Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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Okay. I call to order the Lynchburg Planning Commission meeting for Wednesday, January 28th, 2026. Our first order of business is the approval of our minutes from January 14th. Has anybody had any uh additions or subtractions? Anything of concern? Okay. Is there a motion? All right. Okay. Um, all in favor of uh approving the minutes say I. I. All opposed.

All right. Our next order of business. Next thing on the agenda is the election of um officers. And we did put that off the last time. I think they're working on appointing another commissioner. And we're missing one right now. Yeah. to replace Demetria. We could vote if you all were comfortable or you could wait if you want. What exactly we just go I thought the last meeting we had voted to wait until we got it filled. Yeah, that's what that's what

I wasn't sure when I put the agenda together if if it would be filled by now. So this is for uh election of the chair and vice chair and secretary for the which we can. Yeah. Okay. And that way we don't need to keep bringing it up, right? I mean I'm comfortable with that. I don't know whether we need to I thought that's what we had voted last time but if we need to vote on that we could. I will read the motion that we postpone this until we have a full cabinet of uh pointies. That's good. I'll second it. Yep. Okay. All in favor of that motion. I All right. All opposed.

Great. Okay, that passes. We will not hear that again. Maybe they'll have somebody pretty soon. And thank you chairs and vice chairs for your running things. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh we are now uh going to hear petitions open to public comment. I don't see anybody in large crowds, so we're just going to jump right into it. It is the petition of Virginia University of Lynchburg for a conditional use permit in an R3 medium density residential district to allow four modular classroom buildings which were previously intended to be temporary and they want them to remain permanently at 2057 Garfield Avenue.

Thank you chair vice chair members of planning commission. Uh the subject property consists of approximately 6 acres at 2057 Garfield Avenue. Our future land use map recommends institutional uses for the property. These include uh religious, educational, and other nonprofit entities like churches, cemeteries, private schools, and universities or other nonprofit institutions. The subject property was annexed into the city in 1926 and the R3 medium density residential zoning was established in 1978. In this district, colleges and universities are permitted upon approval of a CUP from council. Uh, as the chair said, the purpose of the cup petition is to allow the four modular classrooms on the Virginia University of Lynchburg campus. The classrooms have been in place on a temporary basis since August of 2024. Temporary modular classrooms are permitted by our zoning ordinance without approval of a CUP, but the petitioner has decided that they would like these classrooms to remain permanently. Uh, and so that's why they're going through this process. Uh, in summary, the modular classrooms have been in place since 2024 and according to the petitioner did not increase student enrollment. Therefore, impact on the surrounding area should be limited. The neighborhood has a mix of residential uses at varying densities in addition to institutional uses associated with the university. Approval of the cup petition would support the continued development of the campus. The city's technical review committee reviewed this petition on January 6th. Comments were minor in nature and would be addressed through our site plan review process. Uh the planning division recommends approval of the petition with the condition outlined in the report. Thank you.

Thank you. And who is here to speak on behalf of the petition? Great. If you could uh give us your name, just get it down on that piece of

Russ with Perkins and Morrison. Um I have precious little to add to that. Um except I might point out about the storm water that as part of the site plan process. Um, and as shown on note two on the cover sheet, um, we do know that we got to bring the storm water management up to standards, assuming that we were starting with a clean site. So, um, other than that, I can't think of much, but I can answer questions, I hope. Okay. And there's no one here to speak. Have we have any emails or anything? Okay, you could just stay here. If there's any questions, let's go ahead and address them now. That way, Mr. Perkins didn't have to sit down.

Just one one question I had was related to the storm water. Um, the proposed storm water design. Is that is that going to be enough for anything any configuration of the site in the future or? No, it would just be for this for for the four just for what? Yeah. Sidewalks. Okay. All right. Yeah. Okay. Does uh if we knew of something coming Yeah. might be a good time to do that, but they've not indicated to me that they know of any help. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right.

I fully supportive of this. I'm just always curious when it comes to the institutional zoning and the and the flume when that when that all went down, Rachel, was some of the properties converted over to institutional at the time or I'm just curious why some of their some of their property is is institutional and some of it is residential. Um so the future land use map indicates institutional uh but the zoning is still residential

meaning um I I wouldn't say there's a mismatch between them just that um you know as you looking ahead into the future we do expect the institution to remain and and you know grow within its means um but the they be did uh kind of think about going to the institutional zoning that would allow more by right a few years ago. Um ultimately they ended up withdrawing that petition and just going uh continuing on as they had with the conditional use permits as they grow. Um so that that would be something that's possible in the future if they want to explore the institutional zoning. Um, but there are a few more requirements with that, like we need to see a full master plan about, you know, what showing what the what they intend to develop the campus into. Um, and so since that wasn't available at the time, they ended up just okay

going through the conditional use permit process for that petition and um will continue doing that until they reach a point where they are comfortable with the institutional zoning. Great. Thank you. you seem to be a bit constrained on what they're able to do and perhaps what they're going to be able to do in the future. I don't maybe they need to start looking further ahead, but it's I think they're somewhat constrained right now. That's any future uh development would would come back here. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. I really have no no issues with this proposal.

I woke up this morning think I had a few questions about this one. What was driving the change from temporary to a full, you know, permanent status for these? So, it seemed like to be something behind that. and uh so well let me go over there and take a look at these things. So I actually drove over there today and of course nobody on staff but this campus is is bigger than I thought it was. There's more there than I thought but kind of consistent with what Rachel was saying. There's houses integrated kind of along the thing and you can't tell some of them are some of them appear to be in use and some appear to be lived in and got little apartments and things there. But these particular buildings, I I I just want to make sure that one, we weren't codifying. I hate to put buildings that were run down, urban blight, you know, depending on what it was driven by because otherwise it doesn't matter. It's their property and do what they want. Uh but these are actually about 5 years old and they present well. Uh they're they're they're in good shape. They look and go inside, but the outside looks like they're in good shape. Uh they're m they appear to be maintained. I mean, so it looks like they're taking care of them. So, I mean it as far as I'm concerned, they do what they want. You know what? So, it's Yeah, I'll support it. Good for them.

That's good. Thanks.

Well, any other comments or a motion to approve the site plan or the modification to the site plan? Okay. Present as presented. I'll second it. All right. All right. We'll go ahead and vote. All in favor of approving this say I. I. All opposed. Great. Passes unanimously. Thank you for coming and good luck at city council. Thank you guys for coming. Thanks for making it. Yes. And it looks like we do have a meeting in February coming up. Yes. I believe we've No,

February 11th. Yeah, let me check it. See if we have an item. We do have a regularly scheduled meeting, but we'll see if we've got a something I' I'd like to um you know, we we've we've had a lot of different things that we've talked about and when we don't have a meeting, I wonder if there aren't other constructive things. And I don't know if there's anybody who want to who might want to throw something out, but there might be some other constructive ways we could use the time instead of just cancing a meeting. Um yeah, our like draft ordinance for data centers uh in in shape to have the planning commissioner review it at that time. We could possibly look at that date

for that. Um

and other I mean there's also the downtown retail um zoning update that we're looking at. So we could we could use that time for other things. Yeah, I think I mean I think if anybody has ideas that, you know, they'd want to consider talking about in in these meeting times, I think it would be good to forward them to Rachel and get them on the agenda. I'm not exactly sure if this fits within the purview. Maybe it does, but the the the conversation around affordable accessible housing um and what levers we as planning commission have to pull um that may help address the long-term concerns of the community. Um I think you know in particular we see Miriam's House doing um some really good work for our community but are there ways in which officially through um the city we have opportunities to support um our affordable housing, accessible housing. Um I would not call it a crisis per se but um um situation. I I can I can add more color offline, but

does the city have a definition for affordable housing? Uh I don't know that there's a city specific definition or or threshold. Um I think HUD does um at the federal level um which is I'm gonna I'm gonna get it wrong. Maybe 30% of your income or something like that. Come on, Rachel. Some stats here. Yeah. Uh we can we can look at um possibly bringing in some partners or or something on that um just to talk.

Yeah, I believe there are other communities that kind of bake it into their planning process and it doesn't seem to be a part of our um I don't know consideration uh if that's the right word. I would just be interested to learn more about what what other communities might be doing. Okay. How far away is the uh data center summary from being presentable? Um so I don't I don't want to throw out a date just like I don't want to throw out a number just now and then tell you the wrong ballpark. Um but it is it is on our radar. Um it's well I think it's on a lot of localities radar right now.

Are you pulling from other localities to put that? That's what I thought. Right. Yeah. started did a nice comparison of what other people are doing. Um, and like I said, it's a whole range of very stringent versus more lax. It's a way of thinking. Yeah, I've got a friend. There's a lot to it. A lot. I got a friend of the Campbell County Board of Supervisors. He's uh and he's strangely supporting things that I have questions about. I need to call him, but big issues.

All right. Well, it sounds like there's things that might be kind of rumbling around. We can send notes to Rachel and uh otherwise uh someone can make a motion or anybody in motion we that we adjourn. Yeah, I'll motion we adjourn. All right, second any opposition? All in favor? I Let's go.