Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome, everyone, to the September Planning Commission meeting with the county. And we have a quorum. And we will now proceed with the Pledge of Allegiance. Our next item of business will be the public hearing. Carol Jean Bryant-Duncan and Bryant-Compton. I'll entertain a report from the staff at this time.

Okay, Bryant Compton wishes to subdivide approximately 4.5 acres off of his property located along Beecher Lane in the Fort Chisel Magisterial District and give it to Carol Jean Bryant Duncan. Simultaneously, Ms. Duncan wishes to subdivide approximately 11.3 acres off of her property located along Beecher Lane and give it to Mr. Compton. Because both parcels do not have 100-foot state-maintained road frontage, the proposed division of this property would leave two non-conforming lots. They are requesting a variance to Section 5.3.18 of the ordinance in order to proceed with this proposed division. So as you can see, they're going to split it off and kind of make it a straighter. Yes. So this is the 4.5 that they will be taken off of this parcel and 11.3 that'll be taken off of this back parcel. And so it looks better you. So right now, this one doesn't have a right away. I don't think if I'm not mistaken, Miss Duncan is the one that owns this parcel. So it this will give that parcel when they cut it down through here, it will give this parcel the right-of-way. And then this will be joined with this one, which will give it the right-of-way over here. Yeah, off of this. Is that correct?

That's my mom's property, but yes, I own that property. as well as the one that's .

Oh, OK. So this one? Which is actually mine. Yeah, this one's yours, right? Yes. OK.

Since it didn't have any right of way anyway, it was.

So with this parcel here, will you take this line out and join it with this parcel?

Well, I guess it would still go with the property that's in purple there.

Oh, so you're going to add it to this parcel?

Yes.

The other land is my mom's. Oh, OK. I got you. OK. I got you. So this will be joined with this parcel, and this will be joined with this parcel. OK. That makes sense. Do y'all understand that? OK.

Anything else from staff?

No, not this time.

All right. We'll close the staff report, and we will open up the public comment. If there is anyone who would like to come speak out, put in public on comments on this variance request, please come up to the podium and state your name and address.

I just want to make sure it's not interfering with any right of way through Beecher Lane. Division of properties and adding to, taking from, whatever. It's not interfering with anything there such. Because there are several people that have right of way on Beecher Lane. and as long as everything stays the same everything should be fine you know i don't think i think uh the land shouldn't be divided up however they wanted to be divided i don't you know i think anybody has a problem with that so uh as long as right away is the same i think everything's fine with all landowners and they shouldn't change anything with the right way right right i didn't think so i just want to be confirmed that's all that's all i have to say thank you all right thank you

Anyone else wish to speak on this variance? If not, we'll close the public comment section and we'll go to the next item of our Planning Commission discussion and action. No state maintained road frontage. Never had it, never will.

How wide?

Never is a very specific term. Unlikely.

How wide is the Beecher Lane? 20 foot, 30 foot? 20 feet, okay.

I'm just quoting the late used to build houses that's that was his always comment never had never will so i personally don't see a problem with it it's been so moved to approve have a second

Rodney did.

All right. It's being properly moved and seconded. We'll do a vote from this side to this side.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And your variance is granted. Thank you.

we do exciting stuff in here nothing

And our next item is citizens' time. If anyone else in the gallery would like to speak on any subject, you're welcome to it. Okay. If there's no citizens' time comments, we'll go to the next item, five minutes of the prior meeting.

I didn't see anything wrong with them. I moved to approve them, sir.

I read through it also and didn't find any discrepancies. I'll entertain a motion.

I did.

Oh, OK. Do I have a second? It's been properly moved and seconded and approved the prior meeting's minutes. We'll do a vote from right to left again.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

And now we'll proceed with the subdivision ordinance report. Mrs. Shipp.

Roger and Beverly Wynn recently conveyed 2.593 acres to their adjoining owner, Michael Jones. Simultaneously through a lot line revision, Mr. Jones combined the 2.593 acres with his 12.589 acre parcel portion of tax map 50-251B and with his 1.201 parcel 50-124. making a new revised parcel 16.383 acres. Mr. Wynn also, through a lot line revision, combined his 3.793 acre parcel remaining tax map 50-251B and his 2.185 acre parcel 51-128B, making a new revised parcel 3.793 acres. Mr. and Mrs. Wynn, through a lot line revision, combined their two remaining parcels of 0.780 51 dash to 51, a 1.4 acre 51 dash to 51 making the new revised parcel of 2.1, 8 acres. All partial parcels will be used as residential agricultural and all parcels will be served by public water and private sewer. And this plant was recorded August the 19th. This was a lot. So not only did they combine all of this and then these two, then the Wins combined their two parcels, which was right here on that. It was a lot, which is good. I mean, they're cleaning stuff up, but. Questions?

When they're cleaning stuff up, we don't have too many questions about that.

OK. So the next one is the Gross Coast Brothers recently conveyed 0.314 acres to their adjoining owner, Buford Sawyers, simultaneously through a lot line revision. Mr. Sawyers combined the .314 acres with 71-86A, making the new revised parcel lot 1, 1.094 acres, and revised lot 2 will be the 172.193 acre residual. Lot 1 will be used as residential, and lot 2 will be used as agricultural. Both parcels are being served by private water and private sewer, and this plot was recorded August the 12th.

This is the property I mentioned during our joint meeting with the board on the land use ordinance, that that was listed as national forest. This one, lot two, is not national forest. So that was the one I was mentioning.

Okay.

It's private rather than national forest.

Have we cleaned that up? I think we've cleaned that up since that one.

I don't know, the GIS has been updated.

Yep. Is the rest of that?

Yes, that end of Brown is a private property, not National Forest. It's included with the whole Ravenscliff, Collins Cove area.

Huh. You see that, Matt?

And that conservation recreation, that is Craig Gross Close's house. It should be agriculture or not. Is that a light brown?

Yeah, that's the Gross Close brothers. We'll have to look at that. Okay. Any more questions?

Yeah, that actually helped that out because they found out when they had it surveyed, because they're in the process of selling that lot to, the property line went through the house. You can see it there.

Except for the house, I don't know.

Anything else? Nope. All right. So the next one is, I actually lost my folder. There it is. Robert and Jean Lance recently conveyed 1.41 acres to their adjoining owners, Mary and William Crosscup. Simultaneously through a lot line revision, Mr. and Mrs. Crosscup combined the 1.418 acres with their 1.721 acre parcel, making the new revised parcel 3.139 acres. All parcels will be used as residential and all parcels will be served by public water and private sewer. And this plot was recorded August the 24th. Any questions, comments?

I don't have any.

OK. So the next one, through a lot line revision, Mr. Paul Goad and Mr. Paul Dwayne Goad recently re-subdivided their property of 18 parcels, totaling 104.289 acres located along Allegheny Road in the Fort Chisell Magisterial District to create one revised parcel. This parcel will be served by private water and private sewer, and this parcel will continue to be used for agricultural purposes. And this plat was recorded, I don't remember, August 26. That's all I have on those.

Yeah, just by the looks of that, that was one of those subdivisions that Harold Lowden, surveyor, did back in the 70s, early 80s. All those small lots. You can see examples of that throughout the county.

I see them every day.

In the one lot that cleans up things all up.

Mm-hmm. by subdivisions.

And our next item, if there's no, Ms. Shelton is finished, we'll go to coming events. So the Board of Supervisors meet on September 8th at 6 p.m. and September 22nd at 6 p.m. And the Planning Commission next meeting is October 5th at 6 p.m. And next Monday is the Labor Day holiday.

This is a reminder, Mr. Chairman, our community input session for planning commission and the board is Thursday of this week. Thursday night. It's not on your calendar.

Scott Memorial at 6 o'clock. Yes, sir.

And that's going to be in?

Scott Memorial Gymnasium, yes.

So that was the former auxiliary gym, right?

No, it's a new gym. No, they built a new one. New gym.

So it would be set up so that each district has a table. Folks can go to their district and talk to their particular representatives. The folks who come are welcome to talk to any of the supervisors and planning commissioners who are there. But we particularly want them to talk to their district supervisor and let their feelings about the ordinance and the map be known. And staff will be mingling around and answering questions. Once folks are done talking to you, if they've got additional questions for staff, they can come and talk to us. Or if you all need somebody to answer questions, you can signal to us and we'll come and respond.

We'll take them away for you then.

My fingers are appreciated.

And our next item of business will be our manufacturing home ordinance request for revision of a special permit, Mr. Scott Horn.

Yes.

So I sent this memorandum trying to break it down for you all to understand what he is asking for. Mr. Scott, Jimmy Scott Horn of 6332 Stony Fork Road, Whitfield, Virginia, is applying for a revision to an already established campground. located at 5965 Stony Fork Road, US Route 52, in the Black Magisterial District. The special use permit was granted on November the 27th, 2018 by the Planning Commission and then the Board of Supervisors on December the 11th, 2018. Mr. Horne is proposing to take out campsites 10, 11, and 12 in the storage building that was on the property. Mr. Horne would like to leave nine campsites and add one two-bedroom mobile home site. Attached are maps of the current RV campground and one showing what changes he is proposing. I spoke with Stacey Tuck-Holliday in the Wythe County Health Department concerning the septic. He stated the requirements for septic is 150 gallons per day per bedroom and 100 gallons per day per camper. There are two septic systems on the property, and since this septic system was okay for eight campers, if Mr. Horn takes out three campsites, camper sites, it should be good for a two-bedroom mobile home. so this is what it was previous and he's wanting to take out 10 11 and 12 and i think this building's already gone is that correct okay so this will be what it's he's proposing is to take those out and put the double wide trailer right there

I mean, if the safety people said it was going to work, I got nothing wrong with that.

It's just changing the type of structure of the irons to the quantity versus the... That's the problem with it.

Well, you need from us, sir, a motion for that?

Yes. We'll need a motion to approve it.

To approve it?

Mm-hmm.

So moved.

I believe your motion is that the Board of Supervisors approve. The Planning Commission recommends the Board of Supervisors approve the request as presented.

That sounds good. Thank you, sir.

Who's second?

It's been moved and seconded. I'll have a vote to recommend this to the Board of Supervisors.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. This will go to the Board of Supervisors at which meeting?

Probably the second September meeting because we've... We wouldn't have to have public hearing. No public hearing required. It could be the meeting next week. Or to get it on the agenda. So it'll probably be at the September 22nd meeting. I think we could do it at the September 8th meeting next Tuesday.

All right. Nothing else on that item. We'll go to our next item. New business. Application for creation of ag and forest soil district. Informational purposes.

Whoops. So I went ahead and updated this ag and forest district application for a new this is for a new ag and forest district. It had said previously I can't remember the exact wording. but I changed it from accompanied by maps and or aerial imagery or photographs that clearly show the boundaries I don't remember exactly how it was worded before. I wish I'd have brought a copy of it, but I forgot to. But it was saying something about satellite imagery or something. So I just fixed it to where we could actually use our GIS or pictures or something instead of trying to be too complicated with it.

I'm going to guess Eric and Andy and him, they did it back in the 80s. 70s, 80s. Yep. Am I guessing pretty closely? I know we did ours in the 90s.

Yeah, the Crockett's Cove was East Crockett's Cove and Crockett's Cove. Yeah.

That should have been the 90s or early 2000s. 99.

Okay.

And then Like I said, Eric and them, they're 10, 15 years ahead of us, so it might have been in the 70s. And that should be the only ones that I know of that's out there, other than the last ones here.

Mm-hmm.

Because you've got about two, I know Doug Wilson's wanting two, and then the one down at Eastern End, close to where this thousand acre is at, coming to, they're looking at it.

Did anything come out about that one? You haven't heard anything?

No. Okay. Okay. I talked to Ethan Henderson another week, whatever, he talked like they were going to do one. The one person who's joining landowner toward the site is going to be, he didn't want to join because he says if it comes to fruition that this does come about, he'll sell his property and move. I don't know who that was. That's what Ethan said, that he would sell his property and move. So what do you need from us, Lisa? Do you need us? Nothing.

This is just informational. Just letting you know that I changed it.

Did you put here what the fee is for that about?

No. I'm going to have to run that through the first meeting. supervisors yes so with a new with a new one it's $500 we've already got that established so I'm gonna have to run now I had to run it through the committee when we first meet and the committee Ag and Forestry District Committee okay I'll run it through them as to how much they want to do it for I think I'm working on trying to get one. I'm having a really hard time getting people to want to do it.

Eric or something like that. Andy or something. The ones that have done it before. Just tell us. Voluntarily do this or not and that would be defeating the purpose with that if they've got conservation easements I wouldn't know and go with this I would go backwards

that's a permanent thing yeah but you have to have 250 acres right 250 core right and then as much as you want within a mile if someone if someone doesn't border you that they can be a mile down the road correct still still attached to your it don't matter if it's five acres two acres they can attach to it but it would still have to be ag land yes

It couldn't be, if all they have is just a house site for five acres, that wouldn't be considered.

I don't know about with this.

Because you can't generate any kind of income. Would that be correct?

that's for land use to get your land use correct but with ag and forestal district since I've been here so this is a new ground for me but I believe you can include the smaller parcels in your in your district. But you've got to have that core, like Lisa's talking about.

Still wouldn't include a house site, I wouldn't think.

But a house with five acres?

Sure.

I mean, that's... Well, houses are allowed in agriculture anyway. So you could have it all under one umbrella like that. I don't see why they would, unless they want to keep it separate, in case they want to separate it from the other one. I don't know why you'd want to separate it, just put it all together.

I mean, I'm like Rodney, I can't imagine somebody residential would go into the first one pad, because then if they decided to move... Yeah, and a house right in the middle, you know, just sell the

property around or sell the property in the middle see that one's in the ag and forest district it's one point eight to five acres is that my weight yeah see that they don't own that one It's Anthony Faudel.

Is that at the church?

No, it's right here, right off Smith Hollow.

Okay, it's up on the right-hand side.

It's not far from my daughter's.

Yeah, okay, across the street from her.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't. These, I'm sure, is because they're joined with this one, but they're small parcels, too.

They were all house tracts when they were sold back in the 80s and 90s, a bunch of those. That was all Van Mar property. That was all house tracts.

I mean, I don't think it really matters if they want to add it into it. See, there's another one. That's yours. It's down there on yours. Your parcel.

I thought you were getting close to hers. I mean, that's the house site. I reckon that house site is not in there.

That's Chuck and Ashley's.

Yeah.

But they could put it in there, clearly.

I mean that.

If they wanted to.

Yeah. I think the way I would look at it, you have to look at the rules. I would think you'd have to generate some kind of income. You can generate something, but, I mean, you have to generate income.

I'll have to look into it.

Even for land use or even the Ag Land Forestry District.

Yeah, I'll look into it and see. I don't know that there's any rules that says how much it has to be. I just know it has to be a core of 250.

Yeah, you have to have that core to start with, yes.

Each one of these is a standalone ordinance, right? Yes.

East Crockett's Cove and Crockett's Cove is together. And then there's Fairview, and then there's Gutton Park. That's the only ones we've got.

But you have to pass a separate ordinance to Institute 1. Correct. And it's not a permanent one, so it's not codified in our –

our code of ordinances each one would then fall under its own rules and guidelines correct as it develops and they would be it it could be four years up to 10 years i know when we did it the first time we did it for four yeah i said well we do it for four and if you like it you stay if there's a 10 then some of them stayed some of them did not yeah that's that's what we've done

I think that's what all of them's basically done. They started out as four and then moved to 10. Yep. So they're all at 10 now.

Okay. The Gutton Park one's at 10 too? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Yeah, it's not due. Well, Gutton Park and Crockett's Cove is due right now. Fairview's due in 29.

We're due next year, you said?

Yes. Yeah. One's in March and one's in May. I think Gutton Park's in March and Urals is in May. We'll do it all at the same time though. One meeting for all of it.

We have to have a special meeting just or do we have to have a meeting with us to do that? I mean.

So Well, I like I said, I have to gather up a committee. And then we'll go. We'll have to have a meeting in January. I've said I'm not gonna start in December, which is when we should but I it's too much going on in December. So I'll just it'll be like right after the first of the year, I'll have first meeting. And I assume I'll send out a letter to everyone with application so that everybody can fill it out and bring it back to us. And then we'll decide whether there's going to be a fee or not at the first meeting.

And then, you know, I have some neighbors there that may want to put their parcels in.

Yes. They're more than welcome to come and add it to it. Yep.

I have the... One, the first is Mr. Hutchick. He has 25 acres, and he has land use. And then I take him farm to property. Then the other guy in New Jersey, he has 200-some acres. And there's about 40, 50 acres there that I can, that's open so that we can do his.

And we've got to take care of Mr. McNamara.

McNamara? Yeah. I can't say his name.

We've got to take care of his at this, too. That's it.

Any other discussion on agricultural districts? If nothing else on this item, we'll go to the county engineer report. Mr. Kintzer.

You can't make your head anything. Sorry.

Oh, my God. Well I'm trying.

Johnny, you're having about as much luck as I did at work today. We had a meeting and plugged that little thing in the side of the computer, like it's on the screen there, and you hit it, and it never would connect. What's that?

There. You're going to tell it to share, huh?

Thank you. We got a picture of Johnny.

Alright, this is lot 35. This is their construction entrance. This is the giant stormwater management basin. Enas basin. You can see they got the liner on the outside of the burn liner on the inside. Of course, this is a, that's the same pond, it's just a little, I'm just going around taking pictures. This is the other little pond, well actually a pretty good sized pond as well, that they're constructing over here. Right here's the other pond. And of course they've got a big old topsoil stockpile right here, the silo's still standing. This is coming on around. This is Gatorade and Amcor. Yeah, y'all can see my cursor, can't you? They got a big old topsoil stockpile here as well. They got a lot of their materials and car parking and gravel and stuff over here, the little trailers and everything. So anyway, just wanted to show you what's going on on the site.

Where's the structure going to be exactly? Right there near the solid? On this side of the solid?

Say that again?

The structure, the building.

The building is going to be basically right in here. Let me get my bearing. Yeah, the building's going to be like right into here. Kind of at a little bit of an angle like this because it's kind of squared up with the basins down here. Here's the other little basin that they constructed. This is, of course, you can see the railroad in Kintz Lane. If you look off in the distance, I think Bottomley has more equipment going picking corn back there than they got on this site. We couldn't figure out what it was for the longest time. They're doing a pretty good job on their ENS. They've got the outlet protection. They've got their silt fence. They've got the matting. So, so far, so good.

This one here is saying... Say again?

The silt fence is a reinforced silt fence. It has a chain link fence on the backside of it. It's not your stuff that you see at Lowe's. It's... A lot stronger, plus it's reinforced with chain link fence on the backside. I don't think I can zoom in close enough so you can see it, but it's a very strong silt fence. It's not super silt fence. I think it's actually stronger than super silt fence.

What was the reason for putting it there?

They wanted to make sure that nothing was going to get away from them. It's about that tall, but it's silt fence that, you know, you see silt fence on jobs gets hit with water, blows out. I don't think this is going to do that. The chain link fence behind it plus the spacing on the post is closer than it should be or closer than required. This is the outlet structure. They're not quite finished with it, but it's really close. You can see it has the anti-vortex, so it doesn't vortex. When it vortexes, it slows the water down, actually. So these little baffles in here keeps it from creating a vortex. And also, this is the trash rack that keeps all the trash from getting out. It goes up and under. The water will go underneath and then over the crest of the spillway. This is the... Slope protection. This is a slope drain coming into the basin. You can see it's got outlet protection. It's got the slope drain. It actually has inlet protection as well. So this is to protect the slope of your pond. A lot of people will run ditches right into the pond, and then once it gets to that slope on the pond, it'll eat it out.

They'll all be grassed over eventually?

They've really, if you can see, some of these areas are getting green.

That's what you'll have eventually. They'll all be grassed, right?

Yeah. And that's me and will. But that's all I have. We did go around and verify that was bottomly picking corn. There was a lot of dust coming off that site. We couldn't figure out what it was. But it was it was bottom of picking corn down kitten lane not canceling back behind state police headquarters. Y'all got any questions?

Did you get all the railroad ties and all that kind of stuff fixed down there?

We've got the railroad fixed at the crossing, re-gaged. We still have some issue. We've talked to some engineers and stuff about what we can do to fix that curve so it'll stay engaged longer. We've got gauge rods all the way around it. Seems like the tangent sections stay engaged a lot better than the curve, so we're looking at options there. I just sent Steven an internal cost estimate on what I think it'll cost. It's pretty expensive, but I think we can probably do it a little bit cheaper, but I got to talk to some of the railroad folks. What they're recommending is heavier gauge rail in the curve with the wider plates, mainline ties, which are a little bit bigger, more robust. And to replace that, we would have to do it a little bit at a time so we could keep Gatorade running. You can tie it to the existing rail. It just takes a different kind of plate because the heavier gauge rail is a little taller. But that's what we did at the crossing when we fixed it. We're still looking at options there, though, to try to long-term fix, save the county a bunch of money, hopefully, because we're spending quite a bit of money keeping that thing engaged right now.

The data center you just had up on the screen, how many acres is the building?

The building's about 11 acres, 500,000 square feet, somewhere around there. The site itself is 68 acres. That's the limits of disturbance. They've actually reduced that a little bit because they shifted the pond away from the trees so they wouldn't have to get into the trees and get into the bat migration stuff. So the pond's gonna stay the exact same volumes, exact same elevations and everything. It just won't be, it'll be 52 feet closer to the building so they can save the trees.

The total property in the lot is 99 acres.

Yeah.

Essentially half a Gatorade.

Yeah, Gatorade's about a million square feet, I think.

Any other questions for Mr. Kintzer? Any questions for Mr. Kintzer? We'll have our ex officio report with Mr. Burnett.

I have a few things. one we've uh approved the one percent tax to be voted on this fall and so i went around to the school says that the school is having informational sessions so i went to fort chisel listened to uh dr street do the presentation he did a very good presentation there wasn't anything that i could add So basically the 1% during the lifetime would do $73 million worth of school construction that we could start this spring and do all the school constructions all at once And so in about a three to four year period, we'd have all of our schools done. Fort Chiswell, the new Scott Spiller School, however they're going to call that, ball fields, lights, tracks, just about anything that, not just about anything, but I mean the fair amount. just for informational purposes we are carrying right now that wouldn't do the 1% would do nothing with this because it's only for future school but right now we have roughly twenty six point seven million dollars of schools school debt that would be as the one if the 1% passes we would start for children in the world would start the new elementary school in Fort Chiswick but we'd be paying that debt down, and it would almost be over with by the time the 1% is over with. So we see it, our debt being paid down normally, and then the 1% being taken care of future school construction. We estimated that 40% of the 1% would be paid for by travelers. So that's better than just about any other county around us that only has one interstate going through them, like Pulaski or Smith. So we are in a very good position. School board actually has almost everything in place to be able to move really quickly on the new Scott Spiller. elementary school so I mean that would be once they knew they could do that I mean they've done got preliminary drawings they've done I mean I don't know how much more they would need but they're super close to that so tell people about the other week four of us and a bunch of county staff went to visit data centers in Jericho County we met with their economic development authority and they told us that they started building data centers in the late 90s and they have or continue to build them. They have one main industrial park that has right now about 24 data centers. When they get done, they'll have about 35 data centers. And so it stretches over almost 30 years. We asked them numerous questions of water usage. They said their water usage was about 2% of what Henrico County uses, which was about 57,000 gallons a day. On last year's numbers, we couldn't find this year's current numbers. We actually went and visited 14 data centers we went around and look they do use enormous amounts of electricity but as far as noise We couldn't determine any additional noise the road noise behind us was more louder than in the data centers we Didn't have any really good matrices to determine temperature, but 15 miles away was the same temperature as it was right next to them. So I don't know how well that was. We asked them about water discharge, if they noticed over the years any additional water discharge going into their sewer system. So a lot of good information as far as you know the data centers and and some of the concerns that uh we had that we read same as everybody else read and um so you know we came back uh i shared the information with uh that the Data Center out on the very eastern end of the county. They're wanting to Be open and they expressed interest. That's the reason y'all all have their contact information and they want to do community meetings and they want to talk to everyone and they want to talk to the homeowners and Be as open and approachable as possible is what they indicated to us and So Some of the things that, even though we don't want to count our chickens before the eggs hatch, is some of the possible thoughts of using the money from the One in Progress Park is to help pay that school debt that we was talking about just earlier. of the $26 million, but we also carry about $25, $26 million of debt in the water services. And that money could be applied to that so that we can pay that debt down and try to lower our water costs at the same time and do additional projects to get water to more county citizens. Those are just some things that's being tossed out. We've indicated that we're going to do some task force groups with like school board members and community members just to get a plan in place for the additional revenue from the progress part that way and again i remember the glove factory and we still get no money from it and probably never will at this point and so until I actually start seeing money come in I'm not going to say you know because we could get to the point they could build a building too and then disappear so and that oh and I just realized that Sheriff Klein announced that He is canceling a contract with the flock cameras.

Yep, I got that notice on my phone a while ago.

That was literally posted on the sheriff during this meeting, so about 30 minutes ago.

And that consists of?

Four cameras.

Four cameras. I know the town of Whiffle has?

One on 21 at the carpet outlet. There's three. I know the town of Rivertree has three or four.

Well there's three there's three flock cameras at Lowe's pointed inside the parking lot it's Lowe's owns those cameras.

That's all I had unless y'all had questions.

Right now they do not own any property and they have no permits Well, they've done their geotech they've submitted a 288 page plan set to the county engineer for review and

And DEQ as well, they've submitted for their stormwater plans and their ENS plans will follow that. But they're pretty far along. They have until, based on the document that they filed with the court, their option runs through January 4th of 2027. So they have another three months, four months to... finalize their land transaction.

If there is an affirmative government act between now and the time that the zoning is implemented, then yes, they would be grandfathered. It would go before the zoning.

The other question, the data center that's coming in at Progress Park, do we know who the consumer's going to be for that data center?

They have not publicly indicated that. If you do some research on Fluidstack and their connections, you can probably infer who that's going to be. And it is a compute campus, as I understand, not a storage campus. So compute campuses generally support AI or computing functions.

I think there's some concerns with the not knowing, because other projects that have been done in the past have not come to fruition. So I think if we're going to do other projects, we need to think about the stability of jobs that are coming in for our community, because several projects have fallen by the wayside and didn't have a lot of good information about consumer. When we met with the...

I can't say that publicly yet. So generally, if you look at the industry, you have companies like Anthropic or ChatGPT and some of those that are on the AI side. along with your big four, your Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google. So those are your main players and what happens frequently is that you'll get a company that will come in, they'll identify a site, they'll make all the arrangements for the power and any utilities that are needed, they'll develop that initial plan and then those get bought out by a secondary and then there's a final user that will be that third transaction. It's a lot like the solar farms. The ones that show up first are not the ones that are going to operate it.

It seems like they get sold quite often just because of how old they are.

Mr. Burnett, of the 14 data centers you went and visited, was any of those a Google data center? Or Alphabet. That's the parent company of Google.

I remember, the only one that I remember specifically was the Meta. And there were several of those.

And it's one of Meta's largest campuses in the world.

Yeah, Meta's the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. That's the only one I can remember specifically.

See, that's the fuss they had down in Roanoke about the water. they just bring the water in run it across their chillers and put it back out in the in the wastewater and I know they announced they're going to do a closed loop system down the bottom top because Carmen's Cove cannot take that much water out every day 13 to 14 million gallons I think is what it was so I was just wondering if you.

That was one of the things that they indicated that every one of their data centers was closed loop or recycled their water. And that was the reason their water usage was only 2% of what the county used. And they did indicate that their covenants and their zoning helped in controlling how they built those data centers because some of the data centers are required to be built to a certain energy level. And so, of course, the higher energy level you go, the more expensive it is. And the buildings was actually really attractive. I mean, they didn't look like jail prisons or anything. I mean, they looked, you know, really nice structures. The grounds around it was kept really nice. Because it was all flat, you really didn't know there was anything there until the driveway opened up between the trees and then you could see. And they like planting lots of vegetation around them for various reasons. One, they're very secure areas. I mean, they all have security guards and nice big tall fencing and that kind of thing. And truly, they do use a lot of power. And they did have long lines of generators sitting there.

Were most of these in industrial parks or just out?

There was a big industrial park. then the 680 there there was a few that scattered out in the county they said uh they of course we didn't go see uh what i did notice was building several in the main industrial park and the dump truck traffic was crazy it was bumper to bumper worse than what was actually out on the interstates and then and around the you know where you you know I don't know how many people went to Richmond, but the traffic was worse with dump trucks in the industrial park than it was out in the county. And it was one of the things that I thought about when they leased the lot right next to the one in Progress Park to move that dirt to keep those dump trucks off of our VDOT roads. because it was just unbelievable. It wasn't just dump trucks. It was road tractors, dump trailers, bumper to bumper. It's hard to explain how many dump trucks there was. A lot of equipment moving, is that what you're saying?

I'll follow up on that if you don't mind. We've had a lot of questions about water and water usage and just one thing for folks to keep in mind for the water that gets distributed through most of the town or most of the county system. Our maximum licensure at the New River water treatment plant in my neighborhood is six million gallons a day. How long does it take six million gallons to flow by the Ivanhoe River gauge on the New River? Today, with a lower water level, it took about 16 minutes for that maximum to flow by the Ivanhoe gauge. So the water that we actually used today probably took about nine minutes to flow by. We don't take all that in at one time, but it gives you some perspective on how much water we have, how much capacity we have here.

How much of a boost are we going to use in water? quantity. How much was Blue Star on the books before they left town?

Much, much more than any Dyson.

That wasn't going to be treated. That was going to be processed and somewhat treated or released right back into the sewer system.

Right. We were going to have to expand. We actually did expand our sewer system capacity. We have a a pump station that if they were to start operating tomorrow, we could handle the sewage that they send to us. But you're also going to have to expand the wastewater treatment plant on Lopez Hill. And since that project hasn't advanced, we haven't proceeded with expanding the treatment capacity. We have the plans, but we could probably get that bit out within a couple months and get that project back underway, but we're not having to do that. The data center in Progress Park has filed a permit for 3,000 gallons of wastewater a day, so it's not even a blip on the radar for what passes through the...

They're going to pre-treat that or just going to spray it out raw?

There's no need for pre-treatment. It's all domestic. So it's flushing toilets. It's running sinks and kitchens. It's washing hands. It's filling water bottles.

Yeah, just pour that in, gray water.

Any other questions for Mr. Burnett?

Thank you for going and bringing it back.

It was a long day.

It was a long day.

And our next item of business is our Deputy County Administrator report.

I don't have an awful lot to report. I've been working on things related to your project and a couple of other projects. So I have made some changes to the ordinance as you directed in your joint work session with the Board of Supervisors and making map changes. And I think we've gotten most of them. There are still a few that we may have to do some further sorting out on. one of the properties that you all asked to be moved back from industrial to agricultural the property owner would prefer that it remain industrial mr mr ombarger no okay okay i think owns more acreage okay well i've talked to him twice So there are a few of those that we may yet still have to work on. There is a draft online with the changes that have been directed so far. We've had three or four additional comments come in. One gentleman in particular submitted very lengthy, probably three or four pages of requested changes. When the time is right and we have further direction on how to proceed, we will come back to you with those and see if you wish to pursue any of them. At this point, staff hasn't gone in depth. The ones that I have looked at, I haven't seen a lot that I would recommend that you change. But we will see what happens Thursday with that. We'll see what sort of turnout we have. Uh, you all may have got a, um, citizen alert on your phones earlier. Um, just reminding folks of that meeting, um, our staff, um, Lisa, Alison Williams, um, Leanne Nestor and the administration office. Um, several others have gone around the county. They've distributed flyers. A lot of the convenience stores, you know, different areas around the parks. You know, just if there was a venue that we thought that we could reach people, our staff has gone out and they've done outreach, just trying to publicize this meeting, trying to get as much participation as we can. I would remind you that so far, the public participation that we've had is still less than 1% of the county population. We'd like to hear from people, but if we don't hear from people, what do we assume? Either they don't care or they don't think it's gonna matter. I know which one I tend to fall on. Most people, this isn't gonna touch their lives, so it's probably not gonna bother them that much. But I think that people need to realize that it does have some long-term bearing in how we're able to manage the development of the county so we need to be mindful of if there's a tool that we can use it's not going to bother most people let's talk about you know what it takes to get that in place moving on to broadband i did go around on a tour last week with citizens telecom so they had their physical plant manager, their CEO, along with staff from the Mount Rogers Planning District Commission, which is the grant holder for this project, and DHCD. So I've tagged along. looked at the areas that they are wrapping up. They are almost through with the VATI 2 project. They have completed at Miller's Creek, they've completed all the way out at Connors Valley Road. We went up Stillwill. We saw a lot of areas on the eastern end of the county that they were still working on. back up in Bertha Farms, trying to get a lot of that work finished. They finally were able to find right-of-way easement that they were able to attach to and dig their trenches and take their cable up in there, even if they couldn't get landowners to respond to a request for easements. much of the eastern end of the county will have access to fiber by the end of september so they do have some additional funding made available in the bead project so the folks who are in those scattered sites that were maybe too far from the fiber line to be served that they will you know be eligible to get some funding from this particular grant So hopefully the folks that want to have some high-speed access will have access to it by the end of 2027.

Are they doing any Wi-Fi hubs or global community Wi-Fi hubs?

They have been trying to. They haven't had a lot of success.

I've read some, but I didn't hear the whole...

So some of the grant funding required that they make publicly accessible nodes. So they looked at places like fire departments, rescue squads, convenience stores, community gathering locations, just trying to make sure that if we go through another pandemic and something happens that folks who don't have any access at all, aren't all having to gather in the McDonald's parking lot to get Wi Fi.

I just want to have that. I'll ask for an update on that.

I know that they have done quite a bit of outreach to folks that they thought might be receptive to it. And I know they've installed some but I don't remember what those locations are. So I'll ask for an update on them.

I would think that you have to provide shelter for people power outage, snow, something at your fire departments or schools, that'd be a good place to have that, I would think.

Yeah. We're trying to make that happen. They will be installing fiber either late this week or sometime next week at the Wythe County East Station, the old lead mine station. That's currently served by a cable, bandwidth isn't what we need it to be.

So they're going to run fiber there.

And that's one of the last public locations that they'll, they'll have to get to to reach those systems.

Okay, exactly. That coax is generally capable of 100 megabit downloads and 20 megabit uploads.

Our camera system that we use for security there needs more bandwidth than that. Not to mention all the providers and they're reporting that they're able to do electronically now. We need an upgraded capacity there.

That's probably Pioneer Cable. Edger Arnold installed with that. So that's some of the original stuff he installed with it. Probably so.

It has been there a while.

Is Citizens turning some people on to the... I mean, getting them hooked up and getting...

They are, and they've been making a really good effort to do outreach. You all may have met the CEO. She was at the first meeting at Fort Chisel. Just to connect people, we suggested several things that they could do to get out and meet people who are more specifically on the eastern end of the county. So they reached out to clubs and churches and social groups and just tried to get the word out that those two have another option now for their speed. For the areas that have been connected by fiber, you can get gigabit service.

I'm on that fiber, and I'm not recognizing any decay of service. It's still just like it always is. We have every tablet, television, all we want in the house, and it never buffers. So they've got a very good system, and it's kind of surprising that we didn't see little jumps or something. Yeah.

With most of the providers I've had in my life, I was happy if I got 80% of what they promised me. And generally with citizens, it's closer to 100% of what they've offered.

So I'm going to endorse what you said. The not in my backyard does not work anymore in the county. And if we have a tool that we can help the county grow successfully, I think it's a good thing to do. The other thing I was thinking about what Jesse said about utilizing money for certain things. Have we thought about any of that money going towards fire and rescue to help them with equipment they don't have or things that are in the county that they don't have equipment for?

We had one of those discussions today. We're getting ready to do roof repairs at Barron Springs Fire Department and at the Wythe County East Station. They both have a water infiltration problem. Those fire stations and rescue squads are around 30 years old, not getting any younger. Some of them have been treated better than others. But as we look forward, do we need to replace our fire stations? EMS buildings in line with what we're doing with the schools. And so certainly that we have plans for that in our capital improvement plan. The timing will be up to when does the money start coming in and how much of it do we apply to that specific area? As far as equipment goes, we're generally in pretty good shape. Our EMS folks will take possession of a new ambulance within the next six weeks. And we have several newer ambulances purchased within the last four years. Fire departments are generally in good shape. We've invested in several new apparatus since I've been here. But you've got to keep that going.

You might have to look at a ladder truck if it isn't there. That would be a definite need.

We've already had conversations with the developer for that project that they have asked us, what do you need? And one of my first responses in emergency services was to tell them that the fire station that will serve that location is not big enough for an aerial apparatus, even if we had it. So we may be able to squeeze a quint in the maximum at a station, but we'd have to give up two other trucks and it'd be tight. So we're realistically gonna have to look at what our options are on some of those stations going forward. I'm not advocating for building $10 million fire stations, but we can probably do better than metal buildings.

It would be of particular interest too if there was an expansion into battery energy storage. You've got to be mindful of

while the odds of a thermal runaway are low they're never zero so we would have to know how to fight that and so it's not just providing the equipment but also providing the training necessary and that shouldn't be on the county to provide that training it should be on the developer of the the project to provide the training so that we can fight it the right way Anything else for Mr. Hankins? Those hand signals are still better than most of the ones I get.

If nothing else for Mr. Hankins, we'll go to Commissioner Concerns. I was going to bring up, can we get rid of the block cameras? But see, the sheriff has beat me to it.

I'm a small government guy, but there have been instances where those flat cameras did point us in the right direction. The very first week they were up when Sheriff Foster was still the sheriff, there was a lady with Alzheimer's from North Carolina who drove through the camera closest to Jackson, and our folks were able to locate her and get her back home safely by the use of that technology. But I get that a lot of folks are fearful of that technology and what it can do. Like any other technology, it can be abused. But I have not known our law enforcement folks to do that.

And also, I took a lot of phone calls and in person, I would say some of them were confrontational. over the last two weeks, it's not over the land use ordinance, it's over this 1% sales tax. People raising cane over this 1% sales tax. I've had to explain to them, I said, you got to, if the 1% passes, travelers and out of state and out of county, people will help pay for the schools. If not, your real estate could go up 20 cents on the 100, and I said, you're gonna be paying for all of it. And that's happened two times before. People are ignorant. I mean, a lot of people are ignorant. They just say, tax, no!

If the 1% local option doesn't pass, we would have to do those upgrades 100% based on property taxes that we receive. And as Mr. King pointed out, and Mr. Burnett did, you can't rely on that revenue before it starts coming in. And even once it starts coming in, you need to be mindful that it can go away just as quickly as it got here. So the 1% would give us the option of having a pretty significant discount. I don't know about y'all, but I still use coupons. I'll open up my Food Line app and I'll pick out which coupons I'm gonna use this week. We're getting a pretty significant discount on new schools if we use this local option. It's like getting 40% off, and I'll take that bargain just about any time.

I've been explaining to people, I said that 1% will be the fairest tax there is.

If you don't use it, you don't get charged.

Have you all had any people complain?

I've had a couple. I've had a couple who didn't understand why. And after I explained to them the 20% deal, I said, would you really pay 52, what is it, 52, 53 cents on it? And I said, would you like to pay 71, 72 cents? I said, no. I said, well, that 1%, all these people coming here and eating wine, I just wish we'd get some more restaurants, like a Chick-fil-A, a Roadhouse, because I'll tell y'all, I did a little research. There's 58,000 cars that come through this intersection today. You know how many in Roanoke has? 57. We've got 1,000 more comes through this intersection here than Roanoke does. But we can't get a Chick-fil-A.

Yeah, they have 250,000 people living down in that bowl, too, and we only got 28,000.

I've done a lot of work with those restaurants and hotels over the years that base their metrics on any number of things. A lot of them do base it on number of cars passing by, but they also look at your local population. And if your local population is not big enough, they're not coming.

And I remember, I don't know how many years ago it was, when Chick-fil-A said that we did not have enough lunch crowd for them to locate here.

Well, Chick-fil-A also looks at other metrics. Median household income is one. Chick-fil-A is not going to let somebody locate somewhere where it's going to possibly fail. So even if a franchisee were to say, I want to put one in Whiffle, Chick-fil-A is the corporate entity has to sign off on that and they won't sign off on it if it's not going to meet their metrics.

If you don't put it, they won't come is the problem. I mean, we've got a corridor from Linton to Fortune on both sides that you can have it lined up and you put them over there, I guarantee you we'll roll this thing because people's hungry. They come through here and get gas. Look at the tax revenue on gas. I get you, I'm getting pretty good on gas. If you did that same thing with the food, you know they'd stop and eat when they filled up.

There's a reason why Starbucks built on a sea parcel.

Absolutely.

And just remember, we've got three Taco Bells within a three-mile radius of one another.

Three or four Wendy's in Canada.

The 1%, if it does pass, is 20 years or 25 years?

It's 20 years. So if it were passed this year, it would expire in 2046.

It could be redone again if you thought you had a need.

That's not in the enabling legislation that the General Assembly passed.

That could change between now and 2046.

One of the other considerations is that this is just for school construction rehabilitation it is not for teacher salaries it's not for operating it's not for buses it's for those major projects it's it's for construction how many other counties around that's going that's going to try to pass this there's quite a few um some have opted not to land opted not to okay You don't have nearly the number of businesses over there, so it wouldn't have that big an impact. I still argue it would have some impact. They could do something with those funds, but they've opted not to, and that's the right of their board to decide to go that way. So a lot of other localities have reached out to us. They have seen some of the publications that we've put out, and they're interested in using similar materials because... while their circumstances aren't necessarily the same, some of the same things hold true. So they want to use some of the materials that we've produced.

I've seen this morning on the news that there will be three statewide constitutional amendments on your ballot this November.

Yeah, I plan on spending a little longer in the ballot box this time than you usually do.

Yes. We don't have any countywide elections, but you'll have national-wide, so...

Yep, we have U.S. Senate and U.S. House both up this time. Some people may ask why we're not, as a county, actively out there vocal and promoting the 1% tax. We can't, by state code, assert that people should vote one way or the other. I can individually tell you how I'm gonna vote. I'm gonna vote for it. But I can't tell people how they ought to vote. We have to present it in a neutral sort of format and let people make up their own minds.

That's why I was gonna ask, like informational meetings and stuff, because I think a lot of people are confused Over what the wording is.

Well, dr. Street spoke to the joint governing bodies last night made a very compelling argument He has done Informational meetings in he did for chisel Friday night before the football game I think and he was doing tonight at Sheffy While this meeting is going on You know, he's doing some of those around the county just to help people understand get a better understanding of what we're asking, or the ballot question they'll be asked to vote on this fall. He has some really great pictures of the architectural renderings for the new elementary school here in town, and the Fort Chisel High School renovations, as well as the athletic fields that would be done as part of this initiative. He points out, rightly so, that we cannot host a regional sporting tournament or sporting event. Our tracks are not big enough. They don't have the right surfaces. We don't have lights on most of our athletic fields. So the games that we go into the night, we have to play somewhere that has lights. So that means our athletes are traveling further away, spending longer away from their studies while they were traveling to the ball games. He also points out that because we will be addressing some of this aging equipment, including some some chillers and air conditioning equipment, you know, getting our schools air conditioned and climate comfortable. Because we will be spending less on maintenance that will give them less fun. I give them more funds for operations So teacher salaries teacher benefits school supplies You know student activity supplies all those things will have more money because we'll be spending less on maintenance Yeah, I do know like I've seen the board meetings.

Mr. Mr. Joe to board talking about the lights at Speedwell Elementary School that's the only baseball field in the county that has lights and

You may know a lot more about those lights than we do. We don't know who installed them or when they were installed.

Mr. Joe Bass and the community installed them.

Okay. I think I owe somebody some money. They bet today that the Basses were involved in that.

And I got an email the other day asking us to, I don't know, Whitfield, the town, they're doing their comprehensive plan. And they want people in the county to answer that or not?

I got the same email. I'm a little conflicted about whether I should answer it or not. I didn't think that it's more for the folks in Whitfield to help make those determinations. If they want my help, I'll be glad to offer my opinions.

Did you get one, Rusty?

I did get one.

I just was curious.

That's what we build. Pretty good-sized cannons. 168 inches.

Any other concerns for the? Commissioner, are there concerns at this time?

I've run my mouth enough.

Our next item will be our land use ordinance review.

I've already talked about that, unless you all just have something that you found that's wrong or that needs to be corrected or updated or changed. I'm good. It's only about 19,000 parcels, so I'm mounting at one or two of them wrong.

Is there a large quantity of people calling in about it or just a few?

We really haven't had much in the way of calls. We've had, like I say, maybe three or four additional online submissions.

That would be worth probably just seeing if the board wants to bring it back and just say, okay, if that's what they want... But it's a done deal and we move on. I mean, that's just my thought. I mean, I could be totally off base with it.

Well, yeah, this thing Thursday night is not the last opportunity for the public to be engaged. If you all are ready and the board's ready to move on to public hearings, there will be opportunity, and I'm willing to bet that we won't have it in this room.

I don't know if right now it's still in the planning commission's hands.

Right. So you all would need to make a recommendation that the current draft or any subsequent draft be adopted by the board. So. And then they would have to.

And basically the board still may have something to bring back to us to change.

Well, it may mean another joint meeting just to wrap it up and make sure that y'all are on the same page. About the earliest that you could expect to even consider passage is maybe November, just based on when it would take, you know, you all have set your public hearing, the board has to set its, we have to meet the advertising requirements for that. And then we have to actually have the public hearings. It's too late for you all to set one now for October. So the first window I think would be November. That's at the very earliest.

You'd have to do it by our normal business meeting, correct? You couldn't just add another meeting at the end of the month? Like in October, end of October?

You could, if you saw value in that.

Well, I guess that would just move the process on faster.

Well, that's one thing that I think that you and the board need to reach agreement on. And we can help facilitate that.

I would think that we need another meeting between us and the supervisors to make sure we're on the same page and that they wanted them with adopted them.

And it may be that the board has some conversation about this Tuesday at their meeting, if they want to follow up from that. I can't say until the agenda is done or we see what the board members have to say next week.

We'll find a little bit on the board after Thursday, too. Yes, sir. Because I don't want to step on their toes.

Everyone's talking about the firemen, the public. We're at one.

I said I won't say nothing last time. It's all right.

If nothing else, I'll entertain a motion.

Motion to adjourn. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded to adjourn the September meeting of the Wythe County Planning Commission. I'll take a roll call vote from this way.

Aye.