One of the unacknowledged co-workers here at Town Crier Productions is Karen and that changes right now as a result of August 17 being National Black Cat Appreciation Day. That’s the only sentence about that in this edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement, because this newsletter and podcast feels strange about stooping to cat pictures to boost audience numbers. I’m Sean Tubbs, and I did it anyway.
On today’s program:
The public comment period is underway for a document that describes how federal funds for affordable housing have been used
Smith Aquatic and Fitness Center will close this weekend through Labor Day for annual maintenance
Charlottesville City Council gets an update on what the Land Use Environmental and Planning Committee talked about from January to June this year
A quick summary of what LUEPC talked about in July
Charlottesville City Council weighs in on transit governance as the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission oversees another study
First shout-out: Pre-order Charlottesville Community Bikes jerseys, vests, and tech tees!
In today’s first subscriber supported shout-out, Charlottesville Community Bikes believes that bicycles can be a means to social change, addressing issues of equity, access, and inclusion.
They provide free bikes to adults who need one, and have a special program that provides free bikes to children.
But Community Bikes also has a really fashionable set of jerseys, tech tees, and vests that are available for pre-order now! Pre-orders are being taken now through August 28. Not sure about your size? Stop by Community Bikes at 917-D Preston Avenue for samples.
Want to learn more or support their work? Visit charlottesvillecommunitybikes.org to learn more about the organization and check them out on Facebook for the latest programs and services.
Public comment being taken for TJPDC’s use of federal funds
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has public notice and public comment requirements for the use of funding it provides to localities across the country for various projects.
The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission administers one revenue source called the HOME Consortium. Every year, staff produces a document called the CAPER which stands for Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report. (view the TJPDC website on the CAPER)
“The HOME program's goals are to assist first-time homebuyers, preserve existing housing stock by rehabilitating owner-occupied homes, and develop new housing units for home ownership or rental,” reads the summary of the CAPER which covers activities in 2022.
Funding goes to the City of Charlottesville as well as nonprofit groups that provide funding for specific counties. These are the Albemarle Home Improvement Program, the Fluvanna/ Louisa Housing Foundation, the Nelson County Community Development Foundation, and Skyline CAP. The latter serves Greene County.
The CAPER also covers funds that come through the Community Development Block Grant program. HUD wants to know the use of funds advances the objectives of various plans. The TJPDC’s CAPER notes that area median income (AMI) for a family of four grew from $93,700 in 2021 to $112,200 in 2022.
“Income for those at the lowest end of the income spectrum largely stagnated, thereby exacerbating the effects of inflation for these residents,” reads page 12 of the report.
That has put pressure on low-income homeowners who may not be able to afford maintenance and repair. That influenced how Charlottesville spent some of its funds.
“Recognizing this, the city committed in PY22-23 a significant portion of its entitlement (EN) funds to programs designed to preserve the existing supply of affordable housing (goal #1), including for critical and energy-efficiency upgrades for income-qualified residents through LEAP’s Solar Panel Rehabs program ($38,526.23 in CDBG funds) and LEAP’s Assisted Home Performance ($93,478.13 in HOME funds),” the CAPER continues.
There’s a lot more in the document and the main point of this segment is to get more people to read it. The CAPER documents other recent housing investments made by the city as well as housing challenges. It notes the zoning rewrite is intended to create more opportunities to build housing but notes that there is competition between private and nonprofit developers.
“Several new affordable housing construction projects are either underway or in the planning stages but making significant progress has been challenging due to a tight real estate market in the city and in the wider region and the space constraints the city faces, along with the challenges posed by the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic,” reads page 20 of the document.
The comment period is open through August 30 and Charlottesville City Council will hold public hearings for the CAPER on August 21 and September 5. At publication, no one had yet commented.
Smith Aquatic Center to close for annual maintenance
Since opening in 2010, Smith Aquatic Center has been plagued with a plethora of issues related to indoor air quality. Just before the pandemic changed everything in March 2020, the city had announced major repairs to address concerns. The pool and gym stayed closed for 26 months before reopening in May 2022.
Now the facility will shut down between Saturday, August 19 and September 4 for annual maintenance.
“We will be draining, power washing, cleaning all play features and slides,” writes Linda Austin with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. “Then filling up the pool. Replace metered shower valves units, Clean the pool deck, preventative maintenance in our pump room, Change filter media in the filters, Change the clear comfort canisters”
Sounds like an attempt to be thorough.
Anyone with a pass for fitness equipment can use it at Carver Recreation Center or can use Crow Pool instead. The exact hours are in the press release.
This maintenance takes place at the same time when construction is underway for the renovation at Charlottesville Middle School. This paragraph is an excuse to post a picture of the work to date.
Council gets written report about Land Use Environmental and Planning Committee Committee
Every month a group of top level planning staff from the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and the University of Virginia get together with staff from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority to discuss topics that aren’t yet ready for a public audience. The gathering fulfills the Three Party Agreement, a document signed in 1986 between the city, the county and UVA.
Meetings of the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee are not open to the public but the presentations are posted soon afterward. Semi-annual reports compile these presentations and are sent to the elected officials in both Albemarle and Charlottesville. The most recent of these reports was on the August 2 consent agenda of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors. City Council had it as a written report in person at their meeting on August 7.
City Councilor Michael Payne noted that LUEPC replaced the Planning and Coordination Committee, an open door body that consisted of two City Councilor, two members of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, and top officials at UVA.
“It’s been a couple of years now since that was closed to the public and even myself as a Councillor could attend,” Payne said. “So there’s no public body which any member of our Council or the public can attend to take part in UVA’s decisions about their future land use and development.”
There was no other comment about the written report. Take a look at the four-page document here.
LUEPC also met on July 21 and had two presentations from the University of Virginia.
LUEPC saw the same presentation that had been given in June to the UVA Board of Visitors’ Buildings and Grounds Committee on the design of the Karsh Institute of Democracy. The relatively new institution will be part of the Emmet-Ivy Corridor currently under construction. I wrote about that presentation in the July 4 newsletter. (view the presentation)
LUEPC also got a presentation on planning for upgrades to the Fontaine Research Park. The near-term future will see construction of a 1,275 space, seven-level parking garage, creation of a central spine to connect different neighborhoods of the park, an academic and research building up to 350,000 gross square feet, and a future building of up to 250,000 gross square feet. The academic and research building is the Manning Institute of Biotechnology. Ray C. Hunt Drive will see a roundabout installed to help traffic maneuver around the site. (view the presentation)
Second shout-out: WTJU staging the Cville Puzzle Hunt on August 26
In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out: By now, readers and listeners know WTJU’s position on algorithms. But do you know that the radio station celebrates puzzles? In fact, on Saturday, August 26, WTJU is organizing the second annual Cville Puzzle Hunt, a huge, cerebral puzzle that will spool out across downtown Charlottesville.
The Cville Puzzle Hunt will take you and a team of friends on a wild afternoon running around trying to untangle five diabolical, large-scale puzzles inserted into the urban landscape. The opening clue will be read at 3 p.m. at the Ix Art Park. Find out more about this WTJU-organized event at cvillepuzzlehunt.com.
Charlottesville City Council learns more about future governance study
Charlottesville’s future zoning code anticipates a lot more residents living within city limits with little to no requirements from the city government about providing places to park. Albemarle County and other surrounding localities are also planning on more people.
If everyone tries to get around via car, there could be congestion. To plan for alternatives to increase non-driving mobility options throughout the region, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is currently overseeing the second of two studies.
TJPDC Planning and Transportation Director Sandy Shackelford briefed the Charlottesville City Council on the completed Regional Transit Vision as well as the ongoing Governance Study at their meeting on August 7.
“The transit vision plan established a unified long-term vision of transit service throughout the region,” Shackelford said. “This governance study was initiated to support the achievement of the regional transit priorities identified in the vision plan by identifying governance options for regional transit and increasing transportation investments.”
The firm AECOM is one of the subcontractors working on both studies. The governance study is now in its third phase which is intended to find additional sources of revenue.
Here’s a link to a six-page overview that was in City Council’s packet.
Some articles to catch-up as much of what Council heard has already been said before at previous meetings I’ve covered.
Regional Transit Vision Plan nearing completion, November 2, 2022
Governance Study: A primer on Regional Transit Systems, December 15, 2022
Two out of five phases completed for transit governance study, April 5, 2023
More planning in the works for Charlottesville Area Transit, July 9, 2023
Charlottesville selects New York firm to operate Albemarle’s microtransit program, July 31, 2023
But let’s also hear from Stephanie Amoaning-Yankson with AECOM.
“Really when we talk about a transit authority, what we are looking for is, one, to be able to find some options for dedicated transit revenue and two, get options on creating an entity,” Amoaning-Yankson said. “This could be an authority that can govern and manage that funding source.”
Amoaning-Yankson said the end of the third phase will come up with a list of revenue sources, but this was not yet available at the time of Council’s briefing. A fourth phase will look at governance structures and a final report is due by December.
Currently Charlottesville City Council governs Charlottesville Area Transit as the final decision maker on what the agency does. There is a defunct advisory body that has been removed from the list of city boards and commissions.
There’s also Jaunt which is overseen by a board of directors appointed by the localities that fund the transit agency. The University of Virginia runs the University Transit Service, which covers a very small geographic scope around Grounds.
One half of a previous to establish a Regional Transit Authority passed the General Assembly when the basic permission to create one was granted in 2008/2009. However, legislation to hold a referendum on a one-percent sales tax increase failed to get out of committee.
“With the lack of funding, there’s really little that can be done in terms of pushing forward the transit objectives that we have for the region,” Amoaning-Yankson said.
Other structures include a unified system where one major funder covers much of the costs. That’s the case with Blacksburg Transit which is paid for Virginia Tech. Bloomington, Indiana has a public service corporation set up like Jaunt to provide service.
“However, in Bloomington, it’s funded by property and income tax,” Amoaning-Yankson said. “That’s how they fund their services.”
Amoaning-Yankson said she and the other consultants understand that the Charlottesville region is diverse with different constituencies. Future service could depend on who wants to pay.
“We know that Charlottesville’s priorities might be slightly different from say Albemarle’s priorities or from Louisa County’s priorities,” Amoaning-Yankson said. “So through this discussion, this is where we can define who wants to participate, who is interested, and what would that look like in having that sort of entity.”
One caveat is that many of the potential revenue sources may need legislative changes in Richmond to be able to devote them to transit. Legislatures under Republican or split-control tend to not allow new taxation for new programs. A recent example is the attempts to allow localities to raise their sales tax for school construction costs. (House Subcommittee kills school sales-tax bills, February 25, 2023)
Another source of funding could be dedicating lodging or meals taxes, but Amoaning-Yankson said these revenue streams may be already being used to fund other government services.
The governance study is not complete and one purpose of the briefing was to get information from Councilors. An initial reaction was that legislative approval from Richmond for any funding would be difficult if not impossible.
“If we have to get authority from the General Assembly, we’ve found that that has been an obstacle,” said Vice Mayor Juandiego Wade. “I think that anything we have to go outside to get authority for, we can put that in a category of…”
“Not now, certainly,” responded Mayor Lloyd Snook.
“Highly unlikely at this point in time,” responded Councilor Leah Puryear.
Shackelford said the planning team is aware of the political dynamics not only in Richmond but among the six member localities of the TJPDC.
“And we want to make sure that we are being thoughtful of how and when to proceed with any of these next steps so this is not necessarily something that we anticipate is going to move forward quickly but we want to make sure we are moving it forward,” Shackelford said.
Councilor Lloyd Snook said he would not support increasing the real property tax rate and dedicating a portion to increased transit.
City Councilor Michael Payne said he would support any funding increase from city sources to increase transit. He also said he wants the TJPDC and elected officials to be ready to move forward with expanded bus service.
“I’m a hundred percent on board and I think the city needs to be going all in to figure out how we get to a regional transit authority and work with Albemarle and whatever partners are willing to join us and think what we can do now because I think in a few years we probably can win some sort of funding mechanism,” Payne said.
City Councilor Brian Pinkston noted that there was one potential revenue source missing from the presentation.
“One thing that was not included that I could see was any kind of contribution from the University,” Pinkston said. “The University would need to be one funding stream that would need to be layered into this.”
Amoaning-Yankson said additional direct funding from the University of Virginia has not been part of the conversation. For many years, UVA has provided funding into the system for the free trolley-style bus as well as as to allow faculty, staff, and students to use their ID to catch a ride.
“We’ve talked about Charlottesville potentially doing more on the University property and the University Grounds and we looked at contributions from the University,” Amoaning-Yankson said. “Right now it’s at about we believe is $350,000 per year and about $250,000 for Jaunt.”
Snook said other urbanizing areas of the community could be considered at the table.
“Let’s say Louisa County and Fluvanna County for whom the Zion Crossroads area is the easiest link to Charlottesville but take Louisa an example, I expect people who live in the eastern part of the county, say in Mineral, may be more interested in getting to Richmond than to Charlottesville.”
Puryear said she felt it was important for CAT and Jaunt to work together to move people around the whole region. Or at least, to not break what is already working or by relying too heavily on new taxes.
“One of the things that I’m hearing that you’re going back and talk to tall of the other regional municipalities because there are a lot of people that rely on Jaunt in Charlottesville and Albemarle, but in outlying counties,” Puryear said. “Whatever we do, we don’t want to make it cost-prohibitive for people who rely on that service.”
Puryear said she had heard about the Afton Express and wanted to learn more about how that service worked. The University of Virginia has also contributed financially to that commuter service which travels between Staunton and Charlottesville.
City Manager Sam Sanders wrapped up the discussion by stating that CAT is learning more about what Albemarle’s needs are by working with them directly on the microtransit pilot. He said he appreciated Council’s willingness to be ready to proceed with something that may be short of the full Regional Transit Vision that came about during the first study.
“There will be trade-offs,” Sanders said. “It will require regionalism at its best I would imagine to pull this off.”
For those very interested in this topic, the Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership meets next Thursday at 4 p.m.
Reading material:
Albemarle cuts school bus service for 1,000 students, Faith Redd, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), August 15, 2023
'100% affordable' Cherry Avenue development in Charlottesville wins outpouring of support, Jason Armesto, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), August 15, 2023
Amid rise in gun violence, Charlottesville-area police join nationwide initiative, Luke Fountain, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), August 16, 2023
Couple believes in proactive farming, Page H. Gifford, Fluvanna Review, August 17, 2023
Concluding words for #567:
And now it’s time to finish another edition which almost came out yesterday but I’m still getting back in the swing of things. I believe I made a comment on this on my Substack Notes which I suspect about one percent of you have ever looked at. I hope you will take a look if you haven’t already, because that’s how I give updates about what’s happening.
What is happening on a more broad level is that there are many of you paying for me to keep going with more of these newsletters and podcasts. I’m really appreciative of every single one of you, even though who aren’t paying. The point is to grow the number of people who know about CAPERS and studies and other elements for how things happen in this community.
Ting helps keep this community going to, with its sponsorship of things like Scott Stadium and the John Paul Jones Arena and many more items. They also sponsor this newsletter by matching the initial subscription of every new paid subscriber.
And perhaps you a UVA student looking for fast Internet service? If you sign up for Ting at this link and enter the promo code COMMUNITY, you’ll get:
Free installation
A second month for free
A $75 gift card to the Downtown Mall
August 17, 2023: Charlottesville Area Transit's governing body weighs in on transit governance study