Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Have we heard from Adam? Is he coming? I'll call to order the November 19th meeting of the McGomery County Planning Commission. Lonnie Makus, Mr. Croll here, Miller here, Miss Sharp Robinson here, Miss Simkins here, Mr. Waltz here, Mr. Wartman's absent, Mr. Lincoln here. Vice Chair Foster here. Chair Rice

here. Have a quorum. Um, let's see. You have the agenda in front of you. And I will mention that under new business, I'm adding uh uh nominating committee for officers next year. Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed likewise. Uh the consent agenda consists of the August 13th, September 10th, and October 8th meeting minutes. So moved.

Second. Got a motion and second for approval of the consent agenda. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. And those like oppose likewise. And so we'll move into public hearings. And um on our agenda is the a and forestral district number six renewal and Miss Kim Wright is going to present that.

Good evening everyone. We have our annual renewal. This year we are looking at agricultural and forestal district number six which is located south of Shawsville. It was originally formed in 1981, last renewed in 2017. It comprises of 1,658 acres amongst six land owners. There are no proposed changes to this district. Um there were no proposed additions or withdrawals. It's located there where the star is south of Shawville. And then we're going to zoom in a little bit. Everything in yellow is in the district. There is the core which is this area right here along Boner's Run Road. And then here is the outlier which is 0.87 miles away from the core. that will be important here in just a minute. And it's off of Alageney Springs Road. The purpose of the AFD is outlined in both state code and McGomery County code to conserve and protect lands for production of food and agricultural products. Um value natural and ecological resources providing open spaces for clean air sheds, watershed protection and wildlife habitat. Um, it is a means for mutual undertaking by land owners and local governments to protect and enhance the lands as a vital economic resource and environmental resource. McGomery Countyy's policy is to encourage support of the economy and protect resources during if pe if people are enrolled in this program, they relinquish development rights in return for increased protection and real estate benefits.

non-participating land owners. That means that they will assume um different level of real estate taxes because they're not enrolled in um in the agricultural and forestal district or agricultural savings tax program. But all McGomery County residents benefit from good stewardship of the land and reduced demand to extend public services into these rural areas of the county. State code says that each district shall have a core of no less than 200 acres on one parcel or contiguous parcels. And a parcel or that can be not part of the core and may be included if these criteria are met. And um in this case um the nearest boundary of the parcel which is considered the outlier must be within one mile of the boundary of the core which is why I mentioned that before. State code of Virginia defines agriculturally and forestly significant land as land that is recently or historically produced agricultural and forestal products. It is suitable for agricultural or forestal production or is considered appropriate to be retained for agricultural and forestal production as determined by such se factors as soil quality, topography, climate, markets, farm structures and other relevant factors. State code of Virginia further states that the local governing body may continue, modify or terminate a district and they also may stipulate conditions to continuation of the district upon notice of the land owners. McGomery County Code does state that there are eight compatible uses that are allowed in lands that are enrolled in AFD which includes residential

dwellings, farming um farming, agricultural, horiculture, viticulture and dairying including any accessory accessory buildings that would support that use. Temporary sawmills and forestry operations, watershed areas, temporary exploratory activities for oil or gas resources such as seismic surveys and the drilling of test wells or cores, data poles, telecommunication towers attached and freestanding for this district. Um the core itself is 1,239 acres and if you recall um it's required to be a minimum of 200. The outlier is 419 acres and again is located 87 miles from the core. For this district we received a 100% response rate. So, it is a very strong district and no one requested to add any lands or withdraw, which is the first time that's happened in a few years. The AFD committee met on September 25th and recommends renewal of the AFD South of Shawville district as there are no requested changes to it and the district remains strong. I won't take any questions if you have them.

Kim, I apologize, but I was at that meeting. I thought that we had two parcels that people were wanting to take out that they had uh the death in the family and and so they were want to take some of the but here it's saying it all they had 100%. So that was information for the AFD committee and that was just to notify the committee that a property owner does have the right to withdraw lands due to death. They have two years to do that and that was actually in a different district. That was in AFD7 and it was 223 acres. Okay. A different district. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, that's good. Thank you.

Thank Mr. Chair, I do have a question. Just some clarification on the overlap between the AFD, this one in particular, and the village boundaries that are defined as a UDA. It looks like there's portions of this that front on Rono Road that are within the village. Does that create any kind of conflict with the village plan um by having the AFD within essentially the core of the Shawsville village?

It it does not. Um so we've had properties that are in AFD within the villages before. Generally what we do with those is show them as open space areas and then if they do want to develop they have to withdraw from the AFD and then they can request a comp plan change for that. Um but they are still we've had them located within the villages before and the reason is it's different from a conservation easement. Um these lands can be withdrawn if they meet certain criteria or like Kim said if there's inheritance or or something like that. Um, so it's not permanent like a conservation easement. Um, so they they can come out. So we do allow them in the village. It's normally shown as an open space area. Um, meaning they would still have to come in and request a comp plan amendment before they can do any development.

Okay. So then the comp plan amendment would have to be done on the cycle for doing um developer uh proposed amendments. Right. Correct. At least twice a year. Correct. That's currently what the standards are. We will have to discuss if that's how we will continue to move forward with the new comp plan. But yes, they're done in February and August. Okay. So does the property have to be withdrawn from the AFD first? Yes. before and then what is the does the timing work out to where somebody would withdraw from the AFD and do the comp plan amendment at the same time?

It could potentially depending on what their time frame was. Okay. Thank you. But but it's only allowed every eight years and it is there is a withdrawal process. Um excuse me. there are very specific criteria that have to be met before something can be withdrawn out of that that um that 8-year period and um I apologize I don't have those specific criteria with me right now but um they are pretty specific and bold.

Okay. So it's not as easy as Yeah. Mhm. chemist. They are it's a mutual agreement and um this if if you all agree to recommend approval and the board of supervisors approves it, it will become a resolution just like everything else and it will expire on December 31st, 2033.

Thank you. You're welcome. Any further comments, questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. and and so you'll be looking for a recommendation from us after the public hearing. Yes. Thank you. Okay, I will open up uh for public hearing. Anyone would like to speak to this issue. Seeing none, seeing none, we will close the public hearing and open up to the commission for comments or action.

Um Mr. Mr. Chair, I offer a motion to approve staff's recommendation and committees. So, we have a motion and a second to to uh for approval of the renewal. Need a roll call. Okay. Mr. Crawl, yes. Mr. Miller, yes. Sharp Robinson, yes. Miss Simkins, yes. Mr. Waltz, yes. I'm Yes. Vice Chair Foster. Yes. Chair Rice.

Yes. And then we have a regular public address. And seeing none, we will move to new business. And let's see. We need or I need to appoint a nominating committee uh for the planning commission officers. And I've talked to Bob and Pam and they've both agreed to to bring back a slate of officers for our approval at our next meeting. This will be for um starting January and then we'll move into liaison reports. Mr. King, do you have a have a report for us? Just want to let everybody know that the board has been talking about moving a reassessment from four years to every two years. And I believe it'd be very important to get this out in each one of your communities and let the citizens come before the board and express their concerns or their approval of it. Mhm.

And we will have I think we our next meeting the 24th is when we'll vote to have a public hearing and the other and the actual discussions will start in January probably. Would would uh we still use an outside assessor or would would it be taken into the the county? They're talking about opening up another department for the county. Okay. Be county employees. Okay. But I think it'd be very good if each one of you would spread the word through your communities. Mhm. Thank you. Huh?

That's what they're talking about. Every two years,

a new assessment. It's It's different for different counties. You go by your populations and things. different there. Each one of them do different. I think now Pulaski is doing theirs and they do theirs every six years. But us Huh.

They told us six over the weekend. But it I I I think I think um to to um even out the increases and decreases, you know, over four years there's a lot of movement in prices and it gives people a shock shock, you know, when they get their assessment, it's gone up. you say a decrease? Well, there's a possibility of a decrease and some and some individuals would see a decrease, but uh um so yeah, I think that's that's the the idea behind it is to to help keep from having those large spikes between the four years

and move it to two years so the increases wouldn't be as shocking. public hearing public hearing, but uh they they pulled some from Orange County and Rono County, I think, that has inhouse. So, I'll just watch what I say here because it's not a board meeting.

But if you want to speak to me after this meeting, I'll be more than glad to speak to any of you. I and I think I think one of the key issues would be bringing it inhouse. It would uh we uh McGomery County employees doing the work as opposed to outside contractor. Is that new employees? New employees, a new department. Right. Right. But I think in a lot of the counties around the Commonwealth that do it inhouse, they still have periodically, maybe it's every 10 years or whatever, some external organization to get the adjustments back in line because

you can get too close to the to the uh pricing and you're an employee and it's all sorts of different pressures. That's it. Thank Thank you, Mr. King. Um, Blackburg Planning Commission. Uh, Andrea. Okay. Okay. And then, uh, uh, the Chrisburg Plan Commission trade. We Yeah, they had a a proposed development off of Kimble Lane. Um that was actually uh denied last night at the town council meeting. Planning Commission approved it and

it was it wasn't a I think it was 43 or Yeah, it was split vote. Yeah. And the Radford Planning Commission. I did not attend the meeting that was October 20th, but I did get the um agenda and they did have one item to get um a piece of property reszoned from um central business to multifamily on Third Avenue. So, that'll be um brought up at the next meeting. I'll find out what took place. Um and tourism council, Mr. Miller.

No. Okay, that Mr. Workman is not here. So, that brings us to uh the planning director's report with the top.

Yes. And I have several things and hopefully I'm not going to repeat anything that Justin has told you in previous meetings. Um I do want to note and we'll make sure our slides are updated um in the future, but the public service authority is now a department under county um under the county umbrella. We do still have the public service authority board. Um, so the board of supervisors still serves as the board, but um, the employees have become county employees and Justin Shepard was hired as the utilities director and is doing a wonderful job um, just in the short time he's been here. We um, we've enjoyed having him in our suite and and getting used to working with him and he has some great ideas and it's going very well. Um, in news on our staff, I would like to report that Cody Andrews, um, effective the 16th of November, has been promoted to GIS manager. Um, so he was our senior GIS analyst, um, for a year after Michael Sutherland retired, um, being with us for multiple years. Um, we gave Cody the opportunity to take advantage of some training and some leadership training and move into that manager position because he had showed so much promise and he has done a phenomenal job. So, we're really excited um to be promoting him to GIS manager. Um, Montgomery Matters open house was held on Monday. Um, Mr. Croll actually came and saw us that evening. Um we did not have quite the turnout that we hoped to have, but um what we did have was good engagement. Um so the few that did come were very engaged. We had some of our stakeholders and our steering committee members come prior to the public openhouse. Um and that was also very engaging. Those of you that came through the front entrance, you may have noticed um we do have a display set up down there. I encourage you all to stop

on your way out. Um, what we did was everyone got a little bag full of money that was their county budget and they had to decide which pots they were going to put their money in and how much money they were going to put in each bank um based on different things. So, they had to choose between education and public safety and economic development and all those hard decisions that Mr. King and the board have to make when it comes to budget time. Um, so we we let our citizens do that. that is a way that we can see what their priorities are and um where they think funding needs to be be spent so we can help navigate the goals and recommendations for the comp plan. So I do encourage you to to do that. We also have a survey out for those of you that could not attend or even if you did attend and and you want to go take the survey, it's at mcgomery matters.com. Um it it will it's not exactly what we had here that night. It's meant to be taken in 5 to 10 minutes. Um, Mr. Croll can probably tell you it was a pretty extensive um, open house. There were a lot of boards, a lot of information, and a lot of interaction. Um, so it has been paired down a little bit for the online survey, but I do encourage you all to take that and give us your feedback. Um, budget season is upon us. So, um, I will be submitting our proposed department budget December 12th. Um, I don't know what that looks like yet. I have had meetings with Justin and Jude and Cody as a leadership team to discuss what each of the divisions needed and then we're we're going to finalize everything. And so I will have a report for you in December on on any new requests that we may be making in the budget. Um we have been holding New River Valley Homebuilders Association meetings. Um, so far we've held them here at the government center with the board of the New River Valley Homebuilders Association. That has

proven to be very beneficial to both groups, us and them. Um, so what we do is we meet here at the government center once a quarter basically or twice a year. Um, I think our next meeting is not until May. Uh we did have one last week and we basically discuss what's going on in our department, what's what's new with planning, building attends, environmental services in attends. So we can talk about all things development and then we have the opportunity to hear from them what can we do to help you? What what services can we do better? What can we provide? What's some of your hang-ups? Um what what codes are in the way if it if it's something we can take a look at and and fix. They have also volunteered to help once we start the zoning ordinance rewrite um to give us feedback on on some language and things like that that that could help with some housing development and and um as we move forward through that. So that has been very beneficial. I wanted to let you guys know that we were doing that. Um we have a few transportation things coming up. We have a meeting with Dr. Smoot. Um we do those yearly. we meet with him and discuss applications that we are going to put forward. Um other concerns that we have and try to get some feedback from him how we can get funding for some traffic concerns. So if you know of anything right off hand and you want to give me a call um please send that to me or Justin um and then we'll make sure we get that on the Dr. Smoot list when we talk to him. we will be going over what um smart skill applications it looks like we're going to have coming forward um and and then just some other general concerns and then of course we want to thank him for the money that we have received um since we met with him last time he was able to get the second part of Riner Road Route 8 funded through the highway safety improvements program we were one of the only jurisdictions in

the state um to receive that large amount of funding for that type of project. Um, and that will go from the village of Riner to Floyd County. So, um, I am certain that that would not have happened without Dr. Smoot's support and and so we want to be sure we extend his appreciation. We also have a RFP out currently for transportation on call. Um, if you remember, we renew those I think every five years. And um our on call contract is set to expire the end of December. We have extended our consultants through May. Um the current current ones we have on contract, there's four of them. Um but we are looking to get in RFPs from other companies and even the four that we currently have. Staff will be reviewing those and doing interviews and then we'll be selecting our next round of of on call consultants for the next five years. Um the other big thing in our department I think Justin mentioned that we were converting softwares. Um so we started in August right before I went out. We are going to a program called open gov. The idea with this is we will be implemented by January 5th. Um which is approaching much quicker than I thought back in August it was going to approach. But um someone freaked me out today and said, you know, they're coming in 3 weeks to start training. And it's a lot, but um we are very excited because it is going to change our development process for builders and homeowners. I I don't know how much you all are familiar with the process, but long story short, they come to our office, get a zoning permit. They have sometimes they have to go to the health department before they get that zoning permit. Once they get the zoning permit, they can go to the building department and then they apply for their building permit and then environmental reviews it and sometimes that kicks it back and

then they have to it's so it's a convoluted process. Um with open gov they will one be able to apply from the convenience of their home office wherever they do not have to come in here and two they will apply for everything at one time and the review will be concurrent. Um, so that keeps them from running all over the county um or all over the government center, but it also shortens the review period hopefully because it's not multiple steps. So, we are looking really forward to this. Um, we're excited. It's it's going to really make things a lot more efficient for our development community and and that's always our goal. So, next meeting is December 10th. I believe Justin told you last time it would be December 17th. Um but we wanted to move it to December 10th just in case we had something that needed to go to the board because their meeting is on the 15th. Um so it'll be the 10th and um as of this time you have no public hearings. However, come prepared to work because this will be our first comprehensive plan work session to where you will be getting some draft documents and um we will start to go over the actual plan which is very exciting um because we're hoping to have it adopted sometime after the first of the year, probably March or April. Um we'll do work sessions with you all. We will also be doing work sessions with the board of supervisors because we want to break it into chunks so you're not getting one huge plan at a time. And then um once we've completed those work sessions, we will ask both bodies to schedule their public hearings and eventual adoption. So that is very exciting. And I think that's all I have. Yes.

Yes. Um the goal is to give those documents to you in advance. Yes. Anything else for the commission? I will entertain a motion to adjurnn and second. All those in favor? Ah,