Albemarle staff present Albemarle Supervisors with new information on AC44

Almost three months have passed since Charlottesville Community Engagement has featured a single story about the ongoing update of Albemarle County’s Comprehensive Plan. The review officially kicked off in November of 2021, nearly six years after Supervisors last made the plan an official county document. Virginia law requires a review every five years.

Many communities hire a consultant to help oversee creation of a new plan. The City of Charlottesville hired the firm Rhodeside & Harwell in late 2019 after the city Planning Commission’s review stalled. Nelson County hired the Berkley Group to complete a thorough review of that community’s Comprehensive Plan and the company is now coordinating a rewrite of the county’s zoning.

The task in Albemarle is up to staff in the Department of Community Development. A decision was made in the spring of 2024 to take a pause to slightly reformat what is known as the AC44 process. Since last fall, the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors have been going chapter by chapter and not all of the sections have been made available to the public.

On April 2, Supervisors returned to a previous chapter. According to an outline, the six elected officials had spent two meetings on the Development Areas Land Use chapter and reviewed the goals on November 6, 2024 and actions on November 20. Staff made revisions and had just one question.

“Do the revisions and additions to the document meet your expectations for both of those pieces of the document?” said Tonya Swartzendruber, a planning manager with Albemarle County.

A full list of those revisions is available here and is written in the sort of jargon that makes assignment editors resistant to cover planning. Here is an attempt to summarize some of the changes:

• The Future Land Use Map now distinguishes between parkland and private open space with two different shades of green.
• Suggested building heights for the Urban Residential land use category are now between two and five stories.
• There is a new description for the Neighborhood Mixed Use category.
• “Employment centers” are now called “employment districts.”
• There is a new action to “allow residential uses in commercial districts to support more office to housing conversion and encourage more residential development” in the districts.
• There is also a new action to allow reduced parking requirements if an applicant agrees to build or pay for multimodal transportation infrastructure.

Supervisors spent two hours on the topic on April 2. Supervisor Michael Pruitt of the Scottsville District expressed concern that the county’s community advisory committees would continue to play a strong role in determining the make-up of the Future Land Use Map.

In simple terms, the Future Land Use Map is a section of the Comprehensive Plan that generally categorizes land into what could be built there. This is separate from zoning which lists specific rules rather than aspirations.

“The land use map is one of the most important legislative decisions that we make as a board on land use,” Pruitt said. “And something I’ve expressed continued kind of frustration is that it feels like our own comprehensive plan is out of step with what we’re saying, with what the zoning code says. It seems like this is a way to replicate that process moving forward.”

Jodie Filardo, Albemarle’s Director of Community Development, said the community advisory committees will not be used to evaluate the county’s zoning code which has also been under review for several years.

“With the zoning ordinance, we are going to be bringing all of the zoning ordinance section by section to both the Planning Commission and the Board in public hearing and depending on how this thing rolls out, likely in work sessions prior to public hearing,” Filardo said.

Filardo said staff is hopeful the Future Land Use Map adopted as part of the AC44 process will form the basis of zoning changes to make the two documents more in synch with each other.

Pruitt pointed out the master plans for areas covered by the community advisory committees have not themselves been updated in years. The one for southern and western neighborhoods, for instance, hasn’t been reviewed or updated since 2015.

“I’m worried that there has not been public feedback and discussion on this issue specifically,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt said he watched the process unfold in Charlottesville where there was a concerted effort from groups like the Legal Aid Justice Center to change land use policy. He asked both staff and his colleagues if there was another way forward.

Filardo said there was a timing issue and staff has identified October 15 as the date when the plan will be adopted.

Rural residential?

A good portion of the discussion on April 2 dealt with how much residential development should occur in the roughly 95 percent of Albemarle’s landmass that is designated as rural.

Each chapter of the comprehensive plan has a goal and the one in the draft Development Area Land Use chapter reads as follows.

“Albemarle County’s Development Areas will be thriving, walkable, and mixed use, with a variety of housing types that are connected by multimodal transportation options to goods, services, employment opportunities, and parks and natural areas,” reads the first sentence. “Neighborhoods will be green and resilient with tree coverage, protected natural features, and energy-efficient designs. Land use planning in the Development Areas will consider the housing and business needs of current and future community members and will encourage efficient use of land through redevelopment, infill, and adaptive reuse.”

Each chapter has many objectives, each of which has several potential actions. Objective 1 of this chapter is to “increase the use of infill, higher density development, adaptive reuse, and redevelopment in the Development Areas.”

Action 1.9 reads: “Monitor the proportion of development occurring within the Development Areas compared with the Rural Area (RA). If the proportion of residential development begins to increase in the Rural Area, develop options for further encouraging and directing growth to the Development Areas and discourage subdivisions in the Rural Area. [2024 baseline: 17 percent new dwelling units in the RA.]

Supervisor Ned Gallaway wanted to know if staff could calculate the maximum number of residential units that could be built in the rural area. One staff member, Tori Kanellopoulos, said estimates are difficult given a limited number of development rights. Gallaway suggested that the action in 1.9 doesn’t yield useful information.

“If the proportion of residential development begins to increase in the rural area and it’s all done by-right based on rural areas owning,” Gallaway said. “I don’t understand the logic behind what we’re doing here.”

On March 5, Gallaway was one of three votes in favor of a rezoning in the rural area that would have allowed 50 mobile homes on a portion of a 50 acre parcel. A tie vote in Albemarle ends in failure.

Filardo said the idea behind 1.9 is to provide some sort of a litmus test on what’s happening in the rural area.

“It was really intended as a much more blunt instrument than I think you are anticipating,” Filardo said. “I don’t know if that helps, but that was really the intention of this.”

Other Supervisors supported the goal as a piece of information. Supervisor Mike Pruitt said the relatively low number of new homes built in the rural area is seen as a policy failure by some in the community.

“My equity-focused citizens who primarily live in the urban area, who are often involved in public advocacy, are very concerned about the density that we are accomplishing in our development area and whether or not we can continue to accomplish the density and frankly just the deployment of housing units that we need in the existing development area,” Pruitt said. “There are people who are concerned that the development area is not big enough and that infill is going to be more challenging.”

Pruitt also acknowledged there are those who believe the rural area should be preserved, but also added that many of his constituents who live outside development areas do so because it is affordable to them. He said continuing to make a comparative number should help the overall conversation.

“I think it’s important to have a warning light when our policies are not working as intended,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt voted for the mobile home rezoning, as did Supervisor Diantha McKeel who said people with working class incomes are losing the ability to live in the community.

“The property is not as expensive in the rural area,” McKeel said. “The manufactured home proposal offered a great opportunity, but we couldn’t approve it. We couldn’t as a Board approve it because it was not in the [Comprehensive Plan]. I’m not sure how we solve that problem. We have become an Aspen.”

This is only a partial account of this section of the AC44 process, but at least you’re getting it within 36 hours of when the talking stopped. Questions? Comments? I can provide links to additional information to help facilitate the conversation.

Before you go: This particular segment is the seventh segment from the April 3, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. That particular edition is intended to include as much as possible from the April 2, 2025 meeting of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors. It’s also being recorded for the April 5, 2025 edition of the Charlottesville Community Engagement radio show as well as the next podcast. I’m posting this early in the day because I’m not quite sure if I have 29 minutes for the radio!