Planning Commission notes from Sept 25
Quoted from my notes of the Board of Supervisors meeting on September 18:
“The contract for the consultant to do the Land Use Map was shown. Kevin Henry wanted them to approve the money ($43,000) and the contract (pure time and travel, no specified deliverables, just send the money based on timecards) but Tommy LaFrance said something on the order of (paraphrased and caricaturized) “why do we need to pay a consultant to borrow our watch and tell us what time it is?” And Gerald Cubbage said why do we need some outsider to tell us where to put the bubbles on the bubble map, and Carol Lee said, well, maybe we could just get a little bit of help, not this much, and Charlie Hoke said, why don’t we go talk to the Planning Commission about this again and John Rust was absent. So they tabled it, pending talking to the Planning Commission about it some more. Tommy and Gerald thought Kevin Henry was up to the job, and the job really entails input from the towns and the citizens, so what does that have to do with a consultant. Kevin said, but there’s only one of me, so it’s going to take a long time.”
I thought that meant they didn’t want to spend the consultant money on the easy part, the part which just entails facilitating meetings to find out how the citizens want the county to look. That would mean the money would still be there after the Land Use Map was developed, when they might need real expertise to develop zoning ordinances. The danger in spending the money now, on the meeting facilitation, at $43,000 for 266 hours of time, is that then, when the money is all gone, and there still is no Land Use Map because the consultants held the meetings, but citizens didn’t attend, and so consensus was not built, the Land Use Map we spent $43,000 for will still not be accepted by the community, and the money will have been spent for no good reason. Building consensus within the community is time consuming and long. You can’t just hold a meeting, to which nobody comes, and then declare that you’ve fulfilled your obligation to hold a meeting, and proceed without consensus or community understanding.
The thing about our citizens is that they won’t figure out what’s going on until this is way down the road, and somebody tells them their land is being condemned because maybe a sinkhole is under it, and now it has to be a park. THEN they want to come out with picket signs, even though this has been brewing for years, under the radar, where nobody’s paying attention to it. So the point of not hiring the consultant for the Land Use Map is just that it’s a Time and Materials contract, with no deliverables, except the Timecards. Nothing to showing up for a meeting, conducting it whether anybody attends or not, and sending a bill. So the consensus building will be particularly hard, especially because there was no citizen involvement in developing the Comprehensive Plan that was just approved, so you are not starting with agreement that the goals stated there are in the community’s best interest in the first place. You won't even be able to get the bubbles placed on the bubble map without that.
The consultants part in building that consensus, at between $150 and $300 an hour, could maybe be cut down to just a little advice, rather than to spending all that was budgeted on this part. Perhaps the consultant could just spend a week with Mr. Henry, getting him ready to run these consensus building meetings, instead of paying the consultant to run them, because in Page County, these meetings aren't going to "take" the first time. They'll need a rerun. Or maybe three or four reruns.
At the Planning Commission meeting September 25, though, nobody from the Board was there to talk about the reasons why they wanted to proceed on the Land Use Map without a consultant. Nobody from the Planning Commission had been briefed on their reasons. So the Planning Commission just had a short discussion about it, and then re-requested or reaffirmed that they wanted to hire a consultant. They didn’t have anyone to explain to them why this contract was not immediately approved. When the Board, ie Charlie Hoke, is about to turn something down, but then Charlie pipes up with, "Let's talk to the Planning Commission about it first," we, as citizens, think that means they are actually going to talk to the Planning Commission, not just let the Planning Commission go off and vote again without any discussion.
Meanwhile, the Water Quality Advisory committee has issued a report on cleaning up the river. It says there is fecal cloriform (from warm blooded mammals) in 22% of our wells. And some other kind of bacteria in 44%.
I haven’t read that report yet, but I hope it says that comes from the cows in the river instead of saying it comes from people. All the people I know have health department approved septic systems. I wonder if there are people living on the river who don’t have septic systems. I will get a copy of the report and tell you.
Or, you can call 743-4142 and get your own copy, and tell me what you think.
Also, there was more talk about Karst and how the runoff endangers wells and causes sinkholes.
I haven’t seen any news reports about sinkholes, people falling in them or cars and houses being swallowed up. I guess that’s something that would happen if we got development here. If anybody wants to post any reports about sinkholes in the county, I’d be happy to post it. Or just hit the comments button.
There was also talk about a consultant who is in the process of writing a proffer model for if developers come here. One part of the proffer model is if you allow “age-restricted” communities. Apparently, with the Baby Boomers retiring, that is a popular model, because when you get to be a grandparent, you like everybody who lives around you to just have their grandchildren visit, not live next door to you. The problem with these “55 and over only” communities is that the developer doesn’t have to pay any “proffers” for schools, and that’s why developers like them. But they potentially strain the hospitals and ambulances, if you get too many of them. Also, they can be a problem for a person who buys a house in one of these communities, and then later, events overtake them and maybe a grandchild needs to come to live with grandpa and grandma because of some problem, and then guess what? Grandpa and Grandma either have to move, or they have to refuse to take the child in. Of course, this is planning ahead, for that sunshiny day when a developer decides it would be worth his while to build houses here. That’s what the whole Planning Commission is about. Planning ahead for the future.
To quote Commissioner Charles Newton, “We don’t want to do something now that causes a problem that is very expensive to fix in fifty years.”
So this is big, long range planning. With amazing foresight.
Wish you’d been there.
Alice
I know everybody’s too busy gossiping about the various Sheriff candidates to bother paying attention to this, but I think someday you’ll be sorry you didn’t watch what’s going on here.
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16 comments:
It is my understanding that a County-wide land use map is simply just a conceptual map showing (potential) future land uses around the County, particularly those areas close to the Towns.
I'm generally opposed to the idea of hiring an outside consultant to formulate this; Often consultand have a "tin ear" and essentially they will come in, hold a few meetings, produce a few maps, and then charge the County 40 - 60K for their time (as you point out 150 - 300 an hour easily)
From my understanding a land use map is not binding, and by no means constitutes a change in zoning. Instead it is very broad and simply shows what the County (and more importantly its citizens) sees as potential future growth and land use patters..
I would encourage County staff to work on this in house, hold a few meatings, get citizen input, and produce the maps for the citizens to review. I'm sure the Staff could outsource a few itmes in order to produce a final product of "pretty maps" for all to see...so what if it take 6 months to produce? Afterall a future land use map is intended to be just be a general guide for the next 10 - 20 years, so what's the rush to produce something so quick?
This shouldn't be a hard process, I feel that getting a consultant involved will only complicate the matter, and more importantly cost alot for a fairly easily attainable product...
That's just my 2 cents anyway..
Chris says Alice I see at the bottom of this article you wrote how important this is but noone would respond due to the saga about the sheriffs race.You don't have to try so hard to divert attention to something else people are gonna discuss what they wanna.Don't Delete let the people comment.
I agree with Fu. However, I'm not sure there is a sufficiently detailed map of the county to use as a point of departure. I would imagine the major towns have detailed maps that could perhaps be "insets" to a larger county map. There is at least one commercially available map that isn't too bad but it doesn't have a grid. (Trivia: When the U.S. went into Greneda, the operation was planned and executed using a tourist map.)I understand there is also overhead imagery available for most if not all of the county that would help identify details as necessary. Once current land uses are identified on the map in draft form, it probably would not be that great a problem to have the final product made pretty. Sounds too easy! Something must be wrong.
I noticed that when I look for my house on Google Earth, the picture doesn't show, it's from something like 10 miles up. Yet, most other places I look up, there's the house and the picture, even when it's rural. But not around Page County, the George Washington Forest and the Shenandoah Forest.
Is something in there that the satellites in the sky don't feel inclined to focus on?
Doo doo doo doo. (X Files music)
Anyway, in all seriousness, if we don't have maps, and Google Earth doesn't have maps, where will the consultants get the maps to use?
Mr. Henry may not be experienced enough to know that consultants will take your money and give you their "best shot", and then say, "well, of course, you don't have detailed maps so this is the best that could be done."
And then you paid for your ticket but you didn't get the show you thought you were getting.
Wait a minute. Are we talking about a current land use map, or a coceputal future land use map?
Putting together a current land use map could be tedious, but doable...
Fu Man, it's a conceptual future land use map that we would be getting from the consultant, but one would think we need a current one in order to consider the implications of a future one.
We dont' have a current one. So we're going to hire a consultant to give us a future one that doesn't consider the current one.
Thanks for clarifying...hmmm...I can't see how hiring a consultant would help? the only way to put together a good current land use map is to get folks together from all over the County and start putting "pencil on paper"..change that put "colored pencils on paper"...this is all a consultant will do too...yes, the first priority should be coming up with a current land use map, and then next putting together a future land use map...I would say staff could do this in 3 - 4 months tops...remember 70 percent of the County is "AG" so there is a start...this isn't rocket science...I think money could be better spent on ohter things...any other thoughts?
Sadly, what worries me is that is not what the consultant proposed. The consultant proposed to hold meetings with the citizens -- but that would be if the citizens show up. There is supposed to be a committee formed of 'stakeholders' but I'm not sure any of those stakeholders are citizens that don't hold an office in the county government.
Not sure. Haven't heard who the citizens are.
My main concern is that there is no acknowledgement on the part of the Supervisors or the Commissioners that they must have "buy in" for this, they can't do it unilaterally.
Fu continues to be on track! I am not sure about the 3-4 months though. After all, this is Page County! They have been comprehensive planning for years and have never even approached the real intent of land use planning as contemplated by VA code.
Remember, County staff consists of 2 folks who have responsibilities. It's my impression they are both pretty much busy as the proverbial one armed paper hanger handling day-to-day responsibilities. 3-4 months full time, maybe! As an "other duty as assigned," my guess would be a year plus. Unless they get a lot of help! I don't mean just show up at a committee meeting once a month and talk about the problem and hope someone solves it for you. I mean the kind of help that would be almost full time working on the problem.
Fu, I get the impression you have some experience in this area. Would you be willing to help?
Steve, thanks for the kind words. I do have some experiece, I served on a local Planning Commission in NC for 4 years, so I learned a few tricks.
I'd love to help, but communting from Northern Page Co. to NOVA every day, (plus kids) I would find it hard to put aside meaningful time (heard that before?)
Still, as I recall when we updated the local land use map in my prior locality we simply sat down, rolled up our sleeves and conducted a "parcel by parcel" inventory of the uses and colored the map for the corresponding use. Actually, if you have folks with a high level of knowledge of the locality it can go very quickly...granted my prior locality had a total geography of approximately 8 square miles, still I think the previous comment about a large percentage of Page's land being "AG" (Agriculture?) is relevant...
I guess you could say I'm just a bit skeptical of "high dollar" consultants, that, end the end, will have to employ the above described techniques to produce a map...but at a cost of maybe 40K. Maybe I'm missing someting but from my perspective these resources could be spent better elsewhere...
Just my 2 cents anyway, great threat everyone!
opps, that is suppose to be "great thread everyone", not "threat"...
I commend the Planning Commission for taking the steps necessary to document our current land uses. A current zoning map is certainly a necessary document for proper land use planning. However, we shouldn’t get too far along without an even more critical document, a comprehensive plan and vision for the County. A good comprehensive plan is built from input from the citizenry and demonstrates a vision for the county over the next 15-20 years. While zoning ordinances are the tools to carry out this vision, the comprehensive plan is the master guide. To my knowledge the comprehensive plan has not had a serious overall for a good many years. In fact many of the current land uses that we would be mapping are not consistent with those outlined in the comprehensive plan. I think the County Planning Commission should look to the process just completed by the Town of Luray in developing a comprehensive plan. They used a great deal of citizen input, a good Town Planner (and Ligon Webb is an exceptional Planner), minimal consultants (I don’t think they spent over $20K) and a very hard working Planning Commission and citizens’ advisory committee. The end result was an excellent document that plots the Town’s future for many years to come. Like the Town of Luray, Page County’s destiny is at a cross roads. The once staple agricultural economy is dwindling, the manufacturing business is almost totally gone, and we have close to 60% of our workforce commuting out of Page County every day for employment. Albeit they have a considerable budget, with two full time positions, the County’s Economic Development Department has done little to bring new business into the area. Again looking to the Town, with no economic development staff, they managed to relocate the Karias Coffee Operation to Luray, established several new businesses on Main Street, and lead the charge to locate Lord Fairfax Community College in the County. This is not intended as finger pointing but, it demonstrates that to accomplish something we must have a plan. The Town has realized the importance of the tourism industry and to that end they are attempting to establish Luray as a tourism destination.
Instead of focusing on the necessary tools, let’s put the horse back in front of the cart and establish a vision and plan for the County. What do you (each citizen) want Page County to be twenty years from now?
It has always bothered me that we spend so much maoney on consultants. I, too, believe we have competent folks who would be willing to assist a few hours a day on this with no charge to the county. We need to have a system where people with special type skills be put on an registry who would be willing to do "in kind contributions."
good point. It seems that I have heard of about half-a-dozen or so projects over the last year or so that the County wants to or is planning too outsource to consultants.
Considering the future financial outlays that the County will be making over the next few years I think it would be wise to do as many projects "in house" as possible. Especially something like creating a map.
I know I come across as very ignorant, but I would like to know (in layman's terms) exactly what "zoning ordinances" means. I think a lot of us here tend to back off this blog because Fu man chu, Mr. Whisler and you, Alice, know what you are talking about, and speaking strictly for myself feel too uniformed to ask intelligent questions, so I'll just bite the bullet and ask.
Oh, I am so sorry. Thank you for asking that question. I didn't realize. I am sure there are many, many people who do not know, and it just didn't occur to me. That would really explain why there is so little interest.
The zoning ordinances are the laws that say what you are allowed to do with your own property. They lay out if you are allowed to put a deck on your house, or if you can have a shed, or if you buy a piece of land, whether you can build a house on it, or if you can have a business. They tell you what you're allowed to do with your own property.
I sincerely apologize for running off at the mouth all this time without explaining that. No wonder nobody cared!
I'm going to post a new blog up at the top and say things more clearly. Thank you for telling me this.
Alice
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