Okay, it's 6-0-1 PM on Wednesday, June 12th, 2024, and I'd like to call the meeting to order. We'll begin with a roll call please. Ms. Stephanie Harrow, Chairwoman, has given us advance notice she will not be here. Ms. Amy Haye, here, Mr. Brent Chambers. Welcome. Here. Ms. Linda Wright, here. Mr. Tim Merrill. Here. We. Linda Wright. Here. Mr. Tim Merrill. Here. We do have Cora. Thank you, Bernie. So before we move to approval of the agenda, I would like to modify it very briefly in terms of reversing the order of the public hearing. So was asked to permit the discussion on modular housing to occur first and then the subdivision ordinances second. So I would like to offer a motion to approve a modified agenda unless the commissioners have any concerns about that. Sounds okay. MI is vice chair able to make a motion to approve the modified agenda. I will do that. Mr. Chambers. I. Mr. Right. I. Motion carries. Thank you colleagues. Next on the agenda is our opportunity for citizen input. So we welcome forward citizens who would like to speak or have anything they would like to offer of an item that is not on the agenda. So if this is something that we did not prepare for, we welcome you all to come forward and speak. We'll pause for a change. That was Mr. Goodman, I imagine. Those were his minutes. Was he the one shepherding us through? I think he gave me notes so I could group draft the minutes. So, I think that was the first minute of the meeting. I think that was the first minute of the meeting. I think that was the first minute of the meeting. I think that was the first minute of an adjustment or a change. That was Mr. Goodman, I imagine, right? Those were his minutes. Was he the one shepherding us through? He gave me notes so I could group draft the minutes. So both of you teamed well on that. I thought that was nicely done. But pause any comments or observations on the minutes. You get a motion of approval. So moved. Thank you. Miss Hay. Aye. Mr. Chambers. Aye. Mr. Wright. I was not here May 8th, so I abstain. And Mr. Mayor. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Bernie. Okay, first is our presentation actually for Mr. Farhar on data centers. So this is of particular relevance and interest. I will not the record state as well that I've shared with my commissioners an email. So I am also Josh interested in learning as much about data centers as we can, because obviously there has been some discussions that have come forward. So I appreciate your taking the time to share some knowledge with us. Thank you. taking the time to share some knowledge with us. Thank you. The last one in the past conversation is in the conversation. We're a document here. In a no-pressure environment. When you don't have an application in front of you yet, you know, one is coming, but this is, and I want to make that very clear, this is a generic discussion about data centers, not about an application that you are about to receive. Of course, you could say something to the effect of Josh. What if it's adjacent to a residential neighborhood? What might we do in that instance? You could use examples, but let's not talk about specific applications this evening. So what I wanted to touch on this evening is have a little bit of a general discussion about data centers give you a little bit of a history of the town's perspective about data centers because I think there's a lot of either you think they're the devil or you think they're the greatest things in sliced bread and we want to try to talk about that in a more nuanced way and then also really go through and touch on I didn't quite count them but let's say the top 10 or the top eight concerns that we hear from residents, community members, and try to tell you how the town would normally approach those concerns, whether it's town codes, state code, or someone else that has responsibility for mitigating those issues, there's going to be things that you hear in the public hearings for these that you actually don't have any authority over. And so we have to kind of talk that through, we have to be able to trust those who do have the authority and have the conversation in that way. So I will jump in, talk a little bit about the history. And you probably saw it in the staff memo there, but this is a conversation that staff and the town council have been having for a number of years. I believe it was 2016-17 in that time frame. The state allowed local governments to adopt a tax rate specifically for data centers. It's a what's called a business personal property tax. You have your normal property tax on your vehicle. It's much like that about the equipment that's within data centers. I'll go into that a little bit more when we talk about the taxation piece. But in that time, you know, we saw the opportunity very quickly figured out that these would be great revenue generators for the community. And so we approach the county about, since we are a layered town and county, would you be willing to adopt a rate? We'll adopt a rate and hopefully the combined rate is still an attractive one to these types of businesses. At that time, the county didn't have the appetite to go down that path quite yet. I think they wanted to do a little bit more research, but we began the discussion. We've worked with the county on a few reviews of potential data center sites over the years and that's just largely been a More informal review and just kind of looking at sites that might have benefit in 2021 Our former assistant town manager mr. Renelle happen to come across the gentleman who is a regular Advisor in the data center industry to local governments try to try to help them understand not only the impact of the community, but the things that they could ask data center developers that might come back positively. So we learned at that conversation that really data centers and the developers are looking for three or four main things. When it comes to locating a data center, obviously you've heard the big ones, water capacity, is gonna be a big one. We'll talk a little bit about that later, electric capacity, obviously one of the big ones water capacity is going to be a big one. We'll talk a little bit about that later electric capacity. Obviously one of the big ones fiber. One of the ones that maybe is obvious, but people forget about. You have to have that big fiber optic cable going through and that's not just like the ones that are going to connect to your house. That has to be those big backbone fiber cables and luckily right off on 95 we have a lot of them. So we have that. And then that final kind of leg to the chair is tax rates. And that's what the state kind of allowed us to do at that time. And if you can really knock all four of those out, you're going to potentially be a really attractive place to data centers. And so at that time, we started talking to the county about availability of water, talking to dominion about electricity, and what it would take to upgrade lines, would a data center need them and then you saw it I think in the memo that this past year we adopted a data center specific tax rate. And so we've been somewhat laying the field for a data center application to come before town council and the planning commission and I can share and I think you'll see that in the conversation we have of why they're attractive to local governments. The very short version of that is great tax revenue. We're the relatively low impact on the community, relatively low. So we were definitely moving down that path. Obviously you all have the prerogative of whether to recommend approval to Down Council for these and then they have the ability to approve them. But we got a very clear indication from town council that this was a use that That might they find attractive and would like to have the opportunity to review if it were to come in the right location and be the right setup. That's a little bit of the background in a very quick format. I'm happy to go about this two ways. We can either go straight to questions if you want to tee those up quickly or I can do a very brief touch on each of these eight items. Maybe we give you the chance to ask questions in those specific arenas? Yeah, I think that's fair Josh. I definitely took the time to read this in advance So I think you summarizing it or hitting the highlights and then getting through you noted what the what the main community concerns are wonderful. Those would be great for me. So one of the big ones that you will hear certainly is noise Yeah, right and that in our research and talking to data center developers, actual people who run data centers, and then the other local governments, the noise comes from two main sources. The first one being your HVAC units, your cooling units. There's, we'll get into the cooling opportunities for these, but one of the main ways that they do cooling is commercial HVAC units, right? You get a bunch of them, it's able to cool the place. And obviously, when all those turns turns on it can cause some noise. The one real very specific concern that folks found is that when they're really coordinated and all the fans turn on at the same time and they spin at the same speed, it can create this really odd noise situation that you don't even really hear. It's one of those that kind of affects humans in a weird way. The really good news of this is simple engineering can solve this one. You can get bands to turn at different speeds, you can get them to turn on at different times. And so that particular concern, I think there's a way to really address that pretty well. Additionally, with HVAC units screening, right? You screen so it limit the noise a little bit. And so I think there's design at ways to go about and address the HVAC element of the noise. I think the more difficult one is the generators, right? And so the generators that power these data centers when the power goes off are very big and very robust because they absolutely need a continuous stream of power. They cannot have a drop, they cannot have those things go down. And so they really need robust generators. The good in the bad of that is the generators are incredibly loud whether they're diesel, propane, all that. The good version of it is that they don't run all the time, right? You have to check them once a month for about an hour, and so depending on how many generators you have, if everything's working, there's maybe an hour a month that is really uncomfortable. If you even have 10 generators, right, he'd probably test the fuel at the same time. Maybe there's three, four hours. The worst case scenario that you see in the newspaper is, well, what if the power went out for 10 days and these things just had to run and run and run? In micro situations localized, I don't think you're going to be out that long unless it's a hurricane. And the really bad situations of you'll see articles that kind of are people in the news kind of saying, well, if all the generators that exist on data centers now started at the same time, it would create a plume over DC of exhaust that would really hurt a lot of people. Well, if all of them are on at the same time, we have a way bigger issue, right? That you don't have to worry about the generators from data centers. So again, generators, I think layout and design can help you mitigate some of those issues, centralizing them behind the buildings interior to a square of buildings to try to use the natural features to buffer them. But certainly noise is one of those ones. I want to keep an eye on and work hard to work with any developer that does come forward about trying to design the site so that noise is limited and also place the generators and the HVAC units as far away from whatever you don't want to hear the noise most likely residential development. So that's kind of the noise discussion we have for you. Those are what we've heard and what we're seeing. People have concerns about largely engineering can help, but not solve. And so that's one that it's perfect for planning because you're mitigating, you're not solving the problem. You're trying to limit the impact on people rather than say that's no longer a problem. Let's see what else. Oh, one other item on the HVAC element of this, And this was, if you went to the June 3rd, eating at the theater, the one of the developers, touched on this in a generic way, not about the application, but just about the upgrades to technology associated with these cooling systems. Most of the older data centers were cooled using water, and so they'd run water through and it cooled the systems in a recycle, and that's where a lot of the water use came. You can limit your water use by going with typical commercial coolant, HVAC systems. Obviously, then you have the coolant doing it rather than the water, and so you have a little bit of a give and take in these instances, right? So you can reduce your water concerns greatly by going with certain types of cooling, but then you're going to get those environmental concerns of, oh, we've got all these HVAC units, what about if the free-on leaks, the coolant leaks, again, engineering and good practice can solve these things, but you're going to get a little bit of a give-and-take with these concerns when it comes to coolant. There's no, oh, just do that one and it's way better, all of them have pros and cons. I'm going to keep moving along. You just jump right and interrupt me as you need. Location. Obviously this is a big one location, not just of a data center on a certain site but within your community. That's kind of what we're getting at here. Your best bet we're dealing with location is to try to pick locations that you think appropriate for the town's perspective. M1 is the area that we have in town that is allows data centers. We've tried to locate that relatively strategically from a positive perspective you want to put up near high-tension power lines, right? That's a really important element for them. And you also probably want to put it in an area that isn't completely surrounded by residential development. You can also do a little bit of this through your buffering and landscaping, right? even if you are adjacent to residences, push as much building and activity away from those as you can and leave as big a buffer as you possibly can. But, what else did I want to share with on the location element of this? Oh, the other part of location also is going to be height, right? So you're going to potentially get conditional use permits for height exceptions. Obviously the conditional use permit allows you to put conditions on the data centers. You can help do that a little bit through location of the buildings, right? You've seen it in the report here. There are certain things you can do where try to put them in the lowest topographical area so that the height is kind of relative to the other buildings and then move the highest ones as far away from those things you don't want to see as possible. So a lot of this is LEGOs trying to put it in the right place so that it looks right and feels right and limits the impact on the community. You see here typical setbacks in M1 which is what this zoning classification would be for data centers is between 35 and 100 feet, depending on what it's adjacent to and whether it's front or back, but you can always try to encourage developers, you can't ask, you can encourage developers to say, we would really love to see a bigger buffer to mitigate the impacts of these. And we've seen that, right? That's what Tract did in Hanover County, that's what many data centers are doing across the state is trying to give out the gate more buffer than what the code actually allows. And that's been received pretty well. As we keep moving along, another one that you will certainly hear is runoff. This is one where I think folks are concerned twofold, one about quality of water but also about quantity of water. And both are certainly relevant. Quantity of water, folks see more impervious surface built. And so they obviously assume that all of that is going to flow into the stream next to their house or into the storm sewer system. And largely, over time, they're correct. That's where the water does eventually go. But our town code that is specifically tied to the state code essentially says, and I'm not going to put it in the technical angels because I don't know the technical language that the Velocity and quantity of water at any time post development cannot exceed that pre-development and the way you handle that is you create The MPs right you hold the water you retain it you release it at slower rates so that it doesn't Go over that threshold. That is something that public works, manages within the state laws. And so we are confident that we can do this and have done this. I don't think data centers create an unusual circumstance with this. We dealt with big industrial buildings. That's not new to us. So this is something that is certainly a concern, but I think our town code largely addresses to a very good step. Excuse me. Yes. Could you? Can we move this so that people can see? Thank you. But I am worse than that. Thank you. Thanks, Nina. And so we touched on one off. All right. So as I keep moving along, water usage, again, this is going to be one of the larger concerns that you hear, but in this instance, Hanover County Public Utilities Managers are water and sewer capacity. They have assured us that there is sufficient capacity to handle data center applications where we might expect them in the near future. But what you're going to see is that water usage is largely dictated by the type of cooling that they're using. And so not knowing what type of cooling any data center would be coming to show us. We don't know whether that's going to be the biggest concern or electricity is or something else will be. But there are engineering ways, again, to try to address that, whether it be through a different type of cooling or more efficient systems. Talked about that, great. And then same story, different utility, but electricity, right? Dominion, again, is the one that is in charge of providing electric power and also doing the expansions in coordination with the businesses. I've received the question because I think Hanover worked with the track developer to work on the substation. We have not been asked and we have not offered any incentives to pay for anything, to help build anything. So I just wanna make that crystal clear for any data center application coming up. So we are not helping to build a substation, but when it comes to electricity, the other big concern you're gonna hear and there's largely truth to it, is that your electric rates are going to go up, or your bill is going to go up over time. That is largely true. Dominion has to pay for all these expansions they're doing, they're doing it through existing rate customers. The problem is, you can't say you approved that data center, and so your bill went up three cents. You can't draw that direct line. And so whether you were to approve the next data center application that came to the town or not, there's no direct line you can trace to say, well, I just saved the town taxpayers $5 a month in electricity or anything like that. But if you are interested in this topic in particular, I will get you the date, but a group called RVA 757 came and spoke to town council and they brought the Dominion engineer who basically works on all the data centers and he explained that far more eloquently than I just did and it might make a little bit more sense to you too. So if you're really interested in that. And Dominion presents to the council every once in a while or there was a presentation. Yeah, they have a kind of local government wrapping up a common just given update. But in this instance, they actually brought the in here who does all the data center design. So it was really, really helpful. Yes. And as we keep trucking along, other community concerns that you're going to hear are big development is traffic. But with data centers in particular, this is one of the ones where when I say low impact on the community, this is where data centers are actually quite great, right? You can develop almost 200 acres and potentially only have 200, I'm sorry, 2,000, 3,000 trips today, which sounds like a lot, but relative to other things is absolutely minuscule. And largely, just so the public understands the why of that is data centers have very high investment in the infrastructure, but very few employees. And so you don't get those employee trips. And they also don't use a lot of commodities or products, right? And so they don't get those delivery trucks coming and going constantly like you might at a contractor yard or something like that, getting those deliveries going. And so the traffic is very low. They don't want visitors, they're high security, so there's not, you get that, a lot of tours, anything like that. And so in particular, traffic is certainly an area where data should in development is relatively good for the community, relative to other uses. And then the last one, and I don't put it last to shy away from it, because I think it is genuinely, you have to take into consideration a very high benefit to communities. But data centers in my estimation, and I haven't read a report on this, but I've done a lot of finance work in local government, probably provide the highest per-square-foot tax revenue in Virginia of any type of use you can put on a piece of land. I mean, if you're going to put one square foot or a hundred square feet or a hundred thousand square feet of anything on any piece of land, it's going to generate the most tax revenue of anything you can put. And that's just the tax structure in Virginia. It's not really anything special about data centers. It's just that that's how the tax is structured in Virginia. And the real reason behind that is the equipment within the data centers is valued very high. It's high tech. It's servers. It's all that stuff. And they have to turn it over really frequently. And so you don't get the depreciation of the asset over time that we might get with business personal property, people's computers, they'll keep for like eight years, their vehicles are keep for five or eight years, and you see that tax revenue go down over time. With the data centers, they're replacing the equipment every one, two, three years, and so that, you know, assessment stays at a really high level. And so it's a very consistent revenue source for the community as well. In particular for town council who have to manage the budget, one of the things that we see that data center is being a really high value for is revenue diversification. I'll be the first to admit that we may have a few too many of our eggs in the meals and lodging tax basket. And so to get another type of revenue and another type of business that could potentially be recession proof in a different format, right? Because it's more of a assessed value approach than an actual spending approach. It could potentially be very good for the community. And although estimates we're seeing for data centers are, again, they're going to provide a lot of local tax revenue. And so, again, that was a to provide a lot of local tax rubber. Again, that was a relatively quick run-through of what we call the top eight. But if there's other ones you've heard, and actually if I bring up one other one, because we had a conversation what was the June 3rd, and I think you brought up the potential obsolescence of data centers. We've seen other businesses as things get more popular, as they get cheaper, as chips get smaller, do you really need these hundreds of thousands or millions of square foot of data centers? And so I've talked to three different people kind of in the business and largely the same answer across all of them is they don't see that happening in the real anytime in the near future because they think and are I think accurate. Our demand for data is so outpacing the ability of the technology to reduce the size of things and reduce the, or even increase the speed of computing and travel of the data that our demand is outpacing any ability that they could have to kind of reduce the size and get it down to a smaller amount. Because even if you made every chip that was that size, the size of your pinky, that could reduce the size a lot but if our demand for data is going up hundreds or thousands fold on a regular basis, you're going to eat more and more and more of them. So I don't think obsolescence is something that's at least within the 20 year window, 30, 40, 50, future is hard to predict. Yeah. Thanks, Josh. I have a few questions but I'll defer. Leave. Yeah, yeah, thanks Josh. I have a few questions, but I'll defer leave. Oh, I just a little bit of a fall up to the the obsolescence point you just made and relating to revenue how does It's essentially a property tax so so if if all the racks and all the floors of the data center get full of stuff there's a big bump in income to the town, you know that. And then if they continue to have that demand and you know replace all those things every other year, that's that keeps going back up again. So it doesn't you don't get the depreciation. If the overall footprint is not sold out, if they're unable to fill their data center five years from now once it's built, then the revenue defaults to what? Is it just real estate? Right, regular, regular, regular business personal property that you would expect. Okay. Okay. And did you have questions? No, I guess my only comment would be that the two of the main issues that come up about, you know, the water and electricity, which are out of our hands. We have our entities for that. So that's just something I'm thinking about, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'd similar to, and they're not appropriate questions for you necessarily Josh, because they do get into how much are these industries open to solar or wind or other power sources rather than just high tension lines. My suspicion is that they're so electricity dependent putting solar panels on the roof is not going to meet their needs. It's kind of a it can help but it's not the so it's not going to be the main source of it. I was curious because you did list in your notes, but I missed hearing you mention of the noise issue of the decibel limit that the town has, right? That was in your notes. And I thought that was an interesting observation that you made that despite your comments about how noisy things can get, there is still a limitation that the town will have in terms of what's acceptable or what's not. So that would provide citizens, I think, with an opportunity to say, you know, we said that the decibels were going to be at a certain level and I'm hearing them far beyond that is that's something we can investigate or look into that would be part of the development. But I was curious from a tax revenue, you listed the rates and realizing that we are part of a county that is also very interested in the data center world and Henrico, which I'm seeing, is exploding and producing a lot of revenue. Do you have a sense of where we sit competitively? As far as rates go? As far as rates go? Our combined rate is a little bit higher than Henrico and Chesterfield and Danville's, actually believe it or not, the other one of the big players in this as well. But everything we've heard is that as long as you're under a certain threshold and we're well under under it, you're still very competitive because there are a lot of localities that haven't even updated the data center specific rate. And so in Ashland's example, our personal property tax rate is 77 cents per hundred. Our data center rate is 10 cents per hundred. And so using that example to other localities, they're charging that really high rate. And so they lose that fourth leg of the chair. Right there. Right. Okay. Amy, anything that you want to ask about? No, I think I'm good. I was going to ask about the actual tax rates. So thank you for that. I think that was helpful. All right. So thanks. I do appreciate this, Josh. And I did try to be a consumer of information. And particularly, this is new. So I'm trying to be careful with the run for the golden thing. It's the data centers. And then if we learn later that, well, I was one of my questions was about what happens after data centers are Are no longer I think what do we do can we notify or can we adjust so it's interesting to I don't have an answer to that I know and that's not fair for that. I ask you I do have one other question about the tax rate what you said so we're combined because we're part of handover county so are we, if what's Hanover County's rate, not in Ashlock, are we competing with Hanover County? We're at 10 and they're at 45 cents. And so combined, we're 55 cents. So we're 55, but they're 45. So we're competing with the county in a way. To some extent, the 10 cents doesn't make a huge difference as evidenced by the fact that we have an application coming in. Right. So I think our rate either way is very competitive and never, you know, not saying we would go down this, I'm not saying this is a recommendation to town council, but the other nice thing is you get a few of these in here, you start to understand what they do generate, what is a appropriate rate over time, you can raise it lower, these rates over time as well, either generate more tax revenue to incentivize more to come and however you want to do approach that. And so just because that's the right now, does not mean it's fixed that way for us. That's right, it's the market, right? And the business proposition to make sure that the developers are interested and that we can move timely. And part of the good thing when I say revenue diversification too is it also gives Flexibility to town council right so is there a world where you approve a data center over the next year It comes in and in five years. It's producing two million dollars in new revenue for us That's a lot of money. I mean our general fund budget is twelve million dollars But it gives council flexible. Do you want to invest that money or do you want to lower real estate rate? Do you want to lower that meals rate? Is there an incentive you can offer by lowering another rate to give other types of businesses? And so again, it offers a lot of flex. I think that holistic picture is important, Josh. And I knew you've presented very well and have taught me a lot personally, but I think in terms of talking to our neighbors and the residents of the town to say yes while there may be some costs associated with creating something it results perhaps in changes to our the way we fund our town. Definitely. So, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. So again, we're going to move on to the public hearings now. And as suggested, we've modified the agenda so we're going to start with the Cup 24-0508 RMC modular housing. We are going to have a presentation but in advance of that we wanted to bring attention to the audience and those listening, something that Linda wanted to address and speak to about her participation in this or a lack of presence. Right, right. Just because the applicant is rent of making college and on employee I will have to abstain from the discussion and the vote. Which is going to be really hard for Linda. That will be hard. Linda wants to participate in as a great, we always value and appreciate your insight. So we're going to miss that in this case, but with that said Miss Amos. Good evening commissioners. The first public hearing we have before you this evening. Can you hear me? I don't think you're on mine. There we go. All right, good. Is the Randolph-Making College Modular Housing Conditional Use Permit, CUP 24-0508? This is a request that we received from Randolph-Making College for the construction of three one-story modular residence halls. The location is at the intersection of Henry Street and Smith Street. It's a total approximately 36 acres the entire property, the college owns, with the area that we're looking for this conditional use permit on is approximately 1.5 acres. Property is already zoneed, HE higher education, and the future land use map on the comprehensive plan is called for Randolph-Macon College. So the request further is to allow up to 118 temporary modular spaces within those three main units. Randolph-Macon is a residential college. They encourage and almost insist that their students live on campus. That being said, up to approximately 20% of the students annually live off campus. Whether they are a normal commuter, whether they live in enrichment and hand over with their parents and commuting to college or they're living in off campus housing, which is usually some type of rental situation around the campus. In fall of 2020, due to COVID enrollment numbers significantly dropped. You can see that in what was the previous coming up. Senior class, if you look at the numbers, they're significantly lower than the other classes. But then on the flip side of that, for fall of 2024 they have a record number of enrollments and the college is here. I'm not going to go too far into their issues and I hope they can speak to those. But in meeting with them on paper it looks like they have enough beds. They should have enough beds but there are a couple issues. One being there are more and more numbers of people who are requesting single units. So where a room is designed and planned for a double unit because of accessibility or some type of disability, they once they get a doctor's note that double room turns to a single room. And then you also have the way their dorms are set up because they are somewhat older dorms. They cannot have mixed sex on a single floor who has just one bathroom. So if there's only one bathroom, you can only have girls or you can only have guys. And so that, again, may take some of those double rooms and turn them into singles. So in our zoning ordinance you can apply for a conditional use permit which grants the property owner the right to use the property in a more intensive manner and it grants the planning commission and town council the ability to make recommend and approve conditions to mitigate some of those issues that may come up. A lot of times we talk about lighting, noise, landscaping, architecture, aesthetics, and how it fits in with the comprehensive plan. So within the higher education, H.E. zoning district, it is a requirement for dormitories to come to the Planning Commission and Town Council and get a conditional use permit. And so that's where we are this evening. This is a temporary use, but again, going to be used as a dormitory. So we're reviewing that conditional use permit. Here's an aerial of the location. I think this is a good place to see to the north, there along Smith Street. There is a good amount of vegetation and buffer already in place. There are a few trees on the Henry Street side and you can see there are a couple single family homes there on the opposite side that are not owned by Randolph-Macon. A majority of the other areas are owned by Randolph-Macon College. Here is a street view. Again you can see there are a few trees here on Henry Street, but not really buffered. So those two single family homes across the street would be able to see these modular units the way it set out currently. So the future land use map, as I mentioned, does cough is area to be, Randolph-Macon College. It's now being used in called Blinco Field, an athletic field there. The Comprehensive Plan talks pretty regularly about the college. If you recall, when we just updated our Comprehensive Plan, we didn't spend a ton of time on the Randolph-Macon College portion because the college is updating their 2009 master plan. So much of what's in our current comprehensive plan is based off of the 2009 Randolph-Macon master plan. We anticipate that in the next year or so when the college updates their master plan that we would ask the Planning Commission town council to come back and re-analyze the comprehensive plan and make updates based off of that master plan. But for now, this is what we were going off of. So it recommends that development by the college be kept within the existing campus footprint, that they not buy properties and build on properties outside of that campus footprint, that they recommend on campus housing in order to limit off campus housing. And we also recommend protecting their tree canopy when possible. So for the zoning, the property is zoned HE, as is a most of the property to the south and east, but you can see as you go north, and then that quadrant there just to the east is zoned R3 for residential. So, in speaking about the college zoning district, it's designed to protect the area of town which encompasses the college. It is also designed to protect the campus environment until allow for the orderly expansion of the college by not allowing encroachment of uses that would be detrimental to the college or to the town. So here is the current 2009 Randolph Macon Master Plan. You can see up there in the top corner on Blinko Field. And so it wasn't planned for residential at the in 2009 and that's the area we're looking at. So just some of the considerations impact on adjacent properties. The majority of the property is again owned by Randolph-Macon College. There are three adjacent single family residences on B Street, Henry Street and Henry Street. There are existing mature trees and vegetation, which it's our interesting, those would be preserved. Lighting will be reviewed as part of the building permit process. It will all have to be dark sky compliant. Everything that includes no glare, and it will have to be no taller than 20 feet. Architecture, I'll get into the pictures of the modular units here. It is not compatible with the start buildings on campus. However, the modular residence halls will be temporary and not permanently detract from the architectural campus, character of campus. I think if these were permanent units, we would have a lot more discussion about the look of these units. It's our understanding that discussion about the look of these units. It's our understanding that the college is requesting for these units to be in place. God bless you. For approximately two years we have allowed for an additional, within the conditional use permit, extensions, but it's ideally the college will have additional units but in place to have these removed. So here is just an example. There are three of these modular units, all very similar. So you have your double occupancy units, and then you have bathrooms in the middle, and then a small kitchen area, a common kitchen area, and then a common laundry area there right in the middle. Here is an example of similar units that were put in by Virginia State University. As my understanding, I think these were done perhaps during COVID where people needed to be separated. But this is a very similar concept to what will be there. And so you can see each of those units are one of those. So there'll be three of this unit here. And so the interior hall here, so on the inside it very much does look like a normal dorm setting. Here's just an example again, this is Virginia State furniture, the college may have different furniture in there. And we may not know this Nora, but those ex-tears looked like they were designed with Virginia State colors. Thank you. And so I was thinking that might be a good question for the college. Yeah. So again, showers in each hall. So vehicular impact, I think this is the one that internally on a staff level we have talked about the most because as you probably know and have heard from your neighbors and others, this is the complaint we get the most about college students is that the parking is like a balloon and it keeps moving out and out into our neighborhoods. Last year, the town council adopted a parking permit plan in process. And since then, the police department have been out enforcing that and monitoring it. I have a feeling when kids come back in the fall that that enforcement is probably going to have to get picked back up just to make sure that everyone's aware of. Sorry, it keeps moving up here, but I don't think it's me. Just so everyone's aware of that permit issue and where you can park and where you cannot park. So the college has a parking plan and so that gets adopted and adopted by the town council. The way the standard for the parking plan is that the colleges required to provide one spot for 80% of their population. So if they had a thousand students, they'd have to provide 800 spots plus one for one for every staff person. So if they had 350 plus the 800, you're having to provide 1,150 spots. And so back in 2019, they were getting ready to exceed the number of students that they were approved for in their current parking plan. But then when 2020 came, the review of that parking plan kind of went away because they went back down. It's my anticipation that with this new enrollment, when we get those new enrollment numbers, we're going to have to pick that parking plan back up and figure out where to put new spots. Since the last parking plan update, they have added the new parking at the former tennis courts. So that is a significant number of spots that have been picked up. They also have plans for additional parking in that same area behind the new apartments. And so all of those things will take into consideration in reviewing the parking plan. As some of you may know though, or if you were a college student or you go anywhere in park, we often want to park closest to our destination and if most of the destinations are on the east side of campus, those parking lots on the west side don't always get used and so that's going to have to be a partnership between the town and county where we kind of enforce or push the kids to make sure that they're or faculty year whoever that those lots are being used. So pedestrian facilities, there are sidewalks already and it's anticipated that most new pedestrian traffic would happen internally and on the campus. This is a temporary use. We hope that the college is planning for new residential facilities. You all may recall the additional use permit that we approved for 64 new beds in apartment units on the west side of the campus near the parking lot I was just mentioning. I believe it was because of a cost issue, the timing on that got delayed plus they were low in their numbers. and so they hope to have that under construction and open for next fall so fall of 25 to have those built. That being said that's only 64 and this year they're anticipating a shortage of up to 120 beds and so they're still going to be short. We have found that it takes several years for planning and designing and getting approved and then built a dormitory. So we look forward to working with the college on planning out future dorm facilities. So with the conditional use permit this is different than a rezoning where the proffers are voluntary with this conditional use permit. We look at the comprehensive plan, our design guidelines, our zoning ordinance and other examples of similar uses in town and create conditions. And so these are conditions that staff is recommending that the Planning Commission recommend to town council. I'll go through these generally, but they're all listed specifically here up on the screen. So this conditional use permit shall be renewed annually through a public hearing process with a maximum of three renewals to ensure that there is momentum for permanent housing solution. And so this one I think the college may ask that we allow the conditional use permit to be in place for two years, and then allow for an additional year to be added. Our only thought about having it renewed annually is that this is a new use. We aren't sure what to expect and that if we reviewed it again, say next June, then we would have a year to understand what maybe some of the issues were. But staff is also fine in understanding that if the Planning Commission wanted to allow this for two years and then come back for that third year. All hopefully working towards having these only end for two years. So the modular residence hall shall be constructed in general conformity with the examples depicted exhibit A, similar to what we showed this evening, that the existing landscaping shall be preserved, and if it's removed it shall be replaced, and that additional buffer landscaping shall be installed in areas directly adjacent to non-random-making residential properties. And so there's already a couple trees there, but we would ask that additional buffer using some type of cypress or cedar tree be added there. And this is coming from public utilities. Water and sewer extensions and connections will be completed. And in accordance with the DPU standards for permanent installations. And then when temporary housing is removed or abandoned, the public services installed shall be abandoned in accordance with those DPU standards. If for some reason this temporary housing is still in place after June 1st of 2026, permanent storm water improvements must be completed by September 30th of 2026 and accordance with plans approved by public works. And this is coming from generally if you do anything in town over 2500 square feet, you're required to put in storm water infrastructure. Since this is a temporary use, we're allowing them to pay the storm water fee, so they'll pay the $18,000 per square foot of the $18,000 storm water fee that will be used to make improvements to storm router around town, but they will not be putting in permanent structures for this use. If we get to a point where these units are going to be there for more than two years, it's no longer in our opinion a temporary use and they would have to have a site plan approved and adequate storm water facilities installed on the property. So all on street parking regulations shall be followed by dorm residents and the parking plan shall be reviewed and updated as needed prior to occupancy approval and that's based off of that formula I mentioned before which will go over with the college once they get their final tabulations on enrollment but that has to be done before they get their occupancy permit in the fall. So applicant shall comply with all federal, state, and local laws and regulations. We'll get rid of that period. And that they'll participate in recording the conditional use permit. And so with all of that staff is recommending approval of conditional use permit 24-0508 with the nine conditions as presented this evening. And as I mentioned, I believe the college is here and I could say some words. Thank you, Nora. We invite the applicant forward if you'd like to clarify or add anything different. Thanks, Greg. Commissioner's, my name is Grant. As Deli serve as vice president for student affairs at Randolph-Bacon College and also Dean of Students. I'm also a town resident living on New Street here in Ashland. I'm joined by my colleague Rob Young, who is three weeks into his position. So he will speak with me if needed, but I will carry hopefully the load of questions that the commissioners might have or neighbors might have. I believe there was a question about paint. And yes, so typically what we do, Grant, is provide the applicant an opportunity to speak or present or clarify anything. And then what we do is we open up public hearing before we really engage. So if you're comfortable with things as presented, then what I will do is ask for open the opportunity for public hearing and then we'll take that and then allow opportunities to respond or I think town staff has presented this exactly the way it was it was discussed. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thanks, right. Bernie, I'm making sure I'm following the steps correctly. Okay, so we will invite anybody here who is here to speak on this particular module. How do you think issue? I will offer for the record that we did receive two thoughtful and considerate emails from Kelly Salmon and Kathy and Michael Natali. So we did read those and those were, I think thoughtful and considerate and generated some questions that I have. But again, I will allow for public input if somebody would like to come forward and either summarize or reiterate what was sent or offer something new. And those communications will be added to the minutes. Yes, so they will officially be in the right. The town council will get a chance to see them as well. See them as well. So the commissioners have read them. Yeah, we don't mind hearing from you, of course. So we'd like to say for the record, please just confirm your name and address. Thank you. Kathy Natali, 306 Berkeley Woods Drive, Ashland. Thank you. Kathy Natali, 306 Berkeley Woods Drive, Ashland. Thank you, Kathy. Berkeley Woods is right next to you. It's across the street, but right next, this will be. Could you pull the mic up? Yeah, I make sure I want to make sure the online folks hear you. I've never been accused of not killing. You sound good. Yeah, okay. Our concerns really have to do with traffic. Not so much that the modular units are needed, but if your student population is growing, I believe you had a banner year last year, and this year was even better than last year's with incoming students. If it's continuing to grow, is whatever facility or facilities that are being built for permanence, are they going to have enough room for the students that are coming in while the modular units are still there? And then the second part of it is there's a lot of students that are moving off campus in our area, not just, I'm not talking just about Berkeley Woods, but in the Berkeley town kind of area. And I mean, I have a passion for housing, affordable housing because of, I worked for Virginia housing in the past. And a lot of those houses are being picked up as they come for sale and converted into rental units for students. And that's driving the cost of the homes in that area so that small families can't afford those prices, not whether for home ownership or rentals. So I just am concerned that as these new students climb the ladder and become upper class people, junior seniors, if there's not enough of those nice apartment units for them, they're going to be looking for opportunities to move off campus. We experienced a lot of students living in the Berkeley Woods neighborhood when it was first built and we moved in. It's only 20 houses, but we had six houses that were either owned by students' parents, and they were letting their kids and their friends live in the house or somebody whatever the situation was. But we had six homes that were occupied by students, and they told us that it was a big joke that all you had to do is go to a doctor and say you have a lot of allergies and they would give you something that said you need to live off campus. And then in the college, I think, is obligated at that point, you know, that if it's a medical issue that they have to accommodate it. So I just worry that as what is the strategy from RMC, not just about what they're trying to do right now, but long-term, are they gonna be able to handle that capacity? And I did have another question that popped up when you were mentioning the water, the storm thing. So we have a retention pond that when a neighborhood was created, we were told it was not just storm water coming from our neighborhood. It was also coming from Randolph-Macon. And we have no way to know if that's true or not. But let's assume that it is true, and there's some additional water runoff that's going to be created and I know It's said that the college would pay additional fees to a car you know because of that But is that storm water going to come into our pond? I you know don't know if our pond can handle that additional storm water You know, we've been up the neighborhood's been around for like 17 years now. And so at some point we're going to have to probably dredge the pond, which is very expensive. We don't know what's going on with the big huge pipes where the water comes in. So I'm a little bit concerned about that. And I don't know how to go about finding out whether that Randolph-Macon, you know, water is coming in there or not. So we would like some assistance with that but that's basically what our concerns are. Understood. Is we even though the streets have been restricted and that has helped the students are still parking there, the people on Berkeley Woods can only park on one side of our street. So, you know, when we've got houses on both sides and some of those people have driveways that aren't big enough to accommodate everybody in their family. And what we've been trying to do is just put notes on the cars for students that are parking there when they shouldn't to say, if you continue doing this, we'll call the Asham Police. And we've had to. And but the students have expressed the ones that I've talked to that have parked on the street. They're the ones that are saying there's not enough parking on campus. And I have had some faculty people and administration or operations people that I know in the community, I just know them in different ways. And they say it's a struggle too, that if they leave, say to go to a doctor's appointment and come back, chances our student has popped into a space. So I'm just really worried with these additional students where you feel like you have enough parking where maybe you don't. And so it's not just Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. For us, it's evenings and weekends where we have all these people parking and it's legal. They can park there but for us, it's a big struggle. Those are mainly the concerns, I think, that I cover them all. Thank you, Kathy. That was thoughtful. I appreciate those thoughts and we'll allow the applicant to speak. We'll see if anybody else but no thank you. Thank you. That was thoughtful. I appreciate it. We'll leave the public comment open if anybody else here would like to speak. We welcome. We welcome your thoughts. Voting with your feet understood. Okay, fair enough. Thank you. I will close the public comment for this module housing and invite Dr. Azdell back up to address some of those comments and then the commissioners may have some questions as well all except for a misride of course. Thank you Dr. Merrill. Appreciate it. So appreciate hearing from folks from the neighborhood and glad that I know them. This is an opportunity for us to be able to talk a little bit more about being a good neighbor and our good neighbor policy here at Randolph-Macon College. We agree that we are looking at a larger number of students coming into the institution. I just want to frame this in case folks aren't aware of what's going on in the world right now in higher education. Right now we are seeing schools like us close one a week on average in the United States, which is significant. It's a significant blow to the towns where those schools are because not only are the students gone but so are the employees, many of whom live in the communities, and we've seen communities absolutely devastated by the loss of those colleges. I say this because there are colleges in Virginia that have struggled, some that have been in the news, that you all have seen, that still struggle to get a sizable number of students to come in. We have two revenue streams that the college, One is students and their tuition that they pay and room and board. And the second would be donations from alumni, friends, corporations. Randolph-Macon's been very fortunate on both fronts because we have done over $140 million in improvements to the campus over the last 15 years, do in part, actually at total, with gifts from the outside, alumni, friends, families, and corporations. No tuition dollars have been used to build those buildings and increase our infrastructure on campus. We have a nice problem this semester. In that of the schools in the Virginia area, the private schools that are like us, we are one of only two that is up in numbers. The rest of the schools are seeing double or triple digit losses in their numbers of students that they've recruited. So we have positioned ourselves with our infrastructure to be more attractive to campus, to the campus, to students to come to our campus, and to be a residential campus. It is our goal to be a residential campus. As the dean of students, I try to keep as many students as possible out of the community. I live in the community, trust me. I don't want to have bad interactions or problems in the community. And those neighbors who are present here today have seen my face at Saturday night at 9, 30, or 10 o'clock at night coming to a house myself in partnership with the Ashland Police Department. I usually don't have to do that once. We work very hard with the Ashland Police Department on enforcement issues, on noise violations. I work with the neighbors, I talk to the neighbors, I've been to many of their houses when they've had issues and in the 17 years that I've been at Randolph making, things have improved greatly. So that's one of the things that we're committed to continue to do. Parking is an issue on any campus. If you talk to anybody, food, parking, and health care are the three things that students complain about most often and residential buildings. So we've tried to work on those issues. Despite us having parking issues, the college was fully supportive at the town of Ashland meeting when the town ordinance was proposed to put in restrictions in Berkeley town, Berkeley woods and college avenue, and then across the tracks on the park avenue corridor. We supported that. We know that it was a problem for those residents that there were a lot of folks who were not paying attention to just being kind about the way that they parked legally. So we supported the parking regulations. I counted today, College Avenue had seven cars parked on there, all residents. You know, this is, it's working. That actually the town of Ashland wrote 426 parking tickets last calendar year. With our support, we actually put notes on our students' cars as well. When we find them parked in the neighborhood, our campus safety are allowed to do that. The reason we adopted our sort of obnoxious yellow parking stickers is so we can spot our cars a mile away and make sure that our students are actually adhering to the rules. So we ourselves have actually called the Ashley and Police Department with repeat offenders and asked them to ticket them. That's the only way sometimes to get a student to respond to that. But we do agree that the parking situation, especially in Berkeley woods where you have parking limited to one side of the street is something we want to watch. We also in Berkeley Town where parking is often part on the street and part on the grass, that's an area we watch as well very carefully in addition to the College Avenue location. We do have a parking plan in place as staff has indicated that parking will start with 64 additional parking spaces on the west side of campus. We can't always put parking right where everybody wants to be, so I appreciate those comments from Miss Amos. But it is a reality that the places that we have areas for parking are not always close to where people want to be for their academic classes or otherwise. Currently, this year, this past year, we had 326 commuter students, half of which were living at home. That number bears out for this year as well. We do know the housing market is tight in Ashland. We know, I just had a neighbor's house who sold for almost a million dollars. The neighborhood is changing. We see that happening. We also see that there is limited rental availability out here. We know that extremely well. When we proposed, first proposed, got ready to propose a modular housing option, we first were looking at where we could have our students rent in places where they would be together and a little bit easier to monitor. And those places don't exist. The housing market in actually is extremely tight. We know that. We also know that there's been some rental properties that were updated here recently, resulting in some gentrification and some people moving out who were residents there. Some of those are sitting empty, but they have a very high rent associated with them. Most of our students who do rent from houses in the neighborhood or at Ashland Town Square Apartments. Ashland Town Square Apartments is completely subscribed. In fact, they're over subscribed. So we do not have that option. We've worked with the realtors, including Yellow Jacket, no affiliation with the realtors including Yellowjack at no affiliation with the college to ask Bruce folks with the houses that he manages and manages quite well. He adheres to the three person rule with all of his leases and he monitors that. So we've worked with him to make sure that takes place. He also is very good about talking to me and to chief Aaron Holt whenever there's a problem at one of his houses. So he's a one warning and then you're out person. It's in his lease and students have sometimes had to have that one warning, but it has largely been pretty effective at making sure that those houses are well behaved and taken care of and that they understand that they're part of our town gown relationship. So I think I've answered most of the questions, but if I have others, I'm happy to address those. Okay, well yeah, I'll invite my commissioners to. Yes, so just from a general background and to ensure my understanding, could you talk a little bit about how this, how the trend is being interpreted by Randolph making at this moment. In other words, we were low a couple years ago, kind of a banner year coming up this fall, but overall down, this temporary solution sounds both necessary and probably a good idea. Is it temporary with a commitment that big dorms are gonna be built because you're gonna see 120 additional students every year for the next 10 years? Is it a little bit of test the waters and see where this goes? I wanna just get a little bit, and this I think goes to Ms. Natalie's question, you know, kind of what's the strategy? President Lindgren has stated before the town of Ashland before that our goal is to be a little bit larger so that we're more appealing to students who are out there now. We are not attempting to become Virginia Tech with 28 or 30,000 or 55,000 students and that is not our goal. Our goal also is to grow in moderation as best as we can. I will attribute this year to two or three factors just for some background. One is we have a brand new vice president for enrollment who is fantastic at what she does. We saw a banner group of people come through. Those of you who follow the news know that there was this little kerfuffle with this thing called the FASFA document that a lot of parents use to compute how much they can afford to pay for their students' education. FASFA's were not able to be uploaded to the system. There was lots of problems at the federal level. Randolph-Macon took the initiative to package students with their financial aid early using the W2s and tax returns from the families in exchange and in lieu of the fast-fa information that we did not have. So we used that to be able to package families quicker. That actually I think paid off in dividends because we had more students actually saying yes to us earlier. Another piece of that is because of the fast-fa delay we had more students actually saying yes to us earlier. Another piece of that is because of the fast but delay, we had more students coming to Ashland more often and earlier. So we had students who were saying yes after three or four visits to the campus, not one or two. And that actually boathed well for the town of Ashland and for our campus that we were able to sustain their interest even in this open period where they did not know what other schools might say yes to them or might have a better package for them financially. So it actually worked to our advantage, I think, to have that piece happening at the same time. No college asked the ones who have closed. No college can know for sure what your growth pattern is going to be. What has happened with Randolph-Macon in under President Lingeran's leadership is to be able to position ourselves ahead of that wave, so to speak, so that our campus is in a better condition and is more appealing to students who are young adults right now coming into college. We do know that there is an academic cliff coming in 2025. The birth rate severely drops from 2008. So those students are at the age for college in 2025. That cliff has been talked about a lot in the news. We don't know what's going to occur, but we do know that we need to be thinking about the next phase of building space and housing space on the campus because we have a sizable number of students who are choosing to live off. And we are a residential college. We prefer for our students to live on. Hopefully that answers your question, sir. That's helpful, thank you. Amy, anything from you? Guess just probably, because we just talked about taxes, my question would have been more famous, Amy, so I can wait while we're. Easy one. Grant, I think, was related to the colors. And the one observation was that seemed to be a branded Virginia state. Have you talked about the design or the look of these? We have. Temporaries. Yes, sir. We have. So in the interest of time, we've asked for a beige yellow kind of neutral color to be applied to the prefab units. They're actually quite nice, and they can be decorated in different ways. They are paintable. So if there is some discussion about whether or not the kind of more neutral colors, we need something that looks more branded for Randolph-Macon so that it's clear that you're on our campus, we can go back and add Randolph-Macon colors to them afterwards. But we're trying not to delay their production because they do me no good in November. I got it. So another good comment actually from Kathy and Michael's message was about community outreach at least within the neighborhood and the comment that while the Henry street residents maybe were contacted, I'm curious if you knew if there was a strategy to contact as many of the homes in the area on the north, you know, on that northeast section or whether there is a plan to do so, depending on the decisions, of course, that the town council makes. Certainly. I would welcome those conversations we always have. There's no plan in place at this point. We hope that the conditional use permit, the signage that was put out on the Blinco field would draw attention to the fact that we were doing it. Also the temporary nature of these units, which I can't emphasize enough. We don't put modular units for long periods of time. We don't do that. We had to have them when we did certain growth on the campus. When we built the Brock Commons, we had to put modular units for dining services and for the library. They're gone. That's not our goal is to keep them there for a long period of time. Right. Well, I'm aware the college is very sensitive to its look and its appeal and part of the sales aspect is to bring. And if I might address, I am not a hydrologist, but I do know the water flow areas rough that we're speaking of and Blinco field actually goes the opposite direction towards the railroad tracks. That's towards the the baseball field So it's not it's not going to go across Henry Street and infiltrate that pond as much as can be controlled. That's correct Yeah, the rest is up to the sewer system of Ashland right Because I'm aware I live in a neighborhood with BMPs as well and we are sensitive to the cost. Of course. Maintaining those. So I get that. Brett, anything? Well, I was just going to have sort of add to your discussion. One comment regarding the water is I think there are folks in the town, staff, who could help address, you know, is there a concern around water flow and what would that mean for the neighbors and that would encourage that we, you know, address that in conjunction with the college because if you're living close by and worried about, you know, your pond, you'd want to know, is that really us paying for it as there's something else? And I think that's a very answerable question through staff. The other thing, and we've seen this in the past, but my understanding is there's some standard ways that we can communicate, the town can communicate about hearings like this and upcoming issues. And I think we try to be pretty robust in reaching everyone with signs and public notices and stuff, but there often, it's often the case that not everybody knew something was going on. So it's unfortunate in this case there are probably other neighbors who might have wanted to weigh in or at least understand. But I don't know that that's on the applicant as much as kind of how it works with the process of town balls. Fair enough. Is that fair? Hey man, anything else from you? No I agree. I think isn't it just a adjacent property owners receive notification? I feel like I've gone through that with my own property. That is true. For hearings like this, the rezoning conditional use permits it's adjacent property owners. We always encourage folks to sign up for talk of the town and town notifications. We have a paper sign up here and outside in the foyer, but then it's also available online. And that goes out twice a month prior to council meetings, so you'll be notified if there are any public hearings. And then the storm water question, yes, public works is we have staff who's happy to come out and meet with you and look at your storm water pond and determine what the condition is of it and then where that water's coming from. Do you feel strongly enough Brent that we need to modify any of the conditions, the recommendations related, you're just making the observation. Making the opportunity for, okay. Yep, yeah, because as you mentioned, it's really important to us to hear from neighbors and hear what the concerns are and try to factor those in. Right. But the particular one around stormwater feels like it's sort of addressable separate from modular development. Kelly made an interesting technical comment in her message about the signed cop and I don't know if this really makes a difference or not but Paul Davies' name is all over it and whether or not with him not being a representative of the college that matters. Is that just a technical issue that doesn't really need to be corrected or is that something that we need a current employee of the college to sign a cup? I don't want to create a problem if one does not exist. That might be a little question. So our conditional use permit was signed by a vice president who has since retired. Do we need to get a new signature or is the one we have adequate? The property owner, the Randolph-Macon College, they signed our conditional use permit application. And now that person's retired, do we need to get a new signature? I have a digital signature. Okay. Some additional information. Mr. Davies is retired officially from the institution, but he's on retainer. And when the cup was signed, he was the signatory. He was the CFO at that time. And so that's a historical document that that's what it wrote. It is a historical document. Got it. Got it. At the time that it was signed, he was the proper person. He was. OK, fair enough. I just want, it was an interesting observation and I just wanted to make sure we clarify that. And one more technical item before, I guess we're ready to make a motion, but in the handout there were eight recommendations, but I think your slideshow had nine, so I just wanted to make sure we were. You mind pulling up the. Talking about the proper number. Presentation. Is that who's that? If I had that power, I would do it. Okay, there. So I pulled out, number eight included parking. I pulled out number eight included parking. I pulled out the parking language. It made it a separate condition. So eight used to say- Applicant shall participate in the necessary and the recordation of this conditional use permit in Hanover County Circuit Court. So- Oh, I'm sorry, it used to be seven. So previously seven said all dorm residents will follow rules to include parking. So I pulled the parking out and made it a new seven and made a new eight. Okay. Just that there are general languages that comply with all federal, state and local laws and regulations. And then so that I just pulled it out. Okay. I did add it. No, thank you for clarifying. I just saw the nine and I thought, oh, there was eight. I was just trying to see if you'd catch it But I think we say you might have had another question. Sorry. No, I solved it in my head. I'm good. Okay Miss Ames, I'm not sure who this question is for but since you're standing there. I'll ask you number six Refers to the requirement around something more permanent for stormwater if we get as far as September 30th, 2026. Unless enrollment goes down significantly in these units who removed, I don't think there's going to be time to have dorms put up in their place by this date. Is that fair? So we're kind of, something things go well for the college and student enrollment continues. They're going to have to deal with stormwater because they can't, I'm taking from something else you said that it takes, you know, four or five years to get a dorm built. We probably won't have a dorm by two years from. We'll have the 64 new units. I don't know. Do you want to say anything else about that? Sure. I would just add that we do have the 64 units that should be online by October, I'm sorry, by August of 2025. Those don't take as long to bill because the site map and all the information was already in place. We just postponed building them because of the cost that was associated with them. Now our hand is sort of being forced to use that cost and just build the units. Okay, okay. To a certain degree, I think I was questioning the relevance and timing, well, not that it's important, but the timing of number six. But that makes sense. There may enrollment and availability of norms may line up. Ideally and we talk to the applicant about this state and really they're getting this waiver, which is a significant waiver. It allows them to be able to get these units in by this fall is a waiver for a temporary use. Past two years it really becomes more than a temporary use. Okay. Thank you. So the only other piece that we said we might need to discuss depending on the applicant is the one year renewal versus the two year renewal. And I don't know how strongly you feel about this. The recommendation is for, as Nora suggested, an annual renewal. Do you feel strongly enough to have a discussion about two years versus one year? We do not, okay. So the one year. We are fine with the one year renewal. That's okay. All right, wanted to move. Again, the temporary nature of these things kind of speaks to itself. In addition, if we did the water improvements that are necessary in 2026 those remain even when their units are removed so it's an additional expense that will be in place. Our plan at this point in time is not to build on this site this is a grass area that's used for the students and they're gonna miss it while it's gone right so our goal is to take these units away and build elsewhere in the interior campus. Where are the 64 units? Good on the... 64 units are on the west side of the tracks between the current business office and the current office of advancement. Where there is nothing right now. Where there is nothing right now, but they are designed, there's a design on file, but they are designed to match the housing on center streets so that they don't stand out. It's not our typical brick building that you see on the east side. We're building them differently so that they had is the parking that I see often for events on the grass next to or across from the softball field is part of the parking plan to turn that into, I mean it seems to work and parking on grass is fine for events and things. But would that be one of the areas you all are considering? We're going to, we're in conversation with the town to do that through the proper process and to see how that works. The north side of West Patrick Street that you're describing is zoned our R2, R3. And we are higher ed on the opposite side where the old tennis courts are. So we would have to have some conversations about what that parking looks like, what the water runoff situation would be, what we would do about that piece of it, and then would follow the same prescriptions with the town that we have when we've updated other parking areas. We tend to lose parking spaces when we do a parking area because the town requires certain curbing and certain green space which we comply with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know it. So I'm trying to wonder how well we're addressing the concerns that we heard about parking being the main thing, right? So I really want to make sure that we as commissioners are considering that thoughtfully so that when the town council looks at something we're acknowledging that we're hearing our neighbors and trying to make sure that, I mean, I know the college is always responsive, but that we are, we're addressing that in a sufficient manner. Our biggest concern is Monday through Friday, 8.30 to 1 p.m. Of course. That's when most of the classes meet and that's when we have the largest number of individuals on campus. Absolutely, absolutely. We host a good number of opportunities here on our campus too for the town. So we sometimes have events and things that drive us more. People visit more. That's right. That's right. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Hanks. Thank you. Appreciate it. Any questions for Nora? The only thing, just to be as thorough as possible, there was mention in some of the written correspondence around lighting and noise. And my suspicion and my expectation is that their residential dormitories aren't going to have like football stadium kind of lighting. There's going to need to be some safety lighting and things like that But it's probably well within or will be as it's as proceeds within the town's Regular rules and that some of that offering with greening might off of Henry Street, I suppose address some of that. That's a good observation though, Brent because I know part of safety issues is having Things well lit on a college campus. And it likely would be a change. Today that field isn't lit at all. It will be with some dorms, but I'm imagining it'll be well within the limits of lighting the sound and things like that. Yes, it all has to be dark sky compliant and our highest light pole can be 20 feet. And then subscribe to the regular hours of when it can be illuminated and when it can't. So that's not gonna be when they're coming, if they happen to be coming home late on a Friday night, it's not gonna all of a sudden flash bright lights when students are walking into their residence halls, I suppose. I mean, the lights should be on all night. On, but yeah. Okay. the lights should be on on night. But yeah. OK. I think we're at a point where we're ready to make a motion. And we have options in front of us that would the recommendation to approve as amended include the nine conditions or is the as presented inclusive of those nine as it Recommend if there's a motion for approval of conditional use permit 24-0508 with the nine conditions as presented this evening. Got it Anyone interested waiting on me? No, I just don't have the language in front of me. Oh. I move to recommend approval of CUP 24-0508, RMC modular housing, with the nine conditions. Mr. President. Thanks. As present. As present. Thank you. So we're going to start with Ms. Wright. I abstain. Thank you. Mr. Chamers. Hi. Mr. Merrill. Hi. Ms. Hay. Aye. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for coming to speak. I appreciate that. We're going to shift gears now to our second public hearing on the subdivision ordinance or the 2024-11 with lot frontage requirements. This aim is going to present and then we wouldn't have an applicant necessary for this. There is no applicant for this one we do have. We would have a public hearing. We will open up public comments after your presentation. Thank you. I have to apologize now as I told Bernie this is a very ugly staff report. I had a very difficult time wrapping my mind around this request. And before I get started I have to tell you these things. Because for 22 years, I have enjoyed saying we don't allow private streets. All streets must face on a public ride-of-way. But as we'll discuss, we made some changes to our comprehensive plan and maybe this is something we need to explore altering. But it was hard for me to wrap my, um, doesn't love change brain around the concept that we could perhaps, um, have lots that don't front on a public street. That's my precursor to this presentation and I apologize because you probably could tell through the staff report that I had a very difficult time articulating how this should go. So this public hearing is for ORD 2024-11, a lot funded requirements. And so this is actually being sent to you by the town council and requests of staff and working through and in realizing there were a couple issues within our ordinance. And so council is requesting that the Planning Commission review the proposed ordinance to chapter 17 which is our subdivision chapter. So sections including 17-3 for definition 17-37 location as well as chapter 21, which is our zoning ordinance in various sections of the residential incentive district. So some background. In 2016, we updated our comprehensive plan. We did a fairly thorough update of some of the housing sections to include the desire to have more variety and additional options for housing types to include cottage courts. So at the time the planning commission was very excited about this opportunity to have something new where you're having smaller homes, ideally affordable homes, more affordable homes, facing on this green area as opposed to having your porch just front on a public street. And so, through following the Comprehensive Plan update, we updated our zoning ordinance in 2017 to create this residential incentive district. So, this district was to allow for flexibility and creativity, basically saying if you did all the things that we are asking for in our comprehensive plan, you can have some of these incentives to have different types of homes and more a variety of home within your residential subdivision. One of those options is a cottage court. And so here is the definition of cottage court within our zoning ordinance. And I apologize if it gets confusing because we have the subdivision, which is chapter 17 and then we have ordinance, which is chapter 21. So within chapter 21, our zoning ordinance, we created the definition back in 2017 of a cottage court, which is a collection of single family detached dwellings arranged around and fronting on a common green space instead of an individual street frontage. Utilities and other improvements being designed to permit individual and separate ownership of such lots and dwellings. So here we're saying no, it's not going to be a condo association where you have one person owning the land and we're just selling these units. These are separate lots with separate homes, fronting on a green space as opposed to a street. We do talk about street frontage. It has to be, I believe the development has to be at least one acre. So you have to have one acre of these units. So you can't just have half acre, quarter acre, and say, oh, I'm making a cottage court. It has to be a design that gets approved through this RIN zoning review. And you have to have 180 feet of frontage. And so I'll show you in one of the examples how that's being met. But you don't have to have each lot on a street frontage. But then we have our subdivision ordinance. And so again, section 17 subdivision ordinance defines a subdivision. And I won't read all of it. I thought I highlighted the part there at the end there that any structure to be erected will be on land fronting on a dedicated street and to conform to zoning applicable to such land. And so it appears that we updated our zoning section, but did not make sure that it corresponded to our subdivision ordinance. So we then get an application from someone who has done some creative development here in town. And says, I want to try this RI and district. Let's do it. And so they came up with this design. They had these lots, fronting on this green area, this cottage area, and they have it being served by what appears to be a private alleyway. So we go and review it and we're like, matches the zoning ordinance, and then we realize it doesn't match the subdivision ordinance. You all may remember reviewing Cali comments and you made that recommendation to town council with the understanding at the time that the ordinance would have to be updated prior to this being built. That was part of the reason that they did not proper a concept plan at the time. As I mentioned, there needs to be 180 feet of frontage on a public road, so you do have to have access to a public road. And so, arrow keeps going away. This on Cali Street is where they're meeting that 180 foot requirement. And so there are individual lots here. So they're meeting that, but these units here, this one has street frontage, but these interior units here do not have street frontage. And we talked about, you know, what if you had this alley turned into public right of way, which is the possibility here, where you could have a 20 foot road with no parking, and it would serve these units, it would have to be a turnaround back here, and then it would have to be a 40 foot ride of way. So we could make it happen, or we could have this conversation with you all to see how you feel about having the option for private roads, or this is really just an alley here. So then the same exact time, this is not an issue with the ordinance per se but a request came in from M&M to rezone property approximately 39 acres and you see it's quite a deep lot here right in between Route 1 and 95 and so they came in and said hey we want to have these lots back here on 95 and I'm like well you kind of frontage on 95, but I don't know that it's really meeting the intent. Then they have this lot right here, and then this lot right here that maybe don't have frontage. And we've had other industrial projects that come in and want to build and sell lots, like sell off lots. And so they have to put in a public road, and then we have to maintain this public road. It does go into the V.System and we do get funds to do the maintenance, but it's really just serving an industrial project. For the alleyways, the V.S. does not take alleyways into their system, and so we would not receive funds. We would have to use general funds if alleyways were created. And so while we were reviewing the subdivision ordinance for the cottage court units, we decided that this is kind of an ongoing issue that keeps coming up. For example, vitamin shop. They asked if they could just build an industrial access road. And so if you've been on vitamin shop way, it simply serves vitamin shop in R&D C. Jamestown, or not Jamestown, Johnson Road, to the South, you may recall that rezoning that came a couple of years ago. There are roads there that the town is now maintaining that simply serve an industrial park. And so the question is, would we like the opportunity to provide exceptions for something like this where they would have these lots in the rear that are not served by public access. There are issues what if these roads aren't maintained what if the access drive aisles aren't maintained what if these people come back in 20 years from now and want us to provide them access how do we ensure that they're getting, that they have safe access to their properties through fire and rescue services. So there are definitely some issues to consider here. Yes. Can you go back to that? Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. I just want to see where the actual road tour on that one, on the industrial one. I couldn't tell. Yeah, you can't. Sorry, I'm trying to get it to come back. This is not one here. I think. Right, but this is 95. So this is Route 1. So how do you get into this property? You have these two. Oh, rather red. Remember, this is the thing we listen to. so there's yeah, sorry she's got there's two entrances on route one say I have it There's my little arrow go back right they have the red okay those are the Red lines are the there we go okay And so this would be the main access road and these are really parking corridors here So they could be full of cars yes, so so presumably a truck could have trouble getting through there. Oh, we require the fire lanes to be adequate size for fire trucks to get through. Yeah, that's the way the warehouse is operate that they've got this yellow painted line down this massive and they're like, this is where the fire trucks go. And all the trucks are right around. So when I was doing this, I started to... How do I make this work for any? I might have to duplicate my screen. Did you make it go away or did I make it go away? We're not touching anything. You are in charge. Let me drag it down here. Yep, probably. There you go. So I started putting all these words into a PowerPoint and decided it was just really difficult. We needed to see all the words. Thank you for pulling this up and walking. I just want to make sure I'm tracking Does the because it feels to me having small cottages around a green space Feels different than having multiple industrial buildings around Maintained by the landlord road and and I get that we've seen both of those I just want to make sure I'm listening the right way. Do we think that there's a set of changes to ordinance that kind of addresses both of those, or are we gonna, are there two different ordinances? One for industrial, one for residential. I'm gonna go through all of it and hope to answer your question. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I was cutting and hasting all of this information into a PowerPoint and it got to be very bulletin. So we're now transferring over to the specific language. So section 17-37 locations. This goes beyond the definitions of subdivision cottage court I just went through, but location in the subdivision ordinance states, each lot shall but on an existing or proposed dedicated public street or on a street which has become public by right of use. And so here once again in subdivision ordinance we're saying everything has to be on a public street. Here in 17-55 private streets, there shall be no private streets platted in any subdivision. Every subdivide of property shall be served by a publicly dedicated street. And this was done for a reason. Again, as soon as you make a private street, people are going to come in and ask you to take it over and maintain it for them and make it public. Maybe not as soon, but five, 10 years later. That's what they're going to ask. So is they get their first pothole? So 17-5 exceptions to the chapter. Here we go. So we have created within the subdivision ordinance an opportunity already where the Planning Commission can make a recommendation and the town council can approve an exception to the subdivision regulations when the Planning Commission recommends exceptions unless they find findings based on the evidence presented to it in each case. Okay, so the granting of the exception will not be detrimental to the public safety health or welfare or interest to other property. Because of the particular surrounding shape or typographical conditions, the specific property involved, particular hardship to the property owner, would result in the strict letter of the regulations being carried out. The exceptions shall not, in any matter, vary the provisions of the zoning ordinance, comprehensive plan or official zoning map in Recommending exceptions the planning commission may recommend such conditions as it will and its judgment secure substantially the objectives of the standards and the requirements this chapter. I'm sorry I'm reading it to you, but we kind of have to hear it all and that the petition for any exception shall not be submitted in writing Anyways that part's not important. So in reviewing all of these, the examples we reviewed tonight don't really fit under this. So in particular, there isn't a particular hardship. There isn't necessarily a topographical issue. And these are all ends. It's not if you meet one of these then we can get you the exception and so we as staff didn't feel that public roadfront is really fit under this exception process and so back in 2013 some of you may remember that the town did adopt an exception process to the zoning ordinance section 21-251 location of uses and structures so also within location and uses of structures, it states that all structures and uses shall be established on lots so that the lots front on an existing street or on an improved right away to the town's specification. So this is about the fourth time in our code where we are talking about it has to be on a public street. And so we had some situations where there were existing platted lots, so not newly subdivided lots, but existing platted lots where we weren't allowing them to build on those lots because they didn't have access or frontage on a public right of way. And so they're kind of grandfathered in that they were probably subdivided 150 years ago, but we were telling them, if you want to build, you have to build a road to your property. And a lot of times that would be a road to one lot and that's all it would ever be. And so in 2013, we created an exception process in the zoning ordinance that, again, not impacted by subdivision at all, gives you the ability to get an exception to that. So, for example, there was a lot near the YMCA and they came in and asked for this exception, we granted it with these specific items. So you have to have deeded easements, it has to be a certain width so that you again are having secure access to your property. And so we have an example of an area where we are giving an exception but this is in the zoning ordinance not the stat or the subdivision ordinance. So we need to definitely make some changes in the subdivision ordinance if that's the where we want to go. So we did do some research and worked with our consultants, EPR to do some research on other localities around the state and how they handled similar situations. We found an example in Auburn, Marrow County where they do allow for private roads. It's our understanding that they might be backing off on that a little bit now. But in very certain situations, specific situations, but they require an approval of a private improvement maintenance agreement. So basically the developer and property owners are signing off saying you're going to maintain it. That doesn't mean they're not going to come to us when they get their first pothole and say, hey, I know I have this, but can you do it? And so we as part of the ordinance you'll see in a recommendation if we go that route would require this improvement maintenance agreement. It's very similar to the ones we have with HOAs for their stormwater maintenance. So each HOA or when it happens the developer signs these stormwater maintenance agreements and it says every three years we will have someone come and certify that our stormwater pond has been inspected or cleaned. So we're going to keep going. I will get to a print. So review of the ordinance changes that we're proposing tonight. So this is what we're kind of proposing that could alleviate it. And I am, again, as I said, had a hard time wrapping my mind around the best way to do this. So happy to take recommendations from you all. So this ordinance, 2024 to Ash 11, would change the subdivision ordinance and zoning ordinance to allow for cottage courts and industrial subdivisions to be considered for exceptions to the requirement for lot frontage. So in summary, these are the changes that are gonna be included. The first one for definitions under subdivision in chapter 17, I just put unless otherwise dictated within the code. And so later on within the code in chapter 17, we're going to dictate how you can get an exception to the structure being on a public road. So location 17-37 each lot shall be shall a but on an existing or proposed at a catered public street or street that's the the black is existing proposing to add that the town council may grant an exception to the requirement for lots to a but on a public street per Ashland town code section 17-251 if the following have been met. And so we pulled some language from that zoning exception language. And so the granting of the exception shall not be detrimental to public safety health or welfare or interest or detrimental to other property. Here's where it kind of covers both that the property is zone either M1, M2 or RIN, that residential incentive. If zone, RIN, the only exception to be granted is for the creation of cottage courts as defined in the zoning ordinance. And again, these are all ANS, not ORS, and the property is not adjacent to a proposed roadway as shown on the town transportation plan. So if there's supposed to be a road there, you have to build it. Or propose roadway and adjacent site development plan. So if there was a road built next to you and it should extend, then you do have to extend that. Access to the site must be approved through a recorded private improvement maintenance declaration and that does get recorded at the courthouse so that it would be available to anyone purchasing the property and must connect to an existing public roadway. In granting this exception, the town council may recommend such conditions that it will and its judgment secure substantially the objectives of the standards or requirements of this chapter recommended conditions include all requirements for fire apparatus access will be met. Construction of access drive will meet engineering requirements with respect to matters of land clearing, erosion, sediment control, wetlands, and other regulatory matters as determined by the director of public works. And then that needs to be scooted over there. Attiquate easement shall be provided for all utilities as to need necessary by the reviewing agency. And so, and then it just talks about how you'll do this through a petition. That's that. Section 21-251, which is within the zoning ordinance again, where it states all structures and uses shall be established on Latvra. So that front on a public street. Through Ash and Town Code section 17-37, the town council make grant and exception for newly created lots for cottage courts and RIN and industrial park zone are M1 and M2. So here just to we won't go through it, I will not read it to you. As an example of the private improvement maintenance declaration that we pulled from Aubmore County and turned it into an Ashland document. We would obviously have our attorneys review this document prior to it actually being adopted. This is simply just for an example here this evening. I wouldn't mind if the town attorney could speak to the resolutions that were presented to you this evening. It's a little different process than we've done before and you could just go over how those can be read and adopted this evening after the public hearing. Okay, and regards to the resolutions that you guys have in accordance with Virginia Code Section 15.2, 2286. So of course it says that a governing body can make changes or amendments to an ordinance by either motion by the government body or by resolution or by a petition. But we recommend that you use the resolution language because the resolution always sets out the public necessity, the convenience, the general welfare, good zoning and good land use practice support consideration that has to be included in order for the governing body to consider the amendment. And so we just think that it's just good practice for maybe the town to adopt this type of practice when you're doing these types of amendments to have a resolution attached to the motion. When you're reading the motion, it would be my suggestion based on how Nora just present it that you would read the where as clauses and then when you get to the therefore language it's fine to say and replace the following sections of what is it ATC chapter 17 as presented tonight to council because the language is already on the record because she read through all of the language but the important part is the whereas paragraphs. Thank you very much. And so staff at this point does recommend approval or recommend that the Planning Commission recommend approval to town council but we also very much hope that there's some discussion that can be had and tweaking or recommendations and conversation here. Thank you for the presentation. To go through the motions, we will open the public hearing. I'll spend some time looking around the room and I don't see anybody rushing to the podium to address this, surprisingly. So I will close the public hearing or the public comments and invite Miss A. Mosque back to the stand and then I had a couple of questions but again I'll defer to my colleagues to Mr. Mayor. Oh, so you're closing the public hearing not just stopping the comments because that way. Thank you for clarifying. All right. Thank you. So the public hearing is the big section, right? And the comments occur related to each of the topics that we're discussing, right? So we open, I guess that's where I can learn a little bit more about sharing. So my thought was the public hearing is still the big thing that we're going through together, right? And the commission's concerned. For clarification, so just, when we advertise the public hearing and invite public comments, okay? You open the public hearing for the public comments, okay? When you can choose to leave the public hearing and public comments open or you close it. But we've been recommended by the attorney to for best practice issue close it. And then we formally bring the discussion back. So there's no back and forth. And then if we do can defer week, we'll re advertise. Yeah, that kind of, thank you. Thank you, Bernie. Move on, we will. I didn't want to close the public hearing and say, we're done talking, but we to close the public hearing and say we're done talking but we'll close the public hearing so that we're following best practices. And now you can talk as much as you can. And then have our discussion amongst ourselves. Thank you, Bernie. I appreciate that. I just had a question about the example. What two questions? You said Album All County had this agreement and we have a copy. So my two questions are you said Album All County was backing off of that a little bit and I would be interested in why. I could not find any research on it. Probably need to reach out to them, but that is what I heard from our consultant. But yes, we don't know why they're backing off. But the other one question was this example of the private improvement maintenance declaration and ends in bold that no public agency in the town of Agile will be responsible for maintaining these private roads. So how's this enforced, I guess is what I was thinking. If say the developer of the cottage court signs this and we approved it and they of the cottage court signs this and we, if we approved it, they have the cottage court private, but suppose nobody maintains it at all. It's just big mess. It's just in people's hearts. I mean, it's no different than really, it's you maintaining a driveway to your property. Problem is if you're on the end and you maintain, the last lot, you're the last lot and you maintain yours, but the person in the middle isn't maintaining it's you have to go over their potpiles to get to what you're maintaining. So it would be up to the, like say it should be the H.O.A. situation, each individual, is there a home there's association with God said that would be more corporately done. Yes. Okay, for that situation, but for the meant, for the M1 and M2, it would be property owner, I guess. Yes. It would be. But I guess my question is, is that enforceable? I mean, they're signing it, but is there any? They're just, you can't just, could you come and wave this at them and say, fix your, you're supposed to. Yeah, it sounds like. So there is a default clause here. If they aren't doing it, we go to court and put a lien on their property. And if we were to go and have to maintain it, we would put a lien on their property. Oh, defaulting. Oh, there's a, yeah. OK. It sounds like it's a practical matter that concern is if somebody kind of bails and it starts being ugly and people are complaining, then the town may be in the position of picking up maintenance because we're trying to do the right thing in a bad situation and having it on paper makes it a little stronger, but at the end of the day people could still come and go. Or if we were to turn over in the neighborhood and take it right in the prior owners sign this and now we're either the neighborhood. So there's some risk. It sounds like the agreement might help a little bit. I think technically you said the HOA would sign it. So it'd be the developer signing, and they would have to follow the HOA. So it's not actual property owner. There's no rules. Well, just from us, I know you said you had a hard time coming to groups with every, how, I think it residential not Fronting a street just because that's been ingrained When you look at that cottage court, how do you what do you think about that? Do you think well? Well, this is innovative presentation back up and leave it up Sorry, thank you How do I feel about the cottage court? I mean, do you think that, I mean, we've been doing this for 20 and 20 some years. So do you think, wow, this is an innovative new way of creating some different kinds of housing? This is a good thing or do you think, wow, it's not on a public street, this is a bad idea. I have always liked the Cottage Court concept. I have always wanted us to have it. I was excited when you all added it to our zoning ordinance. A lot of that, I guess, innovation came through a previous planter that we had. And we have wanted to incorporate these but I don't think we ever thought about the issue of accessibility. So would I prefer if that rear road was a public road probably but does that mean that we can't get our cottage courts potentially I don't know because I mean the point here is that you're not surrounded necessarily by pavement or a thoroughfare road so I do I think you can I think you may still be able to get the cottage court feel where your front porches are surrounded by lovely plants and birds and bees and and have a rear access. I think that's possible. So in general we're modifying the language of the ordinance in order to encourage a little more flexibility with development of properties. Right. And with that comes some new ways of thinking about roads and streets. Is that over? And these innovative opportunities are happening across the country. We're just very, again, ingrained in having a normal subdivision. But if we want to have something different, we're going to have to look at it. Which is what we talk about a lot as commissioners, right? And particularly that these are tend to be designed for different levels of income, right? That not quite saying affordable homes, but that's- It's a much smaller unit. It's a smaller unit. And the hope is that we're considering this as a way to somewhat make it easier on developers to offer or propose designs like this. Correct. And within the ordinance recommendation, it isn't a kind of by right situation. They're still having to come to you all to get an exception. So first it comes through the rezoning process, which the exception process may have to follow along concurrently if they're coming with a concept plan. And so you have both opportunities for review and I guess analysis of different situations because I think it is going to be different in each situation. Maybe related to this, not. First of all, I just want to come at this. I was confused when I was reading it before the meeting. I was confused when you started. I'm clear now on what we're doing and it makes sense to me. So thank you for what I'm sure was my intuisting work. I also think that doing this is an exception process, I think. And I'm going to ask you to clarify the thumb accurate, means that all the other things around a review sort of still apply in terms of whether the development is the kind of development that we want for the town, whether it meets other, you know, occupancy things, whatever. And the example came to mind on, is really on this picture. In my mind, if the developer had a lot, had a property that went say three times as long and a long lateral. So imagine going up the right corner, a very, very long stretch. And they wanted to do short road public and then a big long alleyway. That wouldn't, to me, that wouldn't feel very cottagey or very kind of the way we want development to happen. But this doesn't sort of allow that. This just allows that for something that otherwise would be approved, it doesn't have certainly there's other things we need to kick around and ask, but I'm inclined to think this solves the problem of the disconnect that we had in a way that still makes sure there's plenty of scrutiny before you go having private alleys and different kinds of M1 and residential development. It seems like the language is pretty locked down to cottage court definition, so it's not as if a developer could take advantage of this in a different subdivision situation. So it seems pretty limited. That's we felt the same way and so another concern we had was well, does this mean every person with a lot in their backyard or that has a double lot is gonna say I'm gonna have a cottage court No, the zoning ordinance says you have to have a minimum of an acre To have one of these developments and you have to have 180 feet of Frontage so it's not like everyone's gonna start putting accessory dwelling units and calling them cottage courts And because of this they now can get an exception So I don't think that that's gonna happen So uninformed question warning I Was So uninformed question warning. I was interested to see where as I understand that the town council is the ultimately good responsibility for this. I was wondering I didn't see much role of the planning commission written into the code. Like there are some places where it says the planning commission shall blah blah. And other places where it says the town council will blah blah. And so again trying to fully understand the relationship between these two units, as I still want to claim that I'm relatively new to this, even though maybe you won't let me get away with that for a minute. It's been a minute. And I should know some of these things. But I was just curious if that, it seems to me that that is intentional, that it is very clear that the town council is doing these things, but in our relationship between the two, I know that what I think I've learned is that the town council relies on us to do a first cut and review of this. And whereas they will ultimately be held responsible for it because they're duly elected, we are, I don't want to add layers, but I want to make sure that if we can serve a role to the town or to the council by taking Some of this responsibility on and then still allowing them to do their due diligence and reviewing Am I way off base with this and why town council appears in here more than Planning commission No, I basically just copied the language we had from Previous exceptions where it just goes to town council. I think the council would appreciate if we added planning commission here so we could add if it's okay with our legal council we could add after a recommendation from planning commission the town council may grant. I don't want to add work to us or to the process but I just again seeing that if we can be a filter, if we can be the avenue to review and to consider and think about, you know, trying to take my role on this board seriously that I want to provide help or support. If it helps the process and removes some review burden from the council, I would like us to fill that role. But if you think there's a compelling reason why we shouldn't or why it should go directly to council, I'll defer to that. I don't. I think that having, I agree the council appreciate your advisement that you give. And it doesn't add that much time to the situation. And I would imagine that in almost all of these cases, you all are going to be reviewing or rezoning at the same time. And so you could review them again concurrently and pass on your recommendation for both. Okay. And again, I'll defer to my commissioners. I don't want to, because we'll give it all to Amy to do. Yeah, I mean, my only comment is I think in practice, the council usually says, hey, let's let the planning commission take a look at this and they refer to us, essentially saying, why don't you review this and tell us what you think? I'm not sure we want to take away, maybe we can, take away their ability to say, yeah, we don't need them, we're just gonna decide. I just don't think they would. I agree that relationship exists, so. I think a healthy way. Yeah, so my thought is. Leave it as is. Legally, you know, the council's the elected body and the decider. Our role is to sort of serve them when they say, want to review this for us. So it probably doesn't hurt to give us a required role, but I'm not sure it's necessary. Okay, yeah, I don't know. But I don't- I don't know. Actually, it's an opinion of not necessary. I'm fine with adding planning commission. It's easier for us to have this up front when we're talking to a developer or potential developer to so that they know that the process. So if they read this, they think the process is they're just going to town council. If we think that the intention should be, which I agree I think it should be, that it comes to the planning commission first. We should get that in writing so that the developer knows up front with their Also, unfortunately, we have a town council member with us So I don't know if I need to wants to address any of my I just wrote down the big big letters. Why yes? Yes. Yes. Yes. We do appreciate your service and your comments and all the The steps that you take before you send us anything so it really makes our job a lot easier Thank you steps that you take before you send us anything. So it really makes our job a lot easier. Okay. Thank you. So that was the biggie that I had. And anything else from you or Brent? Anything else you wanna? I think I'm served, Amy. I think I'm clear now. I'd say anything on the housing front, have you dealt with anything where they've been on private streets and it's been an issue? I feel like it's still such a new thing that potholes are. We haven't heard yet. But I do like the default clause because I do think the town being able to default on the HOA and putting leans on the properties will help. They at least can't sell the property. They would have to mitigate the issue before they're able to turn the property. So I do like that aspect of it. I do appreciate the innovation. We haven't seen a lot of them in Virginia, but more West Coast, they do more cottage style, just, you know, closer to that tiny home home feel so I do appreciate that we are trying to be a little more flexible with a lot of size. I just had a question about the process for the motion again I know you explained that we need to read at least the where as is where as portion of each motion. But I'm confused about where it would say, you would say, therefore, where you would put, if you were the ordinance, 2024, dash 11. Is that fit into these somewhere? No, it doesn't. But the actual amendments, I mean, you can change it to the section numbers are right there. So I would probably say like I'm looking at the one that's section 173 definitions, which one are you? Yep, that's the one on top. That's this one. The one on top? 173. Yeah, so I mean, my example would be or my recommendation would be of what that we say therefore the Ashland Planning Commission recommends the town council repeal and replace the following section of H.T.A.T.C. Chapter 17 section 17.3 as presented tonight. I'm sorry I said just a town council I'm sorry planning commission. You wrote it and then I think we don't have to read I think Jessica was suggesting that we don't have to read that but't have to read that. But yeah, right, I got you. So I think it's just to put the, okay, so you don't. Miss Fright's question is we have an ordinance number here. Or did I don't remember what it is? It is. 24, 11, yeah. 24-11, does that ordinance number need to be added here anywhere or are we good with everything that's here? No, because the reason for the amendments is of course to bring this, these sections in accordance with the ordinance. And so I think that it's clear if we read it as it's related to each section. I do each section. I would, I would do each section. I'm sorry. I know it's going to take you guys a little longer anyway, but I think that's the clearest way for the record. I don't know if Bernie has any other objections, but that's what I would recommend. Well, I think we can make a general statement that ordinance 2024, dash 11, lot frontage requirements, motions will be for each section. I mean, literally we just explain that ordinance is for each section in essence, through through a prelude and then we can just not we won't have to say that part again anymore. I just say it once and it applies to all three of these and then we go through it. And if the idea of adding planning commission in here is that an amendment to this that the staff is going to consider or figure out or should I drop that I mean nursing. I think we can add it here to section 17-37 they'd like to add that prior before the town council statement that after a recommendation by the planning commission the town council may grant. You can write as long as it's on the written sign. No one that I shouldn should. So we would just amend this stock. We need to be amend. We'll amend this document and get you a new one. OK, and I'll sign that one. Perfect. OK. So do we feel we've vetted all the questions and concerns? Because I'll take a shot at trying to do the motion the right way if we're good. I have. You can do 17. We're ready for that. How's the 17.3? So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so of Ashton, Virginia, desired to permit college court style developments within the town's limits, and whereas the town must amend ATC chapter seven subdivision of land to permit cottage court style developments within, and whereas pursuant to 15.2-2020-53 of the Code of Virginia, the Planning Commission may recommend amendments to the subdivision ordinance for adoption, point two, dash 20, 20, 53 of the Code of Virginia, the Planning Commission may recommend amendments to the subdivision ordinance for adoption, and whereas the Planning Commission finds that the public necessity, convenience, general welfare, good zoning, and good land use practice, support consideration of the amendment of the regulations of the subdivision ordinance. And therefore, I move the action planning commission recommend to the town council, repeal and replace the section of ATC chapter 7, specifically section 17-3 definitions as presented. Thank you, Mr. Chambers. Ms. Wright, aye. Mr. Chambers, aye. Ms. Hay, aye. Mr. Merbers. All right. Ms. Hay. Aye. Mr. Merrill. Aye. So that first section has passed. Let me. Linda wanted to do the next one. Or you want to do the one? No, I'll do it because it's just a plot. That's right. I'll take a step. I'll get down the line. Okay. All right. So I think we agreed. I don't have to Okay. All right. So I think we agreed. I don't have to read you. I don't want to. Okay. Because that was what Bernie was saying. We can say that once and then you can jump right into the motion. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So I make a motion to recommend amendments to the Ashland Town Code Chapter 17 section 3, 7, whereas the town of Ashland, Virginia, desires to permit cottage court style developments was in the town limits. And whereas the town must amend the Ashland town code chapter 17 subdivision land to permit cottage court style developments within. And whereas pursuant to section 15.2, dash 2253 of the Code of Virginia, the Planning Commission may recommend amendments to the subdivision ordinance for adoption. And whereas the Planning Commission funds that the public necessity convenience and general welfare, good zoning and good land use practice, support consideration of the amendment of the regulations of the subdivision ordinance. And therefore, the Ashland Planning Commission recommends the town council repeal and replace the following section of the Ashland Town Code, Chapter 17-37 location as presented. Including the addition of the Planning Commission. Including the addition of the Planning Commission with you. Yes. Amy's not interested in the third one so I don't mind taking. Thank you. Mr. Chambers. Aye. Miss Wright. Aye. Miss Haye. Aye. Mr. Merbers. Aye. Ms. Wright. Aye. Ms. Hay. Aye. Mr. Merrill. Aye. Motion carries. Ms. Brenner and Linda. I want to go. Rentscott? Yep. I move to recommend amendments to Ashlandtown Code Chapter 21. Whereas the town of Ashland, Virginia, desires to permit cottage, court, style developments within the town of Ashland, Virginia, desires to permit cottage court style developments within the town's limits. And whereas the town must amend ATC chapter 21 zoning to permit cottage court style developments within. And whereas pursuant to section 15.2, 2285 of the code of Virginia, the Planning Commission may recommend amendments to the zoning ordinance for adoption. And whereas the Planning Commission finds that the public necessity, convenience, general welfare, good zoning, and good land use practice, support consideration of the amendment of the regulations of the zoning ordinance, and therefore the action planning commission recommends the town council repeal and replace the following section of the action town code chapter 21, specific to section 21-251 location and uses and structures. Thank you. Miss Hay. Hi. Miss Wright. Hi. Mr. Chambers. Hi. Mr. Merrill. Hi. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you all. Thanks, Nora. That was great. Thank you. Okay. Next section of the agenda. We don't have any action items. So we can move right on to report of committees. The town council report. The Sparrow Heart did share with us a report in advance, but you should. Sure. Just to follow up from our June 4th meeting for you all. We did approve the erosion and stormwater management ordinance request. A lot of that was just about clarification making sure that our town was in alignment with state and federal code. Extremely happy to reappoint Brent Chambers to the Planning Commission and also Penelope Boy to the Board of Appeals. We did approve the Downtown Ashland MMOU, Memorandum of Understeaving. And that just really outlines the agreement that town has with Downtown Ashland Associates as far as funding and support and that type of thing. We did approve our budget. Hey, as you can see, it was almost $24 million. And so thank you to everyone that was involved with that. That was a long process, but well worth the time and effort. Of course, Josh gave us a great thumbnail sketch tonight of data centers. And it was really important to the town council that we be very proactive when it comes to data centers and gather was really important to the town council that we be very proactive when it comes to data centers and gather as much information as possible. Give our citizens a chance to hear any information and ask any questions. We spent a long time looking at the possibility of that area becoming a business park and we wanted to give the same kind of respect to our citizens and their time, et cetera, to discuss the data centers. We had a really great discussion if anyone wants to watch the video from our meeting. It's well worth watching. We just want to, again, we want to make sure we're really proactive about that. And then finally, we did have a discussion about the proposed noise, that's hard to say, proposed noise ordinance revision. Chief made a point that some of the language was unconstitutionally vague, making it really difficult for some homeowners to have a really clear picture about what the law was and then for our law and force, but to have a difficult time trying to reinforce those laws. So we cleaned that up with our legal team. So that's what was happening at Tile Counsel. Great. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you very much, Ms. Amos, with Director's report. Good evening again. As was mentioned, the Downtown National Association, we created kind of a new memorandum of understanding. As you may know, the town council provides funding to downtown Ashland Association and majority to cover staffing. And through that, we adopt an MOU annually. And it's been about three years since we updated that, so we had a fantastic, probably four or five meetings and strategically updating that MOU with downtown Ashlands Board and town staff. And so that got adopted by council and the downtown Ashland's board and town staff. And so that got adopted by council in the Downtown Ashland Association. As you may have heard, their executive director resigned and so they are in the process of interviewing to fill that position. I'm not sure if they're still taking applicants, but if you know someone pass it on. Staying on Downtown Ashland Association, they're having their annual toast of downtown on July 24th at 6 o'clock And that's held on Randolph-Macon another example of where Randolph-Macon often lets us use their campus at no charge for On these types of events. I was excited. I put on here. I enjoyed it so much We were able to get a tour of the Port of Virginia, the Richmond Marine Terminal. I got to hear about the improvements they've made over the past two years as well as some expected improvements. And so we sit on a few regional commission boards and advisory committees that fund many of the improvements through the Richmond Marine Terminal. So it was nice to see you hear about these projects, but it was nice to see them on the ground and how they're what the impact is there. So you've probably heard me talk many times about the Vaughan Road grade separated crossing and the federal funds we have tried to apply for. There's a crossing elimination program through the federal government. We applied last year was the first round and we did not succeed but we were working to partner rail and public transportation as well as planning our VA transportation planning organization. We're assisting us in applying for the next round. Unfortunately CSX pulled their financial support which was over $2 million as well as their letter of support, their response being that there were other crossings that seemed to be a higher priority than ours, which is really disappointing, but I understand that it's a large corridor. But we just did not have the ability this point to find $2 million in time to apply in the next month or two to cover that because there is a required match and they were Excuse me providing that We have met with those partners. I mentioned earlier about other opportunities for funding or potentially looking at ash cake to have the crossing the problem with ash cake is Well for this round we just don't have enough information to apply to meet the application requirements. But we also need additional more right of way up where Vaughan wrote is we have a good amount of right of way. We would need additional right of way here at Ashcake which exponentially grows the cost which also grows our match that would be needed so we would be looking for more than 2 million. And also if you think about it, ash cake is pretty flat where Vaughn kind of goes down. And so again, it's a larger structure to get over ash cake than we would need at Vaughn just because of how far you have to go out to get to that grade. So because of that we're not applying for ash cake, but there's the potential of having a planning study done for all of our crossings. We just want to make sure that we're not putting ourselves in a situation where we may lose a crossing after having that study done. So that's what we've been talking about on the rail side as well as construction. Can I ask Nora so I know that Vaughan Road crossing is being worked on right now. It is, yes. When we reviewed the Berkeley Park one of the, I thought the proposals was to build a more obvious crosswalk to get people from that. Am I saying, was it the Berkeley Park? I forget. Berkeley Heritage Track. Berkeley Heritage Track. Across the tracks to the trail. Do we know if we're expecting to see some light crossing stripes in what CS, or is that a town we'll CSX that would more than likely have to be a town okay all right got it the economic development authority held a strategic planning session so you know now that we're done with our comprehensive and we're getting to work on all the items that were recommended through the comprehensive plans of the EDA held a session with a consultant to work on creating a new revised strategic plan for their work. Previously, their concentration, so, humans, they had concentrated a lot on downtown. They felt that they had kind of done their job there and so they moved to the interchange as well as they wanted to partner with Randolph-Maconmore. And so improving the 54 corridor, taking advantage of the interchange and working with Randolph-Macon. Those were their previous strategic initiatives. And so now it sounds like they might be wanting to do some more concentration in the downtown area. But I would imagine probably still keeping that route one of 54 corridor in mind as well. So those conversations will continue through the summer. We got to take a tour of the new Ashland Elementary School. It is coming along. They're still in my opinion a lot of work that needs to be done before the teachers move in, the beginning of August, but they say it's going to happen. Add to your calendar July 29th that 10AM is the ribbon cutting, and they will be giving community tours. And I hear that these slide, if you haven't heard, there's a slide inside, will be opened for the public to use. We are still advertising for the planner position. I have to give big kudos to a Bernie and Clayton in my department who have helped keep us rolling. We might be rolling real slow, but we're making it happen. I appreciate everyone's patience. Next month it hasn't been referred to you, but there is a possibility it's on the Council's agenda for next Tuesday or next Monday to have a referral reviewed for the iron horse rezoning and their two conditional use permits for one for height of a data center building and then also for substations related to a data center and so this is a rezoning application for the former East Ashland property on the South East quadrant of the 95 interchange. They currently within their proposal have two plans of development, one for data centers and then one for kind of a mixed warehouse business center. They don't have a prospective user at this point so they haven't been able to decide which one they want to try to keep their options open. So we'll try to do a good job of explaining the two differences to you and we are going to have to kind of review them together and separately. But if it gets recommended or referred to you at the council meeting, you'll see that in July. And I think that'll probably be one and only a large item. So that concludes my report. Thank you. Thanks, Laura. Any questions? Any comments on what we heard? Thank you for Thanks, Laura. Any questions? Any comments on what we heard? Thank you for your report. I'm curious and maybe we can hear more about this once we're actually considering something about. Have we? Has planning commission made recommendations to approve something that has kind of an open ended? We might do this or we might do that before that. That just felt when I heard that at the meeting at the theater, that just felt a little very much to the developer's benefit and not to the towns to know what's actually getting built. So I'm just curious if that's more common than I think. Is it OK if I answer this question? Can I answer this question? OK. I guess it depends on how you think about it. Because if you think about just zoning a property from RR1 to M1, and you don't have depends on how you think about it because if you think about just zoning a property from RR1 to M1 and you don't have a conceptual plan similar like M&M, they didn't have a concept plan. Any of the 40 or however many uses that we have in M1 could go on that property. So yes, that's a very open-ended, I think, rezoning that you all approved. In this situation, they've kind of come up with two plans and they have proffers attached. So if we do this plan, this is what happens. If we do this plan, this is what happens. But none of that gets decided until they come and do a site plan. And when they come to do a site plan we would then look okay here are the proffers for this and follow through so it is I think very similar to if you just had an open-ended rezoning. We have checked multiple times with our legal counsel and it is possible. Okay that's helpful thank you. They are coming with conditional use permits as well. Correct. There's two conditional use permits one for height and one for substations. Which would only apply in one of their two. That would only apply to the one that projects us. And Brent's question made me remember in looking at the minutes from the last meeting, the Patriot Glen deferral is going to come back to us at some point, but I imagine the developers are reworking based on the feedback they got from council or. Correct. They're reworking based on that feedback but also waiting for the board of supervisors to determine if they're removing that road from their comprehensive plan, which is our understanding that there has been a recommendation from the streets committee to the board to do that. And so we believe that that application could come back to you as early as August. Okay. The streets committee is a- For the board to- The county has a streets committee I believe transportation commission. I haven't heard that before. So. Other comments? Questions? Thanks, Nora. All right, thank you all. I was great. Before we adjourn, ask if anybody has any other general announcements or important dates or things coming up that we should know about or share. Sometimes Brent's really good for those. Something that should go on the calendar. I will say, Nora, I do continue to be thankful for your making us aware of events that could be of interest. So I know that with your shift in responsibility isn't juggling a lot. That's not as easy of an ask of me, but I am grateful for when you say, the email or in these meetings, think about attending or it might be good to see as part of my continued trying to learn and pick things up. So thank you for the past and thank you in advance for other ones that come up that you in Bernie C and share with us. So I'm grateful for those. Another comment, solid, join the meeting. Thank you all.