Albemarle County has spent the last two and a half years updating its Comprehensive Plan, a document required by state law for each locality to guide “adjusted and harmonious growth of the territory.”
For four and a half decades, Albemarle has used that plan to designate the vast majority of land in the county to be rural areas where intense development is discouraged and generally not allowed. As of the last plan update in 2015, growth is to be concentrated in the urban ring, U.S. 29 North, and Crozet. That’s about five percent of the county’s 726 square miles.
The current update goes by the name AC44 and had been expected to be completed by this fall. Two of four phases have been completed so far with input from hundreds of county residents, the Planning Commission, and elected officials.
“We processed this feedback and took the time to develop a structure to improve the clarity of the resulting document,” says Abbey Stumpf, the county’s manager of communications and public engagement.
This now results in a timeline that will see a public hearing and approval next year after another round of community engagement in the fall. But first, the PC was asked on July 9 whether they support what staff calls “refinements” to the process. Among these are a transition away from chapters for “plan elements” as well as fewer goals and objectives.
The number and clarity of objectives concern the Piedmont Environmental Council, an advocacy group that has worked to keep growth area boundaries intact since they were formed.
“It is not clear how the previously prepared draft goals will be revised into a single goal and whether or not some goals have been eliminated and new ones proposed,” says Rob McGinnis, Senior Land Use Field Representative for PEC.
McGinnis says PEC is also concerned that there has been no direct engagement with the public over the summer while the staff has been working on a draft plan.
The head of a pro-business group with much experience watching planning in Albemarle said he welcomes the new timeline. Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum says he hopes the refinements will lead to a more focused document with less room for interpretation of what the county wants the future to be.
“In the past, the comp plan was an amalgamation of all public comment received rather than a statement of direction from the elected body,” Williamson says. “We may not agree with all of the goals, objectives, and actions planned, but [we do] applaud making the hard choices that show direction rather than making everyone happy and saying nothing.”
Localities are not required to make major changes in their Comprehensive Plan. After some years of review, Fluvanna County has opted to re-adopt their 2015 plan with a few modifications. Greene County took a similar approach whereas Nelson County hired the Berkley Group to write a new document.
However, Albemarle has experienced much more change than those localities. Since 1980, the county’s population has more than doubled from 55,783 to an estimated 116,148 in 2023 as calculated by the Weldon Cooper Center at UVA.
Work on Albemarle County’s Comprehensive Plan update had been expected to wrap up this year, but staff has taken extra time to finalize plan goals. Community input will begin in the fall with possible adoption by next spring or summer.