Shortly before the Albemarle Planning Commission got a briefing on the implementation chapter of the county’s next Comprehensive Plan, two members of the public asked the appointed body to weigh in on another document that is moving through the public process.
“The Economic Development Strategic Plan proposes significant changes to the County’s zoning, to its land use and growth management policy and to its regulatory structure without the benefit of public hearings,” said Hugh Meagher.
The EDSP is an update of Project Enable, Albemarle’s first economic development strategic plan adopted in December 2018. The county began looking for consultants for an update last summer and hired a firm called Resonance. A draft document was published on July 17 for review and feedback is being taken through August 8. (take a look)
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In contrast, Albemarle Supervisors initiated the review of the county’s Comprehensive Plan in November 2021. At their July 8, 2025 work session, the Planning Commission reviewed one of the final chapters as the AC44 process moves its way forward to an October 15 adoption. Meanwhile, the EDSP could be adopted as early as August 13 at a joint meeting between the Board of Supervisors and the Economic Development Authority.
Meagher wanted the Planning Commission to ask for the EDSP to be slowed down so it could be reviewed in conjunction with AC44.
“We’re told that the AC44 is the overarching long-term plan under which the EDSP will fall in line,” Meagher. “Yet the AC44 makes clear that the EDSP sets the county’s economic development priorities.”
Another person said that the public may not be aware of the EDSP’s existence. Holmes Brown lives near Batesville and said the county has over 117,000 residents but few have participated in the development of the economic development strategic plan. Brown could only find two online surveys.
“The first regarding past economic development and future opportunities, 53 people responded,” Brown said. “The second invited comments on the draft strategy. 165 people responded. There may have been other efforts to elicit public comment, but the final total appears to be in the hundreds.”
There was no immediate response to their questions but their queries did inform a discussion later in the meeting.
Six “big moves”
As for the updated Comprehensive Plan, the Planning Commission were told at the top of the July 8 meeting that for the first time there is now a complete draft that is available in pieces on the Engage Albemarle website. But the topic of the latest work session was implementation.
“It is making progress on the recommended actions listed in AC 44 that cut across several county departments,” said Tonya Swartzendruber, the county’s planning manager. “It’s also about internal education on how this document should be utilized, as well as keeping track of the progress and reporting out about not only our accomplishments, but the effect o f those accomplishments.”
The draft AC44 document has over 250 recommended actions that stretch across nine topic areas. Swartzendruber said that will require prioritization to direct county resources and staff time over the first five-years of the plan. Staff is recommending something they refer to as six “big moves.”
The first “big move” is to “align regulations to support AC44 implementation.” Swartzendruber provided one example of an action that falls under that prioritization.
“For example, one of the actions in the development area land use chapter is to update the zoning ordinance to allow residential uses in commercial zoning districts by-right in some locations,” Schwarzendruber said.
The second “big move” would be to “increase affordable housing access and options” which Swartzendruber said would mean changing the zoning to allow more density and housing types such as triplexes and more forms that would provide so-called “missing middle” housing. This big move would also prioritize programs to identify places that are at-risk and provide financial support for rehabilitation.
“For this one, working with both the county and state housing offices will be crucial,” Swartzendruber said.
The third big move would be “invest in compact and connected Development Areas with an emphasis on Activity Centers.” That is a continuation of an existing Albemarle policy that dates back more than 40 years.
“This is really about encouraging growth and focusing new public and private investment in urban places,” Swartzendruber said. “Projections show that we’ll need to accommodate 31,000 people over the next 20 years. That equates to roughly 13,000 households.”
AC44 does not envision any expansion of the development areas at this time. Commissioner Nathan Moore suggested that AC44 have a specific direction to upzone the urban areas to allow the maximum density under the Comprehensive Plan. Commissioner Karen Firehock said she has been advocating for such a rezoning, but has come to realize that Supervisors are not interested because that way they would lose the ability to shape the development through the rezoning process.
Commissioner Lonnie Murray noted that the update of the recent Crozet Master Plan introduced the concept of the medium-density land use category intended to provide more housing. He said many in Crozet will continue to oppose that level of development.
“There’s a frustration that no other development areas followed so there’s a lot of frustration in Crozet that they’ve sort of been asked to make the sacrifice of having the missing middle and this additional Disney, but no one else has done the same,” Murray said.
Other Commissioners pushed back on that notion. Firehock invited concerned Crozet residents to take a drive down Avon Street Extended or up U.S. 29 to see new units that have come online in the past several years. Commissioner Julian Bivins echoed her thoughts.
“I would challenge anyone from Crozet to come and look at our minutes over the years [that] where we have seen the majority of the programs, projects that are coming for us has not been in Crozet,” Bivins said. “That’s where we’ve gotten a lot of a lip from.”
Swartzendruber said the fourth and fifth “big moves” were related to economic development. The fourth is to “support agriculture and forestry uses in the Rural area.”
“The focus is to maintain agricultural and forest business while also protecting environmentally sensitive areas,” Swartzendruber said.
Several Commissioners expressed concern with how such things would be measured but Commissioner Moore said he welcomed the language if it leads to a new way of doing business. He cited the most recent U.S. Census of Agriculture. (See also: Agricultural census found 866 farms in Albemarle in 2022, down five percent from 2017, February 19, 2024)
“We don’t have a vibrant agricultural economy,” Moore said. “We have some successful farms, but our average farm in this county loses sixteen thousand dollars a year.”
Moore supported actions that would get younger farmers into the business with support.
At this point it may be worth sampling some of the language in the economic development strategic plan’s third goal which has the heading “Grow a Modern Agribusiness Economy.”
“Agribusiness is an economic strength, but many farms and producers are at a transition point,” reads the economic development strategic plan. “Strategies address zoning, infrastructure, business planning, market access, and rural tourism to modernize and grow Albemarle’s farming and food and beverage economy.”
Specific strategies in the draft economic development strategic plan are to:
- Explore land use and zoning policies that enable agribusiness innovation
- Consider critical infrastructure to support modern agribusiness growth
- Create a rural business resource hub for agribusiness growth, succession, and capital access
- Build new wholesale and scalable market pathways for Albemarle producers
- Establish a rural entrepreneurship and agribusiness sector partnership
- Support the growth of Albemarle County’s wine industry
- Expand the agritourism economy through partnership with Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau
None of this was yet available for review by the Planning Commission because the draft economic development strategic plan was not posted until July 17.
Both Bivins and Firehock noted the confusion that comes with reviewing two similar documents at once. Planning Director Michael Barnes acknowledged the two projects are moving ahead at the same time.
“In a county government, we’ve got all these different things that you’re doing as an organization,” Barnes said. “To stop [and] wait for things to catch up, you’ll never get anything done.”
Bivins said he was not suggesting stopping the plan but noted that there should be some separation between the AC44 process and the economic development strategic plan.
“I’m basically trying to sort of put some fencing around what we’re doing so that the public understands… that the economic development plan is not going to leach into what the Planning Commission is doing,” Bivins said.
The fifth “big move” is to “drive innovation and expand economic opportunity.”
“This is also in support of the EDSP through the lens of future land use and development effects that we can have as a department, as a county,” Schwarzendruber said.
More on that in the future.
The sixth “big move” is to “mitigate and prepare for impacts of climate change.”
After unveiling all six big moves, Swartzendruber drew the Planning Commission’s attention to how all of the actions will be measured.
“Our definition of a metric is really showing trends and patterns not necessarily establishing a target or goal, those will be established as part of the strategic plan effort,” Swartzendruber said.
Albemarle County recently launched an initiative called SPEAR to track metrics in the strategic plan. Here’s a story I wrote last August.
The Planning Commission will have one last work session on the draft Comprehensive Plan on August 26 followed by a public hearing on September 23. If recommended for approval, the Board of Supervisors is expected to have a public hearing and adoption on October 15.
If that trajectory stays on track, it will have been ten years and four months since the current Comprehensive Plan was adopted.
Growth area expansion requests back on table?
About an hour into the work session, Barnes said that staff is considering restoring a provision where landowners can directly ask the county to add land to the growth area. He said Supervisors removed that provision in 2018 and such requests can only be made by a Board member.
Barnes said staff did not have a draft process ready to show to the Planning Commission.
“I don’t want to make a huge deal about this, but just bringing that back to your attention to something we’re, at the staff level, thinking about,” Barnes said.
Commissioner Murray said he felt that might undermine the Comprehensive Plan process.
“I think it’s one thing if you have a minor change, a little tweak here or there, but I think significant changes that would impact the comprehensive plan, I would not feel would be appropriate,” Murray said.
Commissioner Fred Missel said he would not be opposed an amendment process to allow for requests
“My sense is it should be a very careful and intentional amendment process,” Missel said.
Commissioner Moore said he would support a process and pointed out it would still need to go through the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors for approval.
Next up in my AC44 reporting will be the Board of Supervisors’ discussion on July 16. Between now and then, expect more stories that may be long but are intended to give a glimpse into policy development.
Before you go: This particular story came out of the July 21, 2025 edition of the Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter. If you’d like to support the work, take a look at this section of the website. If you have questions about the AC44 process, ask in the comments!
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