Planning Commission Meeting   12/7/2021

We are not yet.

Okay, got it.

There you go.

Good.

Good evening.

Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the December 7 Planning Commission meeting at six o'clock.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in accordance with ordinance number 20-A16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

Opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting will be posted on the Albemarle.org community counter, county calendar, when available.

Mr. Will?

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

Mr. Randolph?

Present.

Present.

Miss Moore?

Present.

Thank you.

It appears that we have a quorum to go forward with our meeting.

So moved.

So moved and seconded.

Mr. Chair, just to clarify, this is a move to approve the consent agenda?

That's what we're doing.

Thank you.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Ms.

Moore?

Aye.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

So we'll move forward with our first public hearing, which is SP-2021-03, Caliber Collision.

Yes.

Give me a minute to share my screen and then get started.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Mariah Gleason.

I'm a senior planner in the planning division of Albemarle County, the community development department.

Tonight I'm going to be presenting special use permit request SB 2021-00003 caliber collision for your consideration.

This application is located on Route 29 Seminole Trail at 1720 Seminole Trail on Tax Mott Parcel 45-106.

The property is about 500 feet north of the intersection of Brio Road and Route 29.

Businesses and uses in this area are highly diverse and include retail and commercial businesses, restaurants,

storage facilities, motor vehicle sales, rentals and repairs, medical facilities, grocery stores, public facilities and others.

The property's immediate neighbors are Storage Solution Center to the north and west and Jefferson Coin to the south.

Albemarle Square Shopping Center is located across Route 29.

The subject property is zoned highway commercial, seen in bright red, as are the neighboring properties.

Further surrounding properties are generally zoned commercial, as seen in the pink colors.

Permitted uses in the highway commercial zoning district are diverse.

However, body shop uses require a special use permit.

The applicant here is proposing to use the existing building on the property for body shop use.

All work and repair activities for the body shop will occur within the enclosed building.

Vehicles awaiting repair will be parked to the side and rear of the parcel behind a screening fence.

The proposal will require a site plan to amend the previously approved site plan because they're making changes to the parking area and areas in front of the building to make the parcel more consistent with some of the recommendations of the comprehensive plan, which in this case is the RIO 29 small area plan.

Staff found many positive aspects with the proposal.

However, the proposal was inconsistent with the use and form recommendations of the Rio 29 small area plan, which again serves as a comprehensive plan and visioning document for the local area.

The small area plan designates this property as a core area.

Core areas are characterized by a highly urban and pedestrian friendly environment.

and that buildings are recommended to be three to six stories in height, built close to the street, have windows on the ground story along the street and active first floors.

As provided in detail in the staff report, the RIO 29 small area plan does not readily recommend auto service uses like body shops in the core, but permits them by exception if they have minimal impacts on surrounding uses and if a certain building form is achieved.

Specifically, the plan recommends that these uses are part of a mixed use development

with the oriented uses located in the back of the property.

This proposal is not consistent with the form and use recommendations of the RIO 29 small area plan.

Because of these inconsistencies, staff is recommending denial of the proposal.

Should a commissioner wish to recommend approval of the proposal, staff has recommended the following condition shown here.

This condition primarily solidifies the positive aspects of the proposal.

That actually includes staff's presentation.

The commission has a staff report.

The questions for Mariah at this point from anyone.

Just a quick question.

Ms.

Gleason, do you know how long the property

has been vacant since it was last occupied?

I do not.

Okay, so was the, okay, I'll just leave it at that.

Thanks.

Rick.

Mariah, can you please cite for us any examples of existing buildings currently on

So looking at the core, which is this light pink around the urban core area and back to this location map, not many of the buildings are located consistent with the small area plan this time.

but I haven't actually looked into each building on each parcel to see if that is true but I would generally say no.

Would you also say that in terms of uses in this corridor that the small area plan is aspirational in terms of what it would like to see in building type

I think overall this proposal is kind of highlighting that the zoning that we have in this area and the existing character of the area

is different than the visioning document for the area.

Okay.

Good enough.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Hello, my name is Brett Flory.

I'm with Cross Architects and we're the architects on this project and I have been working with Caliber Collision for close to nine years now and have done most of their work across the country over the last nine years, probably around 300 of these across the country.

And Caliber Collision is the world's largest collision repair company.

They have close to 1400 locations.

There's actually one that we did kind of on the other side of, kind of the east side of town.

They're in Charlottesville.

That's just finishing up right now.

That's one of the new prototype, new construction.

But they work with all the major insurance companies.

They have over 20,000 employees.

All their operations, they kind of set the standard in the industry for the operations and how they do business.

They started in California about 30 years ago and

They've grown to the east and they're now scattered all over the country.

But the way they do business is they put the customer first, they have the highest customer service ratings index in the country against all major corporations.

And like I said, they work with all the major insurance companies, so they have to run a first class operation to keep their business.

And they basically don't go anywhere without the insurance company supporting them, so every one of their businesses has a successful location that they

maintain and take care of and run in a first class manner.

Like Mariah said, they do all their work inside the building.

They use top of the line equipment.

They have a paint booth that's got three stage filtration and carbon filters.

So they are coming out of the

All the work is done inside so there's no noise, additional decibel levels being added to the area.

Although the cars come in, typically they try to schedule them with insurance companies.

So they are sitting around and then the service technician looks at it and decides if they're going to fix it or not.

But if it's they try to get them in the shop as they come in, but if they do have to sit outside, they will be parked behind the fence and the way this side is oriented.

The parking area, outdoor vehicle storage area back there is screened by Hillside, and then there's a storage unit facility on the backside, and then the building's L-shaped, so it's very screened from the main road, the highway.

So basically, we have been working on this project since January, I think we initially started in January.

And there's a lot of hurdles to clear when you're asking for a special use permit for something like this, which we're used to.

I think staff has been very supportive for the most part.

We have received staff approval, you know, for this special use permit from every reviewing member, staff member.

including the architectural review board for the building and the landscaping.

We hired a traffic engineer to get basically an exception, but it's an access management exception or plan for the driveway separation and to confirm that we didn't need a desal lane.

That got approved and so county engineers said if VDOT approved it, he approved it and so that's what happened.

We got approval from zoning and really from planning for the most part they have supported us except that they are trying to follow that Route 29 small area plan.

which is a good, I mean I'm all for urban planning and trying to improve areas.

I think this will be a major improvement.

The building has been vacant for I think at least a couple of years.

It's a very challenging building for somebody to take on.

It works well for Caliber and they're happy to go there and you know we have tried to

improve the building.

We're investing money to make improvements to install the the 14 foot wide shared use path out front.

The eight foot buffer we coordinated this with all the departments and I don't think I'm not aware but I don't think there's any or at least not many other businesses or properties along that area who have even put the

put that in, shared use path in.

We're screening the rooftop units.

Of course, we're making the buildings look a lot better.

We're willing, even though we have approval from Architectural Review Board for the building, we're willing to look at the building some more to get it more consistent with the hot that you're looking for.

But of course, we couldn't do three to six stories, but we might be able to do something to improve that if that makes a difference.

You know, there are several automotive uses in this area.

Collision's a good fit and would be considered a complementary type use.

And they're, you know, they typically go and they consider themselves like a neighborhood service, this shop, because that's where all their customers are, all around the retail.

That's where they like to be.

So we appreciate your time and for hearing our request and we hope that you'll consider approving this with the conditions that the Planning Department recommended.

We have no issues whatsoever with those conditions.

And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

We have a few renderings we can show you real quick.

Yes.

Can you all see the screen?

So this site plan shows the shared use path out front and landscaping and the required eight foot landscape strip between the highway and the shared use path.

The small area plan, you know, wants to make this a pedestrian friendly area, which I'm all for, but right now it's a highway with a posted speed limit of 45 miles an hour, so it's

We might be the only ones putting the shared use path in for a while until that changes.

But we're happy to do it to try to comply with the plan.

Because you can see there's a hillside on the south side that's pretty steep.

And then we have storage on the north and the west.

And then our outdoor vehicle storage is kind of tucked in behind that L shape of the building.

And it'll be completely fenced in with an approved fence.

Can you move on to the next one?

This is just a perspective showing kind of the northeast view.

To the right would be the storage unit facility and you can see the shared use path here.

And then we have another one from kind of the southeast looking northwest.

This shows that we're totally, you know, painting trying to make the building look better.

the shared use path, the landscaping to meet the city landscape requirements.

We show an overhead door on the side of the building, but we actually took that out.

So you won't see any overhead doors from the road.

You can move on.

This is just a straight on shot.

It was raining that day, but kind of shows what the building looks like there.

This is kind of a 3D aerial, kind of slightly different angle than what Mara had in her report that just shows the car dealerships to the right, kind of the north.

There's several other automotive uses around here.

I think our building would be a

and ask that, you know, caliber collision would be a true asset to your community.

Um, they have, I mean, they're, they're painters make six figures.

They have, um, they're, they put a lot of stuff back into the community.

Um, a lot of, they give back to the community of a lot of volunteer work and stuff.

And what else we got?

That's it, Fred.

So you can see that we're trying to improve this and get as close to the spirit of the arrival 29 plan as we can.

Like I said, we're willing to

to accept the conditions and, you know, look at maybe trying to put another parapet on it to raise it up some, even though we do already have our special report kind of approval for this.

And we'll wait a second or two, as we all want to do.

And we'll bring it back in, let's see,

Brett's iPhone.

Well, we did go before the community board meeting back in March, and we had some mixed feedback on that, but we had some support as well.

So we feel that

You know, it's very common for us to have to get these approved with a special use permit.

And I tell this to planning commissions and city councils all over the country that sometimes there's stipulations and conditions on the approval.

And not once have we ever had, you know, to come back and have any kind of negative

having to take any kind of negative action because they didn't follow those conditions.

I believe that you'd find this would be an asset to this area and an improvement to that side in the building.

Thank you, sir.

Looking for hands, looking for comments, looking for consideration.

Karen?

Mariah, maybe you can help me with this.

I was looking at just looking at the rendering and I understand what the purpose of the shared use path is, but it was so it looked so wide on the site.

Is that an eight foot wide path or is it 10 feet?

What can you tell me?

It actually makes the, I hate to see sites end up being more impervious as a result of redevelopment, which it seems to be the case.

The path is actually meant to be, it's 14 feet in width, which matches the recommendation of the small area plan.

Let me share this particular slide.

So on a through corridor like Route 29, it's recommended that there's a separation zone or a planting zone that's eight feet, shared use path of 14 feet, and a fronting zone that's five to 25 feet.

The idea behind it is that like a commuter route for cars, this would be seen as kind of a commuter route for active travel options like walking or biking.

And that's kind of what informed

So if I can follow up with that, then it doesn't look like there's eight feet of separation, but I'm just, you know, I don't see, you know, scale on here, but it doesn't look like there's eight feet of separation.

Right, so in this proposal, in their proposed concept plan, there's an eight foot measured, I think the axonometric view makes it a little difficult.

Okay.

But it does actually measure out to be consistent with the recommendation, the recommended street bunch, wherein there's an eight feet between the street and the shared use path.

Thank you for going through that with me.

You're right, it didn't look like that.

I'll just make a comment that it's neither here nor there, but I would really

prefer to flip that and have the shared use path to be eight feet.

I understand this idea that there's going to be all these bike commuters and all of this going along, but just sitting there by itself.

And then if you look what it's next to, there's a hill.

So it's hard to imagine that this 14-foot-wide path is going to plow through that hill and violate our slope standards.

I feel like we've created a bit of a super wide path to nowhere in that spot.

And if it would be possible, I love paths.

I walk Route 29 and I'm always scared being so close to the traffic, but I would really like to see maybe shrinking it down in that location because it just doesn't make sense when you look at the topography and where it actually sits.

So that's my thought.

I don't know what other commissioners think about that, but that's something that struck me.

If I might respond quickly to that.

I think that recommended street frontage was kind of meant to be on a greater scale than this site in particular.

So it might look odd just looking at a singular site, but the idea is that the implementation would be along

Sure.

And I totally understand that I've done lots of projects where they had to put in one section of sidewalk and wait five years for the next section.

But again, it runs into a slope, if I'm not mistaken.

And so we're not going to propose that someone bulldozed the hillside to continue that width of a path in that location.

I'm just saying practically.

This is great on paper, but sometimes in reality, we have to adapt.

Tim, Tim, please.

Sorry.

Mariah, we've had several of these in the last couple of years.

We had the Wendy's, former Wendy's site.

Correct.

It was Wendy's by the tire.

Hardee's.

And then the former R.M.

Davis wasn't there.

I'm not sure that that car repair that wanted to sell cars as well as have repair.

That's been in the last couple of years, I believe.

I guess what I'm getting at is for looking at this, did you look at comparables from the last several years?

from maybe right before or at least since the Rio 29 plan to see what staff recommendations were and whether there were any denials before so that there was consistency.

In other words, if there's consistency from the staff point on this, I would

Commissioner Cutler, if I can step in.

So we had, about two years ago, we did have a store that's actually under construction, a mattress warehouse store, I believe it is, that's going in just south of the Fashion Square Mall entrance drive there.

And so they have, the site plan does include this multi-use path in frontage.

And one of their conditions was to construct the building in a way that you could add on additional floors to meet the height requirement.

The other site was with the Hardee's at the corner of Rile Road and 29 ramp there.

If you remember, the only reason why that came to the commission was it was entrance corridor requirement for outdoor storage display.

So we were limited to reviewing the use and it was just the outdoor storage in compliance with the entrance corridor regulations.

So we did discuss it with that one, but our focus was limited just to that outdoor display.

So this is really as,

Commissioner Randolph pointed out, this is kind of the first one we've had in that core area that's come.

We just haven't had the small area plan in existence for what I would say long enough to really have much of this materialized here.

So this is kind of a first test case for us.

And as Ms.

Gleason pointed out, it's something that we did kind of wrestle with back and forth.

The applicant even mentioned it.

We've talked about it.

You know, there's the current zoning, but there is this

Long-range plans adopted that we reference for these special use permits and rezoning applications.

Rick?

My comment would be that

The other two buildings that Charles has just cited, they were new buildings or they were expansion of an existing building.

If the applicant here was talking about

putting in a new building, then I would totally support staff and the recommendation that this application not be approved because it's not multi-storied.

However, because it's an existing building and the use, yes, is inconsistent with what's recommended under the small area plan in this location, that which is aspirational going forward,

but it is totally consistent with the existing community of businesses that surrounds it, that compliments it.

And this is a service that is an adjunct service to the other businesses, competitive though it will be for them.

So I don't see any reason therefore

to put the small area plan, which is after all something that looks forward and aspires for the county to pursue and implement and to say to the applicant, well, we want to support the ideal application here and we will thereby reject

your application when all of us are very clear.

And Karen, you're absolutely right.

It's been over two years.

I think it's probably in my recollection would be almost three years that goodwill has been out of there.

And the building lies there waiting for an applicant, a lessee or a business to come along and purchase it.

So

We have to look at phases.

We are getting part of the vision of the small area plan here in terms of the 14-foot multi-use path in the front.

And we don't know what's going to happen with the automobile business looking out over 20 years.

10 years, very difficult to say.

But a lot of cars going forward will be made of plastic, exterior, interchangeable.

There will be old clunkers like I Drive still on the road with steel skins to them and thereby they will need collision services.

But how much demand there will be going forward, I don't know.

But my point is that this application seems to fit the site at the current time.

It's appropriate in terms of the character of the community.

Others, other comments?

That's all I have to say.

Mine's really quick.

I just throw this out there for our consideration that

While this isn't required by county code, I'm wondering if this is an opportunity, since we're making a very paved site even more impervious, understanding that it is meeting the county's desire to have the 14 foot wide travelway, would it be possible for this section to be paved with permeable pavement, which is an available tool in our area?

and that thereby it would not increase the stormwater runoff from the site, which a traditionally paved path would do.

So I'll stop.

Daniel?

Sure, I wrestled with this one a lot, having been a part of Route 20 on a small area plan and excited that it was recently adopted and moving forward.

I think, as I thought about it more and have went through it, I agree with

my fellow commissioners and that we're still in an aspirational phase with a small area plan.

And that building has been sitting empty for many years.

And when you look at the current development, I, you know, it's always kind of felt like to me the where the momentum would start would be on the other side of 29, where we have the mall and the Albemarle shopping center and other

You know, more of that retail, that urban mixed use living components are kind of there already.

And on the west side, we are more auto alley and kind of disjointed.

So on those lines, it is consistent with the kind of uses with on that side.

And I am inclined to

support the application as well.

I would suggest I would go one step further than permeable pavement if allowable and go to something more like a permeable paver or something that adds a bit more decorative appeal would be nice if we're going to put that much hardscapes in the front of the building.

But yeah, I think that's where I'm leaning now is more in support to get

A vacant building and not, you know, the risk is to become a bunch of empty buildings as we try to create a path to the future of what we want the area to be.

And I don't think that serves anyone well, either.

And so we do have a long road in front of us.

And I think we need to keep taking steps to that way.

But I still feel like the biggest momentum will come on the side with the mall and Albemarle Square.

I agree with Commissioner Bailey and actually Commissioner Firehock, different points that they've made, but both the momentum is going to be over with them all.

I mean, who knows what's going to happen there long term, but that's where you're going to see the small area being implemented.

And I agree with the size of that, the point that

Carhock was making in terms of the 14 foot, that could be used differently.

I think if there was more landscape, there was some trees, the street trees planted along there and widened that buffer.

It will give a better feel as those cars are moving very quickly there.

There's a divergence as you have to make a choice, stay on Rio or go to Rio or stay on

on 29.

And so I think it would be helpful to create a buffer there and a little bit more of diversity instead of a 14-foot path all the way along that roadside, which as Luis Firehock pointed out, you're not going to continue it.

You're going to have steps or something to mitigate that topography.

And so something's going to have to happen there.

And it's not going to be a 14-foot wide

So yeah, I think there's some flexibility on what we can do with the plantings.

And I agree that it's an existing use or it's an existing property that's not being used right now.

I will say sort of quickly that I support the project.

Everyone has heard me say that I've struggled from the very first time that we talked about the small area plan, how I thought that really the real action was going to be on the other side of 29 instead of the east side of 29, it was going to be difficult to do the west side of 29.

For the simple fact, I don't even know how you get people over there.

And so that's a main consideration for me.

How do you even build a life, build sort of a community of, a residential community over there?

I'll also say, remembering back to the conversation and to some of the struggles that took place in building and building the, making the improvements to that intersection of the hydraulic, to the Rio hydraulic, one on exchange there, that part of what we see on the west side, west north side of that intersection was to facilitate the businesses which were there.

which is why you continue to see sort of how you come up from that pull-off and the way that I believe the VDOT worked with the businesses over there to have pull-ins and have driveways so that people could drive off from there and keep going to go to the CVS, to go to what was at one point the Pizza Hut, it's now the Coin Shop, but that whole line right there was in fact being looked at when we did that over there as a place where we would expect to see commercial businesses taking it.

and so for me, this is a continuation of living into that original design of that intersection and so I'm okay with this.

I'm also pleased from an economic standpoint that it will provide a local piece of competition for Browns and I think that's a helpful thing for our community to have another viable and I didn't realize you had 300 of these installations around the country

but something that could bring some economic wrestling with some of the people, some of the businesses that are over there, I think that would be a good thing.

I would be more inclined to have the applicant put a bit of, to do something with the facade than I would to wrestle with papers.

That whole area there, to me, I think is dressing that up as you drive by it is, and having the trees as Luis said,

being, and as Karen started out with, reducing perhaps the width of that walk over there, and in fact, put some presence, some visual presence in some street, some viable street trees there.

So I'm more, I would lean more to that.

But my first thing would be to try and have something with that

to bring some height and bring some variation to the facade.

I think that would actually be helpful there, because as you come up the hill there, you've got the CVS, which has got a significant presence on that corner there.

And it's got some plantings, some actually interesting plantings that they've survived, I'll say, in that location.

And then you sort of move around the corner to what is, I guess, a strip wall that somebody will do something with.

So for me, I would prefer a higher facade and some street trees as opposed to this small section of permeable pavers, which I don't think will connect anything in

in the next 10 to 15 years.

So for you, Tim, that's my comment.

But I support this and think that the reuse of a legacy, there's another, there's an environmental, an economic, an ecology piece from that, the reuse of a legacy piece as opposed to tearing it down, building something, disposing with all those things however would get disposed of.

I'm always going to probably lean to sort of a legacy, a reusing of the legacy building.

Tim and Daniel.

So yes, it is.

Thank you, all three.

If Corey was here, it's really interesting that you brought up the facade.

I have a problem with the lawn facade that obviously runs on the ramp and doesn't see it so much.

But that lawn, all of those bays where the work is going to be done.

And I guess I'd like to hear from Luis just on that one.

I think I understand what the Architectural Review Board was doing by not covering all of that facade in the front or covering it in the side because it's kind of that modernist, we're taking the modernist approach and it's there so why we don't need to decorate the box.

But I would, this would have been an interesting opportunity for our two architects to speak and see if they agreed on that and what the

I'm with all of you on the economic side.

On the west side of 29, I have felt the whole time that the county has to put its responsibility.

If it wants things to happen there, it needs to buy the land for the parkland or for the plaza or whatever to spur this development and maybe future

Future boards of supervisors might see enough going on probably on the east side to think about that.

But with all of the other things that are confronting the county at this point, I can see why that hasn't happened.

And then while it's not our charge to think about economic development necessarily, let's face it, to do all of these things in tax base.

And so if we have

a legitimate business that's going to be paying significant wages to at least some cohort of their personnel.

And it's there in the sort of auto zone for now, as Rick points out, this may be a temporary or may not, but there are a lot of people who've kept a lot of cars for a long time that need body work.

And I assume that companies like this are going to move right into doing the work on graphite and doing work on plastic that needs to be done as well.

So,

Anyway, I don't know if Luis wants to weigh in or whether we, I mean, we can just move along.

We don't have to do that.

I just thought it would be interesting here.

Yeah, so I guess what I would say is I would advise we have a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright.

A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to grow some vines.

This is an unusual situation.

Daniel, just hold on for a second.

The fact that Charles raised his hand.

I'm going to go to Charles on this right quick.

Thank you, Chair Bivins.

I actually think that some commissioners made a good point about the width of that 14 foot wide path.

And I know there's been some struggles with how to place trees, there's utilities there.

And I do think allowing some flexibility with that width so that we can actually fit it to the railroad conditions with what might be on either side of it, future connections, will also help us to work with the applicant to try and get some of those free trees.

in there.

So I just wanted to see if we can add that into our discussion so that we aren't held to that 14-foot path no matter what moving forward if this is approved tonight.

And the other one other point I just want to make is that this has not been approved by the ARB yet.

Okay, thank you.

If I might clarify,

The ARB had no objection to the special use permit.

Let me let me say continues for a second before we go to Karen.

We actually have Chris Patagert, one of our ARB liaisons in the audience watching this evening to help relay some of that information.

Thank you.

Okay, without getting too much into the weeds, I just want to say about permeable pavers versus pavement.

Permeable pavers can be more subject to uneven settling and are more expensive and difficult to maintain.

So in the interest of affordability and a consistent look throughout the corridor as this path gets completed, I think permeable pavement would be easier to take care of and install and have a consistent look.

because there's all different kinds of pavers on the market.

In terms of the width, I would recommend that if we want to just couch it as flexibility, that's fine to Mr. Rapp's point, but I do think we should flip this in this particular case because we need more landscaping at this site.

They have tidied up the bushes in the rendering.

There are bushes there now.

They're just showing the rendering as more tidy bushes, but they could be exactly the same.

I would like to see trees and in order to have trees that actually survive and don't die after six years it would be great if we could have a 14 foot wide

Planting Strip and an eight-foot-wide path in this location.

There's ample documentation that street trees actually serve as traffic calming because they create visual stimuli in the corridor and they make people feel protected.

So if we actually want pedestrians and bicyclists to use this, having some trees buffering them against the traffic that is going, let's be honest, 60 miles an hour.

I know what the speed limit is.

I was just driving on 29 earlier this afternoon in that location.

They're not going 40.

So I think we would want to have a condition that they use street trees, substantial street trees, that they have a flexibility to have the wider width and that we

allow them to limit the width of the path and that hopefully it could be permeable.

Because this is a site also I would venture does not have great stormwater management.

It's quite old.

And I'd like as part of this to do something very small with at least getting some trees to absorb stormwater and the permeable pavement.

But I'm not going to sit here and try to engineer the site right now.

that's the kind of condition I'm looking for for me to be able to support this because it's true.

It's a corrugated metal building.

It's not attractive.

And we're not gonna ask them to do a new skin on the building and they're not gonna put a new roof line.

Daniel.

I'm in agreement with all that.

Happy depending on how much more we want to talk about this to make a motion with some help on adjustment of the recommendations or we can conditions on the modifications and the conditions.

There you go.

Let me give you one thing.

So the easy thing is, is that I want you to be the third point

we're talking about moving eight to 14, so it's an eight foot, instead of it being an eight foot planting strip, I think we were talking about a 14 foot planting strip.

And that on a 14 foot shared use path, that'd be eight foot, but also with a caveat that we give staff, and I think this is under the planning director's rubric, that gives staff to sort of work out

what the ultimate relationship will be or the ratio will be between those two functions.

I don't see anybody shaking their head no.

I don't see anybody jumping up and down on that.

If that makes sense.

Commissioner Bailey, could I perhaps provide a suggestion?

Absolutely.

It sounds like the motion would be that that you would move that the Planning Commission would recommend approval of the with the conditions as listed in the staff report with the following revisions that the planting strip be 14 feet wide.

and that the shared use path be 14 feet wide with permeable pavement.

Yep, that's it.

Is that what you're moving, sir?

That's what I'm moving.

Second.

I got a second.

Jump right in there.

Seconded by Rick.

Is there any discussion?

Yes, sir.

Mr. Clayborne.

Oh, I forgot.

He's not there.

I'm sorry.

Ms.

Moore.

Aye Mr. Bivins Aye Mr. Randolph Aye Ms.

Ms.

Zaffari

Yes.

Brett's iPhone.

So you've heard our discussion this evening.

Yes.

And I hope that you will sit with Ms.

Yeah, yes, I will.

And I greatly appreciate

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to our next public.

And where's Mariah going?

Mariah, come back.

Okay.

So I just want to say this.

So from my position and taking a little bit of chairs prerogative here, you know that we all struggled when you did this and we all had serious conversations about what was going to happen on that side of 29.

So us going with the legacy option was is not necessarily a repudiation of your good work.

It was so that you understand that don't go away thinking that's not what we're doing.

We just looked at a use that we thought would probably be in line with what might be for that particular location.

But we're still looking forward to the work taking place for the small area plan.

And I'm really hoping that that big piece of green land over there by that lawnmower place is something that we're going to see come before us and sometimes

No, thank you for that, Chair Bivins.

Honestly, there are a lot of positive aspects to this proposal as well.

So I think it was just wrestling with the consistencies and inconsistencies with the comprehensive plan in this case.

So thank you for the direction and feedback.

You have a good night.

May we hear from, I mean, we have the staff report for SP 2019-09.

the S.L.

Williamson replacement asphalt plant.

Oh, it's all about vehicles tonight, aren't we?

We're having a vehicle night.

I like vehicles.

May we hear from the staff?

Can everyone see my screen?

Yes, we can.

Your screen is there.

Okay.

Well, good evening everyone.

My name is Cameron Langell and I'm a principal planner with the Albemarle County Department of Community Development.

I'll be giving you the staff presentation on SP 2019-09 SL Williamson replacement asphalt plan special use permit.

To begin, the property that this special use permit is proposed on is identified in the county tax records as tax map parcel

88-18.

It is located approximately one mile east of the intersection between Redhill Road and Route 29 Seminole Trail.

It is owned by Martin Marietta Materials Incorporated and it measures 579 total acres.

If you see on this image here, the total parcel is outlined in yellow and the special use permit acreage is only 4.4 acres.

In that area, I have put a red triangle, or excuse me, a red rectangle around.

That's the general area where the special use permit is proposed.

I'll show you more details on that on a later slide.

This parcel is located in rural area four of the county's comprehensive plan.

And it is currently known as the Red Hill Quarry.

There is the Red Hill Quarry in the center of the property, which you can see where there's braiding that has occurred.

And that is where mining activities actually occur right now.

On the southwest corner of the property that's highlighted in red, that is where the S.L.

Williamson Company currently leases those 4.4 acres, and they operate an asphalt mixing plant.

Surrounding uses adjacent to this parcel include rural area single family detached residential homes.

There is some agricultural farmland and on the northwest and northwest side there are some undeveloped parcels that just feature heavy dense vegetation.

So this image shows the zoning of the subject property and surrounding land.

You'll notice that everything appears as white, and that is because all properties in this area, including the subject parcel, have a primary zoning district of RA rural area.

The subject property is also located within two zoning overlay districts.

The first is the dashed blue line, which you can see here.

It is located on our property and some of the adjacent parcels, and that represents the flood hazard overlay district.

and then the black dash lines that you see on the subject property represent the Natural Resources Extraction Overlay District.

So as I mentioned earlier, this is an image that shows a little more detail, focuses in on the area of the special use permit and this is the southwest corner of the property where S.L.

Williamson has their lease to currently operate the asphalt mixing plant.

This is a 3D image where you can see a little more detail about the existing equipment there, as well as the access way that leads into the site where S.L.

Williamson operates.

And this also does give a little more context to see where the quarry activities occur in the central portion of the property.

So the SP 2019-09 proposal, what it's actually asking for is approval of a special use permit for the asphalt mixing plant to operate on the subject property.

In the National Resources Extraction Overlay District, operation of an asphalt mixing plant requires a special use permit.

It is not permitted by right.

So S.L.

Williamson is asking for this permit because they want to replace the existing operation with more modernized equipment.

The current asphalt mixing plant is reaching its operational lifetime and they need to put in new equipment to continue their business there.

The replacement plant is going to operate in the same location as the existing plant.

There are some associated improvements that will be there as well, which include vehicular travelways, stormwater management, and other supporting structures that actually allow the asphalt to be mixed through that operation.

As you noted in the staff report, there's two special exception requests that go along with the special use permit.

One of those is a critical slopes waiver.

The applicant is asking for approval of the waiver to put structures and equipment over approximately 1,200 square feet of critical steep slopes.

There's also a waiver for a building site area and dimensions requirement from our zoning ordinance.

I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment.

So what you see here, this is a clipped image from attachment four of the staff report, which is the specially used permit concept plan.

And this shows what their proposed replacement plant will look like in all of the associated structures and other hardware.

What you'll notice is that I enlarged the central area where most of the asphalt mixing will occur.

And this shows the replacement plant, which is what they call a drum mix plant.

It is different from the batch type plant that currently operates on this parcel.

The applicant will give more details about how the asphalt is actually mixed and all that in a moment when they speak.

But what this does show is the different conveyor belts and storage silos that support the actual asphalt mixing operation.

If you notice, there are some arrows that represent the access ways that go in and serve this.

That's where vehicles will travel to pick up and drop off different supplies and materials that support the asphalt mixing.

So the critical slopes waiver, there are some areas of critical slopes on this property, but all of them have been primarily created through man-made activities.

Again, this is where the Redhill Quarry is, and a lot of those areas that show up on the county's GIS system as critical slopes have actually been created just by placing dirt or other, you know, land extraction activities have resulted in these slopes being created.

So there's only a few improvements that are associated with the asphalt replacement plan.

They're going to be located in critical slopes.

And that's what you see here highlighted in red.

It's I think six storage bins and then one silo.

County staff have reviewed this along with the county engineer.

And we find that it needs the findings that are specified in the zoning ordinance to allow approval of the waiver request.

This is actually something that is acted on by the Board of Supervisors, so no action by the Planning Commission is necessary.

I just wanted to bring it up because it is mentioned in the staff report.

The other special exception that is proposed relates to the county's definition of a building site.

Basically, any development in the rural area needs to have a building site that meets certain dimensions and area requirements.

Specifically, it needs to be 30,000 square feet total area.

and it should be a rectangle where no boundary of that rectangle exceeds a five to one dimension ratio.

In this case, the building site measures 48,000 square feet.

So there's no problem there.

But the lease area that S.L.

Williamson leases from Martin Marietta, it's an irregular shape.

and I think the average width of the special use permit area is about 34 feet, but the total length is 784 feet.

So it greatly exceeds the 5 in 1 rectangular dimension ratio.

That said, we've also looked at this as a whole county engineer, the Virginia Department of Health and planning staff,

And we find that the waiver request meets all the findings specified in the zoning ordinance.

If it weren't granted, it would require SL Williamson to possibly relocate some of the structures and other materials that they will be installing on site.

And that might encroach into our water protection ordinance stream buffers, floodplain, or areas of critical steep slopes elsewhere on this property.

So as noted in the staff report, there are four favorable factors with this request.

The proposal is consistent with the purpose and intent of the Natural Resources Overlay Zoning District, and we found that this proposed use will not create substantial detriment to adjacent properties.

The proposed use is consistent with the character of the nearby area, and it is consistent with many of the recommendations, strategies, and objectives from the Natural Resources and Economic Development in chapters of the County's Comprehensive Plan.

One factor unfavorable that we could identify was that this use is a little more intense than what is typically recommended by the rural areas chapter of the comprehensive plan.

An idea to give you some uses that are called for in the rural areas are very low density single family detached residences, meaning 0.5 dwelling units per acre.

The rural area chapter does also call for some non-residential uses in the rural areas, but specifically that's agricultural activities, farmland, or forestry.

So this is slightly more intense than that, but nevertheless, considering this is just upgrading an existing plant that's been in operation for about 60 years, we found that that factor on unfavorable did not outweigh the favorable factors of this request.

So the staff is recommending approval of the special use permit.

We are recommending five conditions be applied to the approval.

The purpose of these conditions, staff believes that this will establish performance standards that are necessary to keep this plant operating and not be or create a substantial detriment to adjacent parcels.

We also believe that these will protect the public health, safety, and welfare.

The conditions you see here are similar to the conditions that have been applied at the asphalt mixing plant that S.L.

Williamson operates at the Luckstone quarry, which is in Shadwell area of the county.

So that's where we got the idea that these would be kind of consistent.

We've tweaked them slightly, specifically the hours of operation.

But that concludes the staff presentation on this.

Yes, thank you.

I have a question about the exploration of the plants used when the quarry is no longer in operation.

I completely understand that the source material for this business is the quarry, and so it doesn't make much sense to permit it beyond the life of the quarry.

But the clause no longer in operation gave me a little pause.

I just wondered about a scenario where, let's say there's some financial difficulty that occurs at the quarry and they stop operating it for a year.

Would that then cause the special use permit to be void even though it could be that someone else buys the quarry and reopens it?

Because we have seen this in the county where something, a use goes dormant.

It's not that the material is gone, it's just the owners are having air issues as an airship or they are selling it or whatever.

Thank you, Commissioner Firehock.

I'll take a moment and try and answer that.

And that's a great point that you raise.

The reason that we thought of this condition specifically because this property is only located in the Natural Resources Extraction Overlay District because the mining activities are permitted by right.

So if the quarry ceased to exist, the county would probably take an action to remove it from the Natural Resources Extraction Overlay District.

And so

That was why we were thinking that when the quarry ceases to operate, if the property is not in natural resources extraction overlay, they can't really have a special use permit for the asphalt mixing.

OK, and I realize we still need to hear from the applicant, but perhaps we could come up with something such as should the quarry cease to operate for a period longer than three years or something like that so that you would allow for wills, airship, bankruptcy, whatnot to come and go.

And it didn't have to do with the fact that the quarry was not viable.

rather than just saying if it ceases to operate, because that could happen for a variety of different reasons, looking long term.

Thanks.

All right.

So that's all I had for now.

Mr. Firehock, we could have a recommendation similar to what's in the non-conforming section of the zoning ordinance to read something like this special use permit will expire if the adjacent quarry is discontinued for more than two years.

Yes, absolutely.

That's more what I have in mind.

Are there other questions for staff?

Hi.

Good evening, commissioners.

I'm Blair Williamson, and I appreciate the opportunity to come before you tonight about our equipment replacement project at our Redhill asphalt plant.

I'm fortunate to be leading our local family business that employs about 125 people.

We're a third generation heavy highway contractor.

and work primarily around 40 miles around Charlottesville.

Our Red Hill facility is the most important plant to us.

Our plant located in this quarry is the oldest quarry in the Martin Marietta Corporation and was opened in 1939.

to mine ballast rock for the adjacent railway.

This quarry produces an excellent non-polishing granite aggregate that's the main ingredient in plant mix asphalt making up 95% of the volume of a ton of mix we call asphalt mix.

We're lucky in Charlottesville to have very high quality stone for highway work as opposed to the valley where most of the aggregate is limestone and not suitable for highway work for interstates and primaries.

Our current asphalt plant was installed in 1961 prior to zoning regulations and has operated continuously since that time.

We have enjoyed a quiet relationship with our neighbors and to my knowledge have never had a negative incident with any adjacent property owners.

Our plant, however, is tired.

It has served us longer than we could have hoped and it is time to replace it.

As you might imagine, plant technology has changed substantially with 60 years and we have the opportunity to replace the plant with the most current features.

This includes changing our fuel source from recycled fuel oil to liquid natural gas.

This fuel change will allow us to burn the cleanest fuel available

and cut our carbon footprint in half.

The new plant will be considerably quieter than the existing one and will result in a significant reduction in dust.

We're currently operating within DEQ requirements with our air and stormwater permits, but we're excited to be able to build a plant that will lessen our environmental impact.

Because we are not contemplating changing any of the delivery of raw materials to the plant, there will not be an increase in traffic.

Also, the new plant will have a truck forward operation so that backup alarms on trucks will be at a minimum.

At present, every dump truck that gets loaded is required to back under the plant as trucks have gotten larger over the years and can no longer maneuver around the tight site as they were originally designed to do 60 years ago.

The adjacent quarry has the longest life ahead of it than any of the other quarries in the area, with a minimum of 100 plus years of material supply in its future.

Although the site is challenging from a layout standpoint, long and skinny, it's crucial to the future success of our company, as this is the one of the only sites available in the county for our type of operation.

It's imperative that our ability to operate this site for the purpose of asphalt production not be tied to the businesses of another company for which we have no control.

I respectfully request that you remove the requirement that our use is predicated by the operation of the quarry.

We understand that the county would like for us to minimize night work.

Nothing would make us happier.

But we do a considerable amount of VDOT and municipal work and some of this work is mandated to be performed at night.

The 90 day maximum night work limit that is contemplated by staff's recommended conditions is sufficient to accommodate our needs.

I'm hopeful that you will allow us to replace our equipment with the latest and greatest technology and continue to serve the transportation needs of this community.

Thank you.

You can stay there.

As long as you all don't mind me sort of looking in on the side here.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission.

I'm Valerie Long with the firm of Williams-Mullen here representing the applicant, Ethel Williamson.

And just so everyone is aware, we do have a number of other members of our team here with us tonight.

including Amy George with Radabish Gale & Associates, which is a civil engineering firm that's prepared the plans.

And so there may be some more technical questions that Amy can help with.

We also have several other representatives of S.L.

Williamson here.

So we think we've got all your questions covered depending on what they are.

So we do have a few slides to show you.

I'm going to skip over a number of them because Mr. Langell shared

Okay, so hopefully you can see the screen that has, you think you're on the wrong one.

Hang on, I've got the wrong one.

Bear with me.

That one.

You're good.

You're good.

You're good.

Forgive me.

It's always hard with multiple monitors to figure out which ones you all are seeing.

This is just an exhibit from the manufacturer of the plant that Esa Williamson will purchase called Aztec to the extent that it's helpful for the commissioners to see sort of a better image of what an asphalt plant looks like.

This is very, very similar to what the replacement plate would look like.

I mostly wanted you all to see that when we talk about a plant, it's really about the equipment.

and you can see the, for example, the cold feed bends that Mr. Langell represented or referenced in his presentation.

We have the control house, the storage silos and back here in the back, you can't see it quite as much, is the drum mixer.

I'm going to back up one slide.

This is another obviously different vantage point that shows the drum a lot better and some silos and so you can get a feel for

Again, what we're talking about when we talk about an asphalt plant.

The vast majority of this is equipment structures.

Really, the only building is a small control house where the operators and the computers that run the operation are located.

One of the issues we did have a noise study prepared just to assess the current noise levels that are emitted from the plant and our sound consultant was able to, using the specs from the proposed plant, was able to make predictions about noise levels and I can relay that the short summary is that the new plant is projected to have

Certainly no greater noise levels, but substantially lower levels at those adjacent boundaries.

We also have some aerial images that demonstrate these are about 18 months old.

They show that the amount of disturbance that has already occurred at the site in the 60 years that it's been in operation.

So just for vantage point, Redhill Road is off to the far left of your screen.

you can see the settling ponds and the stream is just beyond.

And this is obviously a different vantage point.

Right now, the trucks come in and they have to back up here and then go back.

With the new plant, there'll be a truck forward circulation model as Ms.

Williamson indicated that will be not only much more efficient but substantially reduce the amount of backup alarm noises that are used that are experienced.

These are just some other photos.

I'm happy to come back to them at any point.

This is just a colored version of our concept plan again showing the new circulation pattern.

and the layout of the equipment on site.

One issue I did want to highlight is with regard to the critical slope waiver, the small areas that are critical slopes, and there's only small areas that are proposed to be disturbed.

Those areas of critical slopes are actually just piles of aggregate.

They're not naturally occurring slopes.

It's literally the piles of aggregate material.

So unfortunately the critical slope ordinance does not provide for any exemptions when you're talking about steep slopes of aggregate materials.

So we did have to process or apply for an official slope waiver, but I did want to want to point that out.

In addition, we, as hopefully was clear in the staff report, this area has been disturbed for over 60 years as part of the proposed replacement of the old plant with a new plant.

Our consultants at Roudebush scale work closely with County Engineer Frank Pohl to work out a mitigation plant, planting plan.

that would, even though we're not increasing the amount of the disturbed area on site or any disturbance into the buffer, the disturbance obviously hasn't been there for 60 years, long before not only the zoning ordinance, but long before the water protection ordinance was adopted in the late 1990s.

So there was already disturbance of what is now the stream buffer area.

And we're not encroaching any further into that area, but because some of that area will be

better improved with the new site.

In working with the county engineer, we've worked out a planting mitigation plan.

And so all those areas in yellow, right now there are there is largely no vegetation there.

And all of that area will be planted as part of this project.

And I believe that's all the slides really that we needed to cover.

I'm going to back up if I can to this slide.

The one issue we would like to talk further about and we appreciate Ms.

Firehock raising this issue.

It is with regard to condition number two.

which does tie the life of the special use permit to the adjacent quarry.

Frankly, Ms.

Firehock, the questions or concerns you raised are the exact ones that we have been raising throughout this process and we share those concerns.

Essel Williamson is investing approximately $6 million in this new facility.

And one, we don't expect the Corey will close down as she indicated this has a very long life.

So in reality, it's probably not going to be a risk that they have to worry about.

But nevertheless, it's significant.

concern to have to be planning to invest that substantial amount of money in a facility and having to worry that because of through no fault of its own, the quarry could shut down and you raise good examples that it could go bankrupt.

Who knows what the market might do.

It's just incredibly unpredictable.

It's possible that in for some reason, Martin Marietta were to close down.

You're exactly right, a new company would come in and take it over, but we just don't know.

And Essel Williamson would not be able to just pick up its plant and move to a new location.

There's literally no zoning district in Albemarle that allows an asphalt plant by right.

and it's only allowed with a special use permit in two zoning districts.

One is heavy industrial and the other is the natural resources overlay district.

So I think everyone can agree that there is an extraordinarily low

inventory of heavy industrial land in the community.

And even if we could find one that was available for sale at a reasonable price, Esa Williamson would have to go through this entire process again to pursue a special use permit, which would likely be very controversial.

The idea of a new asphalt plant coming in anywhere new would be, I feel very confident in saying, be very controversial and challenging and unpredictable.

By contrast, with this facility having operated here

for literally six decades without issue.

We think it's far more appropriate that the plant be allowed to stay here.

We appreciate the suggestions of a two or a three year period, but even that is very unnerving, frankly, to the company because, again, it's out of our control whether a new company would come in or not.

There's also nothing in the ordinance that says that an asphalt plant has to be tied to a quarry.

It does require a special use permit, but it doesn't say only if you're adjacent to a quarry that's in operation.

There's no regulations to that effect.

So we would respectfully ask that the Commission consider removing that condition.

All of the others we're perfectly comfortable with and

Happy with.

So we're happy to answer more questions on that or any other issue, but I think our time has expired.

So we will stop there.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Williamson and Ms.

Long.

Are there questions for the applicant?

Oh, thank you.

I don't have a question for the applicant.

I do have a comment based on the applicant's presentation.

I do feel any discussion about potential discussions with a time limitation

It's not appropriate for this body to be entertaining that.

I really feel that that's a supervisor issue, that if they want to entertain a discussion with the applicant about it, but I don't think that that's something that should be before us this evening.

I don't think that that in any way relates to our decision that has to be made here this evening, whether this is an appropriate special use permit or not.

I would just add one sort of extending on Commissioner Randolph's comment there.

It would be helpful if I were to consider supporting the elimination of condition two, which I'm not saying I am, but if I were to consider doing that.

I'd like to be able to reconcile in my mind

how a use such as a very valuable asphalt plant could continue to be in a place that was no longer, had a mining, had an extract overlay on it.

So if in fact, this is the kind of thing that Ms.

Long, you and I did many years ago, where it's been these hypotheticals.

So if in fact the operation 100 years from now went out of business and

At that point, the county said, you know, look, no longer, we're no longer going to have an overlay, a mineral extraction overlay on this piece of property.

That would kind of, that would by its sole action, that would put the existence of that plant there in jeopardy, because it can't be there if it doesn't have a mining, unless it gets converted to heavy, the heavy industry, it can't be there without a mining answer.

No, it was to you, because you're the one who's asking us to eliminate condition two.

Great.

Sure.

Well, first, we appreciate the policy aspects of that.

I think our hope would be that if for some reason the quarry were to close, that the county would not remove the overlay district from it.

It would leave it there in place, which would perhaps

likely increase the likelihood that a new company would come along and purchase it or you know restart operations there because as was stated it's very high quality material at the quarry there's lots of it and there are not other locations in the area where it's available so it would I think be fairly short-sighted of the county to remove the overlay so we would hope it would stay and then

It could, you know, the plant could continue.

But it's just, it doesn't reflect the realities of this business.

The efficiencies associated with having the asphalt plant literally on the same site with the quarry and having the materials right there obviously reduces transportation impacts.

you know a host of other issues it makes sense but also the realities of there there wouldn't be anywhere else for this plant to go it would have to go outside the county where frankly there's more heavy industrial land or zoning regulations are are not as challenging as they are in Albemarle.

that would then result in even more trucking of the materials and higher environmental impacts and et cetera, not to mention the 30 jobs that would be lost to the county, high paying jobs.

Thank you.

Are there other questions for the applicant?

Give it a second or two in case somebody says, oh, it's my time now to ask a question.

Well, your second's over.

So we will, Ms.

Williamson,

Would you care to give us some closing remarks?

I think we figured it out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know, and I appreciate your consideration and I and I respect the fact that it is the Board of Supervisors purview probably to figure out the the connection to the quarry.

But also, you know, it's it's a major purchase for our company and

and our banks are not the financing.

If I had to say, well, we could close in a couple of years if this other company that we are not affiliated with closes and then we would have no way to repay our loan, you know, that that would not they would not it might not we might not be able to get a loan.

for the facility were that to be the case.

So that is obviously it's a major barrier.

I know it exists on our Shadwell plant over on the Luckstone site on the other side of town, but that Corey

Luckily, it has stayed in existence and we have paid for it.

But this quarry, we're also just kind of a minor, one of the users of this quarry.

This quarry serves incredible building, construction, just basics beyond us.

But it is, and even if we weren't, if the quarry were not operating, we would get aggregate from another source and make material there because it's such an investment to build this plant and do all the, that it's not something you move around.

Thank you very much.

Ms.

Long, do you have anything to add right quick?

Thank you.

Yeah, it's long past any of our lifetimes and maybe a couple of more lifetimes.

Yeah, if you've ever been to this quarry, and you probably have, I personally think they're pretty cool, but we are still a mountain that they're taking down and the other quarries in town are a pit.

So we've got another probably half a lifetime before they even consider thinking about it being a pit.

It's an incredible reserve of aggregate and an amazing resource for this area.

Okay.

Anyone else?

Well, then the rest of the discussion will be among us.

Someone else can go.

I know anyone else wants to bring up a new point.

Yeah, you did.

My only thing, this is just sort of an aside.

I was surprised to see, and I'm not, we had a bit, I had a bit of a conversation about whether or not there were statutes in the Commonwealth on how you reclaim mines, whether or not they be deep mines or they be quarries.

And just this October, that entire piece of legislation was repealed.

and so that was an interesting thing to me to find out that our legislature just repealed an entire suite of legislation around that issue and so that's just you know something to put out there for people to just know but I'm supporting this issue so I don't usually go first but I'm trying to

So just sort of signal I'm supporting it, but I'm going to go with my Commissioner Brother there.

I'm going to say that there's a piece here that I think that the applicant will wrestle with with the supervisors on whether or not they want to eliminate the sunset clause on this or the possibility of a sunset clause.

Yes, Rick.

Furthering your point, one of the things that I think would be valuable for the board to consider, and they will now because this is all part of our discussion, under Condition 2, the language of Condition 2, I feel is very vague.

It refers to the use of the asphalt plant authorized by the special use permit will expire when the adjacent quarry is no longer in operation.

If there was a union shutdown of the plant because of a union action and the plant was not in operation, technically speaking, does that mean then that the asphalt plant authorized by the special use permit expires?

I would hope that that's not a hair trigger.

I think the intention here is that the adjacent quarry, the adjacent quarry's operations have been terminated, but even then the language doesn't address applicant's point, which is a well-taken point that if the business does terminate, the site is such that it may be an attractive asset for another company to own or to operate.

and therefore this could just be a in suspended animation for a period of time it doesn't mean therefore that this applicant should be put in financial jeopardy because of that so I think the board has to really wrestle with condition number two again my point is I don't think it's our pay grade here

to come up with a final set of conditions.

And I do feel that's something that the board can best address.

But the existing language, I'm not happy with.

Let me pause for that.

I think, can we go for a second to our council?

Yes, Mr. Chair, I've suggested language, I've shared it with Mr. Langell, and I'm told that he's revised his slideshow.

I don't know whether he wants to put that up now.

But the language that I was suggesting earlier to Ms.

So we'll wait until we come to that point.

Well, I just I just wanted to comment that after, you know, hearing from the applicant, as

This pertains to their ability to get funding for constructing this expensive piece of equipment, or not just piece of equipment, but entire new processing plant.

You know, I have a lot of sympathy for that.

And I, you know, also understanding the length of years in which the material will be available and also my experience with seeing situations in which

Corey's open and close, open and close, not because of the material being there, but because of changes in ownership.

I would be in favor of entirely eliminating condition number two.

And I don't believe it's, as Rick said, above our pay grade.

I think it's our job to make these recommendations to the supervisors.

They will do what they will with our recommendations.

They can disagree or agree, but

I think that from my perspective, I think it causes more harm than is intended.

I think the intent of staff in recommending that was on the right track to try to make sure that this plant is approved in this area because it's tied to the physical extraction of material at that location.

However, it seems like given the lifespan of this particular quarry of more than a hundred years,

I don't think that we're going to be saving any unnecessary hardship.

I can't really articulate it, sorry.

But essentially I just don't think that condition number two is problematic enough.

And I understand about the youth discontinuing for two years and our clauses and how they work.

However,

you know, this is not like whether a gas station next door is open or closed.

It can be a lot more complicated to sell or transfer ownership and operation of a quarry than say a nonconforming general store or something like that.

So I really do think that the simplest path would be to eliminate condition number two and staff certainly can forward our recommendation to the board and continue to recommend condition number two to the board.

I agree with with Karen on this.

I actually disagree with Rick on on not weighing in on certain things like this.

I think that the supervisors I've spoken with through the years have felt that it was helpful to hear what we have to say and then

have every right in their position to disagree and not go that route.

Daniel.

Just at a high level, I'm really

Excited about the upgrade in the equipment, knowing that the carbon footprint will be cut dramatically going to a cleaner source.

So very, very pleased to hear that and excited for that part.

With respect to the limitation, it kind of goes, you know, to me, those are kind of tied.

I mean, this use has been there.

There are, if you know the Department of Mines and Minerals, there are so many

you know, defunct mine sites, especially as you get across Western Virginia that are just sitting there.

Once, you know, when you make it, when we make a choice to mine those materials, we are limiting its potential future value of that land for other uses.

There are some movement to put solar on them in Western Virginia and try to find other uses for them.

I know the Nature Conservancy has done a lot to and doing a lot of cross-central Appalachians to try to reclaim them for different uses.

But they always face challenges with kind of the previous industrial use of the area.

And so, you know, from from that perspective, I'm not, you know, I don't know where I follow this.

I'm making a strong recommendation, but I would just caution like,

making a asphalt plant move, and I'm not an asphalt plant expert to know how, what it would be the impact of bringing in other aggregate.

It's a site that's been there for 60 years and it's created a footprint and to move it to another site that's a virgin site or another use doesn't make sense to me as well, as opposed to let it continue to operate on a site that has declared a use in the quarry.

So, you know, I would be, you know, I would be

Just adding that to the to the log for the for the board to mull over on tying the future viability of this asphalt companies to the operation of the quarry based on the kind of environmental impacts that are already established for that use and continuation of operation for the asphalt plant on that location, as opposed to moving into a different location, because we're still going to have roads, we're still going to need to pave them around Charlottesville in this area.

So

Other comments?

I agree with that and also with what Karen was saying.

My recollection was that the applicant said that they were supportive or didn't object to the hours of operation.

So I think I'm seeing heads, I'm seeing the heads that we're not supposed to see.

Oh, we just saw, we just saw some thumbs up.

So you good?

Yeah, I just want to close with this thought that I brought up the point about number two because I didn't want us to belabor the issue here because the ultimate decision will lay with the board.

But the point is, I support removing condition number two as well.

I don't think

The language is clear and the board wants to put it back in there and wrestle with the applicant on it.

Be my guest, but I really do think we've had an excellent discussion about the issues here and the application is better off without that condition.

Would you please move forward, please?

Could you put your slide up for us, please?

And so I understand we have three motions here, two of which we're sort of engaging with a tipping, a piece of advice.

So Mr. Chair, there would need to be separate motions for the special exception request and the special use permit, so I'm not sure which the commission would like to take up first.

And let me ask you a question.

Where did you go?

You moved, OK.

So does that mean that we're still going to do two additional ones for each special exception?

So that would be the three that I thought were would be dropped.

OK, fine.

Oh, come back.

I lost, we don't have you anywhere, Cameron.

And can I get some clarity?

I'm having some laptop issues on my end.

I'm sorry.

That's fine.

I ordered a new one.

It will come some century later.

But this particular motion for the use

does not include the special exception, excuse me, sorry, the four conditions that are in the staff report.

That goes with the other one regarding special exceptions.

That's correct.

The special exception recommendation by the staff did not include any conditions.

That's correct.

Yeah, I was going to enumerate.

I was just going to reference them from the staff report in this motion.

I just wanted to be clear.

Thank you.

Okay, I move to recommend approval of SB 201900009 SL Williamson replacement asphalt plant, including the conditions in the staff report numbers one, three, and four.

And five, sorry.

Is there a second?

Seconded by Tim.

Is there a discussion on what's just been moved and just sort of to do the short way?

It's all of the conditions except for number two, which has been eliminated.

Is there discussion?

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Ms.

Moore?

Aye.

All right, so that's been moved and passed.

Motion could be as simple as moving to recommend approval of requested special exception SE2100036.

Would be the first one.

Do we have a motion?

Is anyone willing to move that?

I will if you can say those numbers again.

SE2100036.

That's right.

You did it.

You win.

You win the motion.

Well, I didn't even make it.

That was making it.

If you say so moved, then it's so moved.

Second.

There we are.

So, so moved by Karen and seconded by Tim.

Is there further discussion?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore?

Mr. Bivins?

Mr. Bivins is frozen.

Mr. Keller?

Ms.

Ms.

Thank you.

So thank you very much.

That's been moved and passed.

Would anyone like to do a special exception for SB202100037?

So moved.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Seconded by Tim.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Ms.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you.

So, Ms.

Williams, I will tell you that you heard tonight that we've moved forward your special use permit, and we've also moved forward with the elimination of two.

I really, really appreciate everyone's time and consideration.

It's a huge point to us.

And, you know, as a small business,

operating in this area and you know we're adjacent to Martin Marietta who's a good partner to us but a giant of a business that we have absolutely no control over.

I appreciate your sensitivity to that and you know we've been operating for three generations and we'd like to continue and this is the perfect place for us to do so.

And so take that and please have a good, have a go forward and be safe during this time and into the new year.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

You'll go before the supervisors.

Thank you very much.

Moving along.

Do we have any commissioners who have committee reports?

No committee reports.

Bye bye now.

You weren't going to give us a committee report.

Valley Long and the applicant are going to give us committee reports.

Well, Mr. Chair, I can say that the CIP committee has been meeting, but we are still in the middle of it.

So we're struggling with, you know, the usual things.

Lots of need and not enough money.

Thank you.

Yes, Daniel.

There was an introductory to the BiCompED.

group, I had to make a last minute, I missed it due to work conflict the last minute.

It was just an introductory.

There's a follow up one coming in December here that we're trying to get planned where board details will dig into the SmartScale application.

So more to come later this month.

The first introductory meeting and for that SmartScale's application has started.

Thank you.

OK.

Just so you know, I know lots of times at Stonefield, that grassy place in Stonefield looks like it's going to have a building on it, folks.

So if you're looking to have a little last moment in that grassy place there, across from Champion Brewery and across from the Hyatt there, this would be the time for you to go and have a picnic over there if you so need one, or to look at the Christmas trees over there.

Because I think we're going to get a building there sometime soon.

Oh, may we have the report from our Deputy Director of, is that possible?

I will.

So we were supposed to have a public hearing on Rio Point several weeks ago.

We ended up rescheduling that.

That'll come later in December.

We did have the meeting on December 1st, and it was fairly light for community development in the evening.

There was a public hearing for the agricultural forest districts, the three districts that came before this commission, and those went forward as recommended.

Thank you.

So then, anything, any questions for Charles on that point?

Then if not, may we hear, we're moving on, any old business, any new business, and we will go with STA2021-02, the maintenance of improvements.

Yes, just for anybody who's listening, I'm Bill Fritz with the Community Development Department.

We're actually very excited to bring this to you.

We think we've identified a potential change to the ordinance that will significantly reduce the burden on applicants and county staff.

and improve the enforceability of the maintenance of improvements will streamline the review and approval process, will provide better information to property owners when they look at their when they go back and look at the plat that approved their property as to their obligations for maintenance of private improvements.

What's currently required is that when there's a private improvement, a street, sidewalks, trails, recreation, things like that, the developer needs to submit a document that will ensure maintenance of that facility.

That document then goes through a review process with staff and CDD, then goes to the county attorney's office, then goes back to the applicant, then comes back to the county, goes back to the applicant.

And this happens a lot.

We're talking hundreds of hours potentially.

per project.

The interesting thing about this is that ultimately what's done is a document is approved that and it gets recorded.

That document, the county is not a party to that document.

The county cannot enforce that document.

The county has no say in that document whatsoever.

So we've done a lot of work for a document

We can't touch.

And what we've discovered is that other localities seem to have come up with a better way where they can put those requirements actually on the subdivision plat stated very clearly what's obligated.

And then if the facilities are not maintained appropriately, it becomes a pretty straightforward

This would actually make a much more streamlined situation if, for example, a road wasn't maintained and emergency vehicles couldn't go down that road, that the county could actually enforce that and cause that road to be upgraded.

So we're excited to bring you this Resolution of Intent.

I would point out that usually we do zoning text amendments.

Those go to the Board of Supervisors, but subdivision text amendments are different.

They go to the Planning Commission for Resolution of Intent.

That's where everything starts for the Planning Commission.

and so we're happy to bring that to you.

I would point out that I do have a minor change in the resolution that we're asking you to adopt today.

I had, I share Ms.

Firehock's dilemma of laptop world.

I had a crisis of my own and in the process of switching one computer to the other, the attachment

did not get updated properly.

It actually says, I think it refers to residential proffers, but I have cleaned that up and taken care of that.

And I have a revised one to present you tonight.

Yes, Rick.

Sorry, Bill, I'm thinking about what happened out in Wesley.

Would this also apply for dams within HOA?

Any private improvement.

Okay, good enough.

I would point out that one of the things that we've been doing, I've been doing some research and Andy Herrick in the County Attorney's Office has done a lot of research too, is I would point out that the term improvement is not even defined in our ordinance.

So that's kind of a weird term because what the ordinance currently says is maintenance of improvements, but

Does that mean the House?

And clearly it doesn't, but we're going to go ahead and I think we're going to try to come up with a definition of what the improvements entail.

Anyone else?

I'll just show it to you very quickly here.

And with the aim of us moving a recommendation, I forget how we do resolutions of intent.

So all this.

It would simply be a motion to adopt the resolution of intention, Mr. Freds.

You can see here that I've I can you see my the resolution on your screen?

Yes, it's there.

It now says maintenance of private improvements, and there were some other very minor edits.

For example, I italicized Albemarle County code to be consistent throughout, but there's no content change.

This was in our package, assuming what you were realizing that the one thing, the change in the proffers and the italics.

The title was wrong.

The title was wrong, which has been corrected here, which is what we vote on and the change in font for the way the code is being listed there throughout.

All the whereases are, there's no change in any of those.

Perfect.

Are there any additional conversations or questions for Mr. Fritz for Bill?

No.

Are you moving it forward?

I saw your hand moving there.

I'll move it forward.

So moved.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Tim.

Second by Tim.

Is there further conversation on this?

Seeing none.

Yes, sir.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Ms.

Aye.

Ms.

So, Bill?

Thank you very much.

Just so you know, we expect to bring this back to you in January.

We'll look forward to seeing you yet again.

Thank you.

Nice seeing you all.

Is there any other new business?

Is this a voice from the future?

This is a voice from Christmas Future.

Christmas Future?

Well, there we are, folks.

Okay.

Great.

Yes.

And I'm looking for, I will be looking for a new role to play in the county where this body may be seeing me periodically.

So we will see how that develops.

Okay.

Oh, understood.

Okay, understood.

All right.

Well, folks, you can unmute yourself if you'd like to say something to our colleague who's deciding that he's not going to be here in Epiphany.

Isn't next week's meeting your final meeting?

Yes.

OK.

That's fine, but now you have a week to get ready.

Tim, did you want to say something?

It will take a week.

You're off.

You're off.

You're off.

I was in green here next week.

OK, cool.

Daniel, so next week you just better bring your tissues, buddy, or have your dog there be there to distract you.

Have your pup.

It's a deal.

All right.

Anyone else?

Oh, this is going to be fun.

We have a week.

We have a whole week.

Oh, the roast.

We have a light week, Charles.

I feel like there's a couple of public hearings.

Okay.

Oh, well.

All right.

Well, um, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you to you both at this particular thing, but we'll see you next week.

Thank you for the work this evening.

Put your thinking caps on.

And I'm just going to be quiet right now.

See you next week, everyone.

See you next week.

Bye bye.

There's the dog.

There was the dog.

The dog.

There's the dog.

He's getting ready too.