropriate, and aligned with the board's objectives. So those are things that we'll see coming back through staff to the board in concert with all the folks that you see here and all the departments to make sure that we present our best opportunities available.

Thank you. Finally, the board expressed an interest in discussing the possibility of using TAP fees, which are the sort of generic term for water and sewer connection fees as part of this conversation around incentives. There are many communities who use waivers or subsidies to offset the cost of water and sewer connection fees for affordable housing projects, sometimes for the project, the developer, and sometimes for the individual homeowner themselves. Localities that directly control their water and sewer utilities are the most likely to use this particular incentive strategy, perhaps for obvious reasons. Some communities use locality general funds to subsidize the cost of these connection fees for qualifying individual homeowners or for affordable housing developers. And you can see a couple of counties and you can see that the city of Charlottesville offers specific support to individual homeowners. There are lots and lots of ways in which people address tap fees, but generally through general funds, unless they're in direct control over their utility, which may be really obvious. Before we move to discussion, I'd like to return to the 2021 priority actions identified by the board to consider sort of what has been addressed or accomplished and what remains, and then in sort of forecasting that we'll ask you what should be changed about this going forward. So we identified, or you all identified in 2021, exploring options with county-owned land, providing incentives to increase production, developing an affordable dwelling unit program structure and guidelines, creating a housing trust fund, establishing a housing advisory committee, and expanding permanent supportive housing. We've presented what we think are both works in progress and accomplishments to you all today, resulting from Housing Albemarle, and it speaks to the scope and complexity that housing, affordable housing, if responded to sort of robustly, requires participation way outside of the Office of Housing, requires participation from many departments and the executive staff. So we anticipate that being the case moving forward, and we're glad to have this kind of coordination internally. Moving to discussion, there are sort of three broad areas that we're interested in hearing from you and anything else you'd like to share. To start that conversation, are there matters staff ought to prepare and return to the Board of Supervisors for approval? So thinking about the structure or content for a housing advisory committee, if that's what you'd like, or direction for the community development office around what specific developer incentives you'd like them to develop and bring back. Are there different or additional priority actions for staff in general? And then do you need additional information from us on any of these issues? Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much board. I think we'll do our best to get our main questions, comments out in the first round. If somebody says something after your turn to speak, I think in the interest of time, we should track that and we'll plan to send those to khaki afterwards so that we'll, we'll, you know, just try to be efficient supervisor missile.

Thanks. So let me just make sure I heard you correctly chair. So we're going to be pretty comprehensive with the first go around.

Yes.

And, um, Ms. Dimmick, do you want us to respond also to comments on, specific comments on the charter for the Affordable Housing Committee, or do you want us to not? Like, I don't want to get into wordsmithing and stuff like that. Maybe keep them broad?

There will be ample opportunity for wordsmithing at another occasion. I'd be mostly interested in what the structure or substance or intent of a housing advisory committee would be. I will reflect that There were lots of ideas in the discussions with board members and not necessarily a unified theme. And so it would be useful to hear what you all would like. Would you like to establish one? I think the answer is yes, based on previous discussions. But what would you like them to do for you?

OK, great. OK, that's really helpful. So I have a few quick questions and then some comments, if I could. So one of the first questions is, and we've talked about this a lot, how many units? So the number of units that have been built, and thank you, staff, and you, Ms. Dimmick, and your dream team. Thanks, everybody, for together. So when we look at the amount of units that need to be built, 4,631 units by 2040, How are we really doing? I mean, I know we're adding units, but we're also taking units away. So have we looked at sort of a net increase versus our aspirational goal and what that looks like?

looked at for sure have a good number of about or around sort of what's going away, what's coming, not quite as much. It's not so easy. So we can get close. We know we've lost 100 units, 110 units in the last 18 months. We've gained X number. I think what's also critical is the number of units. For example, you all invested heavily in the AHIF for fiscal year 26 in the preservation of units. And so that's funding to maintain the affordability of units. that are coming to the end of either their period of affordability, as we've seen in some other developments, but also coming to the end of their usability. And so in order to afford to renovate them, a developer primarily would need to put them on the fair market in order to recoup those costs unless they got additional support. So I think we're doing well. I also think we could be doing better. And I think that there are a number of efforts in the last 12 to 18 months that have yet to sort of take stride to see what they'll do. It is also a complicated construction context in the last 18 months, particularly around tariffs and fuel costs, supply costs. And so I think Not sure how it is that our tools will address those things other than just sort of take note of them. And I do think that the new needs assessment is going to give us a new target. And perhaps that target will not just be a robust big number to sort of in the sky, but also specific targets by AMI or by housing intervention, which would be particularly useful for the board's decision making.

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks. I think I'm trying to focus too on these three bullets that falls into one of them, I'm sure, but I'd love to learn more about that. 7.6 million per year, if you take the last X number of years, was it six years and $46 million or roughly whatever the number was, so it's around 7.6. So I just point out we're under that this year in our AHIF funding. So as we think about aspirationally getting to 10 million and growing that, I know I may be talking apples and oranges here a little bit, but big picture, we still got to push. So I would continue to be supportive of that. Also, I don't hear a lot about home ownership when we talk about this. So when you think about additional information or maybe... Other priority actions, just I think raising to a different level home ownership opportunities and objectives and what metrics exist to measure success in that area. How well are we supporting that as well as rental? Keeping people in their homes. I saw it was a 410 rehab preservation projects. Question, how are those implemented? Is that just through Albemarle Housing Improvement Program, AHIP, or is it? Could you just talk a little bit about that?

Well, the board approved two significant preservation projects in the last AHIP that are good examples. One was LEAP, and the other was Piedmont Housing Alliance doing their renovation of three of their low-income projects. Got it. So I think it's accomplished in a number of different ways. AHIP is more likely to be used for an individual fix in an individual home, although has done some neighborhood work. So that's not meant to disparage them at all.

Good to know. So that's all included in that number. Understood. When we talk about expanded tax relief for elderly and disabled, and we continue to face increasing tax assessments and cost, How are we measuring, maybe this is a question for our CFO, how are we measuring against cost of living increases and tax assessments that $2.8 million, which I think is the target for next year, is that in line with that? Do we feel like we're under there? Are we having to adjust based on where we're growing, you know, how our assessments are projected?

That's a great question. So with the tax relief program for the elderly and disabled, it's designed to have two limiting factors, and that looks at who can qualify for that program. And so with the ordinance that the board passed in 2025, there's an automatic escalator. So as AMI changes or increases, that threshold also increases so that we can capture more folks that may be eligible. And then we also are increasing the net financial worth limit tied to inflation as well. So as inflation rises, that level will also rise as well and we'll capture more folks that will be eligible. To your question about the dollar amount of the funding, we do some modeling off of current participants, a projection of those increases, of those limits, and a rough estimate of how many folks we would see that would be eligible for that expanded relief. And so we've adjusted that request and that budget request throughout the year to be in line.

Thank you. So it's not a fixed increase. It's based on actual reality and what our constituents are seeing. Yes, sir. Thank you. The density bonus is a good thing. I think that we just need to realize that it also creates infrastructure challenges for developers. And if we're allowing increased density, I think we need to identify ways to support density bonus requests and maybe go, hey, that might go hand in glove with some form of funding support. 60% is just some comments. 60% and below is obviously critical. Even 30% and below is critical. I think we also need to focus on workforce incentives and economic, you know, obviously to support the economic development initiatives that we've got in front of us. And then I guess the last comment, general comment, and then I'll make a comment on the housing committee. As we think about, and I'm sure our staff is already doing this, as we think about state discussions and partnerships at the state level, I'm wondering if, I think we need to be thinking, maybe this is one of these again, how can we best integrate with the state? Where can we leverage funding and support possibly each other or find ways to maximize and leverage what we're providing as a county in line with what the state incentives are. Maybe we're aligned there, maybe there are ways to think about possibly doing that. On the Housing Advisory Committee, I mean, I did review it in a lot of detail. I just have a couple of quick comments on that. The way the responsibilities are written in there, just a general comment is, feels to me to be more aligned with actually approving, reviewing and approving specific projects. And I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, including staff, we gotta be careful that whatever we do with this does not add a layer of bureaucracy or create another planning commission or a level of review, especially with an understanding that we potentially could align it with one representative from each of the districts that could potentially become political. There's the potential if we don't do it right to slow things down, which is completely counter to objective eight, right? Which is to speed things up. So I just generally would say that as a comment. I do think there's value to having a group of experts that are able to feed in and supplement staff that are actually boots on the ground in the development community. And so I think in some ways, former fashion that committee is helpful i question the number of nine as being a bit high to me but you know i don't know somebody told me sometime eight is the perfect size for a group that you actually can get things done i would go probably down to six personally but anyway um those are my general comments and i look forward to talking more about that committee in the future that's it all right thank you supervisor lapisto currently yes thank you very much um

Some of the matters I think that ought to be returned to the BOS for approval is some of the things that Supervisor Bissell has discussed, because I have questions also about the housing committee. I want to make sure that it is advisory, that they don't take the political heat. That's our job to take the political heat. but it's something that is advisory in nature. And once again, eight or nine, I'd go with whatever you all think is, I don't know, seven, the best number. I'm not sure. Six out of, oh, six works pretty good for us, but you know, I'm not sure about that. Um, I, I would like to see them. I like the fact that there are people that are knowledgeable because in your, on the slide, it talked about they need to have, uh, they need to be aware of all the rules, the regulations, the procedures and things like that. So I like to see people that are knowledgeable or become knowledgeable in this area that are capable. I have a question, the affordability, Does that also refer to refurbished homes? So for example, if someone has a home that's affordable, but then it's falling apart and it gets refurbished, does that count in our count of affordable homes or not? Does that make sense?

Yes, I think that's one of the efforts of trying to preserve affordability is making sure that whatever we invest in the sort of improving a home doesn't mean that it suddenly gets marketed outside of the affordability. And so sometimes there's a sort of natural thing that happens around that, but most of the time there's an artificial cap. That means we do some work requirements that when that house we if we county is invested in that refurbishing that we have some limits and expectations about its ultimate sales price which is what we we tie to the state doing that we use a lot of the state's sort of guidance in that kind of way so that that person ultimately has less opportunity to generate wealth by the sale of that house, but that the county hedges a little bit to say, we want to make sure that that house remains affordable for the next homeowner. So there's a little bit of us interfering with the natural market in that kind of way to ensure that that house remains affordable. And we assume some responsibility or obligation to do that because of our investment in its refurbishment or renovation.

I think we started the 20% for developers, for affordable housing, for rental, and for house purchase, correct? We started that in, was that January or a year ago?

Whatever's being developed. So whatever, some portion, whether that's rentals or homeownership, our expectation is 20%. Okay.

My question is, how are we doing since that 20% was instituted? Are we getting a lot of... affordable rentals? Are we getting a more affordable home purchase? How's that going in general? Because I heard you say something about we've only had two.

Yes, we've only had two that have applied for the RHIP, which is the Albemarle Rental Housing Incentive Program. But there's been other units, other affordable rental units that have come online as part of proffers or in the sort of natural development process. I don't know enough about the answer to that. And so I would refer to Mr. Svoboda if there's data on that or not, to be able to sort of track the modeling over 10 years to say, once this new policy is started, Has that influenced the development of those two things or not? I also would say that I think almost everybody would say that we haven't been in a normal construction environment in some time because of the pandemic and then in our current economic engine. So both, I think we're missing data to answer the question and also complicated by context.

Okay.

We're also curious.

And the point was, are we doing more with being able to have rentals and rent them out or... more with home ownership and being able to have people purchase that. Those are maybe returning for not necessarily our approval, but additional information. Could you go to slide 18? Because I seem to have some questions on that one. Thank you. Allow residential uses by right in select commercial zoning districts. I know we've had... Oh, we've had commercial areas, and then we turned them into residential. Is that what this is referring to? Okay, here comes Tim. It's just about it.

Bart Svoda, Director of Community Development. We did an ROI probably a number of years ago now. about how to figure out how to convert existing commercial space and allow residential either by right or by special permit. We're going to look at that through phase three of zoning mod. We're actually been pushing on that a little bit separately to try and figure out how or when we can accomplish that. So it's not a it's not a It's not something that's on the back burner, but we're having difficulty trying to make those adjustments. And with the opportunities that are out there, really, what does that do? How does that impact, say, economic development, the balance between changing some commercial to residential versus the opportunity to provide some affordable housing? So it's a tricky little balance, but we're working on it. I hope that helps.

So we'll get more information later.

Yes, ma'am. Okay.

And then when you say small-scale residential structures, we're talking about tiny homes?

So a tiny home is still a house under the building code. Right. So we do not have limits on square footages within the zoning ordinance or within county regulation. There's some regulations within the building code that talks about a minimum bathroom size or bedroom size, things like that. But we're also looking at that to say like our accessory apartments. that we currently only allow within a dwelling, I'm an old school guy, so the Fonzie apartment that's detached, could we do that same size accessory apartment but detached somewhere? Would that be more attractive as an affordable unit as opposed to having someone living in the basement of a home or above a garage, have it maybe be separated? So that's part of those accessory units instead of having that be internal to a home being external.

Okay, and I think, okay, would that also allow external accessory units and residential zoning areas with that also include like churches?

In churches, I want to be careful with that, right? Where we allow churches, there's also some Arlupa stuff that we want to be careful of. So we would I'll give you the safe answer, which is we'll look at all our options, whether that's in the commercial areas, the residential districts, and or how that relates to places of worship that sponsor that type of housing.

Okay. Thank you. And my last question is regarding the housing advisory committee. I agree. I don't think we should do anything that would add additional time because that's what I hear from developers, time is money. So if it's going to add a lot of time and then developers can't do it, they're not going to play ball. Anyway, so I'd want to make sure that however we do that, it's an expedited process or they know what they're doing type thing and quickly sign off with whatever recommendations they have. Thank you. That's all.

Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much for all this presentation. And I just have a couple of questions. Let me go back up to the top. So in conversation with a developer recently, I learned that they actually have had very successful arrangements turning over their affordable units in something that's being developed to the community land trust, who then manages and removes the management of the affordable units from the developer, which is, I think, a totally different skill set and a really good idea. Is that something that you're already familiar with? And is this more than just one developer who's doing this? Is this something that's beginning to be implemented? And it's something we should be asking for or putting into our process, actually.

We have an existing land trust in the community that has been in its sort of scaled down form in the last decade or so and is scaling back up. And so it's particularly good timing. I think there's lots of creative ways that a land trust can be used, particularly in the area of home ownership, which is some of the hardest for traditional developers to produce for the community and then maintain their affordability in the land trust. can help ensure that they maintain their affordability for 90 years, which is pretty impressive and sometimes forever. The land trust has been asserting itself in a number of ways in our community lately, and that's welcome. The land trust concept was identified several times in Housing Albemarle and exists as one of the objectives. And so I think those things are already aligned in terms of the board's guidance. And now we have a resource that is sort of more engaged in our community to meet that need.

Great. And the more support it gets and use it gets, the better it will do. So that's great. It was mentioned about density bonus for extra units. I thought the extra 50% of market rate units was supposed to offset the cost of the, rather than some extra subsidy for those extra affordable units.

Historically, the density bonus has not been attached to a financial incentive. It's been independent. The bonus itself was the incentive.

Okay, so I must have misunderstood what somebody presented then because I got the wrong message on that. And accessory units in all residential districts, does that include rural area as well?

Yes, I think that recently by the state code changes. He's an expert on the way.

All right, thank you.

So yes, we currently, if I go back to the same example of the accessory park, All right, so we currently allow that one accessory apartment within a dwelling, and that is also in the rural areas. So we would look at that same detached rule to apply within the rural areas.

And is there a timeframe for that? Does that require special legislative adoption, or can it just happen because of the state code?

That is, the legislative adoption would take place here in this room. Okay. It's a local.

So we're not there yet.

Okay. Yep.

same code thank you very much yes i think that is all the questions i had right now the advisory nature of the advisory committee everybody's already talked about that so i'll stop there i do like the way it's laid out though with the the uh the players the group of nine i think that's a reasonable approach supervisor duncan

I think I'm down to just two questions now. For the new and preserved units, did you say that the proffered units possibly could never get built?

I said that our experience with the proffer number, which is I think we've historically thought 500 units, for example, have been proffered. They surely will be built. And that reality has challenged that, that in fact, people, developers are approved to build 200 units, but actually build 100 units. And so if 20% of those are affordable, we're getting half of what we thought we were going to get in that moment. The process of the rezoning does not require a developer to build the number of units that they have come to us with. And so I think we're reconciling with what's been approved, what's actually being built. And then we have a development right now that was approved over 10 years ago that is now coming online. And so tracking the reality of the proffer, I think, is really important for our reality checking about the number of units that have been promised versus the number of units that actually will be available to community members within a reasonable time frame.

Yeah, my, yeah, I think tracking it is important. It's more just if it's not accurate to say that we've had, you know, almost 5,500 units. We're really at, you know, 2576 units that have like been built out of the 10,000 that we need. And then on slide nine, the There's like three different ways that it's listed of the AHIF outcomes. We have, you know, projects, units, homes, and beds. Is there a way to, like, for example, the rehabilitation and preservation, you know, the 344 projects, like, those are homes, right? Or, like, dwelling units.

They're not developing units. They're projects in units.

Is there a way, I guess my question is, like, we're serving more than 1,080 people, right? In this chart, is there a way to sort of get a more universal look at how many like total bedrooms or total beds or, you know, how many how many total people have we kind of helped through this in a way that's just a more accurate number than, you know, a thousand eighty?

We will certainly try. We struggle with projects, buildings, units, apartments, households, individual beds. And because many of our players both play either sort of our funding that's leveraged from other communities or other sources identify their measurement differently than we might. And as do our projects, it's tricky, but I agree. I think households or, or, or people would be one of the best sort of to identify numbers of people or households served. We can, we can. Right. Yeah.

The number would be a lot more impressive than a thousand, which is like, I mean, it's not nothing, but like it, for the money. I know there's a lot more people that are being helped. But that's all I have.

Supervisor Pruitt? Thank you. I'm going to start with the board because I think that's a more concrete and kind of focused conversation because we have recognizing it's not presented as draft, but I'm going to treat it like draft language in front of us. I do think the seats and number of seats that is offered in this example is roughly appropriate. I think less than 10 is a good number. I do think, especially, I might expect this to be a slightly more let's call it politically interesting board as in one that gets attention in its early years. And so I think that would be something that it makes some amount of sense for us to have more direct and personalized control over the appointments. Like we have normally with a district based appointment similar to the social services board or the planning commissioner while still having a little bit more broad touch for the three additional seats. There is a distinction that I see here that I want to just call out and say like the importance of it, saying that there is a preference for expertise without creating reserved seats. reserved seats is a really common model. I would personally be really opposed to, other than regionally, of course, reserved seats based on industry or expertise. That's really common in these kinds of things. But what it can do is create inbuilt structures of the balance of that board, such that temporary vacancies suddenly swing the balance of the board. It is, I mean, it's formally inviting a fox into a hen house at time, which I don't think we want to do, which kind of brings in a third piece of feedback I would give. And I don't know how this would necessarily be expressed, but I think it's really important in a board like this for it to be effective. And we can think of several different ways this could realize that people not be serving on the board in an organizational capacity. I think we see that in our neighbors in Charlottesville amongst nonprofits, right? People I would like to work with, but it can be ineffective if everyone is sitting there arguing over their slice of the pie. And similarly, I would be disquieted to know that there's someone there representing Carr or someone there representing Vama. or someone who works for them and does not formally represent them, but effectively represents them because their boss will scold them if they don't. And with that last point, I can see how it's going to be hard to capture that important distinction in the language of any formation agreement. But I think it's really important. I think the main role of this does need to be advisory, as other people have said. I think we see why right now, right? Like the topic in front of us, right? Like bullet one is, hey, board, what do you think about housing? What else should we do? And we do that about once every six months. And that is a big enough picture thing that it's hard to have a productive conversation. And a board that meets monthly and has a channelizing focus on that and helps us winnow down more specific recommendations has value. I do wonder if there is some other formal role that we might invite a housing commission into, which no one else has mentioned. But we currently have the RHIP process. There is no politically accountable input on that before it comes to us. And I think at some point I would like to have a politically accountable process without having to come to the board for the slowdown, right, is what I'm saying following.

That last sentence I got.

So currently you have to Bonaventure wants our hip money. Bonaventure, even if they weren't requesting zoning exception, upzoning, they would still have to wait to get on our schedule to get that our hip money. It could be nice to have some kind of politically accountable board that can move more agilely than this board could at some point in the future. That is a reason to consider inserting them in the chop chain for our hip. I'm not saying we would, but that's a reason to consider it. It might be helpful to have some kind of politically accountable element other than us to dig into AHIF disbursements and requests at some point. I'm not saying we should, but I think it's helpful to consider. Other localities, so Charlottesville has in their charter, they have a human rights commission that formally reviews allegations of complaints. There's a possibility they'll become a FAP later. Um, that is something that we maybe could do. I think there's maybe an open question of law, whether or not that's something they could do. Um, you could have them, it specifically says in this draft that they won't review tenant disputes. I might argue there could be a value for an organization that does receive tenant disputes and, uh, look at whether or not there's something colorable about overall maintenance practices and submit them to the board. I'm not saying this board should adopt any of these, but I want to, before we just breeze past saying it should be advisory and not think of formal roles, I think we should think about what formal roles might make sense for this. And I would also just raise to this board, that it's not lost on me, I hope it's not lost on others, that most of our other commissions and boards are disengaged. I don't think that's unfair or unkind. A lot of them do not present formal recommendations to this board. They do not engage with policy questions that they are kind of formed to contemplate. There are exceptions. Crozet CAC recently gave us some policy recommendations. We get routine recommendations from the Natural Heritage Committee, but plenty of them we don't. We don't hear from. And I would be dismayed if this one becomes that. And I might suggest that formal duties beyond advisory can help constantly refocus that conversation. So I just chuck that out there. As far as policies and initiatives, I think it's important understanding that we're in an imperfect data environment because the housing market is screwed right now. Understanding that, nonetheless, we have a policy that it does not feel works for the moment we're in, and it's not clear how long the moment we're in is going to last. I do think it is prudent and incumbent on us to revisit our inclusionary zoning standards. And I continue... Every passing month, I think I question more and more the wisdom of the way that, in practice, our HIP and our inclusionary zoning standards are wed so that they're both triggered at the same time. That seems to introduce unnecessary uncertainty into the process for landlords. Sorry, developers, not landlords. Landlords in waiting. I think it's important that we think about, as we're talking about density bonuses and how those work, that also zoning modernization will change how that looks like as a tool for this county. Currently, you're right, it does not function as an incentive. It actually is a, it's table stakes and an economic necessity to proceed with a project. It should focus or function like an incentive. Virginia code understands it to function like an incentive. And I think we would be well served for it to once again function like an incentive, but it sounds like it's got to take three years for that to happen based on the speed of zoning modernization. Um, new initiatives i've said before i will say it again uh we currently have one or two big local housing tools i would say like our hip and inclusionary zoning and ahif and we're trying to do everything with these two tools and i think we're disturbed by that um i would Alex Blanche- really want us to explore more targeted tools for more specialized problems. I've broached before and I'll broach again the possibility of exploring a pilot voucher program deployed at the local level. Alex Blanche- We could target that in a variety of different ways. It could be targeted to specific vulnerable populations, it could have specific length duration eligibility, but I think this would be a critical tool for hitting those sub 30, those sub 60% populations that we try to serve. And I think we really struggle to serve with much more market-based solutions that we currently deploy. I do think that's important. And also as far as like, as we revisit and update Housing Albemarle. This is a more long range thing, but I think it's really important. And I think we have built up the muscle to be able to do it well. Dr. Pethia knows what I'm about to say, I think, which is we need to think more proactively about how to resolve jurisdictional friction. There's a few different ways this happens. In the voucher program, there is a hard, bright jurisdictional line that creates additional man hours, additional staff problems when we try and port between jurisdictions. That sucks. It creates a lot of hardship for individuals. It can make some people lose their voucher based on timing of search vouchers. it can make some people not be able to port whatsoever because of differing amounts of money held by the two different PHAs. We have a different way that discrimination claims are processed in the city than in the county. We have to go, or our residents have to always go through the state their residents can go through the state or through the local housing commission. I think that creates confusion, especially when you look at people like in Jack Jewett, who probably don't know which one they live in for the most part. And there is, I think, a much bigger picture when we're trying to do market-based solutions. We're trying to wave around a lot of money And we have another organization that is also trying to wave around a lot of money in the exact same way right next door in CRHA. I think we would be well served by figuring out how we can coordinate those efforts with CRHA more intentionally in order to more effectively leverage money together and strategically. And I think that could also potentially resolve a lot of the tension we have on how we work our budget and in relation to Charlottesville's. I think working together more intentionally could give us some additional arguments for potentially politically limiting or unwinding revenue sharing if we show that we are able to work together on a key shared goal with the city. And I have been talking a long time. I think that's all I have for now. Thank you.

um before i make my comments i've been tracking some things your questions that you put on the slide versus what was in the executive memo they're different are you coming back with other questions after i finish speaking on this

No, sir. These are the three questions that we need answered today. The executive summary presented the idea that we might come back, that we might resolve the issue of the Housing Advisory Committee tonight or this afternoon. And that was A loose use of the language for my part, it was not intended to do that in advance of our discussion about what the component should be. And I should have been clear that that was attached as a sample, something to jump off of, not necessarily a hard and fast staff recommendation. These are the questions that will help guide what we bring back to you for formal action.

because one of the questions in the packet was specific to fees and then tap fees, and I have not been tracking those commentary through the first five. Are you looking for feedback on those two specific items this evening?

We are. I feel like I have heard some comments about the interest in having better incentives through developer fees, whether that's expedited reviews or whether that's waived fees. And that Mr. Svoboda's comment that they will be incorporated as part of ZMOD and then back before the board sometime in the next three years was the de facto answer. But there could be other comments that should be taken into consideration.

And we weren't going to do any sort of final voting on that stuff tonight. But if you do have those thoughts, we want to make sure we communicate that to Kaki. whether that's right now, is there any pressing comments on it? I hate to do that. But why don't we, we can send that to you. Please do. Our comments on those two particular ones.

Thank you.

First question I have is, Um, housing Albemarle when we passed AC 44, and I'm not going to go on my big thing, like I've done in the past, but we did say it would receive an immediate review. I'm assuming this is part of doing that review. But I thought that review was similar to our economic strategic plan update where we change. We look at things and go, that's not the right benchmark. We're going to change the benchmark to this where the priorities might shift. What's the timeline that you could put a stamp on and saying housing album or review is underway and will be finished by and will be coming to the board for check ins? Because a lot of things that I could be I could take an hour to talk about right now. would be better served if I knew I'm in the midst of doing the housing Albemarle strategic plan update. When is that happening?

will immediately begin forthwith. That's a clarity that I did not have going into this review. Having it be parallel or similar to the strategic plan for economic development is not a pathway or strategy I considered as part of preparing for today. And we can certainly begin that. The data we compiled and collected for this presentation will certainly be useful in that review. and also the potential of looking at our, as we've described, our complicated data context to try to understand whether we can measure the impact of the policy after 2021 or not.

So and that's my comment, then, is I'm interested in looking at the housing album, Earl, and the context on which that policy, that strategic plan was passed was 2021. A whole different reality and a whole different layer of understanding by the board at the time of what housing affordability, what the problem is, what the crisis is. We took two years to do developer incentives, and we put everything basically on hold until then. And even that vote at that point in time was a completely different context than what we're working in now and what we know now. I think that whole document, goals... Action things, I think some are gonna be easy. We like that, let's continue. But others, the comment about inclusionary zoning, for example, did we set the bar too high? Did we set the bar in a way that given the current context worked against us? If the context of 2021 continued, that bar might've been perfectly fine and served us. But now these days, I think we're questioning whether or not that's the case. And I don't wanna litigate all those different points that I could in the policy if I know a policy review is coming, because then I can wait and do it at that point in time. The zoning mod phase three, there was a list there. I think there are things on that list that are faster than others. I don't want all of them to wait till they're all done. Let's get the ones that can be moved, moved. And I know it's phase three. So I guess I'd be advocating that wrong phase if it's an easy one that could be done. But it's easy for me as a supervisor to say, well, let's do that. That's easy. Because it's similar to what we're going to be discussing about these ROIs. Because I say it in the vacuum of not knowing what it means to move it to a different phase. But there are things in there that are further along. And sometimes we list all this stuff together regardless of the, like, all right, this one might take two months. This one might take four. But we're going to wait until the one that we do for four to implement all of them. I don't know if that's the best thing to do when we've said affordable housing is a crisis. We need to get the things that we can get moving and done quickly done and out on the street to be able to have the impact. There was a comment about qualifications for incentive in the fall. Okay, that's coming back in the fall. That was an answer I think you gave to someone else. All right, understood. TAP fees and permitting fees. Yes, we should be considering those. Anything that removes the ability to keep, removes the increase of the price for folks that need affordable housing should be on the table. And if there has not been clear communication from the six members about that, I would love to put that to rest right now. Is there anybody that objects to any tool or procedure that helps us bring down housing prices and affordability for those who need it? I understand the devil's in the details. But why this question is being asked of us was frustrating to me. And I'm not asking for commentary. I'm asking, is there any objection to that?

To considering it.

To considering what they look like. So let's do it. Now I'm going to make my political comment. If there's another governance agency that is charging fees for something, which is public dollars, they should be met with the same responsibility and urgency to help us solve affordable housing as this board is feeling and other entities do. And I will say this, I'm speaking directly to water tap fees, because for a long time, it's growth pays for growth. Well, guess what we have here? This is too easy, and I'm glad there's lots of members of the public here to listen to this, because growth that's coming into the county gets blamed for the need for housing units and affordable units. But here's the reality. The growth coming into the county are not the people needing the affordable units. The people needing the affordable units are the ones we've pushed out of the county. So growth, the people coming in who need those units and want those units, they can pay for themselves. The tap fees, yes. Do I agree with the concept of that growth should pay for growth? Yes. But the reality is, is what are we doing to retain people that have already left the community to stay here and not have to commute from an hour and a half away? Those units that are coming online that are subsidized units, whether it's rental or for home ownership, is what those fees would go to help do. And if we want to start having a debate about growth paying for growth, I think we should start understanding what's paying for retention of folks that we would rather have be members of our community than see them lost to our community. Because I, for one, we've already lopped off a couple rungs on the income ladder in Albemarle County. And frankly, I'm sad about that. So I think that we have to use every single tool at our disposal, including saying to an ACSA board that if it's 100% affordable project, these tap fees need to be looked at. And it can't just be turning around and looking back at us and going, we'll go to your AHIF fund for it. they have a responsibility and a role to play in that. And that's a charge I think we directed Mr. Richardson to start in that conversation, because I think I remember Jeff, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you asked us that direct question a month or so ago about perhaps bringing that conversation up specific to that point at the ACSA. And if I am misremembering that, then I apologize for throwing that at you. And you don't have to answer now. We can clean that up later. Because I've got to be mindful of time. You better take the gavel, Fred, and be ready to knock me down when I get going too long. Page 21, I've already made that comment. Already made that comment. All right. The Housing Albemarle Advisory Committee, I have a lot of very strong feelings on this, and I hear all the concerns that board members have stated. I did not hear any objection to the move forward of the formation of one. I've heard they'd like it to remain advisory, is a big concern, which I agree with, and that they don't want it to be a bureaucratic point along the way to getting a project done, which I also agree with. But I want you all to realize that some of the formalized pieces or the political, I forget the phrase that Supervisor Pruitt used, does exist and works for us. The EDA is the model. The EDA does this for us. And beyond just, it's not, they're advisory. They don't get final say but for a few things that we gave them in terms of some money things in our MOU. But we have the final say. There are communities and counties in Virginia who have been doing housing advisory committees specific to trust funds and other elements of their housing program who've been doing this for 20, 30 years. Some even did put their advisory committees in places of those bureaucratic moments, realized that was a dumb decision, and took them back out. So we don't have to reinvent some things here. There are some experts out there using advisory committees in ways that are really... purposefully helping them achieve their housing strategy. And we can look to that. I'm thinking specifically of Fairfax County. They do a wonderful job. Loudon is the one that got burned by putting them in a process point and was like, yeah, we're going to whip that right back out, right? So I'm not going to wordsmith the housing charter, but I think the devil is in the details. The one that was presented, and I know there wasn't a lot of, you know, you got to throw something up there to get reaction, but it was very passive. I'm not looking for a housing affordability book club with this advisory committee. We have real goals. We have real needs. We have limited resources. Staff has limited capacity. And this committee should be stood up to help us track how we're doing. It's contingent on us to make the appointments that the people have the expertise to do what's in the charter. And then we have to own those decisions, trust their guidance and advice that they advise us on, and help us get things moving. So, for example, in the one that was presented today, the purpose and then the advisory authority are basically the same statement. So you brought forward a charter probably by accident and not, but its purpose was that, well, we want to be redundant on the advisory point. Okay. I think the purpose should be the committee shall assist the board of supervisors in advancing the goals or implementing the objectives of housing Albemarle and full stop. The advisory authority could stay right as it is alone. And then all those responsibilities, which I will not go through, I think there are some missing. I think some points were made by other supervisors that point to what's missing from it. And they're all very, very passive statements. So we got to get in there and turn them around in a way so that it can be a little bit more, not even a little bit, it should be, If this charter does what I would hope it would to do, I would think that folks that have listened to us do the things that we've done and watched us do our votes and put things in places would say, well, that, okay, that's not just some committee that's gonna chat. It should land and have its impact. And if it comes back to us, which I know it would for approval as the charter, that I would say, go ahead and start bringing that MOU to us. Because MOUs are typically what changes some of the, or what better defines sometimes what the charter is. And we just, you know, enhanced the MOU with our economic development authority, what, was that a year ago now? So that's what I mean by that comment. Yeah. I think that we have CACs that help us in the project approval pipeline to give us a community piece, but that was an advisory committee that helped us serve a role in the process we already have. We require a community meeting for projects. And the CACs already are scheduled in meeting. I think it's become an efficient way for developers to be able to do that project so they don't have to schedule yet their own meetings and their own things. So there are things that we can do with things like this that can be very helpful to us. So let's not lose that. Let's not lose that idea or at least close our minds down to it. Okay. I think the way to track and monitor progress, I want to make this point and then I'll conclude. Tracking and monitoring of progress. We also have a model that already exists in our organization that does this. And CACI, it's the Department of Social Services, the Human Services Annual Report. It brings forward a scorecard and it says, here's what your goals were, here was your priorities, because it's the one I always complain about the staying within the 1% of their budget and not using all the funds. why wouldn't this committee be able to do the same type of charge, but are we advancing our housing objectives? And we already have one that does that. And if you have a really strong committee, like we do on that committee, and they come forward along with you all and do that report to us, and we say, yeah, that's our spear report in a lot of ways for human services. This committee could do that for us. So I have a lot of high aspirations for what this could be. And if it is more than a discussion club, I think it could really, really help us take a policy document that we voted on five years ago and been trying desperately to get as much of it done and advanced, but it's taken us a long time, could help us hit a different gear in terms of speed to get these items implemented.

May I ask for clarity on the question of the review? The comprehensive regional housing needs assessment is coming out. TJPDC is working on producing that, which is data review and recommendations for process and programs, strategies by locality, early spring, sort of late winter-ish. And I would imagine that that information would strongly influence a policy review of housing at Albemarle. And so just in terms of reality checking or expectations management, just thinking about what the timing of that is, because shortly followed by the release of that report will be your very exciting and time-intensive budget process. So just checking in.

Yeah. And I, others, I mean, I'm, I accept that that information would be helpful in the review of our policy. So I'm not looking for this to be completed by October. I just want to make sure it wasn't lost what the agreement was when we approved AC44, because we embedded in there a five-year, every five-year review, and the next one to commence immediately. And we had passed that back in November. So we just got, we want to, I don't want to ever lose that commitment we made to get that underway. But I do see the relevance of having that information for it. And in the meantime, you're doing some reviews by specific things anyway. So I also recognize that and appreciate that. We don't have to, to my earlier point, we don't have to wait on the whole policy thing to review and revise certain things that are in it. I think even if I'm not done, I should be done. Are there any other remaining comments? We'll take a quick break if not.

Very short one.

Yes.

And this isn't my tap fee, which I will email. Um, very quick. I wrote it down. I neglected to mention it. I think as we start to catch up on some of our supply side goals, we also need to start thinking about whether or not we're doing everything our community expects us on tenant protections. That is a broad statement, a particular one that I know I've discussed with this board. And I think, I think we generally are of one mind on is we don't currently have a strong existing policies on tenant displacement. or the requirement of tenant displacement plans for developments, I think that should be something we should engage with and whether or not we would have standardized tenant displacement expectations or planning requirements for certain developments.

That is certainly one of the strategies specifically called out in Housing Admiral as it exists now.

Oops, I forgot. Is there anything you needed that we have not addressed? Because you got a lot more than probably what you were asking.

I was thrilled by the conversation and there's lots to work on. Thank you.

Any additional items? Okay. All right. We're going to board where we'll cut our five minutes or 10 minute recess down to five. So if we could do a quick restroom break and then we'll reconvene.

Thank you.

I don't think you can do that, can you?

No, I think we'll be all right. Oh, I hear we're on. All right, we're coming back from our recess. If I could see the agenda, I would tell you what is next. So now we are to item number 11, and this is the fiscal year 27 community development work program. Bart will lead us to that. And then the 8.6 item, the ROI to study concentrated animal feeding operations will also be You know, we're going to have to, I mean, there's two conversations really. So we'll go through the full work program. Then we use the context of that to help us with the decision that we have to make regarding item H6. So thank you, Bart.

Mr. Chair, thank you. I'm going to go ahead and no problem. I'm going to kick this off this evening and then I'll turn it over to Bart. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon to introduce the Community Development Department Work Program. Much has changed for the department over the last year from from complete. from completing an intensive effort for the new comprehensive plan to the appointment of a new director of the department, Mr. Svoda. We're going to kick off the presentation with a few overall comments and then I'll turn it over to Bart and we'll dig into some details. Community development items include presentations on projects such as AC44, zoning modernization, homestay items, special exceptions, zoning map, and tax amendments. So you can see in front of you, since FY25, we've noticed an uptick in work within the department of with plans permitting and inspections and i should have said right out of the gate board this is the only department in county government where we look at the work plan in front of the board we don't do that with any other department and this has been the case certainly since i've been here and i'm in my ninth year and i think it's an exceptional time for us to look at it with a new director on board to talk about what can we accomplish between July and December? What can we accomplish between January and June of next year? And it's logical to me that it's in front of the board, not just because we have a new director with Mr. Savota, but community development items are probably in front of the board. It probably makes up 80% of the board's work on any given Monday, first Wednesday and third Wednesdays of the month. And so... We are acutely aware of the stress and the intensity of the work that comes out of the community development department on a regular basis, the work that comes through the planning commission, and then the time that is spent with the board on items that come before the board two times a month. This data is helpful to just remind us that regardless of what we're adding to the community development work plan, there is a significant amount of core service work that occurs in the department on a day-to-day basis. Okay? Okay. The work program is extensive and it is in addition to the regular activities of the department. The purpose of today's presentation is to help manage expectations, to get direction from the board, establish and manage expectations for the work to be accomplished over the next 12 months or so. The staff inside the department is competent inside with inside work or with outside contracting to do anything legally that the board is flagging to do. But as this board has heard me say a number of times since I've been the manager, we can't do everything. And we will not be able to do everything that the board comes up with or the community comes up with as the next new idea. And we have to manage our resources and we have to establish a work plan. And we also have to try to maintain a little bit of capacity and not give every ounce of it away because there's things that are going to happen between now and June that Bart and his team are not aware of. And this board may want to see the department pivot and be able to take something else on. It's important to point out that the work plan that Bart and his team have put together captures most of the capacity of the department. And, Board, I'm going to be frank. When I looked at this presentation, I questioned whether or not the department, if nothing happens but we just take on what we're going to do and what Bart presents, I question whether they'll be able to do everything that's on the work plan because I just think it is an ambitious lift between now and the end of this fiscal year. So with that, I think that's the slide that I handed over to Mr. Savota. And I appreciate the board allowing us to come before you today. And again, I think this is great timing with Bart just taking over the position as director. So Bart, I'll hand it over to you.

Thank you. This slide represents some of the work that we've completed, kind of the highlights that you're aware about. I'm going to talk a minute about the second slide that we looked at at the bottom of that, and I can go back to it if you wish. There were some numbers down there. 118 items is what community development brought before the board in 2025. I believe we're at 56 right now in calendar year 2026. So if you think about that in terms of two meetings a month, The amount of stuff, the amount of work that comes through community development to the board is quite a bit. Again, the comprehensive plan, EP&L licensing and permitting system, although that's been implemented, we are working on strategies and efficiencies to make sure that we cover all those items and that we're the most effective that we can be. The riparian buffer ordinance, which goes into effect in September. We're gonna talk about that a little bit in some future work also, because although the ordinance is adopted, the procedures and policies that go with that are not yet. So as we move towards September 1st and receive inquiries or complaints and compliance that we need to do, we have to develop that program. Ongoing projects, zoning modernization phase two. Phase three is on its heels. Sounds like there may be some overlap as we analyze some of the work that we're doing. Housing Albemarle, which we just talked about. Multimodal transportation. I don't want to read down the full list, but you get the idea of the kind of amount of the regular stuff we have as follow-up to the things we've been talking about over the past year. All right, we've been working on zoning, modernization, to the chair's point, since about FY23 and trying to bring that to completion. The Housing Alamar Works includes affordable dwelling unit recommendations, bonus densities, different policies and procedures in order to accommodate those strategies and those goals that the board desires. EP&L, we have a project coming in in another week called the Shell Records Project. that particular project is all of the files from 2019 backwards that we need to populate to keep our records intact. And when we're reviewing a 1994 proffer, we can link that to a current application in 2026. Organizational priorities that are ongoing, uh, supporting Rivanna futures, supporting other economic development initiatives. We have Eastern Avenue, uh, three-notch trail, our VDOT transportation studies, the six-year road plan, smart scale. All those things are encompassed in some of that regular work that we do. This is where we kind of cut to the chase. This is the ambitious part, right? So July through December, you can see we have our state mandates. The first four ROIs are in response to changes to General Assembly statutes. that were passed in the last year or two. So one of the things we look at when we analyze work is kind of legal first, legal local second, and then our desires. And so that's part of, as we go through this work program, how do we split that out? What do we have to do? What could we or should we do? And how do we resource those things? The two ROIs that are nearing completion are Clean Earth Fill that's anticipated pc review either sometime august september and then to the bos to the board excuse me in the fall also uh form-based code sometime between now and december we'll be seeing that closer to the late fall based on the robust discussion that we've had with the board during the july meeting we have included an roi for research and evaluation of livestock dairy and poultry facilities That's on there as a placeholder. That can come off as we talk about what we're going to do instead of as opposed to in addition to. Also, finally, staff will prepare some proposals and budget analysis on two items for biosolid ordinance. We've heard about that for a number of months now. And also, as well as the rental inspection program. which is sort of part of housing album moral, but also we have to figure out where that lands. So we're working together with the same group of departments to figure out what the scope of that looks like. What would the cost of that be? What's the benefit of that? How do we fill that in with the priorities? And so right now those are, those are scoping things, not adoption of ordinance things, right? So what would that program be? January through June, these are our house bills that are state mandated. So I won't go through all of them, but manufactured housing is on there. Affordable housing with religious organizations, I believe, which Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley was alluding to earlier in the last presentation. Subdivision ordinance shortening some timeframes. Those are all code changes that we have to look at. Along with manufactured housing, we may look at those accessory apartments we were talking about earlier. So we also want to make sure that we don't have tunnel vision on any of these amendments that we'd be doing, but we want to make sure that so we're efficient and effective. If the subject matter is timely and appropriate, then we probably look at some of those things at the same time. Local options that we have. potential for residential and commercial. That's an ROI that's already adopted that we need to be working on. Text amendment for outdoor storage. That is something that staff is currently working on. Here's the slide that makes me nervous when I talk to you. The things that are not included in the work program, right? The mapping of private cemeteries, which was a discussion earlier, later last year, earlier. John Potter, or early winter I think ordinance requirements for snow removal those things as far as developing those programs as we. John Potter, talked with the board over the last few months, the the resources to put towards an ordinance or researching what it would take to do removal of snow from sidewalks versus rental inspections. That is part of the choice that was made to present to the board and the work program that that is something that we felt the resources towards rental was more of a board priority than removal of snow from sidewalks. Those are things that we can talk about and discuss. And I kind of sped through this a little bit. I know we're a little bit behind, we'll call it. But I'm open for any questions, comments, concerns.

I think board, what we'll do is the first, we'll just stay focused on the work plan itself and we'll separate the ROI on the CAFOs for a separate conversation, but it is been incorporated into a suggested work plan. So, um, to the point you're just asking about the work plan itself, we'll just try to stay efficient or at least focused on different aspects of this discussion. Supervisor Missel?

Got it. Thank you. So this is sort of a new area for me to try to understand, and I guess I have a couple questions. One is resources, right? So when you think about your staff and resources, The use of potential, I mean, I remember hearing that we reduced the total number of FTEs on the CDD staff. Is that accurate? So I'm wondering about the resource allocation and whether... Are you asking the budget question from the budget we just passed? Yeah, I'm actually asking, like, how is your staffing right now? In other words, here's our work plan. Is the staff that you have... what's the word, I guess, able, capable? Do you have the bandwidth to handle? I mean, I assume what you're sharing, you have the bandwidth to handle, but it's a stretch.

Yes, but it's a stretch. So the current, and maybe if I back up a minute, and Mr. Richardson could correct me where I get this wrong, is there were no staff cuts in the current budget, right, that was just adopted, that we came into in July. That being said, we do have some vacancies that we're trying to fill.

Okay, that's it.

Yeah, got it. But those are still intact. I don't know the exact numbers. This is more of a Jacob question. We're at 3.6, 3.8% unemployment. So the amount of, we'll call it product, the amount of folks on the shelf to fill those positions are limited based on the specific skills that we need or experiences. Okay, great. There's not a, there's not a lot of, there's a lot of smart folks out there, but there's not a lot of local government folks who are unemployed at the moment.

So you still have positions that need to be filled.

Yeah. We have positions that we need to fill based on if we were at full capacity.

Yeah.

I think this is a little bit still ambitious, but not a little, it's not overly ambitious. This is, right at our capacity now based on the time it will take us to fill these slots and, and move along. Yeah.

So what is there, what percentage of the work that you do that you're doing in your department is outsourced?

Hmm.

We hire the occasional consultant for transportation studies. We don't outsource review. We don't outsource inspections. It's very limited. So some of the scope that you'll see when we're looking for research, and CAFO seems to be the hot topic tonight, so we'll look at that. We would use or would like to use a consultant for that. We are scoping what that means, what that cost is, to see based on the budget allocation that we have and the resources that we are already given, if there's available funds for at least the research to figure out what the 50 localities, who they are, what do they have, those sorts of things to be able to bring that back and kind of report out. So those types of things are what we outsource. Everything else is pretty much in-house.

Okay, thanks. Do you have a set of key performance indicators that you're attempting to measure? In other words, here's your goal for June through December and January through June. At the end of the year, is it the SPIR report? What do you use to actually measure how well we did, how effective staff was actually able to be in the process?

Yeah, it will be – some of those items will be in the SPEAR report. Some of those you'll see a report out in some different committees from the Planning Commission, what we've processed from the Board of Zoning Appeals, the profit report that we give to the state. There's various things. We're also – completed a process analysis with a consulting company that talking about our process efficiency. So that's going to be one of our primary focuses also in kind of speed through the review process. Where can we add steps that help us or take away steps that are hindrance?

Great. Just a couple more questions under the state mandated versus local option slides. And obviously, I mean that first slide is everything you're doing in addition to those things right so it's it's easy to look at those slides and say that seems doable but then you got to remember the What was it? 1,664 plans and 3,800 permits and 45,000 inspections plus those things, right?

Right.

So when you look at your time allotment, state mandated versus local option, in those slides, what roughly percentage of time ends up being allocated to things you have to do in the state or due to the state?

When we look at the specific bills or ordinance changes, those are first. So there's kind of two sides to the shop, which is the development side and then sort of the regulation and future planning side. So some of the numbers that you see in that first slide have to do with permits and inspections, which those are, that's a different team of folks that would work on some of the ordinance revisions, right? There is some overlap when it comes to site plans and subdivisions and ZMA reviews that we get applications on. Some of those folks also will work on code updates, zoning ordinance updates. And so there's a, there's some overlap there. It's hard for me to answer that percentage question.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, well, 90% or let's say 80, if I'm conservative a little bit, 80, 85% of our regular work that goes out the door, if we go by the application numbers, right. Inspection numbers and building permits, that's 90% of those numbers that you see on that sheet. But those process more quickly than a site plan or a zoning text amendment.

Got it.

And so it doesn't quite, it's not quite apples to apples.

Okay. And then the last thing, which I guess is just a comment, I'm having a hard time, if I'm understanding correctly, we're to look at this work plan and say, wow, that's a lot. Okay. we should consider prioritizing things, I assume. I don't know if that's feedback that we should provide tonight, today. It's hard for me to say, for example, the clean earth fill and inert waste activity ROI should go before I don't know because we haven't approved it yet, but let's just say the amendment, amend RIO 29, the next one, because I don't know how much time each one of those is going to take. If one's a slam dunk, if one requires third party, you know, additional staffing or outsourcing. So I don't know exactly how to be helpful, if that makes sense.

Yeah, and some of those we have are already in process, right? So some of those first quarter ones are a third, two thirds through the process. We've done the public engagement. That's why they are in that first July through December because those are coming to a close.

With the exception of the intensive livestock one, which we haven't approved to move forward yet. Correct. Right. So one way to look at it is, well, these other two ROIs, you're three quarters of the way through, so you've got plenty of time to do a third, right? And that's what I'm trying to get my head around is what does that look like? Or now we've got to do those other two. That's a lot of work, and it's going to take a lot more time to get them finished. We're not going to have time to do this. We're going to kick it to next year or whatever that is. So that's just, I guess, a comment I'm struggling a little bit with, but I'll listen to my colleagues and learn from them. Thank you.

Supervisor LaPista-Curley?

Give it to me. So some of the same questions, I know the state mandated, those are things we have to do. And I am concerned about that you do not have a full staff because you have some vacancies. I don't know how many vacancies, but you have some vacancies, which is gonna cut down on the ability to get things done. Maybe if you even had a full staff, I personally, you can correct me if I'm wrong, think that this would be challenging.

Yes? Yes.

Okay. So everything's challenging and now we're adding something else. But I agree with Supervisor Missel in that we don't know how much each one takes and you don't have a priority order necessarily, correct?

We generally will sort based on our objectives within the comp plan, our strategic plan, how does that align with economic development, you know, all those things. So we just don't kind of pick them and Those are the alignments that we kind of move up. If we have something in transportation that's a priority, but say submittal for smart scale is two years out, we might put that one on the back burner a little bit, depending on what kind of studies and things we need, where if that's something that's priority. and a smart scale, some mills right around the corner, then that one might move up. So there's some deadline dependent and opportunity dependent things, right? So having more industrial land available and the opportunity that arose at Rivanna Futures or at Norfolk or other places, those might leapfrog something depending on also the opportunity that's available. So that's why we kind of have them in quarters as opposed to by weeks or months.

You have them in quarters?

No. Well, in the first half, second half. Excuse me. Okay. We'll have our own schedule kind of in quarters to make sure we stay on track. Okay. Right? And work that back, say, the board date. If the board date for Phil is in November, then we'll walk that back to the PC. We'll walk that back through submittals and work that way. to make sure that we're making our deadlines and we can look at our capacity of what's coming up.

So what you have programmed for July through December, that would be for completion or to work on?

Those are for completion.

To be completed by December. Okay. And that's if maybe you got some additional personnel in your office and that's if everything went smoothly. and something for Ribana Futures wasn't thrown into the mix or something else thrown into the mix?

Yeah. At this point, we are planning on some of that, that we'll see in some industrial development or that we know where some rezonings are and what the capacity is and where those, based on the pre-application meetings that we're having, for future submittals we kind of have an idea what's coming down the pike okay so this could change this could very easily change there may be one or two things that adjust on there that we might bump out have to bump out to January let's say um we're also conscious of the board's um budget schedule so there's so there's a thought in there about how we work around that also

Okay, and you had a slide up there and it said 118 and then 56. I think the 118 was for the, oh yeah. Those were community development items to the board, 118 in 2005, but only year to date, which is June, that it's already been 56.

Yes, yes ma'am.

And the other one was for an entire year. Correct. Okay. And will those be addressed? Will those 56 items?

Those 56 items have already been here.

Are what?

They've already been here. The other anticipated 52, if I can do the math in my head, 62, they're on the way.

They're either way. Okay. And this is with the plans, the permits, and the inspections. We have a lot of inspections, it seems like.

Yes.

And when we go into the rental housing inspections, if we do that program, complete that program also, that would add to your inspections?

That would definitely add to that number. That's a scoping... program, meaning we're going to look and see if that was something that the board wanted to do. This is the number of FTEs. This is the cost. This is the amount of extra resource we would need to do that. The inspections you see on here are the ones that are currently required by code, so there's not a capacity to remove any of those inspections from the program.

That's all for right now. Thank you.

Supervisor Malik?

thank you very much today is no different than the previous 18 this is the most painful day of the year for me because there are so many things that we all know we need to do and do better and here we are i do understand the staffing changes i remember the 19 staff people in 2009 who were redirected to where need was or retired and that shrinkage that happened in the staff. And I think we're barely back to that pre pre recession number now after all these years, and the skill sets have totally changed because your demands have totally changed so it is a scramble that you live with every day and I understand that. So, Is there a deadline that comes with the legislative approvals for those state mandated ones? Were they already supposed to have been done by July 1st? I can't imagine we would have. But is there a deadline of October or something that we have?

So Mr. Herrick can jump in where I get this wrong. But some of those are kind of self-enacting. If our ordinance is incorrect, then we follow the state code anyway. It's just more helpful if the two align. And a lot of times when we do those changes now, we reference the code sections.

as opposed to duplicate the language that saves us a text amendment in the future okay very good and even in the group of staff whom you have now each has sort of different skills or cohorts with different skills so they're not all doing everything on that list and you have to balance all those demands as well yes ma'am to um keep that going And retirements just are awful for everybody because lots of people have retired. Is this the, others have asked about the priority list or what you're presenting. And in the past, it's been, we're starting at the top and going down like the budget above the line. So is this pretty much where you would start? Or then later someone said about, well, we'll pick one out of here if we can do it quickly or something like that. So help me understand how this.

Yeah, so this is where we would start if we had a request to add something. after we do the research part of, if I pick on CAFOs again, after we do the research part of that, to develop an ordinance, we would have to talk about how we would resource that. Would we resource that to a consultant to write that and staff a review, or would we remove a project from a staff person? Rental inspections, not saying we would do that, but... rental inspections to take the place of that. Or some other thing that we're working on to free up capacity to be able to do that. Not that we wouldn't do that in the future, but we'd be able to come back to that other thing.

Generally, you work your way down and as things come off the list, you move to the next one.

Yeah.

Within those many positive cohorts of staff.

Yeah.

Okay. And I was glad to get the local option updates that you have. So... Let me just see here. Okay, I guess that's all the questions I have right now. Thank you.

Supervisor Duncan.

This is really helpful to see this all laid out. This is really exciting to see how much stuff you guys are doing. But yeah, this feels very ambitious. I guess my only kind of super in the weeds kind of thought question is I appreciate swapping out the snow ordinance for rental inspection. Would there be a way sort of as an interim compromise for snow to say like, you know, if there's still snow on the ground after five days, we can just contract out and have somebody plow the sidewalks on? main roads as a way of like saving time to like not have an ordinance, but also kind of not end up with the issue that we had.

Yeah. So that's a different budget and different resource allocation for different department. And so that would be something I would think you would, you would want to talk about during the, during the budget process. Cause I don't believe my knowledge of Fez and I'm speaking a little bit out of turn. There's not the, there's not the availability to do that at the moment. I agree with the concept and the idea, but the resourcing of that would be a challenge.

But yeah, I don't have any questions. This was really helpful to just sort of see this all laid out.

Supervisor Pruitt?

Yes. I want to begin by just noting the form of the output for this request is not, I think, what I was expecting. That's not a good or bad thing. If anything, it's probably a good thing. This is, I would say, a slightly more exquisite product than I think what I was expecting to receive. I think two years ago, we got a two-page memo that had a listed 20-bullet long list of, here's the things we're doing in order. So I'll just begin by noting that. And with that, I did at a distance a mind meld with Mr. Williamson. There's something I noticed that I remember from that list two years ago that hasn't been done that is also not on that list. I think you know what I'm going to say. But residential uses inside commercial areas, I think we still have not adopted policy on that. And I think it's still on our work plan. Can you help me understand where that is?

We've had some... conversations um with mr williamson and and vetted some ideas uh and so some of those ideas that we've vetted um for you know i'll just cut to the chase don't seem to be the ones that would that would benefit that so we're still working on that that is still on our on our radar um i think also that we mentioned it in the last presentation that we may get some ideas or some more traction combining it with those discussions. So it can take place in either location, either in with the CDD work program and or as part of, in there somewhere, ongoing projects, housing album.

Kind of on the same like, kind of rhymes with the idea of I was expecting a memo and I got a more exquisite product. When I'm looking at some of the items on this work list, I'm not sure what the process that staff is engaging with, right? Like the more exquisite product, I might imagine what we did with data centers of solar, where that was a very in-depth iterative process with extensive public engagement, community forums, expert outreach, and consultants galore also, if I'm remembering correctly. And then there's also things that we draft in-house in response to fairly quickly emerging things. If there are experts involved, it might be our own staff and it comes to the board for one review and we say, yes, I don't know where to put each of these things. And if there's like, if there's a formal line or a formal kind of categorization that y'all use in house and, you know, just to give away the ball game where we're not talking about it, but we're talking about it where you would currently put the, the animal feeding operation in that, in that ambit.

Yeah, so with the kind of public interest or an application that has a lot of public interest, a lot of feedback, staff, the board, our external partners are involved in it and interested in that, we would talk about the engagement process and we would be more engaged in an application like that. The Clean Earth Fill is a good example, right? We did a lot of engagement with that. without scoping it out, I would hazard a guess that like the state mandates, we're going to have very little engagement. And those are just things that we have to do, right? The accessory apartment becoming some kind of detached structure from what we've heard from the public in find a way to do affordable housing, what we've heard for the board, make some more options. That is probably something that would have limited engagement and not have focus groups with them.

So we kind of heard where the public's already at there.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how we gauge that there is no, we put it in here and it falls in this category or that Corey. So we're very conscious to, to the community sensitivity also to the boards, but also at the same time, we got to balance that with getting it done.

Sure. Again, the thing we're not talking about right now, but, think it's more of a work plan conversation than a yes no on the roi element i would just personally say i think we very clearly can see that the animal feeding ordinance is in the high community salience a lot of new education that needs to be done with the board with staff consultants involved a lot of different equities that are implicated um businesses and public i would see it as very much the longer engagement form and i would also say I know there was a discussion of the matter of exigency and maybe my peers who are in favor of the ROI don't agree with me on this. I think I'm not sure if we're well-served by trying to target the end of the year. I am comfortable with pushing that out further as a process, recognizing one, competing staff priorities, and two, it's going to be an involved process. So I would just say that this seems like, in addition to this being a generally ambitious program, knowing that this is being brought to us in the context of this new addition, its location within it is itself very ambitious. And I don't know that we need to be that ambitious with it personally, particularly because, and I'll get on this later, I think one of the key facts that was alleged that triggered a sense of exigency may have been mislaid.

So my apologies for not being clear on that statement. The first part of the year would be the report back, not necessarily the writing of the regulation. And so that will also depend on We talked a little bit about factors, whether we have the availability to resource a consultant or whether or not we have to have a staff member look at 52 localities. Sure. Big difference in what that does to our in-house resources.

That is helpful. Additional context, I'm not sure I previously got from what you had said that you're talking about. This is a deliverable. The deliverable by December is a report on status. It is not a draft one.

Correct.

Great. I also don't know that that changes my previous point. If that needs to be the hinge point for flex, I don't see a problem with that personally, but I also try not to presume to get myself too involved on exactly how things are situated in your work plan. Chair, that's all I have.

I was hearing murmuring.

I didn't quite understand what that clarification was. Do you mind just repeating that?

So the deliverable within the July to December, the deliverable that Bart is envisioning there is a step one in what would be an ordinance development process, potentially. It is not a delivered draft one of an ordinance for review. It's a delivered, here's what X, Y, Z have planned to get there. Here are things we could entertain. Thank you.

Good. Was that?

Yes, sir.

Correct. I don't really have questions. Well, I guess I will ask a couple of specific questions, but I'll ask or make some contextual comments and you correct me if I'm wrong. Some of this goes to even supervisor missile, like, well, how do we judge these things? And one of them was, well, you know, you could take something that's programmed July to December, something else gets put in and then something gets moved to January, June. That's one, which I think is what we've discussed. And then, but two, there were a couple items floating out there. I remember snow shoveling B1 is out there and it's not on the list, meaning that it has to get bumped altogether to accommodate the other things that are there. And then you could start moving things around, I guess, like, well, this one's more important to get going in the first six months versus the second six months. And so I got all that correct. Adding, if you go back to the slide for the first six months, adding the ROI that we're about to discuss more in depth to this list, did it bump something from July through December, or did you use holdback capacity to work it in?

We kind of held back capacity to work it in based on when we started developing this work program and hearing that theme throughout the year that actually started with biosolids right and so that sludge so originally as we started thinking about the work program because we have heard comments regarding biosolids for the last year or so so understanding that may be coming and then this kind of passed in the fourth turn coming into the work program and submitting this where animal feeding operations kind of overtook that That's kind of what the plan was. So we had some capacity in there to say, okay, we're likely to get something. And we were kind of back when the race started to the work plan, we saw biosolids as the front runner. But then as we started to develop this animal feeding operations, we felt like the board may choose that one, especially on our last conversation when we talked about having an ROI for it on the agenda.

Because I think these nuances, because they're not right or wrong or good or bad, but these are the ones we have to understand because, and you just did a good job. So biosolids has maybe taken a less prioritized point as now this animal feeding operation piece. Are there any, so if you go to the second slide and all that other work is still being just classified as other work, it's not programmed work. So go back to the first six months. So the biosolids, the feed configuration, when you say other work.

Since we were talking about biosolids, there are going to be some things within probably animal feeding operations research that we learn about setbacks and things that may inform us about biosolids. So there may be an opportunity there to piggyback some stuff in there.

I just wanted to make sure that when you say other work as a category, that's still the intent is some work or some progress will be made in this time. Yes. Okay.

Yes. And fee configuration during the budget process, the board adopted some new fees, which go in effect January 1st. So part of that is. configuring our new system testing that new system to make sure those things fire so there's some kind of behind the scenes things that we don't normally mention in the work plan plan but i felt was important to say these are everyday things that we got to do to kind of maintain our capacity and maintain our level of operation so then go to the next the second six

And then go to the two, there were only two, it was shoveling and what was the other one? The private cemeteries.

Yes.

So to be clear, these two didn't get bumped because of the new ROI. You did say the ROI is being moved in and using holdback capacity to do it.

Right. As I analyze these two also, they're hard to align with our priorities within AC40 for when we talk about the things that we're first interested in, in doing activity centers and things like that. Not that they're, Not that they go away, but there's a delay in there based on the way we set our priorities when we talk about AC44 and the things we're going to work on first.

All right. And if you go back then to the six, because that was just all context. Thank you. That confirmed it in my, that I'm understanding it properly. The first six months, as I would start looking at, and it's similar to what, Supervisor Missal started alluding to. Like, I'll use the Rio Road. The Rio Road update, the form-based code zoning ordinance. Yeah, we have got a lot of momentum. I think that's nearing the finish line. Yes. So it might not be the best example. But it's also one that isn't really inhibiting anything. Like it might be maybe for people that are blind and looking at it from the standpoint of, since the new one's not in play, those might've been the things that triggered some applications. But for the most part, with all the work that's gone into that small area plan, I think if somebody knocked on the door and wanted something that that would deliver, we'd find a creative way to deliver it. It wouldn't hold us back from accomplishing some of the goals. To me, while it may delay it getting formally completed and off the list, helps me understand a prioritization because then the residential and the commercial in some ways is more important to me than that. And that's how I start to deal with where's it at on the list and how do I start moving things around? Because it's, since it's not a budget quote unquote question, the capacity is still being used. then I have to start expressing my values. And obviously, we're going to get into one where we think this ROI raises to that when we discuss the animal piece. But if you go back to that first six-month slide, OK. And that's just me giving my opinion now. And it's my district. I understand the form-based code piece. But I almost feel like that commercial residential is of a higher priority to me than that local option. the I'll reserve comments about, you know, when we get into the, to the next conversation, but for the most part, knowing these aren't necessarily one, two, three, the way they're bulleted.

Yeah.

I don't really disagree with anything. Like I'm not feeling like, you know, an understanding some of how it works and how we've managed to get things through before looking at the next year, the two items left off the list, frankly, don't rise to a high enough priority to bump something that's already here. the snow and the other item. I'm not saying they're not important, but they're of a lower priority versus what you have here. If we lived further up in the mountains and got more snow, that might be a different animal. But I get it. And I remember having a couple of conversations about it. But anyway, I think some of the things that are on here should be on there. And I don't want to bump them off for those reasons. And I think it is important to keep some holdback capacity. So that's another reason where it's like, that's not a listed item to prioritize against. But if we're using holdback capacity for this ROI, not to pick on the one we're doing, but any ROI, then if something else pops up that we start getting immediate feedback on, then we don't have that capacity to work on that next emergency thing, if it's an emergency. So we got to remind ourselves that there's an invisible real thing not on this list, and it's that hold back piece. And we're dipping into that bucket to accomplish July through December. All right. I don't have any other questions then. If you can just go to the next slide again one more time. Because for me, I feel like if all of the items that are listed that have been previously designed, I'd feel good if this stuff got accomplished over the next 12 months. And then, like I said, there maybe could be some movement in how it's prioritized or when, or maybe something gets further than others. But I would feel pretty comfortable about that with what's here. And I'm okay with the items that are remaining off for a future time. Before we launch into the ROI, why don't I just do a quick check-in, see if there's any other questions on the work plan, and then we'll jump into that conversation. Is that okay? Sure. To do it that way? Supervisor Missel? No, no additional comments. Supervisor Lapista-Curtley?

Yes, I wanted to know, you said you put in the ROI that we'll be discussing afterwards, but you put that in place and took away some bandwidth, so to speak. how much bandwidth does that leave you with or does that take away all your bandwidth?

It depends, which is my favorite answer to give. So once we talk about it coming up, then we'll have a better understanding of what that scope is and what we have to look for. And so that's one piece. Then the next piece would be when we report out, then what does that look like? Right. And, and so it's, it's kind of a moving target because I can't scope the whole thing, start to finish without knowing what we have going on in, and depending on the amount of engagement and the capacity that we have for help for that. So not just that doesn't just involve community development, right? So there's capacity in Cape when we do public engagement and some other departments that this bleeds into. So it's, it's a, it's a more complicated answer than 10% or 20% or full up. There's some other things that we need help and assistance with.

And so if this were to be included, then we would have a report in January or in December, but not the actual work to do an ordinance or anything. That would take another six months.

As part of the feedback of what we're enabled to do and maybe I'm getting ahead of the discussion. But I think coming up, we'll talk about the ROI and the things we want to see out of the report back. Like there's things that we as a locality may want to do. And there's the, some of those things may be enabled under the code for us to do other things may not. I don't know what those are, but that's part of the, that would be part of the discussion might be able to do everything we want. Hasn't been my experience in 33 years. It's the General Assembly has enabled us to do everything we want. But that's the part of the discussion we need to have to see what the impact of that is. And if I have to report back out that, hey, this is worth two instead of one based on our findings, then we can have that discussion.

So when I asked earlier, I was thinking of your entire work program program. I was thinking completion. What I meant, completion is not just report outs, but actually completing everything. That's going to take, did I read somewhere 18 months or was that for something else?

That's probably from something else. But if we talk about realistically, ROI comes to the board, staff puts together the research, and then we decide on what the engagement is. If the engagement is to talk to these five groups a month apart Then we have a work session with the PC. If that all goes well, we collect that data. We go back to the PC for a public hearing. Then we come back to the board for a public hearing. If there's a work session with the board in between, it just depends to supervisors. Pruitt's point, I don't know quite where that falls yet on the scale till we start seeing how bumpy that road actually is, how fast we can go.

Okay. Okay. It sounds like it would be a while, but okay. Thank you. No other questions.

Supervisor Malik, follow-ups?

Thank you. And I guess two issues of concern. With private cemeteries, if that mapping is off the table, the very worst scenario of all is when you're partway into a development project and something is found and then you have mobilized, you have heavy equipment, and then you have to stop. So the huge benefit from even in the growth area, having some effort in this at some point would be to prevent those kinds of things from happening. And I know with large projects, they do all sorts of surveys. We've certainly done it even to put a pipe in the road next to a historic church in Crozet with RWSA because we did not want to get partway in and shut everything down and then have to take up even more time. Secondly, the snow issue. There are plenty of able-funded landowners along these main roads, apartment complexes, things like that, who are perfectly capable because they do when they have to, and the six foot tall ice chunk is there. Hire somebody with a backhoe to spend tens of thousands of dollars when they could hire somebody to do it regularly. But one slip and fall and lawsuit will take care of any savings we might have on a delay from this. So I just throw those two things out there. And we'll talk about it later when we know more information about any of these engagements. Back in the old days, I'm old, so I remember things and lots of really, really big projects when Michael was young. We did with large meetings in this room and now we can do them in this room and online instead of six little community meetings where five people show up at each one and only talk to each other instead of hearing what others say. There's a huge benefit of having people speak and other people with different opinions hearing what they have to say. We bind things together that way. So that is an alternative that we haven't been talking about much, but I want to throw it out there. Thank you.

Supervisor Duncan.

No more comments.

Supervisor Pruitt.

I'm very David Price- Quick question is mostly clarifying one when you mentioned projects that you would potentially want to pull in experts from outside consultants, my understanding is that that's not new costs that's baked in budget already part of your departmental reserves is that fair or accurate.

David Price- depends. So when we proposed the budget, when we submitted our budget proposals, there were things that we are talking about today that weren't listed as part of the proposal, like the ROI we're getting ready to talk about. So there is consulting money that we were allocated. It just wasn't requested for that specific item. So there's some give and take that we would have to do. So yes and no.

Because at the end of the day, money is fungible, but it wasn't allocated for this purpose. And your budget allocates them for specific consultants for specific projects.

Yes. Understood. Good. All right. So we'll move to the specific ROI. Is there any staff presentation you're going to make first? All right. So I just want to remind us all, including myself, that we're about to answer the question of whether or not we want to approve the ROI first. I'm not going to be naive enough to think that that doesn't mean opinions, facts, and things that the actual issue won't be discussed as part of it. But we aren't trying to settle that question. We're trying to settle if we're going to do the ROI. So I just want to remind us all to ask questions to understand that action. Use your examples and things of concerns as you need to. And then we'll decide from there how things go.

Supervisor Missile, you're up first. All right. Here we go. So I have 10 pages of talking points. So bear with me as I go through them. I actually do have 10 pages of notes, but I've trimmed it way down. And I'm going to not speak to specifics because I think we all have a lot to learn. I think we're hearing things from different people that are conflicting and different. I know that I, over the last, I don't know, three, four weeks, have learned a ton about something I never thought I would learn anything about. And I also want to say that I am incredibly appreciative to those people who have shared opinions about this on all sides. It really illustrates the care and concern that we have for our county, for the natural resources, for agriculture, for preservation of the rural areas, et cetera. So I do want to just thank everyone for that. I also acknowledge the fact, especially coming out of that last conversation, that this is a process that's not going to be fast, right? I think that we need to set expectations of the community. We want to not jump to expectations or to any specific language without thorough expectations. study. I think hearing all of these different factions and sides warrants that. I think it's going to take a reasonably intensive community engagement process to really get to the best possible ordinance that will protect our community. My overall position, I strongly support agriculture. It's a cornerstone of our community. It's a cornerstone of our rural area. It's how we preserve our rural areas. One of our speakers today, I don't remember exactly who it was, they commended the farming community for the level of focus and diligence that they have on preserving their landscape and their land. It is their livelihood, and I completely understand that. I also support, and I'm not saying this is a separate issue, protecting our streams groundwater neighboring property owners and rural character so I don't see this as an agriculture versus environment issue it's about finding the right balance and it's about um understanding the fact that agriculture is both an important industry in a way to preserve our rural lands Obviously, a resolution of intent does not create an ordinance or predetermine any outcomes. I'm focusing on that. I think we all have a great deal to learn, both from our constituents from other communities. And I think that will lead us to understanding and implementing the appropriate balance. One of the things we've learned is that I don't think there are any proposed CAFOs currently before the county. We use that term as it's correctly used. We should not be making policy based on assumptions about any individual group. And I mean that like I just honestly, I mean, I probably shouldn't. I'm getting tired of hearing things that are associated with a particular group. We need to be thinking about this holistically as a county. We don't know where these are going to come if they're going to come anytime soon, but it's something that we should think about countywide. And that said, we should remain proactive and reasonable, reasonably anticipate and or be prepared for what may be coming countywide. There are lots of existing regulations we've heard that we've heard that today I've learned that over the last several weeks, months, and before creating any local regulations we need to understand what is already regulated and whether actual gaps exist. So if you were to ask me what questions, key questions that staff should be asking, what environmental or public health gaps exist, what issues are already regulated by the DEQ and state law, what authority does the county legally have for these types of things, what would any proposed ordinance affect traditional or would any proposed and how, Any proposed ordinance affect traditional family farms? And are there objective ways to address concerns without unduly impacting or burdening non-industrial scale agriculture? Our ordinance, if we move forward with one, and again, I'm supportive of moving forward with an ROI, it must be clear, objective definitions, not vague terms like intensive. In my opinion, they need to be very objective. They must protect legitimate agriculture, avoid unintended or unnecessary regulation, and be fair to existing and future farmers. So I'll just skip to kind of a closing idea. You know, our comprehensive plan does not ask us to choose between agriculture and environmental protection. It establishes the rural area for agriculture and forestry, while also directing us to protect water, natural resources, historic landscapes, and communities. I support agriculture as an essential rural area land use while studying narrowly tailored protections FOR GENUINELY INTENSIVE OPERATIONS WHERE OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT STATE LEGISLATION LEAVES A MATERIAL, LOCAL HEALTH, SAFETY, WATER QUALITY OR LAND USE GAP.

THANK YOU. SUPERVISOR LAPISTO CURTLEY.

THIS HAS BEEN SOMETHING THAT I'VE BEEN GOING OR LEARNING ABOUT, FRANKLY, FOR THE LAST MONTH. I do not see a reason to have an ROI at this point because I know what the people who've been asking us to do that, they want an immediate, an emergency ROI. So obviously that's not going to happen. So I don't know if that kind of calms the waters because we're not going to have, I don't know if we're, We want to have, or anyone who's in favor of having an emergency ROI. It's almost like the sky is falling, the sky is falling, we have to hurry up and do this. And I know we said we shouldn't have it against any group, but you know what? It is against a group. It's against a group that is, frankly, very... I don't think they invented the term organic farming, but certainly they do practice organic farming. What does this county want? We want organic farming. We want organic chickens, poultry, vegetables. That's a big, big business. That's part of our agritourism in the county. We bring in $1.3 billion a year on tourism. They go there because they come here because we do have agro-tourism. And you've heard me say this before, that we advertise in our AC44 local farm-to-table. Well, if we don't have some of these operations, it won't be local farm-to-table. I've said that before. It'll be foreign farm-to-table. either from out of state, from another country. I think we need to do what we can to support our agricultural environment. but also make sure that the waters, the ground and everything is protected. There have been a lot of miscommunication and misperceptions on what is being protected. The farms are EPA and DEQ regulated. Are those enough? I'm not the expert. I think that would be because that's federal and state implementing certain things. certain restrictions, and that's what we follow, and that's what the farmers follow to the very limit. I will say it's different for them. It's not like a... This is their livelihood. If they don't take care of the land, then that land's not going to be there for them or anyone else. They won't be able to make a living. because they have to protect the land. So I believe that they do a great job in doing that. I also think the people that have brought up these issues, I think they're well-meaning too. Maybe don't understand everything, but I do think they're well-meaning. But some of this has frankly gone off the rails and in the intensity that this is something horrible happening, which I don't believe that that is. And that makes me sad because I think everybody wants to get along. Everyone wants to get along with their neighbors and such. I will say, from what I understand, I guess one of the biggest issues, and I think the big issue, is odor. You cannot regulate odor. That's my understanding. And it's a farm, there's animals there, there's produce there. And I know people talked about the 52 counties have regulations and that also, it's not all toward this specific purpose. You have toward Virginia Beach where the counties have regulations regarding swine, okay? Other areas have different regulations for different things. Some of them don't include water. So I think it's better to have all the facts first. I think if we want to, at a later point, look into this and decide, hey, do we need something more? I would be in favor of that. I don't see the necessity at this point of needing to do that. Those are my comments.

Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much. And I also wanted to appreciate the time and dedication of all the various people who have reached out to us, met with us. I really also wanted to start with the sentences in the packet where staff suggested what could be included. A formal review of potential regulatory approaches. may include evaluating applicable state authority, environmental and land use considerations, potential impacts on public welfare and consistency with the comp plan and zoning ordinance. Return to the board with findings. That is the information. That is the facts that we need. But this is how we would get them. If you don't start, you'll never get them. And so I propose and support the ROI to get the information. And I know we have wonderful Amelia McCully waiting in the wings in her retirement, haha, who has helped us wonderful times in the past. And perhaps that might be a resource allocation. I agree this is not an emergency, and Attorney Herrick put paid to that two weeks ago. So there is no emergency here. Someone misinterpreted, and it's easy to do. I misinterpret things legally all the time. But it's not appropriate for us. But we do need all the facts. The obstacles to progress, I think the number one is confusion. C means concentrated, but has been described as confined or consolidated as people try to advocate. Whether intentional or not, distribution of incorrect information has caused incredible anger in the community and myself included. That does not help when we're trying to work hard to bring something together as a community. So that should be off the table, period, going forward, or we will never get anywhere. Even after study and presentations, I admit I still need clarity because I can read one set of documents and say it says riparian buffers are included, and over here it says it's not, and the county's supposed to do that. So sorting all that out with someone dispassionately to do it is important. Among the confusing layers of state and federal EPA regulation, where are the gaps? Mr. Supervisor Missel explained that beautifully. I'll stop there. But where is the county vulnerable for industrial scale projects, not the ones that have been rumored to be coming? Where are extra layers of regulation really needed? We've seen data about different setbacks from various counties, mostly oriented toward hog operations, I learned. So that whole study effort went down the drain because it wasn't even talking about the things we're talking about. Yes, the county has no setback or siting regulations, as I understand, except we do when it talks about litter sheds and lagoons and water protection things. But helping people, myself included, understand the complexity of all of that is what we should get to with this ROI. A larger review of ag, which would result in clearer rules, would provide protection for these agricultural producers, as having a DEQ permit or a Minority Corps of Engineers permit does today if you do any work on your farm. For other elements of operations, which the county can certify. So yes, rules are maybe seen as restrictive, but rules provide freedom within the rule set to operate without criticism. And you're always going to be criticized no matter what you do, drive too slow, drive too fast, have a pink barn, whatever, people are going to complain. But the clearer the rules, the clearer the objectives, the more protection for everybody. And I think they are beneficial for everyone. To the farmers who already follow the rules of EPA and DEQ, there would be no impact from reasonable rules. These reasonable rules would provide protection for operators and owners alike. I said that already. Leaders of the poultry co-op in the Valley have their own design set of rules, do site assessments, water evaluations before an applicant is even allowed to join their co-op. Those rules protect their community in which they participate and live at their own design and also protect the growers operating within the frameworks. So I do support the ROI. I understand that it is not the vertically integrated corporate chicken operation that was proposed at the beginning. The fact that it's an intentional family community seeking land in which each part of the family can own and have a legacy for their own children is incredibly important. The number of animal units are lower density due to being organic and thus without the chemical fertilizers, et cetera, will have a lower impact in many ways. And so part of that whole discussion, think about 2,500 acres divided into 20-acre lots and the 100 cars per residence, if you're talking about traffic, there's your comparison. So I think we need to be getting the full picture dispassionately from staff, and I hope that we will move forward to this next level to get that for those protections to be provided for everybody. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Duncan?

So I want to start by saying that I understand the real concern that people have about water quality, the concerns about quality of life, and how unsettling it can be when land changes around us. Some people didn't live by an active farm, and now they're going to through no choice of their own. I do understand the real frustration that can bring. You know, government moves slow and as someone who does not have a lot of patience, it can be very irritating, but it also serves a really good purpose that, you know, what we do should be carefully and thoughtfully done. We shouldn't govern from a sense of panic or fear and we should not rush policy decisions. So kind of on that principle alone, I'm opposed to the resolution at this time, but I do have a few more things. The first thing is I want to address concerns about the scale and concentration of the acquisitions. And so, you know, the land was sold by right and anyone could have purchased it. The listing mentioned that there were division rights with it. The land is zoned rural and it's in an ag forest district and Virginia has a right to farm act. And so taken all together, I think farming is an appropriate use for this land. 18 families have the right to build homes and use the land in a variety of agricultural ways. Would this have been an issue if the property had been slowly divided up and sold over time, as is what usually happens when generational farmers cannot afford to keep farming? Is the land only good enough for one person who has $18 million to pay for it? You know, what is the land in Albemarle County for? Is it just to be put in conservation and admired from a distance, or is it to be used to provide for people? There's nothing wrong with the fact that 18 families are buying the land all at once. The second thing I want to say is about the agricultural activity itself. I come from a long line of farmers, and I grew up an hour away from a very large Amish and Mennonite community, and I am so excited that we are getting one here. They are good neighbors, they're good farmers, and we're going to be able to buy their goods at farmer's markets. They're going to have organic chickens and eggs and vegetables. These are multi-use, diverse farms that take advantage of our good soil to grow healthy food And we are really lucky that they want to live here. Goal number three of our economic development strategic plan is to grow a modern agribusiness economy. How are we going to do that without agricultural activity? The initial inquiries from these families about farming possibilities were asking about cattle, poultry, farm stands, cottage industries, the exact things that contribute to a modern agricultural economy. There has been a lot of things said about the historic agrarian landscape in Albemarle County. The downside of history is that it is unable to preserve the sounds and smells of the past. There have been a lot of things that have happened in Albemarle County over the past 300 years, but a big part of it has always been the hard, dirty work of farming and the economy that grew up to support it. It has always included complaints about roads and shipping. They cleared the river. There's markets. They built mills. They processed the food. We had liveries. We had blacksmiths. We had all of the industries that support agribusiness. This has always been central to what Albemarle County is. The plans for 18 modern farms is just one more iteration of this long history of farming. The fear that some people have that this is an attempt to go around DEQ regulations, to have hundreds of thousands of birds, You know, if the farms are adjoining parcels and are part of the same collective, then the DEQ requirements for CAFOs apply. You cannot get around that rule. And in addition, DEQ can designate any animal feeding operation as a CAFO if it is a significant contributor of pollution. So I think the needed regulations already exist. I do not think we need to be more stringent than the state. We have not been getting new farmers in this county because farming is hard, the land is expensive, and we already have regulations that make it very difficult. It can also be very hard to afford to farm. And here we have 18 families that think it's worth investing a significant amount of money here because they believe they can be successful farmers in Albemarle. We shouldn't be making it harder for people to farm here. People talk all the time about we have all these fake farms. We're actually getting real farms. This is an incredibly good thing that is happening. I do think it would be worthwhile at some point when we have so much more free time and capacity as a board and staff to look at number three, the goal number three, and talk about how we actually will grow a modern agribusiness economy. What regulations need to be loosened? What regulations need to be created? I think that would be the appropriate time to consider a resolution like this. in the context of a larger conversation about what we all want farming to look like in the county. And then my last point is that there's room for people in Albemarle County. It is so frustrating that it seems that every turn people are saying, no, you can't come here. You're not welcome here. You can't do that here. I want an Albemarle County where everyone is welcome. You know, we have enough space and resources for people. 1,800 acres is certainly enough space for 18 families. I think the real issue is that we have a huge property that was just used mostly for horses, and now it's going to be farmed. And I understand that perspective, but people have a right to the buy-right uses on their property. People have a right to farm in the rural areas. We all eat food, and it has to come from somewhere. There are a lot of benefits to having locally grown food, participating in an agricultural economy that is growing in the state, and it's something that the state is investing in. We should be celebrating that we are getting new farming neighbors, not making it harder for people to farm and not making them feel unwanted. And I want to say all of this applies even if these were not Mennonite farmers. You know, if these were 18 random farmers who wanted to come here and participate in our community, that's also great. We're just extra fortunate that they are from a community that has a really great reputation for what they grow and sell. My only complaint with this whole thing is that the land parcels weren't divided smaller so that we could have even more of them. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you. So I want to begin with we've talked about it in bits and pieces, but I'm just going to begin by as cleanly as possible, kind of laying out what I see as the background and history of how this came before us. And I see it as being two separate threads that coincidentally converged in a way that elevated the issue. So first thread for now about four years, there's been, I'll also just begin by saying I'm going to use the word CAFO. I am aware of what the federal regulation defines as a CAFO and I'm aware it takes 55,000 turkeys to reach the requisite number of animal units in order to trigger it. and that the current turkey house that is in Albemarle County that is implicated in this conversation is 54,000 turkeys for very intentional reasons. I'm going to use CAFO because it's a helpful colloquial term. And also I think it points to possibly some of the value of considering an ordinance when we remember that current turkey houses operate at 54,000 in order to avoid some of the regulations implicated by 55,000 birds. There is one existing CAFO of that stuff. It is on the border of Fred and Maya's district. It's been operating for a little less than four years. From what I can tell, they're conforming with all necessary regulations. They also, unsurprisingly, have a residential land use next door. And there is bad blood there. There's been a bit of... I might call it administrative lawfare back and forth. And there's been efforts by the residents there to reach out to their legislators on the south side for a while. This was true for, and it was mentioned in an email this board received earlier. This was true before I was even elected. It was something I heard about before I served on the board because they reached out to me as a likely newly elected member of the board. That is happening on one end. You have a family that does not like their neighbor and is concerned about the nature of the use being underregulated. Separately, there is a series of large connected parcels that runs between Fred and my district. It's mostly in Fred's district, but it also mostly has a Scottsville postcode. So we both hear about it.

And often I have to send people to Fred.

about 1,800 acres, most of which has not been farmed in a very long time, as was correctly said. That has been eyed for acquisition by a group of Mennonites out of Rockingham County, just outside Harrisonburg, who want to use it for farming. 18 families, multiple parcels, exciting. The person from the first thread expected that person from the second thread was wanting to develop turkey houses. Not entirely unfounded. Rockingham has the most turkey houses in the state. And also there is a thing about maybe an inquiry that was made to CDD about poultry houses at some point, possibly by an affiliated party. I don't care to get into the intricacies of that. There was a semi-well-founded anticipation that these two threads connected. It looks now like they don't. It looks like this group of families is not trying to develop turkey houses. It looks like they are engaging in a variety of different agricultural practices, some of them organic, some of them not, but ones that I think most people would not find as objectionable. I say as objectionable, a neighbor's always going to find a reason to complain. I say playfully. And I think it's really unfortunate that we are now talking about both of these threads, where I think we really should be talking about the regulatory stance that we should consider for certain agricultural uses. And it's really unfortunate because I think previous statements have been right. This is a group of people whose only crime was believing in Albemarle County, wanting to join in this community, wanting to economically contribute to this community. And it's a bracing welcome. Boy, howdy. And I would also, maybe a more challenging suggestion is I think that's really unfortunate even if they were trying to operate a bunch of poultry houses because they're allowed currently. The current poultry house is operating as far as we can tell in accordance with all regulations. I had a professor in my MPA program who said this all the time and I think it's such a helpful adage. When the lion at the circus devours someone at the circus, you don't blame the lion. You blame the lion tamer. It is... business's job, and that includes farming, to optimize their output and their results, right? They are going to try and operate in the most effective way possible. And effective means economically effective. And it is our job to determine if there are other externalities that harm people other than the farmer and to identify where those are and manage those. which now kind of with that as the kind of background, just kind of, I would say the argument piece here, I want to begin by just saying, I love everything that Supervisor Duncan already said. It's the kind of thing I say a lot, right? Like we sometimes fall in the trap of treating our rural areas like they're crystallized in amber. right, which is wrong. They are places that people live. They are places that people have businesses. They're places that we have economic output from. And we do ourselves a tremendous disservice by not acknowledging that and trying to recognize that and empower that. We need to encourage that activity in the same way that we encourage economic activity and residential activity and all kinds of activity in the urban area. And also, There's economic activity and residential activity and all sorts of activity in the urban area that we need to regulate, and we do. I think it would be paternalistic to pretend that that's not also true in the rural area. We need to approach the rural area like it is an equal counterpart to the urban area with different needs, and sometimes those needs are regulatory. Farming has evolved. Farming has evolved a lot since I think we contemplated farming in our current zoning code. And that is good. It makes farming more efficient. It makes farming more economical. It makes the prices at the grocery store lower. It helps us feed a world of 8 billion people, which we would not be able to do without these evolutions in farming. But it also implicates different regulatory concerns. It implicates different ways we need to think about how farming intersects with water, how it intersects with other kinds of, I mean, frankly, I'm just kidding, mainly water. I'm mostly concerned about water. And I think we would do ourselves a disservice by pretending like that hasn't happened and not engaging with the possible issues that we see on the horizon. And frankly, one, I don't want to make any farms non-viable. even more sophisticated, efficient industrial farms. But I want to make sure that we're constraining and controlling the kinds of harmful externalities that they could have on our public. And so I think it's going to be a, a tricky needle to thread. And that's why I'm saying, I think we need a slow and very intentional process and as many stakeholders as possible involved in that process. But I think we need to have it happen. And so like, I'm going to be, I'm going to pick on you. I'd love to pick on you. I'm sorry. So sorry.

Go right ahead, everyone.

You said you would be open once we have the facts revealed. to look at this more at a later date. And that was verbatim what you said. This is how you do that. You can't do that if we don't do this. Like no one will come back to us at a later date. It will never come up again. We will never get facts again, other than frankly from one lobby or the other, if we don't do this. This is the only way to have us discuss it and have a neutral third party, well, third party, he works for us, but a neutral arbiter, right? Again, not one lobby or the other, actually present us with, here's what we have found on this. The only other alternative is to have us research it on our own, which we've seen does not deliver the best results because people make fricking mistakes. I think that's critical. And also I worry about some of us falling in the trap of arguing against the instant case that isn't actually happening, right? Like saying, oh, well, we don't need this. We don't need to consider this and move forward because the farm acquisition is not engaging in that kind of thing. And it's engaging in this type of farming, that type of farming. And that misses the point entirely, right? If you're saying, oh, they're, we don't need this because they're doing what we want. They're doing agritourism, they're doing organic farming. That misses the point that, okay, but that's not what we're talking about potentially exploring regulation of. And if anything, the idea of incentivizing agritourism is potentially at loggerheads with what we're talking about here, as in a massive proliferation of more modern farming operations would harm agritourism potentially. I'm not saying that's happening. I'm not saying it's likely to happen. But the kind of animal feeding operations that I think this ROI is trying to concern it with are not the kinds of things that are implicated in agritourism. As people who have been out to the existing poultry house, you can't even get close to it for biocontainment purposes. So it's obviously not involved in agritourism. And it's a barn that smells bad. It is not involved in agritourism and is potentially harmful to agritourism in certain ways. So I just want to make sure we're arguing against the thing in front of us. The thing in front of us is saying, do we want to explore whether or not there's regulatory gaps in how we treat more modern farming operations? I would also just quickly endorse going around and giving my good job and disagrees around the board. I really would strongly support specifically the way Supervisor Missel identified what the key goals of an output should be. That was right off the top of my brain, out of your mouth. I loved it. I'm in favor of the ROI. I see it as critical for us to be able to engage with this issue substantively and thoroughly and soberly. I think people both opposed and in favor have indicated that maybe we are not currently engaging with this thoughtfully and soberly. If we want to fix that, we have to vote yes.

Wow. I think the five supervisors have just made the case that both sides can be right.

That's true.

For a yes and a no vote. So I'm going to, and I've, it's not lost on me that right as it stands from what I've heard, if I've tracked this right, that there are three yeses and two nos. So I'm going to make a set of comments first as if I'm not the last one to speak. And then I'm going to make a different set of comments given I'm the last person to speak. Questions that I would ask first would be directed to Mr. Herrick. Knowing full well that you sent out the clarification between intensive and the CAFO, what is the right C, by the way? It's concentrated. It's right there in front of me. I have been frustrated by the different uses of these letters between AFO, three different versions of CAFO, one use of I AFO and I CAFO. And then today in public comment, I see CAFO, which was a new, I hadn't, I mean, I guess industrial maybe was done the last time that we heard, but all of these different terms, um, if, if we had to make the decision on this item today with what I know now, I don't have what I need to make the decision. Um, And that I just can't vote if I don't have what I need to make that decision. So I don't need to have that info because we're not making that decision today. But the advocacy has been around confined. The actual CAFO is it's used at the state in the attorney's clarification. So Mr. Herrick. I understand. I'm not asking when you clarified between intensive ag ops and then the concentrated. So I'm not asking necessarily for that. But the CAFO as it's designed by DEQ in Virginia, if we passed an ROI that said that language, Was it your point that we can't do anything in addition to what the state has regulated?

That was the gist of what I was suggesting, Mr. Chair. It doesn't necessarily stop staff from having a more extensive study. I did want to clarify for the board, though, that there is a distinction between the defined term CAFO and the more generic term that we had intentionally written the resolution of intent with.

Yeah. And man, the points being made here today are really compelling from all the supervisors. But my concern coming in prior to hearing those remarks was the changing of the concentrated to the intensive. Because then is the study really about these animal feeding operations or does it pivot into a much broader what is farming in Albemarle? Um, and we have, some could say that, uh, some of the other things that have fall fallen under the water protection stuff. And some of that could all be what is farming in Albemarle and, you know, my planning commissioner got himself in a little trouble using a word one time. And it speaks though to what that trouble and angst was about what farming is in Albemarle. I was not thrilled and not wanting to advance this ROI with the language intensive animal feeding operations without saying, you know what, if we're going there, if we did that, then we need to finally decide what farming is in Albemarle County beyond feeding operations, because I don't think it's fair to anybody on any side of anything to not do that. And okay, if we carve out whatever we were to carve out, perhaps I'm not saying or knowing what we would do, if anything, but, um, it would leave, I think, a lot of just other pieces where it's like, well, wait a minute, what about X, Y, and Z that also could be, if somebody came up with an emergency that was more about environment than farming, what are you gonna carve that out, do some sort of carve out next? And I think given the points that I've heard about the importance of farming and agriculture from everybody, regardless of how they felt about this ROI, I don't think it's a good idea to be getting into things that says we're all for agriculture and farming, but then do things to pull back on agricultural and farming. Yeah. So I was not prepared, not excited about this ROI for that reason. I would have supported, I think, doing the CAFO, but it doesn't sound like there'd really be any reason to put an ROI forward for the CAFO if you can't do anything in addition to the state, which was what I was asking Andy about, and I think he confirmed. meaning we study something that we can't do anything in addition to the state, so why waste the dollars to study that if we can't do anything? So the ROI would have to be, I guess, animal feeding operations or intensive feeding operations to allow us the flexibility to be able to do something in addition to what is required. I think what is required is sufficient. Just to give some ideas, that's on some of the issue-based type stuff. Um, but man, I don't, I'm not up to speed on this. And in a lot of ways, this has reminded me of our data centers conversation. I mean, we've got the big ugly beast. I mean, even supervisor Pruitt, you and ourself didn't know we were debating what the large data center meant. So what does large animal feeding operation mean or concentrated? And, um, there's a lot of misnomers that were out in the community about that. Did some didn't know we had data centers in the County? We do. Um, no, but it took an ROI to quickly educate up, educate the board up. Advocacy was able to step in and both sides. Now it happened to be pretty aggressive on a side for that, but it led to an outcome where I think all of us could make some decisions because we all were on the same pages to the information on what to base that decision. It didn't thrill the folks who are just anti data center, no matter what, and maybe some that were even in the middle, but it's what it took to put it to rest. I really have to pull back and say, what is the worth if we invest tax dollars if we move this ROI forward? And after listening to my colleagues and knowing that if I were to be against this ROI, it would split this board three to three, which is Neil Williamson's favorite scenario. But the reason he loves it so much is because it's not, it's almost a, it's to use his logic, it's almost a walk away from the, to making the answer. When we have decisions that go, if somebody made a motion to say support and move the ROI and it's split three, three, then that means yes, fails. We would turn around and make the opposing vote, which would then mean the no would fail. And then nothing happens. And, you know, aside from my own personal opinions on this, I think that in this case would be irresponsible. because of the current situation going on, what did you say? Some administrative legal wrangling?

If we don't- I guess that administrative, as in no one's in court, I don't think, but there's welfare.

If we don't at least get the whole county on the same page as to what the facts are and the story are, and give the chance for the sides that have come forward in a very rushed, emotionally laced way in some cases, then I think we're doing a disservice to the county residents because then it leaves it to them to continue with what I've seen as nuisance lawsuits, in some case for an individual, and acts and things that would be considered trespassing, in my opinion. And I think that that needs to come to a halt. And I think that one worth of this, beyond maybe the specifics of the issue, would be that the county needs to take that responsibility on say okay we've done our due diligence we've heard from all sides here's what the information and the facts are we make a decision about it and i think in this situation given what i've heard in the last few days alone that even if nothing changed per se that the that the study the information at least that is probably worth putting the tax dollars forward So I think the folks that would be, it gets lost sometimes in these conversations. If I was a pro get this through, like we heard today, they might think I'm on their side issue-wise. That would be a mistake as we go through the process if the ROI proceeds. If you were on the side of, you know, leave everything as it is and nothing could potentially change, according to Supervisor Galloway, well, for your side, that's going to be a mistake, too, because I don't have enough information to even decide that yet. So I don't think it will be thrilling. I think I understand the reasons to not advance an ROI. And in a lot of ways agree, but I also agree with those who say that we should move it forward. And I certainly, I'm just saying it plainly to Neil, to everybody. I think it would be bad form for us to split on this issue. Um, and I will, uh, I will be certainly willing to vote yes, just on that particular point. Um, and then I can deal with the ramifications of what that means. Cause if you ever had somebody, I guess, talking out of both sides of their mouth, that could be it. So that's, I guess I'd have to deal with that. I'm going to go back around because I just saw other people have heard things, and if they want to change or say anything different, but we do want to quickly wrap this up and get to a motion. Supervisor Missel, anything in addition?

No, just briefly to say that this is a really interesting process, and I think Supervisor Duncan had a very compelling reason, and I agreed with everything you say. It doesn't change my opinion of where I stand, but I'm not in any disagreement with anyone here.

Supervisor Lepisto-Kirkley?

I like what everyone has said, especially Supervisor Duncan, but really what everyone has said. And I think I would like to see, just throwing this out, I would like to see maybe staff look at the issue. I know your resolution of intent that puts it on the work plan, that makes it real formal. There's a lot of people who could call a win either way. I'd almost rather see us... for staff to come back with more information like more information regarding the turkey farm more information regarding the mennonite farm but more information like what are the requirements um the setbacks and everything like that maybe listen to both groups maybe talk to both groups because nobody's talking with each other and they're all making uh counterpoints and everything i'd like

you know to see some common sense brought into this just so that we can make a better decision so understood and heard i'm not disagreeing but this train's left the station and we're on the roi decision which will deliver everything that you've asked in a way though the same way all of it that's what an roi is that's what we do the data center piece we were on the path of it and we punted after we made a decision. So that's why I use that as the parallel. We get the facts, we're getting the information. We decided to not take that through to the next stage that that was going at. There was split feelings on the board. There was lots of reasons behind that. That could happen here. But if we don't at least get that moving and if we're directing them to do what you said, it's the same workload piece. It's the same time piece. All of that's nothing changes, but for us, we have to make a decision. And the board and staff, if they see three of us nodding no and three of us nodding yes, puts them in a very difficult situation. And we need to take the official action to direct them to do or not to do it.

Could this be more, I use the word confined, to large poultry farming? Because what I'm afraid of and what I've heard from other residents in my district is that it could affect cattle. It could affect horses and everything.

This will work that out. I don't disagree with you. This will work all of that out. This is the angst is there. We've got to figure out how best to deal with it.

No, not in the other for the other animals and such. But it's there for the large industrial, you know, CAFO farms. But it's not there. But I'm reticent to introduce that angst because they're going to say, well, that applies to my hogs. That applies to my cattle.

And legally, from the words we've been throwing around, it does. So we've got to sort all that out. I think that's to the points that are being made on all of this, that it will have to address all of that. And while I don't think anybody here is specifically in support, now I'm trying to navigate what other people said, but I don't think anybody's making this decision just because there's feathers on them. They are doing this based on the legal definition of animals and count and what could be in farming. And all of that needs to be sorted out and worked out. for our better understanding and would that be interpreted to mean we're regulating more so agricultural you know I can't see into the future as to what this board might decide right but the resolution of intent to to authorize them to put this in the work plan and bring this back from July to December as a report is going to have to bring us a report To see the encompass, that whole point is then to see, that's when we say you're on the right track or no, this needs to be included. Okay.

Can we also make a statement that we are in favor of farming?

You already have. Yeah.

You know, not everyone's thinking that.

Well, that'll get played out in this process as well. That's what I mean. If we don't do it, then it plays out behind closed doors and we all go off and make our comments to constituencies. By doing it this way, and I'm telegraphing it, that this is going to, for me, is going to get into what is farming in Albemarle. So it's time to have that discussion and conversation. And I think that a lot of people need us to answer that. And I think they as citizens need to know where their electeds are on it. So, I mean, that's personal comments.

I was just going to say, I also think that that's dangerous because I think that everyone believes that we are a farming community. We are an agricultural community. That's what's stated in our AC44. And this brings all that into question with this report.

Well, or makes us explain it better. We've put a lot of things in that comp plan that people have wondered where we really are on it. and we've had different opinions on. So anything in addition, you can vote no to the, it's your right, so that, but I've, and you've said you are, so I'm anticipating you will. Supervisor Duncan, any additional items?

Yeah, the same. Supervisor Missel. Did I forget Anne? Sorry.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Same thing. I actually agree with everything you said. Supervisor Pruitt made some really good points. Chair, you made some good points. If we were to do this, does this look at I guess both options, because I'm really not in favor of the intensive livestock term. I think it's way too broad. Would this sort of consider both options of what an ordinance using the term CAFO looks like and what an ordinance using the term intensive looks like? Would it be, you said you anticipate this being a broader discussion on farming.

I think CAFO is legally defined for us. And the county attorney, with my understanding, said we can't do anything to regulate that further. We would have to name it under intensive because now we're, but now we're putting it into a land use category and not a confined animal feed operation, concentrated animal feed operation. So then we have to start having discussions about what do we think is too intense or not? And that's why I think it goes beyond the specific item. Two, okay, but if we're going to talk about cages and feeding operations, well, what other types of things? I mean, the fill ordinance is an intensity conversation. So we're doing this in other ways. And that's what I mean. It's like, man, if we just keep doing this on the individual subjects, it probably needs to be broader. And I'm not... Like I said, I can't even understand where I'd be yet on some of those questions without understanding all of the information. So, yes, I think it would go there just because we know that the decision to not would mean that, all right, we're just going to do what the state allows. And it's not worth looking at beyond that.

This is really a draft of doing research on what an ordinance could look like.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Just like the data center one didn't make it to us for a vote, right? We had to approve the quick ordinance at the square footage, but then we were starting to look at different, maybe it's okay in this place, in this size, but it never made it to us. The solar ordinance made its way to the board after check-ins, and then we had to vote to put it in place or not. So doing the ROI does not put anything in place, but it puts it on the lane that eventually a decision could be made on the resolution itself. And Mr. Attorney, you catch me if I'm wrong anywhere.

Well, if I could just clarify a couple of points, first of which is that this was intentionally drafted by staff, at least initially to be broad. If the board's consensus is that the board wants an ROI but with a narrower scope, I would want some time to go back and redraft something maybe with a narrower scope. The other thing is that the specific language of this does not presume an outcome that an ordinance will be adopted. It says the Board of Supervisors is evaluating whether revisions to the zoning ordinance are necessary. Okay, so that's one place. And then in the concluding paragraph, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors hereby declares its intent to consider amendments. So in two different places, this is not predetermining that the ordinance will be adopted, simply that it'll be considered.

Which is the norm. Nothing special or changing for this resolution of intent. Hold on. I don't want to interrupt. No, sorry.

I still don't think we need to do anything beyond what the state does, but I can appreciate the wisdom of doing research and sort of having a broader discussion.

Well, and y'all votes are there. I got you off the hook on that one, at least the way I'm going to vote.

I just wanted to know from our attorney, can we narrow the focus?

If that's the consensus of the board.

But once again, not to bring in everything, all animals, which are going to scare people, but I think this whole discussion, frankly, is for industrialized CAFOs, the large industrial buildings like they have in Rockingham, which, you know, that's what this whole thing is about, frankly. I would like to say, I could support it if it's narrowed to that.

All right, understood.

Mr Malik any additional comments or questions, yes, I was asked yesterday, what is the county ever done for agriculture. And I could not think of one thing, except for the land use program that was adopted in 1973 which has. Revalidation rules which I worked for 17 years to get adopted so that it would actually have some staying power, instead of being thrown out when money got tight now this process. will really help understanding, I think, of the whole community and what all the various aspects of this are. I mean, I had an argument with a colleague here for all 12 years she was on the board saying that, hey, it wasn't a crop. That's what we're crying out loud. I don't have any hay land. What am I supposed to feed my cows in the wintertime? You know, I have $5,000 worth of hay every year. It's a very good income for somebody who raises hay for crying out loud. So that's the kind of lack of understanding that is out there. And it diminishes when things like that are said at the board, it feels like an insult to people who are farming. So I really hope that there's a greater level of understanding overall. This is the beginning of the process. It is not the middle or the end. And I really hope that people will understand that. I'm sure people would be mad at me because they wanted, I'm sure, to say, well, vote no because we don't need it. But I really think the benefits to the farming community will be outweighing and our high-performing operations will not be impacted whatsoever. Thank you.

Supervisor Pruitt.

I'm not sure that I have much to add. I would, I guess maybe two clarifications. Chair, I think you're correct. It's not a question of whether or not it has feathers. Things that have feathers are the thing that brought this to us, but as in my previous historical framing, I think these are the circumstances that have caused us to have this in front of us, but we should not be engaging with the problem of how we regulate one gentleman's turkey farm that is currently compliant and would be grandfathered into anything else. I think we'd be having the same conversation if someone had a... a Quonset hut full of 10,000 hogs. It would be the same conversation. Maybe even a little more alarm because I think they might smell a little worse than a turkey, but I don't know. I haven't ever talked to 10,000 hogs. The one other thing, and I think Mr. Herrick has already touched on this pretty thoroughly, but I read the ordinance or the ROI as it is prepared. And I see it as trying to say CAFO without saying CAFO. What we understand to mean CAFO, but we obviously can't use the word CAFO for the reasons we've already discussed. It's mainly a threshold of animal units. And so that requires us to try and find a term of art that gets at that question without being the same. But if it is the board's interest to have a bigger picture question, I don't disagree. There is There's the constant burbling, unengaged conflict in Albemarle County, which I've said before, Tim, you quoted me back to me a few days ago, which is we have a rural area that we have set aside that we have, it is used for two different and fundamentally often conflicting uses. It is used as residential, often upscale residential increasingly, which we all have, I think, our different feelings about. And it is used for farming. And those can coexist, but they are fundamentally uses that are in tension. And I don't think this board and this community as a whole has grappled in a meaningful way of what that tension means and what the county actually as a policy position believes on that tension, right? Like, are we a right to farm community? Do we say that this is the highest and best use of this land? Do we defer to residential uses? Do we have a balancing act of where we put our thinking on this and different things that we consider more meritous concerns than others, I don't think we ever had that conversation. And I think it is a little overdue.

I think we're ready for a motion. And I'll call for more discussion if you have any additional points.

Could I know what we're looking at?

We're making a motion on the resolution as it's attached and worded in the packet.

I would like to move this board adopt the resolution attached in the packet under the consent agenda section 8.6. Second. Attachment A. Attachment A. I'll second.

The motion has been made and seconded. I'm going to call for any further discussion. Supervisor Missel, any additional items? I don't think so. No. Thank you. Supervisor Lapista-Kirtley?

No.

Supervisor Malik?

I would just say thank you to Supervisor Pruitt, but he forgot the most important thing in the rural area, which is watershed protection, which agriculture is incredibly involved in. Thank you.

Supervisor Duncan, any additional discussion? No. Supervisor Pruitt? Nothing. All right. We're ready for the roll call, please.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lepisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik?

Yes.

Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Aye.

Yes. All right, the motion carries. Thank you, board. That was important work, but also took up a good bit of time. I'm going to look to my county executive, because obviously we're going to have to do the closed session after tonight's session.

Mr. Chair, I would ask Mr. Herrick to help me with this, please. We've got 30 minutes. The board needs to eat before 6 o'clock. We've got, I do not think we can do the legislative agenda in 30 minutes and the board recess and go eat and be back at six. Last year, this discussion, this item took one hour. I know we have outside guests from TJPDC. Andy, what are your thoughts? Do you think we can be back by 6 and do the legislative agenda and give the board time to eat? I don't.

I agree, and I don't know what the schedules are. I don't see Mr. Blunt in the audience. He's in the dark in the back. He's in the way back there.

Ms. Kilroy is available after 6 o'clock. I don't know about our TJPDC partners. Yes. My suggestion, Mr. Chair, would be for the board to go to closed session and use your time between now and 6 o'clock to eat and do your board appointments. And then we will move the other closed session items after the end of the evening. That will also require us to move item 12, AC44 implementation activity center plans to after 6 o'clock. That will be after your public hearing. And Bart and his team have indicated that they can do that. And so they'll be here this evening. So that will give you 30 minutes to eat, do your boards and commissions, and then come back at 6. All right.

Thank you for the adjustments. Any objections? Anything we need to officially do to?

So there would need to be the motion to certify or to enter a closed meeting. If the only purpose of this initial closed meeting is boards and commissions, then that's the only purpose that needs to be read for this particular closed meeting. And then the second closed meeting would read the second one. All right. We're ready for that motion. I'm sorry. Thanks.

I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia under subsection 1 to discuss and consider appointments to various boards and commissions, including without limitation the Blue Ridge Committee for Shenandoah Park Relations, the Historic Preservation Committee, the Jail Authority, the Places 29 Hydraulic Community Advisory Committee, the Places 29 North Community Advisory Committee, and the Social Services Advisory Board.

All right, without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway? Yes. Mrs. Kuehler-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes.

From closed meeting. Oh, I didn't see Sally, was I? Go ahead and we'll read the certified motion. If you read it slowly, we'll make sure we're ready for all of us to vote.

I move that the Board of Supervisors reconvene in an open meeting and certified 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.

Second.

All right, without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lapista-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Mr. Missal? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan?

Yes.

All right, and motions coming out of closed meeting.

Yes, I'd like to move that the following persons be appointed to the boards and commissions, starting with Blue Ridge Committee for Shenandoah Park Relations. Oh, no, sorry. Starting with Historic Preservation Committee, Kip White. Jail Authority, David Pastors. Places 29 Hydraulic Community Advisory Committee, Vito Chetta, Jane Foy, William Love, and Kendra Watson. And Places 29 North Community Advisory Committee, Lisa Bushy, Gary Gonar, Gary Grant, William McLaughlin, and Janet Moran. Is there a second? Second.

Second.

All right, without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes.

All right, very good. Thank you, board, and thank you to all those stepping up to serve on our boards or committees. That will take us to... From the county executive, item number 17, report on matters not listed on the agenda. Mr. County Executive?

Not this evening. Nothing to report. Thank you.

All right. And then we will move to item number 18, public comment. Any sign-ups for public comment? All right. No sign-ups for public comment. We will move to item number 19, our public hearing. And just for the record, if anybody's been playing bingo at home.

Mr. Chair?

Yeah, that's fine. We'll, we'll, I'll come back, but we are moving that we're going to do the public hearing and the two items we didn't get to this afternoon. We're going to loop back and get those two items after the public hearing, just because of how the time, uh, time piece, do we have a public commenter? All right. So, uh, and we can do the hyphenated rules for Mr. Grant, but, or read them out loud because I guess that's probably best practice.

Okay. Okay. During this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board or currently pending before the board other than items scheduled for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one opportunity, about to three minutes, to ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers. The board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District, comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands. In recognition, speakers may not share unused times with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. Podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains. And red indicates your time has expired. All comments are received, or sorry, recorded, live streamed, and published on the county website.

All right.

And it should just be Mr. Grant now.

Okay.

Evening, haven't seen you in a while. I got new hearing aids last week. This is the first time I've been in a group meeting and I got two now. I used to have just one. I can hear not only from my right conservative side, I can hear from my left side as well. Anyway, Gary Grant, Rio District. Board, thank you for listening to residents, constituents, voters, and taxpayers for up to three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Pruitt, for sending me emails on April 12th and May 20th that were personal replies rather than official board responses. Thank you, Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley, for your July 31st personal phone call that was not an official board response. Thank you, Supervisor Missel, for your two emails of July 31st, which I do consider official vice chairman communications, one of which said the following, and I quote, I thought Jeff had responded, but we'll review correspondence on this item, unquote. I'm assuming Jeff, who maybe was supposed to answer my questions, is this Jeff over here, the county executive. A very big thank you to Supervisor Malik for your extensive, helpful, and informative email of July 31st that unfortunately is also not an official board communication. And for Supervisor Duncan, you are off my hook because I don't consider it was your responsibility to answer my questions unless the chair or vice chair had directed you to do so. And Mr. Galloway, thanks for nothing. My unresponsive RIO supervisor once again. Regardless, thanks again board for listening up to three minutes. If not answering officially to questions asked by your residents, constituents, voters, and taxpayers. We who live in Albemarle County know this board has the power to never answer.

Thank you. Is that all our speakers? I believe concludes our list. We will move to item number 19, our public hearing for this evening, SP 2025-9, James River Runners Camping Expansion. And Ben is going to lead us. Okay, Ben, say your last name for me. Lopacker. Lopacker. Yes, sir. Because I was going to say Lop, so I apologize.

So Ben Lopacker is here with us. Good evening. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Ben Lopacker, and I'm a planner with the Community Development Department here at the county. I'll be providing staff's presentation on the special needs permit request for James River runners who are requesting to amend their existing SP. The case number is filed under SP 2025-9, and the proposal is to expand an existing campground That serves as an accessory season or an accessory used to the seasonal canoe kayak and tubing livery on site. As you can see, the project is located directly along the James river at the terminus of Hatton Ferry Road. The proposal entails amending the existing special use permit to expand primitive camping onto TMP 136-13C as shown on the screen to allow for six additional primitive campsites. These serve accessory to the James River runners canoe tubing and kayak livery that that occupies the adjacent parcel. The property has been occupied by this use since the 1970s, with the original special use permit being obtained in 1978, which allowed for nine primitive campsites. And then in 2018, an additional five campsites were approved, bringing the total to 14 primitive campsites.

Okay.

The app look up on the screen is the applicants conceptual plan which calls out the new proposed campsites as well as showing the location of the existing campsites. It also demonstrates the proposed access to those new campsites for both primary and secondary access. As you can see, the proposed campsites are near the existing campsites and will be accessible from the existing campsite parking areas, which is where patrons of these campsites would be parking. All special use permits are evaluated by the four factors that are shown on the screen where staff's analysis of these factors are on pages three to six of the staff report and detail the individual factors. The special use permit has been reviewed by the fire rescue, the county engineer, and neither have given objections to the proposed conditions. um staff determined that with a few recommended conditions positive finding could be made for each of the factors listed on the slide with with these conditions um or Sorry, those conditions include several of the elements covered in tonight's presentation, including conditions the use is already subject to per their existing SP. The conditions include development being in accord with the general conceptual plan, accessory structures such as portable restroom facilities that are being placed in the floodplain being constructed and secured in accordance with counting code, prohibiting the use of fireworks on site, establishing and enforcing campground quiet hours, which would last from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., and would include the prohibition on outdoor amplified music during those hours. Permanent outdoor lighting would also be prohibited, and a staff member would need to be on site at all times while the camping sites are being occupied. Staff recommends approval of this request after finding two positive, or after finding multiple positive aspects and identifying no concerns with this project. Staff has provided the recommended motions on the slide. And with that, staff would be happy to take any questions.

All right, thank you, Supervisor Missel.

Just a quick question I can ask the applicant to you. I didn't see anywhere in the applicant's narrative or on the plan whether or not the primary or secondary access roads will be paved. I assume not, but they would not be paved.

No, this has also been reviewed by the fire department who went out to the site and clarified and I guess confirmed that they would be able to access the site.

Thank you. No other questions. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley?

No questions. Sounds like a great project.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you. So having been in the room six or seven years ago when this began, there was a long discussion about accessing the site when the train was there. And we've had multiple occasions at Misty Mountain in the last five years, middle of the night rescues, lots and lots of danger for rescuers, as well as people with a much smaller water body, Stockton Creek, than the James River offers. So in scouring the discussion at the Planning Commission, I was really surprised that, number one, that wasn't brought up as part of the history in the staff report, and that nobody asked about it except for Lonnie Murray, the Planning Commissioner from the Whitehall District. So it is still a great concern that I have. And so I think when the potential is drowning, it's not something you just slough off because these things are happening. These events are happening more and more. And it's not something we should be putting people at risk for. How we determine if somebody's actually there and what their plans are, I don't know, because our staff is not there to check up on somebody showing up. And there's supposed to be somebody there at Misty Mountain, too, and they're not. So this is a concern for me that I have across the county, not just in the Whitehall District or in this particular one. I don't know if you have any feedback on that before I go on to the next one.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, So the because the campground is an accessory use to the canoe livery it can only be operated, while the canoe liveries in operation and the applicant is might have further to add to this later, but. Because the canoe livery requires somebody monitoring the water levels there when it's in operation. There's somebody on site that is monitoring those. And I know Tom with James River Runners can get into that a little bit more later. However, the James River down in that area is definitely wider and takes a much longer period of time to raise the water level to flooding levels versus the creek by Misty Mountain.

But overnight is when these things tend to happen when people are asleep. So I'm just a concern that I have that is not being addressed by any of this application. We talked about in the maps a pink line. That is a new road or an existing road in the floodplain.

So that is not a road, it is an access way it's currently grass and it's been evaluated by the fire department to make sure they can get their equipment down there and the fire department has no objection to it, but it would not be a permanent road, it would not be a gravel road.

But it exists now.

It does currently exist to get to the existing campsites, but it's not a disturbed road. If I go real quick.

It's not even really a dirt path.

This is sort of what the site looks like. It's grassy. There's no real disturbance to that grassland other than where people are setting up tents for some of the existing campsites.

And this is definitely in the buffer. So they're proposing to mow this buffer and create these campsites by mowing, which is not what is recommended for the riparian buffer ordinance we just spent seven years getting adopted. So that is a concern of mine too. One of the facts in the staff report was 10 trips per campsite over four months. Is that accurate? because that seems like very few if we're talking about all these campsites being rented out multiple times a week.

So I'll defer to the applicant regarding the usage of the campsites and their expected usage. Those were the numbers they gave us for their expected usage of the campsites.

And so the cars or people in the campsites are expected to drive all the way down that long pink line to their campsite down there.

Yes, ma'am. It's maybe 100 yards.

Yeah. No, I mean, I drive in fields and I know how quickly the mush comes out from under you when it's wet. So that's going to be something the landowner is going to have to deal with. But you're specifying no clearing or grading or tree cutting in there. Just the mowing in the field is what's specified. And does it show on your map where the bathhouses are? There was a permanent bath house, I thought, in the old days, but maybe that's gone.

No, ma'am. So they would be all the main facilities are further up on the other side of the train tracks and they're already existing. The only new facilities would be for restrooms would be the portable restroom facilities that are located in purple right next to the access road in the campsites.

Okay, so three in the original area, or three in each of the original areas. So the folks in the new area would just have to walk down to that original one. Oh, I can't even see those. Okay, very good. All right, I think... I will stop there. Thank you.

Supervisor Duncan?

No comments.

Supervisor Pruitt?

can you um refresh the board the nature of cl i thought i just heard that there's going to be mowing but not tree clearance but i feel like when i read through the packet my impression had been that there is tree clearance to create for the spots for the campsites

Thank you for the question, Supervisor Pruitt. No, there would not be any trees that would be being cleared. Down at the site, there's sparse tree covering currently, and we've confirmed with the applicant that no trees would be cleared to make these campsites. They'd be just on grass.

So help me out here as someone who does not claim to be an expert in the riparian buffer ordinance that we just passed while I was away. It was a vote that was taken without me. Other than mowing, is there any activity that would be violative of the riparian buffer ordinance, understanding this isn't the riparian buffer?

No, it would be, other than the mowing, there wouldn't be any sort of disturbance to the land at all. Appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. I don't have any questions at this time. So we'll open up the public hearing. Let me ask first, do we have signups? All right. So the vice chair will take us through both the rules for the applicant and for the commenter. All right.

Sorry, we're having trouble finding this.

Public hearings pray this one. Thank you.

Speakers are limited to one appearance of up to three minutes. Applicants are allowed 10 minutes for their presentation and five minutes for rebuttal at the close of the hearing. To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District, comments should be directed at the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. Online participants may also submit comments through the e-comment portal or by email to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back-and-forth debate is not permitted and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. The podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains and red indicates your time has expired. All comments are recorded, live-streamed, and published on the county website.

All right. All right. So we have our applicant, Mr. Tom Paget.

Did I say it right? Baggett? Do you have a presentation this evening, sir?

All right. No presentation. Then we do have speakers. So we can bring forward our members of the public. Mike Sudarth.

How y'all doing?

I'm a local. I'm a farm manager on Hatton Grain, so we're a mile and a half up the road. We're very tight on growth and new things coming and changing, and we've got a camp opposite next week that is coming aboard to grow. I think Tom and them are... as good as they come, um, as far as, uh, he's a local to the community. So it's his community that his kids have to grow up in and my future kids. And we've farmed those fields. They're cut hay in the past for the previous owners. They were very fond of it. We call that the false bank, uh, from the river to where those trees are. And, You can't, like far as vehicle activity disturbing it, you can't hurt it, I wouldn't think. And from the way they got it laid out, they're just going to pick and choose where God created a little opening for other people to come enjoy. They're respectful. He doesn't play loud music. The traffic is good. Everybody that's been there has been good. I think it's a chance for people. to get out of Charlottesville, come to God's country and enjoy the peace and quiet, catch them a fish out the river to eat. It's good for kids. So I think y'all could sleep good at night knowing that they're a good part of the community and gonna do well. I don't see we're in it. As far as the water concerns, like Hurricane Camille or Helene, that flooded all of Howardville overnight. So that is a possibility. But if you're camping there and God happens to take you in the water, you might not have been living right. I don't know. But maybe put a throwing device at each campsite. I think that part would be all right. The river right now there is two and a half foot. And it gets up to, it can flood that low ground, but it would have to be And I don't think they're going to have anything permanent there, maybe a rock fire pit or something, you know. But it's good vibes. They got people to come play the guitar every Saturday evening, you know. Y'all should probably come camp. It would do you some good. But I think you could sleep all right knowing that they're doing the counting. Great. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

That concludes our list.

Uh, you have an opportunity to rebut any remarks you heard. I don't know if you feel the need to. And, uh, nope. Speaking of Mr. Paget, Paget, you can come on up to the mic as you're, I was going there next. So, um, we'll do a round here. And if supervisors have any questions, I'd like to ask, we'll handle that now. Supervisor Missile, any questions?

I have no questions.

No, thank you. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley. Supervisor Malik.

I guess anything that I already asked, you can ask about. And in the Planning Commission, there was some talk about trash, and you're taking care of the trash, even if it blows over to somebody else's property currently. Yes, ma'am. Because the county's not coming anymore, I understand.

I know.

Okay. Thank you for doing that.

Were there any other items you wanted? All right. Supervisor Duncan? No questions. All right. Supervisor Pruitt?

Quick clarification. When we're talking campsite, I'm not sure we necessarily know. Are you looking at overnight campers mostly or is this day campers? Yeah, mostly overnight campers. And we're probably looking at a fire pit at these locations. Is that probably the extent of modifications? I know further back on the existing campsite, you've got some Like some picnic tables. Yeah.

So each campsite will come with a fire pit and a picnic table. Cool. That's all I got.

Great. I don't have any questions. Thank you, sir. Um, we will close the public hearing and the matter is back before the board. Are there any additional comments or questions?

A very quick comment. I should have mentioned this before we entered the public hearing, but I know we didn't do a community meeting for this. Also, it was alluded to, we did do a community meeting for Watermark. I continue to be kind of confused about where we draw that line, right? Because Watermark is also a pretty small change that they're doing, right? They're changing some of their operating hours. And frankly, people had concerns. And this part of the county, folks care a lot about what happened in their backyard. Mike came up here half an hour just to say his two-minute piece, right? I could see this have gotten some people who would have wanted to hear about the changes in a community meeting. That wasn't an opportunity that was afforded. It also wasn't an obligation that was put on Mr. Paquette, nor it was an obligation that was put on Watermark. I continue to want to just...

think have more of a bright line on where that does and does not happen um so that's all i got all right well we are if no other comments or questions we're looking go ahead i forgot a question uh one of my constituents wrote to me and said that they had read that this was in the land use program is that true Because it's commercial and not agricultural. So I don't know how it would qualify. But I wanted to ask while I had you all here.

I am not aware of it being in the commercial.

It's not. It's definitely not in an agricultural or forestal district. No, I'm talking about in the land use. We would have to look up on the tax records.