Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Pastor Bell, would you start off the invocation, please, sir? All those who would like to join us, please stand and then continue for the pledge.

Mr. Wood? Mr. Prickett? Present. Ms. Fregoso? Mr. Grinnell? Present. Mr. Phelps? Here. Dr. Bell? Present. And Mr. Bullock?

Here.

She already made. Travis, do you have any changes to the minutes? Seeing no changes to the minutes, take a motion to approve the minutes for the changes.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes from May 20, 2026, as amended.

OK. Is there a second? Second. All right. Any discussion? Let's vote, please. One abstention, OK. Minutes passed. A couple of announcements. I have a paragraph from Mike Wood. He asked me to read. It just says, I apologize that I cannot attend tonight's meeting. I had a death in the family. and I'm currently out of state for the funeral. I'll be sure to get brought up to speed upon my return. If anybody has any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out and I will respond as soon as possible. Thank you, Commissioner Michael Wood. A little more formal there for his mission. I hope it all goes well in his travels to Pennsylvania in return. And... I had, we got a planning update. We could ask for any public comment at this time, if we'd like. Is there anybody in public who would like to make a comment at this time? OK. Please step up to the podium and state your name and vote in district, please.

Hi, my name is Robin Castles. Our voting district, we're actually in Caroline, but we're on the border of, we actually back up to Spotsylvania. OK. And I just wanted to voice my concern. I've heard about the pre-application for the 7 million square foot data center campus that should be 10 to 12 buildings along the Rappahannock. We are on the other side of 17, but very, very close to it. And I know New Post and all the other areas that are very close to it, and I'm very concerned about it. But because I am closer to Spotsylvania than Caroline, I often go to the Spotsylvania board member meetings, board of supervisor meetings, I mean. And many times at the meetings, I have heard them say they do not want to look like Northern Virginia, and they do not want to look like Data Center Alley. I know Chris Jakubowski said it one day when I was here. I've heard other elected officials say it as well. And I've heard a lot of constituents in their speeches say it as well. And I just want to say, have you all seen the newest map? This is on your site. This is brand new, and I'd like, I could bring it up to you if you wanna see it.

Yeah, that hadn't come before the commission yet, and I've seen it at the TRC meeting, but I don't think any other board members had seen it. This map? But you're welcome to leave it if you would like, and we'd pass it around, yes ma'am.

Okay, because we really do look like Data Center Alley. We really are starting to look like Loudoun County, And I just am worried about that. And I think a lot of people in our area, the New Post development and a lot of farmland around that area. There's an Indian reservation, the Potawatomi.

Yes, ma'am.

The river. There's a lot of... beautiful land over there. And there's a lot of new developments. There's a soccer field for young kids. And I just don't know that this is a good thing for our area. So we really are looking like Data Center Alley now. A lot of these, fortunately, are still such as the seven million square foot data center. It says special use required, but not yet applied. And a couple of them say rezoning and process. So hopefully we're not gonna turn into this, but this is the latest map. Would you like me to approach you with it?

If you'd like to leave that with Paul, our secretary, and give her your name and address, it will be noted. Like I said, there'll be several hearings coming up on that. And at the TRC meeting, I think it was like 24 buildings, I counted. There was a pile of buildings on that. under Folgers property yes mm-hmm all right thank you okay okay have one other speaker uh is there a charlie bullock here anywhere yeah huh there she is oh my goodness well hey happy happy 80th birthday happy birthday Hey, Charlie, you can go home now and tell your siblings that you've been on TV with your granddaddy. Yeah. I tell you, you're a whole lot prettier than he is, I can tell you that. We're recognizing Mr. Bullock tonight. For a little bit of audience, we do have 16-plus years on the Planning Commission, going on two decades, 12 years on Parks and Rec, and just the dedication of Spotsylvania County, and he's turning 80 next year, and he's still got the energy of a... Next week. Next week. Of a 40-year-old, probably. And Charlie, I hadn't met you before, but you really are as pretty as your granddaddy said you are.

Granddaddy's namesake. Yeah. I don't think she looks like him.

You've got to give him a big kiss on TV. Give him a big kiss on TV. There you go. Charlie, thank you so much.

Teresa, I want to thank you too, ma'am. Yes, sir.

Bye. Okay, thank you so much for working this out with us. You're welcome. Okay. Yeah, you thought I was lost in time or something there, huh? OK, we're at our planning update. Mrs. Pomato, I apologize for distracting the committee. Yes, sir.

My name's John Castles. I'm Robin's husband. OK. I'm also obviously a resident of Caroline County, but right on the edge with Spotsylvania. I just had a question in regards to the project that she brought up. I'm just wondering, and I don't have a lot of experience. I've had some interaction. with the project planning office and know how hard you guys work on a lot of different big projects like this. But what I'm unsure of is kind of how the communication goes in terms of, I'm sure there's different phases of the process as you get towards zoning and site plans and all these different things that go into it. but just for an observer such as myself that may or may not have an opinion, how should I plug into when is the right time and when does the Planning Commission or possibly the board communicate to local residents and that sort of thing?

Well, we don't normally get in conversation at meetings like this, but I can tell you, you are way early because what's been presented at the TRC meeting is a preliminary, preliminary, preliminary. It'll probably... be early part of next year or end of this year before we get to us, possibly? Ms. Pomato, is that what you think is the estimate?

MS. Well, the application hasn't been filed yet. So it's hard for me to speculate.

MR. OK. So there's no application at all. So you got here plenty early. As a matter of fact, you'd have probably forgotten you were here. So I would say come back again.

MS. OK. MS. And if I could add, Because you live in Caroline County, we don't typically notice Caroline County residents. However, Caroline County government is notified if it's within so many miles of the property. the county line, excuse me. So if you want to be noticed about any hearing, we have a Spotsylvania County website where any public hearing case that comes before us, you can sign up for updates and I will send you an email letting you know when the public hearing is scheduled.

That'd be terrific. Thank you so much.

But just keep an eye on that website because we don't have a filed plan yet so there is nothing out there yet OK.

I appreciate it. I hope that helped. Thank you, sir. OK, ma'am.

all right thank you mr chairman your next meeting is june 17th here at 6 p.m you have several public hearings on the agenda for that night the first being a special use permit for gloria's hair salon that's for a one-seat salon within a primary residence this is in the salem district a special use permit for the telecommunications tower that is proposed at the county's fire station 11 over at Crossroads, and a code amendment. This is one that I did a presentation on a couple of meetings ago. This is to be compliant with the new state code requirements that manufactured homes be permitted within any residential district where a stick-built home would be. And so your code amendment public hearing is scheduled for that night. We have a comp plan work session that evening for the following lane use subchapters, economic development, housing, and the production of food and fiber. And we will have all the subject matter experts representing those chapters in attendance for any questions. And then also on your agenda that night will be a presentation and consideration for revisions and updates to your bylaws. There are two community meetings that are scheduled for next week. They are both on the exact same night during the same time, both for June 4th. at six o'clock. The first is for a project that's in the Leehill District. It's the Crossroads Technology Park. That is for a 2.278 million square foot data center campus. This is the property that's located there off of Route 17 north of Eagle Drive and Leehill School Drive. That's of course in the Leehill District. The community meeting will be held in the Leehill Community Center. The other community meeting for that evening is for the Paramount Data Center project. That's located in the Berkeley District. That property is actually south of Summit Crossing Road. It lies right on the Caroline line. And in fact, that property can only be accessed through Caroline County. That's for a 1.5 million square foot data center campus. And that community meeting will be held again at 6 o'clock at the Dominion Raceway. And that concludes my announcements, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, ma'am. Commissioner Wood has already told me he's going to be attending the Berkeley District 1, and I'm going to be attending the one in Lee Hill. And Mr. Mullins told me he's going to be attending also. So it should be him and both, Lori there, both. And Scott told me to vote in favor of all data centers in Lee Hill District. So I'll represent Scott.

That's not going to go away. Yeah. The one at Lee's Hill, what's the date on that one again?

Next Thursday, 6 to 7.

Is that next Thursday or is it this Thursday?

It's June 4th.

Yeah, this Thursday.

This Thursday, sorry. June has caught up on me. It's tomorrow. Both of them are tomorrow, June 4th.

I'm sorry. Mike will be back for that too, though. All right. All right. So I reckon we're ready for our, is there any comments from any other commissioners about anything going on in their district they want to bring up and mention at this time?

On the way over here, I was driving down Massaponix Church Road, and it seems like the heavy traffic for the construction sites that are right there, more on the eastern side, more towards Lee Hill. There's a lot of buckling of the roads and there's some potholes on that hairpin turn across from the substation. So if somebody could look into that, that could be a dicey situation if we got cars going in opposite direction. Thanks.

Okay, anybody else? All right, seeing none. Jacob, we'll turn it over to you, sir.

Yes, sir, good evening. Tonight's work session, we only are focused on one subchapter of the comprehensive plan update this evening. It has to do with the utilities, telecommunications, broadband, electric and natural gas infrastructure. I would say that there is no action required today because it is a work session. Insights into telecommunications and internet services tonight, we have Mr. Ed Dooley, the chief information officer for the county, and Tim Johnson, our county's broadband project manager as well. Wanted to make sure that we had subject matter experts present this evening. And then this is ultimately, we brought this forth following Planning Commission's previous discussion that we had about broadband deployment within the county. So we wanna make sure that we brought this forward as soon as possible. Just going through this, on Chapter 2D, The update is developed in consultation with Spotsylvania County Information Services Department and concerns the broadband and deployment throughout the broadband equity access and deployment program. That is the BEAD program. I know Mr. Grenaux had brought that up, I think, two meetings ago, if I'm not mistaken, as well as telecommunications coverage. And we've tried to do some things with this update that'll help us as we consider or try to mitigate 2232 reviews or the necessity for them specific for telecom towers. Dominion Energy and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative did provide additional insights regarding electrical services. And previously, this subject matter, last updated in 2021, was embedded within the land use chapter. But with this update, what we've proposed doing is actually taking it out so it's not buried within the land use chapter and making its own subchapter, unique subject matter, easy to access and find within the document rather than being buried in the pages of the land use chapter. As Chapter 2D, it is considered a subchapter under land use. This subchapter sets a general framework for being able to support a variety of utility projects. The ones that I had mentioned before, and this considers the court of virginia section fifteen point two dash two two three two those of those two two three two reviews that you often see uh... these may not otherwise we have been planned for specifically by the county so we have columbia gas uh... substance we have electric substations we have columbia gas facilities we have telecommunication towers that come from variety of of applicants those are things that the county specifically has been planning for By providing guidance within the plan, we're able to help justify those and provide the support necessary for that needed infrastructure in the county. I've read this before when we were looking at substations for 2232 analyses. From chapter 2D, I want to just reiterate this. Again, the county is trying to establish some general support for utility services. And from chapter 2D, we do have language that states utilities and telecommunications infrastructure and service reliability is critical in the modern day with application in many areas including personal use, business, public safety, and education. Provision of both publicly and privately administered utility infrastructure to serve the citizens, businesses, public servants, including first responders of Spotsylvania County requires a geographically expansive network of utility infrastructure that includes all land use designations, both inside and outside of the primary development boundary. I'm going to use this as an example in the past for telecommunications towers, for instance. In order to get effective coverage countywide and urbanized and rural areas, you really need them honeycombed across the geography. So it may be in a rural area, it may be in a commercial area. And we need to be clear on that. Occasionally we've heard comments about put the cell tower in a commercial area. To get coverage in a rural area, you may have to put it in a non-commercial area. That's what we're ultimately getting at. considering the nature of utilities and telecommunications infrastructure proposals for this type of facilities should be measured based on their merits and ability to mitigate impacts so that actually aligns very well with our special use permit process a lot of these utility infrastructures whether it be a telecom or public utility light a substation for instance, do require oversight through a special use permit process and are subject to mitigating conditions. And so we do feel like that's covered through the SUP process that's often tied to these types of uses. While Spotsylvania County has direct involvement in the provision of public water and sewer within the county, including its planning, design, construction, and maintenance, And I'd note that water and sewer is covered separately within a water and sewer subchapter, which we have discussed before. Subchapter 2D, such as for telecommunications, towers, electric, substations, broadband, often result from public service corporations or others who have specialization in deployment of these services. So this is your Dominion Energy, this is Rappahannock Electric, this might be Verizon Wireless. There are also private cellular tower constructing firms that ultimately lease to the various AT&T, Sprint, other services on their towers. The update provides an overview of existing broadband coverage within the county and previews planned development of the BEAD program within Spotsylvania County. And this feedback comes directly from our county informational services division. And I would also note that we freshly updated that information as of last week. I know one of the issues with the comprehensive plan as it's being updated is, We update it chapter by chapter, but the first chapter might be six months old, and we have to catch it up from time to time as this process navigates towards public hearing. So the information that we have there is fresh at the moment. The map here has to do with the deployment of the broadband services within the county under this BEAD program. Following internet service providers, awarded BEAD funding to serve Spotsylvania County's 5,616 unserved locations as identified in the BEAD map. The deployment of the BEAD program to serve these locations is broken out by Comcast, Fiberlink, Port 80, and iWISP. And they have various locations throughout the county. It's all color coded on the areas that they will be serving. And certainly IS and our broadband folks can help elaborate on that more if you have questions as we move forward. The proposed timeline for delivery of services as follows under the BEAD program on November 18th, 2025. Sorry, catch up here. The National Telecommunications Information Administration approved Virginia's final BEAD proposal. In early to mid-2026, the Department of Housing and Community Development entered in contract negotiations with the subawardees and the subawardees. with the subawardees. Late 2026 to 2029, construction of broadband infrastructure is to occur, and then by 2030, the period of performance will be complete. Also, with the bead fiber build out for broadband internet, there will be added an extensive network of dark fiber for cell carriers to lease when new towers go up, And as a matter of fact, in anticipation of that, it's been noted by staff that we've worked with that a lot of the cell tower constructions are actually awaiting the direct fiber to arrive. And it's actually delayed pursuit of the construction of new telecom towers until that infrastructure is in place. New action items developed through our consult with IS is a proposal to disband the Broadband, Telecommunications, and Cable Commission, formerly known as the Cable Commission, and any associated subcommittees associated with that. They note that meetings have been less frequent declining from monthly to quarterly from an average of two hours with numerous citizens to an average of 15 minute meetings and no citizens. Additionally, the commission has no power authority over an internet service providers without partnering and spending county funds, county telecommunications and broadband staff with the information services department has been handling all aspects of the commission since 2022. County telecom and broadband staff within the information services department should be the main and sole contact for wireless carriers. Staff will work with other county departments as needed for streamlining the execution of the following. Co-locations on county structures, special use permitting for new build sites, lease negotiation agreements, and relaying specific needs to carriers within the county. Spotsylvania County IS Information Services is pursuing cellular tower projects at all fire stations, schools, and parks that do not have good coverage. And additionally, IS Information Services is pursuing three different carriers on our county-owned towers if they're not already on them. Not all towers have all cellular services attached to them. So one may have Verizon, one may have AT&T, one of them may have two or three different ones. It's not all universal until all the towers are geographically located throughout the county and offering their services. One example though of Spotsylvania County pursuing cellular tower projects at fire stations is I think Kimberly had mentioned at our next meeting with the Planning Commission on June 17th, there will be a cellular tower coming in for Fire Station 11 off Crossroads Parkway. That's one actually at a fire station that's coming in through a special use permit application. One of the things that we did with this, considerate of the 2232 reviews, is try to give ourselves some assistance, if you will, where not all cell towers that are proposed need to go necessarily through a 2232 process. What we try to do is not choosing, and certainly by state and federal regulations, localities are not are forbidden basically from choosing favorites in terms of a cellular tower or a cellular service provider. So what we did working with IS is to identify all cell towers that are carrying cellular services regardless of who the carrier is and identify areas that really outside of a three mile buffer of those tower locations really show areas of the county that have they are known areas that would basically have light to low to no service areas. And so by identifying these locations, what we've proposed with the comprehensive plan policy is that any new cell tower that would positively impact these areas that you see in salmon or pink here would be considered consistent with the comprehensive plan based on their location and clearly identified need. And again, I want to say that the special use process actually handles cellular towers, so we do have mitigation oversight as part of a public hearing process for that. So the location of a cellular tower, its visual impacts, view shed analyses, all those things still apply. We require a balloon test for these cellular towers. All those things we try to mitigate for. These are areas that are clearly known as kind of well outside of the service areas for any strong signal.

Jacob, we have a quick question for you.

Yes, sir. So these locations that the cell towers are at, those are ones that exist today or ones that exist and planned?

These are an account of existing towers. I will defer to Tim. I believe he provided the assistance with our mapping, and he can elaborate on that more.

The reason why I ask is because the one that's over in, the one that shows on old plank right next to the resort, I thought that was one we had just voted on.

That's very fresh.

Yeah. I don't think it's in existence yet.

I will defer on exactly all the infrastructure that was mapped there, but I will defer to that on that. OK, thanks.

Jacob, this is from you and Mr. Prickett both. I noticed your circles there. That one area is where I used to live in River Bluffs, which is Cortland District, but further out is Chancellor. And that coverage there is real spotty. And I'll tell you, I had an instance years back where I dialed 911 from up in the cul-de-sac because you couldn't dial from my house. And when 911 answered, it hit a tower in Stafford. And I was communicating with the Stafford Sheriff's Office. They said, oh, you're on Spotsylvania. I said, yeah, that's where I am. So then they had to transfer me. It took about 15 minutes to hit a tower to get back to Spotsylvania from there. It's a tough area.

I'll say anecdotally, even the Spotsylvania courthouse area here at times can have signal issues, we've noticed, too. The parameters that were used here were looking at the towers that have been mapped and identifying three-mile buffers, basically suggestive of a service coverage area. Again, the one thing I would say is not all of these towers necessarily have all the service providers. So if you have a Verizon cell phone, it may not have a Verizon infrastructure on that tower. And again, what we're trying to be doing here is being careful to not, we're not showing favorites with a service provider. Just again, based on those state and federal, these are areas that I would say would be, I'll defer to IS on this, and I think they verify it, that these are kind of known areas that would be, regardless of your service, holes in the system. There are areas of the county I would imagine would also have weak coverages that would not be covered in this map, and we may be able to explore that further.

Yeah, you also have like geographical things that will interrupt the signal. For instance, and you live down in a low-lying spot, that can affect your ability to get signal into them.

Yeah. If you drive on Route 3, which I'm sure you do, to go out to the Fawn Lake area, you hit Wilner's Church right there, boom, you're gone.

Yeah. I live off of Old Plank area, and it's really spotty out there at my house. I might get a one or two bar.

And by all means, if it's the Will of Planning Commission, if you want to try to answer some of those questions or ask any more detailed questions directly of our experts here this evening, we could do that now or we can hold to the end of the presentation by all means.

Well, if it's better to hold it at the end, that's fine. All right, sure, no problem. We'll do whatever. I apologize. If there's something important at the time, let's bring it up.

I'm three slides out from the end, too, so that's fine. We're almost wrapping up here. Okay, thank you. On this subject matter continuing, the update expands content concerning power supply and consumption with inputs from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the JLARC study, Dominion Energy and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative. The JLARC study notes that new generation and transmission infrastructure will be needed to be built to help address energy demand now and into the future. The study notes that there's a need for a variety of energy infrastructure investments in renewables, natural gas, nuclear battery storage for the power and distribution network. New transmission lines and substations are also necessary to strengthen the grid. Between 2025 and 2040, it's estimated that in-state generation will need to increase between 90 and 150% with imported energy from outside of the state rising between 55 and 150% as well. County has no direct involvement in supply and demand side planning and investments in the PJM network. That's the multi-state network of power supply and distribution networks and where your power plants are all located. Aside from our zoning use and comprehensive plan guidance, if we have an application for something that would contribute to that network. So if you have battery storage facilities, we obviously have a public process that we go through to address those. But in terms of, you know, The larger system and a new power plant coming online out in Ohio or somewhere in the larger network, we don't really have any direct involvement with that. Spotsylvania County Zoning Ordinance and Comprehensive Plan does contemplate power generation and distribution. And as you know, we've looked at comfort to plan policy for a variety of things, whether it be battery storage, power generation, the proximity of, in the case of the data centers, we have preferences for their location along existing power corridors and feedback on their substation locations and all that. going forward it'll be important to continue to consult with power suppliers and distributors as they work through state enabling to enhance the distribution network and consider new power stores storage and generation projects that will safeguard the electric grid to the benefit of all users additionally the county should continue to support technological and architectural innovations intended to enhance efficiency with ultimate intent to reduce energy consumption and demand whereby power consumption and the need to expand generation can occur on a more substantial, sustainable pace. And I would note that we already have some policies trying to address that with our data centers. That's recently been, in the last year or two, we've expanded that to also include large-foot industrial projects in general that do hope to promote energy efficiency, reduced energy consumption, on-site generation, I will say with the comprehensive plan land use chapter, we're also looking at, and I think this came up actually at a recent TRC meeting, Mr. Grinnell, you brought up the idea of having on-site battery storage on the same campus as data centers because it actually is an assist to the grid. And as a matter of fact, with our land use chapter that we'll be bringing forth to you in July, August timeframe, we do propose actually advocating for onsite things like battery storage. We already promote things like onsite rooftop solar, which isn't, it's kind of a drop in the bucket in terms of the energy demand, but having some of these other complimentary things to help offset the impacts of their demand, we're certainly contemplating with this update. And with that, before I turn it over to questions, I just wanted to go through next steps. If applicable, staff will draft any additional edits to the subject matter discussed this evening. And for future planning commission meetings, we do have targeted for land use subchapters discussions on economic development, housing, and production of food and fiber at your next meeting. That'll be on June 17th. That packet is under development right now. And then in July, August time frame, we're looking at bringing forth the actual land use chapter, the land use map, land use policies, and the map updates, as well as the introduction and vision chapters that will follow. And with that, we'll take any questions you have. Thank you.

OK. I'm going to start down here to Mr. Cricket, since he's down on the right by himself. Any questions at this point or for staff? So first off, I'd like to point out, I did take a shower. You did take a shower. Yeah, good.

I don't know what's going on down here. But anyway, I don't have anything really to ask on this. Like I said earlier, out of my house, I get maybe one, two bars. And it is something that is important for our community to be able to have, if not for emergency services, also for the ability for students to be able to do stuff I will say one thing, though. I do have FiOS at my house, which is unbelievable. I have hardly any cell signal, but I got FiOS. So that is nice to have. But anyway.

Okay. Scott? Of course I did.

Of course you did. That's why I came here early. This is more for my own purposes. or the public's education as well, because I... Yeah, yeah, well, whoever's watching online. I went through the... I tried to do my homework and just answer my own questions, but reading through the frequently asked questions on the BEAD website, the Broadband USA National Telecom Government website, it's very... So when a BID application is submitted to the government, is that on the state level to where the funding is released to the state to then ask for applicants as far as like telecom companies to come in and put in a bid?

I'll defer to our staff here. Thank you.

Good evening. No, it's at a federal level. BEAD is a federal program. VATI is the state-level program. Now, they will deal with, so the applicants will apply. DHCD will submit them to the NTIA, and then we'll go to BEAD for approval, and then they will release that money to the state. As far as I know, the four that we have that were selected for the county, I believe money has been released for one of them as of this week, and they will start. FiberLink? Yeah. Yeah.

I was going to ask about FiberLink because I was looking on the website for Virginia's B applicants, and I didn't see them on there. But anyway, that answers that question. And when they say underserved areas, is that individuals' houses or are we talking like to some hub in a strategic location in the county?

No, it'll be zip codes. And the thing with BEAT is they'll get 90, their process is to cover at least 95%. 95% of the county will be covered with broadband coverage. And then they'll reapply later to try to get people to come in and do that 5%.

When I zoomed in on those yellow and blue and red dots, it was like right over the top of a house.

Well, those are the points that they were awarded. Yes, that's what they are. Individual houses.

Okay. And also... I don't see anything in the language of the comp plan that covers it, but it's so new that they're opening the envelope as far as the technologies that can be used under the BEAD program, one of them being satellites, and looking at the technology of like, say for instance starlink they have a third generation satellites that are they're going to be launching this year and they're up to 24 times faster than the the previous generation of satellites and i also looked into the dependability of of the communications say in like a first responder application uh out there in the real world uh you know going to a call or whatever but um i mean When it does come about where there's actual language on their website, can we adopt that into the comp plan? I don't know how soon that's gonna happen, but.

We don't really have control over who applies for B. We have no say in that. Once we've turned the broadband, once the county decided that they were gonna go B, it takes it out of our hands. So whatever ISP wants to apply for it, they say, hey, Bede's open for Spotsylvania County, and we're allowing satellite. If Amazon and Starlink want to apply for it, they can. We can't force them to.

We can't tell them not to or tell them to.

That's their decision. It's whoever wants to do it. We have no say in it at all.

That's all I had for the Bede. As far as the natural gas, Is it only a Columbus that provides gas to our county?

Any application that I've ever seen for natural gas has always been Columbia Gas. We have occasional Columbia Gas infrastructure here. I have some examples here. It was a natural gas pipeline inspection gauge insertion facility, also known as a pig facility that was a special use permit in 2018 for Columbia gas. It was under a Western pig site. It was out Northwestern part of the County. We also had a metering regulation and compression facility at Smith station and Massaponic church road. That was more recently that was in 2023. It's project known as Smith station district station. Everything that I recall is all through Columbia gas. But the fact of the matter is even if it wasn't a Columbia Gas, if it was a third party applicant, we don't have much of a planning role other than the conference of plan giving some general guidance on its appropriateness and to serve the public because again we don't really have a lot of planning say on where all these are located necessarily it tends to be planned by those public service entities that bring these applications to us then we'll we'll do a two two three two review on something like that for constant plan consistency

then ultimately go to the special use permit process to mitigate its impacts and ultimately the decision makers will prove or deny it yeah that's where I was going yeah like the first public speaker had mentioned that site over in Lee Hill yeah I was just wondering what our capacity to bring that kind of volume of gas into into the county is right now, we're gonna be tearing up the land again in order to support some kind of a project at that scale.

Yeah, that's the type of question. In that specific issue, I'd probably have to defer to direct to the gas supplier and Columbia Gas for that. Okay, that's it.

Okay, Dr. Bale.

Maybe on this, first of all, great presentation. Could someone just kind of share with me, and maybe that was mentioned earlier, when you think that broadband for our entire county will be completed? That no one can say, well, we don't have any access to any services.

So with the BEAD program, they have up to five years to complete it. So they started in 2025 with the applicants. They're all four under contract now, so depending on when their contracts get completed, then they can start doing their work, but they have up to five years to complete it with Bede.

And my question is, this means everyone that can't have access?

Up to 95% of the county will be covered. What about the other 5%? Then Bede will reissue Bede for the applicants to come in and cover that 5%. Okay, thank you.

That's by 2030, right?

Yes, sir. Okay. Now, I would, you know, I can't make any promises. But I would assume it would have moved a little quicker than that. But that's the plan set forth right now, yes, sir. OK. All right.

Mr. Bullock? No, sir. OK. I have a couple of follow-up questions. And one of them was what Scott was touching on. Is there anybody here with our staff that knows about the natural gas availability and the lines? Because what he's referencing. I know it's so early, but obviously some of these data centers are going to be trying to provide their own energy. And they didn't know how they would do it down there. I know years ago, at the end of Tudor Lane, there's a propane farm. And during the winter, our natural gas pressure was falling so bad that we couldn't heat Courtland High School. And they can supplement the gas line with propane to some percentage. Is that still a viable thing to be done? Does anyone know?

Uh, based on who we have here, obviously I'd have to defer, we'd have to do some research and reach out to Columbia gas on that and try to get you an update specific to that. I don't know if it comes down to, you know, some of these organizations have public, you know, government liaison folks that'll come and may be able to give you an update. Um, I don't know of anything that we would have this evening. We'll answer that question.

I mean, it was done in the past. I just can't remember what percent. And they upgraded a long time ago. In my district, they upgraded a natural gas line through Wilburn Farms. And as Scott said, they disturb everything. And that was kind of a Donnybrook here for a while. Has Mr. Payne been in touch with us at all? I had asked him. I don't know if it was publicly or personally about getting in touch with Amazon people about their LEO satellite. that we could use it for broadband, but hadn't heard a word since that Amazon people were here that time.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Do you have an update?

OK, please.

So that's just low Earth orbit satellites. Amazon has currently deployed about 300. Their plan is to deploy about 3,200 by the time they're done, providing speeds up to 400 megabits per second. There is a port called Amazon Leo that you can go to and put in your zip code or your address, and it'll tell you whether it's available in this area or not. And also with Starlink, same thing. You can download an app on your phone and stand out in your front yard. If it connects up, it'll tell you whether that's available there as well.

Yeah. I kind of got the impression that night when that young lady was making the presentation that they could make it maybe more available to us. I don't know if I just...

That I don't know about. I'm not in the wheel and dealing game, so I don't know what. Right, right. Okay.

Is there anything you can enlighten me on there?

Yes. Ms. Tate is who did that presentation, and I have a call scheduled with her to talk about that.

Okay, great. Thank you. Last thing I had was, I keep reading that maybe Shapiro in Pennsylvania might drop out of PJM, electrical grid. And I don't know if we... get power from Pennsylvania if they have surplus or not. But does anybody know that if Pennsylvania should drop out of that grid, would it make Virginia take more power from outside the grid, which is more expensive? Any input from staff on this?

I don't have input to provide for you this evening, but we have our liaisons with Dominion and REC, and I can certainly pose that question to them and get some more information.

OK. I didn't see anybody out in the audience raising their hand. They were going to answer that for me. OK. That's all I had on my list for my questions. Are we going to start over again? I see you typing.

It's another bead question. How do they identify that? Is it because there are no existing carriers, that's how they identify the houses that they would run the lines to? Is that as simple as it gets?

Okay.

All right, thank you.

I know, Mr. Prickett, you had a question about the actual telecom map and the towers and whether those were all existing constructed versus planned and not constructed yet. And that may be a question that we can get an answer to. Thank you. OK, thank you.

And Mr. Prickett, Jacob mentioned about the battery places being At the end, that was, as I said, TRC meeting. I was just thinking, jeez, why can't we have battery supplements right there? We don't have to have a separate rezoning destroying another part of the county in a wooded area. To me, it was a no-brainer to bring it up. I don't know if anybody's going to want to do it.

That would sound like a smart proposal to me, because you're going to have a major power connection right there at a data center. So instead of it being like, obviously, you want it next to a substation otherwise. But once again, the only other substation that's fit for that is near a location where it's near a reservoir and also near housing.

And the way this would be written would be within the comprehensive plan land use would be a policy. So it's guidance, it's suggested, it's an advocacy for doing those type of things. It doesn't say you must, but it certainly would be a feather in a cap, it would be considered a feather in a cap with an application for such a thing.

The application at the Folts property, well, there is no application yet. But the TRC meeting, the substation is going to be in Caroline. And the data center would be on the Folts property.

OK.

It's the way it's planned, because that's all Caroline wanted, was the substation. They said no to data. That's just for information. Thank you, Jacob. Any other questions?

Did you want a response to the telecom, Matt?

Yeah, please, if you wouldn't mind.

There are about two or three of those towers that are proposed, one of them being the one at the fire station 11. No, sorry about that. Like I said, two or three that are proposed, that one off of Route 3 that fires near wilderness, that one is proposed.

Yeah, the presidential resort, or wilderness resort, excuse me.

Correct. And then the one that is plotted on Fire Station 11, that's which one's being voted on at the next meeting. And then hopefully it'll be with the Board of Supervisors shortly after that. That's the only two that I know. that are proposed, one of them is in the southwest corner of the county off of Monrovia that was approved about two years ago for Verizon. It's a 254 foot self-support that's actually in the grading and clearing and grading process right now to be built.

Is Fire Station 11, is that the one out by Fawn Lake?

No, that's right off, that's near Olive. Okay. And actually, that's a really bad area. It's a high-profile site.

Yeah, the VRE station area there off Crossroads Parkway.

Yeah, there's a bad area there. It's on VDOT's, VRE, state police, and the county's radar because of the dead spots there. Also, there's being a big development that's planned just off to the east of it with single family homes and townhouses. So that would be good to have. I've been pushing Milestone to really get more carriers on that tower, because right now it's just going to be Verizon.

Yeah, there is a dark spot down on Benchmark. Yeah. It's Benchmark and then the Pelham's Crossing community area, right in that.

Yeah, at the railroad crossing there.

I do have one other question, though. Dating myself here, but back when we had the earthquake, and I know there were several areas where you could not make phone calls from because of the bandwidth to be able to support.

Well, yeah. Well, actually, that's good. It was more recent. The snowstorm that we had on January 2nd or 3rd of 2023, it was 2023 where we had all the... power outages and stuff like that it's not it's a big part of its capacity because when you're at home and you have Wi-Fi your phone pulls data and everything off of your home internet when that goes away it jumps on the tower and tries to get all that information from the actual cell tower and not only does County lack of coverage but capacity is a big issue Even if you drive down Route 3 in the middle of rush hour traffic, I mean, there's still, it's still unbelievably slow and sometimes you can't even make a call because there's too many people on those networks. So the county definitely suffers from coverage and capacity issues.

So my question was, are we looking at improving the bandwidth to be able to support that? We have no control over it.

Basically, I've been trying to reach out. I've been in telecom for 26 years, just about every aspect of it. And I've been reaching out to third party tower companies the cell carriers themselves. Just to, you know, I've been soliciting county land where we need cell phone towers. That's just to help facilitated, because one of the biggest complaints that I've had is just dealing with the county in general, because they have to go to here, then go to here, then go to here, then go to here, and I've been trying just to be like the person that they can go to, and I'd be like, okay, you need to do this, this, this, and this, and just help facilitate, smooth out that process.

So in your opinion, what would you be the, would you consider that to be the biggest challenge that they're facing with us, or?

but yeah and the the the big issue too is lack of fiber infrastructure throughout mainly between Berkeley and Livingston and that's the issue is that you know 80% of the people live in 20% of the county versus 20% of people live in 80% of the county and they're obviously for-profit businesses That's one of the problems that we had when Comcast came through here and did the Lake Annabelle back in 2018, 2019. They did it with their own money and they went to where they decided to go and it basically left those two counties like Swiss cheese.

Just for clarification, it has to do with

most concentrations of houses that they can get to turns a bigger profit without having to lay as much fiber down correct that's um that's why the that's basically why this tower off of monrovia has been taking so long and also uh just uh this fall um we pushed through a co-location on the uh belmont tower our county in belmont tower um that for Verizon, they put it on hold because there's no fiber availability. And unfortunately with Verizon, they are very, very finicky that they want to use their own fiber. And that portion of Verizon was wanting to charge them initially $1.4 million to run from their network that's right around Fawn Lake area down to there to feed these towers. I mean, I gave them many, many options of where there's a tower that Verizon does have. fiber availability that they could actually use a microwave backhaul to basically power that tower up and get communications flowing but they they're still not doing it so I'm waiting for the process to go along and when they decide that you know when they get to that stage for the tower of Monrovia I want to see where they where they're pulling fiber from actually I think they're going to pull from a tower off of 522 right across the right near the boardwalk off of 522 in Louisa County. It's an SBA tower there.

Thank you.

Is there anything else on our agenda tonight? You want to double check? I mean, this is unusual for recent ones. OK. All right, entertain a motion to adjourn.

I put forth a motion to adjourn the Planning Commission meeting for June 3, 2026. All right.

Second. Is everybody going to be here that's here tonight? We don't have to make phone calls to see? Mr. Bullock, are you going to be here, sir? All right, buddy, we'll bring you another little cake, if you will. All right. All vote, please, to adjourn. Thank you, fellow commission members. We adjourned.