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May 11 2007 Work Session407 A Worksession of the Frederick County Board of Supervisors was held on Wednesday, Friday, May 11, 2007, at 12:00 P.M., in the Board of Supervisors' Meeting Room, County Administration Building, 107 North Kent Street, Winchester, Virginia. PRESENT Chairman Richard C. Shickle;vice-Chairman Gene E. Fisher; Charles S. DeHaven, Jr.; Gary W. Dove; Bill M. Ewing; and Barbara E. Van Osten. ABSENT Philip A. Lemieux. STAFF PRESENT John R. Riley, Jr., County Administrator; Kris C. Tierney, Assistant County Administrator; John Bishop, Transportation Planner; Eric R. Lawrence, Planning Director; Bernard Suchicital, Planner I; and Renee S. Arlotta, Clerk Pro-Tem. OTHERS PRESENT Christian Schweiger, Top of Virginia Builders Association; David Franks, Dewberry. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Shickle called the meeting to order. REVENUE SHARING UPDATE Transportation Planner, John A. Bishop, presented an update ofFrederick County's Revenue Sharing Program. Mr. Bishop reported that new legislation provides for revenue sharing to be funded at the full $50 million per year forward through the remainder of the Six-Year Program. He said that in order to meet the initial requirement, VDOT rolled the $15 million available for 2007 forward into the 2008 application period. He noted that due to that action, where the County typically had two application opportunities, now it is held to one. He added that a tier system still remains in place; whereby, the first projects considered are the ones contributing a million or more dollars in match against the million dollars of revenue sharing. He noted that the County's application still meets all of those requirements. GRANT APPLICATION SUMMARY Mr. Bishop gave a summary of the pending grant activity in the previous six-to-nine months. Minute Book Number 32 Board of Supervisors Worksession with Planning on 05/11/07 (Discussion on Transportation Policy) 408 The independent applications included the Revenue Sharing for the Tevis Street Extension at $1 million; the Enhancement Grant for the Senseny Road Bicycle/Pedestrian Pathway at $500,000; the Federal TCSP (Transportation Community System Preservation) Grant for the Tevis Street Extension at $1 million; the Federal TCSP Grant for Senseny Road at $1 million; and the Federal TCSP Grant for Fox Drive at $500,000. In addition, he summarized the applications through the MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization). Those applications included two Federal TCSP Grants for Route 37 totaling $3 million; four Multimodal Planning Grants for Route 522 North, Route 522 South, Route 11 North, and Route 7, totaling $577,000. Mr. Bishop reported that collectively, there is about $7.5 million worth of pending grants for transportation. 2008-2013 SIX-YEAR IMPROVEMENT PLAN Mr. Bishop reported a public hearing process beginning with the 2008-2013 Six-Year Improvement Program and he provided a copy of the notification to each of the Supervisors. He said the most convenient location will be in New Market on May 31, 2007, at 7:00 p.m. He noted that staff will be attending; he extended an invitation to the Board members, should anyone wish to attend. Mr. Bishop next reported on the new funding projections, comparing the pre-legislation projections with the post-legislation projections. He said the projected secondary funding is an improvement over recent years. This is separate from primary and interstate funds. BUDGET FOR ROUTE 37 Mr. Bishop reported that the County had submitted requests to consider updated engineering and environmental for the Route 37. He said the Senate budget had a $1.5 million line item for the upcoming year; however, it was not the Senate budget that was adopted, but it was the House budget. He noted that the adopted House budget did not have a dollar amount line item; it was lumped with a number of other projects for the Transportation Partnership Opportunity Fund (TPOF). Mr. Bishop said the County Administration and the staff are continuing to work with VDOT to refine and clarify how that designation will be handled. IMPACTS OF STATE LEGISLATION Mr. Bishop gave a general summary of the new funding through State legislation, which is primarily House Bi113202. He noted that revenue sharing is funded at $50 million per year; there Minute Book Number 32 Board of Supervisors Worksession with Planning on 05/11/07 (Discussion on Transportation Policy) 409 is some Route 37 funding through the TPOF (Transportation Partnership Opportunity Fund); there is some enhanced secondary funding; and there is the $3 billion in state-wide bonding authority. He said the bond funding is limited to no more than $300 million per year statewide. Mr. Bishop next summarized the road maintenance requirements. He commented that as the legislation went through, there was a considerable amount of concern about what would be done with roadway maintenance. He said many earlier versions of House Bill 3202 had a road maintenance requirement included in the requirement for UDA (Urban Development Area) creation. Mr. Bishop said that while the ultimate bill still has a UDA requirement, it contains no road maintenance requirements. The final items reviewed were changes to the transportation impact fee legislation. Mr. Bishop commented that the staff, the County Administration, the Transportation Committee, and the Board of Supervisors have put in considerable time and effort on researching and analyzing transportation impact fees. Mr. Bishop said the staff had prepared example districts for the Board's review; however, about the time this was accomplished, the legislation had changed. He said some key points of the examples included: improvements for which fees were being charged must be directly attributable to developments being charged the fee; the improvements must be within the impact fee service area; and, only ten years worth of growth can be considered. Mr. Bishop said that on this basis, staff created two sample districts: one along Apple Pie Ridge Road and the other along Back Mountain Road. He said the requirements led to long, narrow impact fee service areas with fees ranging from approximately $20,000 to $35,000 per unit. Mr. Bishop next summarized the key changes to the transportation impact fee legislation and talked about how the revisions could benefit the Frederick County community. He said it was not a long list of changes, but it vastly affects how useable and how broad a County can be with the impact fees. The key changes to the impact fee legislation included: • "necessitated by and attributable to" replaced with "benefiting" •"attributable in substantial part to" replaced with "that benefit" •"within" replaced with "benefiting" •Now allows 20 years of development to be considered instead of 10 years Minute Book Number 32 Board of Supervisors Worksession with Planning on 05/11/07 (Discussion on Transportation Policy) 410 Pee now payable at building permit instead of certificate of occupancy •Language exempting properties that have proffered off-site transportation improvements has been stricken •If the project is not completed within 15 years, fees must be refunded; however, if no progress has been made on the project within seven years, the locality can move funds to another portion of the local system so long as it is determined to still be benefiting the area charged the fee. Mr. Bishop next called for questions and entertained discussion from the Board. Supervisor Shickle said he was most interested in how the County could maximize revenue sharing opportunities with the State, with its proffered money. In addition, regarding impact fees, he was interested in knowing the correlation between the amount of effort needed and the resulting amount of potential money collected. Mr. Bishop responded to Mr. Shickle's question on revenue sharing by stating that limitations placed by the previous General Assembly have not changed. As far as whether or not proffer language can be specifically worded to allow funds to be more broadly used, Mr. Bishop recommended the County seek a legal opinion because he believed the language did not allow it. He said the current limitation is that greater than half of the locality's match toward the revenue sharing can not be from proffered dollars. Tevis Street was discussed as an example. If $2 million was desired, the County would ask for $1 million in revenue sharing, the County would put in $500,000 in local dollars, and $500,000 of proffered dollars could be used. County Administrator, John R. Riley, believed the proffer for Tevis Street predated the new legislation; he asked if the County would be grandfathered in any way with that particular proffer. Mr. Riley asked Mr. Bishop if he could find out through Mr. Garrett Moore how that might work. Supervisor Shickle asked if the new legislation offered any new potential for revenue sharing. Mr. Bishop replied that localities will compete for a total of $50 million, instead of the previous year's $15 million. Supervisor Dove mentioned the limitations regarding the tier system, whereby the first projects considered are those contributing a million or more dollars in match against the million dollars of revenue sharing. Mr. Bishop said a significant amount of communication was put forth informing local legislators about the concerns with the tier system and revenue-sharing limitations. Regarding Mr. Shickle's second question on impact fees, Mr. Bishop said the staff had Minute Book Number 32 Board of Supervisors Worksession with Planning on 05/11/07 (Discussion on Transportation Policy) 411 prepared examples of what would be needed under the old program; however, since the legislation has changed, the examples are no longer applicable. Mr. Bishop said the language has broadened considerably and he would be seeking guidance from the Transportation Committee before creating new examples. Assistant County Administrator, Kris Tierney, asked if the administration process for impact fees had remained the same, even though some of the legislative language had changed. Mr. Bishop replied that the administrative process is essentially the same, although they have tied the fee to building permits, rather than the certificates of occupancy. Mr. Riley asked about the feasibility of using the Apple Pie Ridge and Back Mountain Road examples already created and to delineate the boundaries based on the old legislation and then create a new boundary based on what is currently applicable. Mr. Bishop replied it could be done because the new boundaries are limitless in many ways. Mr. Lawrence interpreted the new legislation to state that County boundaries are the service area. Mr. Lawrence said that if everyone in the County is using only a handful of roads, then everyone would have to contribute to that handful of road Improvements. Supervisor Shickle asked if there were any submittal approval review requirements in the Code. Mr. Bishop replied that the road plan must be a part of a Comprehensive Policy Plan, which Frederick County has, and it must be updated every two years. Supervisor DeHaven expressed some concern about the extensive amount of work that may be involved in order to take advantage of the program. He said the County has the Six-Year Plan in the Comprehensive Policy Plan, but if impact fees are based on that, the Six-Year Plan will have to change dramatically because it will need to include all the foreseeable upgrades for the next 20-year period and probably, beyond. He said it will need to be updated every two years. In addition, Supervisor DeHaven commented that it appeared the legislation differentiated between the UDA and Rural Area designations. Mr. Bishop replied that the new legislation spells out the right to exclude the UDA from the impact fee service area; he said there is nothing that says different areas can not have different fees. Mr. Tierney said there was an effort in Stafford County to avoid including areas of commercial development. Minute Book Number 32 Board of Supervisors Worksession with Planning on 05/11/07 (Discussion on Transportation Policy) 412 Supervisor DeHaven believed the Transportation Committee would have to put some work into this to determine if the funds received. would be worthwhile. It was the general consensus that the Transportation Committee should go ahead and work on one or two examples and report back to the Board. Supervisor Shickle wanted to have an understanding about who was going to do what. Mr. Bishop said the staff could create some examples and take them to the Transportation Committee for discussion. Mr. Tierney thought the examples should contain an examination of the administrative process. Supervisor DeHaven had specific questions about the language of the legislation. He questioned whether the County would have to amend the way it reviews its Comprehensive Plan, the UDA, and related policies. In addition, Supervisor DeHaven commented that Frederick County will have to certify that its program meets the intent of the legislation. Supervisor Shickle asked for agreement from the group that the Planning Staff and the Transportation Committee would be assigned to investigate the impact fees and the Transportation Committee would be charged with developing a limited model that went far enough to provide examples of how impact fees could be applied to Frederick County. Everyone agreed. Mr. Lawrence said the level of road system to be investigated would need to be determined. He said the first step would be to determine the number of potential rural lots to be constructed in the next 15-20 years for projection purposes and then the second step would be to identify specific roads for improvement. Mr. Lawrence said the staff would do a brief synopsis on the extent of involvement needed for the administrative process and ball park figures on the potential costs. Mr. Lawrence said that ultimately, a consultant would have to be brought in from a legal perspective, if the County decided ' to adopt impact fees. OTHER Mr. Bishop announced that the Virginia Municipal League, the Virginia Association of ', Counties, the Virginia Coalition of High Growth Communities, and the Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association will present aone-day session on implementing the land use provisions of the Transportation Act of 20007. The session will be held on July 24, 2007 at 10:00 Minute Book Number 32 Board of Supervisors Worksession with Planning on 0_5/11/07 (Discussion on Transportation Policy) __ 413 A.M. in Henrico County. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to discuss, Supervisor Shickle adjourned the worksession at 1:10 P.M. SZ o Q Richard C. Shickle J h .Riley, Chairman, Board of Supervisors rk, Board of Supervisors Minutes Prepared By: ~ . a ~ Y, ~ Jay E. ib Deputy Clerk, Board of Supervisors Minute Book Number 32 Board of Supervisors Worksession with Planning on 05/11/07 (Discussion on Transportation Policy)