Welcome to let's Talk Albemarle. I'm your host, Serena Gruia, the Public Engagement Coordinator here in beautiful central Virginia. Every day I get to learn more about our local government and the community we all share. I've talked to lots of neighbors who want to get involved in local governance, but aren't sure where to start. This podcast is meant to be the friendly starting point for newcomers and for those of you already engaged who want to dig deeper into key topics. Today we're talking about zoning. We let's get into it. Welcome to the show. Albemarle County is in the middle of an important effort to update and modernize its zoning ordinance. We're calling it the Zoning Modernization Project, or zmod. The goal is to create a clearer, more user-friendly set of rules that better serve our community now and into the future. This update is about supporting thoughtful growth while protecting the rural character, natural resources, and strong sense of place that make Albemarle special. Today I'm joined by Lea Brumfield, the zoning Modernization project leader on our community development team, to talk about what this effort means and why it matters. Lea, thanks for being here.

Hi, Serena. Thank you so much for having me.

Okay, I'm going to jump right in. If I take a ride from Forest Lakes up north on 29 to Bel Air Farm out by Keene, I'm going to see a lot of landscape changes along the way. It'll go from a subdivision through busy commercial areas, and then I'll end up in a rural area. So, Lea, how does zoning play a role in what Albemarle looks and feels like?

Zoning is incredibly important. It's essentially the blueprint for our physical community. The drive that you just described from Forest Lakes to Keene, that is not an accident. It's the result of decades of planning and a long engagement process. Zoning is the tool that we say, this is where we want our bustling shops and our walkable neighborhoods. This is where we want to preserve our forests and our farmlands. And this is where we want to provide access for companies that need industrial power, industrial water. It's how we ensure that the quiet residential street doesn't suddenly have, for example, a Pfizer production facility move in next door.

Yeah, and we have seen communities like that before, so it's interesting to think about how intentional the design of Albemarle county has been in the past and as we move into the future. But before we get into too deep, let's make sure we're grounded in the basics. So what is zoning? And is, in plain language, as plain as you can get.

Sure. So, very, very simply, zoning governs two things. It is rules for the use and the form of buildings. The use is what can happen on a piece of land. We can live in a house, we can sell furniture in a store, we can grow grapes at a vineyard. And then the form is how things look, how tall the building can be, how far away it has to be from the road, how many trees we're going to require you to plant in that new residential structure, or how much parking it needs. It's the rules of the road for a property owner or developer.

So once a county has developed zoning, it becomes a part of how land use decisions get made every day. So on the real, how does zoning work in Albemarle County?

So in Albemarle, we are not unique in this. Many, many communities are like this. We have two very big main documents, our comprehensive plan, which is the long term vision, and our zoning ordinance, which is the legal rules that are on the ground today that apply when someone wants to build something or change how they use their land. They'll look at the zoning ordinance and the zoning map within it. And if their project fits the rules for that specific zone of the property they're trying to work on, they can move forward. If it doesn't, they might be able to apply for a special use permit or rezoning, which involves a public process, notifications to neighbors, careful review by the Planning Commission and by the Board of Supervisors.

So a lot of people don't think about zoning until they're trying to do something on their own property. And that's when it suddenly becomes very real. How does zoning show up in everyday life?

So as a zoning planner, this is kind of my superpower. When I walk around, I see zoning code in everything, like Neo in the Matrix. Seeing all the code, scanning down the buildings. It's on the streets, it's on the signs, everything. It is why a local coffee shop has a sidewalk. You can get into the building safely with it. It's where your annoying neighbor can build a shed and how far away it has to be from your property line. It's even how big a sign can be in front of your new business. Whether it can be flashing and spoiler alert in the county, it cannot. That is considered unsafe. Or how many trees we're gonna require to go into a new gigantic parking lot. Zoning is an invisible hand. It keeps the daily environment predictable. It keeps it functional, and it designs where things are gonna go What.

What's a common myth about zoning that you'd like to clear up for some of our listeners?

Yes, thank you for asking this. I would love to clear up some zoning myths about some terms that we have in the county. One of the biggest misconceptions we get is the term by right. People hear that word and they think, well, it's already my right. I can do whatever I want. I don't have to ask anybody. And that is not quite true. By right. If a use is by right, that means that your project is already allowed under the existing rules. And the Board of Supervisors, who is our governing body, they don't need to explicitly grant you the right to do that use because they've already decided previously that it's okay to do. However, you still need probably to get the proper permits, building permits, zone and clearances, site plan approvals. You need to come in and make sure that your project is still safe and that you are meeting all the regulations associated with that use.

So the rules of the road still apply even when we hear the term buy, right?

Absolutely.

So back to the project that brought us here today, the Zoning Modernization Project, or z-mod, if you're cool. From what I understand, this effort is a major undertaking. Can you tell us more about the work and why we're tackling it now?

So we're very cool. So we're all going to call it zmod. And the reason is because our current ordinance that we have right now was written back in 1980. And while it has had some tinkering since then, it hasn't been in the shop for a complete overhaul since then. And we have a very different county today. Today is very different from 1980. Our county, community's needs, our economy, and of course, our technology, all things are completely different. And we still have a zoning code that was Primarily written in 1980 for the needs in the community of that time. The old rules have been updated over the time, but it's very patchwork quilt. So we're modernizing it to make it more intuitive, reflect the modern goals for housing or climate resilience, and make the whole process faster and more predictable for everybody. So we are rewriting all of the words on the page, from soup to two nuts.

So speaking of words on the page, first of all, if we were to print out the current ordinance, do we have a sense of how many letter-sized pages that would be?

Considering our environmental goals for the county? I would not recommend you do that. That would use a lot of trees.

Okay. And then Is so the current ordinance, I've taken a quick look at it. It feels it is legal. It's law. Is the language itself going to change for easier kind of comprehension for I'll say regular people like me.

So absolutely. One of the, like, the number one thing about the zoning ordinance is it still has to be legally defensible. We still have to be able to take it into court and have a judge say, well, obviously this is what this says. So we aren't changing anything that's going to change the legal meaning of it. And so it still is not going to necessarily read like a Danielle Steele novel. But. But we are going to be rewriting it to be simpler and more straightforward, removing things like wherefores and there toos and using simpler, straightforward language. If you must do something, it will say you must do it. Not you shall, you must do it. And things are going to be formatted in lists. It's going to be much easier to read and find what you need.

I love it. So clarity, predictability. These are all things we need to work hard to achieve. So teaser, we're going to get into more details in an upcoming episode. But just for today, can you share a few examples of some of the specific challenges you're hoping to tackle with this work?

The first big challenge of our ordinance is the layout. To find a regulation, you would need to, say, build a little pottery studio in your backyard. If you decide that you want to sell pots, you would need to be a magpie. You would need to pick through the whole ordinance, piecing together the different regulations that you need. You need to go into section 4.2, 4.3, 4 10, 411, 419, 5.2. Regulations from Article 3, depending on where you live, section 31.2, 3,000, 1.5, maybe 31.9. If you need those regulations for special exceptions, you just like pick, pick, pick, pick, pick all across the ordinance. And of course, this is really frustrating and you probably don't know where those things are located. So the very first thing that we're going to do is reorganize something, everything, and make it more logical to find what people need.

Amazing. Yeah. I think that the time it takes to navigate the current ordinance makes it challenging for people who want to start something new or to do something interesting on their property. And I imagine that there are some people that, say, throw up their hands and say, it's either not worth it or we'll deal with the consequences.

That is why we have an amazing code compliance team who work with people to bring them into compliance. That's really our first focus on that team. But yes, we see a lot of things out in the field and then have to go tell them, hey, that sounds great, but you do need the permits for this.

So just getting into that a little bit, how collaborative are you with the folks who are doing that work in the field to understand the needs of the community? So this ordinance responds to that as well.

So our code compliance team is one and a half offices away from me, so we shout back and forth all the time. And we are very close in these coordinations and they are reviewing everything and working with us. And we're really focusing on bringing all of the voices in the county who need these things together to make sure that they are all inputting the correct information into this ordinance. So we have the breadth of all of our experience so that we have everybody who knows how this works, and we can really kind of suck all of that out of their brains and put it on the page.

So as this zoning modernization project moves forward, how can people stay connected to the work?

Well, you can visit our dedicated project website. It'[email protected] there. We have draft documents, we have announcements about public meetings. You can learn more about the project as it's moving forward, or you can learn about the topics that we're talking here and just zoning in general.

Also, I want to put in a quick plug. Lea has put up a really fun quiz going back to the matrix. Are you an ordinance oracle? So go check out that quiz to see about your knowledge now, and hopefully you can learn something along the way during this project as you follow along. So go check that quiz out, see how you do. Lea, thanks so much for helping us understand this process and what's ahead. And we will have you back in an upcoming episode to dig into z-mod.

Thanks so much, Serena