Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

The City of Waynesboro Planning Commission. Would somebody like to lead us in the All right. Do we have a motion? Has everybody had an opportunity to review the agenda? And do we have a motion?

I'll make the motion. I'll second.

All in favor of adoption of the agenda, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. We have an agenda. First item on the agenda is the comprehensive plan update led by, I see Mr. Hinkle here instead of Mr. Cockle today. Take it away.

Perfect. Well, thanks for having me. Go over to here. Thank you all for having me this evening. Sorry that Will can't be here. Hopefully, I can make up for some of the enthusiasm he usually brings. Tonight, we're going to go over a little bit more land use stuff with you all as we look towards our open house this fall, which is where we have to have a more substantial draft of the plan to review. In order to help us get there, we want to dive deeper into what you all see for the future of the city. um you know i think in the past we've talked a little bit about you know building height and types of uses and issues that folks have seen in the city but tonight we want to talk about some factors that might drive where growth might occur where it may not occur and then what that growth might look like for what you all see for the future so feel free to stop me if you have any you know questions or things that don't make sense as we go through but the first part we're going to go through is some things on a software called community viz which is a software that we have that allows us to kind of see into the future and predict where growth might occur based on available lots or the subdivision rules and zoning allowances that exist in the city. as well as attractors. So is this a place where somebody wants to live because it's close to maybe like the Martins? Or is it close to downtown? Or is it close to the park? Or is it somewhere that's near somewhere that you know, someone may not want to live maybe close to industrial facility or other factors that may cause someone else want to live there? So what it lets us do is look at a full build-out of the city, you know, projecting to the future based on the current trends of construction. We're able to look at the current land use conditions, maximum possible development and what that may mean for public services. We're able to also take into account standards that currently exist with your code with Florida area ratio, dwelling units per acre. That also allows us to, again, see where you might have capacity in different parts of the city for typical response for fire and rescue or your utilities. So what areas are you under or over capacity for water and sewer? And then also for transportation. Where may your roads or other multimodal facilities get overloaded if too much growth were to happen? And where do you have room to grow? And then we are also able to take a look at factors like number of households, so that'll let us predict where might there be more students that would have to go to different schools in the city, impervious service coverage, so that might of course affect your strain on your water and sewer usage as well as the stormwater. And that also allows us to kind of make some comparable scenarios easy for you to understand what the implications are. with each scenario you might pick. So how the model works is we take those inputs of the geography-based inputs, your existing land use, the policies that you have in place, And then there's user-defined push and pull factors I talked about. And that's something we'd like to get some input from you all tonight. And that lets us combine all that to make this foundation for each scenario. We then can use the model to distribute the development across the growth area. taking into account that suitability capacity and the assumptions that were built into each scenario. And then that allows us to see indicators of where you might be at a strain in certain areas, having maps and charts being able to demonstrate what impacts you might face with each scenario you want us to help model for you. So, uh, had that modeling workflow typically works is we confirm the study area, you know, what parts of the city you want us to deeply study in terms of how growth could impact it and the strain on services. Uh, we use that base geography in the forecast to, uh, determine the, the, uh, the base layers, uh, which then we apply this indicators. We then collect GIS data, land use density, suitability factors, restrictions on growth. So some areas that you may not want any growth, of course, like water bodies, floodplain, there's concern about slope over 25%. Those are all areas we could factor out of it that we would say no growth will occur in these locations. We could then enter that data into the model and then run those scenarios and then build alternate futures and come to the best suggestion that could inform future land use policy, so changes to the zoning and subdivision code. in a term that doesn't push you over capacity for services that you expect to provide. So the model overall helps us compare policies, understand those growth effects, determine long-term impacts for resilience planning, so which areas are most suitable based on geography and capacity and which areas are more naturally vulnerable that you want to protect. And it helps us explain where you want to see investment in the city and make sure it's a sound decision that is backed in realistic implications on what the services you could expect the residents to be provided. I guess first, any discussion so far on the software or the tool?

Just glad the computer and the projection unit's working.

All smooth tonight.

You better knock on some wood.

So some folks at our office put together a couple options we could look at for you all in modeling, and we could look at other options as well. Option one is we can look at citywide growth, emphasis on denser mixed-use nodes distributed across the city. We'll talk about this a little bit more later as well, but I know when we did our general future land use discussions. There was a lot of interest in looking at neighborhood downtowns in addition to investment in downtown. So that could allow for that option to see how do those play out as well as the rest of the city. We could just look at the nodes that you all are wanting to look at promoting certain types of growth in, or we could do one that's just focused on downtown and see what the implications are on that. So for that base modeling, again, we're gonna take a look at figuring out if we're looking at growth areas that will let us know where growth should increase based on the policies you all may consider or decrease across Waynesboro. We were able to identify those neighborhoods, the corridors and districts that would be able to absorb more or less future development based on projected trends. We can also, as I mentioned, outline those no-go areas, areas you don't want to see growth, and that we could work in statements in the plan that would allow you to pass zoning-based protections or other protections to limit growth in those types of areas or limit the types of growth. If there's a cap on the amount of density in those areas, you'd want to limit it. And then we can look at it through five year commitments, you know, which developments are likely to occur within five years, and should they be, you know, anything that you all have in the pipeline currently, that we could take into account in the model as part of that base. So one thing we can spend some time now to as well to talk about these, but some things that we'd like to hear from you are what are some resident attractors? And you've seen people move into the city? Why are they moving there? Or is there a certain amenity they want to get close to? Is there a certain amenity or factor that causes a business to locate somewhere versus elsewhere in the city? And then on the reverse side, what's causing someone not to invest in certain parts of the city?

kind of open that up to you all if you have any thoughts so far I think that just something I've heard and something we've seen but specifically heard from economic development is certain businesses so certain like large chain businesses or hotel uses or some of those kind of larger chain maybe not all of them, but certain ones are attracted to a very close perimeter to interstate and the interchanges. And so that's certainly something we've seen as a business attractor.

Yeah, I think people are attracted to the beauty of our region. You know, the outdoor recreation opportunities, the parks. through Waynesboro that has drawn them in. And literally, the hospitality, I think, is real. I mean, I just was honored to place a new business in downtown, find them a retail space, and they went up and down Stanton and up and down Waynesboro and chose Waynesboro. And one of the reasons why is they felt more welcomed by the downtown business community. And I think that's still a big driver of who we are.

I agree. I think we're very affordable compared to some communities. I think it's beautiful. Like Jeff said, I think we're very welcoming. I think we still have that small town feel. We are a small town, but, you know, I think people are friendly and welcoming.

You have anything? No.

No, I mean, I'm going to hit on Jeff's thing from the other month. I mean, fly fishing is big. The South River Fly Shop just moved into the new building down there across from DuPont, down there, closer to the river, right beside the river, actually. So that's one thing that Waynesboro could capitalize on.

Well, did you have anything?

Yeah, well, I think we've kind of hit on some of it. You know, we see, I see a lot of people that come over from Charlottesville or Western Albemarle, I think, because of the affordability factor and because it feels like a smaller, geographically feels like a smaller community. I think if you want to buy a house and be five minutes from a Chick-fil-A, five minutes from a Home Depot, five minutes from Walmart, you're talking about something that costs two to three times per square footage. So that's a big factor. I deal with a very small and very unique cross-section of the public in my day job, but I do feel like we see a lot of Charlottesville folks or folks that come over from Charlottesville. I think UVA is a proximity to UVA, too. We have JMU, UVA. mary baldwin east amendment like that we're kind of even though we don't have a university or a school college here in town we get some of that you know um kind of attractiveness and then i think we're also one of the few still relatively affordable urban you know kind of working class um you know you can still afford to live in waynesboro Um, and work at, you know, at Hershey or someplace like that and still afford to buy a house here. So, affordability for resident attractors, I think that's probably a big part of it. Um, you know. Parks and public spaces, we, I think we've got to have some of the best for a city of our size, some of the best. parks around. I'm not in the private sector, so it's hard for me to speak to businesses and employers other than to say I feel confident that we have the employment base here at a different level than maybe some other places in terms of affordability, going back to affordability. But it's hard for me to speak on that piece of it. relatively still residential still you know we don't have the dense urban development that some of these other places have we have small communities we have a small you know relatively pregnant school system and that kind of stuff as i'm finding out my son started his first week of public school here in the city this week congratulations i'm not okay And so I think it's still got that small town kind of community feel. And it has some of the big city amenities, like we got a Chipotle and some of that kind of stuff that brings people here. I talked to somebody yesterday who wants to move to Waynesboro from Lexington because they want the sort of affordability and the proximity to Charlottesville as opposed to being someplace a little more far from like Lexington. So anyways, all that to say, I think we kind of touched on all of those pieces a little bit.

You know, and one thing I think is a really strong suit is we can marry this city with the country. We still have so many rural areas. You know, I'm fairly new here, and I still appreciate the farms, all the green space, the rolling hills, and we're just kind of smack dab in a rural area, you know, where this tiny little city, small town in the middle of a rural area, which I just think is wonderful.

In proximity to the park, it's probably worth mentioning, too. I think Jeff kind of touched on it a little bit, but 10 minutes to the entrance to Shenandoah is the people that I was talking to that were talking about moving up here from Lexington. That was a big factor for them, is being able to jump right into the national park. That's something that I often wonder if we're doing enough to capitalize on.

Well, I noticed this morning when I left to go to work that the old Bradley's building on the right is up for lease or for sale. That would be a perfect place for the city to buy and put a visitor's center right there. touting all the amenities that Waynesboro has to offer.

Awesome. No, I think that's all very helpful and will help us as we factor into the model. One thing I don't think I heard too much on was any detractors or barriers that you all see in the city right now. What would cause someone not to invest in a certain part of the city or not to move?

So I would say there is still a historic perception of just negative perception associated with the east side that I see sometimes. You know, particularly with to some extent with crime and stuff over there. You know, there are a couple of places or areas over there that seem to attract a particular amount of, we just see time and time again, we see them either be the place where a crime occurs or that the business itself is a victim of crime. That's changed a lot since I started here as some of that commercial has started to fill in over there. And I think the The Basic City Complex over there and I have it now kind of really filling in with Hap and the brewery and everything is kind of changing that side of town. It's the only place that I go in town that I consistently, like you walk in there at two o'clock on a weekday and it's chock full of young people. In a way that like no other coffee shop that I've been in in the city or restaurant really even though I've been in a city is and I don't know where they all come from or and or maybe that's the place that they picked to congregate here, but that's a you know, that's kind of a I Think that's a piece of it. I don't again It's hard for me to speak on the sort of commercial or the business side of it because I don't see that I know that you know, there's a historic perception of Waynesboro being that I see or hear that Waynesboro has a higher crime rate than other cities of similar size. That's statistically not true, but there's a perception there. You know, when I worked in Nelson County, that was kind of the perception was it was Waynesboro was where all the problems came from. Again, there's no statistical. I think our violent crime year over year, don't quote me on this, our violent crime year over year generally trends below Stanton's. So there's no statistical truth to it. But, you know, that's a perception that I hear from people from time to time when I tell them that I'm from Waynesboro or that I live in Waynesboro. From the outside looking in, it seems like when you consider what's happened with Northrop Grumman, the city does a pretty good job attracting commercial businesses. I can't help but wonder why that doesn't seem to translate to small businesses in the vicinity of downtown. We still seem to have a lot of vacancy. I don't know if that's a, I think there's probably like a chicken and an egg thing question there about Economic development, it may go back even so far as I learned recently. It's interesting that. Stanton is 1 of the reason that we don't have some of the same kind of architecture that downtown Stanton does. Is this Stanton had a historic preservation society that preserved a lot of that stuff in the fifties and sixties when we lost a lot of that architecture here in the city. So, I mean, it's, you know, there are all these different factors that have gone into that over the years, but and then you have buildings where. The economic, you know, like the ice house where, as I understand it, like, the economics don't make sense to take a building like that down. And so you have a building that sits vacant in downtown. I think the 1 down here at the end of the block, I've heard that there's all sorts of costs associated with that building being redeveloped. Is that a. Impediment that the city can control. Is it a result of a historical trend? I mean, that's that's. Maybe that's what we're paying. We're paying you guys to tell us, right? Just how to fix those long term some of those long term issues. But those are the ones that I see. I don't I mean, infrastructure in particular. I don't. You know, I don't see those as big impediments.

feel like we do pretty well with infrastructure when we consider the connector roads and the sort of the way things have developed around the city I guess from kind of a granular perspective of infrastructure and kind of relating to what Will was saying I would say that the east side of town does have some water pressure limitations that can be overcome but they're costly and typically the stance of the city has been you know if a developer wants to come in and you know build a new building on that side of town then they have to meet whatever fire flow demand is required and that that cost is on the developer um so that could certainly be a detractor for some businesses to locate along that corridor um so i think that's you know if you're talking about infrastructure barriers i think that's one of them that i can do and having people leave when you talk about haps

you know what other activities are we doing to draw the mid-20s since we do have the colleges are here and here are we doing things that you know I find that a lot of our folks that after they graduate from here if they go on to college they're not coming back what's not here what are we not drawing back Waynesboro's graduates that are going on to four-year schools to bring them back what isn't I personally think we need a more flowing, intentional set of events and activities in the downtown area. I love when the street art festival hit, we threw a stage right downtown on, You know, a stone's throw from where we sit now and have music, live music, Saturday and Sunday. The Chili Blues and Brews Festival is coming up. Can we add to those type of consistent events that are gonna draw people in?

Like fall foliage.

Right, like fall foliage. The River Fest is great, but the fly fishing festival that was the weekend before that, we lost to another community, was drawing huge crowds. I think Terry Shorten once said he wanted to have a spandex festival once here. Because we invented spandex, you know, at DuPont in Waynesboro. Let's have a spandex festival. Everyone shows up wearing some spandex and rocks out to some tunes. More... Events and activities closing out the downtown walking areas where you can get more people Flowing into the streets encouraging later evening activities in downtown Well, I know every every every year grooving on the greenway seems to get more people showing up there With thousands come for Winterfest last year Which is the day after Thanksgiving and celebrate or Saturday after Thanksgiving celebrating small business Saturdays I think that type of activity happening from the city Encouraging people to come downtown is great more of that Mark your calendars Saturday November 28. I'll be down there blowing snow and playing music for five hours

i really hope you're not blowing snow we have a snow machine we sit up in the city the old scholar giles's office you can make all the snow you want as long as we're not shoveling it this year yes true um yeah i've i've often wondered you know we have we're kind of right on the we're kind of right on the edge of like we have basic and that draws people over from 151. And we have the, the winery down there now, and that sort of draws people over from 151. And we have, like, the fly shop, we used to have South River outfitters, and that kind of brings some people in from the park. But, you know, the Jeff's point, like, are there ways that we can maximize, like, sort of. more effect in the city, more effectively grab hold of some of these identities. And I'm not saying, you know, the craft beer thing or let's put a brewery on every corner or an outfitter on every corner, but I don't know how you identify those things that are unique about the city to really maximize that, maximize those advantages that we have over other comparable places instead of, you know, sort of just acknowledging them and and not really taking advantage, fully taking advantage of them. I don't know, I don't have all the answers, obviously, but I think you're right about that.

Incentivizing, it doesn't have to be the city that does it. Incentivizing entrepreneurs and small businesses to have these type of events, to have these type of festivals.

What I'd like to see is, it's multiple little restaurants downtown, do something similar to what Stanton does every once in a while. They close the streets, put the tables in the streets, and everybody sits out there and they eat.

And they've got a parking garage to support the cars when you close out that area. That's getting some type of downtown centralized.

The one thing I'll say is somebody who has small children, that's just an observation. We do that on Friday nights after I pick up my mom. I only have one child in child care in Stanton. But that's much more accessible for us with small children than going and sitting down at a restaurant. And so that does attract us to downtown Stanton. Yeah. I think the other thing is you know we we do a pretty good job with the greenway and connecting to to bridge view and everything like that but sometimes you know i talk to people all the time that sometimes they even live here and don't really understand know or understand the extent of those that trail system and again you know the people that i was talking to i had to keep going back to this example that live in lexington They were saying that they've got some kind of trail system in Lexington, and they were like, well, we're concerned about not having a place. And I'm like, well, if you buy close to either Ridgeview or downtown, you'll have immediate access. And they're like, wow, we didn't even know that was down there. So again, how do we lean into this without becoming the... I don't know, the Velcro sandal strap capital of the world, right? Like, how do we kind of lean into that outdoor, the pieces, the different components of that identity that potentially attract different people in different ways, right?

Perfect. Yeah, other than, I guess, water and sewer capacity on the east side and then i guess perception you all mentioned on the east side is there anywhere else in the city you feel like has struggled to grow for some reason that might we could factor in as a possible detractor unless some type of condition were to change i do think there is a perception of crime that's what i hear yeah i have that as well which people have touched on

yeah one one detractor or barrier is also like vacant industrial property that we don't have control over that

And yeah, commercial and industrial, I mean, the vacant commercial. You know, the perception of the crime is enhanced by the by vacant commercial, you know, with. People sleeping in the doorways, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't have a big understanding of like, so the vacant commercial. I feel like policies and things that we put in place. Investments otherwise could help. you know spur those along but thinking through like industrial like large industrial property that is not in our hands um i'm not sure of the future or the ability for us to have as much control over that just based on history you know all that happened and occurred um and and then where that goes from i mean like they ended up and we haven't had any ability to do anything at the top of the mountain well and that is a huge water barrier there's no public water to that property so recently augusta county not really recently but in the last couple years got a grant to do some just general studying of the area because that is a true true barrier is getting public water extended to that property under the interstate however it needs to happen

Is there a you know the complaint I hear frequently about vacant properties is that, well, I've got a property next to a vacant, my business is located next to a vacant commercial property or a vacant industrial property and the building's falling down and the city hasn't done anything about it and so now it's full of people that are living in it doing drugs. I don't know, my perception has always been that on the enforcement side that's sort of overstated Whenever I generally see something like that and pass that complaint along, usually it's addressed if it really is a code issue. Very often it's not a code compliance issue, it's a building maintenance or building attentiveness issue. But I wonder if maybe there's at least more options that we should be considering in the context of the comprehensive plan um you know i whether that's i mean i know that there are places that have vacancy taxes um and i know that that's something that's been discussed before but you know that's um i brought that i brought that idea up twice with people who attorneys who represent people who have businesses downtown at both times.

They told me I was nuts and that we could never do it and that would be terrible.

But I just, I don't know if there, I wonder if there are more tools to address, you know, those, those issues are so interrelated, right? So, you know, you have when you have a vacant particularly a large vacant industrial property by its very nature and the and it's particularly it's been vacant for a long period of time by its very nature it's going to be more accessible and more susceptible to being to the presence of crime there environmental issues right and so that leads to more crime centered in that area which creates even if it's not necessarily statistically significant creates the perception of more crime which leads to more vacancy in that area which leads people doing businesses out of those areas and so how do you know I don't the thing those two issues in my view at least are deeply interrelated And so I don't know, you know, the most expensive solution is to put a police officer on every block, right? And that creates some level of crime deterrence. leaving aside, I mean, I say that not literally, but that's kind of the solution that, easy solution that springs to mind is you create some kind of deterrence. But I think there's probably better economic ways to try to incentivize things. And that's the place where I often wonder about that, when we have people that come to me and say, hey, I've been the victim of crime and I've got these problems in the vicinity of my business. That's where I struggle for an answer.

So do we need to create ordinances then? Is that an enforcement issue or creating new zoning and enforcement requirements or guidelines for these companies that have neglect in terms of properties or buildings?

deterioration well yeah yeah there's only so far we can go I think the city has put certain things in place there are certainly some additional levers and things that could be considered some new state code kind of implications or new policies and regulations around vacant properties but there's no kind of ordinance fix that I can think of that can require any specific thing.

So most of the ones that I see or that I encounter are legally compliant vacant buildings that get broken into and copper pipe gets stolen out of it. In a lot of ways that creates, very often I see, that creating a new set of impediments for that. Even if, let's say, it's a corporate owner of a commercial property, they've already got this semi-distressed property that, for whatever reason, they've decided not to put any money into. And now it's becoming a money pit because just to keep it safe and, to some extent, to keep it secure, they can avoid liability. Now they've got to put more money into it because somebody's broken into it or whatever's going on. And so again, you know, they're not, at least in my experience, we haven't and. I'm sure staff can speak to this better than I could like, we don't, I don't feel like somebody who's in at least in the courtroom on a regular basis. Like, I don't see. It's a city down there doing a ton of code enforcement that level.

not because they're not because they're not doing the city's not doing it because there's not a lot to do because most of our ordinances can't address vacancy yeah I would say like our current property maintenance code is very kind of bare bones and minimal and so it gets you kind of the bare minimum of Is it boarded up? Are there a handful of things? Are the gutters not falling off? Is the grass mowed to a certain height? it is minimal and so it might not be a beautification of a property that would be desired by an adjacent property owner right so there's only so far those ordinances go can you strengthen that language is that a possibility when you say it's kind of bare bones etc so we have adopted the virginia's property maintenance code um we could certainly you know the political will was there to have some additional you know aesthetic guidelines certainly we've talked about that related to entrance corridors or other things I'm not sure I think the majority of localities you know adopt to the property maintenance code Augusta County actually hasn't adopted the property maintenance code but most cities adopt the Virginia property maintenance code and I'd have to look into kind of what additional things can be can be added to that.

I think generally the challenge is that you get much farther beyond the, I mean, it's been a while, but I have read the property maintenance code, the one that was adopted, and you get much further beyond that and you get into that sort of architectural review kind of area pretty quickly.

Like we're focused kind of on health, safety, welfare with the property maintenance code and not does it look nice. Right. Aesthetics.

And yeah, I think pretty quickly you can get into the subjective of and you might like something else. That's been, the reading that I did on that issue, and again, it's been a couple years ago now, basically the thesis of it was be careful what you wish for, be careful how far, that cities should be careful, localities should be careful how far they drive those things, because you can get into a place that tends toward arbitrary enforcement pretty quickly. And again, we're talking about, I've taken it back to our discussion before the meeting about property rights. Every time we do one of these things, every time we create one of these enforcement mechanisms, we're talking about somebody's property rights that we're slowly chipping away at, their ability to do what they want on their property. There's a balance, in my opinion, that has to be struck there.

No, you're absolutely right. And I've thought of that with the current situation that we have going on. It's kind of the classic question, you know, at what point do your rights start and mine stop? And at what point can you have the freedom and ability to pursue whatever you want to pursue But then my desires are limited or squashed. So my personal enjoyment stops at a certain point and yours begins. And so it's just kind of a weird dichotomy. I know what you're saying in terms of one impression is different from another impression.

Yeah, you know, I mean, yeah, we could sit here and discuss that with Madison and Jefferson and talk about property rights for hours. I mean, yeah. That's always been, I guess, my, and this is just, I guess, my politics, but that's always been my hesitancy with a lot of this stuff is, I say a lot of this stuff, with tending towards more of an enforcement mechanism to try to drive some of this change. Anytime you're talking about enforcement at a minimum, where you talk about legislating certain things, at a minimum you're talking about financial enforcement, even if it's just fix it or we're gonna fine you, right, now you're talking about you know, basically the coercive power of the government. And I don't want to open up that whole can of worms at the Planning Commission meeting. But, you know, that's where the rub is. That's where the friction is. You're absolutely right.

In your guys' experience, when we're talking about the stick, and I like to talk about the carrot, you know, is there an incentivization to have other communities found success in the stick? You know, you're not doing this. We're enforcing. but is there other communities that have had incentives for knocking down properties that have gotten to that stage and allowing someone else to come in and build something up new does that yeah so i think what will come out of the comprehensive plan and um

we kind of continue through this discussion is there will be a combination of incentives and regulations that will come out so we'll have a lot of strategies and some of them are incentive based and some of them are regulatory and we use that approach now and can you know with incentives for downtown growth and

certain districts and and then also with the regulation so I think we can continue yes on both of those courses and that those recommendations will come out of this process one thing I'd like to see is when a developer or somebody comes before us and I was sitting on the Planning Commission when one of the vacant buildings right here in downtown was presented, beautiful set of plans for retail, residential space, they were ready to start, had a several year plan to be finished, and then once it all got approved, it's still sitting empty, and it's still an eyesore downtown. What I would like to see is a mechanism in place that you come and you can't do it for whatever reason what will you do you do you let the building set in your heart of your city and dilapidate to the point where it becomes a safety hazard or do you bring in have have somebody else come in and develop the the property or do you put a time restriction on when once it's approved you got three years 36 months or whatever to to make this happen and if you don't then whatever incentive you gave to have this property developed are gone

I think that's an excellent point. If you could back load, you know, I'm not completely sure of the approval process when companies, you know, that's more of an economic development conversation and down a different path.

But to his point, you know, folks... If it is an economic development, true economic development project and incentives are given, they are required to meet certain milestones.

Yeah.

The situation you're talking about downtown, I'm not aware of any incentives.

Oh, I'm not either. I don't think there was any incentives for him to develop it. I mean, he come with a grand plan. He come with a champagne mind, a beer pocketbook in my mind.

so i guess i'm in speaking about that scenario there was nothing like the city didn't have anything to renege on other than you no longer have the approval to demolish you have to come back and get that and i'm not sure well you know that that raises a issue that i that i think bears talking about or discussing

maybe not specifically with respect to that project, but one thing that I've noticed that we've run into now a couple times is we have developments that were approved that were approved on a discretionary permit, whether it was a CEP or whatever, Um, or even a non discretionary, but now the plans are now 15 or 20 years old. Right I'm thinking of 1 development in particular and are now nonconforming and. We're left with these tough choices with these. Old developments that were, or whatever was approved 101520 years ago that met the requirements then that don't that really are not. no longer consistent with the character or whatever the case might be. And I know some of that, I hope, I mean, we can't claw back anything that's already happened, right, because then we're talking about taking, but how do we put, when we do things like that, how do we put a mechanism in place that says, okay, You got X amount of time to do this after that we reserve the right to revisit this issue and you can come back before us and you can ask for the same thing and whoever the planning commission is then and I'm sure they'll be smarter than me. They can decide if that meets the requirements then. Because, you know, that's the way I mean, I felt like. At least 2 circumstances where we've had developers before us asking us for something.

There was already a promise.

Yeah, that was basically, hey, this is what we can do. And so we're left with sort of picking, I don't want to say the lesser of two evils, but the less desirable, you know, picking between some options that none of us really liked very much.

Kind of the best of the worst.

Yeah, I mean, I don't, you know, I don't want to use any kind of loaded language or imply anything about any group of people or developers or anything like that. But, um, you know, that's that's a place where I feel like. As a planning commission, and I know we're a little far field here, but as a planning commission, where I feel like we've kind of been hamstrung in the past, it's like, we're kind of stuck with this stuff from a really long time ago. And so maybe. And again, I know we can't address that for stuff that's already happened, but how do we build into those applications moving forward? Like, hey, these are the time frames we can expect this in. And if not, then it reverts back to whatever the underlying zoning was.

I think we would be tied to the vested right clause in state code, and it's pretty open that if they rely on a determination of government, and it's pretty broad in that, so say they pay an engineer to do a plan, they've relied on the determination. I mean, I'm not saying that it's not possible in certain applications, like CUPs, but when it comes to rezoning of the property preliminary plat approval. We are restricted by the vested right clause in the state code. and we can continue to look into that, but we have faced that in the past if we've said to our legal counsel, we have this preliminary plat, what is our, and there are some time frames, like we do in state code, they do list some time frames, but as long as there's been some type of reliance on that information and pursuit of it, sometimes we're restricted by that. But it could certainly be looked at on a case by case basis. How long it's been, what reliance was made on that information, what costs were incurred by the developer related to that information, and if they could make a vested right case or not. And we've had those in the past where we've run it by our legal counsel to say is this one of those examples. But that's the one that typically, that's the clause that typically prohibits things like that, in a broad sense, not if you're talking about there might be a way.

Yeah. My understanding of the vested rights clause is, though, And we're now in a callback to my property class in law school going on 10 years ago now, 12, 13 years ago. But there has to be some degree of significant financial detrimental reliance that the developer can't recompense from new, like they have to be, it can't just be like, oh, we spent some money back in the day. My recollection, this will be my YouTube moment that I get roasted for for being wrong about the law, is that they can't just be like, well, we want to do this, even though we could make more money doing the other thing. There has to be some demonstration. But anyways, that's just a place where I felt some friction and some of the stuff that we've had before us in the past.

Maybe we can click in along to get to that.

Yeah, back to the model. So other things that we look at are population sources, employment sources, and growth rate assumptions. So one thing that we're able to do is look at the, of course the census comes out with block level data, which is the most precise level data that they provide only every 10 years. So the most recent one we have is from 2020. We can do a proportional analysis to relate that to the block group, which is about the size of a neighborhood. But wanted to know if you all feel confident in those numbers, what it might be showing. Um, as well as the employment source data, we can get from, uh. Your labor statistics as well as, uh, as we has as a business database that we're able to use. And then a larger question is for the growth rate assumptions. Of course, have the Weldon Cooper. Projections for the city, um, I think we talked about this in June, but you all already have exceeded. I think the 2030 projections, uh, at the year 2025. So it's a question, do you all want us to look at Weldon Cooper's projections, or do you want us to do more of a linear analysis of your current growth trends? And if that's the case, what's the horizon year you would want us to look at? 2050, 2045, 2055?

I would say look at what's currently happening, not the census from 2015.

six years ago i would suggest considering how much i've been in the city for seven years um A lot has changed in 7 years and so I think given the current given that we're significantly exceeding our current rate of change. Our current projected rates of change, I think that there would be some danger in going with, like, 15 or 25 year intervals. I mean, I'm not a statistician, but, you know, I mean, 10, 10 year intervals strikes strike me 5 or 10 year intervals strike me as. Probably more helpful and useful because. who knows i mean considering again considering how much things how much the city has grown in the seven years that i've been living here in the 11 years that i've been coming to the city 12 years i've been coming 11 years that i've been coming to the city um i would suggest that maybe caution and going much further beyond that sort of interval okay um in terms just in terms of usefulness of our ability to project right would be prudent

And you're thinking more linear analysis, what current trends compared to, because if we look five years from now, you're already over what Cooperstown should be. Okay.

You know, to what extent does the fact that we're getting close to, I mean, we don't have a ton of undeveloped inventory left.

And so I don't know how you guys would kind of be able to evaluate that. I mean, certainly if we're talking about, you know, we kind of ask the public, you know, how high do you want to see it go down?

Right.

Or how high do you? So, I mean, they're going to be able to build those things in to really say. If we are fine with going up, then these are some of the numbers that we could see. So I think you're going to get to see all that get into the model and some different options.

yeah because i mean i bet there's been well i don't know how many thousands of new units that we've approved in however many years i've been on the platform because i got to get reappointed years on the planning commission and i don't think we got room for that that level of growth again for another four years physical space at that for that type of development yes for vacant open parcels yeah yeah yes

Yeah, so the initial model will of course be based on your current rules and let you know what might you be looking at with what you currently have. And then we can take a look at that and talk about, and it could come from some of the stuff we'll talk about a little bit later, what level of density and build out on the block level are you comfortable with? And we could use that as well to kind of give you some scenarios of like, Now you're looking at this many parcels, this much acreage compared to your current ordinance. Could you reduce that acreage if certain rules were changed? I guess any reactions overall on the tool before we start talking about some options and ideas on build out?

Nope.

So I'm sure how many of y'all are familiar with this map, but this is the map that we went through a scenario of I think about seven different scenarios of what growth could look like in the city. The dark areas are the urban core, so you could call that the most dense areas in the city. With the hatched area, the lines just going horizontal. being the areas that are like your edges, just the edge of downtown. The area that's more of a grid would be more suburban style. So looking at that neighborhood centric investment, we then dug further to figure out what are the neighborhoods in the city. So we looked at the map from the 1979 comprehensive plan, which of course the city boundaries were different then. We looked at the most recent comprehensive plan with 2018. Theirs was based just on census block groups, so they weren't actual neighborhood boundaries. We had a lot of folks at the open house give us input, share what they felt was right and incorrect. They directed us to Nextdoor, which is an app that neighbors use. That helped us figure out a lot of these boundaries, and you all helped as well at the last meeting, so we were able to take the Brandon East and West and merge them into the Fairway Hills to split the Riverview and Kenmore into two separate neighborhoods. And then make sure the Wayne Hills, Hill and Dale includes that food line shopping center. So is any questions you all have on this before we move past this map?

And we'll make sure to send the slides out to you all so you can review after the fact also.

So just another refresher of what we've heard so far at the open house, we asked folks what types of investment they want to see in the city. So we saw open space is more of a ring around the city with a lot happening in the Brooklyn property. We saw a lot of residential dots in the northwest part of the city, a lot of industrial dots more so near the interstate or where existing industrial already is. Mixed use, we saw a majority in downtown and in the basic city area, but also a couple up in other neighborhoods. Commercial primarily in downtown and basic city, folks said they wanted to see. We also asked, you know, what type of future do you see for each of these different place types? So downtown, historic downtown of Basic City, and if we're to look at like a neighborhood core. We showed them up to seven to eight stories and everything in between. And the results were that in downtown and in Basic City, folks were most comfortable with anything up to three to four stories. And then in the neighborhood downtowns, they're more comfortable with, you know, minimal infill, so, you know, one to two stories. We tried to start figuring out where those neighborhood cores could be, where you would possibly see a little bit more density, more mixed use in different parts of the city other than downtown. So I wanted to run this by you all and see are there, when we were doing this analysis, some neighborhoods we were not able to discernibly determine where there might be a natural downtown currently And so it'd be a question first, you know, do you feel like every neighborhood needs to have its own core? And then secondly, you know, are any missing and are any incorrect that we have on the map? And of course you'll get the map as well. I guess the...

So what do you mean by, well, I guess when you say downtown, are we talking that invokes, at least in my mind, particularly like a pseudo-central commercial area type... Like a neighborhood business. Yeah. You know, so I don't... I don't... I guess I would say I don't know how, like, for, you know, Fairway Hills, Riverview, Lyndhurst, Kenmore, that area, like, you know, there's nothing shown there, and I think that's a reflection of proximity to other things. You know, Ludewitt, kind of the same thing, like... There's a component of this like, there's like a access to grocery stores and stuff component of this that I don't know that I really have my head wrapped around. But in my view, given how sort of accessible other things are, I don't see that we need for us to specify like, hey, here's an area of you know, Charleston Park that we see as, because, you know, the grocery stores are right down the road or right across the street. Same thing with, you know, I mean, I happen to live in Fairway Hills, so I'm okay that we're not gonna identify anything in that area and say this is where the neighborhood convenience store or whatever should be.

And that, for me, you know, I'm lucky enough to have access to the other things that are right there.

And so I would be, Uh, I think this probably pretty well reflects existing. I would be concerned about sort of, like, arbitrarily from a zoning perspective, arbitrarily, like, saying, like, hey. Each neighborhood needs to have a place that we see as the central hub, the central hub of this neighborhood when I think we kind of have some.

For the existing opportunity.

Right, yeah, some logical places that already exist that make sense and where we are seeing some of this stuff already.

Yeah, that helps answer our first question, which is if we didn't find one naturally, do you want to plan for one, which sounds like the answer is no.

Yeah, without that would be my answer without sort of delving into the nuance of, like, does that mean that there's. Without having a full understanding, I would say of, like, what the nuance of that means for somebody who lives in South Delphine and doesn't own a car. And can that mean they can walk to a grocery store or not? And how does that impact. I can't speak all that nuance, but I would as a general. Position, I would say, given the public. both the walking infrastructure and the public transportation infrastructure such as it is that we have in the city, we do a decent job of addressing those issues. So I wouldn't feel compelled to say, you know, right here in that little green spot in Jones Hollow is where we want to build the next Kroger or whatever the case might be.

Yeah, I think it could be a good mix of like obviously looking that we can kind of identify and then maybe trying to overlay potentially some of those issues like okay, where are the grocery stores if we notice kind of on top of this map, we're seeing some of those basic necessary human services not there. That then maybe we could kind of have a larger conversation of like, all right, we don't need to find one in every neighborhood, but maybe there is a significant gap right here that we have. Yeah. Yeah. Sound of like a combo.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Like, okay, we see this. Whatever, um, you know, and beagle gap, there's no up there, no grocery stores. And so we want to use the zoning map to encourage a certain kind of residential development or commercial development there so that they build up. So there's a place you can go buy a gallon milk or whatever.

Yeah, I kind of I see what you're saying about So I think just if there was a way of you know, and if we say it's business we can't guarantee it's a grocery store, so that's another land use that we deal with but it would allow some kind of market or retail type use to crop up that could provide that service so if we could maybe do a little bit of overlaying that just to see if like okay wow we really are missing something here but I think the otherwise kind of looking at where it makes sense and opportunities already exist is the most practical and realistic okay perfect

So then diving into some of those place types, we took some time to kind of map out nine different place types throughout the city. Didn't look at anything that you could call agricultural or maybe more recreational because those are more passive types that you may not see a ton of change anyways in the built form. So what we'll spend some time now is kind of going through, and as you look at these, we show the existing conditions of those blocks, what they could be with minor infill, moderate infill, and then major infill. So minor meaning, you know, we have a couple buildings that change. Moderate, you know, pretty much any open spots are developed. And then major meaning that any non-historic buildings and any other vacant spots are now developed. So I can start now and show you. This is, you know, downtown and then just on the edge of downtown. what those different conditions of intensity of development could look like i want to gauge where you all feel on the scale of these most comfortable we consider you know current like an a and then major infills d where do you all feel for downtown

are you just referring to growth then yes yeah so yeah we've asked previously you know what height of the buildings is most appropriate but that doesn't help us know like how built out of a block do you want to see uh me personally in the vicinity of downtown i think major infill is what's called for um that may be unpopular but you know we have a lot of Unused space or maybe maybe not fully taken advantage of space and I think we're gonna be able to sustain Inventory Particularly residential inventory. We're gonna have to have significant infill development And that's the only way that we're gonna be able to sustain growth without having Housing prices skyrocket is we're gonna have to talk about higher density residential and infill development So I would be, I mean, I, you know, I'm not saying we should tear it all down and start over, but yeah, I would be comfortable with major infill given the parameters that we've kind of previously set forth with respect to height and that kind of stuff.

I totally agree with that scenario. In fact, I think even on the youth steering committee, it seems like there's a big drive to really reinforce downtown, build it out. People want to be downtown, but I think that should be our goal, major infill. It seems like there's a lot of opportunity down here, and with the growth everywhere else, the Ludewitt Corridor, this makes a lot of sense to me. Okay, perfect.

The downtown edge, is that something that's here somewhere that I just don't recognize?

Oh, Kroger.

Oh, okay. Kroger, a large parking lot.

Yeah, yeah.

And so this is an interesting thing because it's easy to get stressed about parking. But I think it's also important to realize that the more infill and the more development you have and the more mixed use you have, Hopefully, the less parking needs that you have, potentially, as people are able to walk to a CVS, walk to a potential doctor's appointment, walk to a restaurant. I say that only because looking at the current and minor infill and then comparing it over to the major, where is all the parking going to be? So I wouldn't let that stop you from thinking through whether A to D, but important to remember that the denser we get, potentially the less parking.

hopefully we would need is the goal but i think this has a tremendous ability for walkability which is what the younger kids are saying yes and um if everything's in such close proximity which i think it is it's it's very doable

But now that I've, I'm like Will, now that I've oriented myself on the bottom, when you get to the major infield, the grocery store, we were just all talking about going.

It turned into six local organic, don't worry about it.

Okay. Whole Foods. Yeah.

no i i hear what you're saying right like you know that's the first thing that jumped out to me is wait a minute we lost the grocery store and i don't i suspect that we probably shouldn't get too hung up on that no um but i don't think we can say major infill downtown and then say not so much around the edges if we really want some of the res some of the supporting infill that sustains the major commercial infill yeah so here again i would have to would have to have a cave for major infill and orienting on the top I'm assuming this circle is Loomis circle yep okay I do like that the more info you get the bigger the trees are that's nice yeah no I mean I you know you have I think you have to have Right now, we're back to the chicken and the egg thing. I think to a lot of some extent, right? Are you going to get the businesses downtown? Before you build the apartment buildings for the businesses to the house, the people that want to go to the businesses, right? Like, and so. I don't think I mean, it'll be up to somebody. Maybe it'll be up to us. I don't know. To to draw the boundaries of where these things will happen when we do the, the land use math, but. But I think, I feel strongly, and I've said this before, and I'm sure I'll say it again before we're all said and done, but the infill development is really the key to recapturing downtown. And so I don't think we can advocate for anything less than the opportunity for major infill. If we feel that way.

And you strive for major and you end up with moderate, you still need improvement.

Yeah, and we saved the Kroger for you.

and one other kind of comment to help alleviate some potential concerns that might come up about ah major infill all over is you know we currently in our central business downtown district do not have a height maximum isn't that correct So it's quite tall that we allow. And we're not seeing that type of development. So it kind of goes back a little bit to, yeah, it's 100 feet. We don't have the parking requirement. I think that... it's important to remember there are regulations and ordinances, but then as Will pointed out, then there's what density supports that surrounding it. Nobody's gonna build up just to build up. So there's gotta be something to put there. So I just wanted to point that out also. The market will drive it, certainly.

So what you're saying is it's not the comprehensive, well, then we're not gonna push a button on the comprehensive plan. And make all this come. Yeah, okay.

That's a good clarification. We have had quite a,

large height permissible within the downtown district you guys find that button to push and make that stuff yeah and then these next two are you know historic basic uh city and then uh downtown basic city and then uh basic city as what folks are calling like today's downtown uh where the metal metalcrafters building is Where do you all feel comfort? And here, again, Basic City, we heard from folks in the public that they were comfortable with up to three to four stories.

And you're saying Basic City is the little white building, the L on the current?

uh yes this is just over the railroad if you were to go under the railroad underpass uh yeah that's the metal crafters complex oh yeah okay it looks like a parking lot because you're seeing the black of the raised top on the left side but it's that's all the building there um i don't spend as much time in these places so i have Less feelings about them?

I would lean, in the downtown intensity, I would lean towards the moderate infield because it keeps what's bringing people there, there, the basic city brewery.

Well, I also think as you start to go, I think there's something to be said for transition. Yeah. So, you know, I would say that historic basic city downtown, I would say major infill would be appropriate. That's like a traditionally more industrial. There are train tracks there. There are big buildings there have historically been big buildings there. That's a good place for major infill. But as you start to go out and maybe it's just the. particularly this particular example, but it strikes me that maybe someplace like this particular block that you've picked here would be more of a moderate infill type of place as you start to transition up the mountain towards those more natural scenes. I mean, I have a hard time imagining, for example, high density, the sort of cohesion of high density residential, um let's say at the parcel across the street from this where there's currently trailers right like apartment towers there with the park and everything in behind it i don't think would be like a consistent use necessarily or consist that would be it wouldn't be like consistent between those two areas.

I'm going to guess that in the top left up there, that white building on the upper right corner, that's the Xfinity building, correct?

I think that's Basic City Luncheonette, Old Basic City Luncheonette.

Yeah, the one closest to the railroad track. Well, there's two houses right there that aren't in that picture that have been built right there. mean one house right there beside that so i mean i think that that's living in that area that stretch yeah i could see moderate to major infield right there to bring in the bill because if you went down the road just a little bit farther you'd run into mcclung

well and i think that the thing i hadn't thought about this but you know that's uh kind of a mixed use area anyways and so i think you know it's it's kind of leads itself major infill would be consistent fairly consistent with the nature of the neighborhood yep being that it's there's some a little bit of commercial and it's a little bit of pseudo-industrial like mclung and some of the other businesses that are over there and some residential kind of all mixed in yeah um

So we're thinking moderate to major on the top and more moderate on the bottom one. That's not right?

That would be way I would lean.

Yeah, and I don't, I mean, you know, the other thing that immediately strikes me is are we saying one thing about Waynesboro downtown and saying something different about, are we somehow disadvantaging the east side? Yeah. in some historical way. And I would want to send some way that is a reflection of some of the historical things that have happened over there that lot of people that feel strongly about basic city being kind of a afterthought or whatever and so I would never want to position myself to say well I think we should do that whatever downtown first basic city second or something like that so if there's a better argument to be made for consistency across the two areas I think that would be worth discussing but I think that just again on the basic city side given that much of that sort of the downtown, what's now down, or what they're calling downtown, like right above it is the big property, right above it on the other side is the park, like that doesn't necessarily lend itself to the same very high density that maybe the block, particularly that you showed down here does. But I'm sensitive to that, it just occurs to me that there potentially is a criticism that we're not treating both areas fairly, and so I wanna be sensitive, I would wanna be sensitive to that too.

Next would be neighborhood core and then residential block. What level of intensity do you feel comfortable with here? Again, at the neighborhood core, folks said that they wanted to see really things that are one to two story. That's why you're not seeing anything too crazy.

I would, I mean, I, let me start with residential. I don't in most of the residential neighborhoods. I don't see. Strictly residential neighborhoods. Um. I don't know how popular anything more than minor or maybe even moderate would be. I think the risk there is you change the character of the neighborhoods. And I think most people like the place they live or they move. So that would be my first concern. Neighborhood core, I don't recognize those buildings.

I don't know.

I don't either.

So the neighborhood core surrounds the residential then? I'm trying to understand that top bracket.

Neighborhood core would be like a place that already has some kind of commercial or public space in a neighborhood and considering what other types of uses might be allowed in that area.

But the buildings in the top on the current

they don't exist because i'm like will i don't recognize anything where is that uh it's in the tree streets neighborhood it's the where the library is oh that's the ymca in the library oh lord okay no wonder um got it yeah so yeah yeah after this we're gonna play like pick up google image and see if you can find yeah yeah um

Well, I think the library and the Y are so ingrained in the community. Those are great assets for the community. And the walkability, et cetera. So I think those two, especially the Y and the library, so cohesive with the neighborhood core in terms of the residential intensity i think a lot of neighborhoods are experiencing that major infill now or especially that louisville corridor you know behind martin's etc brandon ladd's going to get those new apartments so we've got some major infill going on and a lot of the feedback that i receive is not that positive you know people are concerned about traffic infrastructure etc a lot of car accidents at that Tiffany and Rosser so I would probably say minor infill on the residential I also think to your point

there's some inconsistency between saying we really want to prioritize downtown and then saying, oh, we see major infill at these other sort of neighborhood core areas.

So, yeah, so I would have to.

What's that? Yeah, and if we say we want, you know, we want, we want it here and we want it at the neighborhood course, and we want it there. Right. And there's 1 business. Right. Right. And so I think I would, I would advocate for neighborhood core, minor infill at neighborhood core. just to kind of prioritize the infill development that we can incentivize to come to the areas that i think needed most where it's most consistent with the existing uses as opposed to i mean we've already kind of have a little bit of a fragmented between the the commercial out at the interstate and the commercial downtown and potentially encouraging more of that doesn't seem that attractive to me. So I would advocate for minor infill for neighborhood cores. Residential intensity, I have a question. Because I think there are opportunities for major infill in certain residential areas, particularly in the proximity to downtown and downtown basic city.

So I would distinguish between... Like a mixed use, something that's more mixed use and something that's residential only.

Or even as you go... At some point at the edges of downtown, I think there could be as we develop from mixed use, you know, opportunities for more significant infill and higher densities. In those areas as redevelopment comes through, you know, if let's say 10 years down the road, we've got all of these, we've got a boom in downtown and we've got these 3 and 4 story, great mixed use buildings. does it make sense then to say at the edge of that we want to keep single family we want to keep that single it doesn't make sense to me to say we want to keep as a matter of zoning keep those single family homes when potentially those could become you know moderate density and then you have kind of a more consistent build out as opposed to what we have now which i think is we have our our highest density terms of most of our residential is actually as far as it can be from downtown I'm thinking specifically about like the Windy Grove apartments and the new apartments out there those are pretty high those are probably as high density as I see us ever really getting in the city at least as far forward as we can look and they're as far as they can be from downtown so can we drive some of that back close to the city center So I would say, all that to say, major infill where we want it and minor infill everywhere else.

Because you definitely don't want to lose the ability to have events like grooving on the Greenway.

Right.

Because you want people to have, like the Y right there, the Greenway pops up right there on that corner. so you want to take advantage of that hey you live here you got the greenway you got three miles you can ride your bike well well once it's connected more than that but i'm thinking now specifically about for example down here

I think it's on arch. They just built a row of town brand-new townhouse. Yes, right and so that's a place where potentially You know had they come ten years from now in a place like that. Somebody could want to build an apartment building Yeah, and I think that could be a good consistent use with downtown. So I don't you don't I don't want to say minor infill and restrict that necessarily to single-family homes or or you know

Yeah, right down the street from the Y on the backside, they just put the new little park for the walkway, which is beautiful, I mean, I think. And so you wanna take advantage of the access ability to that. Like where they put them townhouses, I mean, they're just a stone's throw from that little new park.

so yeah I think all that is really helpful information and as we get into the land use map more specifically and we're kind of looking at those we'll be able to piece through you know what are those nuances of where so I think what you're mainly looking for with this is just kind of a general gut check of okay if it's a residential only you know single-family what do you see that looking like

And I think to Will's point what stands out to me is it's really kind of neighborhood specific right we have a lot of potential down here for downtown the edge of downtown and basic city over where Lou DeWitt and Martin's etc windy grove that's pretty expanded already so in terms of growth opportunities i'd be all for major infill downtown city center basic city you know over off of arch so i think you're right we shouldn't really limit or you know put you know, identify just residential intensity should just be X. I think it's quadrant specific, neighborhood specific.

And we'll definitely get into that as we get closer to that land use map of like picking through, okay, what color are those areas?

I think what I'm hearing is the answer is probably minor infill with some exceptions.

Sure, yeah. Next would be highway commercial and then commercial corridor areas of the city. What levels of intensity development of the block would you all be comfortable with seeing in the future?

It would really be helpful if at least 1 of the buildings in the current was labeled. So you could orient.

I'm trying to engage with the, with the mental exercise. I hear what you're saying. So now I'm trying to engage with the mental exercise and not try to identify it. So I'm like, I feel like I'm being more objective. Yeah. My concern about highway commercial is that I, I wouldn't want to. Well, I would be concerned about contributing to congestion in our existing highway corridors. Uh, the commercial quarters, particularly, I mean, I. I live off of the roster corridor, and that's changed a lot since I moved here. On the other hand, you know, there's lots of opportunities and I don't know how much do we want to. Restrict those. I don't really have any strong feelings, I guess, beyond those two comments.

You know, when I look at these slides, I just get excited because I think, oh, my gosh, this growth would be fantastic. Fill it up, you know, just major info because it just means new opportunities, new business, more people, more services. So I know we've got to be somewhat selective, but I look at this growth and development, and I just get excited on all these slides. It would be terrific if that business would come to our area.

Mm-hmm. I mean, I think you got to be careful with any of it anywhere because if you go major infield everywhere, you lose that small town feel that people are looking for. I mean, you don't want to end up like a Gatlinburg, Tennessee. You come out of the mountains and you're right into the midst of it.

Yeah, it gives some context. So the top one would be somewhere close to the interstate.

Yeah.

And then the bottom one would be a major corridor in the city, but not near.

250, Prosser.

But not near the interstate.

Well, I'm like, Kate, I think you've got to look at it quadrant by quadrant.

well i would say for both of these i would suggest that either minor or moderate again i want to reflect our the sort of emphasis that we want to direct infill development to the more distressed areas the more underdeveloped areas and again if we want to drive that development back towards downtown back towards downtown. I don't think it makes sense to heavily incentivize development in some of those areas. So I would advocate for moderate or minor for both of these areas. Kind of not outkick the carrying capacity of the existing.

I mean, I do like the fact that the more towards the major infield you get, the trees get bigger.

Yeah, it's a nice touch. Although not less so on these slides than the first couple, but yeah. Does that help?

Yeah, that's helpful. Next would be thinking about industrial areas of the city. What level of intensity of new industries would you want to see on existing industrial land?

But that goes back to what Leslie said. We have no control over that.

And for all this, you have no control over what someone privately does with their property, but you do have the control of how much density is allowed by right for zoning.

I mean, is it true that the way to best position the city in terms of attracting industry is to allow for as much density as possible?

Well, I think this is an interesting question because we're looking at current right now current land zoned industrially that has Existed as industry in the past. So that's one thing to think about it's also important to recognize that the city has a City owned industrial park that certainly we want to yeah, you know push industrial development, too so I guess I'm trying to think through it in kind of both contexts. Obviously the city has more control over the one that they own. But for the purposes of this and land use and identifying what we want that landscape to look like, maybe trying to put aside what the city owns for industrial and maybe just think more about along the river for good or bad is where a significant amount of industrial zoning that not only zoning but past industrial exists. What levels are you comfortable with in terms of redevelopment if we just see that someday? So maybe think about it less in terms of because obviously industry is good and we want to attract it and we have control over that. in more ways with the city-owned industrial complex than we do with this area. So maybe think of it more in terms of aesthetically and obviously jobs and things for the city, but what would you wanna see for existing? And I guess that's the hard question. We're looking at existing industrial, but then also vacant, undeveloped industrial property. And maybe you'd feel differently Comparing the two so some of those comments could be helpful if it's you know more minor infill if you're looking at this scenario But if you're talking about an industrial park, are you interested in kind of maxing out?

I'll go back to that quadrant thing again. I think if it's in the right place I'm all for expansion and development. Pardon me, Will.

No, go ahead. I was just going to say, I mean, it strikes me, given sort of the economic environment around these sites and the history of them, my inclination would be to do whatever creates the most opportunities for those places. And it strikes me that major infill likely Um, whatever use, whatever uses are potentially identified, right? Whether that's among the options that you mentioned. Major infill places, the least amount of zoning restrictions or presidential zoning barriers in the way of flexibility and growth when it comes to growth in those areas. And so if somebody wants to come in and do. you know, something that we haven't thought of, that's the that's the way to facilitate. And maybe not, maybe I'm totally missing something there. But that strikes me at least from a thousand foot view as the the least restrictive potential use. So I would say major infill.

We can always revisit it if you all wanted to look at a variety of different types of industrial. We could always look at that, just like we will with residential.

Because you would have the same thing with the Genicom site on the north side of town.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it'll almost need to be kind of like a specific by, okay, take that industrial swath of this one, Nature's Crossing, and like really kind of talk through what feel do each of them have. I think that.

Well, you know, Nature's Crossing is sort of just the way that those are cited, those industrial sites are cited, like it doesn't lend itself to major infill. I think the vision there isn't necessarily. Right. major infill whereas you know the particular site that's shown here obviously the intention was for it to be you know the entire site i think was paved at once or concreted over at one time basically and so there's not a lot of you know at nature's crossing they preserve streamways and green space and stuff in ways that aren't possible in some of these other sites too last one is just looking at a district-wide level so looking at like the downtown district uh

overall levels of infill and what you all overall are comfortable with. I think we kind of answered that question. I think we heard it was major infill. Yeah. So we don't have to spend a ton of time on this if you all don't have anything else to say. I think that's all we had for tonight to talk about. We could definitely prepare additional renderings of the residential and industrial sites for you all, so it'd be helpful.

Yeah, I think it'd be helpful maybe after tonight, after you guys have a little more time to kind of digest, I'll send the presentation out. If there are areas, you know, I think we've definitely noted a few, like, you know, the Genicom industrial site near the river, like how we might want to pull some of those out and talk about them separately. and we could certainly do that with some of the residential components, specifically keeping in mind what Will mentioned, that we might want some higher density residential around downtown. That might look very different from the type of infill we want in, say, any other kind of single family, detached residential neighborhood. so maybe if you have i mean we'll certainly send them some examples but if you have any specific ones that come to mind that we didn't talk about send them to us and we'll make sure they have them as we continue to refine the land use map yeah i think if you start at the quadrant level like kate said and then you work your way into specific spots in those quadrants

I think you will then do what Will said, maximize the opportunities for people.

Well, and maybe less resistance from the community.

Yeah.

You know, if it's kind of growth-specific and somewhat cohesive.

Yeah. I mean, one of the challenges with Waynesboro, I don't want to belabor this point too much, but I think one of the challenges here is we do have, like, traditionally incompatible uses next to each other in different places. How do you grade those, how do you sort of create a...

Transitional period?

Yeah, like these spaces that are more, how do you take advantage of the places where you do have opportunities for higher density, put the right kind of stuff in there, but then protect the places while simultaneously protecting the places where we don't want to sort of see that infill?

Excellent point.

All right.

Yeah, that's all we have for item three on the agenda.

Excellent. Public comment period for items not on the agenda. And remind the lady that the vacuum is going to come in. There is no members of the public present. Next on the agenda, we have matters from staff.

I cannot think of anything, unless you all have any questions of anything. But I can't think of any matters that we have.

Next we have commissioners, correspondence, and communication. I want to take a moment to recognize Mr. Gibson. This is his last planning commission meeting with us. We will miss you.

We will miss you.

We have, with the help of staff, we have prepared a resolution for you from the Waynesboro Planning Commission. That i'll read um and then present to you it says whereas the city of waynesboro and consideration of the dedicated service of michael gibson and whereas Mr gibson served on the waynesboro planning commission for eight years from september 2018 to august 2026 And whereas the city of waynesboro planning commission is desirous of expressing their appreciation and thanks to mr gibson first dedicated service on this commission. Now, therefore, be it resolved. The City of Waynesboro Planning Commission does hereby publicly thank Mr Gibson for his service, which he is so aptly fulfilled with diligence and concern for the City of Waynesboro. Be it further resolved that this resolution is adopted by the commission recorded in its minutes and a copy hereby presented to Mr Gibson. We will miss you. You'll have to come in the crowd. We look forward to hearing from you in the public comment period for items not on the agenda.

I just wish that I would be able to finish the comprehensive plan because when I came on board, they had just a year earlier finished the other one.

Well, yeah, I hope that you know you can continue to be involved with the comprehensive plan in many, many ways. So please, please keep coming, reaching out, coming to open houses, surveys, because we definitely appreciate and value your input. Thank you.

I've seen a lot of changes on the Planning Commission since I've been on here. I remember when we first came, when I first came on, we actually went up to the tunnel before they ever started and looked at it, talked about it, and at the time, you know, it was talk then about that connector from Waynesboro to Charlottesville and how it would go through the tunnel and all that. and to see the tunnel open and both sides available, and now the talk is getting more refined about how to get to Charlottesville. I still don't know how they're gonna do that, but... slow progress but you you have seen it yes yes probably the most the thing that i'll be most happy to see is when they start the development of the east corridor because that was one of the first things that was passed when i came on the commission eight years ago and i know it had to go through the smart scale program and progression and all that and uh I'm still advocating for burning the utilities along that road.

So yeah, that project is, we have a design firm there working on the engineering of that. We plan to have a public kind of process, public open house related to that project probably in the fall.

Okay.

and then that'll kind of continue to refine those design plans with our engineers. So we are still plugging away on that project.

And one day I hope to see Jeff Trout up on Sunset Park dropped on New Year's.

Drop Trout on New Year's. Make it happen. You need to take the DuBose chair now for a planning commission. Yeah. Have a seat over here.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for your service. Thank you so much for your service.

Y'all are welcome. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you.

All right, with that, do we have a motion to adjourn?

I'll make the motion.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you very much, Mr. Gibson.