Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

and board of supervisors meeting. Uh it is wonderful to see everybody uh come and join us this evening. We hope you find the meeting productive uh and informative. I'd like to welcome formally our planning commissioners. Um and Sherry, I will yield the floor to you to call your group into into order um for the meeting. I'll have to make up a gavvel.

Good evening. I would like to call the May 13, 2026 Planning Commission joint work session to order, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. Okay. Um, again, planning commissioners, it's an honor to sit with you this evening. We don't do this near enough and uh nearly enough, I should say. Um but we welcome you um wholeheartedly and know that you all have been working very very hard for quite a long time and um we thank you for that. First off um this exercise with the rewrite um we understand and we we observe that you all have done a tremendous amount of work uh and it does not go unnoticed um and we thank you for that. I'd like to begin this evening uh with introducing the Berkeley group. Um if you ladies would stand Rebecca Cobb and then we've got Cecilele Gaines. Um so they're with us here from Berkeley and uh we welcome you all and glad to have you with us this evening. Okay. Um let's kind of go let's just for the purpose of our audiences here um let's go around the table and introduce ourselves and Mr. Jefferson, may we start with you, sir?

Yes, I'm Ron Ron Jefferson in the Gills Creek District. Thank you. Angie McKe District. David Clemens, Rocky Mount District. Victor Evans, Union Hall district. David Pendleton, Blackwater District. Sherry Mitchell, Snow Creek District. Lisa Cooper, director of planning. Good evening. Steve Sandy, county administrator. Mike Carter, Rocky Mount District. And I don't know why they've set the two mics together. This is going to be bad. It's never good. Mike Meredith, Bone District. Lorie Smith, Hills Creek District. Go ahead. Go ahead. Samantha Connor, clerk to the board.

I'm Nick Mitchell from Snow Creek District. I'm Tim Tatum, Blue Ridge District. Marshall Jamson, Blackwater District. Dan Quinn, Union Hall District.

Okay, very good. So, um I welcome everyone again and uh the first on our agenda this evening uh we will hear a PowerPoint on uh presentation that Berkeley Group will walk us through. I would ask both boards if we could refrain from doing questions during the presentation. We are certainly going to have more than adequate time for that at the conclusion um of their presentation. Um, I would like and hope that we could do a a hard stop somewhere around 700 p.m. uh just in honor of your schedules and if you uh need to go an an extra longer period of time or desire that um please speak up. We are happy to accommodate that uh we're just trying to aim at a time um with respect to your your time, your personal time. So at this point, Mr. Sandy, did you have any opening remarks that you would like to make?

No, ma'am. I think we would u just ask Rebecca to come forward and um to to do the presentation and as you said I think they're going to present um some ideas for consideration based on uh the feedback that has been received from the citizens um and then we'll walk through some of those some of those ideas from the sheet I was showing you earlier and then I think as we open up discussion we'll have opportunity to really dig into some of those items more specifically. Thank you. Welcome. The four is all yours, madam.

All right. Thank you. All right. Let's see. So, thank you. All right. It is strong. Um, thank you for having me again. I am Rebecca Cobb for those that I haven't met and I am the deputy director of planning and community development with Berkeley Group. So, tonight we are going to do just a brief project update, kind of looking at reminding ourselves how we got here, why we're here, um look through the schedule of of what has happened so far, and then we're going to dive into looking at the public comments that have been received on the first draft of the zoning ordinance. And then we're going to walk through some of those comments. We've collected them together. You'll see when we get into it that they um are in themes. There are certain things that were were pulled out by multiple people. And so we have collected those and provided you all with um some options to consider for amending this draft and and getting us to the second draft. And so, as stated, I'll go through those sort of briefly. Cecil and I both will be going through those briefly. Um, but our hope is to revisit and really dive into that. Um, to hear your input on, yes, we like this option. Let's make that edit or I like it, but let's tweak it here or hey, I've got a thought. And so, this is really where we're hoping to push up our sleeves and work to getting to that second draft of the zoning ordinance. And then at the end of it, we can talk through next steps for the project. And I think we want to see, you know, how far we get tonight before we really talk about, okay, what happens next.

So, in terms of project goals, just a reminder here, um, that the beginning of this project back in 2024, um, these six things were identified as project goals. So, this project was taken on because the current uh zoning ordinance from the 80s does not comply with a lot of the code of Virginia requirements. So, certainly needing to update that. Then also there was identification to preserve agricultural land and uses and so that's one of the goals of this project and then modernize. So addressing modern issues and uses. So you know when something was drafted in 88, a lot has changed since then. And so we want to make sure we are addressing and working with those changes or um addressing those types of changes. That also includes you know currently the ordinance provides you know long list of of uses and special uses. And so creating that uh use matrix is one way that it's been modernized. And then streamline. So streamlining content. Um that matrix is is one of those things. Other tables as well. Making sure that the processes are very clear that everything is very user friendly. Um and and people aren't having to come and ask Lisa constantly, what does this mean? Um and they're scratching their heads together trying to to figure it out. So then align the ordinance standards to the comprehensive plan strategies and goals. So you recently adopted a comprehensive plan and the ordinance should work to achieve that vision that was written within that comprehensive plan and then expanding housing opportunities. So that's something that

came from the comprehensive plan as well as um we heard it in early engagement as well. And so just making sure that the ordinance provides those housing opportunities. So project scope, just a reminder here that the project scoped is truly about the zoning ordinance. There are not any map changes associated with this project. And that means both um you know Franklin County is is unique in a lot of ways, but one of those is that you have a portion of your county that is zoned and must comply with the zoning ordinance. And there's a portion of the county that is unzoned and does not need to comply with the zoning ordinance. And that is not changing through this project. That boundary line will remain the same. If you are currently unzoned, you will remain unzoned and the ordinance does not apply to your property. If you are zoned, we're not changing what you are currently zoned. So, whatever your district is um currently, uh zoning district, I should say currently, then that is what you will be at the end of this project. So project schedule. Um these are all of the the various steps that we have walked through to get to this point. You'll see in the graphic that we started back in August of 2024. And then shortly after that kickoff, we held a public engagement. And so that public engagement included a public survey that was communitywide. There were focus groups and also uh a couple of public workshops where we were just collecting information about what were the challenges within the ordinance that people were seeing, what were the

things that they wanted to change within the ordinance. And then after that, we came in January 2025 with a joint work session with planning commission and to present that information. And so we presented what we heard from the public. We asked you all some questions. Really just sort of getting that initial direction um so that we could begin drafting. And then drafting began in March of 2025. And you can see that we held drafting work sessions with the planning commission every other month from March through November 2025. Um and so that was five drafting work sessions where we would do an initial draft of material, present that to the planning commission in chunks, pieces. They would, you know, sit for for hours like we're about to do tonight to work through that material, provide feedback. We would edit that um those articles and then move to the next section. So, I do want to provide my own appreciation to the planning commission as well because it is a lot of work um going through that process and you you guys definitely worked very hard. So, thank you for that. And then through this, we've also been providing a couple of updates to the board of supervisors because they weren't at those work sessions. So, just providing those materials, highlights of what we were talking about um at a couple of intervals during this process. Then in February of this year, we held some board office hours. Just an opportunity to say, "Okay, here's the first draft of the ordinance. What are your questions? What are things that you are concerned about?" Um, and so we had those office hour conversations with them. And then another work session with the

planning commission where we said, "Okay, we've been looking at this in pieces, but now here's the whole thing together." and just uh spent a little time fine-tuning um through some of that. And I'll say, you know, not only did did planning commission meet with us, but they also had some of their own work sessions through this process with staff um to to draft this document. Then in March of 2026, we put out the first draft of the ordinance and held a public open house and had a survey open for the public um to provide comments after uh reading the draft. And I understand, you know, too that since that time, many board members have held town halls and some other meetings and that sort of thing to collect public feedback. And that leads us to where we are now, the May 2026 joint work session, where we are going to be discussing what we've heard from the public and looking at how should we amend and and make changes to the draft ordinance. And then you can see after this, it's slated for a June July public hearing. But what I would say is that that is not carved in stone. That is something that is very flexible and can be moved. And so, you know, I mentioned earlier that we will talk at the end of this about next steps. And so, that could include additional just time for review. It could include additional work sessions like this. Um, lots lots of options there um before we actually get to the adoption time frame. And so now I'll hand it over to Cecilele who's going to review the engagement that we've done and what we've heard.

All right. Good evening everybody. I assume you can hear me. Bear with me a second here. I'm going to be using two different screens. So, um there is a public engagement summary in your packets. That is attachment A and that includes all the public feedback that we've received um in March and April of this year. It is summarized in the front of the document and the attachments include every submitt verbatim. The only thing we did was black out curse words and direct um unpleasant things people said about a certain person. So um everything that you said is in that engagement summary. We have not taken anything out um for this round. Um the the draft ordinance was posted on the county's website. There was a link there for a survey so that everybody could make comments on the draft ordinance. We also had a community survey. We had over 400 people take the survey and there was a a public openhouse as Rebecca mentioned and uh Miss Smith held a public forum during that openhouse. So we have received a whole lot of public comment and we appreciate that. Also included in the summary is the engagement summary from August of 24. Um so that one um contains all the public input gathered at the beginning of the project, the public workshops, the focus groups, and the community

survey. So later in the presentation, we're going to discuss considerations and options for you all to consider in response to those comments. But I'm not going to go through that engagement summary because it's long and we need to move along. But I will point out the uh main themes from the engagement back in 2024. As you can see, agriculture was a big theme district. Uh lots and setbacks were a big um theme and land use and housing. So for agriculture um everyone w really was in agreement that you want to preserve land and farming operations. You want to allow agricultural uses in some of the residential areas and that A1 should no longer be allowed to be chopped up for uh residential subdivisions. Um and there were a lot of uses allowed in A1 that people wanted to eliminate. Uh uh a lot of people wanted to update and make standards relevant for the districts. They want roads built to VOTE standards and smaller lot sizes allowed for housing. And then they want more housing options and affordability and making um housing types and mixed use permitted by right, making uh short-term rentals by right with uniform standards that everybody has to follow the same standards and in general having fewer special use permits. So then um this spring again we have agriculture as as the number one issue uh project process and then other zoning items. So these are really similar

themes over the 2-year time period again preserving farming and rural lifestyle. Um there were a lot of comments wanting no regulations for farm animals, chickens, bees and etc. Um there were comments about the minimum lot size and road frontage being too big. Um there was a lot of confusion about A2 as a district versus a residential as a use. Um and then there was a whole section of comments um that you'll see in your attachment where people just want us to stop work on the zoning ordinance and and just not do it. There were a lot of people concerned about the process and then uh there were a whole lot of different comments about different zoning items like data centers, largecale solar or wind energy, lack of enforcement of the current code, uh definitions, mixed use, short-term rentals, campers, etc. I'm going to turn it back over to Rebecca. So, you received in your packet um I believe it was the the second item in your packet a amendment considerations sheet that we created and and I'll just kind of walk through what that sheet looks like for the for the audience um and for for everyone that has it as well. So the first left hand column on that sheet is openhouse comment summary. So, as I I mentioned and as Cecilele went through, you know, things were um in certain categories, certain topics. And

so, we've collected those together and tried to succinctly summarize, you know, do the best we can because you don't want something that's, you know, 50 pages to to get through. But so, summarizing what the main idea and concern was. So, for example, this one, your first row there at the top of that sheet is agricultural district A1 lot size and there was concerns about the 10 acres being too large and just a preference to have that be something like 3 acres, 1 acre, that sort of thing. And so, we've provided that summary there on that left hand side. Then, as you move across that row, the next column is section numbers. And so this is the proposed ordinance section number so that you can look at the draft that you have and go to this section number and see exactly where you know people were looking at and had a concern. And then the next column over is a Berkeley group response. This is just to provide a little bit of background information. So, if it was something that we heard from from staff or planning commission or there's another study or document or there's, you know, best practice recommendations, those types of things are in this response just to give a little bit of of background on why it was drafted the way that it was. And then the two columns to the right of that provide you with options for consideration. And so, you know, it's obvious that of course there's more than two options when you're thinking about a particular change for the ordinance. Um, but just again to be succinct and and to try to provide what we think might be the best options to really satisfy what the public was saying um as well as meeting somewhere in the middle with some things because of what we've heard

with other engagement or with your comprehensive plan. So, we've provided you um with a couple of options for consideration, but of course, if if you all have thought of something else, um we're, you know, welcome that. If you want to blend option one and option two to to come up with something else, of course, that works as well. So, this is just really to get our thoughts going, to get the conversation going, um and get us moving in in some sort of direction. And so now I'm going to go through in that sheet. I think it was about 25 or so rows or items um that we heard about and we feel like need some attention within the ordinance. Not all 25 um need a specific amendment. Some of those actually were questions and so we just answered those questions so they are not on a slide. Um, a couple I think as well were, you know, something someone asked and we could tell it was being misinterpreted and it certainly was not our intent, but when we looked at it, we agreed and said, "Yes, this is confusing. Let's just rework this." Um, and so we've done those things and and don't have those on a slide. But I want to start out with the first five items on that sheet is related to the agricultural districts. The A1 and the A2. So the A1 district is what you currently have. A2 is proposed as a new district. Again, it's not going to be mapped in any way. um it would just be an option that someone could choose to reszone their property to um if they selected or wanted to do that. So those first five items I feel like should be sort of considered

collectively um because a lot of them so it's A1 lot size concerns, A1 and A2 road frontage concerns, A1 side setback, A1 impervious surface and then the A2 district name. And so you'll see that one of the things that we have proposed, one of the options, option two on the screen is to remove the A2 district from the draft and to revert the A1 standards to the existing regulations that you currently have. And so if you, you know, want to do that, then that will kind of address a lot of these one through five. Um, so I want you to think about those collectively, but there could also be, yes, we want to revert to the A1 district except for this or for that. Um, so think about that as you're you're thinking about those specific items. Um, also I'll say for this first one, the lot size, you know, another option that we've put forth is that you could utilize a smaller lot size. Here we've said three acres. Again, that could be one, that could be two, three. Um, and then utilizing sliding scale along with that. Um, and so sliding scale, I'll show you on the next slide what that looks like if you're not familiar. Sliding scale, you establish a minimum lot size. So that again could be your one acre, 2 acres, what have you. But then you provide a scale of how many divisions um each parcel is allowed to have. So in

the case on the left of the screen, if someone owns a parcel that's 0 to 0.99 acres, they're allowed to divide that into two lots. Um, look down a little bit further. Someone who has 10 acres or someone who has 25 acres would be allowed to cut that into four lots. So this is a way to achieve um some egg preservation and that larger lots are are reduced and not allowed to be cut into as many pieces. Um and so it's a way of of preserving your agriculture. Um there are downsides and and upsides of course to each option. Here's just another way that that could be split up. thinking about the the 10 acre size. If you wanted to to do something with a you know one dwelling per 10 acres, you could have um divisions by 10 acres and allowing one additional um lot based upon that. So your next row your um decision regarding road frontage. So this one we heard that um we were proposing just a flat 150 feet of road frontage and currently the ordinance says 150 ft for primary roads but allows 125 ft for secondary roads and I believe it's 30 feet for culde-sacs. And so there was a a lot of comments regarding this and that they preferred what's existing. And so we have supplied that um as the option to consider to go back to the existing but also to define frontage as

the distance from which the front boundary line of the lot coincides with the abuing street. There were some comments about just some confusion around the definition of frontage and wanting some clarity there. The next row is side setback within the A1 district and we proposed a 30foot setback because currently the ordinance has 10% of your frontage with a minimum of 10 ft, maximum of 12 feet and and it's just a bit confusing, hard for users, the average user to understand what's required if they're going to cut off a lot. hard for staff as well. And so just trying to go to an easy one number system. So this could be changed down to to 25 feet or even 12 feet. One thing I would say is this is one that I would consider if you're thinking yes, we want to keep our A1 district as it is today. This might be one that I would say let's still find some sort of tweak here. um especially because of that max of 12 feet could be interpreted as you can't have a greater setback than 12 feet. And so obviously if you've got a large lot um you would have a greater setback sort of like the image on the screen where you know the house is is maybe to the left side and has 12 feet there but the other side is certainly more than 12 feet. So just you know trying to help with the interpretation of the standards that's within the existing ordinance. So I would say consider making that one number there. The next item is regarding imperous surface. So we provided this as a new standard and proposed 20% of the lot. The comments that we heard about this didn't um weren't specific in terms of you know what a preference was. Um it

just was that you know they didn't feel like the 20% was reasonable. And so when we're talking about imperous surface, um you can see the image on the screen. So that's essentially your footprint of any buildings, shed, garage, home, as well as sidewalk, if you've got a paved driveway, if you've got a pool, any um surface essentially where rainwater cannot penetrate into the ground is considered impervious surface. And so what we've proposed here is um to consider increasing this number and we have said 40% which um just for for general help of what does that mean? Um if you're thinking about a 1 acre parcel that would be 17,400 square ft of imperous surface. Of course you can remove the maximum coverage limit from the proposed text. your existing ordinance does not um provide a a maximum or or does not address this currently and so you could remove that as well. The next item is the district name and so um you know as as you're working on this piece by piece sometimes you do um not realize that things are being called the same thing and and that's the case with this. There's an agricultural residential district and then there's a a agricultural residential use which is confusing. And so if you wanted to keep the A2 district, you could rename that to agricultural transition since it provides a transition from a to residential. You could call it rural residential. Um you could also keep the agricultural residential district name and then change the name of the use.

So then we're going to skip down a little bit if you're following along on your sheets. This is line seven um just because it made sense I think to to talk about sort of similar topics the agricultural uses um right behind the agricultural district. So we are talking about uses now and not the districts. But one thing that we heard in terms of agricultural uses is the intensive agricultural use. So this is your you know kayos, turkey houses, those types of of uses which are already in your existing ordinance and and regulated. Um but there was concerns there's some new setbacks that were provided and there was a concern that the setback from streams was too large as well as it includes that same distance from the word waterway and there was a question about well what is waterway because the state will often define waterway as any gully that once upon a time had water in it and so I understand the difficulty there and then there was also question about you know the proposed mentions providing the nutrient management plan and just wanting some clarity on that. Um, and so in terms of that, the nutrient management plan is something that if you're doing that type of operation, you would already be required to provide. Um, it goes to the state and it's not intended in here for that to be something that the county is reviewing and approving. It's more so that the county can be on the same um level and understanding and agreement with the applicant as well as the state, more of an awareness measure um than anything else. And so the the options um within this

that we provided were to revise um waterway to wetland and defined wetland and then to change the 1,00 ft to 300 ft for creeks, streams and wetlands but to keep 1,00 ft from rivers. Another option is to revise this section to refer to the state code standards and keep uh the setbacks from the existing zoning ordinance. So the next item is row eight on your sheet. This is the agricultural use and we proposed in this draft that there would be some standards with the agricultural use and those included a 5 acre lot requirement for agricultural activity because it was our understanding that there were quite a few uh small lots within the agricultural district and that the the county receives complaints about animals getting on other people's property and those types of things and so to help with that there was a limit proposed in terms of amending this. What we are suggesting as options is one you could revise the lot requirement lot size requirement to one acre or you could remove the lot size requirement totally and and just if it's an an agricultural zone then any agricultural activity is allowed and within that there's a standard about setback of animal shelters being 200 feet um from property lines and so that

could be reduced used to 50 ft. It can also be removed. So, and I think that goes without saying almost is is that anything can be removed from what was drafted. So, you just need to think about those impacts and weigh, you know, why might it it be there? Why might it be beneficial? And maybe that answer is it's not and and it can be removed. Line nine is about a residential uses. So this was the the chickens, the bees, the coupe size requirements and those types of things. And what we have suggested here to to amend this to answer the the concerns of the public is to revise the minimum lot size to a quarter acre and then keep five standards for poultry and livestock. And so those are included in your sheet. I just want to point out that um this is now saying poultry whereas before it said chicken. So this is including additional birds um as well as livestock. And so one of those standards is about the numbers per acre but we would take this number from the Virginia Cooperative Extension Office. Other standards for that would be just about complying with federal and state laws. Having stalls, enclosures, pins, runs, coups located a minimum of 10 ft from property lines and a minimum of 30 feet from dwellings on another property. And keeping all feed um secure away from rodents and other animals. And then owners preventing livestock from roaming beyond their property boundaries. So not being specific about coups or coupe

sizes or anything like that, just saying the owner is responsible for keeping their animals on their property. Um and and having some some limits in terms of the number of animals based on the Virginia Extension Office. For bees, it would be keep four standards. So again, trimming the standards down substantially and just having that hive should be located a minimum of 10 ft from any property line. Uh providing a fresh supply of water on the lot within 80 feet of hives. And so that number has increased. providing the flyaway barrier and any sale of bees, combs, hives has to comply with code of Virginia. Um, so very streamlined standards there or this uh could remove the a residential use from the A1 and A2 district. So essentially as I mentioned before if you are zoned agricultural then you can do agricultural use and you can see the the use there on the right hand side that's your use matrix. So it would say it's just a permitted use and then to have the egg residential permitted just in the residential estates and the low density residential area. So, this allows those who are zoned more residential to be able to have some some poultry, bees, those types of things. And the A1 A2 district could have anything um based on the the standards within that uh agricultural use and then keeping four standards for poultry and remove all standards for bees except the setback of 10 feet for hives. So, lots of options there in

terms of what standards do you keep, what standards go away, and all of that is written in your sheet. I know it's not on the screen. It's a little hard um to imagine for me. I'm a visual person, so you can check your sheet for that. But, so now I'm going to hand it over to Cecil to talk through a few of the other items. All right, shifting away from agriculture. How's everybody doing? All right. If you need to stand up and stretch, let us know. Um, so there were some questions about the 800 uh foot contour versus the 790 foot contour line for measuring along the lake. Um, and that the 20 foot setback was too large. So, the 800 foot contour was taken from the AE shoreline management plan. We didn't make that up. Um, that area is not regulated by the county. So, docks are allowed in that area per the shoreline management plan. Also, uh the county attorney has had a legal response to this. um their advice is to keep the proposed approach to not allowing structures below the 800 foot contour and not counting that area in the minimum lot size. However, um as far as the setbacks go, you can change that. So, let's pretend that the red line on the slide is the 800 foot contour. And we're just pretending that's the line. I really don't know where it is. Um, so how close can the house or a structure be to that line? That's what the setback is. So if you want to change it from the 20 ft that's in the draft, do you want to

revise it to 10 feet? Do you want to revise it to five feet? Um, so that's up to that's up to the board ultimately how far you want that setback to be. Um, but you don't need to make any decisions below that red line. That's all in the a um that's their regulations. All right. So, um moving on to data centers. I know that um data centers have become a bigger issue in the last week or so. So, I've added actually added a couple slides and some more information. But there were some comments about um banning data centers or adding sta standards for them. Um the comment uh there was a comment to either ban them or require an SUP and standards such as a closed loop cooling system testing of water quality etc. Um so we could do that. Um the attachment that you have shows an option for addressing this item. But before you make decisions on that um you want to look at a few other things. One is um your existing zoning ordinance right now has a definition of data centers. It permits them by right in the district only and there are no standards or protections for property owners or the community. There are no standards at all for them. So we drafted standards because these have become a big issue in a lot of areas across the state. These things are popping up like daffodils all over Virginia. So we did add an updated definition. Um, we changed the permissions. And when

I say we, we're I'm talking about the planning commission staff, other staff who who aren't here. Um, permitted them by right in the rep and by SU in the M2, which is your industrial district. Um, we added use standards in section 761, that's article 7. Um for the application we required a viewshed analysis and cooling system information. There are development standards for setbacks, landscaping, buffering, screening, facades, fencing, utilities, emergency access, um annual noise testing, and in article 8 there are design standards. I do want to point out that the unzoned portion of the county does not have any of this. There are no no zoning standards for the unzoneed portion. So data centers are allowed there by right. There are no standards. I just want to um clarify that. So now we have new state code standards since we drafted this. So um recent state code changes allow localities to do even more. So um they are referring to data centers as high energy use facilities or HUFS and providing a definition. So um we think that that that definition should be swapped out. Um additional protections include requiring a site assessment. With the site assessment, you can require a sound profile for homes and schools within 500 feet. Um you have to that the assessment would assess the effects of the data center on ground and surface water resources on agriculture resources on parks and historic sites and forest

lands both on site and on contiguous land. And it requires the electric utility to submit a form describing any new or existing substations that would be used to serve the data center and the anticipated transmission voltage required. So when you're thinking about all this um we can roll those new state code changes into the draft. So that's if if you want to fully regulate them as much as you can. Okay. So moving on to uh solar energy and wind energy. There were comments asking to ban solar and wind energy uses. However, on April 14th, the general assembly adopted new legislation on regulation of solar facilities at the local level. So these changes require um that you permit accessory solar by right and that utility scale must be considered either by right or special use permit on all properties owned agriculture, commercial or industrial. So, um, in response to that, the next draft of the zoning ordinance should be res revised with the board's approval to consolidate multiple categories of solar facilities into a single use classification um that is applied as a special use permit across the districts that they require it. So right now your existing ordinance has I think four solar um energy uses. So that would boil it

down to one utility scale and then the one accessory which makes it a lot easier to deal with. And then as far as wind energy goes um you can make a decision to um remove wind energy generating facilities and keep the accessory wind. So, somebody could have a a windmill in their yard if they wanted, but they couldn't be selling power to somebody else from it. Um, or you can remove both types. Moving on to short-term rentals. Um there were a couple comments about these um wanting to ban the use, wanting to allow them by right and then wanting to allow them but reduce the um maintenance for the septic systems. Uh the I believe uh we took it from every five years to every year and this comment wanted to take it back to every five years. So um that's that's up to you all. You could require the special use permit in A1 and A2 and then require the septic maintenance every five years or you can keep it as drafted. I do want to remind you that state code says that if a homeowner lives on site and wants to do a short-term rental, you cannot require a special use permit for that. So that is something you you can't do. All right. And then uh open space in the RPD district. This is your residential planned unit district. Um somebody commented that um requiring 10% of the

open space to be for active and passive recreation is overkill. Um the spa the table on the slide shows the open space requirements in the draft. Um you can you can change that if you want from 10% to 5% or leave it at 10%. That's up to you. But that um that percentage is the part of what's open space that can be used for bike trails, tot lots, um pickle ball courts, whatever you consider passive or active recreation. Um, somebody thought that um that VOTE should provide a traffic impact analysis instead of the developer. However, this is not something that that VOTE does. Uh, the requirement is meant to ensure that new development does not reduce safety or capacity of the roadways. um you could revise it to require the traffic impact analysis when the projected trip generation meets applicable VOTE thresholds established under um chapter 527 or you can leave it as drafted and that that goes for all of these really that you can leave them as drafted. Um there was a comment about townhouse use standards that uh requiring curb and gutter for private roads is an additional cost for developers and may not be needed depending on topography. Uh the requirement is meant to create a uniformity of design and to ensure proper drainage and flow of water. But there are a few um options you all can decide on. You can revise the standard to read that all private roads shall

include curb and gutter except where the applicant demonstrates and the administrator finds that existing topography or natural drainage um makes them unnecessary. You could um approve it if an alternative design would adequately manage the storm water or that an alternative design is consistent with the character of the development. or you can leave it as drafted. Another townhouse use standard we had a comment about um the comment says that requiring aation for storm water wet ponds is an additional cost for developers and it relates the the comment relates to visibility like they thought that we were requiring them for aesthetics. However, this uh requirement is meant to prevent stagnant water water issues like odors, mosquito breeding, etc. It's not an aesthetic issue. Um, but you could revise it to only require aation for wet ponds of a certain size, or you could remove that requirement. There was another comment about sign dimensions. Um, the comment states that the 5- foot sign height maximum is lower than some existing signs out there, which is certainly true. Um, it mentioned an existing sign that's 6 feet tall. So, it kind of implied a desire to raise the height to six feet or more. Um, so you could change the sign height in the A and residential districts from 5 to six feet or leave it at five feet. There was a comment about parking requirements for visitor parking at multi-unit developments. Um the comment

stated that uh the requirements seemed excessive. So um you could change the visitor parking spaces from one space per five units to one space to 10 for 10 units from one per five to one per 10 or leave it as drafted and we are at the bottom of the considerations. Um do you want us to go ahead and go through next steps and then let's come back to that. come back to next steps. Okay. All right. So, you're good. Thank you. I'll hand it to you. Thank you so much. That was very comprehensive. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you very much.

So, um if it's the pleasure of the board of supervisors in the planning commission, uh what I thought we could do um depending upon your desires is first of all open up the floor um to members of the planning commission. You all have been front and center at this for over a year and a half probably. Get any feedback on what you've seen this evening or give any comments regarding where you've been, what you'd like to see, what's missing, anything is on the table. Um get those from you guys and then the board of supervisors. I'd open the floor to my colleagues and then uh we can have collective and joint um discussion both boards together. Um, so if you all would rather hack that a different way, let tell me now. Uh, that's kind of what I had in mind. If that sounds efficient, are you okay with that? Okay. Okay. Um, so what I'd like to do, uh, Sherry, is open it up and you can, um, as you so please with the planning commission.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh good evening and everyone and thank you to the Berkeley group for being here this evening and thank you to the board of supervisors for this opportunity to serve and thank you to the other six planning commissioners who are trusting me to speak tonight on their behalf as their chair. As you all know, Franklin County's current zoning ordinance was adopted under much public scrutiny and under much displeasure in May of 1988. I might mention that was the end of my freshman year of college. A lot has changed since then. I graduated from college, worked at Burger King, worked at H&R Block in Rocky Mount, took a new job at the VA in Rono, married a man from Santag. I um watched both my dear Po Dexter grandparents pass away. Moved from Glade Hill to Santag to Snow Creek. Graduated from the Franklin County Leadership Program. Served on the planning commission. Observed political careers of both my father-in-law and my father. Watched my father-in-law pass away four years ago. Raised and homeschooled my two children. Recently retired from a senior leadership position at the VA where I served for 32 years. lost my own father this February and I am now moving back to Glade Hill and I will be caring for my family's 1792 home place. So that is a lot of change. So since 1988, the big hair, the shoulder pads, the neon clothing and MTV, those are things that I once knew. Those things have faded into history.

But the zoning ordinance has not. Since then, merely seven amendments have been made to the zoning ordinance, many of which could not have been predicted in 1988. For instance, who would have thought about the existence of solar farms farms, right? The proliferation of cell phone towers and the popularity of short-term rentals back when the county was originally zoned in 88. Updating updating the zoning ordinance is something that has been discussed by county staff, all current and prior planning and zoning directors, county administrators, the board of supervisors, and the planning commission since my first planning commission meeting in January of 2004, which was held in the Franklin County Courthouse downtown Rocky Mount when this building we're And tonight was still wind Dixie. The role of the county planning commission as outlined by the Commonwealth of Virginia is to promote orderly development. We are not salaried county employees. We are not elected officials and we are not professional community planners. Thank goodness. We are citizens. We are appointed by the board of supervisors. We are land owners and we live here, pay taxes here, raise families here, and we provide for them here. We are responsible for the county's comprehensive plan, which guides community growth, and we act in an advisory capacity to the board of supervisors regarding land use decisions, including the zoning ordinance amendments. Following the decision by the board of supervisors to utilize the Berkeley group to assist us in rewriting our

zoning ordinance, a kickoff meeting, as was mentioned earlier, was held between the county staff and the Berkeley group in July 2024. So then the first joint work session between the planning commission and the board of supervisors occurred the following month. During this meeting, the Berkeley group presented the scope of work and the schedule for the zoning ordinance update process with a final draft of the updated ordinance expected to be voted on by the board of supervisors in the summer of 2026, which is now almost here. The planning commission held public work sessions in the evenings in March 2025 also in May, July, September and November. And we also held other uh work sessions. The planning commission work sessions were often facilitate facilitated by these employees of the Berkeley group with a stated purpose and that purpose was to streamline the regulations and make them more userfriendly to incorporate best planning practices based on their experience in multiple localities throughout Virginia. Updating the document to be in compliance with current Code of Virginia requirements. addressing the goals and strategies which were identified in our previously adopted 2045 comprehensive plan and considering citizen needs and issues identified through the public engagement process. While some of the planning commission's work sessions included robust discussions regarding how to update the zoning ordinance while still preserving the county's rural character, the planning commission did not always receive information from the Berkeley group

regarding the impact of their deliverables or the unintended consequences of the proposed changes. We trusted that as subject matter experts in their field and with a wealth of best practice information at their fingertips, they would steer us toward our expected final result of an updated zoning ordinance that would serve the citizens and the county well for years to come. Although the process was guided by county staff, the planning commission, and the board of supervisors, the timeline was always piloted by the Berkeley Group and their agreement with the county. The Berkeley Group presented a timeline to the planning commission. This included a comprehensive rewrite of the existing 1988 zoning ordinance between August 2024 and the summer of 2026 when the planning commission was tenatively scheduled to hold a public hearing on the new draft. By working with the Berkeley group and county planning staff during our multiple work sessions, we completed a first draft of the zoning ordinance rewrite within the original timeline presented by the Berkeley group and expected by the board of supervisors. The draft language provided by Berkeley during the work sessions was supposed to have included input from stakeholders and county residents. However, as described in tonight's meeting preparation materials from the Berkeley Group, public participation in the process has been somewhat limited prior to the first release of the first draft. Poor attendance at the planning commission's meetings and work sessions has plagued us for years. As an extreme

example, when we held open houses across the various districts for the comprehensive plan in 2024, Supervisor Mitchell and I were both there and not one single member of the public showed up for the one in the Snow Creek District. Remember that?

Yep. Fast forward to 2026 when the draft of the updated zoning ordinance caught public attention with the chicken and the bees. County planning staff have been capturing your public comments and compiling them for the planning commission to consider in addition to all the comments that the board of supervisors and staff have made and the planning commission. And these issues from the public have al often included comments such as ineffective efforts to include public participation, insufficient time for review by the public, and proposed changes in agricultural uses, short-term rentals, data centers, yard sales, churches, and many others. Fast forward even further when the larger discussion most recently has turned to data centers and accusations of payoffs, corruption on behalf of public officials, the good old boys network, and conspiracy theories. It is time to take a step back. We as the planning commission never said that the draft document of the zoning ordinance was ready for final public review or for the board of supervisors final consideration or adoption. We still own the document. Remember in the beginning when I talked about the 1980s so once again things have changed. I am absolutely thrilled. I have seen more people come to the planning commission and the board of supervisors meetings to speak and get involved with the process. Citizens are emailing their board members. They are posting on social media. They are taking online polls. They are doing their research and they are making freedom of information at request to obtain more information.

At first, my reaction was,"Well, where have all these people been this whole time. They did not show up for any of our meetings or provide public comment on the issues before us. But it does not matter where they have been all this time. It does not matter. They are here now and we cannot ignore their right nor their desire to participate. If you know me personally, you know how my leadership journey has progressed with a particular study of President Abraham Lincoln and his executive leadership strategies for tough times. Tonight I have brought books Lincoln on leadership by Donald T. Phillips. This is my copy which is well used um for the board members for each of you to peruse in your spare time. Known as honest Abe as you know President Lincoln was peculiar by even the social norms of his own day. Whether you agree with his politics or not Lincoln set an example of leadership seldom seen in public servants even back in his own time. What did he do you ask? While many nuggets of good leadership advice reside in this book, Lincoln was well known for taking what he called public opinion baths. These were frequent meetings with citizens. During the meetings, regular people shared their opinions. This strategy helped him stay connected to the people rather than staying isolated. Lincoln wanted to be accessible to citizens and not to be seen as just another politician or another public servant. He had an understanding of public opinion which helped him communicate his vision for the country in simple terms.

Lincoln scholar Dwight Anderson wrote that according to Lincoln, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed. But the molder of public sentiment in playing for greater historical stakes must also be willing to forfeit immediate success. We are not currently experiencing success with this draft of the zoning ordinance. It is time to take our p public opinion bath. Based on public opinion and overall increased public engagement we have had on the zoning ordinance draft. The only way forward now is to slow down and take our bath. The planning commission held a public work session last night and we agreed that the path forward should consist of the following phased approach. First, the draft zoning ordinance was prematurely handed off to the public and the board of supervisors under someone else's timeline before the draft or ordinance was completely satisfactory to the planning commission. This has resulted in the train coming off the track. Consider letting the Berkeley Group's involvement in our zoning ordinance take a pause and allow the planning commission to put the train back on the track. Second, complete the necessary regulatory changes in the zoning ordinance draft to bring the county into compliance with state code. allow the planning commission to develop a communication plan that includes collaboration and partnership with the public on what discretionary changes they would like to see in the zoning

ordinance and let us present a timeline to execute this. We need to better understand public opinion before we move any further. Public involvement is key. It's key in the process. It helps to build trust between officials and residents. It ensures that policies accurately reflect community needs, fosters transparency, and improves our accountability. Many of us on the planning commission were looking forward to talking with subject matter experts including farmers, developers, landowners, multiple generation families, business owners, and others in the community as to how these proposed changes may affect our community members personally. The timing of the draft roll out and the way in which it was rolled out to the public was less than ideal and has robbed us of that opportunity that we need to evaluate citizen desires as well as unintended consequences and the true impact of the proposed changes. So, on behalf of the planning commission, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity this evening, and we look forward to working with you to serve our citizens effectively. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Mitchell. You're welcome.

Thank you so much, Sher. It's very eloquently done and very much appreciated. Thank you, ma'am. Um, do you want to open your floor for any of your commissioners or what what's your desire?

Absolutely. I think that's a great idea, planning commissioners. Mr. Evans, I know you have something to add near never without words. what I um when uh Berkeley Group created or presented this u spreadsheet of a chart of options one and two. I like is that this chart helps us to focus on specific issues for us to conduct stakeholder meetings so we can be so we can make informed decisions relevant to Franklin County. It's appropriate that we are given a draft with that are consisting of what is considered best use, best ideas and all that. But this is Franken County. I think with that massive document, we have the information necessary now and that chart to conduct those subject matter expert kind of stakeholder meetings to see how those things apply to how it would best serve Franklin County. I'm under the impression that or I'm sensing that there's a desire that because of the schedule, this meeting was meant to be a decision-making meeting so the Berkeley group can go back and do yet another update to the draft zoning ordinance. It's just that there's so much being presented. I'm not comfortable speaking on behalf of the locality as to which of these options and recommendations are ones we want to stick with. So, I'm hoping that um one of the decisions would be that as Sherry so

well put it that the planning commission can in fact now take all this information, work with staff and um various subject matter experts from our own community to then come back to have something we feel proud of to say we would like now to have our the open the public hearing which would prepare us to then hand it off to you. Thank you, Victor. Thank you very much, Sher. I'm sorry, Madam Chair.

Go ahead, Mr. Jefferson. Uh first of all, I'd like to say uh thank you to our chairperson that uh you know, her leadership has been superb for us and greatly appreciate her and how she's guided our uh meetings for the period of time that I've been on the commission. Um thank you very much.

My pleasure. I guess a couple of points that I would like to make is that um one being hearing comments from the public that you know this is really setting back the agricultural community is the exact opposite of what the intent was when we started to the process. So when I hear that that tells me that okay well you need to step back take a look at it. Um, today I just read something today that talked about the actual uh document itself and how we have so many different area how easy it was to go through the the the old zoning and and to be able to identify what you need versus how difficult it is now. Um, so and and I do recall us talking about that um earlier on. Um there is a uh what what's missing right now uh for the for the community is it's designed to be able to be able to click on you know if you're using it electronically to easily to be able to go from one section to the next section to the next section uh right off one page so that they don't know that they can't see it when they're looking at a a written document. Um, so you know, again, that's something else that what we intended to do is make it more efficient, and I'm hearing that it seems to be more difficult. So that means we need to be looking at that. Um, the the last thing I'll comment on is is that I I I said this a number of times when we were uh going through the process that the timeline that's established, it's Berkeley's timeline. And that's what you do. You know, if you're going to start any kind of process, you got to have a timeline. You got to have a schedule and and target points as you go along. I think what we're suggesting here is that uh now we take a pause and we let

the planning commission establish their timeline and and which includes time to spend with our community, times to be talk uh for us to be able to talk to the the u the stakeholders within our community, the the subject matter ex experts in our community. and and then we feel much more confident and comfortable with presenting a document to the board of supervisors. And I think that's what we're what we're asking for. Thank you. Any of the other planning commissioners?

Okay. All I think all of us up here feel the same. Um, we all live in the county. We all love the county and we want to be the voice for the people. And at first there was no voice. It was just us up here making random decisions. And I've always felt that I was making decisions. I wasn't educated or did have the knowledge to do. But with the support of the community, I think Honestly, I think this has been healthy. As bad as it may have felt and some of the comments have been said, I think that it's actually getting this derailed train back on track as Sher's wanted to do to to pull us all together as a community and communicate and and try to get everybody's thoughts on paper. And I understand it, you're never going to please the public. you will never please everybody, but if we can get the majority together, I think we've got a chance. And like um Ron said, if we can hit the pause button, grab control of it, and manage it, I think we've got a shot at making this work. Um but again, I'm just reiterating everything that's been said. So in full support of that,

thank you. Anyone else down there? No. Okay. Looks like that's all our comments at this time.

Thank you, Sherry, and thank you all very much for sharing your comments and your thoughts. Um, I'll kick it off if my board doesn't mind just with a couple simple statements. Um what you've presented to us this evening is so refreshing um for for my board, my supervisors to hear because we have felt, you know, for the last few months we've been trying to weed through a document that didn't feel right. It was, you know, a huge document and we've asked a couple times, you know, where was it? Is this what the planning commission wants us to see? And those answers are not readily available. So what you've done for us this evening is you have clarified what has happened and what hasn't happened. And it gives I think the board of supervisors some relief in a way that says let us do our homework on our side what you've charged us with doing and we'll let you know when we've got a draft ready for you to look at with no specific timeline perhaps in place. You're going to get it done well. Um not quickly necessarily. and and Sherry, I very much appreciate the cander and the honesty that you guys have expressed because um sitting on this side of the table has been extraordinarily difficult. Um being held responsible for a document that you all now acknowledge was not ready for us to see, not ready for us to evaluate and that we've been working really hard to try to do that anyway. Um, and so this sets up a process, uh, as I said, that's refreshing. Um, and I appreciate that type of uh, accountability and transparency to our

citizens. We're going to come out of this in a very significant positive way. Um, and we're going to be able to demonstrate to our citizens that they can not only trust our leadership, but they know we've gone beyond over and above to make sure that the outcome document that gets before us for approval with public hearing is the very best that we can bring to the table. And again, I thank you for that. I'll open up the floor to my colleagues. Yes. Yes, sir. Mr. Meredith, Madam

Chair, uh, first of all, I have one question. And I'm not you're not going to answer this question because I'm gonna say this. I've asked several people and everybody acts shocked what was in this book how it got to this point. And my question was, how do we get here? But you know what? Throw it to the side. OKAY. I've always believed, don't come at me with problems, come at me with solutions. And that's what y'all just did right there. I commend you for coming back with solutions to fix it the right way. No sense of going and talking about that anymore. I I appreciate your game plan. Uh I've went to every town hall, Madame Chair, Mr. Quinn, Mr. Tatum, myself. I've listened to everybody and what y'all going to do. I think it's the correct path and putting the brakes on, setting up your timeline that y'all are comfortable with so you can do this correctly, get the input of our citizens and get it right. And I just want to commend you for that. And you got my full support of what I just heard right there and whatever we can do to support you in that process. But thank you for acknowledging what you think is going to help us move forward and and make Franklin County the best county in the area. So I just thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. Mr. Carter.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh streamlined and user friendly. That's the buzzwords. There is so much minutia in this document that's unnecessary. It it's it's unbelievable. There's no way I can vote for anything like this moving forward. So, I hope now we can take a step back. You can work with the citizens and we can get a document that's usable. Um, put in what's necessary, take out all of this stuff that is unnecessary. And I'll give you one example. Is a beekeeper providing a water source for bees. They'll fly six miles. So, I don't think you need to put a dish in your yard. But, uh,

you I'm glad to hear that we're going to take time now. And I don't care if it takes another year to get this thing right. But I'm not going to vote on it unless my constituents like it. And I'll tell you upfront, I don't like the A2 zoning category. I've said that from the get-go. And I probably will not vote for this document if you leave that in it. And that's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Carter. Mr. Tatum.

Okay. I echo what my two colleagues have said. As far as I'm concerned, when I first looked at this thing, I looked at it and I actually told my wife, I said, "This we just need to throw this in the trash. This is garbage as far as I'm concerned." Um, give you a little history of my background. 39 years ago, I went to work for sheriff in this county, Sheriff Quincy Overton. Most of you know him. He told me day one that I went to work for him. He said,"Tim, I'm going to equip you with the best equipment that low bid can buy. I'm going to give you the best training that low bid can pay for." He said, "The good lord gives you common sense, and you you will benefit well if you use that." And he said, "Furthermore, don't ever forget who you work for."

He said, "We work for and he included himself. He said, "We work for the citizens of Franklin County. This board, that commission, we work for the citizens of Franklin County." Now, I'm a citizen of Franklin County. Lived here all my life, and I love Franklin County. I've dedicated the last soon be 40 years of my life to serving this county in different different uh capacities. I looked at this and some things and and I I asked myself questions, you know, why in the heck are we trying to tell people that they can only have six hens to an acre of land with no roosters? That makes no sense at all. Completely ridiculous. Waste of time for local government. Also, bees. Why are we regulating bees over here? I saw a segment uh that was campgrounds. It was uh here it is. Primitive campgrounds should have no more than 10 units of 10 tent units and shall not stay more than three days. Why do we care how long somebody stays in a tent?

Things like this we shouldn't be worried about. We have far bigger fish to fry than to worry about how many tents is in somebody's campground, how how long somebody stays. We don't need to worry about that. Another thing, you know, short-term rentals. We should set up a process for short-term rentals. Several years back, we uh created the registration. We have a registration fee for those. I would like to see our short-term rentals that are found to be in compliant year after year after year. I'd like to see that fee be reduced or eliminated after uh the first year, pay the fee to get all the paperwork straight, get them registered so that we can we can follow them, we can track their their progress. But I'd like to see some either a reduction in that fee or total elimination in that fee as long as they're in compliance. Now, if there's an issue, then that issue needs to be addressed. But for our people, men and women, that have property that they want to rent, and you know, if if they're doing everything that they should, then let's make them give them more of their money in their pocket

at at the also uh data centers, solar uh farms, wind farms, all this come out to play here. And that concerns me because I represent the Blige district. The Blue Ridge District is nonzoneed. So technically I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I'm a Franklin County citizen and I worry about the county as a whole. And right now if a data center or a huge solar farm comes into Franklin County and they go over and my you know farm, Henry, parts of Callaway, Snow Creek, areas that are nonzone and they find a farmer with a couple hundred acres of land and offer them a boatload of money, we have no controls over it and we have no regulations, nothing short of what the state guidelines are and we know that they're pretty laxed right now. you my I would like maybe this needs to be a question for the county attorney as far as our options. Should we look at the option of uh possibly putting it on the ballot for a vote for our citizens as far as some type of regulations or restrictions in the nonzoneed areas of the county just for some protections? I don't know. I'm that's why you're the paid professional. If you could look into that for me, I'd appreciate it. whether it needs to be a referendum or what uh dealing with data centers, solar farms andor wind farms. Uh it really concerns me that you know they somebody come in and go over to uh Mr. uh Jamison's uh area of the county over in Callaway and pick out a big dairy farm or former dairy farm and we all know dairy farmers are are struggling because of prices and off from a ton of money and you can't blame the farmer but right now we have no no way to stop it. There's no way to and so I'd like to

look at and see what our options are. But I I do want to say I you know I've been serving Franklin County for right at 39 years in a lot of different areas and I really appreciate the passion that I have seen come out whether it you know I had a town hall meeting up at Fam College a few weeks ago. very good points were brought. People come in because they love Franklin County and I love Franklin County and and I think everybody in here, you wouldn't be here if you didn't. I mean, you're here because you you can you're concerned about the direction and we need to, as I appreciate what uh Chairman Mitchell said, we need to push the brakes a little bit, slow this thing down. If we need to throw this in the trash, we can do it. We need to listen to our citizens because we work for them. They don't work for us. We need to listen to them and we need to make sure that we get this thing right. And I appreciate those comments from the other commissioners. I think working together with our citizens, we will get this thing right. And because we don't, I'm not voting for it. And I agree with Mr. Carter. Uh I don't like A2 very much the way it is right now. Can we tweak it and save it? Maybe uh it might be on its last leg and coming off of life support, but uh you know Quincy Overton, the sheriff I worked for for many years, had a saying, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And if if A1 is not broke, then why are we fixing it? And if it does have some issues that need to be addressed, let's address those issues and fix fix those. But thank you for your time. Thank each one of you for coming out tonight. I just want you to know we heard you and working together. Hey, we're from

Franklin County. We'll do the right thing. It may hurt a little bit at start, but we'll get it right. Not always the quickest, but we'll get it right with your help and our working together. We'll be there. Thank you again,

Mr. Mitchell. Um, Sherry, I like your point about the um this time. Uh, what what do you all think would be an appropriate time for that? So, we spent some time talking about that last night at our work session and we weren't sure that we would get buyin from the board this evening. So, we haven't set one, but we would like the opportunity to set one now that we know how you feel. So, you you don't have a just a guess. You know, um we really No,

we I don't think we can say this evening. It's too much. and just listening to the feedback from the board of supervisors as to how much of what's in that document that may need to be either pulled out or changed. And given the time that we will need to get that citizen and stakeholder uh public feedback, I think it'd be really hard to to say is there a deadline? Cuz I thought I heard the chair say there's no deadline. We need to get it right. No, I'm I'm not suggesting a deadline at all. I'm just wondering. But we we have we've put a lot of effort this board, planning commission, this and we've spent real money

and there's been a real effort. I just don't want to see us, you know, a whole lot of time went into this and five work sessions with the planning commission in the Berkeley group went into this and it obviously is not where any of I'm taking the comments correctly. It's not where any of us want it to be. So we don't we don't need to spend another year if we're going to come up with something again. If if if we have a constructive if we're going to have constructive time together and work on it, I'm fine with it. But if we're going to spin our wheels, I don't see a need in doing anything. So, but if the planning commission is confident that they can take a year, five months, six months, wherever, and come up with something, but I don't want us to be sitting in this room a year from today saying, "Oh, we all need more time."

Oh, yeah. And come back with something like this took a lot of time. I don't want to be sitting here a year from now and be in the same spot, if not worse. It needs to be constru if it's going to keep going. that needs to be constructive and real changes made. And Tim, to answer your question about the restrictions in the lawyer and stuff, that's just a tough call. Us people like you and I and Marshall there, we we enjoy our freedoms of um of not being zoned and certainly our citizens do. But at the end of the day, you heard her in her presentation earlier talking about a data center. If somebody wants to go and to No Creek and they can buy the acres,

the D rule state, we don't have a say. And the only thing you're going to do to fix it is zoning. I'm not suggesting. But but that that is that is your protection. There is no there is there is no other protection and that's only getting worse. That's all I had to say. Madam Chair, thank you Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Jameson,

Miss Mitchell, um planning department there. Thank y'all and you like Mr. Meredith said, "Y'all have brought solution to us." And I've looked over this and uh I I can't make beans out of it. The only the only thing that's going to say this is y'all going through it and coming up with a document that that the county can live with the board. And I think you can do it. Y'all sound like you can. As far as a timeline, I don't think you got a timeline far as I'm concerned. It's got to be fixed. If we're going to keep this, you get into it and see it's not come back and tell us. We'll put it in trash can, you know, and and thank y'all. Appreciate you.

Thank you, Mr. QUINN.

SO, I wanted to start with a question and then I do have some comments and the question is to the Berkeley group on uh the slide regarding short-term rentals. You had a reminder that state code requires localities to permit by write short-term rentals when the homeowner lives on the site. And we've been asked a rule on a number of SUPs where the homeowner was in a home and they want to rent the basement or or an adjacent building. Is this a brand new regulation or or is this something that's been in existence? So, we've been reviewing SUPs for no reason at all. Come up to that mic. Did you know that? Oh, do you have a mic? Okay.

Supervisor Quinn, off top of my memory, I believe that was adopted a few years ago. I'm not aware of SUPs you reviewed that were unnecessary or in violation of that law. I hope that addresses that question.

Yeah. So, so se I'll take that as a separate topic and I'll I'll show you just an example. Um I remember Charlie Po Dexter came in and and was very concerned about one and that was approved but but now it sounds like it it's was a by right use anyway. But but I'll show you an example. So then I'll just move into comments. I first I wanted to recognize the planning commission, Lisa Cooper, uh Steve Sandy, and the Berkeley group for having done a lot of hard work. I realize what goes into this. Unfortunately, I think we have an unacceptable work product. And when a project doesn't go well, typically there multiple problems, and I think that's the case here. And I'd like to cite three areas, not as problems, but really as lessons learned that can help us guide how we move forward. So the first one is around organization and leadership. And typically when you have a big project like this, you put an organization in place and and a leader in place to manage this project and the roles and responsibilities become very clear. I don't think there was a clear leadership, a clear organization or clear roles and responsibilities for this project. First, I don't think it was the planning commission to be the leader. They're not schooled in zoning. Uh they never reviewed the Berkeley group. uh uh statement of work or deliverables or the whole agreement. So they they weren't equipped to manage the Berkeley group. Second, I don't think it was the Berkeley group. They're consultants. Clearly, they have the zoning experience, but I don't think you would ask a consultant to lead the project. So that leaves Steve or Lisa. The second point I wanted to make is the Berkeley Group contract. So, I got a copy of that mainly because I wanted to look at the deliverables and the the uh scope of work. And I would now comment that the the agreement is very one-sided. I know the planning commission didn't review it either before it was signed or afterwards, but

it's there's no evidence of staff review either when I look at how one-sided it is. There's one deliverable about that uh a um some early work that we'd be done. I'm not sure if that deliverable was done, but the main deliverable is around the zoning ordinance. So there were there were no interim work products that we would be able to look at and most importantly I think it's missing a huge component which is what changed and why did it change and that that has been a common theme for me the whole way through. what changed and why did it change? So, something changed and it's a state law. People aren't going to complain about that. But many of the changes, they're discretionary changes. They're not state law and those have to be decided upon. The the um the next the third point I wanted to make is that I think the communication was very poor in the effort. In the beginning, it was good and I I always kind of marvel at how the county reaches out to the public. I remember for the comprehensive plan, um Stephanie Mathenina showed me the 11 ways they tried to reach out to the public and still did not get comment. And so I'm just left wondering what more do we need to do? I really I just accept it's very hard to reach out when I look at all the ways they try and then nobody knows what's going on. And so I'm not sure how to bridge that gap. But I will say early on I was told there were 600 changes and my comment to Victor was I I again I need to know what changed and why it changed. Tell me what's important. If you're just dotting an eye and crossing the tea, that doesn't matter. But if you're going from point8 acres as a minimum to 10, that's a huge change. And so very early on I was aware there are a lot of changes and we weren't sure what was going on. Then we had the board of supervisor meeting

and we were handed this book and I came into the meeting and they said, "Do you have any questions?" Well, now I feel I understand how the public feels. They went to the open house. They were handed this book and said, "Do you have any questions?" There was no analytics on this to say, "Hey, here's a 300page book, but we're going to walk you through all the major things that changed." So people, they feel you weren't transparent with us, right? We gave them a book. I I commented in my post recently. I said it's like looking for where's Waldo in here to figure out the change. So So I so I totally understand the public field. So those to me those are lessons learned, but now I move over to the solution side and I'll cover the leadership side first. In in my opinion, Steve Sandy should be the leader of this effort. Steve has zoning experience. He's the CEO of the county. the county administrator, he is able to uh to uh commandeer all these resources and guide how we move forward. I see the Berkeley group as a resource. I see the planning commission as a resource. Lisa Cooper and her staff are resources. They're all tools Steve has at his discretion to move forward. But I feel that Steve should come be coming to us, not uh tonight perhaps because he's not prepared, but he should be coming to us after consultation with the planning commission, after consultation with the Berkeley group and telling us how we're going to move forward. Steve is the leader in this community. He's the top guy in the county and he should be leading this whole effort that and part of that will be determining the roles and responsibilities and the reporting relationship. let the planning commission see what the um what the new contract looks like because that's a second part of this the the Berkeley Group contract. I think Steve needs to look at that and determine what

deliverables do we need because I still feel like we need a list of things that changed and why they changed. This is a good starting point, but this is a knee-jerk reaction. The public said we don't like this stuff and now it's in the sheet. Well, what else is in here we don't even know about? And so there's got to be a methodical review of this. And I keep coming back to what changed and why did it change and then two groups. What is nondiscretionary? State law says you have to do it. The public won't complain about any of those. And what's discretionary? And do and why do we want to do that? And is there a good reason to do it? There might be very good reasons to do it. So then um that's that that really covers all my points. So, I just I wanted to comment because I have a different point of view about leadership. I agree with many of the things my colleagues mentioned, but I look to Steve being the leader on this whole effort going forward. I agree with slowing it down, and I really think that we can get to a great product. That's the good news. So, I don't like what we have, but I they sold me on why this needed to be updated. It's 38 years old. There's a there are a lot of things that were not in compliance with state law or because of the patch quilt of changes over the years. They changed this but they forgot to change this section. So so things aren't in agreement. So I'm totally in agreement that we need to update this. I like taking a slower path and I think we need to get to a new product. So thank you.

Thank you Mr.

Okay. Um, are there any other comments from supervisors? Okay, thank you all very much. Very, very valuable comments. Um, at this point, uh, we have about 15 20 minutes left. Um, as we talked about at the top of the meeting, um, let's just open the floor for some collaborative discussion. If you all desire to ask specific questions to certain individuals of the board or or the board as a whole, planning commission as a whole, um I don't want to preclude this this evening uh without giving both boards an opportunity to have a collective discussion as you would desire to do so. So at this juncture, I would open the floor up um to any and all discussion that you may wish to dig into. Okay. Chair

planning commissions. Yeah. Go ahead, Mr. Jefferson.

Appreciate the feedback that we got from the board members. Uh very good feedback. Um I think to respond to a couple of them. One one would be with uh Mr. Mitchell. you know, the from a timeline perspective, uh I guess the real timeline is is when we can deliver you a a an acceptable product. Okay, that's the real timeline. But also know that uh you know, for us to be effective on what we're doing, we've got to establish another roadmap. We've got to establish our own uh steps as we go through. I guess what we were trying to say is is that we can't tell you what that looks like right now. What we will do is commit to you that we will come to you with that roadmap and what it and and how it's laid out as we go forward. Uh and I'll and I'll I'll conclude that comment by saying this. We'll establish a roadmap. You got to have a plan. You got to have that road map to make sure that you're making progress as you're going along. You're not just spinning your wheels. But and and it'll result in an end date, right? It'll have an end date on it, but that end date only means that this at that point we'll have to look at it and we'll have to determine, okay, do we need to readjust our road map and continue on because we don't have that product yet. And that's how I think the commission would commit to you on on the process that we're trying to work through.

I have a quick question if I could. Um, how do you all want to work through um because both both bodies we're getting a lot of citizen feedback that's obviously been quite helpful. How do we want to deal I know on our side one of us may get an email and the other three or four may not. Um, let's set up some way if we can to make sure you guys are getting the feedback or, you know, putting some type of process in place just to make sure that you're hearing what we're hearing so that we can make sure that the citizens concerns are getting to you if you're not being, you know, uh, sent an email or having a phone call with a citizen. What is there an answer to doing this better and in a more streamlined fashion? I think maybe we need emails.

Okay. We need county emails set up. That would help. Yeah. And it's my understanding it's in the works, but we haven't had them. I didn't realize that. That's a good point.

Yes, ma'am. on on that topic. I would hope that um the idea of unity of command where you do have a focal point for all this to be determined and if it is going to be our county administrator that we have that chance to figure out the comm system. Um but that kind of meeting needs to be held with that very issue as to what would work and that we that there's a a full agreement to that. So I mean to get to your answer, I would like us to have our leadership staffing meeting to lay that out. Okay, that's great. Meet organ between who?

Whoever's going to be involved do organizational meeting like we do at the beginning of the year and on board that way like you said everybody's on clear path of how we're going to organize everything. Just takes some time. I think what you're saying, Mr. mayor, take some time to determine what the process could potentially look like and how you're going to facilitate that. Set up the structure. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. That way the citizens, you know, I'm so strong about expectations. We need to let the citizens know what to expect um to the best of our ability. U you know, there's a a lot of um feedback we're getting. I just want to make sure that we're giving some thought to how it comes in, who it's coming into. so that it gets to the right place at the right time as you are are going to be deliberating through a very intensive process. Okay. Answer. Thank you, M. Smith. Just Mr. Tatum, please.

I just want to remind both bodies that uh you know, the government that governs the best governs the least. And so what I'm looking for on these uh zoning uh changes and and ordinances is to be as to limit the restrictions as much as possible. I mean it's there to create order. It's there to have some, you know, to organize, but we don't need to dictate every step of the way to our citizens. I mean, we we need to be as as we need to respect the freedoms as much as possible and just remember u I one one thing that we all get complaints on all the time from contractors and people building in the county is is building codes. I'm sure everybody has run into a building code at one time or another that has made no sense whatsoever. and but yet that's the code and I'm I'm been assured that those are all state codes but it's still we need to let the people enjoy and and be as restrictive as little restrictions as as we can and still keep the order.

Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Back to the presentation they made earlier. I I think the planning commission should take a hard look at that sliding scale for the lot sizes. Um, I'm pretty sure there's some localities around us that do that. And and I think when the Berkeley Group put in the 10 acre minimum lot size, I think they were really with the intent of preserving open spaces and preserving farmland. And I but I think it just missed it. And I I think that that sliding scale would really would would be a good approach to preserving big open farmland. And uh I'm sure we could adapt it to a way that would fit fit for us. Yeah. Thank And I think that's that's a much better path. Okay.

Because in the end zoning, yeah, it is about restrictions and and and but it's also works with the comp plan to kind of preserve the the things that in those community engagement things people have said they wanted and the number one thing that came out every time was preserving agriculture land and that sliding scale is a good way of doing that.

Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Um this has been so helpful and informative I know for for the board of supervisors and I hope you feel the same way. Uh what I would also offer up to you um if you all find the need or wish to reconvene in a joint meeting um setting let us know that we are happy um to continue collaborating um with you all as you need it. Um just let us know. Um, I think our collective work, um, we will definitely get to the right place. Um, so just know that our door is always open. Um, and you know, we're going to try to to represent our citizens the best way we possibly can. Um, but thank you all very much. Um, for sharing your heartfelt thoughts this evening. And, uh, Sherry, I I wish you the best.

Thank you. as you move forward. It's it's been a real pleasure um having you as a planning commission chair for quite some time. My pleasure. But we uh we we wish you the best and um to my colleagues, thank you all very much. Um I think this has been a good use of time and I hope our citizens feel progress in the air and um and if you don't, we we're going to continue to work hard to make sure that you that we garner your uh trust your trust in us. Uh that's what we want to do. So uh if there's nothing else to come before uh I would say the board of supervisors on our side, I would entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Is there a second? Thank Mr. Quinn, did you second? All those in favor, please say I. I oppose and like sign. Thank you. Sherry, would you like to take care of your Yeah, I will. Thank you. All right. Our meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Next choose received.