Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Thank you, Claudette. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call to order the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for our September 2nd, 2026, 1 p.m. meeting here in Lane Auditorium. With us today, we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Ann Malik of the Whitehall District, Supervisor Fred Missel of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor B. Lepisto-Kirtley of the Urbana District, Supervisor Sally Duncan of the Jack Jewett District, and myself, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District. We do have our Deputy County Executive, Mr. Trevor Henry, filling in for Mr. Richardson this afternoon. Deputy County Executive Ann Wall will be subbing in this evening later on. She looks thrilled. I saw that look, Ann. We also have with us our Board Attorney, Andy Herring, our Board Clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgeson, and our Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris with us. I want to thank our Elmore County Police Department officers who are with us this afternoon, Police Officer First Class Luke Kaiser and Officer Enzo Irizarry. So thank you both gentlemen for being with us this afternoon. And now if you will please rise as you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance. And we're going to now join in a moment of silence, and I would just take the chair's prerogative to ask people to keep in mind the children at the Waynesboro Elementary School. There was an incident there this morning, a very traumatic incident. and just have that whole community in your thoughts during this moment of silence. Thank you. All right. Thank you, everyone. Board, we have an agenda. I do not know of any changes or edits to the agenda. Are there any at this time? All right, seeing none, is there a motion to adopt the final agenda?

So moved.

Second.

All right, the motion has been made and accepted. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. Thank you, board. All right, we'll move to item number five, brief announcements by board members. Supervisor Malik, you're up first today.

Thank you very much. And I am scrambling to try to find the dates for the Ravana Solid Waste Authority is having their fall household hazardous waste and all the various components, mattresses, tires, furniture, and appliances. And if I can find it before we're done, I will redo that because it is coming up in September. The electronic waste sign-up is already full, but there is a waiting list. So one can get on that if you are interested in still giving it a try. And I will say that last week I was able to attend a cyber conference over at PVCC and so carton to hear that the county is already doing through the skills of our IT department the top 10 things that we should all be doing to protect ourselves against attack. And it really takes a village, every employee, everybody being careful with all those different two-factor authentication, et cetera, et cetera, to keep the great effort going. Protecting against self-inflicted wounds is the number one thing we should be doing. and news about a new partnership in work with PVCC UVA to build what's called a cyber range. There's one in another community college that is having great success, and so we're looking forward to hearing more about that, and I hope that they will come to the board and make a presentation. And I will come back later if I can find my dates. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Supervisor Duncan?

I have nothing.

Supervisor Pruitt.

Two very quick things to keep on your radar. First, really sneaking up on us is the 2026 election. Early voting starts on the 18th of September and will be at the county offices on 5th Street and will run through the 31st of October, the spookiest day of all, which will be the last day of early voting. and then, of course, the election the following Tuesday. Additionally, the annual Loop DeVille celebrating and raising funds for our fabulous trail network that runs around the city of Charlottesville through both the city and the county will be on the 27th of September. This is one of the best opportunities. to visit and learn about the trail, to celebrate it. There are support stations all along it, so if you've ever thought, boy, howdy, I'd love to hike or run or bike over 20 miles in a day, but I don't know if I have the capacity, well, this is easily the best time to find that capacity because there's got to be someone giving you juice every three miles. I will be there. It's also the best opportunity to get the coolest shirt of all the nonprofit shirts around in this area. It's just got to cost you like $30, so... get on down. That's all I got.

I have never once thought I need to go out walk, bike, or hike for 20 miles. Maybe a quarter mile. Supervisor Missel. Thank you. No announcements. All right. No more commentary from me. Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley.

Yes, we had a CACVB meeting, and I will send to the board what was said that we have done in their wish list. That might have already been sent to the board, but I'll resend it just in case. We had a PANTOPS meeting, good turnout, and we had parks and rec there. which we were very grateful for because they told us about things that are coming up. And I think one of our big projects is the Old Mills Trail. So we're trying to get that accomplished. And we do have monies from the state, believe it or not. It's a miracle. So we're very happy about that. So hopefully we can get all that completed. Thank you.

Thank you. Did you have your...

I found them. Thank you. Had to make them myself. So household hazardous waste. Those are the paints, the pesticides, the chemicals that you've been lurking around your garage and barn. That is September 18th and 19th. The hours are 830 to 4 for all the days. Furniture and mattresses, September 26th. Appliances, October 3rd. And tires, the dreaded tires, October 10th. You don't want those lying around either because the Scoopage of the tires holds onto rainwater, and then the mosquitoes love it, and then you're in big trouble. So get rid of all that stuff this fall. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you, Board. I do not have any announcements today. That will move us to proclamations and recognitions. Item number six, we do have a proclamation recognizing September as National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. We have with us today Mike Fox. He is the Virginia chapter leader of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. And Vice Chair Missel is going to read this proclamation as a motion.

Great, thank you. I'm honored to read this, happy to read this proclamation recognizing September as National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Whereas every year, 27,000 people in the United States die by firearm suicide. An average of 718 people in Virginia die by firearm suicide. Nearly six out of every 10 gun deaths in the US are suicides. And during the last two decades, youth suicide has reached its highest rate. And whereas Albemarle County joins in observing National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month by raising awareness to foster a culture of understanding and empathy and encourage community members to become better educated on the signs of suicide risk factors, elevate local suicide prevention resources, and destigmatize conversations around mental health, and whereas the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, The Trevor Project and local providers play a helpful role in suicide prevention and mental health support by offering immediate confidential assistance 24-7 to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. And whereas Albemarle County has played an important role in suicide prevention by local advocates, lawmakers, and University of Virginia law students successfully pushing for substantial risk order reforms, the success of the Human Services Alternative Response Team, or HART, and the school board's secure firearm storage resolution serving as a model for other localities. And whereas there are many local organizations, including Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Students Demand Action, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the PLM Legacy Foundation, Region 10, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope through research, education, policies, advocacy, and resources for those who have lost someone to suicide, who struggle with suicidal ideation, or have otherwise been affected by suicide. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize suicide as a public health problem and designate September 2026 as National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Signed, the second day of September 2026, Chair Ned Galloway.

Second.

All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

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

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. Thank you, Board. Mr. Fox, we'd like to invite you up to the podium. You're welcome to make some remarks, and then the supervisors will probably make some remarks, and then we'll bring the proclamation down.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Supervisor Mistel, and all of you for your support and recognizing that suicide prevention is part of creating safer and healthier communities. Suicide is preventable. Suicide is preventable. The vast majority of people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide. Keeping people safe means taking seriously the moments when someone is in crisis and doing what we can to put time and distance between that crisis and lethal means. This includes our kids. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 24 in the United States. Suicide among preteens has risen sharply over the past two decades. Whether it's passing new laws in Richmond or investing in community-based solutions here at home, every act of kindness and every connection can make a difference and save a life. Thank you again for your commitment and reaffirming that our community can be a place where people know they are seen, valued, and not alone.

Thank you, sir. We'll go through the supervisors, see what comments we have. Supervisor Malik?

Well, I just want to, again, thank my constituents and those from the rest of the county for all the work that you do behind the scenes to build those bridges that you've just been describing. Because the sense of hopelessness that people feel because they don't think there's anyone else out there who might understand really makes it worse. And access to the guns makes it final. So I thank you again.

Thank you, ma'am. Supervisor Duncan?

I just want to thank you for the work on this. It's obviously very important, and so thank you for bringing this to us and all the stuff that you guys already do.

Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you so much for your advocacy on this issue. It's something that I feel touches me very directly as someone who is both a gun owner and struggles with depression, as someone who has served on a ship where everyone carried firearms sometimes in the course of their duty, and we also had processes where Because in the sector of the Navy I worked in, suicidal ideation was quite common. We had processes where you could just walk into your commanding officer's office and say, hey, sir, I have reason to be concerned about Ensign Schmuckatelli wanting to do himself harm. I would ask that you temporarily suspend his gun qualification at the armory. And it happens. And that was done. And it's a fairly standard process. I think it's a... really simple modeling of how we can use policy to make it so that we can keep our communities safe without harming people's rights. And I'm really grateful for the kind of advocacy that you have led with Moms that has made tools like this available here in Virginia. Thank you, sir. Supervisor Missel?

Yeah, I just echo the thanks and acknowledge the importance of this work. I've had three close friends and colleagues in the last 10 years who have directly experienced suicide of a family member. And it's just, you know, the lasting impact, the lasting, I don't know, just pain that it brings is just mind-blowing. It's just horrible. So critically important, and thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you, sir.

Supervisor Lepisto, currently?

Please continue to do your good work and your efforts, because when someone commits suicide, that leaves friends and family members wondering why. They never get that answered. Really, why did that happen? So anything we can do. to help mitigate that and help other people. But I do have one question for you. You mentioned preteens, which really disturbs me. And has there been a direct link between that and maybe social media? Do you know?

Based on what I read, it spiked during the pandemic. And although levels have tempered off a little bit, they are still climbing some. I think that that could be a contributor based on what I've heard from some of our community partners and experts in the field, that people might see that as they either gain so much stress from it and bullying and that sort of thing, cyberbullying and all, that that's a reaction to it. So it's possible.

Thank you, and thank you for what you do. Sure, thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Fox. And I join and endorse everything that other supervisors have said. It occurs to me like I teach a course on Tuesday nights at college level. And it's really just a how do you go through class. And one of the things, it's like don't wait until you're either in failure mode or crisis mode to ask. You've got to ask early. And this is just stuff about maybe being behind on schoolwork or things like that. But as you're talking, it's the same thing. It's not just – it's easier to ask when you start to have the confusion or the struggle about things than it is when you're in failure mode or crisis mode. So I appreciate all the efforts your organizations do to help encourage that. But it's not just put on the individual level. who's feeling confused. It's also contingent on the rest of us that if we're seeing somebody having a struggle or a confusion, to reach out and go, hey, are you okay, and what's going on, before they get to failure and crisis mode, because it's just more difficult to act rationally when you're in crisis mode for everybody. So just kudos to all the education you're putting out there around the issue, but also reminding everybody that, hey, ask because there is help out there and check in on people because we can also provide that help to folks. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. The Vice Chair will bring the proclamation down for you. Thank you again. Okay, board, we're going to go to item seven, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled for public hearings. Looks like we have some folks signed up, so Vice Chair Missel will take us through the procedures and then lead us through our speakers.

Happy to. Looks like we have no one online today. So I will read the in-person only. 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 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. The sign-up period is closed once public comment begins. The podium is adjustable. Speakers may raise or lower it so they are able to speak directly into the microphone. We will begin with Mr. Rick Randolph.

Good afternoon, members of the Board. Rick Randolph, I reside at 3191 Darby Road, Keswick. As both the Scottsville Supervisor and Planning Commissioner, I continually advocated for public accountability by Habitat regarding both how county-supported TIF funds are utilized and how pre-development Southwood residents are affected. by this unique large redevelopment project. This afternoon you had before you a performance agreement for phase two of the Southwood Neighborhood Model District. Three of you have seen a mostly similar code of development before when it was on the 12-15-21 board consent agenda. The rest of you, I recognize, may not have. I thus want to bring to the attention of those three of you who probably have not, that the original progression of the redevelopment in phase two was to begin in block 18 and then proceed in the clockwise direction, sweeping around to turn east to 17, 22, 26, and 25, and then end in block 34. A drive through Southwood yesterday showed that many of those blocks are being worked on simultaneously. Where, one wonders, are the resulting displaced residents being housed? County staff has indicated that 81 original families were rehoused by June 26th of this year. If we accept the statistical average of five persons per family, that would yield some 405 persons. 405 persons only represents 31% of Southwood's original 1,300 residents. Where are those other residents today? Because they can't all be in Southwood. Does anybody want to know where they are? Does anybody really care? Doesn't Albemarle's public deserve to know? The request today is for the county to commit to providing habitat with $15.75 million in TIF funds. As real estate turns over in Southwood and as market appreciation occurs for the market value homes there, has a board seen projections of the amount of the captured property tax revenue that will accumulate in a county account and is then available to be plowed back into Southwood to help pay for public improvements, site cleanup, utilities and roads, etc. Does the public deserve to see this projection? And how about a conservative projection of when those property taxes will be directed solely to the county's budget and will no longer be reserved exclusively for Southwood? And finally, by what percentage are the county's revenues projected to increase as a result of the capture of those now reserved funds? I submit the Board and taxpayers deserve to have this information. Thank you. Thank you.

Pam Riley.

Good afternoon, supervisors. I'm Pam Riley, and I live at 1375 Gristmill Drive in the Scottsville Magisterial District. I served on the Scottsville Planning Commission during the Phase 1 review and approval, and I care deeply about Southwood's redevelopment, in part because my career was in nonprofit affordable housing and community reinvestment. As you all know, Phase 1 was approved by the county in the June of 2019, and a cornerstone of that approval was a commitment of no displacement of the residents living in Southwood. Because some of the planning commission and the Board of Supervisors had grave concerns about potential displacement of the residents, the Board of Supervisors required Habitat to develop a non-displacement plan and to report on any relocation or displacement of the residents. Did the Board of Supervisors receive written reports on resident relocation and displacement during the past seven years? Have you all been given written information about where the legacy residents are today as part of your review for the funding for Phase 2? If not, I would urge you to review this information before committing an additional almost $16 million in Phase 2. I've been trying to obtain this information personally since last February when I requested the non-displacement data from Dr. Pathea, and after several follow-ups on my part and no response by July, I fortuitously ran into County Executive Jeff Richardson, and I asked him to please investigate this matter. He got right on it, and Ms. Dimmick, the Chief Human Resources Officer, contacted me, and she sent me copies of habitats that were provided to them in terms of the drawdowns for Phase 1. And that contained information about the number of affordable units developed, the number of units purchased or rented by Southwood families. But there's no information regarding the families that may have been otherwise relocated or displaced. other than the comment that maybe some families chose to leave on their own accord. It's quite possible that the county does not have this information and that the non-displacement data or written reports were never submitted. Habitat did provide a non-displacement plan to the county and to the state as part of a requirement for state funding. They have a rehousing specialist, and it works with all the residents, and the Habitat staff is responsible for maintaining secure records for all households. In the Uniform Relocation Act assessment form that they submitted to the state, they described their relocation record keeping to keep copies of relocation advisory notes, offers of relocation assistance, claims, affordance, appeals, etc. So this data should be available to the county and to the public. The taxpayers of the county deserve to know what happened to the original residents of Southwood. Please obtain this information and review it. Thank you for listening to my concerns today.

Thank you. Thank you. And last on our list is Peter Krebs.

Good afternoon. I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council, and I'm also on the board of the County Parks Foundation. The Old Mouse Trail follows the Rivanna River from Dartintal Park along the edge of Pantops to where it ends currently near the hospital. It's a beautiful place to walk, bike, or run, and it's easily accessible to thousands of people. There have been long-standing plans to extend this trail four miles further into the county, connecting with an existing trail in Glenmore to create an unbroken eight-mile greenway. This will be stunning, and it'll be really unrivaled anywhere in this state. It's so exciting. Much of the land in between is owned by Monticello, but the county has a right-of-way easement to make the trail. During the rezoning, there is a time limit placed on that easement, and work has to begin by 2027, which is right around the corner. I'm excited to say that it looks like the county is going to meet that deadline and start work next year. There's a small reference in today's consent agenda about a grant from DCR to pay for this extension. Although we don't know yet whether the county will receive the grant, early indications are very good. And whether or not we get the grant, the county staff has been very creative in identifying funding sources, including major pledges from the Parks Foundation and many other groups and organizations. Also to their credit, they found solutions to some of the problems that have really vexed a whole generation worth of planners, such as how do we get past the railroad? How do we get permission from VDOT? All of those have plausible answers, and it looks very promising. Now, I invite the community to come see what is possible. The Parks Foundation and PEC are co-hosting a kickoff party for the Old Mills Trail as part of the Rivanna Basin Conference on September 30th. So it's after the conference. It'll be from 4 to 7. It's free, open to the public. I've spoken to a couple of Alta View residents. They're super excited. So they're actually hosting the party at their clubhouse, which is across the street from the hospital. So if we get the grant, it'll be a great kickstart, but it won't be the end of the project, quite the contrary. So as you're thinking about upcoming budgets, please include monies for greenways like the Old Mills Trail, which contribute to quality of life for residents and also to the county's billion-dollar visitor's economy. So excited, and I look forward to seeing you on the 30th, if not sooner.

Thank you. I have flyers. I'll leave with the clip.

Appreciate it.

And we do have one speaker who's joined us online, and that is Pat Salen-Houston. Ms. Houston, are you there?

I don't think it's up there yet.

You may begin speaking.

Good afternoon. Are you there? No. All right. Last call.

All right.

Oh, wait. We've got change. Good afternoon. Are you there? I hope so. There you are. Good afternoon. You can begin when you're ready.

Thank you very much. There was a delay in that permission coming through. Thank you very much. And it was very interesting to hear the previous speaker about being able to use trails and have more development of the trail out there. My name is Pat Sale in Houston. I live on Sugar Ridge Road. And until recently, our understanding is that we were on a no-pave list. We've just heard there's some looking at, you know, promoting the rural qualities of Albemarle County by preserving some of the key rural unpaved roads may be dispersed throughout the region. We aren't somewhere that we can really have trails except for going up into hiking areas, but it is a very special region that we're at that people come to for walking, riding bikes, and And it really is a neighborhood of walkers. It's like a little community. We live on this dirt road, and our farmhouse is so close to the road, we could almost shake hands with somebody walking by. When we came, we loved the nature and the surroundings, but we got to know it's a very mixed bag of experiences, and there are many downsides, and I acknowledge that, the least of which is not the problems when it's icy or all the incredible dust we can get into our home. Even though there is that, we are in a section that we have observed how people really try and speed coming down the hill from the direction of Sugar Hollow. And I think there is a high risk for losing this ability to have as a walking and bicycling and running area should be paved. Even if there are signs posted, I'm even... somebody who can be guilty of going faster than the posted area, especially if I'm thinking my needs to hurry are outweighing the speed limit. So I do confess that as a natural thing that people do. I think that having people speed down at 50 and 55 miles an hour, if they're not slowed by the gravel and dust, I'm sorry, and dirt, is going to greatly change and impact the ability for people to have this as an area, not just where people live here, but people come and train here. There are runners groups that come in small groups and also large groups. We also still occasionally have horses that come along this road. I would doubt that would be continued. From what I've seen, the narrow country roads that have become paved, The edges of them are hard to even find a place to walk on. And as far as being safer during ice storms, my scariest moments on the road have been when somebody's coming down toward my road, toward my car from the opposite direction, and they're losing control from excess speed. I don't think paving is going to be a great... addition to Traveling you know with ice storms.

There are so many trees that come down back ma'am your time has expired if you Thank you so much that concludes our list All right. Thank you to those who came out to provide public comment today Board we will move to item number eight our consent agenda any items that need to be pulled from consent Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda so moved?

second

All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

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

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. All right, thank you, board. That motion passes. And we will now move to item number nine. This is an action item, Habitat for Humanity, Southwood Phase II Performance Agreement. Mr. Sumner and Ms. Demick joining us. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Pull up the presentation. Here we go. Excellent. Good afternoon, Chair Galloway and members of the board. I'm Kaki Demick, Chief Human Services Officer, and I'm here with my very competent colleague, Jacob Sumner, your Chief Financial Officer, to seek permission for the county executive to enter into a performance agreement with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville for Phase 2 of the Southwood Neighborhood Redevelopment Project. Also here in the audience is Dan Rosenzweig, President and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville. In case there are questions, Mr. Sumner and I are unable to answer. We understand the Board's interest in incentivizing the development of affordable housing and ensuring accountability for the use of public funds in such a pursuit. We are confident that the components of the performance agreement serve both of these interests well. We will review the project history of previous agreements, detail the conditions, restrictions, and expectations in a performance agreement for phase two, provide time for questions or feedback, and ask that you consider the resolution that was attachment two in your executive summary agenda materials for this item. As you are aware, Habitat for Humanity purchased the 100-acre Southwood neighborhood property in 2007 in an effort to prevent a mass tenant displacement. Habitat organized a resident-led initiative to build plans for an inclusive, mixed-income development with a range of housing types and neighborhood amenities, including community gathering places, supports for small business operations, parks, and playing fields. Albemarle County and the Economic Development Authority entered into a performance agreement with Habitat for Humanity to redevelop Villages 1 and 2 as part of Phase 1 on July 1, 2019. Habitat has moved on Phase 2, which is now in development and constitutes Villages 3 through 11, and completes the project. This is a complex and complicated development process, particularly because the neighborhood residents remained in the park throughout the development process. Phase 2, including the redevelopment of 86 acres with 1,000 dwelling units, includes single-family attached and detached homes and multi-family housing. The redevelopment proposal was reviewed by the Planning Commission on April 26, 2022, and approved by the Board on November 2, 2022. Mr. Sumner will now review the framework of the performance agreement, including conditions, obligations, and compliance expectations.

Thank you, Kaki. Good afternoon. My name is Jacob Sumner. I'm the chief financial officer for the county. As Kaki mentioned, we are here today asking the board to allow staff to draft and develop and execute a performance agreement with Habitat that supports phase two of their Southwood development. The maximum amount of financial incentives attached to the performance agreement is $15.75 million, spread out over 20 years. The funding for the incentive will be derived from the incremental increase in the real estate property tax generated from Phase 2 of their project. As this agreement is performance-based, there are several conditions and obligations we will look for Habitat to meet. This would include that, at minimum, Habitat would construct at least 227 affordable units at or below 80% AMI. This would also require non-displacement of original Southwood residents. In addition, we would require a 40-year period of affordability for homeownership units and a 30-year period of affordability for rental units. Habitat would need to provide a plan ensuring income diversity and community integration within their development along the way. Habitat has shown an interest in developing a community center within Phase 2 and could be contingent upon access to outside funding availability. As required in the development, Habitat will be responsible for providing all the infrastructure necessary to complete the project. From a compliance perspective, we would require Habitat to provide biannual reports on the development, including their construction progress, any barriers or delays that they're experiencing, and metrics on the number of units developed, rented, or sold. They would also need to remain in good standing with the state and the county regarding project activities related to permitting, zoning and building code regulations, and be current on any applicable taxes or fees. The financial incentive would be paid out twice a year, 45 days after the real estate tax due date, The deadline for the required reporting would be before the tax due date to ensure compliance is met prior to disbursement of the incentive payment. From a budgetary perspective, Phase 2 would increase future real property tax revenues. The incentive payments would be funded by the incremental increase in the real property taxes, and both the revenues and incentive payments will be incorporated into future budgets. So these are the parameters that we are looking at to include in the performance agreement number two if the board so chooses to move forward with the performance agreement that has been requested today. And Kaki and I are here available to answer any questions that you all may have.

All right. Thank you both. Supervisor Malik.

I wanted to thank you for your very complete answers to my questions from earlier because I needed more details than what was in the staff report, and I'm really grateful for all the digging in that you have done and will do and what you've described here this morning to make sure that... Everybody is going to be held to a timetable, not just one side, because they can't operate without us and we can't operate without them, so we're all in this together. And I guess later we can get a formal answer on the displacement question because I think there is one. Thank you.

All right. Supervisor Duncan? No questions. Supervisor Pruitt?

Yes, so the kind of crux of this is around the TIF structure, and it's occurring to me that doing it as we are in multiple phases and with a very public process, I'm curious, is the total value of the TIF not kind of altered by the publicity of it, as in we are raising the base at which it's going to be assessed at before actually starting that process? Does that make sense?

We wouldn't be raising the base.

I guess I'm saying the fact that it is known that there is going to be a development here could raise the assessed value of that development even before ground is broken. Does that make sense?

I understand where you're going, but when we look at the property and the parcels when we're doing the real estate assessment each year, it would be looked at the market in totality. And so when we look at real estate assessments, you look at more of our neighborhoods and neighborhood districts. And so it is a little more geographic than the neighborhood of Southwood itself proper. So I would suspect that the The reassessment or the assessment of those properties will be based on the current conditions, and as the phases are built out over time, those assessments will change and those will grow as they continue to grow from either raw or undeveloped land to more land that will have improvements on them.

I'm also realizing I don't know the structure of this discussion, literally the structure of the agenda item before us. In my mind, I might be thinking of it similar to a hearing for a zoning approval, but it's not, right? There is not going to be, now we're turning it over to the applicant to speak. I think this is structurally the only time we're really going to have questions and discussions. I mentioned that because previously there were concerns about displacement, but maybe we'll hear from that later. I'm not sure there is another time to hear for it. So I guess I would just ask kind of generally, could you help characterize and respond to some of the questions about the current status of reporting related to displacement of the previous phase, whether or not there's any contemplated changes to that, whether or not there's any concerns the staff is seeing on that end. That was three questions. Sorry.

I'm able to answer many of those questions, but there are details that I'm unable to answer at this time, though I suspect Mr. Rosenzweig has those answers. So if there's a mechanism for recognizing him to answer those questions, that would certainly provide a more fulsome answer. The county has received all of the required reporting around displacement and status of phase one, sufficient to satisfy the distribution of the funds, both the granting funds and the real estate tax-based ones. We have certainly been satisfied with what we've heard. I understand that Habitat is required to maintain individual non-displacement records for every individual who is in the park, but they are not required to distribute those to us. And so they're required to have them, and I understand they could make them available for the county to see. That was not a component of Phase 1's performance agreement, nor is it a component of our proposed Phase 2 agreement. We have no concerns on this issue.

I guess I might also ask the Chair if it would be appropriate to recognize Mr. Rosenschweig for any additional information he might want to add on this question.

If there's no objection by a supervisor, it's appropriate.

And the answer could be no further comment. I don't want to ask you to provide information that you don't have or don't want to provide. Have you ever heard me say no comment?

And Mr. Rosen, sorry, before again, I mean, for the record, we have other instances where there have been action items before us, including homestays, where we've allowed folks to come up and speak as long as the board allows it. So you're all set. Thank you, sir.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I'm Dan Rosenzweig. I'm the president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity.

Make sure you maybe raise that up, Dan. There's a button on the left below. Oh, yeah. It's pretty cool. Unless I broke it before the meeting when I was playing.

I love this because my back always hurts after speaking to you. I'm Dan Rosenzweigman, President and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville. I really appreciate you inviting me up to clarify, and I appreciate the staff for all the time they've put in, not just to clarify these questions, but in putting together the agreement that we feel very, very good about. In terms of non-displacement, I was trying to follow the speakers so I could address them directly with facts. I had a hard time following the The numbers and the logic of the first speaker, I can't say I can address that. The second speaker talked about requirements that in our URA agreement that was approved by the county and by HUD about what constitutes non-displacement. It defines things like persons non-displaced, et cetera. It's very, very granular. And as Kaki said, we do have a requirement to keep a file and detailed records on everything that happens with families, whether they stay or go, and we have those. We have no reporting requirement. When we were talking to the county director of housing years ago about what the report should look like, we asked what you want to include. And one of the things that you'll notice if you see it is that in the reporting that's now required, there is a segment on reporting on families who've been rehoused So I can give you some facts around that. In phase one, which is 19% of the land mass, we have rehoused 89 families from Southwood, or 29% of the families who were originally living there. And so we keep track of that as we move through the project. We always want to make sure that there's less land use than there is, or there's more capacity to rehouse people as we go through the process. There was a question in the first comment, and we have had zero involuntary displacements. So not a single family has been involuntarily displaced. And as I said, we are happy to share any of that information with the county, either as part of this or outside of this. That's fine. The other thing that was brought up was this question of where are the families. As you all know, there was intensive sewer or septic degradation in a section of the park that was phase two. And so as we were developing phase one, we needed to move some people from that section on an emergency basis within the park, which we did. Most of those families were able to move. Either we moved their trailers or we were able to purchase a trailer. and put it on a pad that we reconstituted, or we purchased back trailers and moved them, but everybody was temporarily rehoused. And then apart from just a handful of early adopters, the first families that moved in, the vast majority of the 89 families who are in there are from the next sections of redevelopment. So they've all, any area that's been redeveloped, they're either in homes in phase one now, or they're temporarily rehoused on site somewhere else. We have an 85% stay rate right now. That means that 85% of the people who were legacy residents of the park, who when it came time for their segment of the park to be redeveloped, they've elected to stay and they're staying. 15% of the people have left for various reasons. Some people or just move, right? But we've documented all of that. That 85% stay rate is a national record for that. The HUD's averages are about, for HOPE 6 projects, there were 13% of people staying. Across all redevelopment projects in the nation, it's somewhere between, the data's a little sketchy, but it's between like 13 and 29% or something like that. So an average of about 20%. So 85% of the people are staying. So we feel very good about it. We're happy to make anything else available and I'm happy to answer any more of your questions.

85%, I'm sorry, but is that for the aggregate of the entire community or is that for the components that are currently or have already seen redevelopment?

Yeah, so there comes a time when we have to redevelop a section of the park where people are. And so people have about a three or four year runway between when we know that we're going to develop that and when we actually start to develop that. And so we bring them in. The first thing that they do is they meet with financial coaches. We get a sense of what they want. Not what they can afford now, but what they might be able to afford in three years from now. Then they go through a community design process. So the families from that section of the park work with our designers to design their neighborhood And then the work begins. Then they start working one-on-one with our financial coaches to get them to a place where they want to be so they can buy the product that they want when their neighborhood is developed. So about three or four years later, after that, they move. So the 85% is based on the people who have been at that threshold where the first question we say is, do you want to stay or not? Right? And if they don't want to stay, then we work with them to figure out timing. And if they want our help in rehousing, we provide rehousing assistance. And if they do want to stay, then they work towards mostly homeownership because 80% of the 85% are staying as homeowners or in affordable rentals. And we build affordable rentals as well.

Thank you. I think that answers all my questions. And that had been my understanding of the answer to that. But, you know, the... I think this is kind of the one part of this cycle where it's our job to be quite cynical. And after this, we can proceed together in partnership again. And the cynical thought is, ah, one could hypothetically depress that number by treating the entirety of Southwood as the unit that you're evaluating, and then the total amount that have actually made the decision to voluntarily displace would be lower. But that is not what the measure is.

No, no, we're adding it, not subtracting it. So in other words, it's all the people who are at that precipice where it's time to make a decision. Of all those people, that's where the 85% of those people have stayed. Understood. Thank you so much.

That's all I have, Chair.

All right, Supervisor Missel. Thanks. Now, you've got both staff and Mr. Rosenzweig.

Yeah, this is great. Thank you. Triple teamed. I love it. This is just a follow-up on the non-displacement plan. I'm just looking at the agreement that was – and maybe this is a dated agreement. It's back in 2019. And in there it says, as provided in Section 4A5, Habitat must obtain approval of the non-displacement plan before the county appropriates the first cash contribution, and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Any amendment to the non-displacement plan is also subject to review and approval by the county housing planner. Has that all been done? That's done. That's under the water.

Yes, we received the plan, and it was approved prior to the distribution of the first cash payment.

Great. Okay, great. Thank you. And I appreciate also Supervisor Malik's request for additional information. That was really helpful. And I hope I didn't miss anything because I've tried to review everything that's been coming in over the last couple of days. I just have a couple questions. One is, as you think about, is there or do we know what percentage of incremental tax revenue remains with the county to cover, for example, schools, roads, et cetera?

So similar to performance agreement number one, this would be a phased-in approach. So we would look at structuring it so the first major portion of the time period, the 20-year time period, would be 100% of the incentive. And then that would step down as we move towards that latter half of the 20-year mark. And that's really to recognize the cost of construction, the cost of development, and supporting the project. So through that timeline, towards the latter part is when we'd start seeing some of the additional revenues come directly into the county that would not be part of the incentive payment.

Okay, great. And I have no doubt that you'll fulfill everything. And it's a great project. I highly respect you, Dan. Is there a clawback or are there audit and reporting provisions that are in this if for some reason commitments aren't fulfilled or maintained?

There are, and some of the obligations that I talked about earlier and the reporting requirements, one of the structural things we're looking at is the due dates of those, so that we have the reporting requirements before we look at the incentive payment, make sure that compliance has been met, that all the obligations that are called out in the agreement are fulfilled before we make that incentive payment.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then on slide seven, you don't have to go to the slide, but you mentioned the community center, and I think you mentioned if funding is available. So is, I guess, what is the likelihood of that being completed? I know maybe that's a crystal ball question. Is it really part of the compliance requirements, or is it we hope it happens?

Yes to both. We're going to incorporate it with the expectation that it sets that the county is interested and invested in a community center and has been since prior to 2019. Got it. Being in that space and recognizing that the financial obligation for creating that is shared. And so shared from... what has frequently been described as other people's money in this process as we seek funding from other sources, both Habitat seeking those sources, particularly the potential of using price money for that, HUD-based price funds, or any other source that we might identify, such as any private donor who might be listening to this conversation right now and wish to invest in community center at Southwest.

Can I clarify? We have money for the center. We requested staff allow for an out in case that money that is appropriated by HUD right now for some reason gets rescinded given the stuff that's going on in Congress. It shouldn't be subject to rescission as per the way the The program was structured, but we've seen across the country that that hasn't always been the case. So if for some reason the money that's already been appropriated is sitting in an account waiting to fund this gets rescinded, then we can't promise that. I got you.

That's very helpful. And just to clarify, this is a 40-year homeownership affordability period, right? Not 30? Because there was a...

30 would be for rental units, and 40 would be for homeownership units, and that's a baseline threshold. There may be opportunities for longer periods of affordability based on some negotiations we've been in with Habitat about some scaling around that. But for the agreement's sake, the baseline is consistent with housing album role.

Got it. Great. Thank you. That's all the questions. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley.

Any chance of getting that HUD money and building it quickly before it gets rescinded?

Well, that goes back to the questions that the speaker, that the members of the public asked, is that right now it's in a site where their trailers are. And those folks are now going through that process to get themselves ready to purchase homes when we build them. We can't move them until we build homes. And so that's the... limiting factor. We're trying to expedite all we can on that, but the governor on the pace of this project is always trying to keep families. in their homes until they move to their site.

Okay. Thank you. Most of my questions were answered, but you offered to have the displacement numbers policy, not the policy, but the displacement numbers included, if that's what we wanted. That's something I would like to see, how many people each time are, if anyone's displaced and they except, you know, homeownership or rental within Southwood, or if they choose to leave. I would like to continue receiving those figures. Absolutely. Okay, thank you.

I know Supervisor Malik, did you have a follow-up?

Just a quick reminder, the whole point, as I remember, for where Villages 1 and 2 were was that it was Greenfield. And so you could build the house in which the people who were in the trailers ready to be moved could go and not be thrown out too soon. So that is sort of what I assumed was the base and took care of all those families as well. And the whole appreciative inquiry process that you all have done. I mean, it's the first in the nation. And having watched from the sidelines as these families are working through these things and seeing it over 10 years, it is incredible how the understanding and the evolution of the planning and first, well, we want everybody to have a garden and then they realize that, or room for a garden, and then they realize that if they did that, there wouldn't be enough room for everybody. So they had to shrink the lots down and figure out who needed what and all these different things that were achieved here that have not been achieved in more standard neighborhoods. So I really appreciate that. Thank you, Dan.

Thank you. And Supervisor Duncan, did you have any follow-ups? All right.

I have the, oh, Supervisor Pruitt, go ahead. Two quick questions that were prompted by some of the additional conversation. Referencing how you had mentioned, you know, and we've talked about this before, the governor is always on growth and then movement, right? And that creates delays in the process. When we talked specifically about the community center, looking at the maps that you provided, it does look like you're notionally planning on the community center a little in a different place than the current community center, right? A little earlier on Hickory Street. And that now begs the question of the the fact that there is uncertainty in the funding streams for that new community center, and also the fact that this is an iterative redevelopment in phase two, we're going to not be on Greenfield, right? We're going to be looking at existing construction. What does the world look like where that runway on how long it takes to secure funding for the new community center, but we have to do work in the place where the old community, Is there a universe or an alignment, an unfortunate alignment of funding streams that has us have to bulldoze the old one before the new one is ready or funded?

No, we've done that intentionally. And so one of the reasons why we're not building the – there are multiple reasons to build the community center where the new location is. For one, it's the geographic center of the community. It's almost exactly – equally walkable from all the sort of outskirts of the community. The second part is its connection with biscuit-run trails. So we imagine we're going to build some extra parking adjacent to it so that people can park and use that as a trailhead and walk into the park and hopefully come out and buy a burrito from one of our entrepreneurs who's cooking in the shared commercial kitchen. But one of the biggest reasons is that we'll be able to keep the current community center in use, and our plan is to keep that in use. And as soon as we open up the doors of the new one, that's when we'll decommission the old one. I should remind you that's still making it even more complicated. It's still subject to one of our original proffers for this was the county has the right to build a school. on that second site, and you have until the end of 2027 to notify us whether you want to or not. If you're not going to build a school there, then we have an additional affordable housing requirement, which we're well, well, well ahead of what our projections were, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I guess this is maybe now a question for later, if there is with that kind of a tacit request to extinguish that earlier than were required, but I don't think we need to get into that for this. The other question I had was just scratching a little bit more on the current obligations under the relocation plan versus what you, or the relocation data that is provided versus what there might be a public desire for I know I've heard your data before on 85% retention, and the relocations that do exist are voluntary relocations. I'm not clear if that is part of our current reporting requirements, and I'd be curious if that would be something, because that is data that is held, and that is data that you're transparent with on request, but Joe Public, I don't know, has the access to qualitative or quantitative information on the voluntary relocations. And I'm curious if there is either qualitative or quantitative data that could be either included or added to that required reporting.

Sorry. We certainly will include that as part of the performance agreement obligation and conditions in terms of reporting and we'll be specific to ask for displacement and not just purchase or movement to make sure that that's part of what would be de-identified data. Of course, we heard from Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley a specific interest to have that be included in the performance agreement, and that will be the case.

And just for one final note, is that I say this and I'm trying to be responsive to concerns, but I'm also, frankly, trying to position us, you and I, as well as possible to be able to respond to political boogeyman, right? If someone says, oh, well, I hear from my students at school that there's consternation. I hear that some people feel they haven't been treated fairly. It is helpful to be able to have that data in a place other than from your mouth, in a place that we can reference back to.

On that issue, I think it's important to note that the promise of non-displacement was made to the original inhabitants of Southwood when Habitat purchased the property. And then Habitat has, on several occasions, expanded that group to include whoever's in the park at that moment. Sure. That's a process, for the purposes of a 20-year redevelopment planning process, can't continue forever. The sort of N of folks would be changing constantly, and you wouldn't be able to make appropriate construction or financial planning around that number. And so Habitat has expanded that group on several occasions. And there are people who have lived in the park since the purchase of the park who are not covered under this non-displacement agreement. And so there are certainly community members, folks in schools, other folks who hear that there's a promise that if you live in Southwood, you can stay there forever. And that applies to a subset of folks there, a large subset, the folks who have the longest standing commitment and engagement in that neighborhood. But there are folks who live in Southwood who are not included in this agreement around non-displacement. And so people's real-life experience is counter to what they hear is the promise. And I think it's important for us to say the extra three or four sentences that helps explain why that's the case. Both things can be true.

The case of the... gentleman who's living on his grandmother's sofa, but is not himself a homeowner, but that is his maybe primary place of residence. He might not be embraced by that in the same way.

No, no, it doesn't. He's included. It's because it's families. It's the folks... When we had to say, okay, this is it. We now have a rezoning plan. We have a density, amount of density. We have a pro forma. We can't change the plan. We can't go back to the supervisors now and say we need all multifamily housing now. At that point in 2019, and we asked the residents of the resident council, and we said, should we continue if trailers come available for rent to allow people to move in, given the dearth of affordable housing? Or should we just shut the door full stop right now? And the residents said, no, let people move in, but make it very, very clear. Make them sign something when they move in that says that they recognize that when redevelopment happens, they'll need to leave. And so we have all of those records and signatures. So there is a small subset. It's not the person who's joined the family. It's a new family that moved in understanding that they could stay up until the time for redevelopment begins. And so it was their choice at that time. they still have tenants' rights. And so it's not like we can say tomorrow you have to move. There are still statutory tenants' rights that they have once we start to lease to them. So most of them have, I think it's a nine-month obligation. There are certain circumstances where we can accelerate that if there's a health and safety issue. So something blows up next to there.

But it's normal unlawful detainers are non-renewals for the lot themselves, right?

Right. And those folks also entitled to rehousing support. We provide everybody rehousing support. We give them a long lead time. And we also have an appeals process. And so there are some families that have said, no, we were actually there before. And there's an internal appeals process. Our board is the arbiter in that. And I think we've said yes to all. But there's been like five appeals. I think we've said yes to all. But one, they just have to show us anything, a picture, a newspaper, something. And we'll open that door. We don't. We want people to be able to stay. I appreciate your patience, board.

I appreciate your patience for my questions.

Thank you, Tim. I don't have any further questions or comments ready for. I have what I need to take a vote. Is there any final comments or questions? All right, I'll look to the Scottsville supervisor for a motion. Oh, goodness, of course.

Yes, I'd like to move to approve the resolution included in the board materials for this agenda item in attachment B.

Second.

Is there any further discussion?

All right, if the clerk will please call the roll.

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

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. All right, thank you, board. Thank you, Kaki. Thank you, Jacob.

Thank you.

Okay, board, we will move to item number 10, micro-cat program update and fee discussion. Ryan Davidson will be joining us to lead this one. And I see Mr. Bowman. And welcome, Garland. I see you hiding there in the back a little bit.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Ryan Davidson, the Deputy Chief of Budget, and I'm here this afternoon to discuss the MicroCat program with you. Before we get started, I did want to acknowledge some other staff from the core MicroCat team who are here today in attendance, Kevin McDermott and Tanya Swarson-Druber from the Community Development Department, and Garland Williams from Charlottesville Area Transit, CAP. So for today's presentation is really going to be broken into two sections. First, staff's going to start with a refresher on the background of the service and some data on some current service levels. In this section is more for your information and to answer any general questions you may have about microCAT. And then second, we're going to discuss the microCAT fares. As a reminder to the board and to the public, the FY27 adopted budget contained revenue from microCAT fares. And after a discussion with the board at our March 11th work session, the board instructed staff to come back for feedback and approval prior to the implementation of these fairs. Today, staff's brought forth a recommendation around the structure for the microcap fairs for the board's consideration and approval. After we go through the presentation and complete the presentation, staff will turn it over to the board for any general questions and for questions and discussion on the microCAT fairs and ultimately an action of the board decision on the fair recommendation. we're going to start with a quick refresher on the background of the microcat service and some of the data on the current program service levels in 2022 almark county conducted a transit expansion study one of the main recommendations coming from this study was around the utilization of microtransit and more specifically for having that service in the pantops and 29 north corridors or zones of the county at that time it was estimated the county could see approximately 100 rides per day for this service Using this study and the information provided by it, the county, through our partners at CAT, applied for and was awarded a demonstration grant from the Department of Rail and Public Transportation. This grant originally was a two-year grant worth a total of approximately $1.9 million, which included a county match of just under $390,000. So utilizing this grant funding, the county, again, through partnership with CAT, was able to procure and launch the micro-CAT services at the end of October 2023. And that's for the areas shown in blue and red here on this diagram, which are the 29 North and Pantops areas. As you can see, the service runs Monday through Saturday from 6.30 a.m. to 9 o'clock p.m. And MicroCat fleet consists of eight hybrid minivans that I'm sure you've seen driving around town. I think we're showing the blue vans here, but the most recent ones I've seen driving around town are those black vans they have now. So they're updating the fleet as we move along. In terms of current annual cost, the adopted budget for this service for FY27 was just over $1.4 million. Since October of 2023 and through the end of last month, MicroCat has completed over 184,000 rides. As I mentioned earlier, the study anticipated approximately 100 rides per day, and as you can see, we are averaging almost double that amount in rides per day. Listed on the left-hand side are the top 15 locations of combined origin and destinations for the service in order of the most requested at the top to the least requested. Now, obviously, that's the top 15, so there's a lot more outside of this that we're going to. The graphics on the right show you kind of a heat map within the zones of where the most popular spots for ride origination, which is the blue side on the left, and ride destination shown in the yellowish gold. You can see there's a mix from the charts and from the graphics. There's a mix of commercial and residential locations, and there's a higher concentration of rides around the urban ring and the Hollymead area. Moving on, I want to speak for just a moment on service performance and the quality of the service. There are a couple of highlights around these areas that I wanted to point out. First is that we see less than 0.3 complaints per ride, which, when you look at the number of rides we have per day, that means, on average, MicroCat is receiving less than one complaint per day on the service. I also wanted to point out the high amount of five-star ratings, 93%, by those that leave a review. So the service appears to be leaving a good impression on the riders that use it. And finally, I wanted to point out some rider retention and engagement. 79% of the riders are repeat users of the service, and those customers with an average of eight rides per month for the return users of that service. As good as our MicroCat service is, there are limitations. The charts on the next couple slides may not be the easiest to read, but I'll walk through them really quickly. Our contract and annual cost is based upon 380 driver hours per year. or excuse me, per week, which requires us to adjust the vehicle hours at various times to meet the demand. On this first chart, the green portion of the bars is showing the met demand or completed rides or completed requests for each month since the service started. The gray portion is representing that unmet demand amount. As you can see, the amount of requests per month have grown larger as the microCAT has been in place. And based on our hours limitations that I mentioned before, that's resulting in a higher, as the demand grows, we're starting to see a higher percentage of unmet demand. But to put this chart in context of percentages, microCAT's averaging around the mid-70s in terms of percent of met demand per month. So because we have more requests than rides for microcats, vehicle hours and driver hours have to be adjusted throughout the day to try and make sure we have the most vehicles in service at our highest demand points. So in this chart, the blue bars show a typical day and how the demand for the services and the rides has been spread throughout the day. As you can see, the highest demand is normally between the hours of 2 PM and 5 PM. And the light blue line here shows how the driver hours are adjusted throughout the day to get more drivers and more drivers on the road at our peak demand times to try to meet that demand. Again, even after MicroCat flexes hours to meet our peak demand periods, we're still limited to the 70% range in that demand, which we will tie into the fairs discussion, which is part of the second half of our conversation today. So we're going to transition into the fairs at this point. So, a little background. These fares are proposed to begin mid-year in fiscal year 27, and they're estimated to generate approximately $80,000 in revenue for this fiscal year, and were included as part of the FY27 adopted budget. In subsequent fiscal years, we could expect the annual revenue for fares to be approximately double the FY27 amount at approximately $160,000 per year. It should be noted that the attend of these fees is not to be a source of revenue to fully offset the cost But rather source to help cover some of the cost While incentivizing users to utilize this service to supplement fixed route not instead as a replacement for fixed route fixed route service is still the most efficient and cost-effective means of public transportation The main reason that MICROCAT and staff have not proposed fairs prior to FY27 was that there was a condition as part of the original DRPT demonstration grant, which was that that was used to start the program, as you remember. The service was to remain free as a condition of this grant, as that was part of the application. FY27 is the first full year that is not governed by the conditions of the grant. We have fully met all the conditions of the grant. The grant has since expired. It is now fully on the county's dollar. And so this is the first year we've been able to look at the potential of cost recovery for this. Staff also wanted to point out that the implementation of these fairs is consistent with the county's adopted financial policies. I'm not going to read them word for word, but it's really consistent with both our revenue diversification policy and our user fee policy, with some of the main points highlighted on the slide here. So in working with our provider and researching the types of fares and fare structures, there are many different types of fares and models for implementation. There's the flat fare models, various discounted models, and more trip-specific models. Each type of fare model or structure has its pros and cons, and not every fare type or structure is appropriate for each locality or service. Based on the type and level of service provided, each locality must pick the option or options that are best for their service. In a minute, we'll look at what we are recommending the options for the microCAT service. In addition to the structure and type of fares being charged, each locality must determine the proper rate for its service and for those using its service. As highlighted in blue on the chart here, The fare of $2 is average when compared to the rates charged by microtransit services across the US. It's not the highest, not the lowest, but really on par as the average for what's typically being charged for public microtransit services of this type. So when looking at microCAT fares in terms of Albemarle County, staff are recommending to start with a simple fare structure that increases the revenues and has the potential to improve some service efficiency. And using that principle as a framework, staff are recommending to use a combination of the three FAIR types that I've shown here on the screen. We'll go into a little more detail on each of these in the following slides and how they would work within the microCAT FAIR structure. Again, using the framework of keeping it simple, trying to get some revenue, trying to increase efficiency, we are proposing the structure to start with a flat base rate of $2 per ride for a single passenger and then a reduced fare of $1 for each additional passenger that's picked up at the same location to the same destination for that same ride. In addition to the discounted rates for shared trips, staff are proposing to have rate concessions for specific groups of riders. We will go into more detail on that in the next slide, but we're really recommending those groups to receive the discount include seniors, individuals with disabilities, and low-income households. In terms of ridership impact, staff is really projecting a slight dip in demand, roughly 2% to 3% based on history in some other localities. But given the unmet demand we discussed earlier in the presentation, this would allow us to capture and complete more of those rides. So overall, we're projecting no decrease in the number of rides that are being served per week. Staff is recommending to provide the discounted rate for these certain groups. And again, the reduced fare is being proposed to be half of the base rate, so $1 per ride. The first group eligible for the reduced fare would be, as I said, having multiple passengers for the same ride. Same location, pickup location, same origin, destination, and booked through an original requester. Staff believes this structure will promote greater efficiency in the system by incentivizing more group rides as opposed to those single one-off trips, getting more people to ride together and putting more people in each trip. Next group recommended for fare would be seniors over the age of 65. Next, we're looking at riders with disabilities that would affect their mobility and ability to get around. And finally, riders that would classify as low income. After speaking with staff from our human services department, it was determined that using the metric of below 60% AMI would be the proper level to set that to be consistent with the definition and classification of low income that we've been using for other programs throughout the county. These reduced rate recommendations are the most common types when you're looking at the public microtransit services of this type when you look at other localities. There are many forms of verification. You might be asking, well, how do we verify this? There's many forms of verification for these types of groups that we could look into. Self-selecting in the app, some simple form submission from outside of the app that's reviewed, and to a more strict and formal verification processes that require more resources. Given the resources considerations, staff's recommending that it be self-selected by the users of the service to update part of their user profile within the app. Considering staff resources that would be needed and the cost of administration and other verification processes, at this point, the self-selecting option appears to make the most sense to staff. And we can always use this for six to 12-month period affairs as a sort of pilot for this type of verification and look at the data from that time period to see if we might need a more comprehensive review and see if a more comprehensive form of verification might be needed in the future. But looking at this as a pilot, to keep it simple, keep it easy for this first time around, is staff's recommendation. So to summarize on the fares, staff are recommending that microCATs start with a simple fare, increased revenue, potential for service efficiency. Based on our research, the $2 per ride flat fare will do just that. Some of the benefits of the recommended fare structure and verification process are the simplicity and ease of understanding for the microCAT riders, as it has a low cost of administration as compared to other robust services and verification processes. There's no additional contract costs charged by our provider, VIA, to charge fees. And there should be a very minimal third party collection fee. The collection is done through a third party service. And that should be around 1% of the revenue collected. So very minimal fee for their administrative services on that side. Again, we're not intending for these fares to fully pay for the service, but rather provide that balance between cost considerations versus community needs and the specialized nature of this service. The fees meet the intent of two of the county's adopted financial policies that I mentioned earlier, and these fees are the first step in building different rider habits to not use this as a substitute for fixed route, but rather as a supplement to fixed route. Fairs have been shown to help with unmet demand, and they have been shown to increase the efficiency of individual rides. This is my final side of content before I turn the discussion over to the board chair for questions, discussion, and ultimately action on the recommended fair structure. If the board approves a fair structure recommendation, here are kind of the next steps we're going to be looking at. Over the next couple of months and until the fares are implemented, staff would work with CAPE and our partners at CAT and VIA to begin the rider education process about the coming fares to make sure riders are informed and prepared for this upcoming change. We will work with our provider to update the app and be ready to begin charging for and collecting the fees through the app that folks use to book their rides. And finally, beginning January 1st, we would begin charging for these fees. With that, I am now going to turn this over to the board chair for question discussions. And after the discussion, if there are no changes, staff's recommendation is to adopt the resolution and attachment A to set the micro-CAT fees.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Davison. Supervisor Malik?

Thank you very much, and I appreciate the approach that you have suggested here. I think it's really important that there be accountability. I've been concerned about just giving free taxi rides to everybody, especially people who are certainly able to contribute something. It's not $15, which is probably more of a standard Uber ride from the airport to the hospital. But I also really appreciate the benefits to these people who are able to get to work or get to the hospital or get the child to school. I mean, there are wonderful reasons to do this. So I look forward to your app update, and the profile could then be verified because someone will have access to the profile, and that's how they would reserve and how they would pay. everything else so there's no cash delay that makes the drivers crazy, which is important. I think an affidavit button or something like that in your app so people are warned ahead of time to be accurate is fair. to the people paying the bill. The last question I had, so the budget for 27 for this current year into this program is a million dollars or something, right?

1.4 million, just over 1.4 million.

That's significant for sure. Okay. Thank you very much.

Supervisor Duncan?

Originally, I was really hesitant about fees and about MacroCat in general. So I appreciate sort of throughout the year your help with me understanding it. And I also really appreciate having sort of the rationale laid out in our packet. And it makes sense to me, especially if you're trying to get people to do group rides and not just have single rides. So I actually think this is a great thing to try and see what happens. So I just really appreciate how well laid out this was and having all of this kind of ready ahead of time.

Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? Thank you. appreciate this change. I think my concern, to kind of pithily capture the various concerns I have about microCAT generally, is that it feels like a kind of curious nice-to-have, like a fun thing we do, and feels less part of an integrated transit system. And I feel like this is a step toward that. I think we heard a lot of things just in this very short presentation that still point to how it is being treated as a weird nice to have rather than part of our transit system. If one in four times when I wait at the bus stop, the bus never shows up. That is a disastrous transit system. But that is the case with Viya, right? Like, the only time I've tried to use Viya, it was in the rain. I was commuting from my home on Avon Street to Tip Top, right? And once I walked into the county across Freebridge, I did not want to walk up in the rain, Pantops Hill. 15-minute walk, but it sucked. And so I tried to hail, and it just told me, nope. Nothing available. It didn't give me a timeline. It didn't explain why nothing was available. And that's what people get one fourth of the time. That is not a transit service. That's not a transit service. Something that I can't rely on for a recurring thing is not functioning. And similarly, a service that I can use in lieu of fixed route to buzz all the way up the length of 29, from my home in South Pantops, if I had one, would not be what we want, right? So it is There are existing problems. I think this professionalizes it. It maybe helps integrate it, and it helps us treat it more like a serious tool, which I appreciate. I do think the logic behind the income verification, or rather non-verification, makes sense, but I'm going to be intrigued by the program analysis on the back end of that. I might suggest that if it is being abused in lieu of a... Income standard, a really easy to verify standard would be is receiving county services, right? That could be literally a checkbox from someone in human services who it gets sent to. I don't know that anyone from human services is here to tell me, please don't do that. But since they're not here, I can assign them that future potential make work. I think that is all I have, but I will be... I will be interested to see how we are able to continue reconfiguring and reimagining this service to make it not just a curiosity and instead part of an integrated transit system. And I'm going to continue, Garland, I'm going to continue to be quite cynical and skeptical about this program every time it comes up until it feels more like a transit service. Supervisor Missel.

Thank you. Just one couple quick questions. The number is $1.4 million you said is budgeted. Yes, sir. The income expected from this is $80,000?

For a full fiscal year, it would be approximately $160,000 is what we're estimating on the conservative side. But since we're only doing six months for the current fiscal year, not starting until January, it would be $80,000. We did not want to kick this off immediately after approval because As we've talked with Mr. Williams and those at VIA, the biggest piece of this is the driver education. Like, you've got to make sure you educate your users. Because if you all of a sudden spring it on them, like, hey, board just approved this. We're charging. That creates a lot more issues, complaints, calls to their service center. And so we want to make sure we're properly educating. So if people need to find other methods of transportation when this may not be feasible for them, they can begin making those preparations. as well.

Thank you. And so this, I apologize if these are basic questions, but the grant is expiring or has expired. It expired. Did we look for other grant opportunities to fulfill that or to replace that?

I I'm going to look to Mr. Williams for a nod or shake his head. I don't believe we have. This was a one-time demonstration grant. And typically, those are kind of a one-time show us at the, we'll let you see if the program is working and works for your community and what you would want to do. And then once it runs out, a condition of the demonstration grant was, you have to do a year of this without our grant money on your dime. And then the grant, so technically this is our second year of paying for it, just county, but it was still under the conditions of the grant in FY26 because we still had to do that one year on our own.

So there might be a potential opportunity to replace the fair with a grant in the future? Would we actively look to do that?

We're always looking for those opportunities. I'm not a transit expert. I don't know what's currently out there. But I know we're always looking for those opportunities to be able to do that across our entire transportation network. And I'm sure that's something we would be able to bring in front of PARTA as well as we start to look at system configuration in the future.

Okay. Thank you. And then the fare verification piece, that was also a question I had. How do you – you know, how do you identify riders with 60%, AMI or less, et cetera. We've talked around that. I think affidavit button is a great idea. I think some of the other ideas were good ones. I think it would be important for us to continue to pursue that just to try to avoid any abuse of the system. And then maybe I'll ask this question offline. That's okay. I'm good. That's it. Thank you. Supervisor Lopisto-Curley?

Mm-hmm.

Now, I remember when this program started a few years ago before half of you were here. And this is a great program, frankly. We've gone from 100 people riding a day to 180 riding a day. So those are people that we are helping to get to their location. Yes, it was at no cost. Now it's going to be at a very low cost. I think it's going to continue growing. to be successful. I think we've met our goal as far as ridership, and we've doubled that. And kudos to you all for that. I like the fare structure. I think that's going to work. I was at first worried before it was answered that it's not going to be cash. So otherwise, I thought, oh my gosh, they're going to be held up. But anyway, they're drivers. So this is a good thing. It's all incorporated with TAP. So that's a good thing. Could you go to slide five? There's something that piqued my interest because it came up before. Oh, yeah, the top origins and destinations. We had discussed this before, and that was Albemarle High School, Lamb's Lane Campus. We discussed about students who are late taking microCAT or who are using it to get to the high school and not taking the school bus or walking, whatever. I'm just wondering if you – how many – are from how many go to Albemarle High School? Because I think you had another slide that shows you You needed additional driver time? Which one was that? That one, right. So you need additional driver hours. I'm wondering, what is the effect? Maybe Albemarle High School, the students, maybe it has no effect on this. But I'd like to know, what is the effect? How many students are doing this? Are they monopolizing a lot or not?

So I'll start by saying this question came up in the March work session as well, or coming out of that. And we looked into this. And what we saw was that typically, in terms of times of the rides, there was Big boost midday and kind of towards the end, kind of like after school type of things. It wasn't as big of a number of riders at the beginning of the day as you were mentioning students that were late for school or dropped off. There wasn't a big spike there. There was a little bit. before school, which maybe would speak towards staff using that as the ability to get to and from. And so we looked at that, and we couldn't say, oh, no, this is definitely just folks using it for coming in not wanting to ride the yellow bus, or they're definitely taking this to get home because they don't want to ride the yellow bus. The times weren't... The data didn't bear that out conclusively. So that was kind of how we looked at that. And so we can get additional information just for that particular one. It has fallen as low as we look at this list at various periods of time. It's fallen as low as number nine on that list, been as high as number three. The locations don't tend to change, but the frequency of these locations tends to move up and down on the list.

OK, but that answers my question. And thank you for looking at it. I don't want you to do any additional work, but that sounds like you're already on top of it regarding students using it and everything. So that's all the questions I have. Thank you.

That was going to be my question. One of the things that is kind of common out there in the world, relative to fares, fees, things like that, is a student rate. And I don't see a student rate here. You know, you put the $1, you know, like that seems to me to be something that both for seniors and for students that that's something that you could do. I mean, I think it's pretty clear that Albemarle and the students are using it. 1600 is 4 o'clock. That's right when 350 is when the bell rings in that whole campus. So I don't know that I would be quick to say they just don't want to ride the school bus. I would suggest some are, and I wouldn't either if it takes an hour to get home and I could get home in 10 minutes. Why the hell would I not take a microcad? But the high school is more a piece where the school bus runs right at the bell at the end of the day. But if you have an activity, you have to stay late to see a teacher, you have to do anything like that, this service becomes an alternative way than to wait around for yet another bus or activity bus or something like that that may run later. So I think there's more to it than that. And frankly, don't care. Love that the students are using it. Frankly, that's fine with me. Garland, you can always use me as the Pruitt cynicism shield if he ever comes at you too hard, because I will continue to be a fan of this and can counterpoint a lot of things. But Rio District residents are using this as their transit service. It's just happening. And I always use the Woodbrook to Kroger. It's not that far. There will never be a fixed route that runs from Woodbrook to Kroger. And if there is one, it'll have to be circuitous and go around where the microcat's always going to be the faster way, and I don't want them walking across 29. So happy to have that happen. I think the fee piece will be easily accepted because from the get-go, we did a good job of saying there will eventually be a fee. So every time I remind folks of that, it's not, what are you talking about? It's, yeah, okay, we understand. And that's, again, just dealing with my district's folks that I know who are using MicroCat on a regular basis. I would like to know, though, because there's talk about fixed routes and MicroCat could inform it, because a lot of the places that MicroCat is currently operating in just don't have fixed routes, period, right now that could serve it. And at some point when, and I don't expect this to be answered today, so this is like a foreshadowing to budget time. At some point we should have some data or information to theorize the cost of putting a fixed route in places in the county that don't currently have one or move it from 60 minutes to 30 or 30 to 15 minutes like I know some other stuff's happening. versus the micro-CAT, so that the board could eventually go, well, which one's more cost-efficient, to go ahead and continue providing the micro-CAT or expand or get this fixed route in in conjunction with or just replace it with fixed route? And Viya alluded to being able to do that kind of theorizing at one point. So I feel like we're far enough along that we should be able to have that level of discussion at budget time so we can look at 1.4 million. We can look at the millions for the fixed routes and start to go, OK, how can we make improvements and what's the most cost effective way to do it? My guess is it'll be a combo pack, right, of micro cat and the fixed routes. But so that's just a request for future for future budget type piece. The lead time, I appreciate that. That was one of my questions. So the education plan is going to be important. And then do you, on the profile for the app, I just, I don't know, do minors have to have their, can they have their own profile or do adults have to set it up? So if I'm a 15-year-old riding micro cat, do I have my 15-year-old individual profile or does my parent set that up?

I'm unsure. Mr. Williams, do you?

And I don't really need to know that. The thing that makes me concerned is if once we go to paid, the 15-year-old might not have the credit card or whatever is going to be asked to make the payment. And we may want to just think about the logistics of that. VIA probably has already dealt with this. So it may just be a report back kind of deal how we'll handle that. But I would definitely, you know, for folks that are, kids can drive their own cars at 16, so I would imagine anything below 16 might be the threshold for something where, okay, they might need some other type of profile. But the individual, I don't know if the drivers are checking, does this look like, you know, when I get in Lyft sometimes, they're double checking to make, I have to give them a code and do all these things to make sure I'm the rider. And I would imagine Vi has handled all that. And the only other thing I'd like to know is how you're getting from the airport to the hospital for $15 with local Uber or Lyft. Because right now, I just looked at it. If I wanted to go home to Rio Road, it's $15. And I don't often see it lower than $15 in this town to do anything. Once or twice, $9 is the cheapest I've seen. And Lyft generally is cheaper, it seems like, in our town than Uber. But that's a tangent or a sidebar. Any other quick comments?

Just one thing to add. I think the benefit, the after-school activities, kids getting to a job, if they have to wait the hour to get home, they can never get to a job after school. And so if the grandparent or whatever isn't able to get them, as many grandparents have forever, that's a really important use for this. I know we've received recent information from our county attorney about the board authority for oversight of budgets and school budgets being one of those. And if this is becoming a significant participation element in school transportation, then they need to accommodate that. It's not something we should pay twice for. I just am permanently scarred from the early 2000s when it was a $100 taxi ride for tourists from the airport to the Omni. Welcome to Albemarle. It was awful. So that regulation that's happened at the airport since then has helped with that somewhat. But this is all part of that same stuff. So thank you.

All right. Are we ready for a motion? Who would like to make that motion? Transit guy to make our motion.

Oh, sure.

I move that the board adopt the resolution to set the micro-cap fees attachment A.

Second. Second.

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

Ms. LaPista-Curtley. Aye. Ms. Malik. Yes. Mr. Missel.

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Ms. Duncan. Yes. Mr. Galloway.

Yes. Very good. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you, Garland.

Yep.

All right, board, we'll move to item number 11. This is our work session on the 2027 draft legislative priorities. We've got Mr. Herrick, Mr. Blunt, and Ms. Kilroy all with us today.

Good afternoon. I need to take the training class again. I don't remember what we're supposed to do here. Emily Kilroy, Director of Economic Development, joined by Andy Herrick and David Blunt for the second work session for your legislative priorities for the 2027 General Assembly legislative session. So today we'll go through some strategy updates for 2027, the draft documents that were part of your packet for today, and then the next steps taking us through the end of the calendar year. And the 2027 strategy updates, again, this is the pie chart that we show at most of these work sessions that talks about using the legislative program to focus on local Albemarle-specific items, leveraging the region, the work that TJPDC does for regional items, and then leveraging VACO and VML and others for statewide items. To talk a little bit about some of the dynamics at play heading into 2027, I'm going to invite Mr. Blunt forward to talk more at a statewide level.

GOOD AFTERNOON, MR. CHAIR, MEMBERS OF THE BOARD, DAVID BLUNT WITH TJPDC. THIS IS MY ONE SLIDE TODAY, SO I'LL BE VERY BRIEF. JUST KIND OF A BIG PICTURE LOOK AT THE UPCOMING GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION AT THE BEGINNING OF 2027. AS YOU MAY RECALL, THE ODD NUMBERED YEARS ARE SHORT SESSIONS, WHICH MEANS 46 DAYS RATHER THAN THE LONG SESSION OF 60 DAYS. With that short session does come some limitations on the legislators in terms of the number of bills that they can introduce. And for this upcoming session, that will be 15 bills that can be introduced that are to be pre-filed. Pre-filed means that legislation is introduced by the morning of the first day of the session. To get those bills rolling, legislators have a deadline of November 30th. It was to request drafts of their bills from the Division of Legislative Services. And then, as you know, we're, what, I guess a little over two months since the General Assembly finally adopted a budget and it was enacted just a day before the end of the fiscal year. Yet three months from now, Governor Spanberger will be presenting proposed changes She is recommending to the legislature for the biennial budget that's in place, and that will occur on December 17th. Legislators then have a shot at submitting their own budget amendments. They will do that in early January, and they have to be submitted right after the beginning of the session. And then just to wrap it up, just the general overarching timeline. First day of the session is the second Wednesday of January. It's the 13th. We get to what's called the crossover period. February 9th is the Tuesday which all bills in their originating chamber have to have been acted upon. The following day, the 10th, is when those bills actually quote-unquote, crossover to be considered by the opposite chamber. And then if all goes well, adjournment would be scheduled for February the 27th. It's scheduled for the 27th of February, but it seems to be more routine in recent years that the session is extended. So... There's probably some incentive to get out on time in 2027 because the November 2027 elections will be coming up very quickly after that. So thank you. I'll be glad to answer any questions at the appropriate time.

I see that Ms. Kilroy is volunteering to, or I think she's volunteering to move the slides for me. I'm next, Andy Herrick, county attorney. And so I'm going to be walking the board through the materials that are attached to your agenda package today. If you go to the next slide. So as we go through, it just so happens that all of our materials begin with P. We've got a legislative program that has a priority and some principles, as well as a separate document with positions. And I just wanted to explain what the principles and positions were. The principles are that sort of the guiding ideas behind the county's legislative approach, what we would like the legislators to remember as we go about the General Assembly session. The positions go more in depth, and so they're in sort of a separate document that we consider sort of an annex to the main legislative program that we have, with the legislative program being Attachment A and the legislative positions, or at least the draft versions of those being Attachment B. You go to the next slide. And so you can see here that the legislative program consists of a legislative priority as well as legislative principles. Next slide, please. And the legislative priority, as we discussed at the initial session on this, when we went into the 2026 General Assembly session, the county had four legislative priorities, and we were very pleased to report that three of those had been adopted by the 2026 Assembly, with the one outstanding one being the expanded ability to use the photo speed monitoring devices. The Board gave us clear feedback at the prior work session that the Board wanted us to continue with that as a priority, so that has been retained. as the county's legislative priority in our first draft legislative program. Next slide, please. In addition, we have a list of eight principles listed. Again, these are sort of the high-level guiding concepts that we have behind the legislative program. dealing with economic development, growth management, environmental protection and land use, health and human services, housing, local government and finance, public safety, solid waste, and transportation. Again, each of these has very high-level ideas and concepts that we can pass along to legislators as they're considering various bills in the upcoming session. Next slide. And then we go on to the legislative positions document. And again, this is more detailed. We had scoped it down from, I believe, 48 or 49 two years ago to 28 last year. Down to 26 this year, we were able to address some broadband issues during the past year. And there are some broadband and Internet access issues that remain this year, as well as more detailed statements about economic development. growth management, health and human services, housing, local government administration and finance, and public safety. So you'll see some correlation between these legislative positions and the legislative principles with these positions being more in-depth statement.

Go to the next slide.

So there were several proposals at the work session. Supervisor Pruitt specifically made several requests regarding taxing authority, bond authority, and I wanted to address why some of those had made it into our legislative positions documents and others had not. There is a suggestion that counties have the same bond issuance, be able to issue general obligation bonds without a referendum. That is a power that counties currently have if they make a one-time election to get the same authority as cities in issuing that. That transitional authority would itself require a referendum. So in other words, if the county were to go to county residents and ask for the authority to be treated as a city, the county could then issue general obligation bonds going forward without needing subsequent referenda. If we were to seek for counties statewide to have that authority, it would require a constitutional amendment. Not saying it can't be done, but that would be a heavier lift than the county typically advocates for, at least as a matter of first impression in its legislative program. Another suggestion was that we look at decoupling machinery and tools tax and personal property tax rates. Again, this is an idea where the current setup is that localities can have different rates for machinery and tools and for personal property tax, but the machinery and tools rate has to be lower. So this wouldn't require a constitutional amendment. It would be sort of a new concept for state legislators that they probably haven't been introduced to previously. Again, not saying it can't be done, but it's typically not something that's undertaken as a matter of first impression in our legislative program, at least without further board discussion. One item that we have incorporated in this draft legislative positions is out-of-state vehicle tagging, and that's especially relevant given the number of out-of-state students that are present in the county. It is possible to seek that authority. Currently, state law exempts vehicles that, even though they may be regularly garage-parked or stored in Albemarle County, If they have out-of-state tax, they are typically not taxed in Virginia. That could be changed at the state level. We would need to avoid double taxation. We'd need to avoid a situation where somebody were paying taxes in another state on a vehicle and then also being subjected to the same taxes in Virginia. It's possible, though, that the General Assembly could pass some sort of law giving folks a credit on taxes paid to other states, and then go ahead and tax them in Virginia for the difference anyway. Something to consider. And I know that in prior years we've asked the General Assembly to study or consider certain ideas. And so that's how staff is proposing that we put this as a position in the current legislative program, asking the General Assembly to take a look at this. at the possibility of taxing vehicles that are locally garage-parked or stored, but giving them a credit on taxes that they may have paid to other states, just as something for the Assembly to take a look at. So that's my part of the presentation. I'll turn it back over to Ms. Kilroy to continue.

All right. State transportation funding has been an important conversation that this board has brought forward, that other localities through the Virginia Association of Counties at FACO At the Virginia Association of Counties of ACO, other localities across the Commonwealth have brought forward concerns about the level of state transportation funding that's available for local priorities. I was able to attend a session put on by the Virginia Economic Developers Association a couple of weeks ago, and they had several members of the governor's cabinet sharing information about what they were looking at, including the Secretary of Transportation. And so I perked up very hard when he began walking through the challenge that his secretariat is facing, understanding exactly as you all have articulated over the years, that there is just not enough funding to go around for all of the local priorities that are occurring. And He did take a couple of minutes to share all of the things that the Commonwealth is taking on right now. So there are a number of very large projects happening in different parts of the Commonwealth, none focused here. But in the 81 corridor, enhancements that were done to the Port of Virginia, the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel project, work in the Beltway area, passenger Amtrak rail improvements that are part of transportation funding are all projects that are underway or will get underway shortly and are massive transportation projects for the Commonwealth. And so that is having the impact of tying up a lot of construction dollars that otherwise could be prioritized elsewhere in the Commonwealth. He also took a moment to talk about how the fatality statistics statewide continue to go in the wrong direction. So 2014 was the last downward trend year for transportation fatalities in the Commonwealth, and since then they've risen every year, and that is a deep concern for them. And so safety continues to be a big priority for them. But he was sharing some data around the need for additional funds to be able to even tackle the maintenance obligations that Virginia Department of Transportation has before you even then get into new construction projects. So one of the things that he wanted us to walk away with, what did not feel like a good news presentation, was that this is something that the Commonwealth Transportation Board is focusing their work plan this year on talking about and trying to address. They have had a couple of meetings already and will continue to sort of work through different scenarios. Right now, VDOT has a way that they program maintenance dollars and then construction dollars afterwards, looking at what are the assumptions that go into how those decisions are made. Does that need to be revisited? and or are there new funds necessary and how do you go about getting those? And so he encouraged everyone who has a concern in this area to engage with their Commonwealth Transportation Board representative. There's a new representative for the Culpeper District that was appointed in June. And so that is one follow-up that we wanted to put before the board today of that's a step that we could take to continue to raise this issue with the General Assembly, but also with our Commonwealth Transportation Board representative for the Culpeper District. And that's something that we've not done formally in the past, but we certainly are happy to do in partnership with the board if so desired. The final slide that we have on this portion of the slide deck is just on CARTA. We spoke last time about how the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transportation Authority has It was created with authority that was provided by the General Assembly several years ago. It was established in 2025. And they're sort of following the regional transportation partnership effort that preceded it. And they are currently working through an implementation strategy to follow that vision plan work that had been completed. And they're continuing to sort of work through what are the right prioritized scenarios, the cost estimates that go with those, and refining that list against stakeholder input that they've been seeking. And so, last work session on this topic, we talked about This year may not be the year for a formal legislative priority ask, but that we know that the first year that you ask for something, you're doing a lot of familiarization and awareness building. And so this year may be a good year to get a head start on that familiarization and awareness with the local delegation as we continue to sort of follow with the work that CARTA is doing directly on what could be an ask in a future year. And so that is sort of outlining the approach of sort of setting that baseline with the local delegation this year, again, in anticipation that a formal request would be coming when timely. I'll hit the next steps and then open it up for discussion if that pleases the board. Okay, so our final work session on legislative priorities is scheduled for your October 21st meeting. And the hope there would be that you all would be in a position to adopt the positions and policy statements at that time. And that we could then sort of peel off and set up meetings with legislators for that late October, early November timeframe in order to meet the pre-filing deadline that they have for introducing bills. And that we would, depending on how when we can schedule the legislative forum session, we would work through if there's some pre-meeting with the local delegates individually ahead of that to ensure that we don't miss important times in their process. And so the meeting with legislators is a time where we staff and the board together present legislative priorities, time for you all to share concerns and information on transportation statewide and CARTA's progress, and also time for the legislators to share some of their priorities heading into session. That is all the slides that we have, but happy to hear your all's feedback.

All right, we've got a lot. We've had some conversations. Supervisor Malik?

I guess I'll just... It's all you can eat, yeah. And then we'll go along. So thank you very much. Just right off the top, the... Format of 11A, I really like that. And hopefully we can put that on a hard palm card, vertical, way more bigger print than the little tiny business card size thing. And Phil at North can't get away with being the only one around in the General Assembly who hands those things out. They are fabulous. So that was great. Now let me jump back to the top of my list here. What was removed on broadband?

I believe it had to do with the Albemarle specific provisions about deploying broadband in Albemarle County. I think we took a look at that and saw that basically that had been something where essentially the mission had been accomplished during the past year.

except for the 1,000 people in the northwest part of the county. And we are under absolute deluge with SEC and FCC and having to fight this battle ourselves. And so it would be really nice not to just say the battle is over from the county perspective. So I'll throw that back out there for somebody else to think about because this has been going on for years, and it's getting worse and worse every day. Every time it rains, nobody can call the ambulance for crying out loud. So that is really a big problem, and I've raised that multiple times when there have been the citations, the resolution we did, that people need to be aware that we're not done. Now, yeah, okay. With the double taxation of the vehicles, I thought there was already a law that required three months was the only window you got before you were required, if you're living here, to register your car in Virginia. And Massachusetts, where my children went to school in Vermont, they do this. So I don't know why we can't enforce that somehow.

The CITUS laws are very complicated. But basically, Virginia does not tax. If you're domiciled in another state and show that you have paid taxes to another state, you are currently exempt outright from Virginia personal property taxes. What we're asking the General Assembly to study is to make that a credit rather than an outright tax exemption in Virginia.

If I may, out-of-state domiciliary.

They're living here and they're renting here and they're here as students or renting an apartment. They're here. They're voting here.

They're not domiciled here under the law. They're domiciled in their home even if they're voting here. The same applies to military personnel and corporate persons, so fleet vehicles.

Which is also a scam because people – all those hundreds of – Job trucks and stuff that run around and they're registered under some guy's residence. That's why I wanted to add it. And then they don't pay the commercial rates. I mean, the whole thing is a big can of worms. So I'm really sorry that we're still allowing ourselves to be trampled on with that. Can't do anything about that in a moment. The transportation things, are you going to bring up your things separately? Okay. Well, I very much will support that. But our new CTV member, Jim Moy, we had a great conversation a few weeks ago. I gave him my Bilal's moment as what is needed here because in 86, 40 years ago, our governor at the time, $5 billion over 12 years was what those taxes raised, and it is time for the General Assembly to do that again and the governor to do that again, and I hope we will tell her. But Jim Moy explained, number one, that he very much wants to be in touch with local board members individually or a group as fine, often, quarterly at least, and wants to know what we need so he can do his best job to represent our needs here. when it gets down to the push and shove at the CTB. But he described in detail the lack of maintenance dollars because maintenance costs have escalated so greatly that just like in 2009 during the recession, it just ate up all the construction money. So just like our CIP having to pay for the courts and the schools and all this other stuff, all these Hampton Roads Tunnel and the Wilson Bridge and all these other things are still on the VDOT CIP, and that's eating up their ability to do anything. I'm very concerned about the timetable because every year for the last 15 years, our legislators have said October is too late. So I would say we need to have this absolutely as fast as possible because they're already making a list of their 15 bills like August or July or whatever. So others have been contacting them regularly. And we are missing our window if we wait until November to say anything. And they've told us to our faces over and over again about that. So I hope that we'll figure out a way to have, if we can get somebody on a Tuesday and somebody on a Thursday, and we'll just have special meetings and go meet with them. I mean, I hope that we'll get there this year. In the sort of more, that's the local stuff. Now, for the statewide things, a lot of these would go probably DeVaco and others, but I think it's important. I mean, I will have raised them in the past as an individual just of concerns with local delegates, and I think it's important that they know. And I'll just mention them now just so others know as well. The need for updated best management practices in forestry. In Virginia, Bettina Ring, when she was Secretary of Forestry years and years ago, said they were working on it, but nothing's been changed since 1986. And it's totally had no correlation to the way forestry is practiced today. So in the old days, people, they took the logs, they left the slash, the branches, and all that stuff laying down on the property, which provided some erosion protection. And now they chip all that stuff into teeny-weeny pellets for people's little stoves and export it to Europe and stuff like that, which means you have acres of land, often on very steep slopes, completely naked when these rains that are coming through. So I will just use the Dawes River in Whitehall as the example, which has been one of our very best water quality for 30 years. Headwaters are up in the Shenandoah National Park. but a improperly put in and totally unapproved lumber access road, vertical, straight up a hill, 40% grade. And now there's mobs of sediment just floating down the Dulles River and going to go into the Mormons and into the South Fork. And this is sort of a terrible example of how we've lost, in the first 10 years of the South Fork Reservoir, we lost 40% of our capacity. due to sedimentation. So this is on the state docket, but it's something that I hope we will continue to think about as we deal with these things, anything we can on the local level. It's a real burden for our local zoning people. They have to run out there with the county forester and try to get these things under control. But after the fact, it's almost impossible. Planning District Commission Solid Waste Management Plan was in your packet for somewhere today, I guess. And this is from the SWAC committee. One real difficulty is we don't have adequate registration of our private haulers, nor do we have authority, I guess, to make them report. And so this is an Andy question. Do we have authority to require this, and we just haven't done it?

I'd need to look into that. Yeah, I understand.

This is all for future. These people are not paying county taxes for doing business in the county, and they're not providing data to the PDC to be able to then meet the state obligation for, I mean, our reports have been woefully inadequate for decades because we have this run amok situation with the private haulers. A few, including the little guys out in the country, are registered and do report, and I'm very grateful. Thank you very much for including the bottle bill thing in the environmental thing. I really appreciate that, and I've sent it on to the SWAC committee so they will know that that is in there, and that's something that's also on the agenda for discussion for the EELU committee in November, and hopefully we'll be able to get some other counties interested in going backwards to the 50s when we had all those things, which are really great. And... I will stop there. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Supervisor Duncan. I'm sorry, Sally. As you go around and if there are other topics that supervisors speak to, just offer that you don't have any objection to anything you've heard from anyone else. That will help us kind of keep track of where we're going relative to so we don't have to talk about every single thing. Just if you object to something, then bring that up.

Sorry, go ahead. Is the no objection implied, or do we need to say no objection?

No, I'm not, just talk if you object to something you heard ahead of you, then at the end we can all go, must be consensus, because nobody object.

Obviously, this is my first time through this, and so I'm just sort of learning. Just kind of coming at it, you know, with the super new, it just seems, I don't know if this is normal or not, but it just seems Interesting to have a list of 26 positions when they can only offer up 15 bills, and so it just feels like a lot. I mean, obviously there's a lot of things we care about. I'm just sort of curious if that's standard practice for counties to have such a long list, or if it's better to make it shorter. And then just my other observation through reading through these is a lot of these make me feel like Oliver Twist. Please, sir, can I have some more authority? And there's a simple solution to a lot of these requests.

Convince them of that, Ms. Duncan. I am probably going to die. North Carolina will be paying attention, too.

That's all I have.

The thing I would add about having that many positions, because we try to bring up certain things relative to bills, but what the legislators will often do is, like, let's say Senator Deeds is here, and he sees one of our 26 items, and he'll say, you know what, there's some momentum coming out of wherever. Mm-hmm. And then he can track that that's important to us, too. He doesn't necessarily have to expend one of his slots, but can pile on the support over there if he knows it's there. So to not have it kind of limits you in that kind of wheeling and dealing, I guess, that happens. But point taken.

I'll just add from Ms. Duncan's benefit. We don't always know until all the bills have been published. We don't always know what all the topics that will be before the General Assembly are. And so staff uses that section, the positions and policy statements work, if we get a call of, well, how does Albemarle feel about this? We'll look there to say, well, actually, okay, we think we do see where the position would be on that. And sometimes the answer is we're still not sure and we have to make some phone calls.

Supervisor Pruitt, I would further add to the conversation that's already going. The very pithy way I think of it is the legislative program is telling them what to file and the legislative positions is telling them how to vote on things that other people file, which is mostly true. Not perfect, but mostly. I want to begin by concurring with Supervisor Malik's position that our timetable is And I know it's challenging, I know there's budget, but it's woefully inadequate. We need to begin this process basically the moment we have a legislative debrief from previous session. I met with Senator Deeds Friday, and he had just come from a meeting of the legislative positions, a work session with the city. And he told them, I have already, the early bird filing deadline has already passed, and I am almost at capacity, so a lot of this is not feasible. That was last week. So it does, these deadlines, come up quick. And by November, people already have their bill slate almost entirely, and there's not much flexibility. And we're really kind of playing with stragglers, or if someone wants to trade a bill that they're already bringing to their friend who has got a co-patronate because they have some opening. So I would say that's very urgent. I want to talk about specifically because our policy positions, I think, are pretty fixed and don't move that much year to year. So I'm going to specifically and exclusively talk about the legislative program, the things we want to file rather than the things we're telling people how to vote yes on. I would request to the board and suggest that I don't disagree that the M&T decoupling is a new issue. I think it is something that we have a policy window for right now because the big sexy thing that is going to dominate discourse is about revenue and data centers. M&T is the primary local tax source related to data centers, and there is a clear through line. And there's, frankly, I think, a political talking point, because I see M&T being set to necessarily at or below personal property as... a Republican dead-hand guidance. It is a limitation on corporate taxation that is being realized in the future. And you have a Democratic majority that's eager to make change. I think there's a policy window between data centers and localities saying, we want more, that makes this a compelling issue. Maybe something that doesn't move forward, but there are special work groups spooled up around data centers and finance that we can inject this issue into. But me having individual conversations with Senators Kallsen and Deeds, who I will also say thought this was the most interesting of the various things I've talked about. Having those individual conversations is not going to elevate it to the degree that I think we would need if we want to inject this into those conversations around finance and actually get some attention on this issue. So I would ask that the board consider adding this to our program. I would also suggest The program is a way for us to elevate priorities of things. It's asking for things to be filed. I appreciate the discussion that we had. And I know it's in our positions about transportation funding. This has been the clearest and most consistent thing that the board has said in the past two years. What VDOT or the Transportation Board or our local district are going to tell us and all the things they're doing is always going to be based on what they've been allocated. And it's missing the question of how much are we actually allocating to road construction through VDOT. And that conversation needs to be with legislators. And I think that means we need to elevate that in our legislative program, a specific request for funding. I think there's also, and I'll just say this because I've got the talking stick, I think there is an important piece of storytelling that can be done around this. Right now, the big sexy thing that everyone wants to solve is housing. It is something this majority is really eager to show movement on, and the main way they have to look at that is through preemption in localities and trying to incentivize more growth in specifically localities that look like us, that look like Chesterfield, that look like Spotsylvania. I can tell you right now, my organization is working on lobbying Chesterfield, who's doing a down zoning across their whole county right now. And the main argument that Chesterfield right now is bringing up is we have too much traffic on this area that is zoned high density and not yet developed. This is a through line that we hear from our constituents when we explore higher density developments in more of the suburban fringe. And I'm sure it's something these other suburban localities, which are the place where most growth is happening in the Commonwealth and is poised to happen, and the political stifling is coming from transportation. I think there's a very clear through line that a Democratic majority is interested in housing, but because transportation funding is parochial and they mostly represent cities that pay for their own transportation or have transit systems, there is not that parochial interest in VDOT funding. I think this helps create that clear through line of how we connect their priorities as urban representatives, as people who might not represent constituents that depend on VDOT funding, to their priorities. Your priority is housing. To do housing, you need this. I think that's a really compelling case that we can make, and I think we're uniquely well-positioned to make that case as a non-urban locality that is growing and that also, frankly, is predominantly democratic. There's a very finite number of those that can make that argument, and I think we should be making that argument. Lastly, and this... I would not expect the board to act on this today. I would ask that the board chew on this and maybe think about it before we adopt our legislative position, because the language itself is really simple. I think it can sometimes be nice to add to our program something that we know is moving forward, but is a statement of values and priorities. And I think it is prudent for us, for the same kind of political incentives I was just talking about, to say something about housing. I might suggest that this board endorse expansion and continuation of the 5,000 families program. This is a state pilot voucher program that does what it says it's got to do. It is a state-level voucher for 5,000 families. It was approved in the last budget. It is a simple, as in it's a clean ask. It's a complicated ask for the legislators because they've got to find the money, but it is... It would significantly expand the number of people who are able to actually afford housing in this Commonwealth. And it would be a simple thing for us to ask for. And it would help elevate this kind of wonky program that really just does the simple key thing that most people need to access housing, which is give them money to access housing. So I would ask that you chew on that and consider whether or not that would be something you'd be interested to add to the legislative program. The MNT, we've talked about it multiple times on this board during my time here. I would ask that we consider adding that today.

Okay. Supervisor Missel? Thank you. I'm in the same boat as Supervisor Duncan in a lot of ways. So I'll ask a few questions and... One is I'll just kind of sort of riff on what you were just talking about, the affordable housing piece. And let me ask a general question. So I'm looking at the 2027 legislative program, which is attachment A, I think. And that's where we're asking questions and adding suggestions to it, correct?

Okay.

So on there it does talk about affordable housing because I was wondering the same thing. It's very general. Support legislation that promotes the production and preservation of affordable housing, whether through state support or enhanced enabling authority. Do we need to add more detail to it like you're suggesting, or is that enough to cover at this level those types of programs?

If the question's to me, I would say we have a limited amount of time, and sometimes it comes down to what are the five things we're asking for this year. We have a bullet of normally specific bills.

So it's appropriate to get more specific in each one of these categories if necessary.

And I don't want to get out of turn with trying to make this muddier or disagreeing with staff.

Yeah, I'm just asking that question to sort of craft my other comments as well.

Yeah, and I think I would offer that If and when there is a very specific item, to borrow Mr. Pruitt's language, to ask them to introduce as a bill, it would be appropriate to say let's add this very specific thing to the program. It's items where the board is broadly supportive of action in that area but does not have a specific solution in mind. where the positions and policy statements, we'll sort of lean into those. But if Housing Albemarle had a very specific state code change that would really help advance that work, we would recommend that the board add that specifically to the program. So that's something that we could ask our local delegation to introduce.

Okay. Well, then I'll ask these questions just for what it's worth. Maybe some of them are a little bit outside of what this is intended to be, but I'll just throw them out there. One is the photo speed camera piece. I'm just curious why limit the eligibility to 35 miles per hour or higher because there are other areas where they're 25 miles per hour or less, whether it's schools or other locations. rural communities, et cetera, that it may apply to? Is there a reason that we cut it at 35?

It's a max. It's a max? 35 and below. Oh, and below. Okay, got you. That's allowed by state.

So it could be on other roads that are below the 35 miles. It's not just the 30 miles. Thank you. The housing section, I think there's one thing that we've talked a little bit about here, and I don't know if it's worth putting in because the language speaks to mostly funding, but I just don't want us to lose track of the importance of having a streamlined review process and possible incentives for affordable housing and whether that gets added to that housing section in terms of support. So state support, enhanced enabling authority, streamlined review process and potential incentives I think would be helpful. You know, the discussion that we're talking about relative to mostly in southern Albemarle and the CAFOs and all of that fun stuff, talking about stream preservation, we now have a riparian buffer ordinance, which I think is very helpful. I don't know if the environment, if there's anything in here that should be considered in terms of sediment, erosion control, those types of things, as a broader subject to consider. And I think that I would also echo the broadband piece. I know we've been part of that. I think Supervisor Pruitt and I have been part of those meetings and have seen the progress. But to Supervisor Malik's comments, it's still not complete. So I don't know if we want to completely take it off or if we feel like the programs that we have in place have enough traction and momentum to get the job done or if we need to continue to push that. That's it.

Supervisor LaPista, currently?

Okay, first of all, I just want to clarify, if I misunderstood, but for the photo speed cameras, it's for, it applies only to segments of secondary roads having posted speeds of 35 miles or higher. It does say that.

It does say that. I just saw it. Yeah.

Crash fatality supports and everything like that. So your point, can it be lower? We don't know yet. We haven't gotten anywhere with this despite, you know, we've been to Richmond. We've spoken to the committee and everything. But hopefully, maybe it will gain some traction because I think this is something that – the rural areas are asking a lot. And I think it should go more so to some of the smaller roads right now, secondary roads. But having said that, regarding Amtrak, first of all, I like the whole agenda. So that's not a problem. I like the whole agenda. I just have a couple of questions. The Amtrak improvements, Does that affect us?

Yes. So when all of the capital projects that are currently being undertaken are complete, that provides capacity for Amtrak's passenger rail service to allow a second train from the Charlottesville station that heads up to Washington, D.C. and beyond. And then it also opens up some opportunities across the Commonwealth.

And I don't know if Mr. Blunt knows more. Yeah.

But the capital projects for Amtrak will provide additional service for Charlottesville.

Okay. So that's a... That's good. I agree regarding the legislative deadlines, and I think we're – we've been doing this for several years now where we're always coming in too late. So how that gets fixed, I don't know, but it's been a few years now. We keep saying that. Also regarding broadband, that was supposed to have been completed for the county December of 25. Now they're saying spring of 27 for the completion. And we do have some real outliers with like a three-mile-long driveway that is proving very challenging. But it's now supposed to be spring of 27, so hopefully the northwest area of Albemarle gets taken care of. But just those comments, but I do approve of what we're doing. I did want to ask Supervisor Pruitt, though, you mentioned 5,000, that the state has a program for 5,000 vouchers.

The program is called 5,000 Families. It's a state-administered voucher program similar to the Housing Choice Voucher Program. It was created through the budget this year.

Statewide or locality-based?

I believe it is statewide and dispersed as state vouchers through the local PHAs. So we administer them, but I don't want to get over my skis. It's brand new. I'm not even sure if vouchers are live on it yet.

Okay, and we don't know if they're going to allocate so many per area, you know, per city or county. Okay. But, I mean, that sounds like a good program. That's all. Thank you.

Can I circle back around on broadband? Because I realize I didn't talk about it. I just want to, one, clarify and kind of add a little bit more texture to what Supervisor Lepisto-Curley was saying about what the current status of deployment is and how I think that should affect our positions statement. So VOTI 2021 is our primary vehicle for funding the existing expansion that's going to cover 99.9% of the county. And the main outlier in remaining work to be done is, correct, the Earleysville service area. which is probably getting deployed before spring because they want to get their money, which they can't get their money for it if they go past the end of the year. But that is in process and is already programmed. There are not more houses that are going to be coming out of that. There's then an additional something like 400 households that are going to remain unserved. Most of those are getting picked up in BEAD, that is the federal program. That's going to take a long damn time, but we have done our piece in administering that, and most of those will get additionally served. There are a few pulled out of that that would remain unserved, which we are currently identifying how we could best serve them for a round of funding of VATI 2026. This is all just to say I think we actually have all the necessary – it's a rare thing for me to say. I think we have the funding vehicles. I think it's just a matter of remaining implementation. And so I would concur with staff that I don't think we need to request funding on that still. I think it's important that we still have a request in there, but I think we need to be talking about affordability, consumer protection, and reliability. which I would suggest means more than digital equity to someone who's going to read this, but that is digital equity. So it just might be prudent to, I know Mr. Inifuentes used that language, because that is the language of the trade. I might suggest, I'm not sure, Delegate Laufer knows what it means when you say digital equity, and so maybe we should say broadband affordability, broadband consumer protection funding, and broadband reliability.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Yeah. In the interest of time, I won't do any transportation lectures today. But I think speaking to the timing, I think that, man... The whole piece of you're too late coming in and meeting, this goes back to when I was on the school board and was being told the same thing as the school board. And what is the primary obstacle? It's getting us all together at the same time. It's always the scheduling conundrum. So why are we not just doing two by twos with individual legislators? We could pick the supervisors who are the best on the topic. So if we did M&T, Mike could be on that two by two. We've just been volunteered. Meet with an individual person, but we could do it where we don't have to meet altogether. Let's remove the obstacle to the timing problem. If we want to get all together for the show of it, the performance of it, we could still do that. And all of those two by twos would have happened. The nitty gritty conversations, the advocacy could happen. We would trust that board members would advocate for the board regardless of who the two are with whichever individual person. And then the pull together could be well, here's the summary of the conversations. And then we don't get into, well, you missed the deadline or the early bird deadline. I didn't even know there was an early bird deadline. So that's a new one for me. But I think that we have to get past, because this is a common complaint going back a long time. And it's time, if we keep trying to do the same damn thing, That supervisor's not here anymore. You know, you get the same result. Why are we still doing it? And then we just talk about it in the fall. So could we make the effort right now to go, let's set up a strategy. Work on your group meeting. That's fine. They want to come and be with us all together and have chats and conversations, especially leading into election year. which is a priority, we heard that earlier from Mr. Blunt, that they want to get out of Dodge because they want to go campaign, then okay, then we'll do that. And I think it's important for us to get together with them and we can speak kind of philosophically in those moments. But let's get the grunt work happening on the street before the end of September, if that's doable.

And I think that's certainly something we can look at. I'd have two comments in response to that. First of all, in my past experience, it's not so much the six board members, it's the scheduling constraint, it's the three legislators. Yeah, I get it. They're the ones that say, oh, we can't do it, and so on and so forth. So getting the six of you together is not nearly as big of a timing constraint as getting the three of them together. No.

Two of us getting after, and I'm not saying two people go meet with all three. I'm saying two can go meet with deeds, two others could meet with blood, and how are they going to get around that? Now we don't have to accommodate three state representative schedules. We have to accommodate one individually, and we can do it collectively, and then we can figure out the other conundrum later.

That's certainly an option. The second comment I have for you is that this isn't an election year, so it's not an issue. But in election years, we often don't know who our legislators will be until after election day. And so there's that problem that in election years, we don't know who our delegates and senators are going to be until after election day. So that's one of the reasons why it's typically held later, so that we actually know who our representatives are going to be.

Yeah, I get it. Understood. We can accommodate for that, but at least let's get the conversations going. We're already, I mean, they all invited us for one-on-ones earlier in the spring following the session, and people went. I know some of you all went and met. So, I mean, let's just build on that strategy and see what we can do. We all have got our packets. You all have your individual things that you could say, but in a two-by-two, you could help, each other could help accommodate making sure we stay true to the board and the collective board approach to the legislative position, and then we can do the altogether get-together later as we normally do.

Supervisor Galloway, one open item that I would add to Mr. Herrick's list is just the board would formally adopt the program for this coming year at your October 21st board meeting, unless you all wanted to give direction on the items before us ahead of that, and then we could start working on scheduling those meetings with the legislators in September.

Okay, so that sounds like a hiccup for this year. Next year we can approve our platform knowing that the schedule changes so everything else can change. This is all fixable and workable in my mind. Is there any objection from anybody to that? No. Makes sense.

That would be an improvement to the 2027 program, but yes, so noted.

But I mean, I'm saying can we start trying to get together with individual people now so we can have some conversations about what we're talking about?

This year? You're welcome to, but as Ms. Kilroy pointed out, the board isn't going to formally adopt this until October 21st unless we were able to get on a sooner agenda, so.

Or unless the board wanted to provide direction today. I think there were some proposals during this discussion regarding the M&T as well as elevating transportation funding. So if we had that list of three items formalized.

Fully plan to bring us together on what the direction will be at the end of the conversation. I don't think we need to wait for a formal adoption to get there. Because we're all... Nobody's objected to anything that I could hear. I hear nuancing, if anything. So I don't hear anybody going, I don't agree with that, I don't agree with that. But yeah, we've got to get better at this. Sure. And let's not just saddle up for another year of doing it the same old way when we can attempt something, and that could inform us better for next year. And that's not criticism to any of y'all, because the board just needs to say, all right, let's do it differently right now.

Yeah. I did want to say that the three legislators, I think it's going to be a yearly thing. I know they came this year. It was on a Sunday. It was a town hall meeting here. And that would be a perfect opportunity, if we could get on their schedule for next year, to then have a meeting with the board It was on a Sunday, but that's the way it goes.

We'll be open to all ideas for next year. I think right now it's like, let's get some traction and get out on the street right now with them and try to talk about it. The only other thing I wanted to talk about today is transportation, and it's not funding, and it actually doesn't change anything in this packet other than some wording. So I did suggest some altered change to the transportation position statement, and it was primarily just the first of those statements. The rest, if I did what I thought I did, I think I might have adjusted it, but it basically kept items two through five the same, but item one is what I've changed. I'm not asking for a bill from any of these three. And frankly, it's not, don't even need much time in our meeting with them. Because clearly the letter that I'm advocating for is a whole different approach and strategy and isn't even a funding ask. So quick note, 2020, 2021, JLARC did their study. The General Assembly advocated another $560 million, $155 million to transportation that year. And lo and behold, didn't really go too far. And one of their great ideas was the mileage use fee, the voluntary thing that literally says, if you choose to be taxed, whoever is going to say yes when they read that phrase, regardless of all the other content.

They repealed the EV tax that had been passed.

And the funny thing is, is it's lumped into all the other use fees, and I haven't been able to find what actually has been collected from the voluntary mileage use program or whatever it's called. Anyway, the strategy I'm asking the board to adopt is, is to call on the governor to convene a conversation because a lot of work has been done. I appreciate that our new Commonwealth Transportation Board representative and the Virginia Department of Transportation Secretary keep saying, well, we've got to get better at prioritization. Actually, Virginia, compared to all the other states, does a damn good job of prioritizing the projects. But at the end of the day, fewer and fewer priorities get done because of the funding model. And the $558 million that they added is the proof that this isn't a budget decision. It's not a two-year or a one-year budget call. It never will be. They have to look at it and go, okay, for the next 50 years, what's the program going to be that's going to adequately do what our transportation program is going to do? And that's the part that they're not doing. They've talked around it. There's ideas. But now it's time to get the decision makers in the room and convene. And this was not because sometimes it's like, well, am I just doing this? Is this just Albemarle? It's not going to ever be accomplished if one locality is just alone trying to do this and yelling and screaming. It's going to take the collective effort of all the localities. And that effort was well received at the Virginia Associated County summer session at the Transportation Committee. So I fully expect a fuller con- David, you were there. Am I misrepresenting? Or maybe you weren't in the room. I don't know who was behind me. But these are your folks that have, who are also locals, transportation folks that I would say that are revered in the state by the General Assembly folks as local politicians on the issue. right, that joining with the VACO effort, joining with our own regional push, I think could get some momentum going, but it's not that any, and nobody is saying we're just asking for more money. We're asking for something that's sustainable and predictable and not for two years. but for 30 years, for 50 years. So if there are no objections, I did offer the letter that I drafted for the governor. What I would love to do is to take the letter that the board signed off on and endorsed from the TJPDC from last year, send that along with the governor letter to the governor, At our legislative session with our locals, we'll bring that and go, here, you were copied on the TJPDC letter. Here's what we've sent to the governor. Here's the rationale. Here's the point. Then I'll be able to take all that to the VACO committees and show them what Albemarle's position's been. And then I can take, we could take this, Mike and I can take it to the commission and see if we can get our local region on board with this kind of strategy as well. This doesn't change anything, I don't think, with the meeting with the other three other than here's what we're doing and we'd appreciate your support in this effort. And I mean, otherwise we're just going to get the same old talking points. And that's no criticism of our local delegates because it's coming from the whole group. And I honestly just at this point don't think they know what else to say. So that means it's time to convene and do something different and not study it to death. We know what the rising costs are. We know why the revenues are declining. So this is something I think merits that kind of push. And then we'll have a revised transportation study that supports it, so when the advocacy work's actually happening, it'll be there. And hopefully we can get a groundswell of localities that kind of keep going in this. The Floyd County guy was just as interested as the Roanoke County guy. So, you know, this has broad appeal, I think, and could do something.

Two future VACO presidents in those two people.

Yeah.

Brings the whole organization right there. One's next, right? Yep. One's next, yeah.

And then the other guy in the Floyd County guy is right behind him. Two years after, yeah. All right, so that's my bit for today, and I'm not hearing any objection to that, so I'm going to proceed. The board actually had voted several months ago to authorize the chair to sign a letter to the governor about transportation funding, so I don't know that I need a new action because I still have that. Claudette and I were discussing that, that I could still whip off this letter based on a past vote, but I decided to bring it back up for reconsideration. So if there's no objection to that, to tidy this up, the machinery and tools piece that Supervisor Pruitt said we'd like to add, is there any objection to adding that? I don't know about its likelihood, but we can add it.

Okay. I just didn't completely understand what it was he wanted to do.

Well, we can get into that. It's a decoupling, basically, that gives us a little bit more nuance with it as a tax.

No problem. So I'm hearing the consensus of the board is to elevate that to priority status in the program?

That's what I think the request was, and I didn't hear any objection. Okay. The other piece is the endorsement of the 5,000 family program. I understand the rationale and the strategy behind it, and plus it should help people regardless of where they live. So I have no objection to that. I don't know if anybody else does.

May I ask a clarifying question on that one? Is that expansion of the number of vouchers or extension of the time of the program?

I would suggest both. I think it's currently two years and actually decreases in funding over time, which would necessarily kick people off of the voucher. Yeah.

So that also would be an elevated priority part of the program?

That sounds more like an endorsement of something that's in play, if I understood correct, and get it. That it's like, let's give that to them. So it's not necessarily taking up a bill slot, but is a priority point of topic of conversation for the full gathering when we all get together. Okay. Did I misrepresent that? I heard some commentary about the wording. I don't think there's a downside to keeping Supervisor Malik's piece about the broadband in. I do think that it's important to show that we understand what Supervisor Pruitt explained and all of it should help to say that we still have residents who don't have broadband and we need to make sure we're all aware of that and keep on it.

A short phrase in there that says they have no access to emergency services when it rains.

That should get some attention. And now I'm looking, did I miss a topic that we have to clear up before we recess?

I don't think so. I would like a little more clarity on the 5,000 families, whether that again, is a priority or whether that's something that's put in the principles because I'm still not, I hear interest in it, but I'm not hearing where that lands.

I'll offer for discussion adding it to the position and policy statements under the housing header and making sure that it's part of the legislative forum discussion.

As for reaction.

I don't want to overly steer this. When I said it, I had imagined it as a priority. But if the belief of both the board and staff is that it would make more sense as a position that we talk about in the forum, then that's also fine by me.

I think she was saying under attachment 11a, the legislative program, those are the priorities. And on page two, the principles I see, okay, is where the housing is. So it's on the same document. It's just adding a sentence there would help because I didn't know anything about this. And others may be equally clueless. Okay.

Open to any direction from the board. I just was building off of Mr. Galloway's comments.

I mean, I think the funding sounds like the priority, making sure it's in. You had questioned whether the funding was there.

If this board is amenable to it, I would like to see it as a legislative priority. It gives us the ability. It puts it on that first page of the palm card that they see. I have no objection to that. Okay. And to your point, it wouldn't take a bill slot for them, so it's not us being too pushy on that front.

Great.

And then, yes.

Transportation would be one of the three. So we currently have photo speed is number one. We have transportation, and we have 5,000 families.

And I'm fine if you all want to not have transportation. Because the idea is that we're taking the focus to another group. That's part of the strategy. It's like you three can come along, but here's what we're off and running and doing. So I'm happy to make it a priority. I certainly wouldn't object to that. But I'm saying that it doesn't have to displace something because we're going to be already in motion. By the time we meet with the folks in the larger group, we're already going to be off and running with some of this. We're not waiting until this program or this meeting with these three locals to do this. This is something we're going to send out immediately was my intent, if that makes sense. So, you know, they'll get copied. They'll get just similar to the PDC piece that we did last fall that the region did. And the idea is, yeah, it doesn't bump something that we want to be a bill slot or a major priority. I mean, it is a major priority. We'll be able to say so. Yeah.

I think we would put it not as a legislative priority because that is sort of seen as the bill slots, but much like the CARTA discussion, just keep that as a high priority thing that we're talking about and continuing to talk about.

So, I mean, I think we can massage that. I think it's obviously a priority. It's a long game, though. And it's not, we're not at this point asking for a budget request. I think it'll be interesting to see what VACO chooses to do. We might be whipping off a second letter after the VACO, what position they decide to take and request. But I don't want to be stealing any of their thunder based on the conversation that happened in summer as if it's Albemarle's idea.

I hope that you're planning to talk about it at the Region 5 because that would be a great place to get it out. That's next Friday. Yeah, on the 11th. Yeah.

Or week, yeah, week from Friday.

Okay.

Anything we need to clear up?

No, I think we've got it.

And I think what we'll do is we'll work on revising those materials. We might put some sort of subject to final adoption, but in that state, those revised materials with a sort of subject to final adoption tagline, hopefully that can get members of the board that want to use that proposed final drafts out to their meetings with legislators, equip you all to have those meetings even prior to the formal adoption on October 21st.

Folders we can deliver, same as we've done in the past with the draft in there. And we'll work on setting up meetings.

Supervisors will just have to be available to coordinate quickly on this. If a time opens up, we may have to be ready to move. But the idea would be find the supervisor that's the most educated to speak on that particular issue or one of the three, and we'll steer them into the meeting. Like the machinery and tools tax, you've got to be in that meeting. So there you go.

There's three meetings for you. Great. Which is fine. I mean, we can do three meetings.

We'll see how this works, and we can have a discussion about it later.

Yeah, we can refine from there.

Cool.

Great. Thank you all. Thank you. I'm thrilled with the change of effort.

That's really great. Thank you.

Board, we are about, what, a half an hour behind? So let's do a quick break, if we could, and come back at four, and we'll pick up there if there's no objection to that game plan.

Sounds like a plan.

All right, everyone, we are coming back from recess, and we will move to... Get my glasses on. We'll move to item number 12, the Rural Rustic and Unpaved Road Improvement Program. And I see Al Baric at the podium. Good afternoon. Hello. And, yeah, make sure you're right in on that microphone, Al Baric. Sometimes you're a little hard to hear.

Thank you. Where's the pointer thing? Do we have that?

Oh, I'm the wrong person to ask about the pointer. Okay.

Perfect. Awesome. Good afternoon, Chair Galloway and Board. My name is Albert Carino-Plun, and I am a transportation planner and planning within community development. I return to you to clarify rural rustic and URIP processes in the secondary six-year plan, URIP being unpaved road improvement program, as well as present recommendations for roads to be included on the maintained gravel roads list. The agenda for this presentation will focus on the following items, clarifying the rural rustic and the EUIP process, recommending roads not to be paved to preserve the recreational value, and prioritizing the types of projects for the secondary six-year plan. For the background, the secondary six-year plan is a VDOT document that applies to roads and the secondary system identifies the funding allocated for the next fiscal year and estimates the available funding for the next five fiscal years. Tele-fee funding stems from utility companies paying a fee to VDOT to put lines in their right-of-way. These funds are being used to help fund the Berkmar Drive extension by Port Road. District grant unpaved funds are used both on rural rustic and other paving projects. This plan is updated and adopted by the Board annually each spring. Some definitions for rural rustic roads. These are requested to be paved. These roads have had two-thirds support. They are VDOT eligible for paving, and they have board support. And for URIP. I'm going to be using this term for the presentation. URIP, URIPing is kind of a term that we've come up with, so please bear with me. But these have either had more than one-third of residents reject paving. VDOT has found them ineligible for paving. or their board rejected. These roads would still be improved, but not paved. As a reminder, staff must receive a request either through resident or board member representing a constituent. Staff checks to see if the road is eligible for paving against the URIP and the maintained gravel roads lists, and if so, staff will send the resident the signature list, the rural rustic toolkit, and the Albemarle County unpaved roads process document. If the road has already been predetermined to not be eligible for paving, it will be added to the URIP list. At the public hearing in May, the Board inquired if there was language in the materials sent to the public that described the pros and cons of paving roads. On the slide is language that was included in the toolkit, and I'll leave you some time to read it. So there are four outcomes that can come out of a request for paving. Outcome one is that the road is paved slash u-ripped. Outcome two or outcome B, the requested road will be moved to the maintain gravel roads list and will wait for eligibility. Outcome C, the requested road is already on the maintain gravel roads list and is waiting for eligibility. Or outcome D, the request will be addressed through other means. It'll be clear in the upcoming slides how a request gets to one of these four outcomes. So the bottom of the chart shows the path of a road, assuming that it meets the Rural Restrict requirements, receives two-thirds signatures, receives VDOT approval, has been prioritized, and then is approved by the board to be on the secondary six-year plan.

So the pointer...

We get the request. We check the basic requirements. If yes, we check if it's on the road list. In this case, if it's not, we send the rural rustic toolkit. If we get two-thirds approval from the residents, we send it to VDOT. If it meets VDOT eligibility, then it's moved to be on the prioritized road list as a rural rustic. We go to the April board work session and the May board work session, and if yes, it's added to the secondary six-year panel analyst, and eventually it's paved. So that's how it's NORMALLY WORKS FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS. THESE ARE THE WAYS FOR A ROAD TO BECOME A URIP. THE MAIN DECISION POINTS FOR A ROAD BECOMING A URIP ARE IT GOES THROUGH, YOU GET THE BASIC REQUIREMENTS, WE CHECK IF IT'S ON THE LIST. IF NOT, WE SEND THE RURAL ARRESTED TOOL KITS. IF MORE THAN ONE THIRD OPPOSE, WE PRESENT THE URIP OPTION SAYING, YOU KNOW, IF YOU DON'T WANT THE ROAD PAVED, YOU STILL WANT IMPROVEMENTS. IF YES, THE ROAD IS THEN MOVED TO THE PRIORITIZED ROAD LIST AS A URIP, AND THEN A SIMILAR PROCESS WITH RURAL RUSTIC, WE HAVE THE APRIL BOARD WORK SESSION, THE MAY PUBLIC HEARING IS ADDED TO THE LIST AND EVENTUALLY BECOMES A URIP PROJECT. SECONDLY, THE SECOND WAY TO GET ON THERE is VDOT cannot pave the road. So same process. It gets to here. It gets through here. We get two-thirds approved. But VDOT cannot pave the road. Staff will request that VDOT URIP, essentially, the project. And there may be factors that still prevent VDOT from URIPing a road. But the other decision point is if VDOT cannot pave the road. And the board will still have to approve a road as a URIP road. Moving on. And then the maintained gravel roads path. Outcome B and C are similar, and they both relate to the maintained gravel roads list. The main ways for a road to end up on this list are the road was previously E-ripped, so we get to here, and if it was previously E-ripped, it is therefore ineligible to be requested for another six years. So if it got E-ripped in 2028 and someone came in 2030 asking for paving improvements, it wouldn't be available to be requested until 2034, and it's on that list. More than one-third of residents reject paving and do not want the road to be changed or u-ripped. So if they would want any changes, they're happy with the road the way it is, it would be added to the maintain level roads list and eligible for a request for six years. And lastly, the board rejects the road project as either a rural rustic or u-rip project. So it can go through the rural rustic decision point, and when it gets to here, if the board does not approve it as a rural rustic, it goes straight back into maintaining level roads. Same for URIP. It can make it through the whole URIP path through here. And when it gets to the board, if the board says no, it moves to maintaining level roads. Here's the full flow chart. I'll come back to it after I finish the presentation for any questions. The board expressed interest in May in preserving unpaved roads for recreational usage. While VDOT does not have a separate recreational road program, the board has the power to block paving of any secondary road in the county. STAP has conducted research on popular recreational unpaved roads in the area and is presenting that list to you now. The following roads have been listed by the Seville Bike Club and or Ragged Mountain Running as good roads to use for recreation. Dickwoods Road, Bellards Mill Road, Wesley Chapel Road, Slamgate Road, Jones Mill Road, Midway Road, Pounding Creek Road, and Ridge Road. If the board desires, they can add all, some, or none of these roads to the maintaining gravel roads list at the April 2027 work session. If they are added, they will be ineligible to be requested for paving until 2033, following the vote at the public hearing. If a request comes after that, the Board may choose to keep the road on the list and prevent paving or other improvements. If the Board would like to add more roads, the appropriate time for that will be at the April work session. Conclusions, rural rustic and URIP will be merged in the secondary six-year plan with some projects including paving and some projects focusing on improvement without paving. Projects will be prioritized by average daily traffic volumes regardless if they are both a URIP or rural rustic project. And finally, the board may choose to add any secondary road to the maintain gravel list for six years at a time at the work session. After that, it'll become open for paving requests. Staff will continue to prepare the FY2833 secondary six-year plan using the format presented, and staff will continue to receive feedback on the process and work with VDOT to implement. Thank you, and I'm open for questions.

All right, Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much for all your work at Ridge Road and other places standing in the dish watching and worrying about these things. And this is a huge step forward in my understanding and I think you all's ability to not spin your wheels quite so much. So that's great. Congratulations on that. So I may have misunderstood when you were just describing No one's ever denied improvements to a gravel road. So did I misunderstand you when I heard you say that for six years you couldn't ask for repairs to the gravel and grading and drainage and stuff like that if something's on the maintained list?

So if it's on the maintained gravels list, it's not eligible to be requested for paving. So it wouldn't be eligible to receive a request. But if there's obviously a problem or a maintenance issue with VDOT, they would still take care of it.

So paving only, as long as that's clear, that I'm clear on that, that you're talking about paving for the six years. The six years has nothing to do with maintenance.

Yes.

Okay, great. That's excellent. And... Thank you, Supervisor Duncan, for sharing Alex's email earlier, because several other people had reached out to me and said, all these roads aren't on the list. Who did they talk to? I mean, the Ragged Mountain Running Shop family is saying, I didn't know anything about this. So there's been a breakdown. But anyway, I was sent a long list of roads, which I will give you in writing. But I'm going to read them now, because I think they're not just in the Whitehall District. They're all over the place of things that the trail runners use, the walkers use. and the bicycle people. So I'm grateful for the ones you did list, the Dick Woods, Ballard's Mill, Wesley Chapel, Slamgate, Midway, Pounding Creek, Jonesville, and Ridge. However... Off of those are others, and if you've looked at the running websites and things, there are all these 18-mile loops and all these things that incorporate a whole lot of these other roads. Castle Rock, Batesville Road, Clark Road, major one, Catterton, Decca, Chapel Spring, Buck Mountain Ford, Green Mountain Road, Forsyth, Fry's Path, Hurds Mountain, which is on the paving list, Pounding Creek. Shifflett's Mill, really important. Secretary Stan, Stony Point, Sugar Ridge, Turkey Sag, Via Lane, which is connected to Slamgate, White Mountain, and Dickerson, the unpaved part right now. So I don't know what has to be done to recognize all these others. They have them all mapped out, and I will send all the maps and everything to you. I just got this this morning. So... I think it's really important when we're looking at, just like we're looking at transit networks and things, when you're looking at recreation, then preserving the access to recreation for the roads such as the ones I've mentioned is a really valid approach. Earlier in the day, we learned about a $600,000 grant to build a couple of miles of the Old Mills Trail. This is dozens of miles, just these roads I've listed here, probably 50. the cost savings to the county budget to provide recreation in places where we know the individual and passive recreation is incredibly important to a huge number of people whom we did not recognize before COVID, that 1 million to 2 million users a year. That jump has not gone away. So I think it's important that we do our very best to make this as thorough a list as possible and to consider these loops that are being used. I remember Dan Eggleston saying he was on his bike ride the 50 mile trap from out Earlysville and around Boonesville and around 810 and all the way back to Crozet and I'm going oh brother taking your life in your hands the entire way but lots of people do it. So that I think is a really really helpful thing and that's really all I have at the moment. Thank you very much.

Supervisor Duncan?

Yes, to everything Supervisor Malik said, some of those were the same points that I have. So to sort of add on to that, the runners and bikers in the community have come up with an excellent document that I really hope they formally send to us. But they have a list of the top unpaved roads for recreation, and they have the ones that you have on here, but they also have Decca, Chapel Spring, Fox Mountain, Clark, Turkey Sag, Secretary Sands, Stony Point. So again, sort of reiterating what I said in the spring, that we really need to be doing our due diligence and reaching out to the recreational community of what roads they want to prioritize. And yeah, it's so much cheaper to keep our natural greenways than to have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to create new paths for people to run on. But for me, in addition to all of this, in addition to the great points that people have made in emails, is that this actually comes back to a bigger question of what we want the county to be. Our economic development plan calls for increased agritourism, and one of the needs that identifies to do that is connecting with outdoor recreation. In the comp plan, we obviously have a whole section on recreation and open space. And so I was kind of thinking about this because, you know, my kids are runners and so this is something that's super important to them and something we talked about. And, you know, is the fact that we have such a large running community here, is this something that exists spontaneously because we had somebody come in and build a great running store 40 years ago and sort of create this culture? and that it just has to survive on its own merits through volunteers, through people who decide to run? Or is it something that the county wants to encourage and cultivate and support? If we're going to continuously talk about how much rural land Albemarle has and how much we want people to preserve it and keep it and be this beautiful, great outdoors, then we should also ensure that people can use it. And having access to rural roads for recreation is one of the benefits of having a rural county. If it's our policies and sort of the board's prerogative to set roads aside, then I think we really need to be communicating with the recreational communities, listening to them when they are doing this advocacy. There's also health equity for being able to run outside, run for free. Everywhere in the county, people should have access to this. These are public goods. These are not just about the neighbors that live on a road. These are community goods that benefit all of us. And then just one last point that somebody made in one of the emails we got that I thought was a really good request. is to do a real-world network analysis based on all the recreational stuff that people are doing as part of the upcoming mobility and rural area plans. I think that would be kind of a good way to sort of comprehensively look at all this and not just wait until work sessions in April. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you. Great presentation. I found the flowchart very good, very well made. I appreciated the key. Sometimes people make a flowchart, and then they assume that you'll remember what a maintained gravel road means, but it's not all there in the name. You have to have the key, so very good job.

Thank you.

I would echo my peers' point on potentially wanting to do additional public engagement for how we're building the list that we're going to review in April. I'm immediately thinking the Charlottesville area trail runners, CATS, I'm not sure if they were contacted. And, you know, it's weird to give a family so much power, but like, Directly communicating with the Lorenzoni's who are kind of the weird natural hub of running culture in Charlottesville and Albemarle would probably be relevant because they could they could do a lot of the community engagement on the county's behalf And so I just might recommend those two things I The thing I do want to say, though, because I'm a runner. I love these trails that we're all talking about. I want us to be cautious. And this is more, Al Baric, not for you. This is more for the board, right, to remember that what we're talking about with potentially adding them in April of next year is subordinating the political process that we've already created. It is extracting that from residential control through the current two-thirds majority request process that we've created. And sometimes that is prudent. Dickwoods Road east of Ortman is a great example. Those residents, a lot of them want it paved because they've built very beautiful homes that they want to not have to drive five miles to get to. But it is a tremendously essential community amenity. I am fine with taking that out of their hands. And I reckon with the fact that that means I'm subordinating their political power. And on the other hand, I will remind this board, the people who voted on it last year, I sat with a constituent for half an hour and listened to him talk about how he had been trying to get Glendower Road paved for 50 years and how multiple residents on Glendower Road felt like they were second class citizens because they were rural and their road wasn't paved. Glendower Road was also an important trail running amenity. Glendower Road and the Keene drop-off at Christchurch have long been one of the highest prioritized trail runs in this county. Like, that is a thing. People still do it, but I don't know if people are running on Glendower Road as much. So there is a balancing of considerations that I would just really encourage this board to take seriously and think about as we're moving toward April and as we're getting excited about what we're adding to this list remember that we're taking it out of resident hands sometimes that does have real considerations for their lives that I also always try and talk about like the importance of I agree we should if we're going to talk about the rural area as a public amenity we should talk about it as a public amenity I would encourage before April of next year, we try and walk or run every one of these roads because I would suggest that some of them you might not be able to do because you literally can't park somewhere for it, depending on which one they are. And so take the charge seriously as we're thinking about this. Consider what we're doing before we add something to a list because it's exciting and because we all care about running. I love running. I'm constantly in search of a better running trail for my circuits. And it is something that we just have to take our stewardship really seriously on this. That's all I have.

Supervisor Missel. Thank you. When I first considered being on this board, I was speaking to the previous, I think it was the previous supervisor in this position, and he said one of the main things you're going to be hearing about is to pave or not to pave. That will be one of the main issues that you would So I kind of tried to come up to my learning curve to try to understand what that really meant, and I've spoken to Supervisor Pruitt's comments, various sides of the issue. There are people who live on a road that's a recreational road that are passionate about keeping it gravel and not paving it. There are others who are passionate about paving it and want to keep that, you know, have that. So I'm a little uncomfortable with taking that away from, I think you said, the citizen's decision-making process. I think it's worth thinking about, and I'm not against it. I mean, all the good reasons that all the other peers have mentioned I think is right on. But, you know, we're talking about people who potentially have runners like Supervisor Prude or others who come from another location to run on a road that they live on. And you're essentially saying that that road that you live on will remain gravel for six years, right, before it becomes eligible to be paved. There could be a lot of things that occur within that six-year period that might change its need to be paved or not paved. I don't know. But we're essentially saying we're taking that out of the mix, right? We're being sort of – we're saying this is it. Now, there may be some that it's an easy one. But I just am having a hard time getting my head around how we do this in a way that's objective and also in consideration of those that live on the roads. I'm not going to get into the list of roads. There were a couple that were mentioned, a couple that weren't mentioned that I think probably should be added that I've heard of people saying. I also agree and just echo the comments. I made a note of I think you received this list from the Charlottesville Biking Association, was it?

Yes. I actually went to the Seville Bike Club website and the Ragged Valley websites and I went through their list for recommended gravel biking and running routes and this is how I came up with the list.

So it's going to be a challenge, I think, to try to figure out how we are objectively comprehensive in asking and weighing both the folks who live there and those that want these for recreational purposes, asking enough of each side to understand really what that balance is. So I'll just say that I know this is a work in progress. I'm fully behind this idea. I think it's great that we're finally talking about it. I just find it to be a bit of a challenge as we try to measure the input from our constituents.

Supervisor Opisto-Ferrelli?

Thank you for your presentation. I agree with Supervisor Missel. I'm concerned about this in that I want the residents to have their views heard. We seem to have worked out, and I think it was passed in four or five years ago, where you have to have 2 thirds of the people who live along there have to approve it. I've experienced that in my own district, where some didn't get approved and others got approved. And it has seemed to work out well. It took the onus off of us, and it made the neighbors talk. to each other and they agreed. I understand about the running, about the biking. You have people though, are they going to concentrate in areas where it's not paved? I don't know. Where they don't live, you know, they're using it as a track to get around. I don't know. I think we need to consider the impacts. I'm not saying I'm against everything, but I know Supervisor Malik mentioned a couple roads that really piqued my interest. I know she mentioned DECA, and my understanding is that we disapproved that because you didn't have two-thirds of the people wanting it paved. So that was disapproved, and that won't come up again for, I guess, six years. Is that correct?

It was ineligible, decided by VDOT, which is why VDOT said they're not going to pay that it doesn't qualify. Okay. Not about the neighbors. It was just they said we can't do it. So that's why it needs to be on the maintained list and off the table.

Right. And I do know that the neighbors were weighing in on that one. You also mentioned Stony Point and Turkey Sag. Are you talking about the portion in between 20 and 231 where it goes over the Southwest Mountains?

This is a list provided by the Charleston area trail runners.

Okay. I would definitely like to see that because I don't know of any other unpaved area for Stony Point, if it's Stony Point Pass and also Turkey Sag. So what I was thinking, if you have all these roads and even the roads that were added, I'd like to see them on a map. I'd like to see where they are and what section we're talking about because the actual Stony Point Road, that's all paved. And Turkey Sag is mostly paved also, except for going over the mountains. And same thing, it's not. It's Stony Point Pass that goes over the mountains. That will probably never be paved because it's too narrow, it's windy, it doesn't meet VDOT standards in any way. So that got me thinking that I think I'd like to see where these – Roads or section of roads are we talking about the whole road a section of the road?

But I'd like to see where they are in a map I believe there was a map included in the materials packet for you as well But I would happy to make another map if you need more details as well. Okay.

I'm sorry then I missed that because You had a map but not the extra ones that I listed.

Yes, that to you It was just the map with the eight oh yeah, yeah, no those I know I'm talking about

With any other ones that are suggested, they might be good. They may not be good. But it's something that is worth, in my opinion, continuing to discuss and getting a little more detail of where the roads are located. Because I think those are the only two, Stony Point and Turkey Side, that are in my district. I think all the others are in, I don't know, which district. Some in mine. Pardon? Some in mine. Some in yours. Okay. Thank you.

All done? Mm-hmm. I would just echo the point that Supervisor Pruitt raised and Supervisor Missel went. We're kind of discussing it in the idea of keeping it in a current state that appeals to, could appeal to the residents and could appeal to this other group. But as soon as you give yourself the authority to do that, you can do the reverse too. which then takes, oh, well, we're going to go ahead and decide for paving regardless of what the residents think if we deem the decision. So if we take the decision out of the residential piece out of it for one, you've got to do it for all or else you're kind of Yeah, kind of rigging it if you know what I mean I couldn't imagine You know like when the when the residents and the other groups agree that seems to be a nice situation If we all want that road ourselves to remain Gravel, but if we get into a situation where the residents want it and this other group who doesn't live there Does once you know vice versa that's a problem, right? And then we have to get into a conversation about, well, which is more important, your daily travel to and from your home on a public road or the recreation for this other group? If the Rio District residents asked me that question, I know how I'd answer that. Bleak House Road residents, if they came out here and said, you're going to take our ability of living along this road and allow this other input to weigh into it, I know what commentary I'd be getting at that podium from Bleak House Road.

Except they'd be on the same side, so that would be fine.

But, okay, yeah, you say so. Like, that's the only time that scenario is going to come up. But you know the first one out of the gate won't be that scenario, right? We've seen it happen in other places. So at some point, the board, if we go this route, And I'm not, you know, look, I'm not trying to say that your points are there. I disagree with the points. I'm not even off a counterpoint. It's the awareness. Look, I don't run unless something's chasing me. I go out of my way to make sure I'm not running most of the time. So I used to run. I just can't do it anymore, right? And I didn't like it then. But the idea is that, okay, I get it. I understand. And I think it's great that these roads, when the residents agree and that group agrees, phenomenal. but life is just not that clean. And if at some point it's in front of this board and we have to start nuancing a policy where we say more than a third of the residents X plus whatever percentage of this group equals do or don't, that's too squishy for me and i'm going to have to choose residents on the road advocacy group for whatever the advocacy is i know where i'm going to end up on that conversation so i'm saying that today because i want you know we have chance to have people give us feedback on this discussion And I think that's a good one to hear some feedback on. I know where the advocacy group is, but the Bleak House Road members aren't listening on this conversation today. The residents who are out there who maybe want a road paved aren't here listening necessarily to this today. Maybe they are. And it's going to introduce their opinions about how they feel their public road is being used for recreational purposes. and those opinions haven't been discussed yet. So again, all of it to just endorse the idea that we need to be cautious and careful in this, and sometimes be careful what you wish for. Are there any other comments or questions? This is a presentation, no action today.

Can I just make one more comment?

Yeah.

Of just when people move to a gravel road, they're buying a house on a gravel road.

Yeah.

So I guess that's just sort of my last thought, but points well taken.

Yeah, and some of them would say, I've lived on this gravel road for 30 years wanting it to be paved, and it's never been paved.

I'm sick of the dust. I had one person, literally we were talking about paving or not paving a road, and I had somebody in the same household show up in support of paving, and somebody in that same household emailed me saying I'm totally against that.

No, don't do that. I will, Chair, just add one more thought, which is I think we're all, I think there's a lot of interest from the public in engaging on this. And, like, even me as I'm expressing, like, hesitancy about this issue, I'm, like, excited about it because this is a really huge part of comprehensive plan, how do we define cultural amenities, right? This is a huge part of our cultural amenities as a county. It's a really big identity component of this county. And it doesn't feel like there is much government energy or effort around it. And I think that is maybe the void that these people are shouting into. Because we haven't said we're going to pave Dickwood's Road. So we don't have the entire UVA track club in here lining the bleachers, which is what would happen. You would have 100 people in here if we tried to pave Dickwood's Road. And so I might just say, It would be nice if we could engage with this issue of recreational road use and how we engage and incentivize and build this as a county outside of this conversation. And there was the recommendation that you read off to that effect. I think that would serve and scratch a lot of the itch that I think we're hearing from the public on this. Like Al Baric doesn't have to be the channeling function for all of recreational rural activity in Albemarle County. We protect our ire.

I will protect him from your ire because we've stood together being run over by the speeders on Ridge Road a number of times. I do have one thing to add. When you get to me, I think somebody else has.

Awesome. Yeah, and we've got to get going because we've got to get into closed meetings. So quick comments. Supervisor Malik.

Okay, quick comments. This is a quality of life issue. And we have missed the boat so far on what Roanoke has made an enormous success of being the first ranked in the Commonwealth for outdoor recreation. And our CVB is pretending that they're doing all this advertising, but if we are destroying the facilities that we're trying to draw people to, we're killing ourselves. Back in 2007, going door to door on Dickwoods Road, People complained to me about their neighbors who said, they moved in here and told me that their realtor promised them that the road would be paved in 2006. And I don't want it paved. And that's how far back my personal experience goes with that particular stretch that was chosen right away in 2008 because of the use by the high school kids. for practice. So lots of other people benefited from that. I think it's perfectly fine to consider use decisions made by the board. There are lots of use decisions made in every other aspect of local government. So people have said Why isn't recreation funded based more on the number of users instead of organized sports and the ones who get all the headlines when they're probably, I don't even know how many, 100 to 1, walkers, riders, and runners who like to use these kinds of facilities as opposed to kids who, you know, somebody who does something else. I don't know the answer to that, but it's a question that was raised to me. One thing I forgot to say earlier, there are many roads on that paving list that have fewer than 80 cars a day. And that, to me, is $1.5 million from paving roads between 60 and 70 cars per day. That money could be spent in other ways. And we have finally the authority. to do that. So I would just throw that out there and ask you all to consider that long before April because this has been going round and round and round for a long, long time.

Thank you.

Last comment?

Yeah, I just wanted to say that I'm not against looking at all these roads and any other roads that are added, but I think we need to take in what the community thinks, but also what the residents think, and maybe just do a one-by-one, because I'm not sure that all of these and the other ones that Supervisor Malik suggested, that the residents may be just fine not having it. Not having it paved so.

Thank you and I also agree with the flow charts. That was wonderful. Good stuff.

Thank you.

Right board. We're going to move to the item 13. The 2026 Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission Regional Solid Waste Management Plan and Jamie is going to introduce us and we also have Isabella O'Brien from the TJPDC with us.

Good day, Board. My name is Jamie Powers. I'm Climate Action Program Manager with Albemarle County. I'll offer just a few brief comments to introduce your presentation today. On our way to getting to zero net greenhouse gas emissions in 2050, solid waste decomposition in landfill comprises about 2% of that total. so a very small amount in the grand scheme of things. However, solid waste is a gateway issue for community members to become more involved in climate action and other environmental initiatives. It's also something that we know through our community engagement feedback surveys that it's something that the community cares deeply about, as is evidenced through the legislative principles that you saw earlier today. So anything we can do to enhance, improve, our solid waste management systems offers opportunities for deeper engagement and partnership with community members in achieving all of our climate and environmental goals. So with that, I welcome Isabella O'Brien, environmental planner with the TJPDC. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Galloway.

And Isabella, there's a little button if you want to lower that podium, but you're fine too if you're good.

Okay, I think it's okay for me. It's okay for you. Thank you for having me this evening. As mentioned, I'm Isabella O'Brien, a regional planner too with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, and tonight I'll provide a brief overview of the 2026 Solid Waste Management Plan update, highlight the findings relevant to Albemarle, and review the next steps before plan adoption. The Solid Waste Planning Unit includes Admiral County, the City of Charlottesville, Fluvanna, and Greene County. The TJPDC staff coordinates the activities the state requires of our Solid Waste Planning Unit on behalf of these localities. As the planning unit, we have two primary responsibilities, the annual recycling rate reporting due to DEQ and maintaining our regional solid waste management plan. State regulations require that this plan be updated and maintained every five years with the next update due to DEQ in October of this year. The plan is guided by Virginia's waste management hierarchy, as stated in the associated planning regulations. The preferred approach is to reduce waste before it's generated, followed by reuse, recycling, and composting. And then disposal options, such as landfilling and energy recovery, are considered after those opportunities have been evaluated. So state regulations also establish the required contents of the plan. This update evaluates existing facilities and services, waste and recycling trends, future needs, public outreach efforts, and implementation strategies for the next 20 years. It also includes future population and waste projections, funding considerations, and strategies for maintaining compliance with Virginia's recycling requirements. So as mentioned, one of the plan's major components is the annual recycling rates. And Virginia requires our planning unit to maintain a minimum recycling rate of 25% based on our cumulative population. And TJPDC staff coordinates the collection and reporting of this recycling data from local governments, public facilities, and participating reporting partners around the region. It is important to note that the recycling rate is based on reporting requirements that are established by DEQ. The process does not capture all waste management activities, such as construction, demolition, and debris. And private haulers and recycling facilities are encouraged but not required by state code to report their data to us. However, local governments can obtain that information through local ordinances or permitting requirements. As a result, the recycling rate should be viewed more as a useful compliance metric and trend metric rather than a complete picture of all of the recycling and diversion occurring within a locality. The recycling rate is calculated by comparing documented recycling tonnage to documented municipal solid waste disposal, and there are credits up to 5% that DEQ provides for recycling of non-municipal solid waste, such as construction, demolition, and debris, or for source reduction and reuse programs. So based on the data that we collect for the recycling report, the region consistently does exceed the required rate. Between 2021 and 24, the regional rate ranged from 34 to 41%. And you'll notice that Charlottesville and Albemarle are reported together because much of their data comes from the Rivanna authorities serving both jurisdictions. And based on their data, information from the city's waste, contracted waste and recycling hauler, some private businesses, and UVA, the reported recycling rate ranged from approximately 41 to 49 percent during that same period. And because private facilities and haulers, their reporting is voluntary, some of the recycling activity may not be captured if haulers manage their waste at private facilities or haul it outside of our region. And as a result, understanding local performance requires looking beyond the recycling rate alone, especially in the more rural portions of our planning unit. So in this chart you can see some of those reporting challenges. Differences between jurisdictions can reflect differences in data availability and reporting practices as much as differences in recycling participation. Localities with more activity handled through private sector haulers or facilities may appear to recycle less or manage less waste overall because fewer materials are captured in the scope of this report. The Charlottesville-Almoral area reports a per capita disposal rate that's generally lower than the national average based on the latest data from EPA, which is 2018, which may point to some of these data gaps. So the planning process began in late 2024, and over the course of that process, we've held five technical advisory committee meetings with your local staff and stakeholders. The technical advisory committee was instrumental to the plan's update. Staff provided local details, developed the locally specific implementation actions, and reviewed the draft plan in advance of the public comment period. Public engagement occurred throughout the process. We shared information through TJPDC channels, locality newsletters, and collected information through a public survey and workshop. We also collected feedback from the community during a 30-day public comment period this August. And there's also the opportunity to share comments in advance of or during a public hearing held tomorrow at the TJPDC commission meeting at 7 p.m. before local adoptions later this September. As part of our public survey, we received 257 responses across the planning unit, including approximately 97 from Albemarle County residents, and across the region we saw several themes. There's a desire for greater transparency regarding what happens to collected materials, improved convenience for recycling and composting, and expanded diversion opportunities. And these themes help to shape both the regional goals and locally specific actions included in the plan. And if you're curious, you can see the detailed survey responses via the link here and also in the plan appendices. Overall, Albemarle County residents expressed strong support for expanding recycling, composting, and waste diversion opportunities while identifying access, convenience, and transparency as key priorities. Survey respondents consistently requested additional recycling and compost drop-off locations, particularly in Crozet, northern Albemarle, and areas farther from existing facilities. Residents also demonstrated strong interest in more accessible and affordable composting options. So while some private curbside compost collection services are available, many residents indicated that the cost remains a barrier to participation. As a result, residents expressed interest in expanding composting opportunities, including lower cost curbside community composting drop off options and other county supported programs. Additional feedback highlighted interest in expanding collection programs for specialty materials, improving recycling and composting access specifically at multifamily and rental and business properties, and supporting waste reduction and reuse initiatives. In line with the themes from the regional feedback, respondents frequently called for clearer and more detailed guidance on what can and cannot be recycled, especially for plastics, compostable products, batteries, electronics, and other hard to recycle materials. There was concern about contamination and wish cycling happening, and they just wanted better educational resources to improve diversion. And trust and transparency was another major theme, asking for more information about where recyclables go after collection and whether materials are actually being recycled. So the draft plan organizes the implementation efforts into three focus areas, data and information sharing, planning, and waste diversion. The regional goals addressed many of the issues identified through public engagement, and each locality submitted locally specific objectives to support each of these goals. This was part of the focus of the technical advisory committee team members, ensuring alignment with each locality's programs and resources, and Albemarle provided 14 of the 60 total locally specific actions in the plan. For Albemarle, implementation actions focus on expanding public education and outreach programs, improving waste and recycling data collection, reporting, verification, and public transparency, conducting countywide assessments of solid waste system capacity and future service needs, Increasing diversion of priority materials such as food waste, cardboard, textiles, and construction debris through targeted programs supporting circular economy initiatives and regional recycling market development. And then improving equitable access to waste and recycling services. So the key changes from the last plan compared to the 2021 update, this plan includes a more detailed analysis of the recycling and disposal trends and expanded public engagement process and locally specific implementation actions. The appendices include all of our public engagement materials, adoption resolutions once approved, a technical report that was developed by a master's student at UVA School of Public Policy that focused on rural waste diversion opportunities, as well as the detailed implementation plan. And the draft plan is currently available on our website, and following today's presentation, The TJPDC will hold the required public hearing, incorporate any final feedback, and return the plan to local boards, the City Council, and the TJPDC Commission for adoption before being submitted to DEQ in October. So here is the link to our website with all of the updated plan materials, and thank you for your time and participation throughout this process. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Supervisor Malik?

Thank you very much. I really appreciate the goals that you enumerated, particularly the education one and the guidance document. I know our SOAC committee is working hard to refine, and I know they've shared it with you for comments with your university intern. To be able to share with the university students, all 30,000 of them too, would be a really great help as far as the whole thing. I am continually frustrated by the lack of your hands being tied by the lack of reporting. So I guess my question for future research, Mr. County Attorney, is do we have the authority to require haulers to be registered, licensed, pay their business taxes in Amarillo County, and be required to report their tonnage?

Right. And as I said before, I'll need to take a look into that. Yeah. Thank you.

There are examples in Arlington and Loudoun counties of where they have hauler requirements in place to require reporting based on the size. And then there's an example in the city of Alexandria where they have permitting requirements. So oftentimes, I know Albemarle County already has a permitting process for all of their haulers, but requiring annual updates to that, that also requires data being shared. So there are examples that exist within the state of Virginia.

Well, the discrepancy of RSWA having 100 businesses crossing the scale when we have 15 or 20 who were licensed, that was a shocking statistic. So I hope we will make some progress on that. Thank you very much.

Supervisor Duncan?

No comments, really. This was really great and super interesting.

Supervisor Pruitt? This is my second bite at this presentation, so I'm going to not make any further comments.

Supervisor, and you'll get your third tomorrow night. Supervisor Mizzel. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. It was really helpful. There was a lot of information there. So a couple questions. One is, I have to find my notes, my questions. So when, sorry, forgive me, I'm on, let me just go here. Sorry, thought I had this in front of me. Okay, so public feedback, public survey, public feedback. It seemed to me that there was a lot of requests for educational opportunities, additional, not a lot of requests for specific facilities to be added. Is that fair?

Let me go back.

But there was one that actually talked about expanding recycling opportunities.

Yes, so particularly in northern Albemarle along Route 29 and in Crozet, there were some requests for additional drop-off locations just for convenience. They noted that Ivy or McIntyre was a barrier. It's not really on their commuting path.

Got it. And so did those show up in your regional implementation plan? I may not have seen them. You don't have to answer it now. I'm just... Making sure that that's all kind of captured in that piece, I think that was one thing that stood out to me.

I know there was a locality-specific item for Albemarle that was to increase accessibility of the facilities, but I don't know if it had nailed down any specific new locations.

Okay. That's good to know. And then the other, I guess, is these are great plans. This is a pretty massive project. lift, I think, what are we using to review the success metrics? To the outcomes, like how often do you check it? How often do you say this implementation plan is working or needs to be amended, etc. ?

That is something that's been updated as a part of this process. This is my first time working through the whole process, but we've added a plan maintenance section, which will encourage the technical advisory committee members to come back together on an annual basis to review. Progress. Yeah, exactly.

Okay, great. Thank you. That's it.

And I know your staff has also really highlighted the need for a better baseline of our data. So how can we know if we're making system improvements if the recycling rate data isn't really reflective of the whole picture?

Yeah.

So there's efforts there as well.

Got it. Thank you. Supervisor LaPista-Curley?

Is the actual plan to – increase recycling, to have more convenience centers throughout the county, or to have a system in the urban ring where you actually collect trash and recyclables.

So it's interesting because the plan is really guided by DEQ regulations, and their main goal as part of this planning process is to look at our population, our waste projections, to see if overall as a state we have enough landfill capacity to manage all of the waste happening here. So as that stands, we're meeting the requirements of the plan. Does that make sense?

We're meeting the requirements of the plan. That DEQ has laid out.

But your specific implementation plan is to move higher in the waste management hierarchy further towards waste reduction. Sorry, I've got to go all the way to the top. But source reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting, and moving further away from landfilling. But it's really up to... your staff, your boards, your resources as to how you implement that plan. Basically, we're meeting the requirements as it stands for plan maintenance.

Okay, so you're meeting the minimum. Are there other counties? I know the city of Charlottesville, they have, I don't know how many waste haulers. Does anyone know how many waste haulers they have? but they pick up everything so they're able. And I think they have recycling. Is that correct?

They do.

So they have a system there. What prevents us from doing something similar in the urban ring, or at least in certain neighborhoods?

I think that would be a question for your local staff to determine, but I don't think there's anything really prohibiting that.

Money.

Yeah.

Is that all? We need to stand up the Public Works Department the rest of the way to do that because we don't have it.

Well, I mean, I just, because I've been a member of this committee and everything, and that's just, I know the haulers, we're asking them information, but I understand that they don't have to give it. Okay, so there's no teeth there. We have a 25% minimum recycling rate, so that's not anything to brag about.

Yeah, that's the state's requirement. Pardon? That's the state's requirement. We didn't set that in place. Okay, so the state has a low requirement.

Yes. Okay. Okay. But we're meeting it, so that's good.

It's 15%. It's 15% in even more rural areas.

So we're actually doing better than the state's 15% requirement. Okay. And the public feedback in Albemarle was 97 responses?

Yeah, in our community survey. It was an online survey open for two months.

Right. I remember.

Yeah.

Okay. I mean, you've done a great job of summarizing everything and I appreciate that. I guess I would like to see maybe a more robust, how can we recycle more? Because that's better for the environment, the climate, everything. What can we do to actually start? doing that, and I know you say money, but I mean, there's...

I said money.

You said money.

Yeah.

SWAC has a plan. Pardon? SWAC has a plan.

We can certainly do that. That's not her job. Jeff are here. Right? She doesn't work for us. It's helpful to remember.

I realize that. Right, right. Here's the guy. But it's like, it's great to be able to have something more concrete that we're doing more, at least toward recycling. And I know composting, you know my issue on that. But I mean, you know, do little steps first. where we get people recycling and they're in a mindset of recycling, except for all the good people that go to the convenience centers and they recycle. Everyone else just throws it all in one bunch. Sorry. Go ahead, Jack.

Good afternoon. Jeffrey Dumars, Director of Facilities and Environmental Services. I'm very excited to talk about our initiative to hire Matrix, the consulting firm that completed our organizational assessment. They will be assisting us with evaluating our permitting system and the potential for enhancing services in the urban areas. We intend to come back to TO EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP AND PROVIDE THE OPTIONS, A MINUTE OF OPTIONS FOR FEE-BASED SERVICE OR ENHANCED SERVICES IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE. IT'S A PART OF OUR DEPARTMENTAL FY27 PLAN AND TO FULFILL THE STRATEGIC PLAN GOAL OF ANALYZING AN ENHANCED PUBLIC WORKS FUNCTION FOR THE COUNTY.

GOOD. GLAD TO HEAR THAT. THANK YOU. NO OTHER QUESTIONS.

ALL GOOD? I should have asked this question when we had it the first pass, and I didn't because I thought I missed it. But what are the dollars? My general take on the chart, the regional implementation plan where they've got the dollar signs on the far right, was the more dollar signs, the more expensive. But then when I actually read through it, some of the $2 signs were as low as $3,000. So what's the key for $1 sign equates to... Under $3,000?

There is a key.

Where's the key? I've been looking for the key.

I apologize. I might need to duplicate it because we have a section in the actual draft plan that describes that the implementation plan is in the appendices and has the key. But I think the actual implementation plan might not have the key. So that's not it.

But it's in the appendices? Because I was looking through there going maybe it's in there. And the only reason I ask is because it confused me with some of Albemarle's dollar signs when you just look at them. There were a couple that went from one to three, and I'm like, why has that tripled the cost? But I didn't know the reference of the cost. So if you could just...

I can send that along. I can't remember it off the top of my head. But I think one dollar sign, yeah, I can clarify it then as well. Might just be staff time and resources. And then, yeah, I'll clarify tomorrow.

And like I said, if it's embedded in the plan, I just haven't been able to find it.

And one note as well is I got some additional feedback from Albemarle County staff, and the link that was sent to you all or the draft plan that's included in your packet, I believe, is the previous version since I had to share materials a few weeks in advance. So if you go to our website linked here, there's just a few changes that were made. It's nothing substantial. Can you just send it to us? Yes, I'll send the updated link.

Perfect. Well, thank you very much.

Thank you all.

All right, board. We need to go into closed meeting. Is there a motion to take us in?

I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2-3711A of the Code of Virginia. Under subsection 1, to discuss and consider appointments to various boards and commissions, including without limitation, the 5th and Avon Community Advisory Committee, the Blue Ridge Community for Shenandoah Park Relations, the Crozet Community Advisory Committee, the Fire Prevention Code Appeals Board, the Jaunt Board, the Local Board of Building Code Appeals, the Places 29 North Community Advisory Committee, and the Places 29 RIO Community Advisory Committee, and under subsection three to discuss and consider the disposition of publicly held real property in the Rivanna Magisterial District where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the county and the board.

Second.

All right. If there's no objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. All right. Good. All right, good evening, everyone. We are coming back from our closed meeting. Do we have a motion to certify the closed meeting?

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

All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

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

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

All right, are there motions coming out of closed meeting? Yes, thank you. Two motions coming out of closed meeting. First is I move to appoint the following to boards and commissions. For 5th and Avon Community Advisory Committee, Amanda Brookman, Rafiola... Daudzai. I don't know how I did on that, Mr. Pruitt. Nathan Holland. Blue Ridge Committee for Shenandoah Park Relations. Lonnie Murray. Crozet Community Advisory Committee. Christopher Arsali. John Knight and Jay Pence. Fire Prevention Code Appeals Board slash Local Board of Building Code Appeals. John Eggleston. Doug Lowe and Dwayne Vaya. Jaunt Board. Christy Hagen and Jacob Sumner. Local Board of Building Code Appeals slash Fire Prevention Code Appeals Board, John Eggleston, Doug Lowe, and Dwayne Vaya. Places 29 North, Community Advisory Committee, Adam Yost. Places 29 Rio, Community Advisory Committee, Audrey Kocher, Brian McMillan, Judith Schlissel. And Secretary of the Fire Prevention Code Appeals Board and Local Code of Building Code Appeals, Danielle Sumners.

Second.

All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley. Aye. Ms. Malik. Yes. Mr. Missel.

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt. Aye. Ms. Duncan. Yes. Mr. Galloway.

Yes. All right. Second motion is I move a resolution. I move to adopt a resolution authorizing execution of a gift proffer letter to the United States Army for Rivanna Station.

Second.

All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto, currently? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. That motion carries. Thank you. And the next item then, we will start number 17 from the County Executive, report on matters not listed on the agenda. And I know we have an item here.

Ann, are you leading that? I will speak very briefly just to advise the board that County Attorney Andy Herrick will provide the board with some information regarding referendum communications. And with that, I'll turn it over to the County Attorney. Thank you.

Thank you. Even Mr. Chair, members of the board, Andy Herrick, I'm the county attorney, and I've been asked to speak to you this evening about referendum communications in advance of the sales tax referendum that will be on the ballot this fall. As you're aware, the board authorized and our office filed a petition with this local circuit court earlier this summer authorizing the issue of a one-cent sales tax referendum to be put on the ballot this fall. There's a Virginia Code section, section 24.2-687 that allows a number of communications to take place that are authorized by the board. I've put some of the highlights of that up there. It allows an explanation of a referendum that would include the ballot question and a statement describing the referendum. It has to be a neutral, factual explanation. It must remain unbiased, be in plain English with a maximum of 500 words. It may not advocate for or against referendum passage. It may be distributed at polling places on the day of the election, and it also may be published in a newspaper preceding the referendum. I have prepared that proposed explanation. I've distributed to your seats. There are also copies available for the public at the sign-up table. And the code also does provide that if the board authorizes it, it's the local government attorney that prepares that explanation. And so I've done so and attempted to make it, again, to fit all of the restrictions. It's under 500 words, factual. It does have the question that will appear on the ballot as well. So it attempts to provide a neutral summary of the referendum. It outlines the purpose of the tax, its limitation and duration, and it describes the allowable uses of revenue for school capital projects. That same code section also allows for other neutral explanations to be distributed by the local government. So the county is authorized to provide neutral factual referendum information outside of the official explanation that appears on the ballot, or excuse me, that appears at the polling places. So the county can provide objective information, facts, amounts, uses of proceeds and so forth, but it cannot run a vote yes campaign using public dollars. Individual members of the board in their own personal capacities may also advocate for or against a referendum, but again that has to be in your personal capacities. Virginia law does not prohibit elected officials from expressing their personal views on a ballot question. However, several important legal limits apply. Board members may not use county funds, staff time, county email accounts, county facilities, or any other public resources to promote or oppose the referendum. Any advocacy should make clear that the member is speaking in an individual capacity, not on behalf of the board or on behalf of county government. Again, as I've indicated, staff may provide neutral factual information about the referendum, but cannot assist in preparing advocacy materials or messaging. If a member engages in activity that meets the definition of express advocacy, campaign finance rules may apply, including reporting requirements for referendum committees. So in sum, personal advocacy is allowed, but official advocacy using county platforms or resources is not. So the neutral factual communications through county channels is permitted and will be managed by staff consistent with state law. So our CAPE office, led by Abby Stump, has prepared a county communications campaign, again, along the lines of neutral factual information. We plan to launch that public awareness campaign on September 4th. with these principles, that the communications will remain factual and neutral, that the information will explain what the referendum is, how it works, and when and where residents can vote. Again, the county will not encourage a yes or no vote because we're prohibited by law from doing so. The local government and schools, it's worth noting, will conduct separate but coordinated campaigns. The code section that I just cited to you, section 24.2-687, restricts local governing bodies, but the school board is not under the same restrictions, so there's a slightly different set of rules. As a result, the county's communications may differ somewhat from the schools, including the possible naming of school projects by the schools themselves, if they so choose. While the county will focus on the types of projects that the tax might fund, The schools might name specific projects. Again, we don't control that, and they are not limited by the code section that I cited. And again, this difference is rooted in the differing legal regulations for the two entities. So with that, those are my prepared remarks, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Ms. Snump from our CAPE office is here and might also be able to answer questions regarding the communications effort.

Thank you, Andy. And I would encourage the board to ask as many questions as you need to on this one so that we understand the letter and and not just the spirit of the law, but the actual letter of the law. So, Supervisor Malik, you're up first.

I think I understand the spirit and the intent, and will tread very carefully. Thank you.

Supervisor Duncan?

Yeah, I would be really interested in hearing more about what the plans are for the community engagement and education and that kind of stuff.

I defer to Ms. Stump to address that.

He's so much taller than me. Abby Stumpf, Director of Communications and Public Engagement. We're really focusing on a broad education-based campaign. It'll include a web platform, our web page, and that's really going to be the source of all of this information so people can find it, particularly all those Google searches. We have the right language that'll pop up to answer questions that people are looking for. It'll have a, to launch, it'll have an initial one-pager fact sheet that people can download and then share as they needed. We'll also be working on a mailer out to all residences in the county that will drive traffic back to that website. And then there's a whole bunch of, gosh, whole bunch, probably about 10 to 12 FAQs that we know that people are going to be asking, and we're just going to keep adding to that as we hear more and more.

Have you, so I know that the city has already started running ads on the radio. That's sort of an educational thing. Have we thought about doing any sort of like...

Video ads, social media ads, radio ads, anything like that? So we have social media in our plan right now. We're going to start with organic social media at first because I know that a lot of the sharing for the first couple weeks is going to hit everything. And people are going to be just using that as their platform for moving. But we're going to be looking weekly to figure out are we getting the information out all the places that we need to. So, yeah, radio ads and newspaper ads and some other places are going to be on our list that we can easily tap into if we need to.

That's all I have. Yeah.

Supervisor Pruitt? I actually have nothing to add on this. Or ask. Supervisor Missel? Thank you. No questions. Supervisor LaPista-Curtin?

No questions. Thank you.

All right. I've got some questions. I open up my inbox, a constituent emails me and says, Supervisor Galloway, do you support the referendum? I'm not allowed to answer that question if I want to answer yes or no. Is that correct or not correct?

You have the ability to answer that question, but you cannot use county resources to advocate. So it might be, if you wanted to perfectly comply with the letter of law, it might be best to respond to that with your personal email rather than a county-based email.

But if I respond to that email and say yes or no, then I'm not, I could be in violation?

Technically, because you'd be using county resources. And again, it would be very important for you to clarify, I'm speaking on my own. The more important thing is that you clarify that you're speaking on your own behalf, not on behalf of the board of the county.

All right, I'm asked to come speak to some constituent group in the county. We'd like to have you here to help answer questions, etc., etc., and they're trying to figure out where they're at on this. In that situation, I know I'm free to speak as I want, but I have to just state that I'm here as the citizen, not the chair of the board.

Yes, sir, and that you're speaking of your own personal opinion, and again, not on behalf of the board or the county.

I think that sums up exactly what we have to be mindful of and careful of. Yes.

Just wanted to know, we usually have two phones, so if we get a call on our work phone, then we can't answer it.

Best to return it on not using county resources, county email, county phones. Best to return any sort of inquiries on your own personal devices. Thank you. Got it.

Sally? Just, I guess, just clarifying, again, to be very clear. So we can, like, go on social media and say, this is my opinion on this.

Yes, ma'am. I would advise you, though, to, again, just disclaimer.

This is my personal opinion as a voter and parent.

Exactly. Yes, ma'am.

In the great wisdom of the Code of Virginia, we've done nothing but advocate for this up until this point. And we voted to put it on the ballot. And as soon as we did that, now it changes the game while we lead up to the vote. We have no dog in the hunt. It's wild.

The board has put it before the voters to make that decision. I'm just saying, though, for three years. If I could clarify, the board has advocated to allow Virginia localities to have that option. And now we have that option, and it's before the voters at this point.

And I don't suspect that there's anything wrong with if an email is received on the county email that I can reply, email me here, or just you said go ahead and just reply. Yes, sir. Use the email address and apply from the personal. Yes, sir. Great. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other questions?

Actually, I do have one technical one that just came up. So if someone emails a question to our county email, should that be kept? Yes. Okay. Even though we don't ever answer it or anything else.

Okay. And again, and let me clarify, you can answer from your accounting email as well as long as it's neutral, factual, and so forth. Sure. The moment that you express an opinion, it would have to be from your personal account. Got it.

Okay. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you.

Okay, we will move to item number 18, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled public hearings. And we do have some folks signed up, so Vice Chair Missal will read the rules and introduce our speakers.

Happy to. We have no one online, so I'll read the in-person only. 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 the items scheduled for public hearings. 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, your 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 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. 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. And we'll begin with Mr. Tom Olivier.

Good evening. I'm Tom Olivier from the Samuel Miller District. I'm here to speak regarding rural areas' values and planning. In the early 1990s, a former county supervisor told me that during the development of the county's first zoning ordinance, a large-scale map of the county was hung in a public area on a planning department wall. On the map, areas we today would call rural areas were labeled as raw land. Raw is a semantically pregnant adjective, one that suggests that open spaces are there to be transformed by humans into something else. Fortunately, by 1989, our comprehensive plan recognized the need to preserve open spaces, with forestry and agriculture as priority uses. In 1999, the Natural Resources and Cultural Assets chapter added natural and historic resources to the list of protected R.A. values. A few years later, the first rural areas chapter presented a vision for enduring rural areas, a vision of integrated ag forestal industries, natural systems, and historic resources. I recently sent you all a copy of that vision statement. In contrast, early in the last comprehensive plan, planning staff proposed a new structure for the plan without a rural areas chapter. Our open spaces, it seemed, were deemed undeserving of much attention. What impoverished conception of our rural areas lay behind that decision? Were rural areas again being seen as raw land? Pressure from members of the public who understood open space values led to including a rural areas chapter and a commitment to develop a standalone rural areas plan. Such a plan would help identify policies that foster coexistence of often competing open space land uses. It could help identify adaptive paths for ag forestal industries in changing ecological and economic circumstances. Alas, the county currently lacks rural areas planners to help develop a standalone plan. If the Community Development Department doesn't request a new rural areas planning position in the next county budget, I urge that you, the boss, require that it be added and funded. Thanks for your consideration.

Thank you. Thank you. And Tim Kendrick.

Good evening. My name is Tim Kendrick, and I live in the Whitehall District. I'm speaking today on behalf of Albemarle County Farm Bureau. In front of you, there's a small booklet, Welcome to the Country. This is a booklet about central Virginia and living in the country and rural areas within our county. It's a light reading, but in lieu of the fact that in the near future we'll be making decisions here with this board about the future of agricultural in our county, I would ask that you take the time and read this short book. You'll recognize names in there from farmers past and present, like Corky Shackelford, Rob Harrison, and Carl Tender. It's a short read, 70 pages, but I think you'll find it informative and a delight to read. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tim.

That concludes our list. All right. Thank you for our speakers this evening. All right. We will move to item number 19, ZMA 2025-7, Wendy Knoll. We have Rebecca and Michael at the dais with us. Good evening.

Good evening. Thank you. Rebecca Ragsdale, Planning Manager with the Community Development Division. And I'll be taking us through this presentation and going over the specifics of the proposal. This is a public hearing and we did get a few questions and want to make sure we clarified that it has been properly advertised. and that includes all the requirements of the Code of Virginia and sufficient notice, including posted notice under the county-specific requirements in our ordinance. This rezoning involves about three acres of land comprised of three parcels, currently zoned R1 residential, and the proposal is to rezone to R6, for up to a total of 18 units at a gross density of six dwelling units per acre. Public hearings have been held at the Planning Commission in February and then most recently in May when they made their recommendation and the application has advanced to you this evening. So I will go through a couple slides to go over the existing conditions and orient everyone to the parcel, just getting situated over here with my screen, it is located along Rockfish Gap Turnpike 250, and it is between the Corrie Farm and Liberty Hall neighborhoods, and it has a couple different access points that we will go over, but it is a C-shaped assemblage of those three parcels. Looking at a little more closely with the aerial view, the parcel will be outlined on each of these slides, or most of them in the blue. It is a C-shaped parcel, as I mentioned, to the east of Quarry Farm, and to the west is Liberty Hall. It's near the Cloverlawn and center area of Blue Ridge Shopping Center. Yellow arrows are indicating a couple access points that already exist to these parcels off of Cory Farm, which will of course be future Eastern Avenue. Those access points are important as we go through this presentation because it is, again, an assemblage of parcels that will be accessed from a couple different spots, which is Windy Knoll Lane that extends off Little Fox Lane in the existing Cory Farm neighborhood. to the northernmost portion of the existing Quarry Farm Road, an access point from there, and then from Colony Drive within Liberty Hall. We mentioned that it is located adjacent to future Eastern Avenue that is underway in terms of moving forward with the design, build process, and funding this fall, hopefully starting that in 2027 through 2020. 29. Again, with the existing conditions information, switching gears to this map, you'll see the C-shaped parcel in the light green color in the middle is zoned R1 residential currently, as we mentioned. The white is just acknowledging the existing 120-foot right-of-way for future Eastern Avenue. Corey Farm is zoned R4. And then Liberty Hall is neighborhood model. with about a gross density of six dwelling units per acre. This is a snippet or inset map from the Crozet master plan. The parcel is designated neighborhood density residential. That density range is up to six dwelling units per acre and is the same designation as Liberty Hall. and Quarry Farm, as we mentioned. Again, the center is located within close proximity and walking distance from the site. Going over the specifics of the proposal, this is what we refer to as a concept plan that is offered by the developer to make commitments to certain features. We often use the term major elements. Anything you don't see called out on the plan specifically as a unique element of this proposal will be covered by the ordinance, which is the R6 regulations. That R6 allows unit types such as single-family detached and multifamily, and the maximum building height is 35 feet, for example. This particular plan, as I mentioned, has a couple different areas, assemblage of three areas, but it has what we refer to, and the applicant has labeled the south building zone, which is accessed by Windy Knoll Lane from Colony Drive, and then the northern portion, the north building zone, which would be accessed with a new private street from existing Quarry Farm Road. The total number of units that's proposed is 18, and that maximum is included in the materials from the applicant. They have included a limit on the number of units within each of these building zones, which would be up to 11. So, for example, if they did fewer in one, they can't do as many in the other. But the maximum overall is 18. This plan also, given... that it has multiple access points and also some constraints that will result in it not completing any new public road segments. It is bound on a couple access points from existing public roads, so these connections into the site again, will be private. There is the commitment to a paved path that would provide accessibility from the northern part of the site down through it over to the existing sidewalk system either in Liberty Hall or down to future Eastern Avenue or the existing paved path down near Little Fox that extends along the 250 frontage. This development with the townhouse proposal and the limited number of the limit to the number of units in each building zone might end up being similar to the row of townhouses that is grayed out and similar to some of that development that you see in Liberty Hall currently. What is, in addition to the regulations of the R6 district, there is no requirement for buffers or screening between residential uses. And based on public input and concern about adjacent neighborhoods, there is what you will see as a 10-foot buffer zone included. along property lines that are adjacent to existing residential in Liberty Hall, the residence at 330, which is not part of this proposal, and then the existing residence in Corey Farm. The rear setback for R6 is 20 feet, and the applicant has proposed an additional 5 feet for that rear setback to allow for some additional space between the new development and this development. what we refer to as an illustrative plan, which means it's an example of how the site could develop under the R6 zoning regulations that would regulate it and the features of the plan that they have made commitments to. So this is just showing you how there may be fewer units in the southern section than the northern section. It's hard to see on this screen, but the applicant has demonstrated how they will manage stormwater on the site, which would be completely contained on this site and not relying on any... conveyance over or drainage to the Liberty Hall neighborhood but would drain through the site to the stormwater facility that they have planned. Engineering staff has reviewed this and been out to the site several times based on some concerns about stormwater from the Liberty Hall residents. They didn't object to the proposal or see any hurdles with meeting the DEQ regulations or local regulations with regard to managing stormwater on-site and not having any impacts off-site. I'll mention the proffers and what commitments have been made with the plan and those features I think I've gone over in the plan. I may not have mentioned a few of the other elements include an additional drainage and slope easement that would be necessary to accommodate Eastern Avenue. We mentioned the public paths and connectivity through there. And then based on the number of units, the applicant has committed to proffers that are consistent with, fully consistent with housing admiral, including the percentage of units, terms of affordability, and the income limits. So if they build out to the maximum 18, for example, that would be up to four affordable units. We mentioned the review at the Planning Commission. Ultimately, the last action by the Commission was a recommendation for denial. We did receive a resubmittal from the applicant, and this proposal includes some additional changes. that were meant to address those concerns we heard from the Commission and the public related to stormwater, defining the boundaries and condition between this development and the adjacent. So I will pause there for any questions.

Thank you, Rebecca. Supervisor Malik?

Thank you. I will start at the bottom, most recent. So what are the changes that were proposed since the May Planning Commission? Because I didn't see that in my homework. If I missed it, I'm sorry. I knew the path was new, but I didn't know there was anything else that was substantial.

So they... made sure that that 10-foot planted buffer zone around the perimeter adjacent to existing residential was included in additional areas that it wasn't at the commission. The 25-foot rear setback was an increase from 20, which is the ordinance minimum, to 25 between the board I mean, excuse me, the Planning Commission and the Board, and then they also, there was an updated narrative proffer and concept plan to address stormwater, an additional response to stormwater and some of the other concerns that were raised in the narrative. So that was what was provided in between the Planning Commission and Board.

And so in the... buffer zone around 330, for example, that 10-foot green angle that you showed on one of the slides, what is the tree protection in that zone? Because having stood right there, there are multiple trees, two feet and three feet in diameter, right along that buffer route.

So the proffer, that may not include, the buffer would be landscaped, but it doesn't necessarily make a commitment to preserving the existing trees in that area. Given a site like this and the grading and everything that would be necessary to develop it, the developer has not made a commitment to preserving specific trees.

Okay, and I'm going to work our way back up the chain. Let's see. You had mentioned amenities, and I did get some questions today, so let me just open that up. Come on. Where are you? Well, shoot. I'm sorry. One second. Had it, but it died. So where are the closest recreation places for this? One of the questions from one of the people who lives far away in Crozet, but not anywhere near. Nearest playground, basketball court, baseball field, soccer field. How will kids get there without parents driving them? We're talking about amenities, so I'm just wondering if any of those questions are included in the amenities you mentioned.

So the starting point in the ordinance, there actually aren't recreational requirements for units of less than 30. This is a proposal for 18, but the proffers have made a commitment to provide amenities, the minimum amenities that would be required under our ordinance in Section 416. So they've volunteered They proffered to comply with 416, which would include the tot lot as the amenities for this site. It's not one based on the number of units and the schedule in our ordinance that would require those other amenities, but it will be with Eastern Avenue, hopefully more accessible to Crozet Park within the development area.

So this green rectangle on the slide you have up now is where these features would be, even though it's a very slopey section right now. I have to cut that out. I guess cut and fill.

Yes, the green area on the illustrative is where they believe they have enough area to provide amenities that are cited in the ordinance, but you're seeing now how developers are getting creative with things that work with the area that they have and the characteristics of the location where they would go.

All right, I'm working my way back up. The easement for Eastern Avenue, which you mentioned in the proffers, there seems to be a difference between what is shown on the applicant's map and what the county's map is showing. And so what's going to be when the county needs this map to go forward with the Eastern Avenue procurement? Who's going to be – is the extra area going to be then provided, or is the county going to be stuck with buying an extra 1,000 square feet or whatever to accomplish the construction of Eastern Avenue? Because there seems to be a pretty significant mismatch between this little slash triangle here and the bigger – it's about twice as big, actually, on the county map. So that may be something you're not prepared to answer right now, but it is certainly a discrepancy going forward that could mean lots and lots of money to county taxpayers.

Well, we do have Kevin McDermott. If you would like to call him up to answer any specific questions related to Eastern Avenue, we have to answer the question about the specific proffer. It's the 4,570 square foot area that had been identified up to this point for additional easements. We Kevin may have more details. I can handle that. Or Michael.

Yeah, Michael Barnes, Director of Planning. So currently, Ms. Ballack, we have conceptual plans for the widening of the installation of the road and extension of the Eastern Avenue connector. There have been some concepts that we've looked at lately about maybe reworking some of the sidewalk and shared use paths in this area. I don't believe at this point that any of the right-of-way discussions we've been talking about would be outside of the area shown on this particular plan. I'm not quite sure the exhibit that you're looking at

I guess it was part of the materials that were put together for the public meeting in Crozet a couple of weeks ago that showed official documents or somebody's official-looking documents that showed a big arch for the construction easement particularly as part of it as opposed to. And then it's encroaching. Having been there and seen how deep that bowl is, it begins on the white parcel going north and all those topo lines that are there. It's very steep. And the stormwater pond that they're looking at there in the low spot is... sort of at the bottom of a slope that's going to have to be dealt with for the construction easement for the roadway. So it looks – I'm not an engineer, but it looks too small for me, considering the constraints which are there. So I just want to know who's going to get stuck with making those changes. And I don't think changes should be happening to the public project when we have an application which is open for deliberation and would be easy enough for them to make sure that there is sufficient land provided for whatever the county needs. for this long-awaited roadway improvement. Let's see. So basically, in the buffer question, what will happen to the vegetation, it will basically all be cut down. Little shrubs will be put in the place is the answer, I guess, that I took away from that. No tree preservation is required.

So the proffers specify the replanting standards for the buffer areas that were proffered, and that was – excuse me. Trying to refer to my screen here. There was a mix of ornamental and medium shade trees at intervals of 30 feet on center. Existing healthy trees within the buffer zone are preserved. Maybe if existing trees can be preserved, they will be counted towards the buffer. So they aim to try and preserve the existing trees, but it would be a mix of the ornamental and the shade.

In your presentation, you described the multiple access points, and then the outcome might be similar to the Liberty Hall townhouses over to the east for this upper northern building zone, but might be is not giving me enough information to know whether I can approve a particular application. because there's no guarantee of what the proposal is going to be. And I'm old enough to know that things have changed between approval and final site plan. So I just want to know what is really being proposed that I think the board needs to know and the neighbors and the community certainly need to know what to expect. up there.

So the applicant will probably go into greater detail, but when you look at this row of townhouses, this represents the maximum 11 that could be achieved in a building envelope. So the limit is 11 and in one envelope and then 18 total. So, this row here on the illustrative is roughly the same size as the Liberty Hall one over here and that's why I just, it's one, you know, real world example that's nearby. And so footprints would need to be smaller in the other portion, or they may be redistributed, but this is an example, given the area that they have to work with, of the maximum they could achieve, I believe, based on what we've looked at on this plan in one of those building zones, given the configuration of the parcel and the limit of 11 in each one.

And the constraints of the configuration of the parcel are given, and certainly something that was known before the purchase and the process even began. But these lots, the six townhouses, are basically half the size of the units across the 25-foot buffer, which is there toward the east. And the lots over there are very, very close. And I guess the townhouses on the east, the northern zone will have to be dug in The slope is pretty steep, like 15 or so feet from top to bottom going north over there. It's really hard to imagine how that's going to work because we were given no information about that. Let's see, going up to the top. All right, I guess that's all the questions I have for right now. Thank you very much.

Supervisor Duncan?

Going into sort of the land use for it, could you just refresh my memory on how long the Crozet master plan has been there and how many times it's been revised?

Well, Crozet has its third master plan that we're on right now. The 5, 10, 15, and 21. 2005 was the first one. There's a four, well, three to four times. But the designation of neighborhood density in this general area hasn't changed substantially in any of the master plans.

And every time it gets revised, the public has a chance to weigh in and sort of debate what they want the master plan to be?

There's extensive public engagement with each of those master plans.

Thank you. And then in the packet, you talk about that this area is designated an activity center. Can you just sort of refresh what that means?

Activity centers are noted where we have certain goals for them in terms of the most dense at the center of the activity center and then supporting those in terms of walkability and density around them as it radiates out from the center, sort of roughly. Mr. Barnes may have things to add, but it's... where there is a certain amount of facilities already that can even serve more infill.

And the intent then is you have activities in places to be, and then the intent is to have housing close by so that people can access them. Yes, mixed use.

Definitely mixed use in the center.

And then I guess my last question is, so you believe that this meets DEQ requirements for stormwater and soil and sediment erosion control and all of that?

You know, we, with rezonings, are looking at feasibility. So we wouldn't be able to say it meets it until it goes through the full extensive engineering site plan review process. But we didn't see any hurdles to them being able to comply. All right. That's all I have. Thank you.

Supervisor Pruitt. This is going to be a really weird question to begin with. Do you know what this is? This was just put on our desk.

I don't know who it came from as a party.

Got it. Thank you. I was just legitimately confused and figured, you know what, we're asking questions. Because it looks like it's part of the packet, but the massing is different. And so I was a little thrown. In fact, I was so thrown, I forgot what my next question was. Oh, yes. Can you talk us through, because I know there were rounds of changes. We talked about the change that was made after the Planning Commission voted either 5-1 or 6-1 to deny. but then there was also a vote for deferral. What were the differences between the vote for deferral and the next appearance before the Planning Commission that there was actually a decision on?

I think one of the bigger items was the distribution of units between the two building zones. The second time it went to the Commission was where there was the commitment to establish the maximum within each zone of 11. Prior to that... there were potentially fewer units in the southern building zone.

So the part of the response from the planning commission initially that they returned for was to actually increase the density on the southern portion?

Well, Yes, and the commission specifically said, I think, balance the site, but I think distributing the density perhaps would have addressed their concerns about if there's fewer in each one, perhaps compatibility, although with the surrounding neighborhoods, but they didn't say that specifically.

Understood. And was it... After the first iteration before the Planning Commission or the second, that the stormwater reachback was added, this section of piping to the northern section?

Stormwater has been a topic from the first visit to the Planning Commission, the second visit, and this visit. So I can't remember exactly what was provided when. I think each time the applicant has addressed their strategies and provided even a response to what they've heard at each of those meetings each time.

Understood. Got it. The stormwater piping is something that I simultaneously understand what it's trying to accomplish and the specific concern it's trying to speak to. But this is just to kind of seed the conversation that will later happen. I see what it's trying to accomplish, right? We know that in the northern part of this parcel there are drainage issues, and it's trying to make it so that there is clarity that the water on the upper part of the parcel will actually get to the stormwater retention pump. I get it. But I'm also looking at it, and I'm seeing this is creating a piece of infrastructure that will need replace and repair, which is currently the exact debacle that the neighbors are grappling with. point of frustration with me, that yes, it's resolving, potentially, part of the problem of stormwater pooling on the northern parcel, but it's introducing another problem, which is creating a piece of infrastructure that will be on future residents to repair or replace 20 to 30 years from now. Retrenching is expensive. It sucks. No one wants to do it, and it's never covered by your insurance. I assume it's not covered by HOA insurance, Insofar as such a thing exists, I don't know. I'm not an HOA lawyer. I want to make sure I got this correctly. There's the amenity area proffered. The amenity area is not bound to a specific place, but it's notionally drawn on our map. And it sounds like, if I heard correctly, the amenity proffer is not required based on the number of units. Is that accurate?

Yes.

I recognize we're not in a position to do anything about this. I find this frustrating. Because it is something that is being given to us as the county, as the public, as the representatives of the public, as something that is protecting their interests. But it's potentially creating a problem, which is removing a level of flexibility from the plan to try and make it better in other ways. Because at some point, they have to accommodate a certain size footprint. I don't know. I guess I'm bringing this up because this seems like something that we as a county need to potentially be better about communicating and messaging what we think and want on amenity areas, right? Because, like, look at that thing. Ain't nobody going to use that for anything, right? It's not a meaningful amenity area. And I think we can all, like, in our secret heart of hearts, acknowledge that most of these tot lots aren't being used for a lot of things when they're below a certain size. And I feel that when I look at the... Notional amenity area here what it does do is it makes so that you have to negotiate massing around that Right it makes it so that oh if some part of this plan changes and allows massing to change and shift you've still got to preserve and retain that piece. And so basically they've proffered something that makes it harder for the development to be good as it goes forward through the next stages of approval if it's approved here tonight. And that's more just me ranting for a little bit here. And this is also interesting because I'm realizing the amenity area I've been ranting about is not on the screen at all. It's on one of the other things. Unless I'm tripping, right? It's supposed to be like right there. There it is. There it is. I think that's all I have at this stage. I might have more for the applicants. Unless, I'm sorry, Mr. Barnes.

I just wouldn't mind, back to the stormwater thing. Yeah, please. I think the points really are. Is water going to be transversal on the other property? I think that's one of the concerns. And we don't think that it will. We think the engineering department has looked and the applicant will be able to keep the water on their site. The conveyance system that you're seeing there is sort of like to further illustrate how that would be put on to retain on their property. That will be something that is required by both state and local regulations. To your point about the expense that's taken, that's going to be with all of the amenities that we're looking to, through the ordinance, whether it's this parcel or any other development that we review.