Firefly fiber project on schedule, CEO says; Football enthusiasts express support for turf fields; PC oks Dove Hollow proffer amendment; News roundup
Firefly fiber project on schedule, CEO says; Football enthusiasts express support for turf fields; PC oks Dove Hollow proffer amendment; News roundup
Engage Louisa is a nonpartisan newsletter that keeps folks informed about Louisa County government. We believe our community is stronger and our government serves us better when we increase transparency, accessibility, and engagement.
This week in county government: public meetings, October 14 through October 19
For the latest information on county meetings including public meetings of boards, commissions, authorities, work groups, and internal county committees, click here. (Note: Louisa County occasionally schedules internal committee/work group meetings after publication time. Check the county’s website for the most updated information).
Tuesday, October 15
Litter Advisory Group, Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa, 3 pm.
Wednesday, October 16
Board of Zoning Appeals, Public Meeting Room, Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa, 7 pm. (public notice)
Other meetings
Tuesday, October 15
Louisa Town Council, 212 Fredericksburg Ave., Louisa, 6 pm. (agenda packet)
Mineral Town Council, 312 Mineral Ave., Mineral, 6:30 pm. (agenda packet)
Additional information about Louisa County’s upcoming public meetings is available here.
Interested in taking your talents to one of the county’s numerous boards and commissions? Find out more here including which boards have vacancies and how to apply.
Firefly fiber project on schedule, CEO says
Firefly Fiber Broadband’s county-wide fiber project is on schedule.
Firefly CEO Gary Wood told the Louisa County Board of Supervisors on Monday night that his company is expected to extend high-speed internet access to the county’s unserved areas by August 2025, the deadline set by the state agency providing grant funding for the project. (meeting materials, video)
Wood said that a second phase of the project, aimed at connecting residents who live in areas served by other high-speed internet providers but who don’t have service because of geographical barriers, would be complete six months to a year later.
“We are still working. You’re still seeing people all over with different crews [doing] different types [of work]. We’re making connections, and we’re making really good progress,” Wood said.
Over the last several years, the county-wide fiber initiative has connected nearly 7,000 homes and businesses while delivering fiber access to 12,500 locations, Wood said. When complete, the project will encompass some 1,450 miles of fiber, bringing high-speed internet access to more than 17,000 locations at a cost of $83.6 million. Of those, some 60 percent are expected to sign up for service—about 11,000 residences and businesses.
In 2021, Louisa County partnered with Firefly, a wholly owned subsidiary of Central Virginia Electric Cooperative (CVEC), the area’s two other electric providers—Dominion Energy and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative (REC)—and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC) to expand broadband access to the county’s unserved areas.
Firefly is serving as the internet service provider and, outside of CVEC territory, connecting to infrastructure owned by Dominion and REC. TJPDC is administering grant funding that supports the project.
Firefly’s Regional Internet Service Expansion project (RISE), an initiative aimed at bringing fiber to parts of 13 central Virginia localities, is the main vehicle the company is using to connect the county.
Across the 13-county project area, RISE will lay some 5,000 miles of fiber, deliver broadband access to some 112,000 Virginians and cost about $330 million, according to the company.
To support the project, TJPDC and Firefly received a $79 million Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI) grant nearly three years ago with $22 million of that expected to directly benefit Louisa residents. VATI is a state program administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development and largely bankrolled by some $700 million in federal funding.
The board of supervisors committed $9 million in local funds to the effort, paying that off in annual installments of roughly $3 million over the last three fiscal years.
To ensure that every resident within the RISE footprint has access to high-speed internet, Firefly and TJPDC received another $12.2 million in VATI funds earlier this year with $1.6 million of that expected to benefit Louisa residents.
The funding is part of Firefly’s $48.6 million expansion of RISE, which aims to reach underserved areas that didn’t qualify for inclusion in the first VATI-backed initiative. In Louisa, the expansion will connect 434 residences that were initially considered served by high-speed internet but don’t actually have service.
“These locations are where cable has run by homes, but they are further off, so they don’t have a cable option because it’s too expensive or cable didn’t go down the little side street,” Wood said.
Outside of the RISE components, Firefly has already provided fiber access throughout CVEC territory, which covers a large swath of western Louisa. That initiative was aided by a $550,000 tax abatement from Louisa County and federal CARES Act funding.
With respect to the first phase of RISE, set for completion by the middle of next year, Wood indicated that Firefly has finished connecting REC’s Shannon Hill and Mt. Hope substations in south-central and southeastern Louisa and nearly finished connecting the Buckner substation in the northeastern part of the county. Wood said the company only has 100 to 150 connections left in that area.
Wood said Firefly has started fiber connections in parts of north-central Louisa that are served by REC’s Ellisville substation with everyone signed up for fiber on the substation’s three circuits expected to be connected in the next six months.
The Cuckoo substation, which covers a swath of central Louisa stretching from Lake Anna south past the village of Cuckoo, will be the last area in REC territory to get connected. Wood said that make-ready work—the time-consuming task of preparing electric poles for fiber installation—is nearly complete and the company has started fiber construction in some areas. He said that connections will likely start in Cuckoo in early 2025.
“I can’t say enough about the effort Rappahannock [Electric Cooperative] has put forward to get us to where we are in Louisa. They have moved really quickly. It took a little while when we first started dancing to not step on each other’s feet, but we are up and running full speed,” Wood said.
While Firefly is partnering with REC for make-ready work and middle-mile fiber installation in its territory, Dominion has built its own middle-mile infrastructure that it’s leasing to Firefly. Firefly is building last-mile fiber in Dominion territory, bringing high-speed internet to parts of central and western Louisa.
Wood didn’t provide a specific timeline for when Dominion customers would get connected, but he said the company has handed off its middle-mile lines to Firefly and last-mile construction is underway.
Firefly will wrap up its fiber buildout with RISE’s second phase, which Wood said should be done by early to mid 2026. The second phase includes more than 400 locations where cable internet is available nearby but doesn’t reach some homes.
“That work will start as soon as we can start working some new arrangements with Dominion to get access to their fiber that’s already built in those areas,” Wood said, noting that the project would include about 16 miles of last-mile fiber construction.
After Firefly completes its initial buildout and connects everyone who has signed up for service, it will continue work in the area to accommodate new customers, Wood said.
“We’ll connect as many as sign up,” he said.
Several supervisors thanked Wood for his leadership and applauded Firefly’s efforts to connect the county, observing that Louisa has come a long way in the last few years.
Patrick Henry District Supervisor Fitzgerald Barnes said that he knows the project is progressing because he no longer sees “children at McDonald’s doing their homework.”
Mineral District Supervisor Duane Adams agreed, noting that he and his neighbors on the Ellisville substation are excited that they’ll soon get service.
Adams said that he recently got a call from a constituent who wanted to know when high-speed internet would reach his home, and he assured him that fiber is on the way.
“When he called he was a little bit upset…but, I said to him, ‘look, five or six years ago, the solution to rural broadband in Louisa County was probably 30 years away. Now, the solution to rural broadband—fiber internet—is probably 15 months away and, from where you live, it’s within the next month or so,’” Adams said.
Residents can get more information about the county-wide fiber initiative and register for service on Firefly’s website. The website includes a timeline for when connections are expected to begin on specific substation and circuits. Firefly also hosts virtual town halls to let residents know when connections are starting in their area.
BOS roundup: Football enthusiasts express support for turf fields
Aside from getting an update on Firefly’s county-wide fiber project, the board took up a couple action items on Monday night and heard from multiple residents who support the construction of a pair of turf fields adjacent to Louisa County Middle School. Check out a meeting roundup below. (meeting materials, video)
Football enthusiasts express support for new turf fields
Football enthusiasts urged the board of supervisors on Monday night to follow through with a plan to build two synthetic turf fields adjacent to Louisa County Middle School, arguing the fields are necessary to support both youth and scholastic sports.
“Since Louisa County High School plays on the field Louisa Elite [Youth Football League] plays on, I don’t want the Jungle turf crew to feel overwhelmed, tired of fixing divots, painting lines and picking up trash,” said 9-year-old Reese Patrick, who plays football in a local youth league and is the son of Louisa County High School football coach Will Patrick. “If we get these facilities, it would help us go over plays, practice longer, see better. If we have rain, a thunderstorm or snow, our coach doesn’t have to cancel practice. This would do so much for our team, and we would be proud to have these facilities to play and practice on.”
Supervisors have already appropriated about $3.6 million for the fields, most of it in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget. But the project was thrown into limbo this summer after a bid for the first phase of construction, which includes tree clearing and rough grading, came in more than $1.3 million over budget. That pushed the project’s estimated cost to at least $4.9 million.
In a memo to the board, staff suggested that the county could save money by scaling back the project to just one field, which it projected would cost about $3.125 million, including $328,000 that’s already been spent. Or, staff said, the board could move forward with the original plan, which would require greenlighting at least $1.344 million in additional funding.
While supervisors, at their September 3 meeting, approved a rough grading contract for both fields, they haven’t allocated more funding to complete construction. Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams, a member of the board’s finance committee, said the committee has “a plan in place” for the project, but didn’t offer any more details.
Patrick Henry District Supervisor Fitzgerald Barnes, a former high school basketball coach and athletics director who initially pushed the board to fund the project, said on Monday night that though supervisors haven’t appropriated all the money necessary to build the fields, they’re “moving in that direction.” He said county officials are waiting on final cost estimates for lights, bathrooms and other ancillary items before okaying more funding.
Assuming the board funds the project, Barnes said it would take six to eight weeks to install the fields once initial site work is complete. He said in a brief interview after the meeting that the cost of the project had soared, in part, because the county had to mitigate its impact on wetlands.
During the FY23 budget process, Barnes and Parks and Recreation Director James Smith floated the idea of building a multi-field sports complex that they said would meet the needs of local youth leagues and could be rented out for large youth sports tournaments.
Smith said more outdoor playing spaces, especially fields with all-weather surfaces, are direly needed as the number of youth sports participants grows. He also said the complex could drive tourism and economic development, drawing hundreds of people to the county for weekend tournaments who, in turn, spend money at local restaurants and hotels.
The board toyed with the idea of placing a $15 million bond referendum on the ballot in November 2023 to ask voters if they wanted to fund the complex. They ultimately abandoned the idea, instead choosing to build two fields behind the middle school.
County officials have said those fields would support youth sports like football and soccer, provide more playing space for middle school and high school sports and allow the county to host some tournaments.
Currently, Louisa doesn’t have any fields with synthetic surfaces. Louisa County Public Schools’ football teams play their games on grass in the Jungle. While that wouldn’t change with the addition of the turf facilities, the fields would offer low-maintenance practice space that currently isn’t available.
At Monday’s meeting, several community members encouraged the board to stick with the two-field plan. They said that the county’s youth sports leagues—especially Louisa Elite Youth Football—and its scholastic sports programs desperately need all-weather playing surfaces so they can practice outside regularly and avoid canceling games.
Mineral District resident Briana Sparrow said that football is a point of pride in the community, especially Louisa County High School’s varsity football team, a perennial power that draws thousands of fans to the Jungle on Friday nights. She said that Louisa Elite, the county’s lone youth tackle football league, lays the foundation for the Lions’ success, but the league is struggling to find adequate playing space, and it and other youth teams need the county’s support.
“We are known for our strength, our passion and for dominating the field in what we proudly call the Jungle. This spirit and determination isn’t just born on Friday nights under the lights, they begin when our boys are six years old [and step onto the field] for the first time in youth football,” Sparrow said. “But, as proud as we are of this tradition, we need to ask ourselves, are we giving our boys the tools they need to succeed…I believe we can do more. I believe our boys deserve consistent, reliable fields for both practice and game day.”
Kevin McIntire, president of Louisa Elite, agreed. McIntire said that, as other counties struggle to field football teams, the sport is thriving in Louisa with about 250 kids participating in tackle football at the youth and scholastic level. But, he said, the limited field space and lack of all-weather surfaces hinder players at every level.
“Our association needs a home. We struggle…we’ve had our last two games canceled because of weather,” McIntire said. “Louisa County’s football team has had one outdoor practice in two weeks. The fields have been closed to our own athletes to practice. While other schools have synthetic fields to go practice on, our kids are stuck inside of a gymnasium trying to practice football. I think these fields are critical in every aspect for Louisa County youth.”
McIntire said that he and his league strongly support building the fields, but he warned against routinely using the facilities for outside tournaments that don’t involve local teams. He said the fields, first and foremost, should serve Louisa youth leagues and school sports.
Barnes, a proponent of using sports facilities to draw visitors to the county, said that the fields would primarily be used by local teams, but would also host tournaments to generate revenue.
“You are going to have tournaments that might not have local teams [on some weekends] and some weekends they might,” Barnes said. “But 95 percent [of the time], it will be used for Louisa kids. You’ve got [to have tournaments]….because that’s where the money’s at.”
PJM considering transmission infrastructure upgrades that could impact Louisa
As the home of Dominion Energy’s North Anna Nuclear Power Station, Louisa County is crisscrossed by high-voltage transmission lines capable of carrying vast amounts of power. With the demand for electricity expected to soar over the next decade, driven largely by data center development, more electric infrastructure could be on the way.
During a routine report to the board of supervisors on Monday night, County Administrator Christian Goodwin said that PJM, the entity that manages the grid in 13 eastern states including Virginia, recently received proposals for new transmission infrastructure that could impact the county.
“[PJM] carefully monitors generation resources, transmission resources. Obviously, more power demand in Northern Virginia is causing the need for the development of more transmission infrastructure. Their latest ‘open window’ process includes some transmission infrastructure that could impact the county in years to come. I’ll be watching that carefully,” Goodwin said, referring to a period when PJM accepts proposals for transmission projects.
While Goodwin didn’t offer any additional information about what might be in store for the county—be it upgrades to existing transmission lines and related infrastructure, construction of new lines or both—he said he’d be participating in a meeting about the potential project or projects the following day and would update the board as more details become available.
Goodwin’s comments came on the same day that Dominion Energy, American Electric Power (AEP) and FirstEnergy announced in a press release that they’d reached a joint planning agreement to propose regional projects within the PJM footprint, which aim to upgrade the grid in the face of the burgeoning demand for power.
“The innovative collaboration comes at a time when efficient and cost-effective regional transmission development is essential and encouraged by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the independent federal agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity,” the companies said. “Power demand in the PJM region is growing at an unprecedented pace due to rapid expansion of energy-intensive industries such as data centers, the electrification of transportation and heating, and increased manufacturing onshoring. At the same time, the region's power generation mix is changing as legacy generation is retired and more renewables are added to the grid.”
The companies said they submitted joint proposals in September that include several new 765-kilovolt (kV), 500-kV and 345-kV transmission lines in Virginia, Ohio and West Virginia.
Louisa County is already home to several transmission lines including, but not limited to, a 230-kV line that snakes across the county from Gordonsville to North Anna, a 230-kV line that cuts through western Louisa, and 500-kV line that slices through the eastern end of the county.
Dominion, AEP and FirstEnergy said the new projects are in the early stages of development and, if they’re selected by PJM, the companies would begin a multi-year process “to select routes, perform environmental studies, engage with communities” and obtain state and local permits.
In addition to the joint projects, the companies submitted individual proposals for transmission infrastructure upgrades, according to their press release.
While Goodwin noted that power demand in Northern Virginia is soaring, it’s also expected to skyrocket in Louisa, thanks to large-scale data center development.
Supervisors announced last year that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is expected to build two data center campuses in the county’s Technology Overlay District, investing at least $11 billion in the facilities by 2040.
The smaller of the campuses—the Lake Anna Technology Campus (LATC)—is planned for 150 acres at the corner of Kentucky Springs Road (Route 652) and Haley Drive (Route 700) adjacent to the North Anna Power Station.
The campus, located just across the street from a Dominion-owned 230-kV line, is expected to be home to seven standard data centers covering more than 1.7 million square feet and providing 420 MW of data center capacity, according to a conceptual plan submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers last year.
The larger of the campuses—the North Creek Technology Campus (NCTC)—is slated for about 830 acres of a 1,444-acre tract south of Jefferson Highway (Route 33) and east of Mt. Airy Road (Route 644), in proximity to the same Dominion-owned transmission line.
While it’s unclear how many data centers AWS plans to build at the NCTC, a representative from Rappahannock Electric Cooperative (REC), the entity that will supply power to both campuses, told the Planning Commission last year that the campus would be home to 10 substations, each capable of providing 300 megawatts (MW) of power.
That means the company could potentially supply the campus with as much as 3 gigawatts (GW) of power. For perspective, North Anna’s twin Westinghouse reactors produce nearly 1.9 GW—enough electricity to keep the lights on in about 500,000 homes.
The infrastructure upgrades necessary to support data center development are sparking heated battles in parts of northern Virginia, the global epicenter of the data storage industry, where residents have pushed back against new high-voltage transmission lines proposed to snake through suburban neighborhoods, farmland and historic sites.
According to the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), new transmission lines greenlighted by PJM in northwestern Virginia “will cut through a number of conserved lands,” including the newly formed Sweet Run State Park in northern Loudoun County, the Appalachian Trail, the Waterford Historic District, Manassas National Battlefield Park and numerous privately held conservation easements.
“The visual impact of these massive 500-kV lines should be obvious, but they also carry environmental impacts on waterways, forest resources and farms. The rights of way under these lines are cleared of trees, invite a proliferation of invasive species, and require repeated herbicide applications to keep them clear. The ground is disturbed as new poles are installed, and no barns or other permanent structures can ever be built under them,” the organization says on its website.
Environmentalists and consumer advocates, including the Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition, have also warned that unchecked data center development threatens Virginia’s ability to meet its clean energy goals and burdens residential ratepayers, whose utility bills, they say, could sharply rise as power companies build new transmission and generation infrastructure to feed the power-hungry facilities.
In its 2023 Integrated Resource Plan, Dominion said the demand for power in its coverage area is expected to climb about five to seven percent annually over the next decade, “driven primarily by data centers and, to a lesser extent, electrification.”
It’s used those projections to advance plans for a new 1,000 MW natural gas “peaker” plant in Chesterfield County, which would supply power to the grid during periods of high demand.
The reform coalition, a collection of more than 25 environmental, conservation, historic preservation and climate advocacy groups, is pushing the General Assembly to pass legislation that allows for more state oversight of the data storage industry, tightens the generous state tax incentives currently available to data center developers and protects ratepayers from rising infrastructure costs.
“The Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition is asking Virginia’s state government to step in — to require more transparency around land use decisions affecting the lives of Virginians and around energy and water usage that carries significant implications for both local communities and the rest of the Commonwealth,” the coalition said in a press release last year. “The coalition is asking the state to require that data center developers mitigate the negative environmental impacts of this industry and to shift the cost of new transmission lines and power generation onto the industry players, rather than on the backs of Virginia’s ratepayers.”
The state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) last December passed a resolution to conduct a comprehensive study of the impacts of the data storage industry across the commonwealth, including on energy infrastructure, energy rates and the state’s ability to transition from fossil fuels to renewables. The study is expected to be published by the end of this year.
Board tables action on updates to erosion and sediment control ordinance
Supervisors held a public hearing but opted to table action on a proposed update to the county’s erosion and sediment control ordinance (ESC). The board is expected to consider the item again at its October 21 meeting.
Community Development Director Linda Buckler and Erosion and Sediment Control Manager Kris Nelson told the board that the county is required to update its ESC ordinance to comply with new state regulations.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality earlier this year greenlighted new ESC rules while the General Assembly passed a law, effective July 1, that consolidates erosion and sediment control and stormwater management standards.
ESC regulations aim “to prevent the unreasonable degradation of properties, stream channels, waters and other natural resources by establishing requirements for the effective control of soil erosion, sediment deposition and non-agricultural runoff, and by establishing procedures whereby these requirements shall be administered and enforced,” according to a memo from staff to the board.
Buckler and Nelson said the proposed ordinance doesn’t significantly change the county’s current erosion and sediment control rules. It mostly reorganizes the existing ordinance and updates its language to ensure it aligns with state code.
“This ordinance is very similar to our current ordinance. It’s just a lot of updated verbiage and stuff of that nature. I didn’t really see any big changes as far as what’s new versus what we originally had,” Nelson said.
While most board members seemed comfortable moving forward with the changes, Mountain Road District Supervisor Tommy Barlow said that he hadn’t had time to fully digest the proposal and wanted to be sure that the board didn’t adopt rules that burden residents.
Barlow, a surveyor by trade, pointed to a project he’s been working in Hanover County where a resident is preparing to build his first home, and the county’s requiring a detailed drainage report to determine the potential impact on a nearby creek. He said the requirement has little real-world impact other than making the home more expensive.
“You have to be careful what you adopt, and I haven’t read this thing to be comfortable with it. I just know, this week, what I’ve been required to do in Hanover. If I had read all through it and knew that there wasn’t something in here that’s going to end up being a detriment to the young people in this county trying to build [a house] then I could support it,” Barlow said.
Both Nelson and Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams, who owns a construction business, said the proposed ordnance isn’t an effort to enact more stringent requirements for people building homes.
Williams and Nelson pointed out that state law permits localities to adopt stronger erosion and sediment control rules than the minimum requirements and Hanover might’ve chosen to beef up its regulations. They also noted that Hanover is subject to the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, a law aimed at improving the bay’s water quality, in part, by imposing additional land use regulations on localities in the Tidewater region. Williams and Nelson said that Louisa is sticking with the state’s minimum standards and isn’t subject to the Bay Act.
To give Barlow more time to read the proposal, the board voted 6-0 to hold off on its adoption for two weeks. Cuckoo District Supervisor Chris McCotter was absent.
No community members weighed in during the public hearing.
Board adopts MOG finance committee guidelines
Supervisors voted 6-0 to approve a new set of guidelines for the Management Oversight Group’s finance committee (MOG). The MOG advises county officials on Fire and EMS (FEMS) operations, focusing mostly on volunteer agencies.
Finance Director Wanda Colvin told the board that the MOG’s finance committee crafted the guidelines to help prioritize the needs of the county’s volunteer fire and rescue stations. The guidelines mostly focus on planning for capital projects, including building maintenance and renovations, and aim to limit unexpected expenditures.
Specifically, the guidelines recommend that the finance committee forecast future expenditures, using a 20-year model, and keep capital requests relatively flat from year to year “to help with overall budgeting throughout the county,” per the document.
The guidelines also task the committee with gathering budget requests from the volunteer FEMS agencies each year and creating a plan to present to the board of supervisors during the annual budget process.
The guidelines say the committees should prioritize budget requests based on an item’s impact on the safety of Fire and EMS personnel, followed by response readiness, savings of future funds, and “lower but warranted needs.”
PC oks Dove Hollow proffer amendment
After a public hearing during which no community members weighed in, the Louisa County Planning Commission on Thursday night voted 5-0 to recommend to the board of supervisors approval of Swamp Bottom, LLC’s request for a proffer amendment that tweaks the buffer requirements for a subdivision in the Louisa Election District. (meeting materials, video)
In 2006, supervisors rezoned about 23 acres off Chalk Level Road (Route 625), clearing the way for development of the eight-lot Dove Hollow subdivision. In a proffer attached to the rezoning, Swamp Bottom, LLC, the subdivision’s developer, agreed to plant clusters of Leyland Cypress trees to supplement a natural buffer along the subdivision’s border with Chalk Level Road.
Now, Swamp Bottom is asking the county to amend the proffer, removing the supplemental planting requirement for one of the parcels adjoining the road: the 6.08-acre Lot 8 (tax map parcel 41-33-8).
Swamp Bottom principal Michael Tolley told the commission that, after the death of his father, he’s now in charge of the subdivision. He said that he recently tried to plant Leyland Cypress on the periphery of the parcel, but the area is too wet to support the trees’ growth. Tolley also noted that the property is home to a natural buffer that screens it from view.
Associate Planner Renee Mawyer concurred, noting that staff visited the site and confirmed the presence of a 50’ natural buffer, which is also included in the proffers. She added that the buffer adequately shields the property.
While commissioners didn’t have concerns about removing the supplemental planting requirement for Lot 8, Chair John Disosway said he recently visited the property and there didn’t appear to be any Leyland Cypress planted on Lot 1, as required by the proffers. The three-acre lot also borders Chalk Level Road and isn’t adequately screened, according to Disosway.
Tolley said he planted Leyland Cypress on the parcel, but the trees died. He added that all of the lots in the subdivision have been sold, and he’s preparing to set up a Homeowners Association to hand off the subdivision’s management to lot owners.
After some discussion about how to deal with the lack of screening on Lot 1, the commission ultimately decided to amend the proffer for Lot 8 and not address concerns about the other parcel. Several members noted that the applicant had technically abided by the proffer, which requires the planting of Leyland Cypress but doesn’t mention maintenance requirements.
Senior Planner Tom Egeland said that Dove Hollow’s proffers were crafted some 18 years ago, and staff now employs more specific language to ensure that buffers are both planted and maintained.
Patrick Henry District Commissioner Ellis Quarles left the meeting before the vote while the Jackson District seat is vacant due to the death of Cy Weaver, the district’s former representative. Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams is expected to choose someone to fill the seat in the coming weeks.
Other business
Aside from the public hearing, commissioners took up one other item of note while delaying discussion of another.
During a discussion that spanned both a pre-meeting work session and the body’s regular meeting, commissioners reviewed a series of proposed amendments to the county’s Land Development Regulations, covering everything from where food trucks are allowed to operate by-right to setback requirements for commercial uses in Growth Area Overlay Districts. (work session materials, video)
Deputy County Administrator Chris Coon and Community Development Department staff recommended the changes, noting in a memo to the commission that they’re necessary to “address discrepancies, clarify regulations, ensure alignment with more stringent State and Federal regulations, update standards to reflect current practices, and make adjustments based on community needs and the 2040 Comprehensive Plan.” The revisions are also designed to improve efficiency by removing conflicts and outdated provisions.
Commissioners agreed to hold a public hearing on some of the recommendations at their November 14 meeting but decided that others required additional review. They plan to hold an as-yet unscheduled work session later this month to continue work on the draft amendments.
The commission opted to delay discussion of a draft appendix for the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, a long-range planning document that provides a roadmap for the county’s future development. The section covers what staff calls “focus area plans,” short snapshots of the county’s eight designated growth areas: Zion Crossroads, Ferncliff, Shannon Hill and Gum Spring along Interstate 64; Louisa and Mineral in the center of the county; Gordonsville at its northwestern edge; and Lake Anna along its northern border. (draft focus area plans)
According to staff, the plans are intended to “quickly articulate the current state and future vision” for specific areas and to help ensure that “developments mitigate any factors that may interfere with the future vision.”
The commission will dig into the focus area plans during a work session prior to its November meeting.
News roundup: Louisa man pleads guilty to assaulting law enforcement during Jan. 6 Capitol breach
Engage Louisa focuses on Louisa County government. We recognize that we can’t cover everything and there’s plenty of other news in our neck of the woods. With that in mind, we occasionally include a roundup of links to the work of other journalists and organizations covering noteworthy events and issues that impact our community.
Virginia man pleads guilty to assaulting law enforcement during Jan. 6 Capitol breach -US Attorney's Office, District of Columbia (press release)
Orange stays close, but Louisa pours it on to move into Jefferson District lead -The Free Lance-Star (subscription required)
‘Right to retrieve’ legal challenge dismissed as state considers new rules -Virginia Mercury
Virginia, utilities accepting applications for heating bill assistance -Virginia Mercury
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