New owner of Red Cross building and 56 other Charlottesville property transactions from April 2025

Another anecdotal look at real estate for paid subscribers

What happens when a Virginia locality changes their rules for zoning and then a technical error in lawsuit upends the changes 18 months later?

We don’t know yet. We do know that as of publication, the city still says it is operating under the 2023 zoning code and not the one adopted in 2003. Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Claude Worrell has not yet issued a written order. There’s no real certainty yet but the city has also asked the judge to reconsider.

I certainly can say I am behind in writing out real estate transactions. I’ve done this for paid subscribers first since the beginning of the newsletter and for many of those years I would post them for everyone a week later. I’ve made a decision to keep these behind the paywall to encourage more paid subscriptions.

I’m taking a break from the regular newsletter because I’m helping look after my parents. I do this work manually with no assistance from an algorithm. This work is basic research for me and I share it with paid subscribers. I don’t draw any conclusions and do not seek to list trends. Perhaps I’ll get better skills in the future, but my job is not to tell you what to think. It’s to put information in front of you.

For now, I will list the new zoning districts even though the city’s Neighborhood Development Services is prohibited from processing any of the rules due to Judge Worrell’s verbal order from the bench on June 30. Five permits have been filed since July 11.

I will also continue to put the difference between the sales price and the most recent assessment. Charlottesville is currently able to spend more money due to a sharp increase in property values since 2020.

And now, the paywall. I will be back to normal next week and am going to try to write a newsletter for tomorrow. I don’t like taking time off, so I don’t.