Board of Supervisors Adjourned Meeting - Joint Meeting with Scottsville Town Council   10/26/2022

So I will call the meeting to order.

I also want to mention that our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, is with us.

Our County Attorney, Mr. Rosenberg, I guess is behind me.

There he is.

Our Clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson.

I also want to thank our Albemarle County Police Officers, Officer Josh Wright and Dennis Sprouse who are here.

Thank you again for what you do to keep us safe.

I had a meeting earlier today and

I was able to just briefly mention just Monday a pretty serious accident going south on 20th and we really appreciate our officers and our first responders.

Mr. Mayor, I'll turn it over to you.

I'll call the Scottsville Contingents meeting to order and also say to you, we appreciate being here and our town attorney, Mr. Jim Bowling is with us, our town administrator, Matt Paulus is with us, and our town clerk, Javier Rodales is with us.

I'm Bill Heissen.

I'm a cultural historian in Scottsville.

I'm Ann Mallek.

I represent the White Hall District, which is north of the nature.

We used to be north of nature's river.

Good evening, Ned Galloway.

I represent the Rio District.

A lot of urban rain, up to 29 out Earliesville way.

And apparently I had too much garlic for dinner.

We'll chat later.

Oh, Zachary Bullock, Town of Scottsville.

Bea LaPisto-Kirtley, Supervisor from the Rivanna District and Vice Chair.

It's a beautiful place.

Yes.

Diantha McKeel, I'm the supervisor representing the Jack Jouett Magisterial District.

and if you look at the six magisterial districts, you can tell my district because it's the smallest.

It's that little tiny circle and the reason it's the smallest is because it's the densest.

Represent much in a portion of the urban ring and then somehow Woodlands Road, which I'm sure most of you all are familiar with.

And I do want to just take this opportunity to thank you for driving to Charlottesville to meet with us.

We really appreciate it.

It can be,

Short distance or a long distance, depending on what happens along the way.

And Meredith Hines, counselor for Scottsville.

Thank you.

Jeff Richardson, County Executive.

And I want to also express appreciation to former Mayor Nancy Gill.

She was one who really was the driving force to help and get this started.

And Mayor Smith, for you and your counselors continuing it, I think it has brought tremendous benefit to our communication, cooperation, and also the reality, not just perception, of the town and the county working close together.

and I'm Donna Price.

Thank you.

We had our first meeting, joint meeting, you said three years ago.

That was my first term as first time as mayor.

And thanks to the mayors of all positions, and Scottsville used to be two-year positions, and then when the General Assembly decided to change everything, which is a whole other story, I have the first four-year term as mayor, and since they changed, then they changed the election.

So now I have a four and a half year.

And it's been so,

But one of our discussion items is entitled the Outlaw and Towns Collaboration on Parks and Recreation.

We have a 61-acre park right in the dead center of Towns, the Ninth Lake.

And recently, through a grant from Virginia Wildlife Resources, we now have a fishing dock in there, a floating dock.

And one day we hope to have that handicapped accessible.

We're working on that project now.

First Mayor Driscoll was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of that about 2013.

And maybe he would like to speak for a few moments, which is to help him do.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor, and I would like to thank all the supervisors and all the staff with the county.

One thing I will say, as a town councilor, I served with our mayor when he was a

on the town council also back in 2010.

And a few years later, I became aware of this amazing park right in the center of Scottsville called the Van Cleave Nature Area.

And one of the things I've been privileged to do as a town councilor is to kind of lead the charge of which probably 100 different people have helped.

Councilor Heysen has also been one of them over the years to see this park develop.

And the county has actually played a really important role.

In fact, one of the questions I was going to ask is, who's the person who fills the position that Dan Mahon used to have?

Is that, and so, do we know who that is?

Tim Patalino.

We would love to have Tim Patalino come visit us in Scottsville.

He would love to visit.

Well, and thank you, too.

We've met before.

In fact, Mr. Mayor, you wouldn't know this, but what, maybe three or four years ago, Robin Clark, one of the drivers on the fishing dock, set up a meeting, what we had with the county.

And we're thankful.

So first of all, I would say we would very much look for

for the

I guess I would say nine years has gotten to maybe be midway through the second quarter in a football game but we have a long way to go and the handicap access and there's also a beautiful trail that we want to design that would look like the Monticello walking trail that is referred to as the overlook trail we tried to get a grant for before it came very close to that and that's another project I would love to chat with the county more about if we Dan gave us the idea to trade for some land which we ended up getting so

Simply put, we're excited about where we are right now, but look forward to very much talking with you all in the future.

We're willing to support you anyway we do.

Thank you.

Thank you for what you've done in the past also.

And one other thing I will say about it, I'm sorry, you can have a seat.

Oh, okay.

But just to say with what the mayor had said, one of the things that's also nice about it, the county, this may be for the reference of the supervisors here,

Those of you familiar with the trout stocking, typically in western Albemarle, that's where a lot of trout are stocked.

And one of the unique things about Scottsville Lake is that it's a warm water lake, but it's stocked with the idea that the fish will be caught out of there.

So I think this is the sixth year that the state has stocked in cooperation with the town.

They also stock catfish in there, but it creates

You might say that in the county, we're the most eastern part of the county where you can travel fish.

So just as a nice distinction, if you're interested in a tourist perspective, and we often find that people who come to the lake are coming from more in the eastern part of the state.

So it's actually drawing people to the county, this particular new fishery that's there in Scottsville Lake.

So I'd be happy to talk about that more, but just to have that

So just a quick question about trout fishing.

So you have connected with the CACBB?

I guess Matt has.

He's nodding his head yes.

Okay, that was my question.

Matt says he's connected though.

Yeah.

I ran into Dan just about a week ago at a Rivanna Conservation Alliance event commemorating and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act.

And it was really nice to talk with him about the work he had done with the county.

Thank you.

Noticing that the

The county has been very gracious with the Scottsville Community Center.

And being on the advisory committee for the Boys and Girls Club, I want to thank the county for all the improvements they have made to the community center, which houses the Boys and Girls Club.

Also, we are working with a private citizen who wants to donate some money for a splash pad in Scottsville.

And thanks to the people by the price we have put out

Apple figured in our hand, which would show us what the total cost and maintenance of a facility like that would be.

So we are approaching this individual again to see if he might want to direct his donation to another area of the town.

Thank you, Mayor.

And for the public who may be watching, we did exchange some communications over the last week or so between the county and the town.

And some of the most recent were comparison costs of construction and operation of a splash pad.

And we really, first off, I want to say we always appreciate the generosity of donors who are interested in sharing their wealth

their resources with the community.

Not every such offer is easily accepted, however, because in addition to the construction costs we have operational costs and this particular donation, while being very generous, does not come close to covering

No, I just want to recognize Mr. Krickenberger.

Really, one of the greatest assets in our town is the Sawyer Park, and I know the people who worked with you 30 years ago.

Those trees are 30 years old now, and that would have never happened without your support and

that if you come down on a Saturday or any almost any day with Saturday morning, I mean it's full of kids playing soccer and the playground is packed and of course the community center is great but that part

is a treasure to our town.

It's used all the time.

The tennis courts, pickleball courts, basketball courts, we got it all.

And that was your doing.

We appreciate that.

And my wife was involved with that way back.

Next item on our discussion agenda is road improvements in the region.

And certainly there are needs for some.

Mr. legendary Briscoe and Councilman Payne, both live on Mountain Worcester Road.

Mr. Briscoe is in the Mountain Worcester Road to leave his house and build the 20 closest access to the 20 bunkers house on Mountain Worcester.

It is like an unpaid mountain trail that you would need to afford to be here.

Mr. Payne has

access to his house unless the grains go hard in this flooding.

And we have been after BDOT to do something about this, and we have got a lot of good responses from them.

I was wondering if there's anything that the county and Chairman Price has been on top of this too, but I just wondered if it was anybody that knew how to push an arm at BDOT to get some of these problems on Mount Mr. Road fixed.

Well, I was just going to say that my family's been trying to get a portion of this road paved for a short time since 1958.

We've been there.

And I love living in our dirt road.

I love seeing the people walk up and down.

We have a lot of pedestrian traffic there.

But in the summertime, we've got 20-foot plumes of dust.

And the wintertime, you don't wait for the scraping, you just go ahead and do it yourself because it's the last road to be hit.

It's really a hazard there.

We have a rear commercial entrance with Ace Hardware.

You don't have to follow that or just park.

And we have traffic trailers that come down a portion of that road.

And they take up the whole road.

And it's a school bus route.

The ditch in front of my house that probably goes in there, they're in peril.

So it's just about a hundred yard stretch that's in the town of Scottsville.

And I believe, Mr. Mayor, correct me if I'm wrong, it's probably the only dirt road left in the town.

I'd sure like to see some improvements there.

I started with Jane Dittmer and Rick Randolph and Supervisor Price.

I'll talk with them and they've done, I guess, what they could, but it hasn't improved.

Mr. Mayor, is it okay if I comment also?

When Mr. Payne is finished?

I'm sorry.

I had to give it to Dan.

I apologize.

I apologize.

I had been unaware of that.

Our lovely road would be on the agenda.

But I want to throw something out more.

This is more kind of asking the county planner.

One of the things that Scottsville really does desire to do is to connect uptown with downtown Scottsville.

Scottsville has two different areas.

One is where the food line is.

The other is our main downtown area.

The reason I mention it in the context of this conversation is, as I've brainstormed over the years creatively, one of the thoughts is maybe there should be some type of, I don't know if I'd say a sidewalk or maybe a parallel trail or something to Mount Vista Road and when it goes down.

So I'm more suggesting to the county, those of you who are

our cartographers in the group or those who could look at our town and help us eventually we need to find a way to connect uptown and downtown and there may be some creative ways to do that and whether Mountain Vista is the right road I do not know but I'm

Agree that it would be nice if it was paved at some point in the future, although I would go back to to Councillor Payne.

I think his stretch is much more in need.

I think he really that stretch really does need it.

Not saying mine doesn't, but my bigger

Thank you both, Councillors.

Actually, just earlier this week in my meeting with the mayor and town administrator, we talked about that second item, which I'll address first, which is connecting the upper and lower town.

For those who are familiar with the route 20 between lower town

to Upper Town.

There's almost no place that really you can put it in without incredibly expensive work because of the slope of the surrounding terrain.

At times, you would want to or need to put the walking path on the east side of the road.

At other times, it'd have to be on the west side of the road, which really makes it extremely difficult, if possible, as well as incredibly expensive.

So the mayor and town administrator did mention other possible alternatives and just

up to

Having the upper and lower town disconnected as they are right now really is to the detriment of the town as a whole.

And to be able to connect it would really be to the benefit of the town.

But I also want to go back to the entry that Councillor Payne brought in.

I have been working with Carrie Shepherd on Mount Vista Road.

I was not aware of the flooding issue, so I've made a note on that and I will follow up on that.

I do know from our last communication that she was looking into

the business entry impact on the road from Ace Hardware.

I don't have an answer on that right now, but I do know she's looking into the consequence and the responsibility for the company to be responsible for any damage that is caused as a result of their commercial vehicles using that entrance.

I personally have made phone calls to VDOT and the Albemarle County School System and Albemarle and Scottsville Police when I see a flood down there because

It doesn't take much rain, and we get a run-off for 100 yards that ends up right in my front yard.

And there's no way that you want school buses driving through.

I've made all these calls.

Yeah, I will follow up.

It reminds me of the issue that I dealt with on Glendower Road, just to the west of the paved part of Coles Rolling, where it flooded regularly during heavy rains.

And it took a little while, but VDOT did eventually take care of that.

But just clarifying, because there is commercial activity, I know VDOT has a list.

You kind of got to get in the pipeline for work.

Does a commercial access sort of move it up in the hierarchy?

I don't know the answer to that question.

The road that's used now is Warren Street, and I ride that walk up there and other people do too.

And I think it needs repaving, but if they do that, maybe they could widen it.

I don't think they could put a sidewalk there, but they could widen it because sometimes it's hard to get off to the side when cars go by.

But that's a natural way to go from the lower part of town to the other part of town is Warren Street.

I think that could be used, but I think it would be examined anyway.

I will add that to the list.

Of course, anytime you're talking about whining, you're talking about acquiring rights of way, easements, additional expenses for that.

But again, great point.

Item five is collaboration on tourism developments, which also includes economic development.

I've had an administrator, Mitch Wallace, who now serves in a position or a slot on your economic development and our councilman, Stuart Munson, who was elected last year.

Wallace has been appointed, I'm sorry, has been elected.

Appreciate all that the Economic Development Committee is doing.

We still have a few empty storefronts we'd like to see built.

And there are some empty storefronts at the Shopping Center, which I know they have their own team of realtors.

I've talked to them.

They don't seem to be too energetic about filling these spaces.

On the Visitors Bureau van being in Scottsville, we really appreciate that being in town almost every

Saturday during the live weather.

We voted last to leave our council cycling to become a tourism zone.

And Mr. Hyson's Government Service Committee is not involved that much with tourism, but it does guide us on economic development.

any of the councilors see.

Since we don't have any economic development, there's probably one of the jobs of the mayor.

So I'll ask all the council people if you see or hear of something, and government services is a good place where you might hear or see something, just let me know, and I'll be happy to approach the effective business order.

See what we can do.

All sort of a separate, and this

I don't know if Albemarle has been involved with the Friends of Buckingham in any way.

Friends of Buckingham was formed a couple of years ago by a proposed gold mine operation, which is upriver from Scottsville.

And this is a proposed 5,000 acre operation with a 500 acre

holding pond, which would have water conveying cyanide, which if the earth and dam were to break, then flood decrees, which would flood the river and would destroy James from north of Patbury all the way down to the human square.

I don't know that any of you lived in Richmond in the seventies, but when Allied Chemical dumped all the Kepone in the river at Hopewell,

The James River was closed for seven years.

The fishing, the grid, the oyster, and the cuttings.

And if our river was closed, that's it.

Scottsville.

That's the same draw as the river.

So if Albemarle has any connections with friends of Buckingham, we encourage them to strengthen those connections wherever possible.

Any questions about tourism?

Obviously, economic development is a victim of tourism.

Can you update us on the process for this Gold Line?

I really don't know where it stands.

There's more about it than I do.

A rulemaking study passed in the last General Assembly session.

Delegate Guzman from Prince William carried the bill.

It's in the State Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy now.

Virginia hasn't had commercially viable gold mines since the 19th century.

So the regulations that remain in place of how to permit a new gold mine are totally archaic.

The state recognizes that gap and wants to update the rules around environmental regulations so that

The public comment for

industrially relevant for materials like lead and zinc, which exist in the ground closer to the Lynchburg area.

It's only but so much gold in Buckingham, but it's more lead and zinc down towards Lynchburg.

And those are materials that are useful in things like batteries, really growing industry.

I'll just follow up to share that when there was a big push of fracking in the Taylorsville Basin in the eastern aquifer there,

We discovered, much to our chagrin, that DMME is focused on exploitation of resources.

They are not an environmental agency.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, could I make a couple comments on tourism?

And I say this mostly again for the supervisors and the staff, just so you're aware of our amazing town.

You probably are going to realize we're a little biased.

We love our little gym in the southern part of the county.

And honestly, I think it's the best part of the county.

I'm sure you all have nice places where you live.

But as the mayor said, Scottsville was

the place that people originally came that you may know.

In fact, supervisors, do you all know that Scottsville was the original county seat?

Does anybody know that?

We'll say it again, Scottsville was the original county seat.

So we occupied a pretty important place and the river then and now is really important, but it's not the only thing.

In fact, that's one thing I want to say.

So river is important.

We have a lot of tourism from the river in the summertime.

One of my daughters got her full time job through one of the river jobs.

But we also have vibrant restaurants, a brewery in town, wineries nearby, a lot of exciting businesses.

And so when you think of Scottsville, it really is a vibrant town.

And I mention that because we have a lot of river towns along the James River that aren't, that didn't happen.

because of the history of the town, really is a vibrant town.

And I also want to say that what's also cool is it's a wonderful community.

Boys and Girls Club there.

We have soccer leagues, baseball leagues.

We have basketball leagues.

There's a lot of things for families and youth.

And I think probably the county is also seeing the draw of ecotourism.

People come to Scottsville because they want to enjoy our nature area.

They want to enjoy the river.

Also, I have found in organizing tours over the years for Scottsville that probably the number one draw in southern Albemarle is Pine Knot.

And so I suggested to county, one of the things that may be done is to try to figure out how to utilize more a tie in with from Monticello to Highlands, especially to Pine Knot, which is kind of the untapped resource.

I don't know if you've all if staff or

Counselors, if you've not been there, I would suggest that you do make a visit to Pine Knot.

It was the retreat place of President Teddy Roosevelt.

He went there eight times as president, and they keep it beautiful and under lock and key over there, but any groups that I've ever brought or we've brought, they've always said that was the highlight of coming around our town.

And one other thing I'll

make a recommendation.

If you want to know what's happening in Scottsville, we used to have a couple different resources, but right now our former mayor does something called the James Exchange.

And I would suggest if you're not subscribing that you subscribe to the James Exchange.

Nancy Gill interviews people.

She is kind of the big

So when I think of the county having

Just this incredible history here.

I also think of one of the things I do in my job is I occasionally will do tours of the University of Virginia and the enslaved workers memorial there I think is really important.

We take a lot of groups there and so interpreting history as we have seen in the local

presidential houses as they brought in the aspect of African Americans and slavery in the past.

That's something that we think there's a lot of towards that can happen that way.

There's also important things.

There's a very important lady who, to the best of my understanding, was the first African American university president who was buried in Scottsville.

So that being said, we are excited, our position in the county and we want you to know that we really do want to be tied into the resources that you have and I think all the businesses are excited to have as many people who want to come from Charlottesville down to Scottsville and

take the opportunity to visit our town.

We also just had an amazing event that was put on by the Scottsville Museum.

Supervisor Price, I think you were there twice.

Oh, thanks.

For those who don't know, Scotts Landing, now Scottsville, at one point was the busiest inland port in the United States back during Big Albemarle.

And it was an incredible event this past weekend, the tours of Scottsville Friday and Saturday night.

And then what I thought was really great that the town did is they offered the same presentation in Victory Hall for those who are mobility challenged and would not have been able to walk through the town.

Talking with the docent at the Scottsville Museum, there are eight host days in the town limits and about 30 in the adjacent area.

which has really been a big tourist draw for people to come to Scottsville because now there is available lodging for transients coming through.

So that's one of the positives that we have from the homestays and it really was an incredible event.

I think over 200 people took the tours on those nights.

I want to reference that a little bit later as well.

So thank you, Councilor Briscoe.

Yeah, just sort of thinking about collaboration on tourism, because we do have a lot of great things to come and see.

And having the tourism bus down at the farmer's market on Saturdays has been good for us.

And I've gone over and chatted with the folks who have been there, and they've got really nice maps of parks from across the county.

They have like Charlottesville maps.

There's no Scottsville map.

And so I guess my thing when it comes to collaborating with the county I think really has to do with visibility.

How do we make Scottsville more visible as a place to visit?

And so my query for the Board of Supervisors tonight is what are the ways that we could piggyback

on some of the work that you are already doing.

I don't know if you'd print maps for us because we are our own town.

Maybe we'd print the maps, but get them on your bus, you know, that sort of thing.

I think CACDB and the community and public engagement would be good areas to start.

I do, but I want to make sure that

We're through with that topic because I want to move to an economic development and tourism but a different topic.

I have a comment on tourism and they alluded to this but we recently became a tourism zone in Scottsville.

In 2007,

for tourism zones.

In 2013, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors voted to have a portion of the Crozet community designated a tourism zone.

So this is new to us in Scottsville.

I think it's been great.

In other respects, I'm sure that there are people who wish there wasn't more tourism coming into the county.

The idea for tourism zones to draw businesses in that can associate with the tourist draw.

Let's say the railroad tunnel, for example, a middle school, for the wineries.

When this was adopted, it was to make it possible for local hotelier who had a permit to be able to participate with the state funding where they could contribute, the state would contribute 1% of the sales tax, the county would put in 1% of the sales tax, and that was providing gap funding for the hotel.

And it did not come to fruition.

So we haven't, in that respect, seen the benefit of it.

and I don't know that there's a non-financial aspect where it would really be as helpful as the regular tourism efforts that you're describing of just all the different attractions working together more.

I was mentioning to Zach before we began about revitalizing the Monticello Artisan Trail, which the state has left slide and perhaps we just need to do it on our own and feature the folks, your folks as well in the studio tour and try to

Most of the folks that serve on the board with me are aware that my late husband worked at the Virginia Highway and Transportation Research Council.

And that is associated with VDOT.

It's located on Observatory Hill here in Charlottesville, Malmoir County.

And it has come back to my attention and actually my

Planning Commissioner Julian Bivens has already mentioned it at a meeting.

A few years back, the Research Council conducted a research project and a study on the Stanton and James River Turnpike.

And this talks about the history of that turnpike, which ran from Scottsville to Stanton.

Much of that was at one point

I can't speak that much of it is in existence.

The turnpike itself is not, but pieces of the turnpike still are.

And I think it would be fascinating if you all had an interest.

You could look at that as economic development and tourism if you wanted to build out a story and a narrative around that turnpike.

It is absolutely fascinating.

Audius Crose when he was a state engineer and had some work around it.

And I have two copies.

One copy is mine, but I thought I would leave Matt with a copy.

I'm sure he's more technology.

I have to have everything printed for me to read it.

That's probably more techno savvy than I am.

But I'll leave Matt with a copy.

It is something to look at as developing another story.

around Scottsville and the history of Scottsville and the importance of the river.

And because Donna is exactly right, Scottsville was critically important to the Shenandoah Valley,

and to this whole area in moving product all the way up to Philadelphia.

So and to be able to play off of that narrative and a lot of that narrative is here for you.

Now, you have to go back.

Obviously, you're going to have to do work besides just this report.

But it would be interesting to look at this and build off of it.

Just a follow up on what you just said that one of the

events that takes place each year and that's wonderful information.

I was aware it's back in the day of the Potobos late 1700s and then the canals 1840 to 1880.

We have, many of you probably know, one of our more famous festivals.

It's called the Beto Festival.

The boats within Lynchburg end up down towards Richmond.

But that's reenacting something that happened years ago.

Just recently, there's a new boat.

There's actually a business in Scottsville that started that just this year that you can get a Beto boat.

But going back to your point, the

Connections from Scottsville, whether it's the canal, the river, this road that went to seven counties, all those things are really helpful.

The Canal Society based at Lynchburg has gotten a lot of information.

So kind of tailoring and tying that into some of the information they have, I think would be really helpful.

Yeah.

And this talks about the canal.

And it says, you know, from our side of the mountain, right there, of course, there are switchbacks, but

He talks about from Afton to Route 750, the road joins at 250 cuts across 692, which are just numbers for some folks.

But this road goes through Batesville across 29 at Crossroads and on and on, of course, through North and South Garden to Keene and then joins 20 into Scottsville.

And so it would really play for them.

And I've discovered when I reread this, and I've now read it two or three times, that that's where the name plank came from, because they planked it before they discussed putting the cat on down, which they never really did.

It is a fascinating report, and I encourage the folks in Scottsville, you know, to take a look at this.

You could maybe build on this.

Next topic.

Community Development Partnership.

I want to ask Mr. Wallace, he was a USF, since he is a sign.

Thank you, Mayor.

Community Development Partnership covers quite a range of cooperation from the longest range to the day-to-day.

I'm not trained as a building developer, but the town has its own zoning authority, so on a daily basis with a

looking out to your long-range planning processes.

We have the same governing law on comprehensive plans.

the past 30 years.

We have a good opportunity now to run the same schedule for five-year updates.

So to work together on data sharing, attending on each other's team meetings.

Serena's team has been wonderful on including town residents in the power utilities groups.

things and set some shared goals, but to remember that the town zoning authority remains there.

So to get our separate plans aligned and find, you know, where can we implement the same kinds of community development actions that will assist in a shared direction together.

And I think growth area management is one of the key questions on that.

Any questions for Mr. Walz?

And I relied a lot on Albemarle County for advice, consultation, recommendation, guidance.

And I like to see if we can figure out a way to get that from Albemarle because you have so many knowledgeable and experienced people.

that could maybe help us with things.

For example, we're doing a comp plan.

We could always use help with that.

They're considering a plan.

You're going to develop a pod, and we don't have a policy on that.

And to help us figure that out, we're doing Airbnbs.

It'd be good to kind of know what your policy is.

We don't have a policy on that either.

And to help us with some of these

You know, some guides to help with some of these policies.

There was another one we have with the, you know, with environmental studies.

You know, if you have people who could lead us to what the environmental studies are about, because we're doing some, we have to do some environmental studies, but certain properties, they're going to be developed.

And traffic studies will do.

But anyway, if we had people who could

I think that might be a question best addressed to our county executive or deputies in terms of capacity.

I believe the county is always interested in desirous of helping, but just as you have limitations on your resources, we also have to watch our capacity.

That is not to say no, it's just to say it's something that has to be fully discussed to understand how much we're able to.

Yes, right, right.

It is, right.

Thank you, Councillor.

I will.

Well thanks everyone.

Town Council members, members of the board.

My name is Charles Rapp.

I am the Director of Planning here for Albemarle County and want to take a few minutes to just speak about our comprehensive plan update.

We've been working on this for

maybe seven, eight months now, I'd say, for this phase one.

And we're just about wrapping that up.

So I want to kind of give a little brief overview as to why we're doing this plan, what we're hoping to accomplish, where we are, and where we'll be going in the next couple of years.

So it's a long endeavor, as you all know.

Continue on this journey as we go.

So we started this really to

As Matt mentioned, we have a state mandate every five years to review our comprehensive plan and update that.

And we also wanted to really update this plan to reflect the county-wide strategic initiatives, some of which are climate action planning, economic development, and multimodal transportation planning.

We made some significant strides in those areas as well as others and wanted to make sure that this plan reflects those.

Also have a significant goal of making sure that the plan incorporates equity throughout the entire plan, its content, its engagement process, and all of our policies and action steps throughout it.

Also wanted to really improve the usability of the plan, clearly articulating goals, creating metrics that we can track, really see our progress, and then really create kind of a more modern, streamlined document that's easy to read, easy to use, easy to navigate.

We've had a lot of recent plans and policies over the years that have been adopted.

There's just a few of them.

We have master plans, small area plans, all these types of things are updated.

The climate action plan was adopted recently.

We have a biodiversity action plan.

Project Enable is our economic development plan.

Recently updated Housing Albemarle, which is our housing policy.

So there's a variety of things that have happened since that 2015, which is our last update.

And we want to make sure that the comprehensive plan incorporates those ideas, those policies, and aligns everything together in one comprehensive vision.

So this is going to be a four-space process.

As I mentioned, we're just wrapping up phase one.

Phase one was really kind of just taking a high-level view of our growth policy and where we are.

Phase two, we'll be looking at individual policies for the different topics.

So things, you know, transportation, housing, land use, stuff like that.

Phase three is really taking those policies into action steps, implementable goals, objectives, strategies, and then bringing that plan all together into the final document.

So as I mentioned, we're just wrapping up phase one, starting to scope phase two, where we'll get into kind of the fun stuff of really getting into the specific topics.

So what did phase one include?

We started off with what we call a capacity analysis.

We looked at demographic projections, how we're going to grow, how we're expected to grow as a county, and looked at our current land use plan and some of our other documents to see if we just use the current plan as it is, will that meet our needs?

And what might we need to adjust as far as infrastructure?

And does it reflect our climate action goals?

And does it reflect our goals of equity throughout this community as kind of a very high level lens at this first phase?

And then we'll start to dive down in these future phases.

As I mentioned, it started with the Board of Supervisors talking about this, really establishing this idea of focusing on a lens of equity, climate action, reviewing the current plan, taking a lot of public input.

We took a lot of this information that we learned, reviewing some of these ideas for how we might grow as a community, what are some of the challenges that our citizens face.

and all types of roundtables and pop-ups and a variety of ways to engage folks.

And that resulted in a couple of big ideas that we all found some common ground on.

And that is this framework for an equitable and resilient community.

And it established these four ideas of being green and resilient, welcoming and equitable, connected and accessible, and thriving.

and Prosperous.

And there's a lot of bullet points underneath those to help guide us in the future.

So what we'll do is as we look at certain policies and ideas, we'll kind of come back to this framework and make sure that we are embodying these certain principles, these guiding principles that we've established in some common ground that we achieved in this first phase.

So we'll do, as I mentioned, we'll use that framework there as we think about things like transportation, about housing, about economic development.

and we'll start to evaluate what are those current policies and do they need to be adjusted or how do we bring it all together as well as update it based on all those new plans and those new efforts that have been achieved in the county recently.

And so, as I mentioned, we're just starting this idea of scoping phase two and that's where we'll really start to get into some specific topics and I know everybody has a lot of interest in those so we're looking forward to really getting into that engagement.

And the last, just wanted to share how folks get involved.

a variety of folks on this project team.

We have a website up.

It's engageoutmall.org.

You can sign up there, get all types of updates.

That's where we put all types of history on the different comp plans over the years for the county about things that have happened, upcoming events.

We share documents.

We share information.

So you can kind of follow the progress and stay as involved as you would like surveys that we have up there or any type of events or other ways to get involved.

We certainly encourage you all to take a look at that and reach out to us.

And maybe one of the things, this goes back to something that Councilor Heisler was saying before, that maybe as we get into the next phase, it's on our own review, that it might be good to get some input from you or your staff, or as you look and see how what we're looking at is in sync with what you're learning through the county.

I mean, it's sometimes information that you're going to be learning in other areas will be obviously applicable to us and be helpful to maybe

Certainly look forward to that collaboration.

I will say Matt's been great.

We've been reaching out to Matt.

He's reached out to us even on the capacity analysis and things like that.

So we continue to have that dialogue and continue to do so.

Thank you.

I was just accused about the growth.

You know, I know Crozet has grown a lot, but when you have a growth area, you designate as a growth area.

So you first look at the

all the infrastructure that's going to be needed there for the growth area.

To see if it's even feasible, depends on how you do it, where you have that first and then you say, well, grow more here.

Most of that certainly predates me when we establish the growth areas, but that's part of this process is to make sure that we identify the necessary infrastructure improvements to accommodate the growth that's happened or the growth that may come.

We're looking at a 20-year vision here.

It's starting to think, you know, where is there obviously, you know, there's only so much capacity.

And so how do we capitalize on that to the most efficient way possible so that we don't just have to expand the growth areas over and over and really utilize.

That's the idea of growth areas is to encourage density where it has a good fit, where we have that existing infrastructure.

Also, it's financially efficient to do so as well.

Councilor Hines?

Just to kind of expand on that, how do you determine the cart and the horse?

It's a big question, both strategies.

can work.

It's obviously infrastructure has a cost.

So, you know, especially we talk about road improvements, VDOT, things like that.

They're typically not giving you large sums of money until that problem has been identified.

And so usually infrastructure kind of chases growth.

When there's a need for a new school because you're overcrowded and you got to build a new school, things like that.

From an economic development standpoint, you can certainly start to install some of that infrastructure to encourage particular types of development.

So it's usually a combination of it, but infrastructure just with the cost of it usually kind of follows the growth pattern.

The infrastructure costs of development are such that it is, I would say, virtually impossible to build infrastructure before there is the demand.

Otherwise, to coin a phrase, you might end up with a bridge to nowhere.

So it follows the development, which kind of leads into the last topic on the agenda, the conceptual discussion of the town of Scottsville as a development area.

Of course, mayor, councilors, you can decide what you want within your jurisdictional limits.

I do not believe that the county at the present time is looking to make a development area and the properties adjacent to the town limits of Scottsville.

There's a piece of property just outside Scottsville that could be developed and one of the ideas over the years and one of the deficits in the town is we don't have the medicals.

have something in our town that's, as most people go to, you know, rather just for UVA, but that we have something within 10 minutes, maybe instead of 30 or 40.

And, but that would be really difficult unless we had the infrastructure to have police, or I mean, rescue squads or medical people come and go there, you know, so that's,

I understand, and not to be making a determination, but the infrastructure costs for a medical facility, water, sewage, other things like that, roads, all very expensive.

So, again, you know, what you want to do within the town, you have that jurisdictional authority.

And I agree with you, certainly.

I will say, though, that there are different levels of medical facilities.

We don't have to build a full-blown hospital to have a really robust medical clinic.

So I'm just making sure that that's on the table, because that would be very helpful for your community.

You know, a lot of the comments made tonight were, how can Albemarle help us?

We may be small, but we have resources, too, and so I would leave you with any ways that the town of Scottsville can help Albemarle, don't hesitate to let us know, because we're ready to work together.

And why we had to, it was only three years ago that the first joint meeting just came about is amazing with a long history of Scottsville being a part of the county of Albemarle County.

Well, the mayor's talking about cooperation and I just wanted to share something that our chief, Greg Jenkins, asked me to put together.

Chief Greg Jenkins and his officers enjoy a great working relationship with Colonel Sean Reeves and his staff.

Of course, he's out in Marl County.

And the technical support expertise of ACPD for the Town Police Department, the ability to provide the highest quality of services to the businesses and residents of the town of Scottsville.

And then he goes on to talk about a partnership that

that's formed over the years to the present between the Albemarle County Police Department and San Francisco Police Department.

We couldn't do it without you.

The training, recertifications, equipment, everything, they're very tight-knit and they really do have a good partnership.

but from time to time has a little crack and so he had a couple of suggestions he asked me to pass along.

One is the completion of a memorandum of understanding.

That's kind of like a gentleman's agreement on steroids.

It's more than a handshake.

It's an agreement between the two agencies to work just as close as they can.

We sent a copy of this, he's referring to it as the MOU, memorandum of understanding, four to five months ago to Albemarle County to the attorney's office and we never got a response.

Now I'm not sure how much of a legal document this is, but it seems to be pretty important to the chief.

So I'd like to ask the county to look into the memorandum of understanding that's in the

Mr. Bowling, our representative, and get that done.

And then secondly, with as much communication as we do have between Albemarle County and Scottsville, we can't afford what it takes to have access to all the information that

County.

We have to set up some type of computer system.

We do have access to a lot of the information that's provided by Albemarle County, and we do appreciate that.

I'll give you a recent example of a miscommunication late Friday night, early Saturday morning.

The Scottsville Cemetery had a break-in where they stored the

where they maintain the cemetery, which is a non-profit cemetery.

The only money they make there is the last six feet of real estate you'll need.

So someone sawed off the locks, took lawnmowers, chainsaws, weed eaters, a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff.

Del Mar County did come down and did their report, investigated,

And Monday morning, I was, I meet with the Chief every Monday morning.

And I said, how did you come in on that investigation at the cemetery?

He said, what are you talking about?

So I explained it and he said, well, there's a lot of times that we don't get that information from ACPD to Scottsville.

So if you all can kind of pull somebody's coattails and say, you know, when you have something like that, let us know about it because next break it might be my house or church or something.

Maybe these guys think they're on the road.

So anyway, again, he says thanks so much to everybody that's involved with the KCPD here in Scottsville.

I have one more item.

It's not on the agenda.

First off, I just want to commend the town of Scottsville.

Going into the pandemic, none of us knew where things were going to end up.

I actually think Scottsville expanded during the pandemic.

Almost all the storefronts are closed, and you have many fewer resources than we at the county or other large organizations have.

And even within the county, we have people who have multiple responsibilities.

Sometimes you call it

And I really want to talk about one particular incident that I think is noteworthy.

Last Friday and Saturday, as Councillor Crisco brought up, were these incredible tours of people from the history of Scottsville and I've got an image that of

Mr. Walker, Mr. Randt, if you could show what you see is Corporal Isaac Winthrop, a.k.a.

Matt Wallach, doing an incredible performance of actually one of his ancestors from American history, had an absolutely fabulous German attitude and

and language.

I mean, he sounded as German English as you possibly could be.

But I also want to let you know that in Albemarle County, we also have people who are double and triple-hatted.

And I think we have another image up there, Mr. Walker.

and this is our own Deputy County Executive, Doug Walker, who is himself an actor and singer of some renown.

And so at first I was going to see your Matt Wallace and raise you with Doug Walker, but instead we just have a tip of the hat.

Here we go, administrator.

for the incredible performance that he did.

And I really commend the town for the work that y'all did over the last few years for this pandemic.

It's a happening place and I really do, I encourage everyone to go visit.

The Batto Restaurant has as good of gumbo as I've ever had in my life.

I'm from Louisiana, go to the brewery.

Meche's Italian restaurant has great bargains.

Go down to the tavern.

I mean, there are a number of other businesses there.

It's really a great town.

In the morning at 10 o'clock, we're having a ribbon cutting for our newest law firm in town, Boers & Genefick, which is located in the Danzig building across from the food line.

And they are having their grand opening ribbon cutting tomorrow.

Real nice young couple practicing the law.

Is it 10 o'clock?

10 o'clock.

Go ahead.

In the spirit of tipping the hat to Mr. Lawless, I think it's important for the counselors to hear the appreciation to see your county administrator participating in the regional housing partnership and things that are more embodied of the region than just the county.

As the current chair of the regional housing partnership,

knowing that Matt attends the quarterly meetings, but I would also invite you as counselors that every quarter is certainly open to have to join in.

The Regional Housing Partnership is one that is made up of private citizens, private industry, nonprofits, and then elected officials from the region, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

And as it saved the date, if you're interested in the housing that's going on regionally, March 24th, which is a Friday,

will be the Regional Housing Partnerships Annual Summit that we put on pause for a couple of years because of the pandemic.

It will be a full day long and you'll have presentations from folks from Nelson and other rural type of areas, but also then the more urban areas as well.

So it does a spread of the whole housing topic.

So I would think that's something that you as counselors, I'm sure we'll see Mr. Wallace there, but

It's not so much a thing that we could ask the town to do or the town council to do for us, but with us, because that's something that obviously the affordable housing touches all of us no matter where we represent in the housing issue.

So as I just like horribly inviting to that.

The MPO is also kicking off our long range transportation planning process.

So that obviously impacts the whole area as well.

So I just tagged that as one that you as counselors and Mr. Lawless may want to be participating in.

That's not rolled out yet in terms of community engagement.

So by the end of the year and the start of next year, so I'm just flagging that as well as topics of interest for you that while it might not be micro,

focused on the town of Scottsville, or even Albemarle, it certainly impacts the region that we're in.

Thank you, Supervisor Galloway.

Supervisor McKeel.

Yes, just a couple of things.

I saw both of them taking notes on that MOU and as well as just to sort of make sure everybody was aware.

The other thing that I would just I guess for my own understanding and clarity because certainly

Albemarle County has right now staff capacity, as we've alluded to already.

You all know that and you all certainly do as well, right?

And understanding that you are a town and you all have certain parameters within what you can do legally and what you can't do.

I don't understand those so well.

And for this supervisor,

I would really like to understand better what Scottsville Town Council has the ability to do so that I know better how to help you if this is making sense.

So are you all able to, I don't know, put a tax on something?

Are you able to raise funds by a bond reference?

I mean, I don't know.

And if I knew how you all could raise funds,

and how you all could create and help.

I don't want to say help yourself, but help us help you.

It might be informative for us.

So for example, when we're talking about VDOT roads, right?

And lots of times VDOT requires a matching amount of money.

So how could we help you figure out how or is there a way that you all could do that or what?

I don't know, but I just know I don't really understand though.

laws and rules around towns.

And it would be helpful to have that information.

Does that make sense?

It would be nice if you could provide that to us as a board.

Let's head to the feed for, you know, Airbnbs.

See, I didn't know that.

Because I just came from my 50th, I shouldn't have said that, my 50th college reunion.

Anyway, in the town of Bridgewater.

Now, that's a much larger town and I realize there's not a lot as much comparison, but I mean it is an interesting juxtaposition

Well, thank you.

And the Board of Supervisors, we will adjourn to November the 2nd, 2022 at 1 o'clock p.m.

in Lane Auditorium.

Opportunities for public access and participate in this meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

This patient will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received.