Albemarle PC begins review of new AC44 language on growth management

Albemarle County expects a population of over 155,000 by 2050 if projections from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service come to fruition. Virginia law requires communities to plan for growth by creating and maintaining a Comprehensive Plan. 

For over 50 years, Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan has called for the management of growth by only allowing intense land development on a small percentage of the overall geographic area that makes up the county. 

“The county established a growth management policy with the adoption of the first comp plan in 1971,” said Tonya Swartzendruber, a planning manager in Albemarle. “It designates our growth area or development areas in the rural area. Similar growth management policies are used throughout Virginia and across the country.”

Expansions to allow new areas have been very rare and a major focus behind the current Comprehensive Plan is what conditions would need to be in place to warrant more land being added. 

Resources: 

• Staff report for October 8, 2024 discussion
• Draft AC44 outline
• Draft Comprehensive Plan with selected updates
• Preview of Future Land Use Map 

This year, county staff took a pause halfway through what they’ve called the AC44 process in an effort to make the plan easier to understand. That has resulted in a lot of streamlining and consolidation to eliminate duplication.   

“You shouldn’t have to read the whole document to understand what it is the county wants to achieve,” said Michael Barnes, Albemarle County’s planning director since last October. 

The whole document is not yet available to read as staff have been working on the new Comprehensive Plan internally this summer and early fall before revealing draft language on growth management earlier this month. The basic spirit of the policy is still there.

“The purpose of the policy is to encourage vibrant, mixed use, dense and walkable development in the development areas supported by infrastructure and amenities in order to protect the natural, historic, scenic and cultural resources in the rural area,” Swartzendruber said. “Having designated growth areas helps to avoid sprawl and supports the efficient and more cost effective provision of public infrastructure and services.”

Swartzendruber said the new Comprehensive Plan contains language that states the county must prepare for people who do not live here yet. 

“We added language to specifically list the policy, the areas of policy that the policy guides, which is land use, capital projects or investments and public services,” Swartzendruber said. 

Swartzendruber said language was also added to continue to state that a lower level of services should be expected in the rural area.

Commissioner Julian Bivins said some of the language wasn’t entirely clear and might not necessarily suggest what metrics could be used to determine if desired policy outcomes are being met. 

“When we say we’re going to be a welcoming community that will grow equitably and sustainably, supporting the needs of current and future community members for housing, jobs in a healthy environment, I imagine that there’ll be some ways of which to define that and to be able to understand whether or not we’ve been successful to date.” Bivins said. “And if not, how do we close the gap?”

Bivins also suggested that the language needed to be more clear about the county’s desire to build more densely in the growth area to allow it to be more than just a suburban community. He noted that the Future Land Use Map that has just been released seems to indicate more of the same. 

“When I look at the growth management plan, I see the words have been enhanced, but I don’t know necessarily if the outcomes have been changed,” Bivins said. 

Commissioner Luis Carrazana said he appreciated staff’s desire to reduce the size of the Comprehensive Plan and that he appreciated some of the new word choices. He added the real goal is to be able to quantify how well the county is attaining some of the land use goals. 

“To use as an example, affordable housing, right?” Carrazana said. “So we all want it. We all are trying to achieve it and maximize our stock, but we don’t necessarily do a very good job of measuring how [we are] doing with our housing stock.” 

Commissioner Nathan Moore said it would be hard to describe the county as welcoming if current growth management boundaries are kept. 

“The draft proposal codifies really a one-two punch that makes us not welcoming,” Moore said. “One is by not expanding the development area and the other is by sort of only trimming around the edges in terms of up zoning in the development area.”

Moore said not expanding the growth area will continue the trend of higher home prices and there will be fewer places for economic development to occur. 

Commissioner Lonnie Murray disagreed with the notion of expanding the growth area and said the language does not do enough to explain why the different rules are in place for different types of land.

“What it should really clearly articulate is that we’re trying to encourage compact, high quality sustainable development in the growth area that provides efficient delivery of services and that seeks to limit suburbanization and sprawl into the rural area,” Murray said.

Commission Chair Fred Missel reminded his colleagues that Supervisors have already determined they will not be expanding the growth area in this update cycle. 

Commissioner Bivins pointed out that some growth areas have not materialized such as the Village of Rivanna around Glenmore where many nearby residents have continuously opposed density above one unit per acre. The entire Village of Rivanna Community Advisory Committee resigned en masse in the spring of 2022 over how the master plan for the 2.7 square mile area should be updated. 

“It’s sort of like Atlantis,” Bivins said. “It sort of exists on the maps of the county, but I don’t believe anything of any substance that would make it a developing area is ever going to take place there.

Bivins suggested the land could be swapped out with another area somewhere in the county. 

The discussion on October 8 moved on. Swartzendruber resumed her presentation with a discussion of metrics. 

“We need to know where we stand on the actual build out and land capacity of the development areas,” Swartzendruber said. “ While the most recent land use build out analysis in 2022 indicates there is sufficient capacity to accommodate projected growth over the next ten to 20 years, this hinges on projects building at the high end of recommended density and intensity of uses.” 

Analysis has indicated that actual developments created through rezonings in recent years have come in at 58 percent of the total capacity allowed. Staff wants to update that number more frequently.   

The Albemarle Board of Supervisors will have their discussion tomorrow and the Planning Commission will resume their discussion on October 22 at a meeting that will go over land use categories that will go along with the Future Land Use Map. There are current inconsistencies that staff hopes will be cleared up during AC44. 

“The current comprehensive plan has over 20 land use categories across five area plans,” Swartzendruber said. “Those plans are places 29 southern and western, Pantops, Crozet and the Village of Rivanna . Many of the categories are similar, with slightly different names and recommendations. They overlap and the number of categories can make administration and clarity challenging.” 

Other new information being introduced as part of the third phase is a list of activity centers which are intended to be places where new businesses might be built. The current Comprehensive Plan adopted in 2015 has around 50 of these and they’ve been reduced to 30. 

“This consolidated set of centers helps focus development and public projects,” Swartzendruber said. “Centers were identified based on existing development patterns, known planned development projects, recommendations in the area, plans and estimates for current and future job housing totals.”

At the end of the meeting, Commissioner Fred Missel reminded staff of the need to better understand what direction the Board of Supervisors are giving. After all, elected officials make the final decisions. 

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