We’ve now arrived at October 16, 2023, the 289th day of the year. We’re nearly 80 percent of the way through this year and it’s almost time to begin another one. For those with birthdays today, you’re perhaps on the next stage already. I’m Sean Tubbs and I know that this is the 590th edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement.
And if you’re interested in a little time travel, why not go back and read or listen to the 289th edition from December 7, 2021? Thanks to all of those who are supporting this work and my efforts to eventually get to edition 1180.
Within this edition:
A review of several items from Albemarle County’s Facilities and Environmental Services Department including an update on the Square project in Crozet
Charlottesville City Council gets a briefing on the Housing Advisory Committee’s desire to restore an overlay district in the new Development Code for what had been called “Sensitive Communities”
First shout-out: Doggie Howl-O-Ween
In today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out: Are you and your canine companions ready for a little goofy fun? Coming up on October 27 is Doggie Howl-Oween on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall sponsored by downtown businesses and Friends of Downtown Charlottesville.
Bring your pet in costume for trick or treating at 5 p.m. followed by the parade and costume contest at 6:30 p.m. You can register for the contest and find out more information either on Facebook or at Pawprints Boutique in Central Place on the Downtown Mall. A $15 donation to the CAT Action Team is suggested.
Albemarle report provides updates on Courts Complex, Crozet Plaza, and more
A statistical analysis of this newsletter would likely reveal that Charlottesville is the locality that is most covered. This is not intentional, and this segment seeks to provide for more data for future hypotheses.
Every quarter, Albemarle County gives an update on the status of infrastructure projects in a report from the Facilities and Environmental Services Department. The report included in this Wednesday’s Board of Supervisors’ packet has new information on the courts complex and more. (view the report)
According to the report, demolition of an annex building for the Levy Opera House began over the summer to make way for the new joint General District Court for both Albemarle and Charlottesville.
“Select interior demolition of the historic Levy Opera House has also been completed and renovation work to upgrade this facility to house the County’s Commonwealth Attorney’s office is underway,” reads the first page of the report.
The courts project has been split into two phases with completion of the first expected in early 2025. The second phase will include renovations to the existing historic courthouse and design and drawings for that should be completed in December of this year. You can stay up to date on the project at a dedicated website.
This video may also be of use:
There’s an update on plans to build new infrastructure in Downtown Crozet to support redevelopment of the privately owned space once known as the Barnes Lumberyard. The Downtown Crozet Initiative is a public-private partnership seeking to build a plaza.
A transportation improvement project will extend Library Avenue by 0.4 miles through the property to connect with High Street and then Hill Street in Parkside Village. The fully funded project is in the right of way acquisition phase according to the Virginia Department of Transportation’s six-year improvement program.
In September, county staff held a meeting to provide information on upcoming construction work expected to get underway next spring.
“During a two-hour long question and answer session County Staff and the County’s Engineering Consultant discussed all aspects of The Square project and possible construction impacts,” reads page 6 of the report.
Albemarle County has also begun vegetation maintenance on some county streets that would otherwise be handled by VDOT.
“Some of the affected areas included: Avon Street, Commonwealth Drive, Crozet Avenue, Garth Road, Pantops area, Rio Road, Stoney Point Road and John W Warner Parkway,” reads page 8 of the report. “We will be adding some of the areas to our regular contracted vegetation management routes – improving tidiness, enhancing driver and pedestrian safety, and keeping stormwater drains flowing.”
The FES report also has news of Sweeping Beauty, the county’s first streetsweeper. Over 1,200 participated in a naming contest for the vehicle which is active from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Monday through Friday at a cruising speed of between 3 mph and 7 mph.
“During the first three weeks of use, Sweeping Beauty scrubbed over 115 lane miles of roadway and removed over 24 tons of dirt, trash, and other pollutants from the road,” the report continues.
The report also has things I’ve already reported on:
Albemarle County awards first set of climate protection grants, August 5, 2023
Albemarle and Charlottesville launch new effort on joint climate action work, September 19, 2023
There are also status reports of several projects totaling $70,152,755 beginning on page 11. Here are some highlights:
An upgrade of the voter registration at the county’s office building on 5th Street Extended is complete at a project cost of $93,300.
A project to build a trailhead park on 5th Street Extended is currently on hold.
Design of new grass athletic fields at Biscuit Run Park has begun. In all there would be two fields with the opportunity to expand for a total of 5.
A project to build a vehicular entrance and parking at Biscuit Run Park is listed as being 50 percent complete. The anticipated completion date is now September 20, 2024 and the project is expected to go to bid this month.
Construction of the $3.1 million public safety operations logistics center at Fashion Square Mall is 55 percent complete. The county is renting a portion of the former J.C. Penney and the work is expected to be complete by October 31.
Second shout-out: eBike Lending Library
In today’s second subscriber supported shout-out, one Patreon supporters wants you to know that Charlottesville now has an eBike Lending Library! E-bikes are a great way to get around community but there are many brands and styles to choose from. Because many e-bikes are sold online, it can be a challenge to try an e-bike before buying one.
The Charlottesville E-bike Lending Library is a free, not-for-profit service working to expand access to e-bikes in the area. They have a small collection of e-bikes that we lend out to community members for up to a week, for free. You can experience your daily commute, go grocery shopping, or even bike your kids to school, and decide whether e-bikes are right for you. Check out this service at https://www.ebikelibrarycville.org.
Charlottesville City Council pitched on restoration of “anti-displacement zones”
We are closer than ever before to the adoption of a new Development Code for the City of Charlottesville which will result in fewer steps that property owners will have to take to build on their land. The new zoning will also enable more building space on every single lot within city limits. But should some land receive fewer development rights to discourage speculative development?
On October 3, the Charlottesville City Council held their second work session on the proposed Development Code. Mayor Lloyd Snook said he wanted to provide another opportunity to go through questions he and other City Councilors have about the process. (view the work session)
“The first question I had posed to the City Tax Assessor was will taxes go up based on the potentially more intense use of the land in [Residential-A], [Residential-B], and [Residential-C] lots?”
Snook’s question was prompted by activity on the social media site NextDoor where some claimed that property taxes would triple due to the potential of having three residential units.
“As I understand it, this is not a simple yes or no answers but has a lot of ‘it depends’ on whether neighbors are selling for three times as much, not whether neighbors might sell for three times as much,” Snook said. “As I understand, the answer is as it has always been that it depends on what comparables are doing.”
“Comparable” is a real estate term used in the assessment process. City Assessor Jeffrey Davis has a letter dated September 18, 2023 that Snook read from. (view the letter)
“I think it is logical to assume that by increasing the density, property values may rise over time but there is no basis for an immediate increase in assessments,” Snook said.
Another claim by opponents of the Development Code is that the city’s Comprehensive Plan is invalid because the Virginia Department of Transportation did not adequately review the document.
“I think we can put this one to rest pretty quickly,” said City Attorney Jacob Stroman. “The allegation of illegality relates not to the adoption of this zoning ordinance which is before Council at this time but relates to an allegation that is past us which relates to the amendment of the Comprehensive Plan. The statute that is at issue here has no bearing on Council’s consideration of the zoning ordinance and any allegation of illegality is ill-founded.”
In August 2022, Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Claude Worrell threw out all but one count of a lawsuit as I reported at the time.
The main topic of conversation at the October 3, 2023 Council meeting was displacement and what might be done to stop it.
Since then, readers of Charlottesville Community Engagement know that the Planning Commission will consider this Wednesday two overlay districts intended to provide tools to stop the purchase of land in historically Black neighborhoods where families with lower household income and wealth.
Council first heard from Antoine Williams, the city’s housing manager. He will be responsible for ensuring compliance with the new rules for affordability. He defined “anti displacement” for Council.
“Anti-displacement… is generally referred to as strategies and policies to prevent involuntary displacement of long-standing often lower-income residents from their neighborhoods due to gentrification or other development pressures,” Williams said. “An anti-displacement strategy framework aims to create inclusive, stable communities where residents can afford to live and thrive.”
The Comprehensive Plan designated these areas as “Sensitive Communities” and the Future Land Use Map suggested geographic locations that would have fewer development rights than the rest of the city in the new zoning. This idea had been discarded by the time the Planning Commission held their public hearing on the Development Code on September 14 but they will consider its return on Wednesday.
Williams said the new zoning code will require ten percent of units constructed outside the three residential zones to be affordable. He also said there will be density bonuses for additional height as well. These rules will be codified in an Affordable Housing Manual which can be viewed here. Williams said there are limits to what zoning can do.
“It can’t address economic inequality, it can’t control property values, or address all displacement issues,” Williams said.
City Councilor Michael Payne said he understood, but asked if there was a tie between the proposed zoning and being able to use other tools such as housing vouchers, a land trust, or using low income housing tax credits.
“Does zoning interact with these tools in any way?” Payne asked. “In other words, do you see situations where depending on what the zoning is, it makes it more or less feasible to implement some of these strategies?”
Williams said the city is studying the concept of a “housing equity district” which he said could identify individual properties with long-term residents or tenants. That would perhaps allow more tax abatement.
“One thing that’s been discussed and is being vetted is concepts where you could freeze tax values or work with the owner of the said home to ensure that that [resident] could have the opportunity of right of first refusal or the city or a land bank or a land trust,” Williams said.
Since the Planning Commission’s public hearing, the Housing Advisory Committee has been working to restore the overlay district that was discarded. This group is currently led by leaders of nonprofits who receive funds from the city to build, maintain, and rehabilitate housing.
Sunshine Mathon is the executive director of the Piedmont Housing Alliance. He reminded Council that the city conducted a housing needs assessment in 2018. (review the document)
“The results were grim,” Mathon said. “At that moment in time, five years ago, it identified that the city needed to deploy 3,300 housing interventions… to address household cost burdens experienced by low-income families in our city. Disturbingly, it also estimated that the challenges would only worsen in the coming decades without deep investment and focused action.”
Since then, the Housing Advisory Committee took a major role in developing the Request for Proposals for the Cville Plans Together initiative of which the zoning rewrite is the third leg. The first was the Affordable Housing Plan which called for the elimination of policies to only allow one unit per lot as well as a commitment for Charlottesville to spend at least $10 million a year on housing.
Mathon said there is still a major obstacle related to economics.
“The headwinds to progress that every city faces are similar,” Mathon said. “One, we operate within a social fabric that privileges housing as an investment vehicle over housing as a human right. Corporate aggregation of homes across the country including in Charlottesville is the latest expression of this principle.”
Mathon said the city has to protect certain neighborhoods from the potential effects of upzoning, citing the recent study by RKG. He said the Housing Advisory Committee recommended restoration of what had been called “Sensitive Communities.”
“The anti-displacement zones overlay… grew out of this assessment and attempted to redistribute development pressure by differentiating maximum densities,” Mathon said. “More density in historically exclusionary neighborhoods, less density in anti-displacement zones.”
Mathon went on to detail a proposal to limit development in the short term through an overlay while small area plans are developed for each area. He said without an overlay, the problem will get much worse.
The Council discussed many more items and ideas in detail and heard from City Attorney Jacob Stroman about how many of them would likely not be allowed by Virginia law. One was an idea from Planning Commissioner Phil d’Oronzio to put limits on who could have additional development rights in the overlay districts. Stroman had reservations.
“We’re not trying to give a dispositive opinion on the fly about this kind of program and I don’t want to leave that impression at all but I think it is good to realize that there are going to be some hurdles, perhaps some difficult ones, that we’re going to have to contemplate,” Stroman said.
As with many of these summaries, that’s not the end of the meeting. There’s a lot to learn from these meetings. Council had another work session on October 11 on anticipated population trends that I will eventually write up.
As I complete this version of the newsletter, I can report that the materials for the Planning Commission’s deliberations now include more details on the new zoning district that is being called the Core Residential Neighborhood A. I’ll have more details in a future newsletter.
Things with which to conclude #590
This is a hastily produced edition that I’m posting because in an hour as I record this I’ll be at WINA speaking to Courteney Stuart about what’s in yesterday’s Week Ahead. There’s an awful lot happening in the community and my hope in producing each of these newsletters is to get more people interested in the details. My belief is that informed community members make better communities, or something like that, but I can’t afford a budget for bumper stickers.
I can afford to tell you that I can afford to do this work because of paid subscribers of this newsletter! Hopefully by the time I get around to #1,180 I will have at least have one person working for me. I almost said up top that this is National Cat Day, and maybe I can train mine? Or does anyone know how I can contact the people who have the infinite monkeys?
Ting has also been a sponsor for nearly two and a half years now, matching initial payments. Ting’s doing a lot in the community to sponsor civic activity while providing fast Internet to their customers.
Maybe you’re in the market for a new high speed internet provider? If so, check out Ting! 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
October 16, 2023: VDOT in right of way phase for Library Avenue extension in Crozet