Greene Supervisors to review Comprehensive Plan priority recommendations from PC

The Greene County Board of Supervisors will meet at 5:30 p.m. in the Administration Building in Stanardsville. (agenda)

There will be a public hearing for a special use permit for a home business at 912 Amicus Road in the county’s rural area. The request is to use the property for an auto repair and towing business, according to the application. The Planning Commission recommended denial at their public hearing on January 17, 2024, according to the staff report. 

The applicants say being able to do the work at their house will keep their costs low.

“We want to be able to provide our customers with prices they can afford and in order to do that we are trying to get our business license at home,” writes Christina Sims in a letter to the county. 

Public comments about the project are also available for review. An adjacent landowner writes that their driveway would be required to access the lot and that it’s not safe for public use. 

Three new Supervisors were elected to the Board in November, and many want more oversight of county government through the creation of many new committees. There’s a memo in the packet from Assistant County Attorney Kelley Kemp about how any groups created by the board are subject to Virginia’s open meeting requirements. 

“Under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), any committee that the Board creates is an extension of the Board,” reads the memo. “It does not matter if all the members of the committee are Board members or not.” 

The memo goes on to say that the County Administrator can appoint committees that would not be subject to FOIA such as a temporary committee to assist with construction projects. However, Kemp advises against creating such a committee with a Supervisor as a member because it may be perceived as “subterfuge.”

According to the draft minutes of the February 13, 2024 meeting, Supervisor Francis McGuigan sought to create a Rural Advisory Committee and a Budget Citizen Advisory Committee that he requested not be subject to FOIA. 

“We have a county of 21,000 residents,” McGuigan wrote on his Facebook page. “We currently carry $4,619 dollars of debt for each residents. Without oversight this amount will skyrocket over the next several years. We need to stop using the Federal Government’s fiscal policy as a model.”

At this meeting, there will also be updates from the Public Safety Foundation and on two acronyms. CERT and ARES. Any ideas on what those mean? There’s no staff report. 

There are also a few action items. One is on implementation priorities the Planning Commission recommended in September 2023. At that time, it was clear there would be three new Supervisors so the presentation of these recommendations was deferred until now. There are 12 recommendations in all, quoted below:

1. Greene County will proceed with constructing the White Run pumped storage reservoir project.
2. Greene County will encourage commercial and residential development and provide adequate water pressure and supply for Stanardsville.
   1. Implement the completed engineering design for a new Stanardsville area water and sewer network
3. Greene County will ensure the integrity of wastewater treatment facilities through comprehensive system upgrades, including for the Town of Stanardsville.
4. The Construction of a new elementary school to support projected increases in enrollment and economic growth in Greene County. This is not only to support the forecasted enrollment increases but also as part of the comprehensive facility study completed in 2016 that led to the Stanardsville campus, WMMS, WMHS, and RES campus improvements.
5. The ongoing expansion of our Career and Technical Education facilities and programming to meet the needs of our students and adequately respond to the dynamic changes in postsecondary workforce needs
6. Greene County will investigate measures to encourage and retain farming and land use operations by the following actions:
   1. a. Establish a stakeholder group to develop recommendations for land use tools that will promote and support rural opportunities.
7. Update County Zoning and Subdivision Ordinances to reflect the recommendations included in this chapter.
   1. a. The Planning Commission recommends a zoning revision to include a new Technology and Flex Research and Development District.
8. Greene County will promote safe travel for pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists
   1. Apply calming traffic techniques in current developments and new developments as appropriate.
   2. Encourage sidewalks and planting strips, medians, bicycle lanes, and narrow streets.
9. Greene County will support the completion of phases one and two of the master plan for Greene County Community Park through:
   1. Development of a recreation community center, athletic fields, and additional passive recreation improvements (trails, outdoor recreation, etc.) to meet the needs of the growing/changing community’s desires.
10. Greene County will support the development of a public swimming area.
11. Encourage residential development of affordable housing in or near Stanardsville.
    1. Encourage the development of missing middle mixed-income housing, particularly in the Ruckersville and Stanardsville areas. This could take the form of a Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) project.
    2. Create an Accessory Dwelling Unit implementation guide/toolkit to promote the mutual affordability benefits of ADUs to homeowners and renters & promote grant programs targeted to ADU creation.
12.  Greene County will create a county park in Ruckersville.

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