Planning Commission Regular Meeting   5/24/2022

I'm going to call this meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission to order for May 24, 2022.

Ms.

Alright, quorum has been established and we'll move forward with the meeting.

The first item is other matters on the agenda from the public that are not.

Excuse me, I'm saying this all backwards.

Let me start again.

The first item is for anyone who would like to speak on an item that is not on the agenda for this evening.

Is there anyone from the public who would wish to speak on an item not on the agenda?

OK, seeing no one come forward, is there anyone online for that now?

OK.

All right, moving on.

We have a Planning Commission Rules of Procedure Amendment.

This has to do with allowances for attending in absentia.

I believe it's a couple of times a year, and this was sent to us ahead of time, but I think our counselor is also going to put it up on the screen.

I already have it.

It should be on your screens as well.

Yes, thank you.

So, Madam Chair, Members of the Commission, Andy Haricombe, the Deputy County Attorney.

As we discussed at the last meeting, our office has been asked to prepare proposed amendments to the Rules of Procedure.

What we've discovered post-COVID, now that the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission are returning to in-person meetings,

is that at least the Planning Commission lacked rules for remote participation.

The Board of Supervisors has them already.

Planning Commission does not.

So we learned quickly that this is something that the Planning Commission could probably use.

And so what we did was we've drafted, our office drafted a rule, made it Rule 7 of the Rules of Procedure that basically mirrors what the Board of Supervisors already has in effect.

You'll note that under state law, it's not unlimited remote participation, that there has to be

a certain reason given for it.

And then there's only a certain number of times it can be invoked.

Part of our hesitancy in bringing this forward and not bringing this forward sooner is that state law is about to change again on September 1st.

And we are working with the Board of Supervisors to adopt or amend their rules as well.

And once that happens, we'll bring probably additional rule amendments back to you to be effective September 1st.

I'm happy to go over the rules.

I've put them up on the big screen.

They were available in your

in your packets as well.

I had one question.

It says one of the reasons that you can be absent and participate remotely is for a private reason.

A personal reason.

It's just a family emergency and it has to be cited as such.

It's not entirely clear how much specificity needs to be provided.

Commissioners are limited to only invoking that twice a year or 25% of the meeting.

So that's not an unlimited free pass.

One other thing I would note is that all virtual meetings are not allowed

except in the case of an emergency like COVID.

But otherwise, all virtual meetings are not allowed and won't be allowed still under the new state law either, at least not for planning commissions or boards of supervisors.

I just have one question.

I think I'm reading this right under section A3, I think.

It talks about quorum physically assembled.

The quorum of the commission must be physically assembled at the primary or central meeting location.

No, the remote commissioner can still vote, but the quorum needs to be.

So there needs to be at least four commissioners present at the central location before anybody can participate remotely.

Got it.

All right.

Well, unless there's other questions, is there a motion to adopt this rule change?

So moved.

A second?

Second.

Okay.

There's a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Hearing none, would you call the roll call, please?

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for preparing that.

So the Albemarle County Planning Commission rules of procedure is now amended as per the document.

And now we'll move on to the next item on our agenda, which is the consent agenda, which is on the other sheet.

It's a couple of different minutes.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right, it's been motioned and seconded.

Any discussion?

All right, Mr. Bailey?

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Okay, we've adopted the consent agenda.

The next item for this evening is

SB202100017, Foster Forge Farm School.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Maybe we'll get underway.

You can see on the map there is located in the rural areas on Barracks Road, proposals for schools of up to 60 students focusing on outdoor and nature-based education.

I'll show you the plan in a moment, but as you will see, there are

There are actually five 14 by 18 classroom buildings, an assembly and administrative building, and a bathroom and storage building, plus some miscellaneous structures.

There's an open space parking area, a grass overflow parking area, and an activity area with a pavilion.

There have also been a couple of special exception requests submitted recently on this matter that have not been reviewed yet and would need to be reviewed before a site plan or during the site plan review for the use if it is approved.

The first is for disturbance of critical slopes for a walking trail to a fairly small area.

which I'll show you in a moment.

The second is to remove the requirement for curb and gutter in the driveways and parking area.

Again, it's something fairly typical for the rural areas, so these are not matters we have major concerns with and they could be dealt with more appropriately with the site plan.

Oops.

So here's an aerial view just to give you the context.

The parcel in blue is the site for this proposed use.

Next to it, parcel 68, you'll see is the Field School site.

So that's the site of a recently approved but not yet built private school for 150 students, so somewhat larger in scale than this proposal.

and then to the southwest you can see the Coulter subdivision and to the northeast the Mount View subdivision which are both adjacent to and within view and potentially a sound of the site and sharing the same road.

Here's a closer view of the site as it exists now and you can see

You could see if the pointer worked.

There's currently an entrance down in this corner here.

The new entrance would be in this area.

Eric's room at the top.

New entrance here.

The top right area is the main activity area with the small proposed classroom structures.

There's a parking area in that northeast corner.

On the top left, you've got a pasture fenced area with a small barn for farm animals.

And then at the back, you've got this additional activity area with the pavilion, one more classroom building, and another restroom back there.

So this area right here that I'm pointing to

is where the trail would cross the critical slopes.

That's what would generate the need for that special exception.

Again, this is where the majority of the classroom activity would be.

and just to clarify why the parking is located at that corner close to the road which is atypical but in this case here's that parking area and you can see there's a bank of several feet right at that edge of the road so it actually by pushing these parking up against that bank and actually reduces the visibility because as you're going by you just look right over it.

Alrighty so

We did review the proposal against all of these criteria.

We didn't have major concerns about things such as noise and visual impacts because of the location of the use and some of the recommended conditions that I'll go through at the end.

Traffic.

The first is speed.

The posted speeds here start at 45 and go up to 50.

Widely reported by residents in the area that those are regularly exceeded in this area.

So we know there's a speed problem already at the site.

Second is the site distance issue.

Approaching the site from the east, so going west on Barracks Road, here in this photo we're about 750 feet from the proposed entrance, and this hill on the left is completely obscuring the view of the site, so if there were to be during the drop-off hour a line of cars waiting to turn into the site,

You wouldn't be able to see those and please recognize that this Google car view is mounted much higher than a typical driver's view down at two or three feet off the ground.

Once you get up to Montview Drive about 525 feet out, you can start to see where the entrance is going to be down there.

So you do at that point have a line of sight on the stopped vehicles.

The problem being that if the traffic was in fact going 45, this would be quite a bit of sight distance since we know the traffic tends to go more like 60.

It's pretty limited to come around that corner and see a stop line of cars.

As far as accident history, we checked on five years worth of reports on this section from Coulter's Drive west of the site to Burgoyne Road here to the east of the site.

There have been 18 accidents in that period.

we felt that even though for the posted speeds VDOT might not require when we get to the site plan stage that turn lanes be built based on the regular warrant formulas, this particular situation has an existing speed problem and an existing visibility problem that need to be mitigated.

So if the use is gonna be approved, we felt the turn lanes were necessary to get that stopped and turning traffic out of the main line of traffic.

So in summary, positive factors included the scale of the proposed use and its limited physical impacts on the site, good use of screening vegetation and parking placement to reduce the visual impacts.

The site is located on a major collector road with proximity to the development area, so it's less traffic impact on the rural areas overall than some of the more remote sites that we've seen over the years.

and it would provide an opportunity for natural resource based education.

The concerns of the negative factors were the intensity of use, which is more than the by right uses on the site and traffic generation and the existing high traffic volumes and speeds that are above the posted limits, which is why we're recommending the turn lanes again.

So I want to read through all the conditions.

I think I'll stop there and just take your questions.

Okay, so questions for staff on this application.

For the... What do you call these?

Drawing a blank, there's nine of them.

What do you call them?

Conditions, yes.

I'm so sorry.

It has been, it's not even close to over.

So for like number four, for example, where it talks about putting parameters on how many times the school can be used and for certain size crowds, just curious, how does the county kind of monitor or enforce that?

It's difficult.

We don't have the staff, obviously, to be on the ground monitoring constantly.

Typically, issues like that are monitored by complaint.

If there are residents nearby who are aware that there are too many events going on, then they'll let us know and then we'll have to check.

In rare cases, we have asked for people with very large winery events, something at a much larger scale, to notify us in advance of their event schedule.

But again, we're talking about events of 500 or 1,000 people.

It just seems more appropriate then to have advance warning than for a small school event of 50 people.

Thank you.

And it's one more question regarding the comment about the speed that's currently speeding currently occurring on that street.

One of the neighboring landowners raised that same question and I checked in with VDOT about that and they said it was unlikely that they would do school zone postings in an area where there's no pedestrian access.

But typically that's done for when you're approaching an area that has crosswalks and kids crossing the street and all that, there's not gonna be pedestrian access to the school.

It's gonna be all vehicle access.

Thanks.

And thank you, Scott.

It was a great presentation, very helpful.

A couple of quick questions.

One, kind of related to Commissioner Clayborne's question, number three, where it talks about classroom instruction not beginning before 8.30 and not continuing past 5.30.

And then the question I had was, classes shall not be held on Saturday or Sunday.

Is it just classes that won't be held?

Or is it events?

Or is it limited in some other way?

And if so,

That's a condition we've used before, including at the field school adjacent to the site.

And it's just an attempt to limit the overall impacts.

So we're holding over the course of the year.

You know there's only five days a week that you're going to have those arrival and departure impacts from the regular business of the school.

It's not intended to apply to an event or if they had an educational event or a fundraising event or something like that.

Got it.

OK, good to know.

And OK, or some alternative use that was allowed in the district in that area.

And then the second question is about traffic.

And I know a lot of what we're going to talk about tonight may be about traffic.

And I'm just curious from a county standpoint,

I don't know if precedent's the right word, but is it, since speed limits are sort of an objective measure, right, that you're exceeding the speed limit, it's either not being policed or something's kind of out of the control of the land owner or the applicant, really.

It's really more of a VDOT or a police requirement.

Is it common that, or is it, is there precedent for the county to limit the use of that facility based on adjacent speed limit?

You know, people that are violating adjacent speed limits?

Seems like it's outside of the applicant's control.

You know, obviously for the standards that apply for a by right site plan for use, we're going to be evaluating that based on

Just what you said, formulas and existing posted speeds and all that.

Yeah.

And where we know we've got an existing safety situation or a couple of them in this case.

We're recommending that additional step of safety requirements, which obviously do have expenses for the applicant in order to install that.

Yeah.

This is a more intense use in the rural areas and it could work on the site, but we've got to offset the impacts.

Got it.

I have a question.

I mean, is it possible that you could go over the traffic numbers generated by the site?

I would be happy to talk about it, but I think you might get a better and clearer and more complete statement on that from the applicants.

So we're talking about how do we enforce things, which some of my colleagues are speaking to here.

So number two is the maximum enrollment shall be 60 students.

How would the county know that that's the capacity that they've reached or that they're sustained?

Again, if there was a complaint.

Then we would request that the applicant or operators at that point would provide their enrollment information.

OK.

And do we have any idea whether or not this is a pre-K through fifth grade or fifth grade?

It's a middle school.

Excuse me.

It's a middle school.

And what's middle school is different in different places than what's middle school?

I believe it was five to eight, but the applicant will say for sure.

Either 5-8 or 6-8, sorry.

5-8 or 6-8, either 5th grade to 8th grade or 6th grade to 8th grade.

And then the other thing, and this is just my, I'm going to take this statement here.

So one of the things that I was concerned about and I continue to be concerned about is that when the county takes a position

on that a school option for residents of the county would provide natural resource base and this proposal would provide an additional school option.

I would just like to go on record that I don't actually think that that's our role.

that that's not the role of the Planning Commission to provide an additional school option for people from where we stand.

Number one, this is not an applicant, don't be offended by what I'm going to say because what I'm going to say is probably going to be offensive, is that number one, I have no idea the quality of the instructors who will be at the school from what I understand private schools don't have to follow the same kind of standards that public schools do.

and that when the county is putting in over $200 million worth of budget allocation for our public school system, I don't think it's our role to then say, oh, yes, we need an additional private school.

And that's not something that I hope that we will see that in the future.

That's not bailiwick.

We should offer no comments, yes, nay, way on whether or not it's a good, bad, or different thing.

That's for the market to determine.

That's not for us to put our fingers or thumb on the scale.

So I just need to say that.

and then I'll come back.

All right, so and again we still haven't heard from the applicant but it's good for them to hear your concerns.

Anything else for staff just along lines of questions, clarity?

Okay, all right, thank you.

All right, so next up we'll hear from the applicant.

Just state your name and address.

My name is Ann Bachmeister.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson and the members of the Planning Commission for having us here today.

I am the founder and head of school for Foster Forge School, a unique and dynamic private middle school co-ed, hopefully opening here in Albemarle County.

Our pedagogy revolves around farm and forest based education, being outside more than inside as much as possible.

Many of our students I see coming out of the pandemic, being disengaged and disconnected from their current school

situations, both public and private, a resistance to going back to school, a resistance to feeling like they don't have a place in that school.

So my background is in law and education.

I went to Harvard Graduate School of Education and studied positive risk taking and adolescent development, was an Outward Bound instructor, and I created an experiential learning program

down on St.

Croix in the U.S.

Virgin Islands that hosted student and teacher teams that came from all over the country, all over the world to engage in, yeah.

Sorry.

And I want to apologize right off the bat that the PowerPoint presentation that is up there, the formatting got all, I'm an Apple girl.

So I did it on Keynote and then tried to export it and that's what we have.

At least it'll give you a sense of who we are.

We're a different school so our PowerPoint presentation is different too.

So I'm long in the tooth and working with kids, especially with experiential education programs, hands-on, working with students that are coming to us from lots of different learning perspectives.

And thus the feeling that a school like Foster Forge incorporating our agriculture-based and nature-based

platform would be a nice niche to fill here in Albemarle County.

As you probably know, the public school system in Albemarle does not have a working relationship with the Future Farmers Association group anymore, and that the agricultural program has actually been diminished quite a bit.

It's the one county

out of all the surrounding counties that have kind of dialed back that focus.

For our students, we want to dial it up.

We feel strongly that relationships with animals, knowing where your food comes from, having opportunities to travel globally as a school group, and having those experiences build confidence

and Foster's Growth.

And that's why we're hoping that you're going to, I know Mr. Bivins

your thought is not to focus so much on what this is, but the impact of what this could be to the community.

And I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly, but I also think it's my job as the head of school to share with you our vision to be inclusive, to be supportive of families that are coming from different income backgrounds

I've worked in very diverse communities and I don't want a role that caters to only one community that can afford it.

So we're working really hard to make this experience as open to all as possible.

I'm gonna have Anthony Esselman come on up from our Terra engineering firm to talk a little bit about the concept plan, but also about the traffic questions.

And then I'll answer any more questions for you, okay?

Good evening, Madam Chairperson and members of the Planning Commission.

Like she said, my name is Anthony Ushelman.

I'm with Terra Engineering.

We were engaged by Foster Forge Farm School to assist with the planning and engineering and surveying on this project.

as some of the stuff that Scott already touched on may be in here, but the planned school is both small and private and for middle-aged students.

This land use requires a special permit in the rural area zoning district.

Foster Forge Farm School plans to be unique in its teaching curriculum, leaning towards teaching environmental stewardship, incorporating outdoor learning,

and desires to employ environmentally friendly methods and development of the parcel.

Special events and activities are limited apart from the daily school activities.

Further, the school will have, as you know, limited staff as opposed to a traditional school.

The school plans to use a bus to minimize transportation and trips in and out during the day.

And since Foster Forge Farm School is located on Barracks Road, some final site plan work

was performed at the concept plan level.

The commercial entrance was positioned so that the site distance right and left are adequate per posted speed limits.

In addition, a full turn lane traffic study analysis was prepared.

This analysis showed that the turn lanes were not warranted.

And I do want to take the time to address the fact that this analysis is done pretty early on in the concept and planning stages.

and we understand that it is subject to VDOT's approval and we are fully prepared to work with VDOT to achieve an adequate solution for the entrants there.

One thing to note that would be helpful for the safety of the entrance would be to post school signs or even possibly move the speed limit change to just west of the school location or entrance.

Concept plan has gone through county staff and regulatory review and has been revised to address all comments.

Further, as a part of the special permanent procedure, a community Zoom meeting was held and comment responses were prepared.

The majority of these comments stemmed from traffic.

The concept plan was revised over time to eliminate as many special exceptions and requests as possible.

The ones remaining are critical slopes and no curb or gutter.

Except one small isolated trail area, the critical slope disturbance only occurs within the existing stormwater basin.

And this will need to be upgraded to comply with current stormwater regulations.

And regarding to the curb and gutter, it's our opinion that it's environmentally better to allow stormwater to sheet flow rather than to force it into concentrated flow by using curb and storm drain pipes.

Grass, whales and culvert pipes are planned as the site lends itself to that method.

Thus the second special exception to waive the curb requirement.

Would be designated to the area.

the proposed parking area and then there's a event parking as needed that would remain grass.

And whether or not reinforcement would be needed in the area would be a study that'd be done closer to the final engineering plan stage.

A geotechnical study is planned for the site that would include borings in the dam to confirm adequate foundation for the planned driveway across the dam.

And regarding wastewater, an alternate wastewater system is desired and is permitted by the PDH policy.

You can keep going.

You had technical difficulties getting this presentation started.

and this drain field was previously approved by the county in order for this land to be subdivided off of its parent parcel.

The development of the site is planned to be at or very close to existing grade to minimize any required earthwork.

Visual landscaping will also be provided as buffers from visibility from the street.

placed in areas as designated by county staff.

We thank you for your time and respectfully request your support of this special permit and special exception.

Thank you for the presentation.

Not a formal cafeteria.

There will be a small kitchen set up in our science building for not only for curriculum purposes, but also to warm up lunches and things like that.

OK, so like no grease traps or anything or like needed on site.

And secondly, could you talk a little bit about maybe the materials that you'll be using for the buildings and

I'm asking because I think I read something about sustainability and your narrative and with our climate action plan, just like the

Well, initially in phase one, our buildings are prefabricated and they're small.

The whole point of creating and developing the school is to make it as sustainable as possible.

And that's built into the education of our students as well.

So we're looking at solar energy,

the possibility of wind energy, incorporating incinerator or composting toilets in our restrooms.

Our buildings will be up to international building code and will satisfy the occupancy requirements for the purposes of a school.

Yes, thanks.

I appreciate your presentation.

A couple of quick questions.

One is you mentioned a bus.

Yes.

That a bus is being used.

Yes, you did.

Okay, so the trip generation.

And what is the frequency of the bus?

The bus will hold 15 to 16 students and it runs essentially four times a day.

So in the morning and out in the morning and then in the afternoon and out in the afternoon.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

You mentioned that you did calculate the site distances and that they were adequate, that the site you moved, you actually, I was wondering how you decided to position the entrance where you did.

And I think you did it because of site distance.

And so the grades work for site distance, everything else is, is appropriate.

Yes.

Got it.

OK, thanks, and

There's been a question raised about turn lanes, right?

Enter entrance and exiting turn lanes.

You didn't mention any of that in your presentation.

I'm curious if you had any position on that, any thoughts on that?

I mean, it's potentially for the safety of your students and families.

I'm actually in quite agreement with the need for increased safety on this particular stretch of Barracks Road.

I think there's a way to find a kind of happy balance in regards to this.

I think some of the responsibility falls with VDOT, hopefully opening a dialogue with them about what we can work with them to do to mitigate the higher speeds that happen on that road.

It could be signage, it could be

you know, when you approach a sign and you're over the speed limit and it flashes at you and lets you know that you're speeding.

I know when that happens to me, my initial instinct is to slow down.

So incorporating those kinds of opportunities, I think would make the road safer in general, whether we're there or not.

And we have talked about incorporating a right-hand turn lane

which I think would be very conducive to mitigating the traffic issue even though we're well below the numbers.

So yeah, I think there's a way and once VDOT has time to really delve deeper into the traffic warrant that we put together, we'll have a better sense of flushing that out.

Great, thank you.

And last question, what was the timeline for your existing traffic data?

You'll have to bear with me.

Okay, got it.

Could you, so let's just stay on traffic and I'm gonna pivot off of that depending on your answer.

So, sir, you mentioned that it might be helpful to have a school sign coming from the west, so that's coming from sort of the,

Coming down Garthrow towards Charlottesville.

I think what I guess what I had in mind was that it would be helpful to move the place where the speed limit changed.

Like currently the speed limit drops from 50 to 45.

east of the planned site entrance.

So basically extending the zone in which the, extending kind of dramatically, the zone that the speed would drop down, I'm assuming, from the east to the west, so it's just opening that zone up.

Okay.

That's helpful.

Can I ask you then, I think this is for Madam, the anticipated head, so can you give me some sense of, you said it earlier, I believe it was you, that you use classroom occupancy standards to determine the type of buildings that you're going to have there, sort of the

I'm going to apologize because I don't remember her last name off the top of my head, but Betty, who's with the county, was very instructive in regards to looking at occupancy and the number of students per building and that kind of thing.

So although we're an outdoor school and spending most of our time outdoors, we had to take into consideration that if an emergency arose, we had a tornado or thunderstorms, lightning, we needed a place for our kids to go and find shelter.

So in factoring in the square footage for our barn, the buildings that you see on the main concept plan,

The pavilion doesn't really count because it doesn't have the sides to it.

So knowing our max being 60 students and then incorporating additional staff to that number coming up with about 74.

That's how we came up with our occupancy, if you will, to be able to find that adequate shelter, even though most of our classes will be taking place outside in good weather.

I understand that.

I want not the high level piece, but I want sort of if you were selling me as a grandparent wanting to put my child there, where would my child, what will my child be doing?

Okay, so on our current site plan, we have walking trails.

We have an outdoor pavilion that can be used for outdoor classroom space and

and shelter.

There is up in our wooded forest section, there'll be open areas.

We're going to incorporate an obstacle course up there.

There's a lot of open green space.

There's also lots of open green space with large trees that provide a canopy.

So I could see our students and teachers congregating around those trees.

You know, I think it's a spontaneous, you know, in the moment experience as to where the class wants to be on any particular day.

What's happening with the weather, what the season is, and what they're studying.

We have a pond that's going to be developed again in the middle of the

the property that's going to be remedied, if you will.

It was part of an old dump site at one point in the property's history, and our intentions is to bring this land back.

Let me extend this a little bit.

So the pond, which is sort of a water, sort of the hand, which right now I think has a

Yeah, it's a matter of working with the dam.

There's a... What do you call it?

A

Culvert pipe.

So there's also some infringing trees that have grown up in this area that are draining water out.

And then if I can continue, please.

So then in the front where you have your paddock, and we still haven't gone back to the occupancy, but I'll sort of move away from that for the moment.

What type of animals are you planning to be in the panic?

Yeah, we intend to have goats, mostly pygmy goats, chickens, rabbits, a donkey or two.

More manageable livestock, not only for our kids, we hope to be also be 4-H facility, be a member of 4-H so our students if they wish to partake in 4-H activities can.

Most of our students are coming from homes where they can't have a baby goat and raise a baby goat and then show.

So yeah, we're not doing pigs and we're not running cattle, the space is just not

Then if I could ask you to just explain something for me on page six of your proposal.

and I'll just read it to you.

Our activities and presentation will be in keeping with the spiritual and educational institutions already located in the area, such as the Pending Field School and the nearby St.

David's Anglican Church.

I'm just wondering.

If you could just expand that since I'm not quite sure how.

Just expand that.

Sure.

Not having the opportunity to talk directly with the church or with field school.

I guess I'm speaking more towards the openness of if and when we are on the site and field school opens, looking towards doing collaborative

educational opportunities together.

And with the Anglican church?

Definitely open to talking.

But yet that's interesting, but I'm not hearing how we're engaging with something that's sort of close to a thousand neighbors there.

Well, I think engaging with the so-called thousand neighborhood neighbors is potentially us educating their children, being a part of this neighborhood and growing neighborhoods in the county and in the city of Charlottesville.

So there'll also be vegetables and things like that.

Absolutely.

Just one more question.

It's a follow up to my colleague, Commissioner Bivins.

I don't know much about farm animals.

I've been to a dairy farm once and it didn't smell good.

I don't know, and I guess I'd have to hear their concerns if they had concerns.

I can tell you from my perspective that we would incorporate responsible farm management in regards to maintaining waste and removing waste appropriately.

The teaching of raising livestock and engaging in agricultural studies is about being a steward to the land, not just to the animals, to our neighbors too.

So we would make a concerted effort to be responsible neighbors.

I'd like to follow on that though.

Just curious about the weekends.

And hopefully notify the neighbors who that person is.

Well, we've met some lovely neighbors that are excited about what we're doing.

Other questions?

One additional question, and it's on page

11 of your project proposal and this may fall into the category of hopeful but it says in addition Foster Forge Farm School has the potential additional benefit of providing our neighbor the field school and its parents an opportunity for their other children not enrolled in FFSS

a dual location for student drop off, reducing the amount of driving time and place where parents would be required to bring their children for school.

I'm curious, have you had conversations with the field school about that?

I think we're hoping, and it could be a possibility, that a family has one child at the field school and one child at Foster Forge.

So Charlottesville, Albemarle,

It's a small community.

So I could see that as a possibility.

And I don't see it as being a large part of our training, our traffic going in and out.

So, okay.

Thank you.

Let's have a quick question.

So you're, you're asking us for 60 students school and

I'm sure you've already experienced what it's like to prepare materials to come before the commission and then eventually the board should this move forward.

Are you absolutely certain that 60 is the right number?

You're not going to be coming back in five years and asking for 80 and then 100 because schools like this are often successful.

Yeah, I think I'm very comfortable with the 60 student maximum and that has a lot to do with the size of this property.

You know, we're dealing with six and a half acres, a little less.

So in keeping with

This property being sustainable, it has to be sustainable for our student population, but it also has to be sustainable for our farming population, if you will, our livestock and what we're growing.

I think maxing it beyond 60 would be too much.

If and when we were ever in a position to really want to grow larger, I'm a big proponent of small classrooms in smaller school communities, then we'd probably be looking for a different site.

But this site fits what we're hoping to do for the next 5-10 years.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else before we open to the public?

Okay, thank you very much.

And we'll now hear from the public.

I have so far two folks signed up to speak, but that if you didn't sign up, you can still have a chance at the podium.

We limit comments to three minutes.

And we also ask during public hearings that people not voice their opinions from the audience, but if you're in support of something, you can raise your hands if you like.

So with that, the first person we have signed up to speak and I'm sorry your handwriting might be as bad as mine.

Jeff Newman or Jeep Jeep OK.

And then after that we have Saunders Midyat.

Okay, I'm Jeep Newman.

I live at 2805 Barracks Road, which is across Barracks Road from the site we've been talking about.

So I love the questions from the board.

And my first request of the board is to pause this and

reschedule it at a later time after you guys have more time to talk about it, and after you hear what I have to say and what other people say.

I have talked to Ann about this, so this is gonna be nothing new to her.

I said it should not be there, and I've told her that the field school should not be there, and I will tell you why.

So, and this is gonna be very brief, and it's all based upon the traffic safety.

I mean, everybody has mentioned that tonight.

But let me explain what the issue is here, because I don't even think VDOT really understands what's going on here.

First of all, it's a straightaway.

It's about a mile.

And coming out of the city, you want to go west, you want to get home, you go fast.

These people know they're going fast.

They mean to go fast because it's a huge straightaway.

Coming east, same thing.

You get to the top of the hill, heading east, heading toward Montview Drive, you floor it and you go fast.

I constantly hear deer accidents in the fall.

I mean, there must be six or eight.

Oftentimes I go out and see if anybody's injured.

But let me explain to you, if I can, really briefly in about 90 seconds.

So Barracks Road.

Between the hours of 8 and 9 in the school day mornings, there is nobody that stops between Montview Drive and Coal Thirst.

Nobody stops.

Maybe 1% of people stop.

That's heading east.

Nobody stops.

Going west in the evening, nobody stops between Montview Drive and Colthurst.

Nobody stops.

because there's nobody there.

I own three driveway entrances across the street and I know nobody's using those.

And there is a house or two down on the lower part of Barracks Road to the south northwest.

Somebody may turn it, but not at those hours.

But what these schools do, both the field school

and Old Forge, is that what it's called?

They're gonna have people stopping right at the highest speed to stop and make a right-hand turn into the schools in the morning, which is gonna have, you're gonna stop that traffic coming in from the west and it's gonna be reversed.

They're gonna be making a left out of there to go west in the evening.

that the traffic is flying home.

So the fact that it's a collector road, it's very accurate and it's only going to get more busy because of what's happening on Ivy Road with Orthopedic Hospital, UVA just opened, and with St.

Terrace building they just built.

And so that is the reason that the

Bax Road is a collector road because everybody's coming from Crozet so they don't get jammed up on Ivy Road and that's all I have to say and I'm going to ask Ann right now to withdraw this application.

Good evening, Madam Chair and Planning Commission members.

I'm Saunders Magette.

I'm in the Colthurst Farm neighborhood where I've lived since 1991.

Thank you for this opportunity to express my opposition to the farm school.

My first reason for opposing is that the Farm School's Barracks Road vehicle exit is very close proximity to the top of the eastern hill.

At that hilltop on the very busy Barracks Road, fast moving westward vehicles can't see around that long curve, which has a 50 mile per hour speed limit.

and could potentially result in severe rear end collisions with vehicles waiting to enter the school as well as those just leaving the school.

My second major reason for opposing is my understanding that for use by students and staff, the firm schools plan three classroom prefab trailers

and an assembly hall prefab trailer will have no concrete foundations.

Thus, in the event of a tornado, hurricane, severe windstorm, students and staff in those trailers could be exposed to significant injury loss of life.

Liability suits arising from such weather disasters could be expected to include the count of Albemarle as a defendant.

Apart from opposing this application, I'm aware that earlier this calendar year, on its barracks road site, the farm school placed three different types of classroom prefab trailers without first obtaining approval accounting.

Upon learning about this, it is my understanding that the county ordered the site removal by the farm school, which occurred.

Yesterday in web googling the farm school, I came across a February 18th updated website, which announced that the farm school has announced its co-ed opening for students grade five through eight.

This website's discovery was surprising in as much as Albemarle County has not yet acted upon the farm schools of application.

So I recommend denial.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else from the public who wishes to speak on this matter?

Okay, seeing, is there anyone online?

Just a moment.

OK.

All right, now you may come up.

I just needed to make sure that there was no one else from the public.

I don't want to interrupt.

My name is Tyler Sewell.

I live at 1545 Old Ballard Road.

and Monroe County.

Two things.

One, this school is mostly based on a school that Ann and I went to as children.

And it profoundly changed my life.

I was a C and D student in the Virginia Beach public school system that was falling through the cracks.

And had I not gone to a school like this, I would not be where I am today.

It saved my life.

I got into the University of Virginia because I had teachers that really helped me with my ADD and helped transform my life and the school is about unleashing the excellence of every kid and someone like myself

who was more focused on art than athletics was allowed to spend his time doing what he really wanted to do.

And it changed my life.

And so that's why I believe so wholeheartedly in the school.

The second point is I understand the issues with traffic, but it seems like everyone's saying, hey, everyone breaks the law on this road.

They speed, they speed, they speed.

Is that the applicant's fault?

I mean,

Thank you.

Everyone, for all your comments.

I do want to address the issue around this perception that Foster Forge is going to be placing trailers on the property.

We will be placing prefab buildings that will be secured pursuant to the building inspector and building international building codes.

The wind shears will be appropriate.

All of that will be presented when we

submit our final site plan.

So in the buildings that were placed temporarily weren't on wheels, they had were set on concrete block to keep the sills off the ground, but just kind of get a sense of

of placement and how that would work.

So they're now in storage in Harrisonburg.

And once we do get the building department to sign off on the plan, trust me, I'm an attorney by training, I'm liability phobic, and I do not want anyone to be sued over whether or not our buildings are sufficient to keep kids safe.

Thank you.

All right, so we'll bring this back to the commission for discussion.

Concerns.

It's Julian's turn, but we will all speak.

You're going to speak, so that's not the issue.

I expect you all to speak.

So I'm going to be very clear that I'm not focused on the traffic right now.

I will let others speak to that.

I'm focused on whether or not this is the right and proper use for this piece of property.

And I also want to be very clear that the idea that's being presented to us is in fact a fine idea.

What I have a problem with is that this is not the right idea for this location.

And so let me sort of push a little bit on that.

You heard me earlier talk about the whole idea of the

Rural suburban-ish of this area.

I don't know if any of you have been out there.

This is not like Scott's, like Whitehall.

This is not like Scott's, Scott's philosophy of 20.

I should go like that.

This in fact is, is, is Barracks Road and with lots and lots of community, lots of houses and lots of people who live out there.

so the whole idea that we're going to even though it says rural and this is part of what I was talking about these hard lines even though it's a rural area is this the appropriate place to have farm animals I'm particularly concerned about the farm animal issue considering particularly what we're wrestling with in the world with the transmission of viruses coming from animals and the whole idea of what we've had going on in the valley with avian flu and the whole idea that there's this whole

emerging sort of human animal sort of set of illnesses that come through.

I will share personally that I am one who is suffering from one of the tick diseases from all series of tick diseases because of where we live.

and sort of a wooded area where we live and so I'm concerned from that aspect the sort of how do we in this heavily wooded in this what animals right next next to sort of to the population where children are going to be going how are we going to ensure that those kind of zoonotic transmissions don't take place between animals and humans particularly with some of the some of the animals that

that the anticipated head is noted there.

So that's sort of that form does not work for me.

Animals right there does not work for me at that point combined with such a small spot with I think that's inappropriate with such a small spot given the

given the activities that are going to go there.

So I'm really focused on the public health safety and general welfare.

I also have to say that I continue to be somewhat concerned with classrooms that are about 240 square feet and how, even though there are, I think there's six of them or seven of them, and even though I'm, so I need to caveat this, even though I realize that the public school standards don't apply to private schools.

But if this were a public school, the classroom size would be 900 square feet.

So that's what the public school, if we were putting a public school there, they would have to have 900 square feet.

And if we were putting a public school there with that age group, we would need a larger site.

So the site works for an elementary school size, but doesn't work for middle school size, given if this was a public school.

Granted, this isn't a public school.

but I have to say if this is a place where from this from this body I am suggesting that this is a fair use for this area.

I can't do this because it doesn't meet sort of the minimum standards that a public school would have to meet this from that standpoint.

This feels very, in quotes, forestal, I'll use that term, instead of rural.

And so I don't know how you're going to get children from the front part of that to the back part of it where the pavilion is.

I don't know how this particular location works for that kind of student.

I've also would sort of share, I don't care a hill of beans of what the field school does.

That's not relevant to this decision.

First of all, whoever knows what the field school is even going to get constructed.

So I could care less on whether or not this is there.

I care simply about in this location,

Is this the right function, is this the right educational function when A, it's got smaller classrooms than we would have if it was a public school.

We have the classrooms are so small that we could put all of them in the paddock.

The paddock is larger than all the school classrooms.

That's troubling for me.

And then, as I said, this is not the whole idea of this having this mixture of animals there.

Giving some of the issues that we've had with the transmission of from animals to human for particular diseases is absolutely alarming to me that this would happen in this particular place.

So I have, well, I said, what would I say?

I'm not in support of this and it has nothing to do with the traffic.

The traffic's a reasonable thing that people can talk about.

It has to do, is this the right function for that particular location?

All right, well.

We'll still hear other perspectives, I'm sure.

That's right.

On the dais.

You've made yours well known.

Sure, thanks.

And thanks, everybody, for your comments and for the public comments.

All very helpful.

So in my discussion, it's a couple things, more than a couple.

So I know, Julian, you mentioned you're not focused on traffic.

I'm gonna probably focus on traffic.

That's good.

I know it's good balance.

And a few other things.

So one is, I tend to focus on the things that are measurable and quantifiable and objective.

So I try to sort of limit it to that and think through that.

So number one, sort of what do we know?

Right under the heading of what do we know?

Number one, we know this is in a rural area.

Number two, we know the traffic controls adjacent on a major collector road are failing.

Number three, we know that an adjacent school, although it may never be built, has been approved, and it's about three times the size of this school.

We know that there's a committed staff, from what I can tell, although we just met, that's passionate about the mission of the school.

We know that it's a private and not public school, so it meets and is required to meet different standards.

I believe that the buildings and the site will be required to meet public health safety and welfare and building code standards.

Those are in place.

They can't build the buildings and have them occupied without it.

and I trust the operators to define and program the uses on the site.

They know better than I do how this would generally operate.

None of this is to say that I don't take incredibly seriously the risk that has been identified by adjacent landowners and that seems to be present on the roads.

I feel like if we're gonna focus on traffic, which I'll take that sort of angle,

And I was actually going to ask for Mr. McDermott if he has some thoughts on this.

Mr. McDermott, do you mind?

That's why he's here.

Not just because he couldn't think of what else to do this evening.

No, but thanks.

That's his resting case.

Thanks for being here.

So tell me if I'm off on this, right?

This is, as we said, an adjacent collector road that it seems like is not necessarily being regulated in terms of speed.

So this is a little bit hearsay, right?

We don't actually have the facts down.

But I'm curious, we've talked about things like mitigating approaches like signals and flashing you're going to fast signs and school zones and turn lanes and all of those kinds of things.

Kevin McDermott, Planning Manager over the Transportation Division.

I reviewed the proposal and their traffic assessment and worked with Scott, the lead planner on

addressing those conditions that we put in there, primarily the condition for the turn lanes, which were not in the initial proposal for this.

VDOT is reviewing the turn lane warrant analysis that was performed.

We don't know where they're going to fall on that.

My belief was that because of the speeds on that road, which I think that the public has identified correctly that that is a really fast section of Barracks Road.

And because of the site distance issues, that the turn lanes should be implemented there.

Beyond that, I mean, I think that

things like those flashing signs.

We have used those before.

It looks like they do work to reduce speeds somewhat, although we also see that people get used to them if they sit in one place for a while.

So it may slow some people down, but it's not going to slow everybody down.

But things like the idea of changing the speed limit, reducing the speed limit or extending the lower speed limit section.

I don't think that's going to work.

People are ignoring the speed limit as it is.

If we change the speed limit, it's just going to make people ignore it even worse.

and the county doesn't have the resources to have police out there often enough to be able to address the problem.

We've tried it.

We're aware that there is speed in this area and the police do go out there sometimes and try and address it, but it's not enough to keep that speed down.

So my opinion was that

If they were to implement those turn lanes, I think that that would address for this level that we're looking at for the 60 students, I think that would address the issue with the safety of the road.

But as I said, a school zone, which is possible but unlikely, or those other flashing signs that tell you the speed would

help a little bit more.

That was a great summary.

That was very helpful.

Yes, that stretch is not just that straightaway, but it goes, I think Scott pointed out the areas where it goes to.

So it included those intersections.

And that's what we're seeing is

that that straightaway stretch is not necessarily the problem.

The problem is at the intersections.

But here, you know, the proposal is to put a new commercial entrance, which is sort of like an intersection in that straightaway.

So that's part of the fear is that that could increase the safety issues out there.

I doubt if that would need any signal warrant analysis to put a signal in anywhere throughout there.

There's not enough traffic on the minor street approaches comparative to the major street.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Can I ask one clarifying question just for being naive?

Going to add two turn lanes would dramatically increase the width of the road there.

So is this provision, I guess I understand is, you know, wasn't want to talk about this condition in here.

That would fall on the applicant to be able to construct those.

I've spoken with VDOT about that.

Although they're not sure, because we haven't finished the review of the warrant analysis, they're not sure if the warrants were actually met, but they do still support the idea of turn signals because of the prevailing issues, or I'm sorry, turn lanes because of the prevailing issues out there.

So we think that the turn lanes would be approved by VDOT

But yes, the applicant would have to be able to acquire the right-of-way or be able to shift the road enough onto their property to accommodate those turn lanes.

It could be difficult.

They're not denying that.

OK.

So they would have to acquire the right-of-way to install the turn lanes.

So the frontage that they, well, maybe we're getting too much in the weeds.

Okay.

Those can be reduced if they put in a waiver though, if they said that they don't think they're going to see that much turning traffic, then those distances could be reduced to make it more feasible.

Thank you.

Sure.

Fred, anything else?

No, that's it.

Thank you.

Okay.

I won't rehash much of what you've heard, but I do have concerns about the proposal, mainly about the location.

And it's nothing against the school at all.

It sounds like it's a wonderful school with a wonderful scope and wonderful impacts.

But as I, if you notice some of the questions I asked throughout all of tonight, some of the concerns I have is about the placement of different elements on the site and where is that?

along Barracks Road and then the transportation element, the safety piece is really concerning to me.

OK, I have some comments, but Daniel, did you have anything else?

OK, so there's so much that's been raised.

I don't even know where to start.

I would say that the traffic speed is concerning to me as well.

but I'm also, and I don't wanna say that the parents driving their kids to school would be the guinea pigs, but in a sense, if you are the motorist driving in from somewhere else and you realize there's a school or two there and that it often has cars backed up and you don't wanna kill yourself, you realize you need to slow down around that area.

So I think that once the school becomes established, people will,

Learn these commuters that are speeding and that they have to slow down there.

It's going to be traffic calmed by cars waiting to turn.

You know, again,

I want to also remind us that we turned down a summer camp in a remote area with a traffic volume of probably 10 cars per day because we said that the road was too skinny and too rural.

So here we have a well-designed, well-made road, even if the turns and the sight lines are not what we would like.

And we want to turn that down because, well, the road is actually over-designed, right?

The reason people speed, they drive the design speed.

The road, VDOT, often over-designs roads so that you can go a third faster than what the posted speed limit is.

That's on VDOT.

So I'm not going to allow that element to influence my vote on this this evening.

I think in terms of the classrooms, they probably are a bit on the small side because this is not a school happening in Florida.

This was a rough, rough winter.

And those kids would have had to be inside quite a lot.

I get it, they can put on their mittens and their boots, but there's gonna need to be a lot of time inside.

But I submit to you that since they're having the buildings brought in, they are trailering in buildings,

And our own county has kids in trailers right now, just to remind you.

So, you know, that is an acceptable standard, apparently.

Not to me, but our county does that.

If they learn that the kids are squished and miserable and unhappy and complain to their parents,

they'll probably have to get some larger, slightly larger buildings, right?

So that problem will make itself known.

Just like when you move into that house you thought was going to be so huge and realize now it seems really small after you put all your furniture and family and dogs and cats in it.

So I just think that that is something that is easily solvable.

One thing that appeals to me about this site, which is different from another project that was a camp actually down in my district that we also rejected,

This footprint is quite light on the land.

It's one that never came to us because it had so many problems.

This footprint is, yeah, it had so many problems.

But this footprint is very light on the land.

So when I'm thinking about taking a rural property and allowing it to be used for a more intensive use, the way that they propose to use this property is not very intensive.

So I've seen other proposals for camps with, you know, tennis courts and swimming pools and huge cafeterias and facilities that almost makes me feel like they're not really building a camp but actually retreat that they plan to market as a, you know, adult, you know, I don't know what, getaway center.

This, it would be very easy were this school to fail or where this used to change it would be very easy

for a different use to come in there successfully because they're not doing dramatic things to the land.

As far as the animals, and my family had a farm that we just played weekend farmer on.

We didn't need to earn a living at it.

We were very lucky in that respect, but a lot of kids in Albemarle County go home and take care of their doggies, their chickens, and their

I live in a rural area and there are a lot of people with you know an animal or two on their property or more even on small lots in the rural area and I think that allowing our children to have that relationship with animals and with the landscape

is a gift.

And for some, I'm just revealing about myself, I wrote curricula and taught outdoor camps for years.

So I am very well familiar with a kid that maybe wasn't doing well in school and thrived under learning about science in the field instead of in a test tube.

So

I am leaning in favor of this because I think that it is that light footprint.

It is easy for them to adapt their site if it's not working as they intended with so much outdoor activity.

I think that there are parents who are looking for a different kind of experience for the kids than the typical brick and mortar and at our schools we're taking away more and more recess and we have less and less

opportunity for kids to get outside, less field trip experiences.

So the market will determine whether or not this is a successful and desired model.

That's not up to us.

But I think that with the conditions the staff has outlined in their report, including the requirement for the turn lanes, which is of course not our purview to decide whether and how it will work.

Probably the applicants would prefer not to have that condition, but I think that that's absolutely

necessary to make it work.

So from my perspective, I think that there's still some details to be worked out with the site plans.

The lack of curb and gutter don't concern me because actually I think that helps maintain the rural feel of the site and it would allow some of the stormwater to sheet flow into the woods and off-site instead of channeling it into a nearby creek.

So that's kind of where I land on this.

I think it's a relatively light footprint.

I think people will get used to needing to slow down

Even just because if the field school comes in, and I think that this can be solved because at a certain, you know, our whole, if you look at our county, I mean, if you ask VDOT, like which roads are up to, how many, what percent of your roads are up to standard?

I mean, most of them are not because they were all old and built in weird dimensions and weird turns and

and then some of our modern roads are over designed.

So there is no perfect situation.

There are certainly situations in Albemarle County where I'd say no way could that entrance be in that location.

But in this case, I don't see it as, it doesn't reach my level of severity.

Everyone has their own standards that they're applying to this.

But for me, I'm comfortable that these are solvable problems for this site.

I think Commissioner Bivins hit it and it's what makes it a little challenging, but as I look at it, it's like this is in a transition zone.

I mean, when you look at it, it is right down the street from barracks and everything else.

And I mean,

It's considered in the rural area.

It's really kind of in the suburbs.

Yeah, it's not, which I see, you know, I see why it's an attractive site for a school because it's in what really is more of a transition area than a rural area, which allows people to get there and bring their kids that live in that and it provides that convenience.

When I think about it is,

You know, I know this is our job, in a sense, is to think about the future planning in 20 and 10 years.

And when we know that use, if we look at it strictly as a school, schools are everywhere, rural area and things.

So I think from a school perspective, I do find I didn't get a chance to fully

Look at it, but I'm assuming they would still have to provide by the ordinances for caring for animals in a rural area.

Animals on a lot right now.

And so while I respect that, it is still a rural designation.

And so if they're able to have animals and other people able to have animals, I don't have as much concern about having animals

in this as been expressed.

I do have concerns about the road mainly because of its location to the curve that exists in that road right there.

And it doesn't take a lot for someone to come around a curve and hit it.

And so I would say that I would at this point be supportive provided the turn lane and some of those mitigating factors and the conditions remain for the right and left turn lane.

We don't know where the students are coming from.

So I can't right here say whether it's going to back up the East lane or the West lane or what time of day it's going to back up.

And it only takes one car turning against the traffic that's coming in to back up the traffic forever.

And there's an issue on the hand.

Well, these are all the recommended staff conditions, which include those turn lanes.

And like we said, it's not up to us to design that or figure out if it's feasible.

And I think that was never...

It was never expressed, so I was trying to get clarification on what it makes, but my recommendation would be that they exist and stay, that it takes a right and left turn lane, because some of the dialogue was that it would only be a right turn lane.

Right.

And if you just kept it as what the staff have, they have both left and right turn lanes that meet VDOT standards as a mandatory condition.

So if they weren't able to satisfy VDOT, if VDOT said, nope, this doesn't cut it, then they can't do it.

That is correct.

I'm not sure, just to make it clear and fair for the applicant, I'm not sure if I actually stated my position specifically, but my position would be to support staff's approval of the request with the conditions.

And there was also, and I might need help from our council, there was two exceptions that they were looking for.

One was the steep slope waiver for the trail to go across the steep slope, and then there was the curb and guttering.

Is that

Those special exceptions are not actually on the agenda, excuse me, okay, for tonight and have not been, we only received them recently, they have not been fully reviewed by staff, so as we said early in the presentation, we expect that to happen along with the final site plan or the site plan review,

They didn't really raise any issues that we thought they had to be totally resolved before the special use permit because they seem generally appropriate and minor in scale.

Okay, so they're just being flagged for us to let us know that that needs to be solved and were we deeply concerned about their ability to be solved we could say okay, halt, okay.

Go ahead.

So I had some concern about the lack of sidewalks and gutters because if so much of the activity is outside of those

240 square foot shelters or classrooms.

And these are the age of children who love to just take off and do things.

Then I think there's something that needs to be put there that has to sort of give them some context for not running in the streets and not running in the road.

And so I actually did have a problem with that.

We always, thank you, Rebecca Ragsdale, Planning Manager for Development Review.

We knew the questions would come up about the special exceptions.

The applicant just submitted them recently, and we're recommending that they request to defer them so we can handle this at site plan.

But that request will have to come from the applicant.

By ordinance, we have to act on them within 90 days, so they would need to make that request.

In general, staff is OK.

in general with these special exceptions and you can provide any comments that you'd like for the record going forward.

With regard to the pedestrian, some of these things are going to be covered with the site plan ordinance.

There's language in there that would support us reviewing these things at site plan and they've

That's right.

Okay well then that clarifies that for me that the applicant would need to come forward with a proposal they'll address at the site planning stage and I hope that the applicant will be investing in a very excellent gator that's large enough to take kids in a hurry when they fall down and hurt themselves and they need to get to the entrance.

Yeah, great.

So yeah, I worked at a disability organization for several years.

And so I'm actually really well aware of the ways to get kids around, out in the woods.

And I think that they could still accommodate kids with various disabilities in that.

There's even an outward bound course in our county for kids with disabilities.

So I think that that can be dealt with.

So it seems like there is a,

General sense of support for this, maybe not unanimous, but I'm wondering if any commissioner would be willing to make a motion, either for or against.

I think we've covered all the topics that we wanted to cover.

Yeah, and the only thing that I would say is that many of us have used this sort of what could possibly be if something goes south, and I'm uncomfortable doing that because then the whole sort of scope of possibilities is available for something, and that's not what's before us.

What's before us is

is the plan that's here and so if that goes south that goes south and I don't necessarily know that I feel comfortable sort of hypothesizing or putting a range of hypotheses out there that this is what could happen if this is if this doesn't happen you know so I'm saying and I respect you chair on what you what you said but this is for this project

And it doesn't matter if parents have some other thoughts or if they couldn't do it with some other thoughts.

This is what they're asking us to do.

And so on that sense, I want to contain myself to this because, you know, we're all creative so we could craft a scenario.

that would work for this process but that's not what we're asked to do.

We're asked to just deal with the scenario that was presented to us and it's on that basis that I still I can't support this because the scenario that's before us I think is untenable for that spot.

I should share with you perhaps you don't know but the community that the big community that's behind it

only has one house, the major house that has horses in their covenant, in the coal test covenants, they don't allow domestic animals, they don't allow farm animals.

Have this been, if my

This was already answered, so I didn't have to ask it.

But when they mentioned goats, perhaps the donkeys, and some chickens, that doesn't really raise my concern level.

But yet they're not speculating that.

I'm not going to do that.

Maybe one of my colleagues will, because for me, offering conditions is inferred that I support it, and I don't.

So I'm not trying to dress it up to say no.

I'm going to say, oh, yes, we're going to do all these things, and I'm going to say, still no.

So if somebody else cares to do that,

That's fair.

Madam Chair, I'll say after listening to a lot of the dialogue, I can certainly shift to a support, but I would like, in order to do that, I would like to see a condition about, you know, no large animals.

I'm not sure how that would be crafted, but no large animals.

Things that you would see at a dairy farm, cows and all the big stuff.

I'm afraid if you start naming things then you have to... But you could have giraffes.

Right, right.

Maybe it's just easier to say the animals... Livestock?

I mean, I suppose staff could work on a condition, but before this goes to the board.

You could just say no large animals, and then with staff to work out the details.

Scott Clark is our rural planner, so I'm sure we would enjoy that exercise.

I have seen a horse before, so you've seen a horse before.

I've not touched one, but I have seen one.

All right, well, I will say that generally my preference is not to go counter to the person whose district it is in.

However, I have actually been the commissioner who the whole commission voted against in a project in my district more than once.

So these things happen.

All is fair, commission dealing.

So does anyone feel comfortable making a motion?

I'm happy to make the motion.

It's maybe going to be different of due respect to the rest of my colleagues than what you all would prefer.

I just personally don't feel like we should put a specific limitation on the type of animal that's on the side.

I feel like that's outside of our really charge, really is land use oversight, but I may be wrong.

But that aside, I'm going to

I'll second.

Were you also including the conditions in the staff report yesterday?

Just the conditions in the staff report.

All of them.

Okay.

All of the... One through nine.

One through nine.

Okay.

Discussion?

All right, so he did not add large hooked animals.

Is that okay?

All right, that's fine.

All right, so just checking.

All right, so any other discussion on this?

If not, we can call the roll.

All right, no clamoring for further discussion.

We'll have the roll, please.

Ms.

Firehock?

Yes.

Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Alright, the motion passes.

It will go forward to the Board of Supervisors for their consideration.

Thank you, Chair Firehock.

I'm David Benesch, Development Process Manager with Community Development Department and the manager of this project for the county staff.

The board directed staff to undertake a quarter study at Rio Road from east of the small area plan area, Rio 29 small area plan area, to the city limits at Melbourne Road.

The goal of this project was to develop a community vision and plan that will guide the future design and improvements to the railroad corridor, a very simple goal.

Lightning Grade Civil Engineering was contracted to undertake the project, Daniel Heyer, Principal

with Line and Grade.

We'll be presenting to you in just a moment.

He's up front getting ready.

Corridor plan process began in spring of 2021, just about.

The consultant has now completed work on what was two phases of the total project.

And it's before you today for review and comment.

I think the one thing that's important to note is that this is a planning level document.

And as noted in the goal statement, it establishes a vision for improvements along the corridor with sufficient level of analysis and conceptual design work to understand whether the project concepts and recommendations can address existing and future conditions and can be constructed to meet VDOT and other relevant engineering and planning standards.

The concepts with this document are not finely designed projects approved and ready for construction.

Recommendations from this plan will need to be prioritized for funding and implementation by the Board of Supervisors along with other projects within the county.

And once funded, the projects would then be subject to further study, final design work, engineering final design work.

So understand this is truly a planning scale document.

Page six of the plan, I hope you read, kind of provided the public input processes that we use and the feedback that we received during the plan development process.

That public input effort has been guided by our Community and Public Engagement Officer, CAPE, and we received front end comments about the corridor issues and then on the concepts that were proposed.

And I would note that

In due to the complexities of the issues and concepts in the phase one portion of the project, which is from east of 29 to the John Warner Parkway, we did do update and input to the Board of Supervisors on October 13.

So we did have an opportunity to get some input from them on that phase one section.

So in quick summary here, this is before you for review comment.

And those comments that you provide us will be forwarded to the Board of Supervisors during their review.

What staff is recommending ultimately for this document is for the board to accept and endorse the corridor study and refer it back to staff for consideration and adoption in the upcoming review and update of our comprehensive plan, the AC44 process.

Thank you, David.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Daniel Heyer with Line and Grade Civil Engineering.

I'm joined by two of my colleagues tonight, Kendra Patrick and Ryan Cheney, who have been instrumental in this effort.

And I may have them step to the podium if there's questions that are more technical that maybe I'm not the right person to answer.

So it's good to be with you tonight.

I was here one month ago, second on the agenda after Southwood, and it's good to be back.

I feel more fresh this evening.

So with that, I will begin a presentation which tries to summarize about really 18 months worth of work in about 25 minutes.

So that's no small task.

So it will not be as comprehensive as the documents you have in front of you.

So, and I'll pause briefly for some questions throughout the time today.

A presentation outline follows as such.

We'll cover our approach to the work.

We'll work through our methodology and how we implemented our approach.

We'll report on our findings by phase, and then we'll summarize with our recommendations for implementation.

So our approach was really a four phase process.

The first part of that was to engage the citizens in the corridor itself, to walk it, to experience it for ourselves, to breathe in the exhaust, to feel a little unsafe.

and to just watch and learn.

We also listened and we also asked questions of the community.

And having done that, we tried to understand and organize what we were hearing, specifically from community stakeholders, citizens and residents.

We tried to take that insight and organize it and prioritize what we were hearing based on the project's goals.

And having done that, and again, we were operating almost entirely during pandemic.

And so a lot of our work had to be, we had to try diligently to keep ourselves forthright with what we were finding and understanding from data, from listening.

And so we tried to analyze rank and model all of the inputs we were getting and see if there was trends in the data and what it was telling us.

And having done that, we tried to integrate what we found with our intentions, how to make it a safe corridor, how to improve environmental and public spaces along the corridor, keep traffic moving optimally and effectively, and try to make access equitable for all who live and use the corridor.

And that process was very much iterative.

It was not a one stop shop.

It was around the wagon, around the barn numerous times for both phases.

So with that as our guiding framework, our methodology was really to assess and analyze more deeply.

And in order to do that, it's important to understand how we looked at the corridor really with two phases, phase one and phase two.

The project was originally just phase one when we were working with staff to scope the corridor study, phase one being from the John Warner Parkway intersection to the small area plan.

And as that project developed, it became a firm understanding that a phase two was warranted and to continue that study all the way to the city line.

and it's very logical how it was broken down by phase and you'll see that here.

Though the roads share a name, Riah Road, that's really all they share between phase one and phase two.

Phase one is the image on the left and phase two is the image on the right and you can see that there really is not a lot similar about them and so the phasing really supported our understanding of being able to look at these

looking for how to integrate and keep cohesion on Riot Road and yet also trying to honor what each portion was trying to be.

Within those phases, and again, this is largely based on how those types of roadways were presenting themselves, our areas of focus were specific to the phases.

So within phase one, we found ourselves focusing mostly on nodal points, intersections, also the corridor typical section, but

really our focus largely oriented around the intersections whereas in phase two the corridor itself became more of our focus.

Within our assessment we didn't want our

recommendations and our insights to purely be qualitative.

It was important that they were also quantitative, especially as citizens were making their voices known.

We needed some information that was impartial, that was pure data, and that allowed us to have solid footing on certain recommendations.

And so we worked very diligently to understand the corridor's safety from a quantitative standpoint.

What kind of accidents were happening?

Was it safe?

What types of accidents were they and where were they happening?

And that information informed our recommendations.

That said, it was not strictly quantitative.

And in our research, we found this nugget of a quote in the bottom right hand side of that page from the 1965 Highway Research Board that basically says at some point in the past, roadways were not just designed for their quantitative aspects, but quality of the experience was also important.

And so we devised our own metrics on how to analyze both of these corridors from a qualitative standpoint.

What's it like to walk on the sidewalk?

Is it hot?

Are there trees?

Is there crosswalks?

Is there lights?

Can you see the bus stops?

These types of attributes of the corridor, we took qualitative aspects and quantified them, which might sound a little bit odd and it is, but it worked for us here on this corridor.

And also, because this portion of the county is becoming increasingly urban, it was important to understand what is coming down the pipeline in terms of increased traffic.

And so, specifically at basically where phase one and phase two come together, there's a lot of anticipated increases in traffic.

and our understanding of the corridor needed to account for this and corroborate what other developments were presenting as their traffic increases and either confirm or deny that is what our understanding was as well.

With that, I'm going to move right into phase one, and then I'll pause for questions after that.

So within phase one, I'm gonna work my way basically from the small area plan towards the city line.

We're gonna go from north to south or west to east, depending on how you consider this road's alignment.

So at Hillsdale Drive, I'm gonna notate briefly our observations and a few things that are probably interesting for you to know.

This is the highest point on the corridor topographically.

So there's a really interesting opportunity here as cars are coming out of the small area plan, out of the 29 corridor, that there should be a context shift.

And so we think that this is an interesting opportunity to consider such a context shift.

Right now, these two intersections are so close together that effectively they operate as one.

But they're not doing that well.

Hence, this is the most accident prone intersection on the corridor.

And further astoundingly, as presented here, 89% of the accidents involve a left hand turn.

A vehicle turning left is involved in nearly 90% of the accidents recorded in this intersection.

Just don't go left and you're fine.

And you can see if you were traveling south,

or East and you wanted to make a left onto Old Brook, there's not nearly enough storage space in the turn lines to even queue.

And so this problem just builds upon itself really quickly.

So yeah, 89% of accidents involve a left hand turn and there's eight different left hand turns to be made at this odd two way intersection.

And so you can see there the statistical information.

We aggregated 24 accidents.

We were ending 22 angled, so on and so forth, resulting in over the last six years, somewhere between 1.5 and $2 million worth of damages.

So how do we conceive to

make this better.

And we presented in our report three different options, reduce intersection volume by trying to encourage some number of vehicles to go by a different route, or remove some of the left-hand turns.

And yet, in doing that, we would have to find off-road connections for those cars to go, encumbering what is currently private property in some way, shape, or form.

Or we can try to eliminate left-hand turns.

which is what we have recommended.

And so this is what's called a peanut shaped roundabout or a bean shaped roundabout.

It basically is a roundabout except shaped as you see.

and it does a couple things.

Well, it capitalizes on that opportunity.

This is the high point in the corridor and there's a context shift.

All of the movements have now been made into yield controlled movements.

And you can read through this or be familiar with it yourself, but it does offer additional resiliency and much safer accommodations for all the vehicles using the corridor.

That said, it's effectively a roundabout and roundabouts are spoken about a lot these days.

Some people love them, some people hate them.

I can tell you what I think the people on this quarter think about them, but I won't.

Long story short, most of the stakeholders involved in this discussion, VDOT particularly and county staff have been very supportive of this concept.

Can you go back to us or you can go back there?

Yes.

You wouldn't believe the number of people just, we don't know what page you're talking about.

So on page 12, we have alternative three and you have the arrow that goes between Northfield and Old Brook.

No.

You'd have to buy a house?

Yeah.

Oh, well.

OK.

Someone listening might want to sell a house.

Yeah, certainly.

Wouldn't disagree with that at all.

Does that require acquisition?

The peanut approach does that require?

Really not as much as you might think.

It doesn't take an entire property.

So that house you see on the right hand side of the image, you can see that house today.

It has probably maybe 60 feet setback from the existing corridor.

We do encroach toward it substantially.

So it is a substantial impact on that parcel and it wouldn't necessarily be inadvisable to acquire that entire property as well.

It also affects the property on the other side.

But for all intents and purposes, it's not much wider than the existing road.

Yeah.

OK, great.

OK, I'm going to move along to Belvedere, moving south.

Belvedere is different, but has its own challenges.

One of the most prominent challenges of this intersection is the peak hour delays for folks turning left out of Belvidere.

And that's only going to get worse as Belvidere continues to develop.

And it may also get worse as the John Warner intersection is overhauled.

And we'll talk about that in a moment.

But this is close enough to the John Warner intersection that they need to be thought of kind of together instead of apart.

There's also lacking safe infrastructure for pedestrians here.

I think the document expounds upon that a little more, but the curb ramps point people into traffic as opposed to parallel to traffic.

So there is some basic safety improvements also needed.

But you can see the accidents are actually, compared to what we saw on Hillsdale, way down.

There was one very costly bicycle accident some years ago.

So there is a history and recorded history of lack of safety for cyclists on the corridor.

And really here we were considering two different options.

One of them had already been conceived prior to us even beginning this study and that was published in a VDOT study.

about Belvedere and John Warner.

And that's the image you see on the top right-hand side of this image.

It's called a restricted crossing U-turn or an R-cut.

And R-cuts kind of feel like the best option when you don't really have an option a lot of times, but they're not usually very thoughtful and they're forcing people into a U-turn.

It kind of feels like we couldn't think of something.

Let's just put an R-cut there.

That's kind of how it feels to me.

We worked pretty diligently to identify another solution that might fit with the corridor's aesthetic and character a little more specifically and still bring some of the improvements that are wanted.

And so we've actually recommended what's called a continuous green T. And if I've flashed back between these two pages quickly, those white circles representing specific conflict points, we've gone from five to three, that's a 40% reduction.

It's not perfect.

I haven't removed all of them, but it's substantial.

Because the trick there is how many cars are you gonna cross when you make that left-hand turn?

How many different movements are you watching for?

And so the continuous green T accomplishes much of what the R cut does, but it doesn't force every car to go into a U-turn movement.

And if cars do want to go into a U-turn, they'll be able to use the roundabout at the John Warner intersection instead of the private street Greenbrier Terrace, which is very clearly a small residential street.

So we feel like this accomplishes the purposes.

It allows us to continue to promote the typical section we'd like to see in the corridor.

We can improve traffic safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.

What this does show is a changed entrance to City Church as well.

That may or may not be what results from their pending site plan that they have and what VDOT might recommend.

They do have two entrances currently.

So if we were to really zoom out, you would see that we actually had both of those options schematically laid in.

As this viewport here shows, we would basically be recommending some sort of interparcel easement to get them to the roundabout so that if they wanted to make a left-hand turn, they would do it through the roundabout as opposed to here.

They could also just go out their entrance and make a U-turn in the roundabout.

So there's a couple options there.

In all reality, I don't know that they'll lose both of their entrances, but having a commercial entrance in the middle of an intersection is generally ill-advisable.

And we worked with them and they are open and they were good people to work with.

They were open-minded and understood what was going on, what that plays out to be.

And then the other thing across the streets, you have three sort of conflict points there.

As the center becomes more established and as we continue to age in this community, that's a complicated, I like it.

So I should just say that I'm not trying to downplay it.

Sure.

You're not wrong.

And I think the current delays are upwards of

five minutes, anticipated to go up to eight minutes.

It is debilitatingly complicated and challenging.

That said, you just reminded me of something, but I forgot it, so I'm not gonna pull it out of the brain at the moment.

If it comes back to me, I'll let you know.

But I agree with you.

Oh, I know what it was.

When and if that does happen, there's been some concern and some public feedback about putting a traffic signal there.

And unlike the R-cut example,

I know we're not asking necessarily and getting to questions yet but it's okay you know I pull out that intersection about every day because I live there and

You know, I still haven't, first of all, got to stop and say major thanks to Daniel and team for their work, their patience engaging the community.

They have been tremendous with the CAC and everything working and listening and considering and incorporating feedback, which there's been a lot of really great feedback and interest from the citizens.

and the committee, CAC, both, you know, not those, not on and on the CAC.

One, I think, concern with this that I'll just say is, and I appreciate being able to put a signal, is right now to get out, you time.

You're looking right, say, okay, did the light way down at Hillsdale stop?

So the traffic, especially if I got to the left-hand turn across, can I get across safely while also trying to time the light at John Warner?

which also has a right-hand turn in the morning for people coming out from the school or wherever else up there flying up Rio and so it does feel a little bit like you're taking your life in your hands every time you go pull out that while the traffic accidents don't bear it out per se.

It is a very strange thing.

What I don't know how to do this is consider the archives like if you have two

If we take out the two signals there that now create some gaps for people to get out there, what is that going to mean?

Exactly.

The main pattern is going into Charlottesville and north of town.

And if you take the proposed traffic circle at the Hillsdale, Old Brook area, and you have the approved traffic circle going in at KTEC,

There's the dominant flow of traffic, especially in the morning.

The Greenbrier Signal will still be there.

I mean, that's not, that doesn't hit, but there's still a signal.

There is, yeah.

If you get stuck there long enough, you can go eat dinner.

It is good.

But that gets to your point, is that how do you manage that, particularly if you're coming east?

You're coming west, it's really easy.

Yeah, right.

And then you're going to have to be buried out there.

I think it's worth noting that the traffic signal may be an important consideration once we see how the John Warner roundabout operates.

I do think the roundabout will provide more gaps

Just because the cars are like, you know, it's hard to predict how those gaps will play out depending on the how who's occupying the roundabout at any given moment.

I only speak my wife's from northern Indiana and South Bend and they love

roundabouts, and she has multiple of them in front of her parents' house.

And in the morning, the dollar traffic, they just don't leave enough space.

They just keep enough space.

But it seems like these things work best when they're all roundabouts.

You know what I mean?

In other words, if this intersection was also a roundabout, everyone would have to keep pausing and letting people in.

But with this not being a roundabout and then the other one,

We'll never get the money to do this.

Remember, forward, forward.

But no, I appreciate not just putting it in our code.

It is complicated.

Daniel, what's the second word that comes from velvety rotation?

Yeah, you go over the old bridge.

Yeah, and then it goes over to,

We considered interparcel off-grid connections.

In this case, we didn't recommend any.

There's a little bit of a backstory there, but they're not recommended at this time.

I'm going to move forward to John Warner and then the typical section that will pause and we can really dig into some of this because John Warner is going to lead to more questions too, I'm sure.

Okay, the John Warner intersection is slated to become a roundabout.

That project is funded.

What we are thinking about when we think about this intersection in particular is that we anticipate the pedestrian activity is going to substantially increase here.

And that's an important consideration for whatever improvements are made.

The intersection does operate at a poor level of service during the peak hours.

We know that it will get worse without the improvement project, but it's happening, so that's good.

Interestingly, half of the accidents that happen here are rear ends.

I think there's a firm reason for that.

So half of the accidents at this intersection are rear end accidents.

We don't know exactly the cause.

My suspicion, well before I go into that suspicion, compared to Hillsdale, 10% of the accidents here are left-hand turns.

So you can see that this, really this is,

I've seen people run that light.

You have two lanes traveling down Rio the whole way.

And then you get to this intersection, and all of a sudden, one of them becomes a left-hand turn lane.

And you have to either merge quickly or rear end somebody.

And so here we got the two prominent types of accidents are rear endings and merging conflicts.

So we think that's really a result of the two lanes becoming one at a turn lane.

The roundabout should alleviate some of that.

It's a dual lane roundabout.

So the conceptual solutions at this intersection, for one, is what's proposed, which is basically dropping a roundabout on top of the existing intersection.

That's what VDOT is intending to do.

As a result of our look at this, we ended up proposing a different location for that roundabout.

That would be number two.

And we proposed it in a location that was a little more at the crossroads, at the macro level, and also removed some of what we were calling redundant infrastructure.

I still believe it is that, but there could also be a purpose to that extra infrastructure.

And then we presented these two options to the board.

and were advised to explore a third hybrid option which was also explored.

So those design solutions at the same time, so the left image is the VDOT concept and the right image was our original interpretation of how to simplify and center that roundabout.

It did move the intersection closer to Dunlura.

Oh, we should go out there and walk around.

In all seriousness though, in all seriousness, both are going to be a substantial improvement, certainly.

And we were advised, I believe relatively clearly, that it's really the VDOT roundabout that's preferred.

So, by the citizens and, well, it's still preferred.

In short summary, though, to point out what's happening with the V.1, just for your understanding, so the traffic signal will be replaced with a roundabout.

You can see it's a dual-lane roundabout.

The northbound Rio.

So coming from Rio phase two onto the corridor will be what's called a non-yielding right-hand turn lane.

You can see that.

I wonder if I get my cursor on there somehow.

Yeah.

That's there now.

That's still there.

That's this road here.

You can see the KTEC entrance is modified, but I think in a good way.

And then partial axis median restriction for left hand turn movements.

What that means

is the left-hand turn off Dunlora actually can't make the left-hand turn anymore.

So they have to go into the roundabout.

If you live in Dunlora and want to go south on, you go through the roundabout.

Again, that's not uncommon to use the roundabout as a slingshot to get going in the direction you want.

That said, though, the Flower Meadow is being proposed to turn into a stormwater basin on the VDOT option.

and the additional northbound turn lane will actually continue almost all the way to Belvedere, further complicating what we want to do at Belvedere as well.

So those are things that I think may not necessarily be explicit at a first glance.

That's why we brought those to the attention.

We truly felt like it could be improved for all movements and that's how we ended up with the option on the right.

which in essence, and this truly, I don't know that this was a good thing, but this is what we conceived is that Rio Road will actually follow the original Rio Road alignment and then come into the intersection up near Dunlora.

Basically moving that will, you know, going back to this one,

This is where the VDOT one is, and we proposed up here.

And you can see with those magenta lines in this second image how we've basically simplified the movements, right?

We looked at this a lot.

It became, to be entirely frank with you, it became relatively excitable for people to talk about these two options.

And I respect the position that it was moving it closer to their homes.

Nobody would want that, myself included.

So I fully respect their position as citizens to express their thoughts there.

But the two, those were really kind of the competing interests here.

Cause we're trying to handle the peak hour traffic, right?

The left-hand turns actually weren't really the problem.

It was the peak hour.

And so in summary,

For this moment, we'll come back to discuss if you want, but the VDOT option is the preferred solution for this intersection based on us listening and all of the stakeholders.

That's what we believe is the appropriate recommendation at this time, just given all that we've heard and listened to.

And then finally, and this is my last slide before we can pause and questions.

The corridor itself actually has a large number of accidents along it, not specifically at an intersection.

And it's really easy to target what that's about.

the access management standards along the corridor are almost entirely lacking for most of it.

And what I mean by access management is what B.DOT would recommend in terms of spacing of entrances and how those entrances are designed.

Those gas stations where you can get the Nepalese food is a great example of just numerous commercial entrances stacked directly adjacent to each other.

Where pedestrians are supposed to exist is virtually on, it's ambiguous, you can't tell where there's, it's unsafe.

And so we believe the recommendation for this area really is to, as these parcels along the corridor redevelop, to really strictly enforce access management standards as designed by VDOT.

And I think that will help substantially alleviate a lot of these access management accidents, rear endings and angle.

And also,

We're recommending the continuous dual left-hand turn lane, or where I grew up, called a suicide lane, be replaced with a raised median

Okay, well, that's how it's raised.

There's a reason for that word and the accidents along the corridor kind of justify it.

or support it.

OK, I want to go to phase two.

I also want to be mindful of time.

I feel like I've been talking a lot.

Well, I will just sort of add that at some point, we need to go on record that the county is going to have to have a public works department.

And VDOT is not going to take care of it.

you have my favorite zombie intersection further up where they spent all that money for the bridge going over 29 but those lovely pots there that for one season had lovely plants in it and then they abandoned them and now they just have sort of zombie weeds coming out so if you grow across it the weed will grab you and put you in there like Little House of Horrors

Little Shopahas.

And so you just, you know, if we're going to do these kinds of things, we have to move towards somebody who's going to take care of it.

Otherwise, let me have suicide lines.

There's been a number of citizens who agree with you and they voiced that and that's documented in the study.

Yeah.

Just for context, so to orient

My fellow commissioners that may not be familiar, if you can go back a slide around the roundabout area, the proposed on that.

The VDOT preferred solution is there.

That is also leads into what is the trail, the pedestrian trail that runs beside it.

It's increasingly more used and is going to be likely used even more with all the

additional housing coming in there.

So that was one of the major, not the only, but one of the major consideration concerns in addition to that is like how do pedestrians move across this?

This is the solutions that's there.

That's the neon green.

And that would be the brown one on the other one, the goldenrod one.

Is that the goal?

Yeah, that's a shared-use path coming through, yeah.

Just a probably naive question, the right turn bypass.

Why is that necessary?

That's one of the highest movements in the corridor.

And so they're giving preferential treatment to keeping that traffic moving.

And that's kind of where the problem is now, right?

It just feels like that intersection with Don Laura, when you come out of there and you're turning right, I would be confused.

Interestingly enough, as we combed through the VDOT study and tried to really understand where their position was, they kind of left that open ended.

They basically said,

Which one?

So the location of this road in relationship to this intersection doesn't comply with any sort of access management criteria.

And this was kind of a result in my understanding of just putting the intersection on top of the other and saying, oh, we have a problem, solve it with a roundabout.

The Roundabout does solve the problems, but one of the ancillary things it created as a problem was this situation, which the report, if you read it, does say is currently, they don't have a solution for how to solve that.

Got it.

Second thing I just wanted to say, I've been dying to say this, is I've seen millions of slides in my life.

You guys put together the best slides.

Thank you for saying that.

I didn't say this, but I will, because I just read my own slide and realized I think these are important points, especially in terms of the county's larger objectives.

The option on the right

Even though it's not preferred, what it effectively did was it took that wildflower garden and made it accessible public space by joining it to the proffer from the riot point development.

And so you ended up with a much broader public space.

And we felt like that was a warranted way to integrate the two projects.

I'll actually be able to show you that better when I get to phase two.

The other thing it did is it actually reduced impervious areas and reduced conflict points.

And we feel like those were also both out.

We kind of tried to think of it outside the box and that's what we came up with.

Okay, moving on.

Should I just keep going or you want to go?

Okay, I'm going to keep going.

Phase two.

Okay.

We're no longer going to focus on specific intersections.

We're going to focus on like chunks of the corridor that have some commonality.

And so the first one was from John Warner Parkway where we were just talking about to Penn Park.

And this is a really interesting portion of the corridor as the image on the left shows, specifically because it's kind of the last little bit of the corridor that represents what it once was, a rural road.

Yeah, and so this is kind of the last look at it.

Before long, this is not going to look like this.

And so, but we do feel like this does present the county with a unique opportunity to let these developments help promote what the study recommends in terms of how to incorporate all this development and to do it in a thoughtful and creative way.

So we'll talk about that more in just a minute, what that looks like.

Interestingly enough here, you'll find this interesting, and we found it interesting, in this portion of the roadway, most of the accidents are with something off the road, a fixed object, a tree, which I think will get better now that the county has installed their sidewalk project on this portion of the road.

But it is, and I think that will go away as the development happens.

But that was really interesting.

And I think that's what you see a lot as development density increases, but the roadway really doesn't and still has trees and poles and all these things next to the road.

So that was an interesting observation.

So what does that look like?

Again, we've kept with the recommendation of integrating a median into this portion of the corridor.

And you can see in the map on the bottom what that might look like to have a raised median or painted.

It could be either.

what that might look like adjacent to both the Rio Point development and the Rio Commons development which if taken together effectively give you the opportunity to work toward this plan of implementation for almost 80% of this portion of the road.

It could be done for you as these developments come online and gets the shared use path for all these residents to

to John Warner Greenway Trail, which is huge.

This is gonna be a much improved condition as development happens.

And we think it should look like this ultimately.

Are the Rio Point and Rio Commons development

Yep.

So we took their documents and laid them in.

Yeah.

We haven't seen Ryle Future.

Thank you.

I don't, yeah, it was a site plan.

I don't believe you've seen it.

You haven't actually seen it.

What we are proposing is that these developments provide the shared use path on their frontage, as recommended here, which will leave about, I think, 180, maybe 200 feet of shared use path remaining to get it to Penn Park, which would be an amazing connection for the county to try to see through.

Because what you basically then is have unlocked a shared use path to Penn Park Road, which, again, has no sidewalks or anything along it.

We are getting that much closer to another major park coming online to an off-road connection, which really promotes people using these multimodal options.

As we transition to the central portion of this part of the corridor on the next slide, I want to draw your attention that what we are recommending is the shared use path will cross Rio here, and the shared use path will end up on the other side of the road for reasons for which I'll explain.

OK.

The central portion of phase two, Penn Park Road to Stonehenge, is noteworthy in its own right.

Really what we have the opportunity to do, if money was no object, is to really begin to unite the central and the northern portions with a common aesthetic, which is entirely lacking right now.

It's sort of ad hoc at best.

So we think there's an opportunity to bring unity to the corridor at large.

Also, interestingly, there's a lot of safety concerns in this portion of the roadway.

For one, the Walter School's turn lanes, the left-hand turn line from northbound Rio is deficient, and 50% of the accidents there are rear-end accidents.

Town Lane, the left-hand turn for Town Lane is entirely lacking, and there's also a bunch of accidents there I'll show you in a moment.

and there's actually sufficient width to provide a turn lane.

So we should provide one.

Intersection site triangles are obstructed at Penfield Lane.

That's actually, that's right here.

And well, in the document, you can see why that was.

Those site triangles are obstructed.

And the vertical curvature of the roadway, again, stemming from the original rural road, the vertical curvature of the roadway at

Penfield Lane doesn't provide sufficient sight distance at that intersection, which is in my mind, an opportunity to repost the speed lower.

And I think that case could be made to be that if you, I don't know if you got the appendix, Ryan did an evaluation on that vertical curve, and it's in the appendix under our engineering evaluation.

I think that stands to promote having a discussion about a repost speed limit.

OK, so here's a quick, this was worth showing you.

This was coming out of the statistical software that Ryan was working with.

This is Town Lane here where my cursor is.

And you can see one, two, three, four, five, six rear end accidents at Town Lane.

No left hand turn lane.

There is sufficient width for it.

We need to get one in.

This is also interesting.

There's a partial access entrance here right in right out that people don't actually honor.

They're kind of like, even though it's trying to push them, they basically use it as a slingshot and go the other way.

I actually saw this at the new Wawa on 250 the other day too.

It's almost like what it needs is it needs a median to actually reinforce that movement, which of course we're recommending.

So I thought that was worth showing you.

This is also worth showing you.

This is in this portion of the corridor.

If you don't account for the DUI or the young driver speeding on the road, all of the accidents at Stonehenge are rear-end accidents.

Again, the left-hand turn is lacking.

We have a recommendation for that.

I'll show you in a moment.

So the typical section here looks largely the same.

as the northern portion.

Again, we think that's an opportunity to really blend all the way from John Warner to Stonehenge with a really consistent looking roadway.

And you can see Town Lane has been given a left hand turn lane.

What you have currently is you have a bunch of lane widths that are inconsistent.

You've got some that are 14 feet, some that are 10 feet.

You've got a bus stop where you don't need one.

There's a bunch of infrastructure that can be reallocated to a consistent use, and that's what you see here in a proposed plan.

In addition to that, and I think you might have an opportunity in the future when Eco Village redevelops to break off rockwood from Stonehenge and actually separate them, because that's a really bad condition currently.

where there's kind of two entrances jumbled up together.

I think the report showed a picture of that specifically.

Okay, and I'm going to try to wrap it up here.

Stonehenge to the city.

This is where the roadway looks like you just went to a different planet.

It's just so different.

You go south of Stonehenge and you have this winding road with steep topography and a lot of vegetation, guardrails everywhere.

The shoulder is ambiguous.