Source: http://www.albemarle.org/upload/images/Forms_Center/Departments/Board_of_Supervisors/Forms/Agenda/2006files/20061213/Mountainoverlayattacha.htm
Timestamp: 2018-10-17 05:28:31
Document Index: 240517143

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 15', '§ 18', '§ 17', '§ 17', '§ 17', '§ 18', '§ 18', '§ 58']

Proposal for Protection of Albemarle County’s Mountain Resources
On June 4, 2003, the Board of Supervisors appointed a Mountain Overlay District Committee. The Board asked the Committee to craft “an acceptable and effective ordinance to protect mountain resources and implement the Mountain Protection Plan” (a section of the Comprehensive Plan adopted in 1998).[1] The Committee’s diverse membership was also asked to use a consensus process.[2] The Committee worked for two years, from April 2004 through April 2006. All 12 of the Committee’s members support this proposal.[3]
The Mountain Overlay District (MOD) Committee recommends a three-part program to protect the economic, cultural, and natural resources of Albemarle County’s mountains. The recommended program includes: a mountain ordinance focused on protecting the MOD environment; principles that would mandate and govern Rural Cluster Subdivisions in the mountains; and public acquisition of interests in land. Each of these elements is outlined below.
The program, as a whole, is designed to get development off critical slopes and out of stream buffer areas and to protect habitats and watersheds, scenic and historic resources, and agricultural and forestal uses of the mountains. It is also designed to conserve properties and their values both within and outside the MOD. Several aspects of this proposal, such as enhanced protection for critical slopes, might also be appropriate for general application in the County’s Rural Areas. Because the Committee’s charge related to the MOD, however, we have not included broader applications in our proposal.
A. Outline of a Mountain Overlay District Ordinance
Ensuring public safety is of particular concern in Albemarle’s mountains. In a few clearly defined areas, unstable mountain slopes are a clear threat to life and property, as evidenced by past debris flows. More generally, difficult access can make successful fire and rescue operations problematic in the mountains.
The mountains of the County are almost entirely in forest cover with the remaining acres in orchards and pasture. They support a viable forest and agricultural industry that is important to the County’s economic well-being. Mountain areas provide critical services in collecting, storing, filtering and releasing water for human consumption and other uses at lower elevations. Maintaining forest cover and protecting headwaters and stream buffers in the mountains are necessary for adequate quantity and quality of water. The mountain forests (like all forests) also protect air quality and help stabilize climate.
The mountain areas support native biological diversity and offer prime habitat for hunting and wildlife observation. Declines in diversity are threatened by fragmentation of habitat – the dividing of large areas into smaller parcels – and the resulting disruption of forest cover.
The mountains provide an important and unique aesthetic and cultural resource. The relatively pristine, wooded character of the County’s high elevations – the blue backdrop of the mountains – defines much of the character of Albemarle County and has served as an inspiration and cultural landmark for residents since colonial times.
2. Purposes of Ordinance
Protect headwater streams, water quantity and quality, and public drinking water reservoir capacity
Reduce impacts of development on native biological diversity (natural heritage)
Preserve properties and their values both within and outside the MOD
Ridge Area. A “ridge area” within the MOD would be defined as within 100 vertical feet or 250 horizontal feet of a crest, whichever is more restrictive.[4]
c. Stream Buffers
No residential construction would be permitted within 200 feet of an intermittent or perennial stream or river or other body of water shown on a U.S. Geological Survey 7.5 minute quadrangle topographic map. No hard-surface or impermeable surface roads, including gravel on compacted base, or driveways would be permitted in this area except by special use permit.
When disturbance is necessary to cross streams to access a portion of the property as set forth above (or as otherwise allowed in the MOD), best management practices would be imposed.
Development in a stream buffer may[6] be authorized in the following circumstances, provided that a mitigation plan[7] is submitted to, and approved, by the program authority:
On a lot on which the development in the stream buffer will consist of the construction and maintenance of a driveway or roadway, and the program authority determines that the stream buffer would prohibit reasonable access to a portion of the lot which is necessary for the owner to have a reasonable use of the lot; or
On a lot of record created on or before December 10, 1980, if the stream buffer would result in the loss of a building site, and there are no other available building sites outside the stream buffer on the lot, or to allow redevelopment as permitted in the underlying zoning district.[8]
An administrative waiver or modification from one or more of these requirements would be available. Such waiver or modification could be granted only upon a finding that alternatives proposed by the developer would advance each of the purposes of the ordinance to an equivalent or greater degree than strict application of these requirements.[10] In making this determination, the appropriate body—the Program Authority or the Planning Commission—would take into account the effects of the developer’s overall plan for the property (including residential construction and related road or driveway construction or road or driveway improvement), and if a waiver were issued, it would include any conditions on development necessary to protect the purposes of the ordinance.
A variance would be available in cases of undue hardship under existing regulations.[11]
Application of the Ordinance may result in inability to use all division rights[12] that have been allocated to properties in the MOD – that is, because of measures in the Ordinance, parcels may not be able to be developed as extensively as they would without these measures. Property owners would have the ability to moderate the effect of these measures through waivers and modifications.
For Rural Preservation Developments (RPDs) in the MOD, rural preservation parcels (RPPs) will include any ridge area in the RPD or as much of it as feasible consistent with utilization of all development rights otherwise available to the parcel. The RPP will retain a development right. The RPP will be configured and conditioned to minimize adverse impacts on hydrology, biodiversity, aesthetics, cultural and other historical resources, agricultural and forestal soils and uses, public safety, and to preserve property values within and outside the MOD.
Development lots outside the RPP will be configured and conditioned to minimize impacts on these same resources and property values.[13]
Construction in RPDs in the MOD will also be subject to the generic requirements in the MOD Ordinance, as above.
C. Additional Protection for Mountain Resources
The County’s Comprehensive Plan makes specific provision for acquisition of property interests, such as purchase of development rights (PDR), to protect the mountains. The Committee proposes expanded efforts within the MOD to:
More specifically, beyond the ordinance and clustering proposed in this document, the Committee believes the Board of Supervisors must develop innovative and flexible approaches to protecting Albemarle’s mountains. It has generated the following list of ideas, although it is not endorsing any single one. The list is certainly not intended to be exhaustive; rather, the Committee encourages the Board to think creatively.
Grant complete or partial tax-exemption to any real estate placed in a permanent “riparian buffer” easement, even if the landowner chooses to impose stream buffers that are wider than those recommended in the Stream Buffers section of this proposal.[14]
Change the ACE Program’s criteria to evaluate properties and allocate the currently available and potentially new funding resources as follows:
Mountain value: Modify the ACE ranking to add a category for land located inside the MOD.
Develop a Watershed Protection Fund. Work with the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and the Albemarle County Service Authority to develop a user fee that would be earmarked—as supplemental ACE funding—for the MOD sections of the watershed that feed the local public water supply system.
It is the Committee’s desire to avoid adverse impacts on the viability of the ACE program as well as on any other similar program or regulatory provision in the County.
[1] “Mountain Overlay District” memorandum from Joan McDowell to the Mountain Overlay District Committee, March 16, 2004.
[2] Ibid. and “Mountain Overlay District Committee Meeting Notes,” April 5, 2004.
[4] Virginia Code § 15.2-2295.1 defines “crest” to mean “the uppermost line of a mountain or chain of mountains from which the land falls away on at least two sides to a lower elevation or elevations.”
[5] See Albemarle County Code § 18-4.2.1 (definition of “building site”).
[6] Albemarle County Code § 17-321 provides that the activities “may” be authorized by the program authority, but the authority does not have to permit the activities in all cases.
[7] The mitigation plan mandated by Albemarle County Code § 17-322(C)(2) requires, among other things, that the activity be located so that it is the least disruptive to the functions of the stream buffer.
[8] See Albemarle County Code § 17-321.
[9] It is the Committee’s intention that “adjacent” refers to a crest on which a residential dwelling could be constructed.
[10] Compare with Albemarle County Code §§ 18-4.2.5 and 18-5.1(a).
[11] See Albemarle County Code § 18-34.2.
[12] The term “division rights” includes “development rights.”
[14] § 58.1-3666. Wetlands and riparian buffers. Wetlands, as defined herein, that are subject to a perpetual easement permitting inundation by water, and riparian buffers, as defined herein, that are subject to a perpetual easement permitting inundation by water, are hereby declared to be a separate class of property and shall constitute a classification for local taxation separate from other classifications of real property. The governing body of any county, city or town may, by ordinance, exempt or partially exempt such property from local taxation. "Riparian buffer" means an area of trees, shrubs or other vegetation, subject to a perpetual easement permitting inundation by water, that is (i) at least thirty-five feet in width, (ii) adjacent to a body of water, and (iii) managed to maintain the integrity of stream channels and shorelines and reduce the effects of upland sources of pollution by trapping, filtering, and converting sediments, nutrients, and other chemicals. "Wetlands" means an area that is inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency or duration sufficient to support, and that under normal conditions does support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions, and that is subject to a perpetual easement permitting inundation by water. (1998, c. 516.)
[15] Approved by the Governor—Chapter 573 (effective 7/1/06). Transfer of development rights. Allows localities to provide for the transfer of development rights from a parcel of property located in the locality to another parcel of property located elsewhere in the locality.