Planning Commission Regular Meeting   9/22/2026

permit us to permit you to correct the clock it is 6 p.m. we're calling the September 22nd Planning Commission to order

As always, the public can access and participate in the meetings through information posted in the Albemarle County website, specifically on the Planning Commission homepage and the Albemarle County calendar.

During the meeting, there will be opportunities for the public comment on specific agendas, agenda items where input is invited.

Yes.

Ms. King?

Here.

Ms. Firehock?

Here.

Ms. Brown.

Here.

Are there any members of the public that would like to speak to items that are not in today's agenda?

This feels really powerful.

Good evening.

My name's Neil Williamson and I serve as the president of the Free Enterprise Forum, a privately funded public policy organization focused on local governments here in Central Virginia.

Many years ago, in a meeting with a couple of members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and a number of Albemarle County business leaders, I shared my pencil story.

Back in the 90s, not unlike Albemarle at an earlier age, Green County Planning Department had two people.

It was a real accident efficient operation.

Applications were generally filled out right in the office with the planning director alongside to work through the paperwork.

Many applicants were arriving without an idea, with an idea of what they wanted to do, but not how.

They often came without a writing utensil because they didn't know they were going to have to fill out a form.

Recognizing the need and after losing a number of office pens, someone came up with the idea to give applicants in the planning department a planning department pencil to fill out the required paperwork.

In a moment of brilliance, they came up with the tagline for the pencil, permit us to permit you.

Those five words summed up the administration's position on planning, zoning, development, and redevelopment.

It was as simple as that.

This permit us philosophy does not suggest staff takes an approve everything approach.

Instead, it positions staff as a trusted guide, working with applicants to find legal ways to achieve their goals.

This trusted guide method encourages staff to take ownership of an application.

Too often, at all levels of government, the mantra is no one ever got fired for saying no.

After the Albemarle meeting, one of the business leaders offered to fund the printing of such pencils.

In 2015, I provided these pencils to planners across the region.

As pencils, when appropriately sharpened, wear out, I'm back.

Thanks to a new additional gift, I'm here presenting you a permit us to permit you pencil to each member of the Albemarle County Planning Commission, as well as Mr. Barnes, Ms. Steffendale, and Ms. Schaefer.

I have boxes here for Mr. Zvoda and Mr. McCall to distribute to the balance of CDD.

In addition to being emblazoned with the permit us philosophy, each and every pencil is equipped with a very useful implement on the non-sharpened end.

The eraser will work equally for applicants and staff in those areas where we need revision.

For over 20 years, the Free Enterprise Forum has been proud to work with you and your staff on public policy direction.

We look forward to continuing our pleasant persistence, pushing the envelope and sharpening the pencil to make our community a better place.

Thank you.

Moving on to our consent agenda, if there's any commissioner that would like to pull an item for further review.

I move to adopt the consent agenda as presented before us.

Second.

Yes.

Ms. Brown?

Mr. Clayburn.

Aye.

Ms. Firehock.

Aye.

Ms. King, I'm sorry.

Okay.

Moving on to our public hearing for CTA 2024-1, CMA 2026-7, CPA 2026-2, TA 2026-11, and RIO 29 form base code.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Before we start, I just wanted to sort of take a moment here to make a little recognition.

This is a major revision to an ordinance that was started several years ago, and I think that Mariah Gleason has done a great job of leading the charge, and I wanted to recognize her, as well as some of the other staff members, Leah Brumfield, who's worked very hard on this.

Jenny Tevendale, Bill Fritz, other people worked very hard on this ordinance.

But I also think it's important that we recognize a lot of people outside the building who helped work with this particular project.

We spent extensive time, you all, with two work sessions for sure.

Mr. Clayborne helped us a little bit on aspects of this.

But the development community and the architecture community and some of the

you know, property owners in the area.

I think we really try to reach out to them to try and create an ordinance that is both flexible and works to try and create the vision that we have for the community.

So I hope that what you are going to review tonight reflects that work and reflects that flexibility and trying to work as a community to build what we aspire to see.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Mariah Gleason.

I'm a senior planner in the planning division of the Community Development Department.

Thank you for allowing us to bring these applications to you for consideration tonight.

This work is the result of two years and many meetings with the development community and industry professionals as well as divisions, departments and partner agencies across the county.

Joining me tonight are Margaret Melcheski, who's also with the planning division, and Leah Brumfield, with the zoning division, and Todd Gordon and Joe Cole, who are our project consultants.

Todd is joining us in person tonight, and Joe is joining us online.

A lot of information was provided in the staff report and materials for these applications.

I've tailored this presentation to focus on the biggest changes that are proposed.

That said, I'd be happy to answer any questions about the staff report materials or presentation.

First, I'd like to go through some background terms and questions.

Question one, what is a form-based code?

Form-based codes are a type of zoning that focuses on the size and shape of buildings and their relationships to street and sidewalks rather than on land use like traditional zoning districts.

The purpose of form-based codes is to create places with a clear identity that feels connected and cohesive.

Two, what is the RIO 29 form-based code?

The RAIA 29 form-based code is a zoning district that allows by right dense urban development as an optional zoning district for properties within approximately a half mile from the intersection of Rio Road and Route 29.

So owners in that area have the option for development under the assigned zoning district or opting into this zoning district.

Question three, why are we updating the form-based code?

The Rio 29 form-based code is the county's first form-based code.

We knew that the form-based development projects would test the effectiveness of the code.

And at this point, there have been two development projects approved under the new code, highlighted in teal on the map.

Those reviews and additional feedback have helped us to identify where the form-based code can be strengthened to make it more clear, efficient, and effective.

And then the fourth question, what is the relationship between the Rio 29 small area plan, the Rio 29 form-based code, and the Rio 29 overlay district?

And for that, I think it'd be helpful to look at a timeline.

The RIO 29 small area plan was adopted in 2018 as part of the comprehensive plan.

It established a 20-year vision for development in the area around the RIO Road and Route 29 intersection.

And then in 2021, the county adopted the RIO 29 form-based code into the zoning ordinance and the overlay district map into the zoning map.

both as tools to implement the vision of the small area plan.

And as staff and developers worked with the code, we got a lot of feedback and identified areas of the code that needed clarification and revision.

When we started working on those updates in 2024, we initially thought the changes were limited to text edits within the form-based code, but as we got into it, we realized that more comprehensive changes were needed, including revisions to the overly district map,

In January and February this year we had work sessions with the Planning Commission.

Tonight we're bringing those proposed changes to the Planning Commission for their recommendations to the Board of Supervisors.

The applications are scheduled for a public hearing with the Board in November.

Since the second work session with the Planning Commission in February, staff have integrated the comments we received from the Planning Commission, updated the street cross sections to align with additional VDOT standards, updated the build-to ranges to meet building code standards, and added and strengthened requirements in response to the Planning Commission's recommendations for more environmental regulations.

So this is the list of applications for consideration tonight.

The ZTA covers amendments to the RIA 29 form-based code and related provisions in the larger zoning ordinance.

The ZMA covers amendments to the RIA 29 overlay district map.

The TA covers amendments to the subdivision ordinance needed to support the form-based code.

And the CPA covers updates to the specific development recommendations within the RIA 29 small area plan.

These amendments are necessary for alignment across county regulations and documents, the ability to effectively administer the form-based code, and ultimately for consistency in future developments within the RIAA 29 district.

The staff report and materials identified the changes being proposed in this presentation.

I'm going to focus on the biggest updates.

So we'll go through each one, but I'll pause after the fourth point for discussion before moving on to the remaining items.

I thought that would give the commission a chance to talk through the first group of updates and help break up the presentation a little bit.

One of the most noticeable changes to the form-based code is its reorganization and reformatting to align with the county's effort to modernize the zoning ordinance by making it more user-friendly.

In addition to clearer, more direct language, related requirements have also been grouped together.

Subsections within the form-based code were also reordered, reflecting the small area plan's emphasis on streets and recreation spaces and to better align the form-based code with the site plan review process.

These are a couple of examples of how reformatting street and recreation requirements into tables helped group related requirements together in one place.

The second change I want to highlight is the proposed revision to the character area boundaries within the form-based code overlay district, which is part of the overlay map or the zoning map.

I'll be on this slide for a while to explain what this map is showing.

The Rio 29 form-based code overlay district is organized into three character areas which identify the different levels of development intensity and activity.

The core area shown in red is intended to have the highest level of activity and development intensity.

You can think of the core area as the focal point or destination.

It essentially acts as the heart and center of the Rio 29 district.

Flex areas are in white.

They provide greater flexibility in building form and more moderate building heights.

And then edge areas in blue have the lowest development intensity.

Edge areas act as the transition between dense urban development and the existing single-family neighborhoods on the edges of the district.

In the feedback staff received, there were many comments about the extent and location of the core area.

There were specific concerns about the location of the core area being centered on the intersection of Rio Road and Route 29.

Both of these roads are high-volume, high-speed roadways, which is a challenge when trying to establish a type of comfortable, pedestrian-oriented, and safe environment and vision for the core.

So there's a tension between the urban design intent of the core and the existing character and function of these major roadways.

We also heard concerns about the size of the core area.

The existing core area, which is about 109 acres, is required to have commercial and retail uses on the ground floors of every building, in addition to other building form and design requirements that are meant to support commercial activity.

Given the size of the core and the feedback we got, we believe the implementation of those requirements would dilute instead of concentrate activity and undermine the vision of the small area plan.

To address these challenges, staff are proposing two changes.

The first is to shift the core area designation to align with existing shopping centers, Rio Hill Shopping Center to the north, Albemarle Square, and Fashion Square Mall.

These are areas where a density of commercial activity is already present and the ownership isn't as fractured.

This change creates a clear distinction between the two functions.

Major roadways can continue to accommodate regional transportation through the area, while pedestrian-oriented core areas can focus on creating places where people feel comfortable and want to slow down, walk around, explore, and spend time.

The proposed map is similar to the squares design alternative that was presented in the RIAA 29 Smiley Area Plan.

With this approach, edge areas would stay the same and parcels that are no longer designated core would be redesignated as flex areas shown in white.

Relatedly, and the third aspect I want to highlight is the addition of new destination streets as a street type.

This street type is introduced as a way to establish concentrated commercial activity centers or destinations within each core area.

Instead of applying design standards meant to support pedestrian activity across the whole core area indiscriminately, these standards would be focused and tailored to this street type.

Doing so has the added benefit of allowing more flexibility in the design standards of surrounding areas.

A good example of the look and feel in the street type is Bond Street at the shops at Stonefield.

So similar to Bond Street, these streets are envisioned to be at least 1,200 feet in length, which is a little less than a quarter mile.

The fourth change I'd like to highlight is a change to the application of regulations.

Under the current form-based code, requirements can depend on both the character area and a budding street type, which make it difficult to understand how different regulations work together on a given site.

And the revised code development regulations are primarily determined by a budding street type.

This reframing of requirements around street type creates a more consistent experience along each street, regardless of where that street crosses character area boundaries.

The revised code,

also introduces a street hierarchy.

The street hierarchy works by designating a primary street for each development or building and the result is a more predictable and consistent building form and orientation along those higher ranking streets while giving developers more flexibility alongside streets.

We can pause here for discussion.

You've decided we wanted to give you a break halfway through the long presentation.

You've seen the materials before, you may not have as much.

I have a quick question.

On the core map, the core area map,

My memory is not great, but I feel like the one that we looked at that might be proposed during the work session had like four areas instead of three that were more similar to the original one but took the highways out.

That one was the graphic from the small area plan that highlighted four different quadrants.

When we looked at, okay, where is there already a center of activity and commercial cluster going?

There are only three.

I think also, Mariah mentioned something there about the larger consolidation of the land in those particular areas.

probably gives it a better chance of trying to get a cohesive design, more of this destination street than that south western quadrant, which is a bit more fragmented in its ownership.

And so I think the last thing is, you know, we should have been asking ourselves, you know, the shops at Stonefield and Bond Street, can we get another one at this intersection?

I think we can.

Can we get two?

I'd like to hope.

Can we get three?

That might be starting to push it to try and get that kind of, the market may not be willing to accept three sort of high density destination type streets.

One of the shopping centers may stay in its traditional form for some time.

Well, first, before any questions, really, I just wanted to offer a lot of kudos and then plaudits for clearly what's a major effort and very well thought out and has all kinds of broad feedback and input.

I was reading through the ample materials for this meeting and I was like, wow, this is a lot here.

This is really clear and well done.

On the map, since my colleagues just had a map question,

I realize actually these are not changed at all from the original, but I was just curious about the logic behind splitting up some existing developments or some existing plazas into two different categories and two cases.

One is Cobalt Ridge, which is actually part of it is in Flex down at the southern edge there.

And then the other part across Hillsdale is not even in the plan, which is just odd since it's one owner for both.

I think I think we were trying to have some fidelity to the previous planning work this thing this project originally started by just trying to fix a few of the totally

elements of the code that weren't working for the developers, several other folks were looking at it.

So it kind of grew.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

And if it's not one of the things that's being specifically called out, then, you know, no need to fix it right today.

Okay, let's move on.

The next three topics act as umbrellas for several related changes.

I'll discuss a few items within each, but I'm happy to answer questions on the others.

The next point I'd like to highlight is the increased amount of flexibility in the proposed form-based code.

We heard from developers, architects, and designers that greater flexibility would help make the form-based code more attractive.

There was particular support for agent-approved modifications, which reduce application costs to developers and allows site plans to move through the site review process more quickly.

Since efficiency within the site planning process was an important benefit to developers, staff wanted to preserve and strengthen those aspects of the form-based code.

So in the revised code, there are 22 agent-approved modifications and 14 board-approved special exceptions.

Proposed modifications will also allow a property to opt out of the form-based code if construction on the site hasn't yet begun and the approved site plan expires.

In the sixth point, I'd like to highlight the collective changes that were made to the recreation space requirements.

Many changes were made to this section, and that was discussed in the staff report.

But I'd like to focus on the first bullet point, which is about proposed changes to the form-based code overlaid district map.

In addition to the character areas, the overlay district map identifies where certain types of publicly accessible recreation space referred to on this map as civic spaces are required.

In the current map, those recreation spaces are shown with green dots while required linear parks, which are a type of green space, are shown as green lines.

In the proposed map on the right, these aspects are shown in black instead of green.

So the black dots are recreation spaces and the black lines are linear parks.

Several changes have been made in the proposed map.

The first change aligns with required recreation spaces or aligns required recreation spaces with known development plans or guidance from Albemarle County's Parks and Recreation Department.

The result is the removal of three recreation spaces identified on the left and adjusting the location of two others shown with arrows.

Second, the proposed map revises the type of recreation spaces required in these specific locations to align with revised design standards.

Lastly, the proposed map recommends a new linear park along the northern boundary of the Albemarle Square property to connect planned linear parks in that area.

And that addition is consistent with the recommendations of the small area plan.

And I'll just say by removing these spaces, we haven't removed the requirement for form-based code developments to provide recreation spaces.

It just gives developers on other parcels more flexibility on the location and type of civic space, I'm sorry, recreation space they can provide.

In this seventh and last topic, I wanted to highlight that there are several proposed changes that relate to building design.

I'm going to focus on the first two, building height and fenestration.

The proposed changes align permitted building heights within the form-based code with the recommendations from the comprehensive plan, AC44, which was adopted last fall.

The comprehensive plan identifies the Ride 29 form-based code area as a regional center.

recommending building heights between three and eight stories.

Building design requirements were also revised to refine the fenestration requirements.

These requirements essentially regulate the amount of windows or openings along the face of a building.

The higher the percentage, the higher the amount of openings or fenestration.

So currently the fenestration requirements are very general, almost a one size fits all approach to buildings within each character area.

While the intention may have been for consistency among buildings in the same character area, we found that this was creating challenges for developers, particularly for residential developments.

The proposed administration requirements differentiate between residential and non-residential units and also different street types, allowing greater flexibility in internal space planning and building design.

That's the final topic I had for you tonight in this presentation.

I realize there are a lot of materials, but I didn't want to bore you or for you to sleep in the presentation.

So I tried to condense it.

But as we move into discussion,

Again, I'm happy to answer any questions, but it has been brought to our attention that there are two errors in the draft code that I'd like to point out.

The first is a reference to a modification that has since been removed from the ordinance.

We just forgot to delete the reference.

The second involves a modification intended to allow flexibility for the four housing types listed in the original requirement.

One of those four housing types was unintentionally left out.

of the modification language will correct both of those items before it goes to the board.

There's also one change to the proposed overly district map.

The map legend needs to be updated to replace the term civic spaces with recreation spaces, which is the same term that's used in the revised form-based code.

And that concludes my presentation.

By by go anywhere do you mean that they you can't see clearly yeah exactly you can't see no they would have to Openings have to also meet a transparency requirement meaning how clearly you can see through them so They couldn't just be spandrel glass that have a wall that are black and have a wall behind them.

They would have to be

you would have to be able to see through them.

I mean, part of making a vibrant mixed use community is that those facades are engaging.

So we wanted to make sure that the regulations reflect that.

So another question.

In the in the regional

In the original Purpose and Intent, there's this line that said, number three, a place enhanced through conservation with a network of sustainable and usable public spaces that enrich community and preserve and enhance natural resources.

I've noticed that in the new section that covers the Purpose and Intent, there's nothing like that in the new Purpose and Intent.

There's nothing that really references sustainability or conservation.

I know that there still are elements of sustainability and conservation throughout the edits.

But it doesn't seem like that that's sort of been dropped from the purpose of intent.

And I was just wondering what the reasoning was behind that.

Yes.

I'm glad you brought that up.

So it did, I'm bringing up the attachment three that you received in the packet.

I think this might be a good place that we can scroll through the ordinance and just look at why a modification was made or where it's coming from.

So I believe you're in this section and in that

The language that you just read is taken from the vision of the Rio 29 small area plan in that that is essentially a quote from the plan.

When we went to revise this and meet the zoning modernization guidelines, making it more user friendly, the advice that we got is if another document says it, you don't need to say it again, just reference the document.

So that's what we did.

We included a link.

in the first sentence of the form-based code that links directly to that vision language.

And then in the character area section, some of the revised language that we added was this common to all three character areas is the provision of an integrated pedestrian bike network, speaking to the connectivity piece, and then connections

Connections to the core areas, publicly accessible recreation spaces and regional bicycle paths are the highest priority.

So we hope to integrate that network piece into that portion of it.

We can also look at the recreation spaces.

Yeah, so I mean, when you, for example, if you just do a word search on the conservation, for example, right?

So the word conservation occurs in the original document does not occur in the new document.

That would be a good thing to talk about because part of having these recreation spaces in urban places is not necessarily for conservation, which is the removal of humans from a natural place.

It's meant to provide a break and respite in place and function as that balance to dense urban development.

So that's the difference between conservation and preservation.

I think you're thinking preservation, not conservation.

So maybe Karen can elaborate on that more.

But conservation of natural resources are things like

protecting water quality by limiting the nutrients that flow into water, protecting biodiversity by providing habitat for the pollinators of things by including native plants in the design.

And there actually, there are elements of that in the plan where, you know, you do have things like pollinator gardens mentioned.

There are things where it's referencing native plants.

But so

but conservation is really conserving the natural resources that we have, including water, air, biodiversity, so forth.

And so, I mean, I would argue that even in an urban environment, conservation still is a viable goal.

Now this is really good.

I had a couple of questions.

No, we sent it to them.

Yes, they were helpful in identifying some of those corrections to the code that we just missed, but we haven't heard any

any negative reviews?

We definitely, there was several rounds of working with folks.

We kind of joked about our outside counsel helping us to try and get the language polished a little bit.

So hopefully I'm waiting for the public comment session, but you know, I think we've done a good job trying to integrate to the extent, I mean, obviously there were places where

Somebody may want more flexibility than we were willing to nominate for the code.

That's great.

And then my second question was around existing buildings.

I know that's probably a little more challenging because this is geared for new construction and so forth.

With the amount of building stock that is aiming to be repurposed when you look at the work that's really happening now, if there was an existing building within one of these districts that was undergoing renovation, are there things that we could look at to help try to push sustainability or climate responsiveness within the form-based code?

When we talked to our climate action program staff, one of the responses we got back is that the greenest building is the existing building.

Just because they don't go through, like, fill in waste, there's no waste from the reuse of a building necessarily.

You know, whether or not that building functions optimally is a different question.

but we did try to improve its ability to take in existing building stock knowing particularly that with these if we desire these big

shopping centers to redevelop they have underlying contracts with companies that have different renewal rates so building in a phasing that doesn't require them to go to the board of supervisors or we do have certain elements of okay you're

Primary entrance needs to be oriented a certain way to create that consistency along those high priority streets.

But in terms of, you know, punching walls through for the fenestration, there are allowances for that.

They don't need to meet those requirements right off the bat.

Now, if there are

Renovations that happen after it's brought into the code.

It might be an opportunity to look at materials.

And I think we touch on it a little bit in the documents we have here today, but we make reference to LEED.

So I just pulled it up to a newer like LEED version five, for example.

I wanted to pull it up just to get a sense of what they're moving towards.

And they're starting to talk more about decarbonization.

So it goes like material uses and so forth.

We did look at that.

At one point, we had written in that, you know, if they if any building pursuits LEED standards, we'd be willing to accept that.

At the end of the day, what we realized is if a building wants to pursue LEED standards, they essentially don't they might not want to do form based code.

It would be easier to just do the underlying zoning district.

We did bring in the roof materials, LEED credit standards.

We did not necessarily

Link that to a certain version of LEAD, knowing that that can change over time.

And I think my comments are more about the spirit of it.

So I'm not saying you should be pursuing a certain certification, but just like the spirit of where the industry is heading.

and tack on that for just a second though.

I mean, one of the things we talked about last time too, and maybe, you know, we talked about standards for low impact development and stormwater and the possibility of including some sustainable features, particularly things like curb cuts or parking islands.

And you know, there's some discussion about maybe that should be our standard for everything.

Maybe if it's a good idea, maybe we just do that everywhere.

But I think there could be some opportunities here to some basic things like providing curb cuts and health strips so that we're not keeping the water out of the landscape areas, which is just foolish.

It was, we spoke with industry professionals and evaluated a range of potential regulations.

We also looked at the requirements in other jurisdictions.

This is a list of some of the regulations we investigated.

In the end, we didn't recommend including these provisions in the revised form-based code, largely because they either weren't consistent with the form-based code's purpose of dense urban or infill development.

They required high engineering or maintenance costs that would make development under the form-based code less attractive or most interesting because more broad application of these requirements across the county would be more effective.

So you mentioned curb cuts in parking areas.

Those weren't recommended because of the cost it takes to design those.

those elements and they require backup systems for heavy storm events.

Green roofs are, they require stronger building materials and reinforcement mechanisms so that was an added cost that designers thought would make it less attract, make the form-based code less attractive.

And then in terms of, you know, on-street

Stormwater provisions.

The streets are owned and maintained by VDOT.

Thanks.

I did note, Lonnie, that there is in there now, it mentions green, vegetated rooftops, green walls, and also shows a bioswale in one of the street sections.

So that was my little yea moment.

Yeah, I mean, I think at least providing some sort of nudge, like here's some things you can do.

I guess I have questions about the parking and looking at that list.

I mean, all three of those shopping areas have massive parking lots that are underutilized and have been underutilized since they were constructed.

And it seems like redevelopment is the right time

to change the parking requirements.

Because clearly, like the build out of those parking lots is, you know, wasted area.

It's, you know, creating lots of runoff, lots of heat.

I mean, that just seems like one of the more obvious things to reconsider the required spaces.

And I'm not sure if

It's included in the code, but, you know, maybe, you know, the parking by as well as or whatever, maybe, you know, too expensive, but some minimum for some canopy.

or other natural features in the parking lots to reduce the heat island effect and help absorb some of the water would be helpful.

Oh, I was just going to say one of the things closely related to that is I was noticing, I did agree there's a part where it changed the strict

And if you percent versus number.

And I think one thing that I think could help with that is I think I could see a flexibility on specifically trees to also include, you know, if someone's put a biofilter or stormwater type facilities, I would see that as just as valuable as a tree.

I don't think that the intent is to disencourage any of that.

Certainly, the major thing we're trying to do is redevelop the parking lots into a more dense format.

And there are tree canopy requirements or trees required to be planted back in parking lots.

We were just trying to, I think the logic being,

if this is something that's really good for the county we should make it something that happens as part of the zoning mod and should apply across the board.

This district being tough enough to do as it is with all the other infrastructure to try out things that would be innovative and specialized to this district but not applicable to other ones creates disincentive and so that's basically our logic and I think our recommendation is

As we go through updating the phase three of the zoning model, we're actually talking about new regulations and stuff like that.

I'd just add in terms of parking lot design the standard is moving more towards canopy cover rather than numbers of trees so that it gives more opportunity to be creative with how you lay out the parking lot.

So you get the same effect but with more flexibility.

I did make a comment in the document though that there's a

recommended in the zoning code for this parking maximum, which is good to have a maximum.

But I stated that the maximum is too generous.

The maximum is 150 percent of the of the parking that's required.

So in other words, they're saying to a developer, if you you can build 50 percent extra parking beyond what we require, but no more than 50 percent more industry standard is more like if you're going to let them go over the top,

1.25%, in other words, 125% so that you don't let them go much more over the, you know what I mean?

I appreciate many of the other questions.

I don't have a specific question related to these particular.

I have a very general question that I think you hopefully can maybe answer easily, maybe not.

When you were talking recently about the activity centers,

I think it's something we definitely will be investigating.

And so that was, my colleague here has cautioned me to not make that the beginning of my first statements.

But yeah, I think that's the idea is that

You know, I think the new Zoning Ordinance, this would be a great district for people who are trying to redevelop in some of these denser areas of our regional activity centers.

And so I think this would be something we can replicate to the activity center process.

Thank you.

I also wanted to extend our gratitude.

to all the work the county has done on this for a long time.

You know, I've been involved with the North Worth calls and reached out to community members, development community, the design community, and others.

So it's been a long time coming.

And I think they're very, very positive amendments that are being made.

My colleague, Commissioner Firehock, also provided a lot of very useful

Recommendations that I think will make it even better.

And so I encourage you to incorporate as many of those as possible.

You know, back to the conservation question.

So I do think there's a lot of conservation elements in this plan.

Perhaps you're not taking enough credit for that.

Beginning of when I first got here, Ryan and I were chatting about the development in Emmett Ivy.

So when you look at Emmett Ivey and what's happened there throughout the last few years, you see a lot of density that has gone up with all the different buildings, a hotel and conference center, housing projects, a school for data science, Karsh Institute, two more big projects coming.

When you walk in there and you actually engage that corridor, the first thing that you'll notice is that there is a daylighted stream.

that has habitat, stormwater management, and that's the focal point of that whole corridor.

So you can take something that's very dense, but you incorporate the conservation elements that preserve our water, our air, and so forth, as Commissioner Murray was talking about.

I see a lot of those in here.

I mean, you do talk about plantings.

You do talk about multimodal.

All of those help conserve.

And so perhaps you might want to take a little bit more credit for what you already have in there.

I think it is in there.

It's just perhaps as Commissioner Murray was saying, if you do a word search, conservation, maybe it doesn't pop up.

And so I would encourage you to maybe think about that.

And I'll just add on to that in the descriptions of the various open spaces, those little diagrams.

For those of you who've been following this process along for a while, they got greener.

And in the very early stages, there was like sort of this idea of like big plazas, you know, just hard space.

And I said, these are going to be hot.

No one's going to sit in there.

So, you know, it's it's much greener than it was if you actually look back to earlier versions.

I think we are.

I think that having all these little green pockets with that throughout the development, which will occur if you look at the code, not so much the

locations of the parks, but just all the requirement for outside spaces.

I used to work on Premier Circle, and my staff would just go bonkers because we're a conservation organization and there's nowhere to go for a walk.

And you couldn't even just sit outside.

There was just like nowhere.

And it would have made that building much more rentable if there was just something.

just anything to go have your peanut butter sandwich at, you know, just something.

So I think that it will really enliven the space.

And I think while we're not requiring green rooftops and green walls, we're at least mentioning them and buildings that incorporate those elements rent faster and for higher profit than buildings that are not green.

People are demanding that in the market.

I think one of the nice features too is the cash in lieu option, which I think that that provides flexibility and will allow us to build larger parks, which we haven't been able to do before.

This is a bit of an aside but I had a conversation at this recent class with a member of the planning staff from the city and she said they are frantically rolling back some of the foreign-based code that has really caused a lot of like heartache in the last two years in city developments and

It sounds like some of the allowed exceptions have enabled developers to really build right up to the curb and the idea that some of the form-based code would actually increase the green space and some of the natural features in the streetscapes has not materialized because of those exceptions being like

I mean, it's a different, I understand it's a whole different environment.

The threat of us building out to the curve on 29 of here is not really realistic, but it sounds like they were really met with some surprises that they didn't anticipate.

Yeah, that's kind of our understanding.

We have a better consultant maybe.

It would also be the exception process.

I mean, that might be part of it as well.

Most of these roads are in the entrance corridor overlay district, which is street trees are part of the entrance corridor guidelines.

So we worked closely with the ARB to make sure that, well, street trees aren't something that can be accepted.

They can't be waived with the exception of if they conflict with VDOT requirements or curb cuts or something like that.

So if you have a driveway, we don't expect you to put the tree in the middle of the driveway.

But for most intents and purposes, those requirements

There aren't many exceptions to them to be able to waive them.

They are a required aspect of all of our streets.

And they essentially come first.

So they're part of that right of way.

So before you can even start to develop on your private property, they're already taken care of.

So I think one of the best things we could do in terms of trees is, and keep in mind the City of Charlottesville and what they've done is, I think we need a tree commission for Albemarle County.

I think, you know, group of advisors that can provide guidance on making sure that those trees aren't just planted, but that they survive in terms of design standards and so forth.

Richard Moore Thanks for the question earlier about the maps.

I had a few other questions, sort of ranging from fairly specific to really zoomed out.

And the first was not so much a question, but just to get a comment on the detail and thought that went into this.

And I learned more about fenestration requirements than I've ever known.

I'm also glad to see there's no defenestration requirement, but that's something I'll just leave out the window.

and also I appreciate your your angle too on on seeing how these spaces will be used the conservation spaces for people that's tends to be the the lens I bring to it as well as you know how are people going to use spaces in here for you know relaxation or gathering or socialization or events or whatever it might be and and that actually kind of made me wonder

The logic behind switching the language from civic spaces to recreation spaces.

Because from what I understand or read the definition of civic spaces before included recreation.

Good question.

So that change was more a reflection of not a change in the use of those spaces, but the ownership of the spaces when we, one of the primary changes in the recreation spaces were that

The current form-based code requires all of them to be publicly owned, but to do that would mean that we would expect about 60 dispersed and probably small public recreation spaces or civic spaces.

So we moved away from that acknowledging that we as the county might not be able to maintain all of those spaces to a high quality.

And also we received some feedback that, you know, maybe

developers want to retain some control over those spaces.

So that's when we switch to, okay, these can be both publicly and privately owned.

We'll focus public ownership on the larger sites or the required sites in the zoning map.

And so larger, just meaning more than one acre

in size and for the smaller ones will allow those to be privately maintained with public access to them.

Right.

It might be confusing to call it a civic space when it's privately held.

I think what we're really trying to do is strike that balance between trying to maintain

Thumb Green within the area, not letting it completely become

I know in the yeah in the in the development area we just quite recently sort of got our first sweeping beauty so I know it's a not a large budget yet for that that type of department.

Thank you.

I had a sort of zoomed out question as well if you don't mind which was just kind of looking at the the small area plan that was passed eight years ago the form-based code passed five years ago and we've only got two sort of fairly modest projects in the mix so obviously some of the carrots that we were dangling to developers weren't weren't very good carrots or there were some carrots missing or something and I was just wondering kind of two angles on on this in all of this what are the

I would definitely say one carrot is, and it's still the same carrot, and that is the leaf puppy, you know, barite goes straight to a site plant.

and how that flexibility is probably our biggest carrot that we have.

If somebody's going to do this type of form of development, as opposed to like wanting to do this type of form of development and having to go through a rezoning.

I think the second carrot is listening to this is a complex thing that we're trying to do.

And that

there should be generalizing of the things we're trying to get achieved and some flexibility to respond, some phasing, other ways to sort of accept what is the conditions on the ground.

Take some of these shopping centers, they may need to retain a part of the shopping center for two or three phases, maybe permanently as part of the program in the space.

And so that's going to be a huge carrot.

More flexibility in how it's developed.

Yeah.

Great.

And then I was wondering sort of the flip side of that is, you know, I know this is almost exclusively a proposal, a set of a suite of policies and procedures to essentially encourage private development of a thing.

We're not really talking much public here.

But what carrots to encourage that private development weren't able to include?

For example, I don't know.

That's what I'm asking.

Have we gotten all the carrots we can?

Some of the infrastructure that needs to support this is something that

You know, some of it being the road infrastructure that supports the area.

Some of it being the transit that supports the area.

I think it's one thing we heard, like if you want to go for less parking, we need to be able to get people to move around.

And so that's the investment in the multimodal part of this.

That's part of the puzzle.

Yeah, thanks for that.

I know it's a little, again, I zoom out to the big picture on that question, but thank you for that.

And I was just thinking about too the strategy behind this and how we could have, and this is getting beyond just the two of you and the conversation here, but we could have invested public funds in a public good in the space to kind of kickstart this off.

We had a chance with the courthouse.

That was a missed opportunity.

I'm wondering what,

and this is more toward the board, can the county be a public developer of some of this stuff to really get this going?

Can we invest our public resources, which will come back to us in the longterm, to start making some of this happen instead of always just dangling carrots?

They can be great carrots, but until we start making the carrot juice ourselves or the carrot cake or the carrot, you know, the delicious roasted carrots,

you know we can we can do all that and and then bring you know kind of the private along with it but I feel like until we start developing some of that public stuff that I mean that that can really be a real spark and kickstarter for some of this and I feel like we've just been waiting and waiting and waiting and I don't know how to make that a priority for aside from a couple conversations I had with my pals on the board.

That's maybe a comment to make sure the Board of Supervisors hears.

I mean, I've been on this body long enough to have gone through the first form based code process.

This is now round two.

And, you know, I brought up that point at the time that the county should also invest its resources.

And that could even be something like putting some kind of county facility there that would draw a lot of people to come to

you know, a spot that would then create more foot traffic or more, you know, something there.

You mentioned courthouse.

There's a reason why it makes sense to separate the courts logistically for the client, for the attorneys and the clients, but something that would be attractive and then, you know, spending money on

helping fix up the streetscape and create those, you know, bringing in that street furniture and the attractive lighting and not, I mean, sure, everyone hopes the development committee will just come and do all that nice stuff, but it's expensive.

And so, you know, like if you, we did this in downtown Belmont, which

was a joke when I was living there and everyone was like, what?

Everything's boarded up buildings.

And we said, let's put in sidewalks, street trees, furniture, trash cans, all this stuff and facade loans and did all this.

And now it's like the hopping place, but it was dead, dead, dead.

The city had to use CDBG funds to invest in creating that civic infrastructure to give imagination to this place that was a bunch of boarded up buildings.

I appreciate the echo.

I think we are essentially trying to make like a new downtown or uptown as it were.

And there's plenty of examples like that throughout the country where cities, even small cities, doesn't have to be a major city, have invested in an area, a redevelopment area, and then brought investors to it.

And more for the supervisors than for you guys.

It's worth noting there's some funding mechanisms we're not using as well, like transportation impact fees that we could adopt as a county that provide much needed funding for some of these things that we find very difficult to fund.

OK, we are going to open up for public hearing.

Nobody signed up.

You have somebody online?

We have somebody who wants to speak.

I think you know the drill.

State your name and your stereo district.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm Valerie Long with the law firm of Williams-Mullen.

I'm a resident of the Whitehall Magisterial District.

First, I want to thank Raya and her team and Michael and their team.

We spent a lot of time working on this.

I was involved in the early beginnings of the Rio form-based code, and we represent one of the three large owners of land in the proposed core area.

So we spent a lot of time working with all of the various drafts that have been released over the last few years and providing a lot of feedback.

There's been a lot of improvements.

There's still a lot of challenges.

This is really designed, in our opinion, is in an ideal world, if you had single owners of one of those large areas and maybe the other two will work better.

But if I should score them all, we don't have that luxury.

Belk owns its building.

The old JCPenney building is under different ownership and under lease to the county.

The parcels are all unusually shaped.

And unfortunately, there's not going to be a single new developer of the residue of that mall property.

So we've been working closely with multiple prospective purchasers and developers of the property pieces of it over the last couple of years.

And we're finding the proposals challenging.

There are some new exceptions and flexibility provisions that we've advocated strongly for.

They're still not, in our opinion,

sufficiently flexible to actually provide the carrot or the incentive.

We spent a lot of time trying to help clients say, should we use this?

Should we not use this?

What's the best way to go?

And so I think there is still room for work there to try to find that balance that I think everyone's trying to get to.

How can we have requirements so that we have some reasonable certainty that we'll get the type of design we want?

but also provide enough flexibility.

It's inherently a challenge, but I think that there needs to be a little bit, it could go better.

We still have concerns about the new requirements for destination streets and the requirements for a certain percentage of the ground floor space has 60% of both sides of the street have to be non-residential.

which may not work in many locations there isn't some new flexibility that says well if you can show that there's room elsewhere in your site for a destination street you don't have to have one with your area but it still requires time and requests for exceptions there's still thus a lot of uncertainty time and money involved to even get an answer of are we going to get this waiver or not

And lastly, I would suggest, I don't think there's been a discussion about the increase in parking requirements for non-residential uses, including hotels.

There are substantial increases.

There were reductions in multifamily, which is a positive, but we think there should be far more flexibility in the parking.

And I'm happy to speak more about that, but my time is up.

Neil Williamson with the Free Enterprise Forum.

I, like Ms. Firehock and Ms. Long, have been here long enough to have been through the first round and now the second round of form-based code.

And there are significant improvements.

We are still very happy to see it as an optional overlay so the clients can look at both versions and see where it goes.

We take some exception to the idea of adaptive reuse of strip malls.

I understand there may be some short-term environmental impacts, but I think that those impacts would be the improvement of the built community would overshadow those.

I'm concerned about the fenestration.

I work

off Hillsdale Drive, not too far from Ms. Firehock's old office.

And right there, as I sit at the light of Commonwealth, I look at a pet store that has and has had for 23 years shelves in front of their windows.

They didn't want to do that.

The ARB made them do that.

Now, the Longview says that pet store won't be there forever.

And so if you're okay with shelves in the window, which I think the community has decided they are, that's what you get with administration that doesn't deal with form, that deals with form, not function.

I hope that you will have some flexibility with that, especially we've seen this at the ARB with regard to banking entities that have certain requirements where they can't be seen inside.

And so there are those things that need to be modified.

That being said, I'm really happy to hear about the potential phasing.

I've heard that is a huge problem for some of the property owners.

And I'm hopeful that that phasing can be years.

I also would call out the same thing that we've talked about before, the public investment is not there and it could be a spark to make this community move forward.

I think back to a former economic development director who in his former town had really advocated for structured parking and that structured parking created additional space for commerce and open space and trees and that created this whole strip of greenness that

permeated the community and it opened up commerce.

So it can be done, but it does require the PPP, a public-private partnership generally to make such things happen.

But the idea of utilizing that space for perhaps a structured parking and a transit stop makes a whole lot of sense.

and if the county wanted to relocate, well, wait a minute, they did relocate their library across the street.

That wasn't really a good idea.

But if they wanted to relocate county services in one of these corridors, it would make sense for something.

I took care of the other one.

There's nobody in line.

There's nobody in line.

Okay.

Then we will close the public hearing.

Bringing it back to the Commissioner for any additional thoughts.

I will echo the some of the comments on structured parking.

And I do think there may be not enough here to

bring that thinking into the forefront because there is a lot of benefits.

I can tell you that one of the first things that we do at UVA when we're master planning a new area Fontaine is a perfect example in order to get the 350,000 square foot Manning Institute for Biotechnology we had to build a parking deck.

So we're building on structured, on paved parking lots.

Those are becoming our building footprints.

And because we're doing that, we're able to actually have some green areas in Fontaine, where before there was a green strip down the middle.

That is actually now what we call the spine road, which actually has street trees, and it's got bioswales.

and so there's going to be a lot more green, there's going to be a lot more parking and about 900,000 additional square feet in Ponte, eventually.

If I could just tag onto that too, I just recommend if you haven't looked at them, the parking decks that the city of Stanton built, they are designed with a really beautiful facade.

The city paid for it because they wanted to enliven the downtown businesses that didn't have enough parking.

So the city built, they blended very beautifully with historic architecture.

So there's parking decks and there's parking decks, but that investment by the city spurred the whole redevelopment of downtown Stanton.

and it was because the city invested, but they got it all back in spades in tax revenue.

I was gonna say, there's some great comments that were made.

Okay, I'm gonna pull them up.

These parking requirements are lower than our standard parking requirements in the larger zoning ordinance.

They were raised.

I'll start with the non-residential and the hotel and lodging.

Those were increased.

We looked at Arlington's, the parking requirements for Arlington County, Columbia Pike, and Virginia Beach, their form-based code.

All of them we realized had

required more parking than we did and recognizing that they are, they operate as cities that have great public transit, amazing walkability, and where we are in this

This stage of transformation, we aren't quite there yet.

When UVA has games, every hotel room is booked.

I think, you know, thinking of hotels, that really does beg the question of, should every hotel room have a parking space?

Most of those folks are coming from out of town, I would say, probably yes.

So they're recognizing that we are on our way, but not there yet.

So we tried to build something that was realistically ambitious.

And then for the residential, the state code was recently updated to have to require lower or our parking space requirement was lower than what they've established as their minimum threshold.

So we really couldn't go we couldn't

We aligned with the state code in that particular requirement, so we couldn't require short-term parking and we could only require so much standard parking.

And the 150% here is what Commissioner Firehock was referring.

And I suggested it would be 125.

Yeah.

Sorry.

So your suggestion was.

My chairman is helping me with my reading skills.

And the developers who build hotels might have a better sense of what type of guests they have and where they're coming from.

Wouldn't it make sense for them to have like a little flexibility on that minimum?

I don't know what the downside is.

If you have one space for RAM and some percentage of people will be Ubering everywhere and are coming in from somewhere else.

That could be the maximum ever needed and might not ever be needed.

We have a modification if they would like to provide less.

We just ask that they provide information to allow us to agree with them.

So this is the modification they can ask

where they can request an increase and they can also request a reduction.

And we ask for a needs study.

And that's in alignment with our typical zoning practices now.

And, you know, just a little commentary.

I appreciate that government doesn't always move as quickly as we'd like it to.

We had to try and create some kind of rules here.

The purpose of the zoning ward is to try to keep the rules that we're going to play by with the game here.

And I would love for us to be able to just say, hey, bring us something you like and we'll look at it and kind of tell you whether we like it or not.

We can't be that loosey-goosey.

And so we're trying to create the rules.

We do have flexibility and ways to amend those rules.

And I appreciate the comment that that doesn't create a vested by right scenario for the developers when they come in.

And then the only thing I can say is we will work very hard to try and get that answer to you and come to a resolution as quickly as we can.

that's that's how we sort of I think we should have taken that spirit into this this document which can be tough we have to have the flexibility we're setting some rules we try and do our best to get your response and then try to like create that

In addition to get you to a title project so that you can move the project forward, we fully understand that time is money.

It's one of the first activity centers you're going to be looking at is going to be close to the airport.

I'd especially consider you to think about that in terms of people flying in may not need a space.

They may very well be taking transportation from the airport to their hotel room.

OK. Well, Commissioner King, do you want to?

I'd like to ask a question of staff that's a little more general but related to what you were just talking about which is the modifications.

I think because I wasn't here as long as Neil and Karen have been here, it might be helpful if you think you could quickly summarize sort of in layman's terms what the process would be like if someone wanted

I'm thinking of, you know, not the current owner, but a potential future buyer of the real estate says, okay, we've read this.

It's complicated.

We have questions.

They'd come and meet with you guys to do an informal question and answer session, but if they want approval for modifications, what do you expect that timeline to look like?

I think the other aspect of that is when in the process.

Right.

If you have somebody who has a contract purchase on a piece of property and they want to know can they get a modification to the number of commercial parking spaces for their hotel.

Exactly.

The question is probably going to be, I need to understand a little bit more about your development and where the hotel is going to be and how it's, you know, what is their parking?

Is there backup parking around there?

Do we have a good transit line running through this area?

So that, yeah, there is details that will have to be provided.

Let's just say now we're in a site plan process.

I think that that would be a written request, part of the initial package.

I think we would, you know, work in the rounds of review.

I don't know exactly how, but I would say the second or third round, the second round of review, I would hope that we would be able to provide that.

the clarifications on these waivers.

If not, I think it would be in the review process, unfortunately, on stuff like that.

There's many things like allowing street trees to be moved.

It's like some utilities are in the way, too.

Because ultimately, we're trying to get street trees on the street.

And there'll be times that we have a site distance requirement or fire hydrants or what have you.

And it's going to be in engineering.

and I think as much as anything it's the attitude we take towards it and recognizing that we have to be able to bend on some of these things.

We're not going to have trees on, maybe not on every, you might have a street, you only have trees on one side of the street or sporadically on one side of the street to accommodate some of these types of developments.

Walk around the city, you know, walk around some places that have sort of redeveloped or gotten more intense

they're trade-offs that have to happen.

And so I think I see this thing as we're gonna go through the site plan process and we're gonna have to be flexible and work with the developers.

We're incentivized to get this form.

If I could back you up on that.

If your question is about, you know, how do we expect to roll it out?

How do we expect to engage with the development community?

I think whenever somebody has come in kind of having interest in the form-based code, we've always offered meetings.

We've offered to look at their plans.

We've offered to talk them through the requirements, cursory reviews to try to kind of identify things before they even get into a formal process or even start thinking about a formal process.

Once they start looking at a formal process, we would, as this process is written into the code, the first step would be a pre-application meeting with staff, which is typical of all of our rezoning and special use permits.

We kind of see this as the same

place and time to get on the same page about, okay, what is your development hoping to accomplish?

What are the major red flags we see?

And let's just kind of identify those before you even start hitting a shot clock with the site plan review process.

And at that point, I would hope that we're identifying what modifications might you need.

As the plan might not be fully built out at that point, initial plans have less detail in them than final site plans do, kind of following the

I would hope that we are identifying the red flags as we see them come in and then in terms of processing and modification.

All of the modifications can be submitted at the time the initial site plan is submitted as long as we have enough information to prove to confirm that it's meeting the criteria and we can approve.

So I would hope that we'd be able to do a lot of these things simultaneously.

We're also looking at building a user guide for the development community to help kind of demystify some of these and help them

And to navigate through, I realized that we did our best in trying to organize this.

But there's probably still more we can do and looking to that user guide to provide some assistance in that.

And we are hoping to, in terms of a rollout,

Looking at opportunities to meet with the development community.

We are meeting with a group from ULI, Urban Land Institute, as a way to just promote and share this code and what it's trying to accomplish.

One last thing about this.

And I'll just say, you mentioned user guide.

I don't know what that looks like visually, but you know, my knowledge of the city zoning code and the way that they laid out the graphics of the different districts, I think is palatable.

You know, it's something I can take in and see.

All right.

Just to the other commissioners, I sent staff a bunch of line edits.

I also tried to forward them to you in my clumsy way, but I didn't feel it was worth our time on the dais to go through a line by line edit.

I don't think anything that I proposed was

particularly dramatic or super important.

So I'm just not gonna go through all of those tonight.

All right.

All right, let's go.

You have three minutes.

No, thank you.

Appreciate the line.

On that note, I am ready to

Oh, it's in Rio, so here goes my reading voice.

Okay, great.

In that case, I move to recommend the approval of ZTA 2024-00001 route 29 form-based code FBC updates and ZMA-2026-00007 route 29 FBC overlay district.

No further discussion?

Okay.

Ms. King.

Aye.

Ms. Firehock.

Aye.

Ms. Brown.

Aye.

Go ahead.

Four more times.

I just one vote.

I think everyone is important.

Everybody agree.

OK.

So hearing, we're moving on to committee reports.

Yes, the CCAC met.

And what we did was we had a very interesting thing.

We had students that were actually visiting, getting their service hours, and came to the CCAC.

And we had split up the.

the Crozet master plan and to different discussion sections about sort of achievable items or things you know priorities and then talked about how what was necessary to get to achieve each of those items and what ways the community could be supportive of achieving those items.

It was a very interesting session to really go through in depth and really think about the master plan in more detail and also help

Mine's really short.

The 5th and Avon C.A.C.

met, and we had a presentation by the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

And it was absolutely fascinating.

We've had this before this presentation, but this one, they went into much greater depth.

And if you're a water nerd like me, you're in water and sewer heaven, it was this.

Fascinating and then they reiterated also the excellent job they do of treating our water quality.

They're putting some new pipes.

Yeah, yes.

There's a lot of work to do that.

And I didn't, I think I didn't know about their program where they go and randomly test tap water, like, you know, to see, we think it's good.

We sent it away from our plant good.

It went through the pipes.

How did it, how did it end?

What's the quality in your house?

No other reports?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Two items were heard for public hearing.

The first one you'll recall the Beaver Creek pump station filling the floodplain, one that we

It last month, I think, well, maybe six weeks ago.

So that was approved unanimously.

And also something we considered a couple weeks before that, which was the Rivanna Futures CMA to move some of the slopes from preserved slopes to critical or to steep slopes.

And that also passed unanimously with the board.

Finally, Tylenia Schwartz and Drewber provided a update to the board

on the CARTA effort.

CARTA is the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority.

And the idea of taking what we now have as state enabling legislation to form a committee or an authority, but not necessarily have the power to use it for taxation.

The idea behind the CARTA effort is to

see if there's a possibility of building a regional transit system or some hybrid thereof in our community.

And so, you know, 10 years ago, we received state authority to form CARTA.

The study that they're doing right now is they're taking a whole host of various studies that have been done on transit in the community over the past five to eight years.

and put them together to try and get a list of improvements that might be paid for were we to go back to the state and ask for tax authority to tax our region to support CARTA.

These improvements that they have, I think,

you know obviously they are they're real there are things that people are the city and the county are really talking about trying to

What would a future system look like?

What kind of improvements would they be?

So they have some basis in reality.

I do think that the time it will take to get us all the way through to when we actually have the capacity, if we make it there, it's 2030, those choices may change again.

I think that the real point of those lists is to say,

If the City of the County wanted to move forward with a regional tax authority, these are the types of projects that they would fund.

To try and like, in other words, to give a

If we were to be provided that authority, how would we spend the money?

And I think that's one of the biggest things of this study is to show the General Assembly and others how that money could be spent in our community.

So it's big work.

This effort is trying to wrap up towards the end of this year.

And the presentation that Ms. Schwarzenegger made to the board

Sort of an update, an interim step.

Thank you.

Not a bad planning invitation.

OK. Any new business, Mr. Burns?

No, sir.

No?

Any old business?