May 13, 2024: CAAR report finds median sales price for homes increased 28 percent in Charlottesville in first quarter
Plus: The first of two parts on how Charlottesville officials are seeking to restore public trust in transportation planning
When is the optimal time for an edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement to go out into the ether? One simple answer is when it is complete, and hopefully that’s by 6 p.m. each day. That’s the case for this May 13, 2024 edition which understandably may not be read by many people until the next day, but then again, Town Crier Productions is an experiment in community journalism whose norms and rules are written one edition at a time. I’m Sean Tubbs, and thank goodness for spreadsheets.
In today’s installment:
The community’s main association of real estate agents releases a quarterly report that shows the median prices for homes continues to increase in Albemarle and Charlottesville
Albemarle County has lost another economic development director and they find an interim replacement in-house
The Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce is scheduled to dedicate a new memorial in McIntire Park tomorrow
Charlottesville has begun the process of fixing a broken system for building transportation projects
First-shout: RCA holding the Rivanna RiverFest this Saturday
In today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out: The Rivanna Conservation Alliance exists to draw attention and awareness to the main waterway that flows through Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Fluvanna. This Saturday from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., the RCA will host the Rivanna RiverFest at the Rivanna River Company off of East High Street.
There will be family-friendly activities, fun on the river, talks, demonstrations, and more between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. A free concert by We Are Star Children begins at 6 p.m. Food and drink will be available for the whole event.
Parking at the site is limited but there are spaces in the lower parking lot at Burnley-Moran Elementary School. If you walk or bike to the Rivanna River Fest you’ll get a free sticker!
For all of the details, visit the RCA’s website at rivannariver.org.
CAAR report: Sales up only slightly in region while median prices continue to increase
The cost to buy a house in Albemarle and Charlottesville continues to increase with a 28 percent increase in the city between the first three months of 2023 and this year’s first quarter.
That’s according to the latest report from the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors, which covers the city of Charlottesville as well as the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson.
“The sharpest drop in sales in the region this quarter was in Albemarle County, and the largest increase was in Louisa County,” reads the housing market overview on page eight of the report.
There were 694 homes sold in the first three months of 2024. That’s up six from the first quarter of 2023, or around one percent. Compare that to a recent high of 1,065 homes sold in the first quarter of 2021.
The median sales price for all homes in the region jumped to $435,000, an eight percent increase over the same period in 2023. In the first quarter of 2020, the median sales price was $302,000.
Each locality’s median sales price changed at different rates. In Charlottesville, the median sales price jumped 28 percent from $377,500 in the first quarter of 2023 to $482,000 for January through March. Albemarle’s median sales price jumped from $458,798 to $526,900 in a year, or fifteen percent.
Only Greene County saw a decline in the median sales price in the period from $389,900 in the first quarter of 2023 to $365,000 in the first quarter of 2024. That’s a six percent decrease. Fluvanna remained flat at one percent growth while Nelson County saw growth in value from $325,000 to $385,000.
The median sales price for new construction jumped 20 percent to $497,615. That figure is up from $381,546 in the first quarter of 2020.
At the end of the first quarter, there were 672 active listings on the market. That figure is four percent below what it had been in the first three months of 2023.
The level of construction activity is about the same as the previous year.
“So far in 2024, January through March, there have been 306 permits issued for new residential construction, just three more than this time last year, reflecting a modest one percent increase,” reads page 5 of the report.
Most of those are for single family homes with permitting for multi-family units down in the period.
“There have only been 61 permits issued so far this year for multi-unit construction, less than half the level seen a year ago,” the report continues.
The report notes that interest rates to borrow money to buy a house have been increasing with the average for a 30-year fixed mortgage at 7.1 percent in the third week of April. That’s slightly up from the beginning of the year.
“Volatile rate conditions are likely to continue, which could deter some buyers from entering the typically busy spring market,” reads page 6 of the report.
Albemarle’s communications director to serve as interim economic development director
Albemarle’s third economic development director began work last December but did not make it to the six month mark.
Effective today, Emily Kilroy will be serving in the position on an interim basis following the departure of Barry Albrecht who resigned for personal reasons. Before his brief stint in Albemarle, Albrecht had been CEO of the Central Arizona Economic Development Foundation.
Kilroy has been Assistant to County Executive Jeffrey Richardson, a position that also included being director of Albemarle’s Office of Community and Public Engagement. That’s a position that oversees communications.
Now Abbey Stumpf will be the interim director of an office with the acronym CAPE.
Albrecht was appointed following the resignation of Roger Johnson, who was hired soon after the departure of Faith McClintic in October 2016. McClintic was the first person to hold the title of economic development director after Supervisors agreed to elevate a position that for many years had been called Business Development Facilitator.
Chamber to dedicate the Grove at McIntire Park tomorrow morning
For years, Charlottesville’s McIntire Park has been home to the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial, a site that was recently rededicated for the 58th time in an annual event.
Tomorrow morning, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce will formally dedicate a new memorial to business and other leaders from the past 49 years.
“The Grove is a stone terrace and monument inscribed with names of recipients of the Chamber's annual business leadership award, first established in 1975,” reads a press release sent out by the Chamber. “The monument honors past, present, and future leaders, who have been recognized by the Chamber for their outstanding contributions to our Greater Charlottesville communities.”
The Grove is on the eastern side of McIntire Park underneath a stand of oak trees believed to be at least 150 years old.
Charlottesville Mayor Juandiego Wade won the award in 2019 and will make brief remarks. The first winner in 1975 was Mitchell Van Yahres. Visit the Chamber’s website for a full list of winners.
There’s a chance the dedication will be postponed until May 30 due to inclement weather.
Second shout-out: Live music at WTJU
In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out: WTJU provides great music for the community every hour of the week, including live performance broadcasts by area artists. Get your calendar ready to mark down some of those times!
Every Friday night, WTJU hosts a live music series called "Offbeat Roadhouse," featuring mostly acoustic artists -- folk, blues, jazz, americana, and beyond. This Friday at 8 p.m. features an encore performance from Greg Howard recorded back in 2022. Coming on May 24, Please Don’t Tell followed by Justin Trawick and The Common Good on May 31.
And every third Saturday, WTJU hosts "Third Rail," a live music series that pushes genre boundaries. On May 18, the event will be held at Visible Records at 1740 Broadway Street and the artist is Outer World, a retro-future band,
Visit wtju.net for more information and find something new to listen to.
Charlottesville transportation planners seeking to rebuild public trust
(first of a two part story)
Since 2006, staff in Charlottesville’s government have managed projects that otherwise would have been administered by the Virginia Department of Transportation. At the time, Gary O’Connell was the city manager.
In 2024, Sam Sanders runs the city’s bureaucracy after a series of other people served in the role. On May 6, 2024 he and other officials gave the City Council an update on efforts to actually build transportation projects.
“We have discovered a number of things that none of are satisfied with but recognizing that there is a number of things that have contributed to it, and the goal at this moment is not to spend a great amount of time talking about that as much as it is laying out how we get away from that, how do we get past that,” Sanders said.
Over the years, Charlottesville applied for funding through VDOT and was awarded millions through the Smart Scale process. Not a single one has gone to construction and two have already been canceled after Sanders took over as deputy city manager in the summer of 2021.
As of May 6, the city was responsible for managing 29 projects with a total cost estimate of $157 million. Steven Hicks is the city’s public works director.
“Some are getting ready to go to construction and some haven’t even gotten started,” Hicks said.
Hicks said there’s a new project management team that is partially in place that includes three project managers and a person to handle right of way negotiations. Brennan Duncan remains the city’s traffic engineer. They all report to a senior transportation project manager position that’s currently vacant. All report to Hicks through a deputy public works director.
Hicks said getting transportation projects from concept to construction to completion takes collaboration and coordination across multiple partners. That has not been in place and VDOT had already put Charlottesville by Sean Nelson, the district engineer for the agency’s Culpeper District.
“It was elevated at the Central Office level that we’re deficient and that we were not delivering projects on time, period,” Hicks said. “And not only that, some of the projects were going back to 2011, 2016, 2017 and even the ones in the 2016 and 2017 phase are still not delivered.”
Sanders has been meeting quarterly with Nelson to try to figure out how to correct the city’s deficiency. Hicks said a major reason is that the city did not have a team approach to getting the infrastructure built.
“We didn’t have the relationship with the Virginia Department of Transportation and if you don’t have a good relationship with the agency that is very resourceful and the one funding the project, you can eventually get to the point where we started pointing fingers and that is not healthy for delivering projects and at the end of the day, the citizens were the ones who ultimately were hurt.”
Hicks said the city did not have a vision for how projects should move forward. He said VDOT lost credibility in the city’s ability to do any of the work and have since created something called a Projects Development Improvement Plan.
“In other words, that’s a fancy word for correction plan,” Hicks said. “They wanted some ink on paper that demonstrated that we’re serious in what we’re going to do and what’s the plan and how we’re going to do it and how it’s going to be sustainable.”
This plan was finalized in January and puts in performance measures that will demonstrate to VDOT that projects are moving forward and milestones are being met for preliminary engineering, right of way acquisition, and advertising projects for construction bids.
Charlottesville is the first locality in the Commonwealth that has been put on such a plan and four months later, Hicks said the city is making progress but some projects are simply not going to be delivered on time.
“We’re hoping through results,” Hicks said, “It’s no hope. We will be restoring public trust. It’s so critical that we have credibility with the public.”
The city will soon launch a dashboard with up to date information on all of the various projects.
The City of Charlottesville has not applied for Smart Scale projects in either the 2022 cycle or the current one due to the lingering issues.
“We’re admitting that we have a lot of work to do and it requires some systems changes,” Sanders said. “That’s really what this is about.”
In part two, a look at the current state of projects.
Reading material:
Charlottesville and Albemarle peacekeepers recognized, Jacob Phillips, 29NBC, May 11, 2024
In 7th District primary, Republicans debate party's future, Michael Martz, Richmond Times-Dispatch (via Charlottesville Daily Progress) (paywall), May 13, 2024
2 Virginia Universities Won’t Require DEI Classes After Governor’s Review, Board Pushback, Inside Higher-Ed, Ryan Quinn, May 13, 2024
5 things to know about Virginia’s newly revealed budget deal, Graham Moomaw, Virginia Mercury, May 13, 2024
Budget Stuff, A Grand Opening, and Trotting with Tigers, Nancy Gill, The James Exchange, May 13, 2024
Requiem for #677
Maybe requiem is a strong word. This ending section is intended to give a sense that this work is indeed the work of one person who so far lacks a staff and so far lacks a complete routine. Yet, behind the scenes there’s a lot of work going to build a system that easily tells me what I need to work on next.
My goal is to eventually have something posted every single day. That already happens on Information Charlottesville, a website that archives mostly everything that comes through this newsletter. This is the work I’ve wanted to do my whole life, and rather than wait for the right job for me, I thought I’d launch my own.
It has been four years now since I launched a Patreon account to test the waters. In July, this newsletter will celebrate its fourth anniversary. I’m able to do this because there are over 620 people currently paying through Substack!
And if you join those paid subscribers, Ting will match your initial subscription. That can be at the $5 a month level, the $50 a year level, or the $200 a year level. If you have any questions, drop me a line.
Ting can help you with your high speed Internet needs. If service is available in your area and you sign up for service, enter the promo code COMMUNITY and you will get:
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