Every now and then, there shall be a Sunday edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement due to various logistics and rerouted circuits. There is a great deal to process to get through the various steps required to deliver this distilled information to you and for some reason it was necessary to break the format. I’m Sean Tubbs, candidly admitting that perhaps I just forgot what day it was.
On today’s edition:
The Charlottesville Planning Commission is waiting on legal advice before making a recommendation on the city’s proposed Development Code
There’s a vacancy on the Greene County Board of Supervisors which means there will be three new faces on the elected body in January
There’s money for affordable housing projects in Charlottesville
A snapshot of the plan to build a new reservoir to allow more growth in Greene County
First-shout out: Rivanna Conservation Alliance has successful round-up
In today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out: This year, the Rivanna Conservation Alliance had a large number of community volunteers take part in the Rivanna River Round-Up. On September 16, 270 people joined in to help clean up over 28 miles of river and trail. They collected over 202 bags of trash. Take a look at the photo gallery on their website and while you’re there:
All of that is accessible at rivannariver.org!
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No development code recommendations yet from Charlottesville Planning Commission
Top elected and appointed officials in Charlottesville continue to to spend time reviewing proposed new rules for building new structures that will allow significantly more residential density throughout the city as well as more commercial uses in residential neighborhoods.
Both the City Council and the Planning Commission continued their review of the Developer Code this past week with Commissioners taking some time on October 4. Chair Hosea Mitchell said at the beginning of the meeting that they would not be taking any action.
“We will not be in the position to make a recommendation today,” Mitchell said. “We are waiting for more feedback from all the legal entities regarding the anti-displacement language.”
Mitchell said he hoped that language would be ready before the Commission’s meeting on October 10 for their review. He said Neighborhood Development Services Director James Freas will circulate revisions for the Commission to review.
What might be in that language? Some clues may be in the set of deliberations that the Planning Commission had on September 19, 2023. You can read my story as I don’t think the minutes are available yet.
In addition, Council held a second discussion this past Tuesday which I hope to have a summary of in an upcoming edition of the newsletter.
I’ll have more details of the October 10 meeting of the Planning Commission in the next Week Ahead. There are two public hearings on that agenda for projects seeking development permission under the existing zoning code.
Greene County Supervisor resigns; No candidates on ballot in Monroe District
There’s a sudden vacancy on the Greene County’s Board of Supervisors. On Friday, the county issued a press release.
“Supervisor Abbey Heflin has regretfully resigned from the Greene County Board of Supervisors for the Stanardsville District,” reads the announcement.
No further reason was given for her resignation but the press release does offer a quote from correspondence with her colleagues. She did not appear at the September 26 meeting of the Board.
“It has been a great pleasure to serve the citizens of our lovely county, and an honor to serve with you,” Heflin said.
How to fill the vacancy will be one of the topics on the Board of Supervisors’ meeting on October 10. Heflin was not up for election this year.
Heflin was elected in November 2021 in a close race with fellow independent Tina Deane. She won 963 out of 1,902 votes, or 50.6 percent of the vote that year.
There are three seats on the ballot this year.
At-Large Supervisor Dale Herring opted to not seek another term. Independents Todd Michael Sansom and Frances Xavier McGuigan are on the ballot to replace him.
Incumbent Davis Lamb is the lone candidate for the Ruckersville District.
Monroe District Supervisor Steve Bowman opted not to run for another term, but no one qualified to be on the ballot.
The MadRapp Recorder reported in August that a woman seeking to quality failed to provide enough signatures. The article goes on to report that Denise Shifflett was charged with a felony statement for providing false information in connection with her attempt. .
The Greene Journal reported on August 22 that Shifflett issued an Alford Plea in connection with the case. More details in there. Shifflett has not filed any campaign finance reports with the Department of Elections, nor does there appear to be an organized write-in campaign.
Charlottesville opens up funding window for affordable housing support
The Affordable Housing Plan adopted by the Charlottesville City Council in March 2021 called for additional funding as well as increased transparency for how that money is to be used.
With that in mind, the latest NOFO for HOPS has been published.
That’s a Notice of Funding Opportunity for Housing Operations & Support.
“HOPS funding is available to help community agencies in Charlottesville that work on affordable housing and homelessness support,” reads a press release on the matter. “This program is primarily funded by the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund and administered by the City's Office of Community Solutions.”
There’s $575,000 available in this round of funding with the money available to grantees on July 1, 2024. The links in the press release are broken at publication time.
There’s also a NOFA that gives us a Notice of Funding Availability for other housing funding opportunities:
Applications for the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund will be open from October 12 through November 16. There’s $835,000 available in this year’s cycle and “funds will be used to directly support affordable housing projects or initiatives.”
Applications for Community Development Block Grant and HOME will be taken from January 8 through February 8. This is funding that comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
There is an “to be determined” amount of funds available for “Housing Development Partnerships” for projects that require “significant investment consideration by the City.”
Further details on the city’s website.
Second shout-out: Interpreting Monticello through the Archaeological Record
In today’s second subscriber-supported shout-out: On October 11 at 6 p.m. the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society will host speakers who will give an introduction to the world of archaeological research at Monticello.
The talk at the Center at Belvedere will provide an overview of work conducted near Thomas Jefferson’s house as well as off the mountaintop and explain how the artifacts recovered from these excavations provide scholars with critical pieces of information about the people who occupied this landscape before and during Thomas Jefferson’s lifetime. Artifacts from various Monticello sites will be made available for attendees to see and discuss after the talk.
Visit the Center at Belvedere’s website for more information or sign up for the event on Facebook. This presentation will be live-streamed and collected for future viewings.
Greene County has less than five years until expires to build new reservoir
Greene County is working to expand their water supply by impounding the waterway called White Run to create a new reservoir. The idea has been in the planning stages for sometime and throughout the tenure of several County Administrators.
On September 26, relatively new Administrator Cathy Schafrik had her turn to give a briefing to the four Supervisors present.
“The idea of this is to a series, a continuing series, of what we’re planning to do with these water projects,” Schafrik said. “The main thrust of today’s presentation is going to be on the White Run water project which is in progress.”
Schafrik said another project that is needed in the near future is a replacement of the Stanardsville water line as the existing infrastructure is around 70 years old. That’s not part of the rest of this discussion.
The Rapidan Service Authority was created 54 years ago to help create a municipal water supply for Greene County. It has now been 21 years since the last major drought in the area, a drought that prompted renewed interest in providing more storage capacity. A new water supply plan was crafted in 2008.
“Back in 2011 when the White Run property was purchased after many, many options, that shows you that this goes back more than 20 years,” Schafrik said.
In 2017, a previous Board of Supervisors voted to proceed with the capital projects necessary to get the work going. Two years later, engineering for the new dam was completed. However, the Rapidan Service Authority refused to proceed and Greene County left that organization to go it alone.
“And right now where we are in 2023 is the entrance road for the Division 1… is already started,” Schafrik said.
On September 26, Greene County was in drought conditions. The existing water supply depends on taking water straight from the Rapidan River with no storage.
“We’re at the mercy of the water flow,” Schafrik said.
Herb White with the firm W W Associates said this is the longest infrastructure project he’s been part of with over 20 years of involvement. The project has now moved into the implementation phase after all of that planning.
“What we’ve done to it is to break it up into five divisions of work,” White said.
That first division is construction of the access road to the site and is expected to be completed early next year.
“The second division is the raw water line,” White said. “The old water plant will be converted to a pump station that we can pump water out of the river during wet periods and we need a raw water line to the reservoir so we can fill it up, so this is the fill line.”
Permits and approvals are in place but some easements still need to be obtained.
The third division of work is to create a new intake to replace the cables and pipes that currently perform this task. This project is ready to go to bid.
The fourth division is the reservoir itself which has a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That expires in June of 2028.
“That project has been designed as well,” White said. “It’s ready for bidding with the exception that we need two pieces of property.”
The final piece of work is a new water treatment plant capable of producing 3 million gallons a day.
“Your current plant is 1.1 [mgd] and the purpose of that larger capacity is growth project over the next 30 years,” White said. “The plant is approximately 50 years old and needs replacement even without additional growth in the county. We estimate the cost if it were to be replaced would be at roughly to $50 million to $70 million range with the possible exception that we don’t have the real estate to build it at that particular location.”
How to pay for all of this? Right now the county has taken on about $14 million in debt to cover the cost of engineering and the roadway. That amount will be rolled into a longer-term debt package to cover the rest of the project.
“The need now is an estimated construction of $75 million to $100 million,” said Courtney Rogers, senior vice president of Davenport & Company. “One of the things we may end up doing is actually breaking that up. We may end up doing a portion now and a portion later because of the bidding agreement.”
Davenport said one issue is that the federal government is no longer helping to subsidize the cost to construct new infrastructure through low-interest loans. That means Greene County will have to finance the project itself over thirty years or more at today’s interest rates.
“We’re looking at debt service that could be in the $6 million to $8 million range per year,” Rogers said. “And as you all know as we look at finances in the county, water and sewer rates for customers are probably not going to be able to carry the full cost of that debt service.”
(paragraph updated October 9 with correction)
Alan Harrison is the director of Albemarle Greene County’s Water and Sewer Department, a brand new agency created to take on the functions of the Rapidan Service Authority. He said the access road will be complete in the spring of 2024 and the water line will take about 18 months of construction once a bid is awarded.
“If we were able to advertise it early next year, we anticipate completing that in late 2025,” Harrison said. “The raw water intake and pump station, we are hoping we can bid that before the end of this calendar year and that would be finished up late 2025 with a 24-month construction period.”
Harrison said the reservoir itself could take three years to build and another year to fill. The current goal is to put that project to bid in mid-2024.
Outgoing Supervisor Dale Herring said the project has been in the works for years.
“I thought we would start breaking ground probably in like 2019 and there was a delay which we all went through in the last four years and we got that process resolved and now it’s under our control,” Herring said. “At this point there’s no reason for us to hold this project up and if we do, to be quite honest with you, we have no one to blame but ourselves.”
Davis Lamb is running unopposed this year and he said he supports the project.
The next briefing will be held in January 2024 when a new Board of Supervisors is in place. At that point there will be at least three new Supervisors.
Reading material:
Visitor spending reached $86 million in Nelson County in 2022, Justin Faulconer, Nelson County Times (paywall), October 4, 2023
Nelson supervisors OK resolutions for Gladstone, Lovingston projects, Rodney Robinson, Lynchburg News & Advance (paywall), October 4, 2023
Crisis management or extortion? Podcaster Jerry Miller promised to take the heat off Sigora for $30K, Jason Armesto, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), October 5, 2023
Closing up #587
A Sunday edition? In a perfect world, there would be one every day. Until then, I highly recommend you bookmark my Substacks Notes page for updates on where I am at any particular time.
I made the choice today to do this version as opposed to the Week Ahead because I wanted to get through a few of these items before getting on to the next ones. I hope to get the weekly summary out tomorrow morning!
I’m able to do all of this because of paid subscriptions through Substack as well as Patreon contributions. Patreon supporters cover a lot of other things such as the work on the experimental Fifth District Community Engagement.
What’s the point? Well, it’s my conviction that a democracy requires detailed descriptions on what people elected to positions are doing. That seems to have fallen out of fashion, but I’ve always been driven by an insatiable need to know what’s going on.
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