Nearly two decades ago, an owner of Crozet’s R.A. Yancey Lumber Corp requested that the land at the two exits be added to the development area so an industrial park could be built. Supplied photo.
After nearly four years of review, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors is expected to adopt a new Comprehensive Plan on October 15. Such documents contain directions for staff to work on new policies and retain old ones.
Until mid-September, the proposed Albemarle County Comprehensive Plan included language that would have set up future study of how land at two exits from Interstate 64 might be used for economic development.
“There is existing development and underlying by-right commercial and industrial zoning at the Shadwell and Yancey Mills interchanges,” reads an early version of AC44. “Small Area Plans are recommended.”
The plan had specifically stated that such proposals could lead to additional land to bolster agricultural and supporting industries.
However, elected officials asked staff to discard the idea at a work session on September 10. White Hall Supervisor Ann Mallek said previous studies determined that exit 107 was not suitable for development and the county has other priorities.
“There is not a time amongst all the other master plans that are in need of renewal that the Yancey thing needs to be done again,” Mallek said.
In 2008, one of the owners of R.A. Yancey Lumber Corp made a formal request to have the land added to the development area so an industrial park could be built. The Planning Commission twice rejected the idea when considering the Crozet Master Plan.
Jodie Filardo, the county’s community development director, suggested the language could be removed from the Comprehensive Plan because the same idea is within another recently adopted plan.
“Perhaps there’s a way to come at this with language that speaks to something like the board would be supportive of projects being brought to them that are in support of the directions established in the Economic Development Strategic Plan,” Filardo said.
Supervisors approved that plan in mid-August and the document also includes a strategy direction that Albemarle consider changes to zoning in rural areas that would allow for more “lodging, agritourism, and onsite food service.”
Mallek expressed concern about the latter.
“We don’t have restaurants in the rural area because if you allow them, you will get a Buc-ee’s,” Mallek said, referring to the chain of mega-convenience stores that recently opened its first Virginia location in Rockingham County outside Harrisonburg.
Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley said she could support more flexibility to strengthen the tourism industry.
“I can see where it makes sense or if someone applies for small, mom-and-pop type restaurants,” LaPisto-Kirtley said.
The current draft of the Comprehensive Plan recommends that restaurants could be in the rural area if they are less than 5,000 square feet and would be in an existing structure.
Another new action called for in AC44 is the possibility of a county ordinance to test and monitor the application of biosolids on rural land as agricultural fertilizer. Biosolids are by-products of wastewater treatment systems and are also known as sewage sludge.
“More and more information is available all the time about the contents in the sludge and what is going to be happening in taking huge numbers of acres out of food production altogether because it’s now poisoned,” Mallek said.
If adopted on October 15, AC44 will go into effect on January 1, 2026.
