Good evening. Welcome to the April 16th, 2024 meeting of the Ashland Town Council. Thank you for being here. We start off with a moment of silence and that moment of silence is followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and I wanted to tie those two together this evening in saying yesterday some of us had the pleasure of attending Randolph-Macon College for a naturalization ceremony. It was absolutely excellent. I would say 50 to 60 individuals, 55, from, I don't know how many nations, 23. That's good, sign language, 24. It seemed like 50, but it was appropriately patriotic and it was fulfilling and for whatever day you've had and whatever thing didn't go your way when you reflect on the freedoms that we have as Americans, everything else ought to kind of melt in the background a little bit. So please join me in a moment of silence, celebrating our right and blessing to be Americans. Please join me. Thank you. Mr. Vice-Mayor, would you lead us in the pledge? As you are able, please stand and join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Reviewing our business here, our agenda tonight. We have our consent agenda, which includes minutes from town council meeting for April 2, 2024. We have three proclamations, one honoring the service of Vice President Paul Davies, Randolph-Macon College. We have an Arbor Day proclamation and we have a business appreciation month proclamation. We have our citizen input time, which is an opportunity for citizens to come forward and speak to Council on a matter that isn't on a public hearing. After that, we have our public hearings, Patriot Glenn Resoningoning 23-1031, and ordinance 2023-14. We have second one is Flagstop Car Wash, Conditional Use Permit 24-0125. We have one, I'll say large discussion item, fiscal year 2024-2025, Town Managers proposed budget. Reports from the Planning Department with Miss Amos the finance department from this stone and the police department from chief Aaron Holt Then we'll have a closed session this evening for discussion and consideration of the annual performance evaluation of the town manager pursuant to Virginia code 2.2-3711 a1 to 2.2-3711A1 in following that our adjournment. Is there a consensus for the agenda as presented first of all? Yes. Yes. Yes, but the one exception of moving the order around. Yes. I have a request from Dr. McGraw here that we postpone or remove the minutes from the town council meeting until a subsequent meeting He was not present for our meeting and he would like to review the minutes And so if we strike that do we have consensus for that? Well, I guess we need a motion to do that Andrew doing it we don't need a motion doing oh I'm sorry. Andrew, we don't need a motion. Oh, yes. Okay. A motion to move something out of the consent agenda? Yeah. It's your agenda in front of you. Okay. Well then I move to move the minutes from the town council meeting April 22, 2024 out of the consent agenda. I second. Okay. Ah, question? Yes. Where would it be placed at a future meeting? Uh, no, I just think y'all, I would just like to abstain from it. So the job fits. Oh, I want to abstain. That's a different thing. Okay. That's different. Okay. I'm removing it. Okay. Would you like to withdraw your motion and will just allow you to abstain from approving the minutes? So I would just abstain from voting on the consent agenda altogether. Is that what you're saying? That's fine. I'm happy to do that. I think he needs to. Yeah. I like what you're saying first. Sorry folks. We want to make sure we're doing this right. It makes sense that you do want to be able to vote for the sake of the automations. You simply want to of the regulations, you simply want to vote separately so that you can abstain from the minutes. So we'll do this in two separate motions. Yes, sir. Yep. All right. So first of all, is there a motion to approve the minutes from the April 2, 2024 meeting? We're still under my movement and Ms. Barnhart's second, which was to remove the minutes from the consent agenda. My apologies. That's all right. Please vote on that. I'm trying to get to the good stuff. I know. I'm not trying to delay things and just trying to be appropriate. I did read the minutes just for the record, but I wasn't participating in that, so I don't feel comfortable voting for them. Fully understand. Okay. Miss Sokol. Aye. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Mayor Trevet. Aye. All right. Thank you. So now is there a motion to approve the council meeting minutes from April 2, 2024. So moved, Mr. Mayor. All right. And I second. All right. Dr. McGraw. Upstate. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Ms. Soapal. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Mitch Bet. Aye. All righty. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? And I you what while I'm while I'm mucking things up Let's not even do that until after we read the proclamation since we wanted to do that anyway to To appreciate the proclamations so I will start that off by reading the Arbor Day proclamation We don't always have three, but if that's what the calendar gives us, then we'll enjoy all three of them. So, this Proclamation is for the Ashton Arbor Day. Whereas in 1872, J. Sterling Morton proposed an Nebraska Board of Agriculture set aside a special day for the planting of trees. And whereas this day called Arbor Day was first observed with a planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska, is now observed throughout the nation and in the world. And whereas trees are known to reduce the erosion of our precious topsoil by wind and water, cut heating and cooling costs, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce oxygen and provide a habitat for wildlife, and whereas trees in our town increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of business areas, beautify our community, and our source of joy and inspiration. And whereas the town of Ashland has been recognized for over 31 years as a tree city USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation and is committed to an ongoing process of renewal, improvement, and beautification achieved in part through the planting of trees. And whereas the Commonwealth of Virginia recognizes the last Friday and April as Arbor Day, now therefore on behalf of the Ashland Town Council, we do hereby proclaim April 26th, 2024 as Ashland Arbor Day and encourage the people of Ashland to support the planting and protection of trees for the benefit of present and future generations. Data this 16th day of April 2024. All right, so we'll wait and vote on all these together. We're not doing these in the order that's on the agenda because we wanted to save the, I'll say a special one for last. And so we'll move now to our business appreciation month per plate proclamation. Pam Soapal, our member on council who's also liaison to the National Partnership and the Downtown Ashland Association. We've asked her to read the business appreciation month proclamation and also just want to make mention to Melissa Haley here, executive director of the Hanover Chamber and thank you for all that you do for the businesses of Ashland and Hanover. So, Ms. O'Connor. Okay. Proclamation. Whereas the town of Ashland is pleased to have a diverse group of business and industry, large and small to support the local economy. And whereas these businesses provide thousands of employment opportunities for the residents of Ashland as well as important goods and services that allow us to have the quality of life we enjoy in our town. And whereas local businesses generate revenues that benefit the entire community. And whereas many of those businesses are also important pillars of support for our schools and community organizations that increase the quality of life in and around Ashland. And whereas during the current health crisis, many businesses have displayed exceptional leadership in providing for the essential needs of the community. While other businesses are experiencing financial hardship due to the sacrifices required to fight this invisible enemy. And now, therefore, in recognition and appreciation of our businesses. On behalf of the Ashland Town Council, we proclaim the month of May 2024 as Business Appreciation Month, and encourage the residents and friends of the town to continue in their support of our local economy. Data this 16th day of April, 2024, Stephen P. Trivett Mayor. All right, thank you. And now our last proclamation as the vice mayor, Hodges, if you would read that, sir. Yes. First, to quote President Lindgren, the town and the college are inextricably linked. Mr. Davis is one of those critical links. So this proclamation is for him. Whereas Paul Davies will retire on April 30, 2024, after a 36-year career in higher education administration, with 13 years at Randolph-Macon College, and whereas serving as the Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Administration and Finance, Mr. Davies provided leadership for a broad range of functions that included the Business Office, Information Technology, Physical Plant, Human Resources, and the Campus Book Store. And whereas Mr. Davis, Davies, was integral in the working and working with the town on planning and development matters that had mutual interests of both the town and the campus. And whereas Mr. Davies oversaw the investment of over $100 million of new buildings and renovations to include the new structure due call, which houses the athletic department and the physician assistant studies program. And whereas, midst COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Davies, leadership, ingenuity, directly benefited the town as the college secured 10,000 nights of lodging with local hotels to ensure safe conditions for students and his care. And whereas Mr. Davies directly coordinated with the town to divest of college property on Pleasant Street and enable purchase of the same by the town, which effectively doubled the size of the South Taylor Street Park and further collaborated with the town and community partners to create a welcoming space for the Secretariat Statue. And, whereas Mr. Davies' involvement with the community did not stop at the borders of the college, but continued with this service to the Asheron Theatre and the Downtown Asheron Association. And whereas Mr. Davies and his wife Karen planned to retire in town, and we look forward to his continued service in our community. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the town council of the town of Ashland, Virginia, does this day express in record its appreciation and respect for the outstanding services and contributions of Vice President Paul Davies and hopes for a happy, healthy and active retirement. You're here. I think that's worth it in the talk. APPLAUSE Yeah, thank you. APPLAUSE Yeah, follow down. We've got a black. And they can come in comments. Yes, sir. We also want to take a photo. You can go ahead and get your comments. Well, Ennis, you stole my line. I'm going to take a photo. we also want to take a photo. You go ahead to your comments. Well, Annus, you stole my line about President Lingeries. I can't use that in my pocket. Not being like, but Mayor Corvette, members of the Town Council and staff. Thank you for this honor tonight. It has been a privilege to work at Randolph-Macon College. Liban Ashland has worked partners with you over the past 13 years. I also want to thank you for your service and leadership in Ashland, especially during these challenging times. I am blessed to have been able to work with President Leningon over these past 13 years and be part of the transformation of Randolph-Macon. It works so closely with you and your staff as we look to the future but never forgetting our roots. Karen and I are honored to call Ashland Humb and thank you for your recognition tonight. We look forward to continuing to work with you as full-time retirees, residents of Ashland and continuing to see both the town and college partnered together and remain the leader and model for how town and colleges should work together to ensure a bright future. Thank you. Where would you like? Well, this move of this way, you will have to put it in the contest. I got all nice, so. Yeah, you can get a joke together. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Oh, my man. Oh, what a bumble. Oh, man. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now we did all that with a little presumption because now I'm going to ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda. Mr. Mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda as amended and pay the bills. I second. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Ms. Soapall. Aye. Mayor Trebert. Aye. Aye. Thank you. That brings us to our citizen input time and just invite anyone and wants to come forward this time to speak to Council on the matter other than the public hearing invite you to do so at this time. Seeing no one will close citizen input time and go ahead and get started with our public hearing for Patriot Glenn rezoning 23-1031 in ordinance, 2023-14. Miss Amos. We have to change, let's see. Sometimes that black cord doesn't work. I'm gonna go ahead and do the white one. Okay. Good evening, Council. So as mentioned, this is our first public hearing. It is for rezoning 23-1031 and ordinance 23-14. Notice, Patriot Glen. So, it's a rezoning application that we received from Steve Ferris of Wilton acquisitions, they have filed a request on behalf of the owner to change the zoning district from RR1, which is rural residential to highway, commercial and plan unit development to build, develop a residential community and two commercial sites on two separate parcels. The affected areas together of those two parcels is approximately 60 acres. So you can see here, all of the properties currently vacant. There is a dominion power line that goes through the property, a large area of wetlands that will review, but also a telecommunication tower that holds a conditional use permit. We received an amended application that had added that second portion of the property originally was just the portion to the east and the area to the west was added on January 26th of this year. The existing zoning is RR1 and they are looking to go to RR1 for a portion of it where that tower is, B2, highway commercial up front along 54 and plan unit development for the rear residential portions. It is on the north side of East Patrick Henry Road, Route 54 and approximately 50 feet west of the intersection of Patrick Henry Road and Woodside Lane. The existing use again is vacant telecommunication towers to the north is vacant RR1 property owned by Hanover County. Notice the Washington Lacey Park to the west is RR1 property with single family homes as well as a school, a private school to the east, there's Hanover County property zone, residential, the Providence, and Woodside Estates subdivisions, and then to the south on the area formerly known as East Ashland, more recently referred to as Iron Horse, that is currently zone for plant shopping center. So part of this proposal is to maintain one acre of telecommunication tower. That will stay RR1. Two large parcels are separated by a pipe stem property that is connected to Washington, Lacey Park and is owned by Hanover County. The proposed PUD zoning is a residential community to combine a single family detached, single family attached homes, cottage homes as well as town homes. They are proposing through Proffer's a maximum density of 2.39 units per acre, which is also shown on their Proffer concept plan. They have preferred conditions in accordance with our comprehensive plan and design guidelines to allow for an increased entity above the base one unit per acre. Within the B2 highway commercial proposed zoning, the applicant is proposing 7.04 acres of unspecified, so kind of speculative, what we might refer to as speculative rezoning, they don't have a user in mind for these areas. So here's the requested, the proposed layout. So you can see right there in the middle, the property owned by Hanover counties, this pipes them property we've talked about many times. It borders woodside lane and Hanover county there to the east. The commercial pad sites are on the southern portion along 54 in the front of the property. And you can see the single family homes. So majority of those are on the east side of the property separated by that pipe stem. And the town homes are over on the western side. There are the, what I think they're referring to is cottage homes because they are front up against this green area on the most western portion Wouldn't you but you do have to access those underneath the power line this area is also a fairly wet area so single-family attached home and To the east again a 50% of this area through the PUD development needs to be open space. There are significant wetlands on the property as well as the Dominion easement and cumberant. So here's just a zoom in for the commercial, the layout to show this commercial pads up front, the cottage homes to the west and the town homes there right there in the middle. And this shows you the area. And so here you'll see that there is no connection where you can see there might be a planned one over the hand of a county property. There is no actual connection of road E so it's serving, you know, approximately 50 units with only one access point. Our code requires that anything over 20 units has to have a second access point So these units would not be able to be built beyond that 20th one prior to them providing an additional access point So again the property is currently zoned RR1 and I So again, the property is currently zoned RR1 and I think we've talked about the location, but about the adjacent property zoning. The density request is 2.39 acres with 50% open space. I think we talked about all of this. So let's just go on to the next slide here. So the wetlands, here's the wetland that we pulled from a document that they provided to us. And so you can see that there is a significant area here that is wet. You can kind of see how the development has been based around and kind of designed around the wetland and sensitive areas. So here you do have a fairly nice size area front that isn't wet. And this is the area shown as open space and wetlands on the east side. And then you can see over here they've really fit in, in this area right here, is the Dominion Power Line for reference. But they've really fit in those town homes in this open space area here and then also the cottage homes are kind of fitting in the non-wet area over here. So just to overview with the zoning classification for B2 highway commercial the future land use map calls for this to be mixed commercial the future land use map calls for this to be mixed commercial, referring to the B2 zoning classification. It talks about providing for a wide variety of commercial and miscellaneous service activities, generally serving a wide area and located particularly along existing major thoroughfares. In general, a mixture of commercial and service activity exists there now, in particular on the West side of the interstate and This location of this district serves as an important gateway to the community that's improving its function through elements such as lighting landscaping signage building design and layout It's an important economic goal for the town the landscaping signage an important economic goal for the town. The landscaping signage and lighting are all kind of covered through our zoning ordinance. Some of those other items are what we usually work through with zoning or conditional use permit requests. So under the B2 uses, there are several, the B2 category, there are several uses that you would see in an interstate and mixed commercial area, a lot of restaurants and commercial retail, hotel uses. There are also several that are allowed with a conditional use permit, so more intensive as-owned uses such as a car wash or fuel station, many storage units. These are the types of items that are allowed through a conditional use permit. So just moving on here to the plan unit development, which is the zoning that's being requested for the residential section. This district intended to permit development in accordance with a master plan, so in a cluster type of communities, which may be under the ownership, seeing the ownership or control, it allows for a variety of housing and for the greatest amount of open space and the least disturbance of natural features. So it's oftentimes looked at as even just a cluster type development where you're preserving about 50% of that area and cluster in the units. So the future land use calls for this area to be traditional neighborhood in the rear. So that's the residential of one to four unit, dwelling units per acre. It does talk about the taking advantage of density bonuses that meet the towns request for a variety of houses, lots, sizes with a higher quality of construction and other ideals that we will talk about here that come through the comprehensive plan in our residential checklist. Basic intention to promote and preserve the character of the grid street system, tree shaded and where houses are close enough to each other and the street to create a real sense of neighborhood. I love those words there. But are far enough apart to maintain an open and green quality. So you still, again, kind of replicating some of that town feel through variety and design. Street should be quiet and safe and include sidewalks, which is a requirement throughout this development. That front portion is planned for mixed commercial, and so I'm kind of referring back to that B2 zoning classification. This is shown as an area of mixed office and commercial uses that will complement each other by design and be able to coexist. Office workers should be able to eat and shop and retail and restaurants and hotels can serve those offices. Obviously with seven acres, I don't, you're not going to get this large mix, but in incorporation with the other developments perhaps that we're reviewing. We could get there. So retail developments that encourage interconnectivity, to pedestrian activity, should be encouraged. So here, I'm making sure that we're providing connectivity to the residential portion in the rear, and the construction of new conventional strip shopping centers should be discouraged and mixed commercial. So we've just added here because it is in such close proximity to Hanover County, just an overview of their future land use. So the county is describing their the yellow area here to the east, the Woodside Providence area as neighborhood residential accommodating single-family dwellings with a density of 1.5 to 3 units per acre, walkable with flexible lot size, variable density, and provision of high quality open space and recreational amenities. Let's see if we keep going here. Yeah, so there's also that red area is neighborhood commercial, so that's at the intersection of Woodside and 54. The areas for neighborhood commercial are intended to accommodate a limited range of commercial uses. Businesses tend to be smaller scale or intensity. Uses that do not generate significant truck traffic. Examples include grocery store, small scale retail, small scale service users, restaurants, banks and professional office. So just for the transportation, I believe, hopefully this was included in your staff report, but a question came up today just coming through. It wasn't these words weren't okay. Asking about the transportation impact analysis, and so we do require through this process a transportation impact analysis and one was done and that includes all the background data of any approved or proposed plans. So it included and incorporated all of that. And so through that document, it's many, many pages but the ones that we kind of look towards and to see that we're making sure are happening are the recommendations. And so here are the recommendations that came from that traffic impact analysis. And the ones talking about constructing an eastbound to all the turn lanes, internal and external, whether it be on 54 or within the site, those have all been included on the concept plan. The ones at the bottom, the based on the capacity analysis, these are the items that would be required through the commercial trips. So they weren't necessarily tripped or needed through the residential portion but through the commercial additional traffic. Those are being preferred to be completed by the owner and developer at the time prior to commercial completion. And so that would be a proposed west land bay driveway. And then this one in particular, I think, is a pretty large take for someone, a construct a westbound right turn lane on Route 54 with 200 feet of storage from Route 54 at the I-95 southbound ramp as well as extending the storage in that southbound left through lane on I-95 south off ramp from 105 to 300 feet. And so the proffer would say that they are going to make those improvements. The others are part of the residential development and will be put in. So additional analysis on the transportation. Here's the Hader-Rick County thoroughfare plan and you can see the approximate location of the Woodside Parallel Road Which is the proposed major collector which is 120 foot right of way and that's the dashed green line and Since receiving the application Hanna-Rick County has made I think a recommendation to ask their planning commission to review The comprehensive plan to potentially remove this from their thoroughfare plan. So we look forward to hearing how that process goes. And then also there is they did keep the major collector road for what existing woodside lane. And so originally when we are prior to this last approval, the comprehensive plan, that was 100 foot right of way. And now they're looking at 120 foot right of way. And so through the analysis of their proffers, we looked at the residential guidelines and kind of, you almost come up with a score to see where they're meeting items and where they're not. And in some, it's a very clear yes or no, and some of it's kind of in some ways. And so I don't know if we need to, I don't know that we need to go through all of these, but just for the public, this is kind of what we look at. So they have provided some design features. They aren't meeting all of the ones that we generally are asking for, they have offered the concept plan, the density of 2.39 units per acre as well as the transportation improvements. I think some, when we talk about some of the items, let me go back, sorry, some of the items that are yes, no are the intermixings. When we talk about some of the items, let me go back, sorry, some of the items that are yes, no, are the intermixings. When we talk about a variety of home styles, we usually like to see those intermix. And these are pretty much separated as you have the town homes in one section and the cottage homes in another so they really aren't interspersed. And so we have over the past couple weeks since the planning commissions review where they had a public hearing and they recommended approval. We've had a lot of discussion with the town attorney, council members, joining property owners, the applicant. And so staff at this point, just because it is such a pretty large application for the town, would request that you all defer action to allow us to take public comment here from the applicant, but to continue your conversations and make sure that we're addressing any concerns that you have or that you've heard before we take this up at a future meeting. All right. Thank you. Any questions for staff at this point? I'll just. Okay. All right. Give the applicant an opportunity to come forward and share a presentation. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. For the record, my name is Henry Wilton and I represent Wilton acquisition. And we give a short presentation because, you know, I understand deferral for recommended, I'm not gonna try obviously try to fight that. I'll just go through and try to answer some of the questions that you might have and then hopefully come back next month and you can go ahead and do something about it. But basically just a little background, I was here or you approved the comp change on the property back in the early part of 22. So basically it's taken me this long. The reason it's taken me this long to get here is because I've been working with Hanover County to try to went ahead and tried to put that on the thoroughfare plan or they did and they were going to put a forwardly and highway down there to go ahead and accommodate the extra development for the data center. But then on the 27th of March they decided not to do that and now they're looking I talked to Mr. Badesky and and I'll say Sue Debel, and they're basically working towards to take that off the TheraFair plan, and allow me to go ahead and purchase the property. I've had an off road there for over two years. And I think we could, I'll go through the terms of that as I go through this, but that'll allow us to have one road coming down into 54 versus two roads. So you have two plans in there, a development plan that has two roads coming in on 54, and one where we would use the 120 foot right away of the county if they sell it to us. But after two years, I couldn't wait any longer, so I basically separated it, had two plans, depending on what Hanover will do. It'll still be a couple of months But I'm committed to them that if they'll do it. I'll you know I'll continue with my plans, but hold them up where I can go ahead and purchase the property Yes, I think it'll make it a better development. I think we all think it will So I am working towards that so So I am working towards that. So basically this plan was developed by the land planner Keith Whipple. He was also the same person that did Laura Dell. So it's got a similar, very mirror. There are almost mirror profits to that. There are four types of housing units in here. Single family cottages, which is a little smaller single family, duplexes and townhouses. Price points 350 to 500,000, which today is affordable. As you are affordable range. So I know it sounds kind of funny. Yeah. Basically the community is designed to be walkable again with trails all the way through it. We've got all of our BMPs are set up as water features that three of them want the property with units looking there. There'll be trail center trails that will go around there too for walkable community. We have segmented the town houses on the other side of that 120 foot right away. I've spoke to the top five builders and as far as putting a townhouse like across the street from a single family. There, the discussion basically centered around people that bat townhouses, they're usually younger because it's more of an affordable product. They have fewer kids because they're just starting out and they have smaller kids. Ryan did a study 10 years ago. And in their study, they found out that a townhouse only produces 0.3 child, 0.3 children per unit. So they're usually aren't a lot of children. A lot of times they're, again, singles that don't want to go ahead, you know, I guess the Gen Z's, which want to go ahead and get away every weekend and they don't want to stay there and garden or cut the grass. Obviously everything's done for them in a townhouse facility. So as far as the townhouses, we did on the other side of that right away. We did accommodate townhouses, we accommodated the duplexes, the small colleges, and the single family, and they're all connected, and they all run into each other. So we did do that. We just didn't bring the townhouses over. It's a little bit of difference, certainly a lot of difference in price point also. So that was that reasoning behind that. I know there was a question to that effect. The B2 highway commercial is planned for no more than 50,000 square feet. The area on the right has maybe three and a half usable areas to the right of the main road coming in. We envision that to require a cup. So when we back here, when we develop that, the commercial part of that property. We'll have to come back to you on the western side of that the smaller piece of property. You'll notice that's extremely wet. And that'll only accommodate a coffee shop. It's probably six acres and it's about five acres and that's something like that. But a coffee shop is the only thing we'll be able to put on it. None of our off-site improvements come into play until we actually go ahead and start construction of the commercial facility. I have worked closely with the staff. I do want to thank the staff for toughing me through this for the last seven years. You know, we've taken to heart all their suggestions and we have to be enjoying working with them and we do listen to them. So with that, I'll be having to answer any questions. All right. And we can take questions from council now to the applicant Mr. Wilton or if you'd like to Wait until we hear from the public I don't refer to that. Okay, if you don't mind We'll and also have my traffic engineer here for the more technical to have. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Thank you very much All right, thank you very much. All right, so we'll go ahead and open up the public hearing at this point invite individuals to come up and speak to this application and just identify yourself by name and address if you would and invite you to do so at this time. And after the public has an opportunity, then we can ask further questions either from staff or from Mr. Wilton or the traffic engineer who is withing. So anyone would like to come forward at this time and speak to this application? Yes sir. Just name and address, thanks. Good evening Mr. Mayor, down Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, down council. Appreciate the time. I'm Mark Brunner. I live east of this proposed development on Patrick Henry or just off Patrick Henry. I oppose the development for a variety of reasons. To start off with, I'm not sure I couldn't hear the gentleman just now very well, but there's been talk in the application and so forth about the new county road that would go up beside Woodside. It's one moment, sir. Could we get that picture up? Sorry, please. That may help with a number of references. According to the agreement with the county and tract for the data center. Come forward so I can hear you. Thank you. According to the agreement between the county and tract, the developer of the 1200 acre data center, that road will not exist. That was a proper agreement by tract, a demand by track, that they did not want access to their property through that road. So my understanding is the county has cobbached that road, period. I don't know what's going to happen with the land. Anyway, at first I want to commend the town for the beautification. Okay. We drive in from the east side to the town at least once or twice a day. Beautiful. It looks nice. The whole intersection around 9.95 looks much better. Great job. Appreciate it. Thank you. However, what is being done and will be done to the east of Patrick Henry on I-95. First, we have iron horse. Whatever iron horse is going to end up being developed, 252 acres of industrial warehouses, commercial. We don't know for sure what it's gonna be, Southside. Now we hear that this is gonna be developed on the north side. So we don't know what the eastern part of Patrick Henry Road's gonna look like, but I'm not really enamored by the direction that it's going. It's certainly not gonna look like the new entrance to Ashland on the west side. So I also find it ironic that we had this named as Arbor Day when we're doing nothing but destroying trees. Okay, this development will have almost no trees left. Okay. Other than maybe the dead ones out in the swamp area. If you take one acre of trees away, that's the equivalent of adding one new car to the road that's going to drive 27,000 miles a year. to the road that's going to drive 27,000 miles a year. We're going to take out about 20 acres of trees in this development. That's a full blend of 20 new cars, 27,000 miles each, 540,000 miles of exhaust every year, every year. I find that a very strong irony with being named Arbor Day, the town naming today Arbor Day because we're taking out trees, we're not adding trees. As far as the water that's there, let's discuss that for a minute. Less than two weeks ago, in front of this propel to the development of the flood, the flooding was within one foot of Patrick Henry Highway. I measured it, one foot. And it gets that way quite often. We're taking all of this land. I haven't measured the acres. I can only estimate it, but about 60% of this is land that's going to become impervious. The rainwater will go on the homes. They'll go in the driveways. They'll go on the streets and so forth. Where does it go? It can't go to the wetlands anymore because it already almost floods. What happens is based on my observations is this area floods when we get two or three days of good rain, the water escapes by going under Patrick Henry into a water detention area that's going to be on iron horse property. Iron horse is going to take 252 acres and put 310,000 square foot buildings all over the place, pave the rest of it. They're going to have a lot of stormwater runoff that they don't have now. Huge amount of impervious oil, impervious buildings and structures. Plus this, all of that water goes the same direction. It goes downhill towards Mechum's Creek. I live on Mechum's Creek, and Wintercrest Subdivision is on Mechum's Creek. And the lowest point of all of this land, north and south, is the corner of the land that backs up to our subdivision. Worried about water contamination from stormwater runoff or worried about contamination of wells? Worried about flooding? Be quite honest. So I mean, it's all around the I'm not sure how many people drive east of 95. If you saw the flooding that was happening two weeks ago, it was darn near over the road. The new and the density, I think the density numbers, I understand how they're calculated, but I think it's a farce. Because you're cramming 130 homes, 130 dwellings into about 20 acres, because the rest of it is either power lines or wetlands or actually water. And so the real density, I mean a bill of the balloon is like six units per acre. I understand how they're calculated. I understand the 2.39. It's a farce. These tin homes out here on the left, if you wipe out the power lines and the wetlands that were there, the 10 homes are on that little peninsula for one reason. There to take the entire acreage into account to calculate the 2.39. It's not really 2.39. From an aerial view, this has got to look more like an army base like barracks. It will be ugly. I think it's a terrible thing for the town to consider. I oppose it. All of my neighbors oppose it and But I thank you for the time Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anyone else like to come forward at this time? All right. We'll go ahead invite the applicant back if you want to speak to some of that gentleman's comments. Yes, sir. If you want to speak to some of that gentleman's comments, perhaps take questions from council as well. Okay. The first comment was the road, which would be about 120 feet, that was planned for the road for the access for the data development center storage facility up there. Obviously, they decided not to do that or March 27th. the DETA Development Center storage facility up there. And obviously they decided not to do that or March 27th, they took that plan off or they voted against it because the developers did need that road. So that road just, it'll dead end into the park. And in my offer to the county, we've offered to go ahead and put the road in, which is approximately $500,000 to get the road up through there. We're putting in a parking area up there at the top of the road that comes all the way through the property and then it would be a circular turn around that they could get out either way or take a right and go over to Woodside. There's a small parking area, this part of my commitment to the county. I've offered to purchase the property at the praise value, build the two-lane road, construct a small gravel parking area for, and we're also bringing a path along 54 and going all the way up into the park to the gravel parking area for pedestrians and bikers. So more people can go ahead and use the park. We've also agreed to contribute $50,000 to parks and wrecks to improve that facility. So that's just that's part, that's on the table with Hanover and has been for almost two years now in different forms, but that's basically what the offer is. The area is heavily forested. You can see from the picture, the only part that isn't forested is obviously the power line that goes through there. And a lot of it is wet, but a lot of it is usable, and we keep it, and we're keeping it in green, because we have to have 50% of it open space anyway. So we couldn't use all the usable property. Our density is only 2.39, given it we have 60 acres to go ahead and put it over. A little less than 60 acres. It allowed them to the zoning up to four units to the acre. So we're not, certainly we're not at the top of the density scale. And hopefully you take them into account. The, in regard to the water, we usually have to do a better job of handling the water when we go ahead and do these developments through the construction plan process. We have to handle that better. We have three BMPs on the site to accommodate, catching the water, and we'll have to correct any problems along 54s, just part of the construction plan. So what we have to do anyway, if you have any more questions on, I think that answers most of them, but if you have some other questions in regards to, the traffic concerns. And we did give 25, an additional 25 feet on woodside where we have a landscape buffer that comes through there but we also gave another 25 feet of right away so there's 100 foot right away on woodside. And for years, that's been on the third-friar plan as the major fair road. That That will accommodate at some point it will probably accommodate four lanes and at some point four lanes is going to generate enough traffic to put a light there. It's not a profit situation but it'll have to be at some time down the road. That's what we think will happen. Again, Carl is here for any other questions in regards to traffic concerns? Any questions from Council? Yes sir? I haven't had the opportunity to see the traffic impact analysis. Ms. Amos has outlined the improvements, which is always helpful to have the, in your proffers, what you're going to do as opposed to referring to another document. But my question for, and forgive me, I've forgotten the gentleman's name. Carl. Carl. For Carl. This is, there are a lot of moving parts in this area. One relates to what the county is going to do after they've approved the data center with Woodside and a future. There's a big zoning case, which has been filed to replace the proffers potentially on Route 54. And I guess my question is to what extent did the traffic study rely on the proffers from east Ashley which are in place that's not zoning hadn't changed even though we've changed the comp plan the zoning is still shopping center and substantial improvements so that would be my question. Okay Carl I'm gonna let him enter that. Carl. Good evening Mr. Mayor. I'm going to let him enter that. Carl. Yes. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Counsel. Carl Holtgren with Grove Slate Associates where the traffic engineer and the project based here in Richmond. And to answer your question, Mr. Hodges, the iron horse trips are not included in the traffic study that we performed for Patriot Glen. The reason is when we met with staff and V.E.On to establish the scope of our work, everyone knows that Iron Horse has been in the works for a long time and is evolving and might get built someday, but it's officially not approved. So we were not to include their trips in our project and our traffic studies that we could specifically identify any improvements that are triggered by our trips alone. And in comparison to iron horse, the trip potential of this project is very small. They're going to generate a lot more traffic if they can improve and build. And their traffic study identifies a number of improvements along Route 54, including widening to four lanes, installing two or three driveways, putting in traffic signals and so forth. So our traffic study identifies the roadway improvements that are triggered by our trips. And that's what Nora went through in her report. Are you calling for dedication of any right of way? I think the plans are for that section of 54 to be four-lane. Correct. I believe we are, I think, right? It wasn't clear from the drawing. It appeared to show 50 feet from center line, which would be potentially a hundred foot. Yeah, I know there's right-of-way dedication along woodside. Yes, that was clear. I don't know specifically if there's right-of-way dedication along 54. My last question, if I may. Sure. As I understand the proper the improvements the left turn lane are triggered by commercial, any commercial development. Where's there a reason that residential development did not trigger any improvements? Well actually off of 95 and the diverging done. Right so the plan you see on the screen is what we studied in the traffic study with the two connections to Route 54. So just to clarify, with the residential trips alone, that does warrant left turn lanes on 54 at both locations. So it would effectively take the left turn lane that turns onto wood side today from 54. You'd basically just extend that back to the west towards 95 and that'll create left turn lanes at road A. They're in the middle and at road E. And then the, and then that's all that's warranted based on the residential trips. And then when the commercial trips, you have the commercial pads develop, then that requires extension of the southbound left turn lane from 95 south onto 54 east, from 125 feet to 300 feet almost triple. Did you assume a coffee shop on the commercial? Did. Yes. And that triggers more improvement than 126 homes. Yeah, coffee shops attract a lot of trips and it's the commercial site you see On the east between the two driveways between Rode and road E We assumed a coffee shop. I believe two thousand square feet along with some other strip retail space And then the larger pad site to the east we assumed I, I think it was 15,000 square feet of retail, plus a sit-down restaurant. So if you add up the trips from the coffee shop, the restaurant, plus the retail space, that's what's triggering the need to extend the left turnlight on the off ramp. And I sure appreciate that we're very sensitive to that under designed I-95 interchange our plans call for diverging diamond and development on the east side has got a left turn movement which you're proposing to address with commercial development. Correct. That would also affect arguably residential development, not the question your expertise, but that plus the fact that we have a lot of existing proffers on 54 with East Ashland, that hasn't been changed. Hopefully we can address that. That would be a concern I have that may be cumulatively there's more of an impact than just what you're addressing in your development. I don't pretend to be a traffic expert but I do feel concerned about that section of 54 and about the divergent climate. Thank you, Carl. Answer the questions at this point. Other questions from council? This amus, if you don't mind coming back and I have a question when you right And you may go ahead sir. Oh, thank you Dude the applicant get a copy of my memo from this afternoon No, I did not share that with them. I shared a portion of it Autumn portion that talked about the putt requirements the important part probably. Well the pilot and I have written a number of policy and technical concerns that cause me to pause about acting on this case. Another recommendation is for deferral by the staff, approval by the planning commission, but in appropriate time, I would be glad to summarize my comments, Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. In the hopes of not putting everybody to sleep, but helping with the developer understand the concerns and hopefully at some point be able to address. Yes, sir. Yep. Is this the time? I think that what you're reflecting on is not only your thoughts, but shared thoughts with others, so it's good to hear them shared. Sure. Well, without again reading it, I hope Miss Amos will share the email after this meeting. Proper number one, it's a concern, one of the moving parts that causes me pause on this is I know you've been diligently pursuing an agreement with county and it's been a moving target but it tends to it appears to be moving in your direction. I guess I would have a question for the attorney if the applicant, if we were to prove this plan that you see before you tonight, and I draw your attention to road A, if road A was switched into the county property, in other words, you move them a major entrance way, would that require return to the planning commission? Is that a substantial enough change? Or is that something that the applicant? In other words, if we were to defer the case for some time, and it comes back with a change in road A to basically be a shared entrance into the park at the top and used by the residences on either side, Should that go back to the plan? Thank you. All right. So that was one concern because we don't have an agreement. And I think hopefully I can speak for Council. I think we like to approve development plans as close to the final product as we can make them. I think the public relies on that and a change of that nature or significance is one that I think the Planning Commission since it has made a recommendation of what would be this plan or an alternative plan would want to see any new plans. Ms. Amos addressed the concerns that I have about road E, basically west of the county property that splits this development. I think you tried to, the applicant tried to address the proffer or excuse me, that concern saying it wouldn't be developed until we reached an agreement with the county. But I personally, as one councilperson, would be reluctant to act on something that's not firmer. I also express concern with the density at which the townhouses are put on developed land but between a very high powered transmission line and a road. I like the diversity of the plan but I'm concerned that the applicant to my knowledge is not address potential impacts of having that high residential density close to power lines. I don't know how much of an issue that is, but I would hope it would be addressed. The concept plan, and I think Mr. Marooner pointed out my least favorite part of this plan, which are the 10 houses with sort of stripped public road frontage. That's the area, as you're looking at it to the left, that are up against residential development to the west. It's a lot, 67 to 76. They have an elongated public road or elongated lot in order to achieve public road frontage, but the actual access is along a joint driveway, which I believe is a private road, which I believe until we address the issue and hopefully come up with some standards, I don't think we could approve that type of roadway, or at least I would be uncomfortable approving that. The concept, I think I address the Buckeye line, the playground area, which isn't shown on this particular concept, but it is on the more detailed one, doesn't appear to be described or information about the improvements or access or how that serves the whole development as opposed to the immediate properties. I think that's a concern. The highway commercial area, which is not a part of the PUD, the Proffer's address architectural standards, but not the character or use of the property. And as Amos has pointed out, it's mixed commercial. Not highway commercial or interstate commercial, which is a different designation or a comp plan. This plan, as indicated by Miss Amos, calls for or encourages the prohibition of strip shopping centers, which it doesn't sound like you're planning to do. I guess where I'm headed, there may be uses that could be profored out that would match the traffic study in which you have done, rather than us giving you a zoning that gives you the full range of commercial uses. Across the road, when we considered the iron horse development, there was considerable input from the citizens. One of the concerns expressed by those that lived in the Providence subdivision was the proximity of fast food restaurants to their development. On the iron horse side, the request was to not bring the commercial zoning all the way across the frontage of iron horse in the county but to limit it. And presumably, we would look at doing that on the opposite side on your property, considering this as a transition into the county where the county left a commercial neighborhood use, which is Miss Amos pointed out, does not include fast or drive-through windows. Sit down and restaurant as I understand it. So there may be a need to limit uses to match the traffic impact analysis that you did. I think we talked about the future agreement with the county. We're not sure when that's going to occur. I don't think it's imminent, but to me, this property is not ready, excuse me for our action until there is an indication from the county that either this plan or which will allow you to tie your development together or an alternative which would allow for the mutual access which I think is in everybody's benefit as Mr. Wilton indicated. I think I've addressed the issues relative to traffic impact. So that's kind of summarizing hopefully at a higher level the some of the specific concerns that I had about the development that would make me reluctant as my as one council member and taking on this case tonight for approving. Thank you. Sure. I'll go next. Thanks Mr.. Vice-Mayor. I appreciate your comments. When I look at this development that I'm listening to, not only the planning commission, but also, you know, talking among the staff members and other council members, I sort of feel like we have the cart before the horse. There's too many ifs here for me. We're waiting to hear what the county is planning to do so we can just incase if. And so I'm concerned about the ifs before making a solid decision this evening. I also, when I look at this dwell in this subdivision, I don't see anything about it that looks like Ashland to me. These are our most Eastern neighbors. And I want this neighborhood to feel like it's a part of our community, even though it's gonna be separated from the actual town town area by the interstate. I'm concerned about the density. When I look at the park sizes that have been suggested, one of them is a playground area and the very bottom section on the right side next to the one and two single family homes. That's the location of it. It's next to a street. And I'm not quite sure if I were in a townhouse up there at the very, very top. I would walk all the way down there to play in that playground. And the other one appears to be more in on the other side of the suggested road. It appears to be more in the wet area. So I'm not quite sure what kind of a playground area or park area that might be. I would suggest if you're looking at, perhaps, building some type of a park, connecting it maybe with Washington, Lacey. Maybe we could do something that's more of like a wetland park with boardwalks or something But I would like to see more when you say open spaces a lot of it just appears to be that it's gonna be in a wet area So I am concerned about the density and I am concerned about the playground slash open areas I know that you're trying very hard to get a variety of houses therefore therefore, so I appreciate that. I appreciate the pricing involved, but I don't care for the way everything is all separate from one another, especially those houses that are down there in the bottom left hand corner that are separated by the power lines. And I don't know, and now of course, not just the power lines, but they're separated there by one single road going in and out, to share driveway, so I'm concerned about that. No one's asking questions about the impact on schools. So I would imagine that they're going to be young people, that are going to be living there, but no one has asked any questions about the impact on our school system. I'm sure they'll be going more to Hanover County, Hanover High in that area, but no one has really asked about that. Let's see. I do believe that that answers to most of the questions I might have right now or concerns that I had right now. The biggest one is just there's so many ifs about this about what may be happening down the road and with Hanover County, I just don't know how I can make a solid decision tonight to support it. Any other comments or questions for staff? I just want to say I previously had more questions but after reading the email that I received this afternoon from Council Member Hodges I do have more questions and there are more things that I need to understand about this. Thanks. I want to answer the question on the schools just because I keep my eye on that because that is what I do for a living. Thank you. And in Hanover County, our student population that is actually using the public services has decreased over the last 10 years significantly. And there's only one elementary school that's facing overcrowding to my knowledge and that is not in the Ashland District. It's in the Chikohama district and that seems to be where the housing boom with children is happening the most. So overcrowding's not going to be a concern in our district, not for the foreseeable future. When you say our district, do you mean the Ashland Elementary School? I'm in the Ashland District and the Beaver Dam district. Yeah, but on the other side going towards Hanover High in that area, yes. Yeah, there's, we're definitely below capacity. And actually that's a concern that some of us have. We don't have enough school age children attending school. And that is a concern. So I agree with you. It's something I think about a lot. And so while I have the floor, I was really hoping and expecting to see and hear more from the planning to discuss about what that commercial development would look like. That is a major concern. That's probably one of the biggest concerns that we have from our community and our neighbors. What type of commercial are you looking at? What's the design going to look like? What's the setbacks going to look like? What does the tree can be going to look like, what's the set back? What is the tree canopy going to be, are there pathways? Those are things that are going to be major. I agree with our planning director that are disappointed to not see a variety of houses intermingled. If you drive down Henry Clay Street, you'll see lots of variety of housing from what looks to be multimillion dollar homes to what are apartments, to town homes in the back. And people love to have a variety of neighbors and different people. And I think it's a strength. I think Lordell looks beautiful. I would have hoped that Lordell would have had even increased a variety of homes. And I agree with Ms. Barnhart, it seems like a tale of two towns here where on one side it looks like there's gonna be Housing independent housing and the other side is where the town homes are and I don't know it just doesn't feel it doesn't feel like Traditional neighborhood to me. I understand why you did it to make sense to the logic of why Why you're presenting it this way. It makes sense to the logic of why you're presenting it. This way it does make sense to me. It just would have a tough time accepting it. And just so I can state this, affordable homes in Ashland is based on our median household income. And the best that I have so far, which isn't even good data, but the best that I have so far, which isn't even good data, but the best that I have so far suggest that the median household income in Ashland is 55,000, which means the starting home prices around 200,000. And so I'm just I just say that it doesn't matter. I wouldn't disapprove or approve it for that. Like I'd just like to make sure people understand that that the median household income in the town is nowhere near the median household income in the county. And so it's just a concern for a lot of our residents to they live in apartments and they wanna get to a house and yet there's not enough housing stock for them sometimes. And I don't know if the problem will ever solve, but it's just something I like to at least share publicly. I knew Vice Mayor Hodges was going to have a lot to say, so I didn't, I didn't put in all the extra planning this time around for it because I've read through this and I said I know from his planning background he's going to have a lot of concerns and I'm glad that he raised them. And like him, I would not feel comfortable approving something that I feel confident is gonna change. And so I'd rather be able to say yes or no to something that people know what's going there. And so I will probably agree with Vice Mayor Hodges. Thank you. All right, now I talked about having the same as come back with a question. Generally, by now I would have closed the public hearing. However, I decided I wanted to wait for some advice because sometimes it's more advantageous to continue it rather than to close it. But we have a little issue here in that I had similar concerns, and one of them had to do with one of the points, and I'll call it condition 12, that just it is understood and agree that access across a property owned by the county of Hanover mentions a G-PAN number may require some adjustment. And so that's the concern, some adjustment to the final layout. And the next Senate's in 12 says, it is further understood and agreed that only a portion of the western side of the property can be developed without a second point of access due to the town's ordinance on that. And so that one condition itself gives me pause to say that that means that what we're looking at, we can't approve because we don't know that that's what the end will be. And so I'm hesitant, as it sounds like I'm not the only one, hesitant to approve it. However, I'm hearing Mr. Wilton say that he's been talking to the county. But I guess I can't demand what he does or what the county does, but we can say that our preference is to vote for something that has been decided, or at least tentatively decided, with some options and statements from the county, or statements, not just statements, but some contractual agreement as to what's going to happen here. So I'm back to asking you all our attorney, if there's a motion to defer it as recommended by staff, do we defer it for how long, and do I close the public hearing hearing or is it more advantageous to continue it? I'm inclined to close the public hearing thinking what's going to come back is going to be different than what we're looking at. I don't know how Ms. Amos feels but I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, ultimately, if the count, if a configuration like this or something very close to this, is not going to garner a majority of this council, it doesn't sound. And it's going to come back substantially changed, and you're probably going to need to have at least another public hearing, if not a revisit to the planning commission. Yes, sir. All right. So I think closing the public hearing makes sense. All right. I think closing public hearing makes sense. Okay. Well, then I will say the public hearing is closed so to get that officially done on the books, yes sir. Would it, I have a question, attorney. Deferring to, and I'm not sure what the staff is kind of plating, but I don't think county is gonna resolve the issues in a month. Would it be appropriate to defer the matter until such time as the applicant has had an opportunity to negotiate with the county and make any adjustments in their plan to reflect that agreement. A word stood out of fact. That's an option. Another option would be to re-refer the matter back to the planning commission and ask that it be brought forward at such time that there's a final plan. Or some language that you'll comfortable. I personally would agree with the second option attorney has offered that we return that I would I'm thinking out loud. Yes, I would agree that returning it to the planning commission for their review at such time as there is an agreement with the county for the use or for the mutual use of this property and the other alternative is for us to deny the case tonight because it's not approval but I I think the developer is making a good faith effort to try to make this property work without the county agreement. I don't think any of us are going to be comfortable acting on it. So if you're ready. I would just say, yeah, sure. If you all would entertain and comment from the applicant, I think they would like to speak to your conversation, but that's up to you're going to have a question. I'm not sure if you're going to have a question. I'm not sure if you're going to have a question. I'm not sure if you're going to have a question. I'm not sure if you're going to have a question. I'm not sure if you're going to have a question. I'm not sure if you're going to have a question. I'm not sure if you're tried to buy the property, they've come back to me back and forth, they've changed their mind three times. So obviously it's put it's a difficulty, we've had this under contract for almost three years now. And the only reason we've been held up is because of that issue going back and forth over the users of road, they're not going to use it or whatever. And I think we are on, you know, in the next two months, I think they will change their fair plan according to the misdouble. And after that, the Board of Supervisors will have to vote if they will sell me the property and they all have my offer. And I think the reason that we had this plan showing two points of access, you know, beside the right-of-way, it makes this plan was one of the two that was approved at the planning commission. And the reason was because we put the two roads in there so that they would not be able to use the right-of-way. So basically it would make them comply and actually sell it, because they couldn't put a road up through there because we had two roads. And that was the reason that we had, according to the, what was approved at the planning commission, the two points. Mr. Hodgons, I do believe I can go through and take out a number of things in the commercial that I don't need, or I don't envision. And the long-term lots, that just shows those lands, just show that you have to have a 50-foot access onto a road. The only access road going across there, it serves all those units, or they're about eight units, eight or nine units. It's just one point of access. I don't know if the lines are making it appear that I have a number of access points going across there. But I think that the county will go ahead and come along. I think it's unfair that they've kept me at bay changing their mind three times for three years. Going back to the planning commission on the commercial, wouldn't I do have a user? I have no problem with that because I think I'm going to have to have a cup anyways. I'll have to go through the process. But I don't have a user now. When I do, I'll be back and have everything included in it. And at that point, you'll be back and have everything included in it. And at that point, you'll see the whole thing. But again, I think I'll have to be back on the commercial because I'll need a cup for probably what I want to do. So those are my comments. So I'd like to, you know, it's going to be, again, 60 days before I think I'll know if they're going to go ahead and let me purchase a property. So maybe deferming for 60 days versus having to go back to the planning commission and then I'll make these changes in the comeback. I heard the attorney say that if you do reach agreement with the county and you do an essence relocate road A onto the county property that is a substantial enough change that we would have to send it back to the Planning Commission. Well, we have two plans. This plan and the one showing the development of this one road. If I could spell it out maybe. This plan is not approval. All right. Your alternative plan, which is not before us and we can't act on because the county hasn't approved it, would enhance the development and the time could also address the questions of other council members. But I don't think deferring it for two months will be right back here at this situation. We typically don't like to bring the public out over and over again. So making it contingent on your agreement with the county and returning it to the planning commission actually saves you a step because if we deferred it until you had an agreement with the county and you changed the plan, which would reflect that, you'd have to go back to the Planning Commission anyway. So, I think I know what I would like to do, and I appreciate your willingness. I don't criticize that at all. All right, okay, thank you. I would make a motion or try to with help. I would make a motion or try to with help. I move that we defer this case back to by the commission until such time that the applicant has provided evidence that the county's in agreement with an alternative road alignment and that the comments made by council members tonight be shared with the planning commission for them to address with the applicant. So that's not a date specific, but that is a event-specific deferral. All right. A second. All right, and just for the record, you said this case, in this case is Patriot Glen Resononing 23 dash 1031. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ordner. 2023 dash 14. Yes. Thank you for the. Are all council members anyone need to hear that motion repeated again? Okay. All right. It has been made in seconded. All right. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Miss Soapall. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Miss Soapall. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Mayor Trevette. Aye. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. That brings us to our next public hearing flag stop car wash. Condition use from it 24-0125 flag stop for conditional use permit. This is a request from Jamie Nester of RVA wash holdings LLC. They're the owner of this property. They've filed a request to amend a previous conditional use permit to develop a car wash on three separate parcels. These parcels will be consolidated upon final approval of the site plan. In total, the three parcels are 3.473 acres and are currently undeveloped. Within the B2 zoning district, a car wash is permitted but does require a conditional use permit. A conditional use permit. A conditional use permit has been approved previously and they're asking for an amendment to one of those conditions. So here's an aerial just showing the location. It is just south of the Sheets property along Ashcake Road and on Route 1 across from the Hanover Community Services property. So the property is now zoned. At the same time they came up with the condition to use permit they asked for the property to be rezoned to B2. They have a shared access agreement with the sheets property so there will only be one in and out access point there, right in, right out at the Sheets property. Here's just an example of one of their other locations over on Sliding Hill Road. They do have over 14 locations in the area and have been looking for a site in Ashland. We are pretty far along in the site planning process and during that process they receive their final designation and report on wetlands. And as part of that they realize that the conditional use permit condition number three, which stated that none of the wetland area would be disturbed, was not going to work with the newly designated wetlands in this area. We did talk to the applicant about the potential of moving around their site and relocating the car wash, but it really, even though it is a larger site, a lot of that property is to the rear and we didn't find a way to make that happen. And so they are coming back to request and minute to the condition number three to allow for up to 4,000 square feet of wetlands impact. So this area here in the yellow, which is the newly designated areas, about 4,400 square feet of additional wetlands that they did not have planned for previously. And so as I think I had mentioned, we are pretty far along in the site plan review process with them. So currently condition number three reads, wetlands that confirm wetlands on the property shall be adequately protected and not disturbed. So again, they were comfortable with that condition when they didn't realize that there were wetlands this far east on the property. They thought it was further towards the rear and the west of the property. And so the new proposed condition number three would be that the applicant must follow all state federal requirements for disturbing wetlands and that no more than 4,000 square feet of wetlands shall be disturbed. All of their confirmed wetlands on the property shall be adequately protected and not disturbed. The Planning Commission held their public hearing on March 13th and we had no public input. We had a good discussion about the difference between wetlands and flood plains as well as the process through the core of engineers for mitigating the wetlands that would have to be impacted. After that discussion, they recommended approval of the request and staff is also removing a recommending approval of conditional use permit 24-0125 with the amended condition number three, allowing for disturbance of up to 4,000 square feet of wetlands on this property. So happy to answer any questions that you may have. Any questions? Yes, sir. Did the applicant propose any offsetting environmental, if you take 4,000 feet of wetlands out? Is there any offset environmental improvement they could make? We have not had that discussion. I believe they're here this evening. I'm sure they would be happy to answer that The The new condition three Where it says no more than 4,000 square feet of wetlands shall be disturbed That's the number that staff recommended or where that number is pertaining to how much wetlands is in the site that's a conflict or is that number have anything to do with any federal little bit of wetlands. So you'll see here their proposed impact is just over 3,500 square feet. That 4,000 just gives them a little wiggle room. If they get in there and realize they need to disturb a little bit more. The total new wetlands area that's in here is a little over 4,400 square feet. But neither of those numbers relate back to a federal code. So, for example, we often talk about 2,500 square feet being that magic number where you would have to do stormwater and et cetera. You know, this number is solely based off of the amount of wetlands that they believe they may have to impact. Right. And so, there's nothing if that number was 6,000 or 10,000. Right. So it's pertaining to what's actually before us with this application in the lay of the land. Correct. Okay. Just want to make sure I understood that correctly. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. And invite the applicant. Come forward at this time. Welcome. Welcome. Mr. Mayor, members of Council, my name is Mike Rothermel, here for the applicant. I want to introduce who's with me here tonight. Jamie Nester is the CEO of Flagstop. Steve King is with Silvercore. He's the Civil Engineer and the project. At deja vu, we were here almost a year ago. So I'm going to limit my comments to what we're here for tonight to amend this condition. Obviously we're happy to go back and talk about the project overall. I mean, our position remains the same that this is a good use. Not adding an additional access point on root one. It's a great complimentary use to sheets right next door. When my client obviously has had a wetlands expert through this entire process, the consultant did not identify the particular, I'll call it sort of a peninsula or finger. Here that has been identified by the corps, they had identified the sort of swell on the southern side of this property as being the only wetlands on the property. And so that's why when staff originally recommended a condition that no wetlands be disturbed, we had no problem with that. The corps differed in its opinion. If you look at this, we're trying to figure out sort of what happened here. There's a little bit of quirky topography on the site. I don't know if that was artificially done by something at some point before my client owned it, but it seems like there was just sort of a weird swell on the property that maybe just collected some order over the years now. And so we have sort of this odd piece that the core sort of insisted over my client's objection to be identified as well. And so Mr. Mayor, to answer your question, we put that 4,000 feet in to make it clear that we're not seeking to disturb anything more than we have to. It's this one little piece here that's been additional wetlands, it's been identified. We did, and Steve King can come up and talk about it. We looked at various configurations to try to avoid this. You can sort of see it would be difficult. We really have sort of an odd configuration. If we avoided it. We'd be pushing back toward the residences in the back. You know, obviously the goal is to sort of keep this away from them and up closer to route one. So, you know, we're here asking tonight for a simple CUP amendment with a change to one condition. Happy to answer any questions, happy to have Mr. King come up, answer any technical site planning questions. If you have questions. Yes, sir. When you take something away, sometimes you offset it and recognizing you can't offset wetlands. I'm looking at your site plan in the area and sort of the southeast corner. Is it your plan to remove any tree vegetation there? Is it, is it? Yeah, I'm gonna ask Steve to come up and talk about it. And where I'm headed is that an area sort of offset that would remain natural. Because they're pretty far along in the site plan process. And I don't know, yes. Thank you. Steve King with SilverCord, the civil engineering drawings for this. This screenshot here shows maybe half of the property. Everything to the rear is all completely wooded and will be left undisturbed. And part of the reason we couldn't shift everything back is that run of wetlands kind of gradually moves north and pinches the property the further back you go. In terms of mitigating for wetlands, the state permit that we'd be getting through the Army Corps of Engineers, we could technically go up to 10,000 square feet of wetlands, the state permit that we'd be getting through the Army Corps of Engineers, we could technically go up to 10,000 square feet of wetlands disturbance without any mitigation requirements. It's really complicated to create wetlands. They have to be monitored. They have to be regulated. It's a process that is years in the making that make it kind of. I wasn't contemplating replacing the wetlands as much as we're tree city and whether or not the not wetlands, but whether or not, what I'm hearing is the back of the property is to remain natural. Is that a condition of approval? Is that something? Or at least 4,000 square feet of an area to be determined by the applicant and the director of planning will be left in its wooded condition? Or words to that effect? Mr. Hodges, was your question the rear of the property? And what happened? Yeah. be left in its wooded condition or words to that effect. Mr. Hodges, was your question the rear of the property and what happened? Yeah, the question was the rear. I originally asked about up front, but I'm hearing that really the natural area that you don't plan to disturb is in the rear. So I didn't know whether you're taking away from the wetlands and then return, so to speak, you would agree to leave the area or a similar area undisturbed as agreed upon during the site plan process between the applicant and the planning director. Yeah, and we, and Norric can say if she disagrees with me, I mean, we, we, we profored, I think we profored, or part of the condition was the site plan. And so we, you know, technically you could, I think, develop in the back, but we would have to come back for additional approvals for that, because I think with the site plan being part of the approval, we can't do anything to the rear without coming back and asking if there's no contemplation. So to answer my question, I see Miss Aimes agreeing is that practically it will be left undeveloped. That is true. They could without coming back to us clear-cut the property because we don't have a permitting requirement for that. Someone could come and timber the property because we don't have a permitting requirement for that. So we can come and timber the property. So I'm not sure if that's what you were getting to a condition that maybe those trees were made. I would hope it would be one the applicant could live with but not trying to save all the back just offset with the protection of an area of similar size be left undisturbed. There's way more. Yes, there's way. And there is a buffer along the back of the property as well between the residential development and this one. So there would be that buffer there. We are trying to keep around the front. You can kind of see that little scalloped pre-line there. We are intending to try to keep as much vegetation that's existing. And then through the site plan process, we're supplementing that to meet thoroughfare buffer requirements. You know, there's kind of a balance between keeping trees and having some visibility, but we're doing the best we can up front and we feel to have a good balance of that. I have a tendency to over complicate simple issues. It's just a thought and I appreciate your response and may have a question for Miss A. Miss. Thank you all. Does any thought about that that would be reasonable about protecting an area along, I'm back to route one since that's an area there to be left planned to be left undisturbed. So for are you saying maybe perhaps this area here? Yeah, I commend. They haven't there. Currently, I'm just making a condition that that stay preserved. Yes. I'm I'm not as well. I'm down this road. I might as well. And so that's on their plan. I wouldn't mind hearing back from them if there would be a future. If there would be an issue with the development of the property, I would withdraw it. I'm just trying to and public interest trying to offset. I understand. I guess, you know, I have to stay when I was listening to the Arbor Day. We're talking about tree town. I grew up in Pennsylvania and I came down to go to Randolph-Macon and I never had allergies still in moved here. That's what I think about when we talk about all the drinks of our day. I think my client would prefer to have no objection if you want to make some conditions to preserving the trees in the back. I don't think there's any intention of ever developing that back there. Rather than sort of limiting in the front along route one just because sometimes, with signage or other issues, you just need a little bit of more flexibility on the front along route one just because sometimes you know with signage or other issues you just need a little bit of more flexibility on the front. I think that's where you go. Thank you. I'm safe. Any other comments? Okay. I have not yet opened the public hearing. Now open the public hearing and invite the public if they like to come forward. I don't see anyone Coming forward other than thank you former council member of brief for being here with us again this evening So I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to council and just say that Mr. Vice Mayor, I agree with a sentiment of what you are bringing forth at the same time. I'm satisfied personally. I'm satisfied that state and federal requirements will be looking out for whether they're issuing of this permit to disturb the wetlands. And so I'm satisfied enough with that, but I'm certainly open to other comments from peers. You know, so other comments from peers? I know we zone land not businesses, but I do want to commend this particular Developer because it's been a slow process and they've been listening to citizens They listen to the neighbors behind them and so I Trusted they're asking for what they need not what they want and so I Attend to favor to support or tend to favor to support, or to plan to support this, because I don't see any evidence that it's a net harm. And also I truly believe Ashley needs car washes like this. So just saying. Yes, me. And I do believe, I think Miss Bama's made a comment that this was found by the Corps of Engineers and they're behind. So that's how they've gotten into this sticky spot is that they're just, you know, the engineer corps behind and so therefore here they are in this situation. As far as those trees are different, I understand what the vice mayor is trying to say and I'd like to say this may trees as possible too. But if I'm a single person, maybe I'd like those to be lower trees. I'm just thinking about safety. If I'm a single person 10 o'clock at night and run on my car through the car wash, I may want to not see trees there. So please save as many as you can in the back. That would make me very happy. All right. Any other comments? All right. All right. Is there a motion? I'm deferring to the director of planning. Okay. I'll be happy to do this. I move to recommend the approval of CUP 24-0125 as presented. Second. Okay. This is Barnhart. Aye. So Paul. Aye. My smear Hodges. Aye. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Mayor Trevets. Aye. I do want to say that for the record as presented means that we've attended to the changing of the wording of item three in the conditions for wet lands. Okay. All right. All right. That is of item three in the conditions for wetlands. Okay. All right, all right, that is passed and we thank y'all for being here. And now we'll move to our discussion item. Now managers, proposed budget. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thanks for having me this evening. Obviously here this evening to present the fiscal year 2025 proposed budget. It's a relatively lengthy presentation. So let's do questions throughout it. So we don't necessarily have to wait until the end. But I'll run through the presentation and hopefully give you the highlights and a little bit of detail and then take your questions as we go through. But before we get there where we've been, you will remember this, we've done our unofficial hearing in February where we ask the public to come out and share with us what they want to see in the budget before we even start putting things down in pencil. We then go through and do very detailed work sessions throughout March where we go line by line. Oh, was it not? Oh, shoot. That is my fault. Sorry about that. I can see the presentation, but you all come up. Sorry about that. I'm going to have to invade your space a little bit. There we go. Warm it up. Thank you, Dawn. There we go. Took it a minute. I apologize for the inconvenience there. As I was saying, we did the uno did work sessions in March where we went line by line through the budget and we're here this evening where we present the town managers proposed budget. One key element to remember about the proposed budget and I don't expect this will be necessary, but if council is unable to come to an agreement and vote on a budget before June 30th, the town managers proposed budget is the one that would take effect naturally on July 1st if you couldn't come to agreement on the budget until such time as you did adopt a budget and then yours would become the the active one for the town That's not going to work. Bear with me for one moment. You're with the old guy. You may pull it up on my understanding. Yeah, we're having a little technical difficulty. Oh, I handed it to you. Incredibly fun. Just try it. All right, I've got it, Doug. Thank you. Sorry about that. So before we jump into the numbers, we'll talk a little bit about what we accomplished in the process in FY24 and then share some challenges with you as well. Much of this you have seen throughout the work sessions, but I will hit the highlights. As you know, we've invested heavily in community engagement over the past few years, in particular our community engagement manager, Ms. Miller has done an absolutely outstanding job. Helping us create new connections and reinforcing the connections we already have in the community. The community ambassadors program is just up and started, but a great opportunity to educate the citizenry on what goes on in the town and not just government functions, but what services are available to the community. If you have not subscribed to the talk of the town, town, tea, or our social media channels, they are a wonderful piece of information and now are much more engaging and relevant to what's going on on the day-to-day actions of the town. Another great community engagement effort was the Berkeley Town Heritage Park. Actually working with the community to tell the story of the community and not just go in and put what might be a typical government park, but doing it in a very special ashram way. Our Public Art Commission, as you know, another great opportunity for us to engage the community and then community meetings. On the finance and administration side, again, I highlight what we talked about at the last meeting that over $3 million in local saved funds by use of ARPA, that certainly informs the ability we have today to use unreserved fund balance to pay for capital projects, is that savings we've had over the last few years. Certainly want to highlight, Miss Stone coming on board as our new finance director, that has been a great years. I certainly want to highlight a mists stone coming on board as our new finance director that has been a great success. I was thrilled to get someone with her experience and wonderful abilities to come into the town. It may have gone a little bit unnoticed, but we did get rid of the decal. We talked about that for maybe a decade or more, but that is a nice thing and hopefully the citizens appreciate that they don't have to deal with what could be called the headache of having to get their annual decal and then pay that tax on a regular basis. We've been a top workplace for nine years in a row, completed that pavilion project, and then again, transition legal services again with the idea of making sure that we're providing the highest level of service we possibly can in every aspect of what we do here in the town. Miss Amos certainly highlighted this during her presentations, but we've had a great year when it comes to economic development and planning. Pop eyes and five guys are obviously not only new businesses in town, which is great to celebrate, but they both helped fill long-term vacant properties in town. That Burger King building sat empty for a very long time. The old bank building was empty, so really happy genuinely that the businesses are here, but almost as importantly is redeveloping those blighted properties that it's at making for quite some time. We've got a lot of new construction going on. Always have to say the words, Apple Garden Inn is going to be a dash in. We're thrilled about that. That is a long-term project that Miss Amos helped bring to fruition. Again, that comp plan process, and then the one I think I'm starting to hear the most excitement about once people understand it is bringing micro transit to Ashwin. And again, I want to recognize Miss Amos for her efforts for most of that. On the police side of things, again, I'm quite proud that we were able to adopt a budget that includes 30 sworn positions. We will get there. We're not quite there yet of actually filling those roles, but that's a good success. I would call it by 24 is trying to create the systems that allow us to give relief to our officers. That 67 second average emergency response time is something I think we should probably be screaming from the rooftops. That is an absolutely outstanding service that we provide to our community. Again, in service training, it sounds like mundane government work, but training of those police officers making sure that professionalism and excellence is baked into what they do on a day-to-day basis. And then again, that being confirmed that excellence by the Kalea accreditation that they've achieved. So again, outstanding work in the police department this year. Public works. We're going to highlight the fun stuff they've done, but so much of what they do actually happens behind the scenes. All the things that are getting built have to be planned and engineered first. And that oftentimes the public doesn't see that, but that's what they're doing upstairs. They are working like crazy to make sure that not only these projects get built, but that backlog of ARPA projects that we have coming up get built in a timely manner as well. So again, great to focus on connectivity, which has been a council and a community. Priority with the sidewalks, permeable pavers, always trying to meet our storm water improvement goals. And then again, managing those ARPA projects has been a huge lift. And again, I want to say great job to the public works team there. And then, Miss Richards is just, we're putting more into parks and rec, in the last two or three years than we have in decades. The Berkeley Town Park is going to be outstanding. We, as was mentioned earlier, in the population, are proclamation for Mr. Davies. We're able to not only expand South Taylor Park, but we have replaced the playground equipment this year. So our Richard's is going to have our bike and pedestrian plan ready for public input within the next 30 to 60 days. So look out for that. And then, well, it's a lot of great things are mentioned here. One of the focuses that MES starts to hear on a regular basis and I think we'll come out of the parks and rec plans is a focus on the recreation side of the house. We obviously partner with Handover County for that, but I want to say I'm incredibly proud of what Miss Richards has done. Knowing the limited resources we have, utilizing partnerships and facilitating relationships to get recreation done, that is a creative use of limited resources and for a relatively new employee I think she's doing absolutely outstanding there. So obviously we had successes, there are challenges, these will continue throughout FY25. You know about most of this staff turnover. Despite our efforts and I think some good recognition as being a great place to work, we oftentimes serve as a stepping stone. And that's a continued frustration, not only for us in town hall, but it shows itself incredibly in the police department as a great example. When you don't have an officer filling one role, someone else is picking up that slack and working overtime, working extra shifts, and the same thing could be said in our planning department. Miss Amos is not just a director, she has to be a planner, because she's the one we have right now. So all that turnover definitely impact our ability to be efficient and provide that excellent community service that we hope to always provide. And again, that touches on the staff bandwidth issue there. In addition to that, again, give a incredible amount of credit. I think our financial services over the last year have been great. All the while, the stone managing, what I would call, another full-time position of doing our software transition. I'm not being hyperbolic in that. That is an incredible lift and an incredible time-consuming lift. And so for us to be able to keep that moving while also doing everything we're supposed to do and getting clean on it throughout our processes is great. The police demand on health care system, that is a long story, maybe for another day, but the impact there is what I'm trying to get at is with those detention orders where we have officers literally sitting in hospital rooms with patients who cannot get the service that they need. It doesn't meet our levels of service we would expect to give the community for those folks sitting in there. It's also an incredibly big sap of our resources, because again, if you have someone sitting in a hospital room, they're not at home, get resting, and they're not on the street serving actual citizens. So in cases where you may have four people on the street, sometimes we really may have five because we have someone sitting in a hospital room. And that's a huge resource burden for a sworn force of 30 people. And then we're always going to be, and you've heard me say this, we're always going to be chasing those stormwater goals. That's going to be an ongoing thing, but I think PlacWorks is doing a great job with it. So those were the highlights from last year. I want to do want to move quickly into this year. Some of the goals that were pretty general this year, this is, as I've described you a transitional year from moving art for using ARPA into back into using general fund so balancing that budget was important and so our operating expenses do hold in line with our general fund revenues we are going to continue investing connectivity I will highlight that for you later in the presentation considering that turnover and the negative impact it has on our performance investing in our employees trying to keep those who have stuck with us we felt was important and I feel like we've accomplished that through this proposed budget. And then again, that continued focus on making sure that that our transition happens in a way that saves the town the most money but also doesn't put us in a bad place in the out years and make sure that we can afford what we're doing in the out years. So, on the big picture, we have a general fund budget of about $14.7 million. That is up 8.7% over the amended FY24 budget. I'll touch on more on why that is such a large increase here in a moment. We've got about a $6 million capital project fund. We'll go over the details of that shortly. $1.7 million special revenue fund. That's the American Rescue Plan Act. Remember that one will never go up. That's only being spent down and in future years we won't have been have that fund. And then the CVTA, which I'm happy to show you a little bit later in the presentation that we programmed some exciting projects in there, which gives you just under a $24 million budget that I'm proposing to you this evening. So some of the environment touches on all the concerns that we've addressed throughout the presentation, but again, we still have a little bit of economic uncertainty, potential wars, there's still some inflation going on, lots of challenges in front of us. The labor market, I'll be the first to say, it has improved, but maybe also dramatically, not substantially. Application pools that were five last year or now seven, they're not 20, like they were in 2019, so we're getting to a better place, but still, pressure's there, and then development pressures. We have that surrounding us in the county. We also have a lot of development along the edges of the town that is not only a workload lift, but brings a little bit extra sensitivity. And the pace of change in Hanover and Ashland right now, the community's feeling it, and I think you hear them telling you that they're feeling it. And so we try to make sure that we understand that through the budget, and if there's ways we can and try to address it, we do. I think one of the positions, the part-time positions we're adding is trying to help us address that in a little bit better way. And then you've heard the internal issues there already. So, few charts for you to help understand the budget that I'm proposing. This one in particular talks about total expenditures and revenues, but really the message here is a little bit about that general fund reserve. You can see, and you can see my cursor, so that's good. FY24 to FY25 is a substantial jump, and I'm not going to hide that from you, but part of the function of that increase in the budget is that we've been handling a lot of those fences in the ARPA fund. And so while if you layered ARPA on top of our general fund, it probably was operationally in that $14 to $15 million range. As you roll off ARPA, those things are going to transition over. So the increase can be alarming if you look at it from a peer percentage perspective, but if you understand the story behind it of, these are things we're already just doing, but just from a different pot of money, and we're transitioning them to our existing pot. And so that's the story of the increase. This number over here, the use of unreserved fund balance may scare you a little bit when you look at it compared to prior years, but the interesting thing here is that that's a budgeted number versus actuals, right? And so I'll show you a chart here momentarily that shows you that typically trends down throughout the year. We budget very conservatively under estimate, but we can conservatively estimate revenues, conservatively estimate expenditures, and so we're usually end in a better position than we actually budget for. But even if we did use all that reserve, which I would, if I was a betting man, I would say we would not in FY25, it still leaves us with an unreserved, fun balance total that is well within policy limits and allows us flexibility in future years to continue to understand that we're only partially rolling off ARPA in FY25, and FY26 will be the real, completely locally funded funded and so we've left a little bit of cushion there just in case we need it for future years as well. And this is a little bit of a visual representation of what I was just talking about. Obviously this is revenues and expenditures. Always want the red to be above the blue. You understand that that gap right there is exactly, oh I'm sorry I went the wrong way, that $1.5 million budget number there. And so that's an intentional spend down to one reserved fund balance and so in those types of instances these gaps are generally acceptable. Part of the reason of doing that again is that you could see over these years over here we did actually budget for transfers that were much higher, the blue line. Mid-year, we typically estimated them lower. And then you can see in the green, they either came in very low, or when they're under the line, that means we're putting money back into the unreserved fund balance. And so actually our unreserved fund balance, the Charo show you, has risen above levels that we're really comfortable holding onto. We actually need to go spend some of that down. And so I think we're doing it the intelligent way this year of using it all for capital projects and not using it to cover operating expenses. So again, a few more numbers for you, but this does kind of give you a picture of how we budget and then estimate and then what the actuals come in. We budget conservatively. And so you can see, you know, FY23 is the year with full numbers. We budgeted 12.6. The estimate at the mid year so when I presented you my budget was 12.1 and we ended up only spending 11.6. I would expect that trend to continue slightly in FY24. FY25 because so much of our unreserved fund balance is going to go towards capital that trend will decrease a little bit but I would still expect us to 25 because so much of our unreserved fund balance is going to go towards capital. That trend will decrease a little bit, but I would still expect us to have some vacancies that will make us spend less than we actually budget for. So on the personnel side of the budget, I will just highlight the changes that I'm recommending. No new full-time positions, but I am recommending two part-time positions. The first would be a 20-hour per week digital media specialist in community engagement. That would one enhance and continue to enhance our community engagement efforts that I've shared with you. But just as importantly, it would take off the workload of Miss Miller, some of her day-to-day operations when it comes to actually typing and preparing social media so that she can better fulfill those roles I promoted her to for the Assistant Town Manager position. And so this one is a little bit of a function of we need this position to increase our service but also to enable some employees to take on more leadership responsibilities. And then the other position I was talking about was the plan reviewer in the planning department and another 20-hour position. And as that development activity around us and in the area increases, it's just a recognition that we're going to need that additional person that's there to help review applications go through, do the details, especially considering the fact that we've had so much turnover in that department as well. It's another resource available to miss Amos to help us get that work done. The budget does still include three positions that are 50% are funded instead of 100% are funded. So we'll pay those three positions through June 3rd. I'm sorry, December 31st, not June 30th of 2024. The compensation plan that we've had since 2013, this year is moving our pay bans at 4%. That's on across the board, 4% for all pay bans, which means all employees will get a 4% pay band increase, which for public perspective, think of that as a cost of living increases the easy way to think it. The merit pool will be 50,000 in the recommended budget, and that is money that we allow our department heads to recognize our highest performer. So if you think of the compensation plan like Acola, the merit is where we really go in and identify those who are best and brightest and make sure that they're rewarded so that they can create separation between the bottom of the pay band and actually be recognized in that way as well. On the benefit side, not too many changes, I am recommending continuing with our health insurance provider, even though there's a 10% increase in premiums, that is not all that surprising. It usually fluctuates somewhere between, well, usually it's in the 5 to 8 range, but our experience tells us we usually go in the 1, 0 to 2% and then the 10 to 12%. 0 to 2, 10 to 12. And so when you average it out, it ends up in the 6 to 7, 6 to 8 range. So this year we got hit with one of the 10% increases, but prior years were lower, so we're okay with the average there. And then the final, the new benefit that I'd like to add is complete our longevity program. We've been working on this for maybe five years or so, where we created a program to recognize employees for their years of service and the experience and excellence that can bring to the organization. We have 25, 15 and 20 ear markers already and so this year I'd like to add in the 10% marker and I believe that would result in a 2.5% increase for employees who hit that 10 year mark. On tax rates I'll make this very simple. I am recommending no changes to our tax rates and so the next two slides are literally just showing you that no tax rates have changed and I am not recommending changes to our tax rates. And so the next two slides are literally just showing you that no tax rates have changed, and I am not recommending any to you. So you can see there that everything is staying just the way it is. And then again, as we roll down the slides, and so I won't go into detail because I'm not recommending any changes. But you have a question. Other than the elimination of the decal. But that was in the year we're in. That's done. So yeah. I just like to hear that. Yes. Happy to say it over and over again. So while we're moving through this, and we talked about tax rates, I do want to touch on three of our biggest revenue sources. Obviously, Meals tax is by far our largest revenue source. I believe we're budgeting over $3.5 million this year out of a, what did I propose to you, a $14 million general fund budget. And you can see here that collections are still good. Meals is still moving in the right direction. Sales continue to go up. I think that's both a mix of the surrounding area growing around us. I and I need to try to find traffic, never seems to go down. And then the good work, the staff have done, of trying to turn over and get some of those new businesses. When you combine all those three things, it's a good picture for the meals tax. And as you can see there, I've highlighted, even though we're not taking it into account in my recommendation, so other opportunities for increases with the new Dunkin' Donuts coming, and then potential redevelopment of the pizza building. On the lodging tax side, a little bit different story. There's a slight dip in this year's collections, even though I'm recommending an increase in next years. I tried to do some research and some reading, and there are a few articles out there that this is a little bit of a trend. I don't know about a trend, but a phenomenon that certain localities that charge a lodging tax are seeing not only in Virginia, but across the country. There seemed to be a little bit of a COVID demand buildup boom over the last three years that people went out, did took more trips than they more may have normally otherwise because they didn't get to during COVID and that started to pull back a little bit in FY 24. I'm actually confident in our numbers because we may experience a little bit of that. I don't think it's going to be a rail trend setter for us, but with the expansion of sports or tourism opportunities in Henrico, I think that will do a lot to offset that lodging demand and actually increase it locally, even though we may see that trend dimension nationally orin Virginia. So even though this year's we're showing it a little bit down, I think we'll be safe with transient occupancy tax going forward. And then the one that we talk about regularly, but it has really been, as you can see by the chart, a great revenue for the town is the sales tax. I would love to take a lot of credit for that, but as you know, I can't necessarily do that. The Sales tax is one that's not just generated by the activity in the town. It's actually, we get a percentage of the Hanover County local option sales tax, and so as the Hanover pie grows, the Ashland piece of that pie grows. And so Hanover is growing and adding more retail by the day, so we're doing that as well. You see the add-on of online sales tax collection in F by 2020, which certainly started to make a difference. You can see that there as well as that continues to come into play. But sales tax has really been a great revenue source for us over the last four or five years and hopefully that will continue. The note of caution is less necessary than when I wrote it. We're getting closer to the governor signing all the budgets, but this year's been a little bit odd in the way they're adopting the budget and doing amendments back and forth and doing a little more talking. So when I wrote that, I had a little worry that they might try to come to a compromise of taking out the grocery portion of the sales tax or something. It doesn't look like that's going to happen, so I think sales tax will be safe for at least for the next year. So transitioning from revenue to capital projects. Again, I'm only going to hit the highlights, but it's a $6 million budget. I am recommending over $1.8 million in new appropriations. Only 282,000 of that is revenue directly into the capital project fund. And for your reference, that typically means either interest earnings on the amount we hold or grant revenue is the revenue that goes directly in there. So that leaves 1.8 million that is a direct transfer fund that general fund to the capital project fund. Some of the highlights noting our commitment to connectivity both physically and with the community engagement efforts, 345,000 new trails and sidewalks money for FY25 stormwater again 409,000 with 209 of that being grants which is represented in the direct CPF revenue on the other side. Fleet management, I highlight it because it's a big number but I think it's important that you know it takes money to maintain a fleet. The price of vehicles, personally, for all of us, has gone up. If you've tried to buy one, used or new, and that has been the case for the town as well. Parks and Recreation, without trails included. Again, another major investment of 323,000. I think I'd have not gone completely checked. I will probably do it before the public hearing. That is probably the highest local allocation of local dollars into Parks and Rec Capital that we've ever had as a town. We've done debt to do certain things, but as far as just local funding for Parks and Recreation programs being put in the Capital Project, this may be the highest year we've had as a town. So I'm gonna double check that, but again, showing you the commitment we have to enhancing quality of life in the town. Commercial quarter, I'm glad we got a few compliments on it tonight that was great to hear I hope Miss Amos heard that but again I note it here because you all know but I hope the public knows that little you can call it the messy mile or you can call it the golden mile but that little area between Route 1 and 95 really is what pays the bills in the town and so anything we can do to beautify that make it more welcoming and make those businesses more successful, successful is always worthwhile. And then again we've had really great success. I think the public is going to be amazingly surprised once our next art project comes out and so I want to continue that trend and make sure that the public art commission knows we appreciate the work they're doing. So any capital questions before I keep jumping along? I'm going to keep rolling. All right. Central Division of Transportation Authority. I'll remind the public this is a new fund we created in 2022 when a new regional body was adopted by the General Assembly and we are included in it that allows the local governments in the region to raise money for transportation projects. We get, in this instance, a share like we do for sales tax. We're getting a piece of the Hanover County pie when it comes to Central Virginia Transportation Authority. The good of that is we're always probably gonna grow, we're gonna keep getting more and more. The bad side of being a town sometimes is our share is so small. We need to save up for four or five years to do any project where some of the larger localities every year are getting to buy it, build a new road. But either way, this is money we did not have before. It was investments we were unable to make before. And so this is an absolutely wonderful resource for us. But so you know what we're proposing here. Along the top line you can see the revenues we're expecting to get. I tried to project this out for quite a few years. The year we're in, we've done a little bit of an amendment there. You may remember we had some England Street Street skate money saved there. The estimates for the Dominion portion of that project came in so much lower. We were able to reallocate that, really move it to out years. We kept the amount for this year to potentially purchase the right away for Von Road extended. And so that's been in there. Next year, the budget we're really looking at. I've left $75,000 in there for the England Street Skate Phase One. Largely, that's, it's an old road. There's so much under that ground. I don't know that we really can expect what we're gonna find when we dig it up. I wanted to leave them a little bit of wiggle room and CBTA seemed like a good place to do that. And then the other one, you'll be keenly aware is a relatively new project in CBTA world, but we discussed this as part of the budget, a traffic signal at root one in Archie Canyon Drive. I budgeted $600,000. I don't believe that's going to be enough to fully fund it, but as we've discussed previously, there's an economic development prospect on Route 1 that we're hoping maybe we can get them to match us or participate in that cost or fully fund it, and then this money comes back to the town, or you always have the ability to finish funding the traffic signal and FY26 if that were your desire. And so, really, when we're talking about the CVTA budget, these two numbers are the most important because that's in the upcoming year. That's really what you're adopting. Many of these out-year ones are placeholders. I'll give you a simple example. The Von Road Overpass, the grade separated crossing up there, we know there's going to be a local match for that. And so to plug that in when we think that would be eligible to apply again, makes us know that that matching money is there and when FY27 comes along, we don't discramble and find it from other sources. And so Miss Amos and Mr. Jennings and I have gone along and tried to plug in there as many of the no-none knowns as we possibly can of when we think these grant funds would become available. I'm going to highlight it even though it's not this fiscal year. FY26 you'll see here starting to annually commit to doing some sidewalk projects out of CBTA. I like the idea because that's such a community desire is making that a steady revenue source and so that we're not having to find local funds. We actually have CBTA funds dedicated for it. So that would be an FY26 though. Any CBTA questions before I, again, keep on rolling. funds, we actually have CVTA funds dedicated for it. So that would be an FY 26 though. Any CVTA questions before I, again, keep on rolling. All right, I'm not seeing it all along. Very good. ARPA, this one, we've had so much conversation about this as a relatively small slide, but you can see that year we're in, we budgeted $4.9 million, because that was what we thought would be left on June 30th of 2020 Three sorry the years all together Basically what you're seeing in the town manager proposed FY25 is we think we'll have about 1.78 million dollars left on June 30th of this year And so we would have 1.78 That we would need to spend before December 30 December 31st of 2024 or at least obligated for the construction projects. You can see the amounts here, the personnel sections are where we're going to talk about those staff and employees. Contract services can be a little bit confusing because there's contract services of a service that's provided or contracted for a construction project and so that blends a little bit. Other commodities, there's probably some products in there and I may ask Mr. Goodman if you have questions about that. And then the capital side of things is again, it could be a vehicle, it could be a building addition, it could be something to that effect that we would add on and purchase there. But the short version is we have about 1.78 million left of the spending plan that you all have approved that we need to finish by December 31. All right. So we're coming along here. We're getting there. Budget highlights. Again, we focused on using that ARPA money to help us transition. I haven't talked about it much in the budget. I apologize about that. But again, the economic development authority was a group that was a committee in search of a role. And over the last, I think, it's say, five years. We've maybe got them moving so quickly that they're even ahead of us. But we've found a dedicated, sustainable funding stream for them. And really, the whole idea behind the EDA is to kind of get that flywheel spinning. They do a project, it gets moving faster and faster. And every time they do a project, they earn a little bit more from the town in new revenue so that they can do bigger and better projects for us in the future. I talked to you all about the unassigned fund balance making sure that we are always in a safe place in out years that we don't shortchange the future for our current budget that is always important to us. Again we're going to expand those community engagement efforts and it gets finally it. But I would say almost most importantly, is continuing to attract and retain that workforce because none of the work gets done without them. So those are the budget highlights. What we're doing tonight, obviously, is this presentation. Love to hear from council if you have feedback. We're starting to get to that time in the budget process where it becomes more and more difficult to make changes. So if you have concerns, I'd love to hear them now. We have scheduled for May 7th, the real estate tax rate public hearing. I will reiterate and loud as I can to the public, we are not recommending any tax rate changes. This public hearing is required by state law if our local real estate assessments go up over 1%. And so we have to technically advertise a rate increase, even though I'm not recommending a rate change. And then we will also hold at the same meeting, but at a different time, the budget that we're hearing on May 7th, and then we have you scheduled for a June 4th vote. So I went through about what it was at $24 million in, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. So I'm happy to take any questions. I know there may be things I glossed over, but I'm happy to dive into anything you want to discuss. All right. Question in his comments. I'm impressed. Thank you. I'm impressed with the spirit of it. And it isn't just, hey, I want to do these things because I think we should. It's also fiscally responsible in what it's done. And it shows good planning in the past and a good vision for practicality of the future. So. Thank you. Can I add one more accomplishment from the previous? Sure. Is we have downtown Wi-Fi. Very true. Very true. Very good. Excellent. And also our own broadband municipal broadband that's affecting some businesses on Route 1. Sorry much so. So yes. What was the comments? I would echo the mayor's comments and Dr. McGraw well done. Thank you. Appreciate it. And Ms. Barnard. Yes indeed. All right. All right. We're satisfied. Thank you. And we do encourage the public to look and ask questions and let us hear from them. Yep. Let's staff hear from them. And that make that open to the public that email me, email any of your council members. You will get a response or happy to answer questions. Hope we show, we like talking about that stuff. I've been engaging with a few of our community request organizations, just questions back and forth, whether they got an answer they wanted or not. I think they respect that we were timely and we'll get them the information so I'd make that offer to anyone else in the public as well we're happy to get into the details of the budget anytime. And just the real estate tax rate public hearing you mentioned what that is and do want to say we don't do the assessments either. No we do not. Yeah, Hanover County does the assessments on our behalf. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. And now we'll move forward with our reports. Wow. He's suddenly here. Yes. Welcome Miss Amos for the Planning Department report. And thank you for what was alluded to in the budget as far as the cost for the planning department. Thank you. So you have my staff report in your packet. I'm excited to say we've held interviews for the planning position, and we have so we believe we'll make an offer to hopefully this week. It's possible that they aren't able to start for several more weeks, possibly a month. I'm both excited to at least move forward in that process. We were able to complete preliminary applications for SmartScale, round six. Those were due at the end of March. So we were able to submit applications for the intersection of route one and ash cake. That's a project that we have leveraged funds through the Central Virginia Transportation Authority using regional funds. And so approximately half of that project will be funded through those regional CVTA funds, which really does help our cost-benefit score in being able to compete for a smart scale. The other project is a joint application with Hanover County and V. for the I-95, exit 92 diverging diamond project. And I think we've probably may have referred to or mentioned to it this evening, but for public information, we did receive the application for rezoning for the Iron Horse project, formerly known as East Ashland. It's the property just on the southeast bogeant of the 95 interchange. And so we'll be processing that and we anticipate the earliest that it will be heard would be June at the Planning Commission will be bringing to you all a referral request. We are anticipating a community meeting sometime in May. This is we get that information will pass that along. For interest, I believe for the first time in years, possibly a decade, our Board of Zoning Appeals is hearing a variance case on the 24th of April. So we will be putting that committee to work. I'm happy to answer any questions you all might have. Yes, sir. Comment and a question. I appreciate attending the Citizen Leadership Academy. Oh, thank you for that. Yes, and I learned from it. I thought it was, and I was impressed by the students. So I think a good diversity and good question. I did see the large scale map. The old. And you guys have been updated. Yes, I know. That's my question. Because it's such a valuable, I mean, to be able to see the plan with the text verses on it. Do you have any all-park estimates when that might be done? I did check in with our consultant in the past couple of weeks. I do not know that there's an exact date but they are working on it. I apologize. Maybe I can ask for a rush job which I think I already have but I will ask again for a rush job. Well, nothing's it's worth doing right but I think it is a valuable tool. And I'm thrilled if we do get the applicant we're looking at for the planner position they have GIS expertise Which I think will be a valuable tool that we could do that internally That's good any other comments or questions Thank you very much. Thank you Miss Stone finance department Good evening Mr. Mayor council members. I did not think she was going to make it back in time and I was going to jump ahead of her. But she made it. So anyway, I know that the report is in your packet. It's as of March 2024 and these are actual numbers as a proposed to projections for budget that you just heard quite a bit about. We are still electing business license applications that deadline is made first. Our auditors are visiting us tomorrow and Thursday for the preliminary work. They had a request for quite a bit of data and samples and they have all of that information already. So we are ready to go first thing tomorrow morning. When we look at our revenue sources, and again, these are actual numbers looking at meals tax. We're up 5.3% over last year's actual, not necessarily budget. Lodging is only a three-tenths of a percent. So that's where you're seeing kind of that leveling off of that growth. Sales tax last March compared to the prior years, 15.5% growth, real estate, 5.4% and personal property tax is also level down just a smidge at 2.5% but you've lost that decal fee. So that certainly reflects some of that. And then we have our investment report. So, So you know more of what you typically see each month, but I'd be happy to take any questions that you may have Any questions Thank you very much have a great evening Thank you and chief at home Ashen please please pardon. Freshers, all of them are being done by none, but I don't think that's going to happen. That's all good. Mr. Mayor, members of town council, and my packet of seating, you will have the Ash Police Department multi-report for the month of March. I am happy to report that we did have a significant decrease in part one offenses over March of last year, but over the culmination of the two years between 2023 and 2024, it's just been a very minor decrease in the Portland one crimes. We did have a significant jump in accidents this month. I went back and looked through the files to try to figure out why, and I couldn't have any causal factor that should, there was any common reasoning behind it. Some of the accidents happen in residential neighborhoods. Typically where we don't have accidents where people ran into parked cars, we had to happen on hill cars. So I can't really give you rhyme or reason as to why they happen except judging by at least two of those accidents, distracted driving is definitely a factor. We also had a robbery this month. I bring this up because typically we don't have very many of these in a year, but in this one, the party was known to the victim. Officers were able to respond to the area very quickly, located two suspects based off the reasonable suspicion we had at the time, and we were able to develop probable cause and obtain a search warrant and execute a search warrant on house and recovered the firearm that was used in the robbery. So I'm very proud of the teamwork that both the investigative unit and the patrol units did with quick resolution in this case. Also, we held a coffee at the Cop event at Los Rios, Regius at the great event, Miss Lopez has been a great partner to the police department. We did have a pretty good turnout, so a very good event. Also, I met with Mr. Brakins. He is with the Secure Community Network, which is an organization that's tied to the Jewish community. I did it because he reached out to me because I didn't realize the specific requirements with crimes if you were to have a homicide or an accident respecting the Jewish faith. So it was enlightening to have that meaning to know that if 24 hours is very timely for having some of Jewish faith to be buried and to recover everything was important. So it was very insightful and some of them will make sure we pass on to our patrol officers as well as our investigators to make sure that we respect their faith as much as possible. We also had three officers graduate from the academy and they're in full swing of field training right now and we also participated in public safety day at Hanover Academy. It's something that's done annually. Fire department some other first responders come out usually when the police car comes out it entertains the kids for a couple of minutes and then the fire truck comes and everybody forgets about us but we were doomed when the helicopter flew overhead because the ECU came in sir but if we're God about us and well it was a good event nonetheless, but the other day they bring in a chop or everything kind of, everybody forgets about you. We also held the railroad run, which went well, and also the Secretary of Event, which I think went about as well as it could have gone, given the challenges we faced. But it was a, the attendance was just about to write a amount, and we were able to, I think, set up a vendetta safely as possible before we had. Finally, this month we're undergoing our Cleo Offsite, this assessment will include this week, so I'll be able to report back in probably six to eight weeks as to the outcome of that. And upcoming the next month, we're remind everyone, train day's coming. So 54 out here at the tracks is gonna be shut down. So there will be some traffic congestion. And also we have our drug take back event. Also on April 27th, same day's train day. So I wanna remind everyone to please bring in their unwanted, unneeded or expired medications. We'll be happy to take them and make sure they're properly disposed of. And what's that? I'd be happy to answer any questions. They're at the station. Yes, sir. We'll host the stuff. All you have to do, we'll have a drop box. You can just drop them in. No questions asked. And we turn them over to DEA for destruction. And there's time for that. T I would just like to say thank you on behalf of the Secretariat team. They're extremely appreciative of all the hard work. I'll make sure I pass that on. Captain Schoer is at a great job. You have a great job. Other comments? Well, and thanks for the, I'll say cultural consideration and speaking to the manner of the Jewish faith. It's good for our police department and all of us to consider across the spectrum of different cultural considerations. So I learned a lot. So a lot of things I didn't know. So it was very eye-opening. So I'll make sure that we take all those considerations. The fact that it comes up, I hope it does not. All right. Thanks. Did you win the troops? Thank you. All right, thanks. Did you any troops? Thank you. All right, at this point, I'll ask whether there's a motion concerning our closed session? Mr. Mayor, I move to enter closed session, closed meeting pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711, A1 to discuss or consider the annual performance evaluation of the town manager. Second. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Ms. Barnhardt. Aye. Ms. Appal. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Mayor Trevet. Aye. All right. We'll go to our pose session and we'll return and have our vote after that. I couldn't answer gracious. And your likes, your mics are loud, your lives are mic'd. Alright, it actually worked both ways. Alright, returning to the next slide. and your likes, your mics are live. Your lives are mic'd. Alright? It actually worked both ways. Alright, returning from closed session, is there a motion to certify? Mr. Mayor, I move to return to open meeting and certify that only those matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements. Oh, excuse me, the Freedom of Information Act and mentioned in the motion to interclose meeting were heard, discussed or considered. Second. Second. Take your pick. He's our reporter. The correct response is ISO certified. ISO certified. ISO certified. ISO certified. ISO certified. ISO certified. I so certify. I so certify. I so certify. I couldn't swear. I so certify. I so certify. All right, any other matters coming forth tonight? No. And your life's long. Your journey.