September 26, 2024: Area preparing for more rain with approach of Hurricane Helene including Loop de Ville postponement
Plus: The Board of Commissioners of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority takes action on purchase of three properties
Throughout human history, a lot of building materials that made sense at the time turned out to be poison. One of those is asbestos which turned out to be highly carcinogenic for anyone who breathed it in. The specific cancer associated with breathing in asbestos fibers is called mesothelioma and in 2012 the Virginia General Assembly designated September 26 as a day to recognize the illness, those who suffer from it, and the importance of cautionary principles. I’m Sean Tubbs, and this is this edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement.
In today’s installment:
More rain is in the forecast will affect local events this weekend as Hurricane Helene progresses northward
The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s governing body agrees to purchase 15 dwelling units and begins the process of redeveloping South Sixth Street Phase Two
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is urging localities to apply for statewide grant program for flood mitigation programs, even though the main funding source has been eliminated
There’s a new front page to the website Virginians can use to check out legislation
A preview of two plays that debut this week to launch Live Arts’ 34th season
First shout out: Charlottesville E-bike Lending Library
The rolling topography of the Charlottesville area keeps some people away from choosing cycling as an option to get around. Perhaps an e-bike is in order?
That’s where Charlottesville’s eBike Lending Library comes in! E-bikes are a great way to get around the 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 they 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!
Area prepares for Hurricane Helene, cancellation of river-related events
A flood watch remains in effect for central Virginia as the area dries out from torrential rains in the past day or so, but the official notice from the National Weather Service warns residents of the area to prepare for more.
“The remnants of Hurricane Helene will impact the area early Friday morning through Friday evening,” reads the notice. “Heavy rainfall is likely along and just east of the Blue Ridge, and across parts of the Central Shenandoah Valley and surrounding high terrain. Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches are expected, with locally higher amounts possible.”
On Wednesday, Governor Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency to free up resources for public safety officials across the Commonwealth.
“Even though the largest impacts of Helene are predicted to the south and west of us, we cannot ignore the fact that we have had significant flooding events arise from pre-cursory rain events and outer bands from tropical systems that drop locally heavy rainfall leading to flooding, especially in our southwestern region,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin.
A map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration generated this afternoon depicting areas with chances of flash flooding due to Hurricane Helene (Credit: NOAA)
Executive Order 37 states that western portions of Virginia are likely to experience heavy rain, adding to already saturated land. The order activates the Virginia Emergency Operations Center and the Virginia Emergency Management Team.
Locally several events scheduled for this week have been postponed such as a Friday night concert at the Rivanna River Company as well as the annual Loop deVille circuit of the Rivanna Trail.
“We have been at it since dawn preparing for this flood and for additional rainfall from Hurricane Helene tomorrow,” reads a Facebook post for the Rivanna River Company which operates on floodplain land now owned by the City of Charlottesville.
The forecast for more rain is on top of heavy amounts that have fallen already. Nearly five inches of rain have been recorded in the past 72 hours at a monitoring station on the Lawn at the University of Virginia. A station in Esmont recorded nearly six inches in the same period. (view the site)
Do you have a plan for emergency preparedness? This is the national month for that and Albemarle County sent out a reminder this month with a link to the national page on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Another handy resource is a link to the emergency alert system run by local public safety officials.
“By opting in, you can be notified by the Charlottesville-UVA-Albemarle ECC and your local emergency response team in the event of emergency situations or critical community alerts,” reads the website.
Meanwhile, staff at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society are concerned about what additional rain might mean for the Hatton Ferry they operate on the James River near Scottsville.
“It is moored to the shore with a chain of 1/4 inch thick links and fastened with a heavy duty padlock and another heavy duty quick link,” said Sterling Howell, the program manager for the ACHS and manages the ferry. “If the current gets strong enough to break the chain or fasteners as it has twice in the last five years, we'll be pulling out of the Buckingham County trees with a very large piece of machinery once again.”
Share your stories as you can, either in the comments or via email.
CRHA takes action on several real estate resolutions including purchase of three properties
The last several years have seen a lot of changes at the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, an entity created in 1954 to oversee urban renewal projects and the construction of public housing units.
A master plan was adopted in 2010 to guide the redevelopment and renovation of those units, but nothing moved forward until later in the decade when the CRHA entered into an agreement with Riverbend Development in January 2019. A plan was implemented to renovate Crescent Halls and build the first new CRHA units in a generation at an athletic field on South First Street.
Both of those have now occurred and are largely complete and have served as a template for how to update the CRHA for the 21st century.
On Monday, the CRHA Board of Commissioner voted on a resolution to advance the next redevelopment project which is the second phase of South Sixth Street. (read the resolution)
“Phase one has been funded and has an anticipated construction start date towards the end of this year and so the residents are ready for phase two,” said John Sales, executive director of CRHA since the summer of 2020.
Like all public housing authorities across the country that receive funding from the U.S. Department of Housing, CRHA is capped at a certain number of units that qualify as public housing. To proceed with redevelopment, the CRHA has to ask HUD for permission to dispose of the existing units and convert them from traditional public housing to units funded in part by federal vouchers that are restricted to specific spaces.
These units are also funded through other financing mechanisms such as low-income housing tax credits.
Sales said CRHA has not yet filed what is known as a demolition and disposition form to HUD yet, but one for the first phase has been completed which sought permission to demolish six existing public housing units.
“The second part of that demo/dispo will remove the remaining 19 units and the community center,” Sales said. “We don't know exactly the form of funding for the assistance tied to the unit. We do know they will be fully subsidized, but either through the voucher or public housing assistance. But we don't know what that is yet because we're not far enough along the process.”
Creating a new LLC will allow the process to proceed. The registered agent for the other entities created so far is Dephine Carnes, a Norfolk-based attorney who provides services to public housing authorities across Virginia.
There was no discussion of the item before a unanimous vote to proceed.
The CRHA Commissioners also approved two resolutions authorizing Sales to purchase three pieces of property. The first is at 406 Harris Road in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood for $475,000. (read resolution #1480)
“There are two units,” Sales explained. “One unit is a two bedroom, one and a half bath. The second unit is… three bedrooms, one and a half bath. The two bedroom unit is currently vacant. The three bedroom unit is currently rented, and it's by a family that's in our program already.”
A real estate agent became aware that the property owner wanted to sell and approached the CRHA. Sales said work was already underway to acquire other property, so the financing with FAHE was increased to cover this one as well. Sales said this property appraised at $490,000.
“It appraised for slightly more than what we're acquiring it for, but the reason we're acquiring it is to keep it affordable,” Sales said. “So that's the goal. And it's highlighted in our strategic plan for us to acquire more properties for preservation in the city.
Sales said the vacant unit is move-in ready.
Next up was Resolution #1481 for properties on Fifth Street SW in Fifeville at a purchase price of $2.2 million. (read resolution #1481)
“This resolution is also a resolution to buy two parcels that contain a total of 13 units,” Sales said. “There are nine units on one property, brick townhouses. And then across the street, there are four. Four units amongst three different structures.”
Sales said current rents for the units are currently between $600 and $1,000 below the market rate.
“We began talking with this owner about a year ago when she mentioned that she was interested in selling her property,” Sales said. “The property has not hit the open market.”
Sales said some of the units currently have housing vouchers associated with them and the rents on these will be increased because there is more funding that can be claimed for the vouchers. Rents without vouchers will not immediately see rent increases. It has not yet been determined if CRHA will ask the city for financial assistance to purchase the properties as was done with the Dogwood portfolio.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation urges Virginia localities to apply for state funding
An organization formed in 1966 to draw attention to deteriorating water quality in the Chesapeake Bay wants towns, cities and counties across Virginia to apply for the fourth round of a state program despite Virginia’s withdrawal from an interstate compact that provided a majority of its funding.
The Chesapeake Bay put out an alert yesterday reminding recipients that the Community Flood Preparedness Fund is seeking applications for grant funding for projects to prepare for more powerful storms that are predicted to be more common in the future.
“The need for effective climate resiliency projects has never been more urgent and the Community Flood Preparedness Fund gives localities the opportunities to invest in their communities prior to damage occurring,” a press release quotes Jay Ford, Virginia Policy Manager at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The fund was established by the General Assembly in 2020, the same year that the legislature approved a bill for Virginia to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The legislation established that a substantial portion of Virginia’s proceeds from carbon emission auctions go toward the fund.
Since then, Governor Glenn Youngkin took action in the executive branch to pull Virginia from RGGI and that has meant a reduction in revenue coming into the fund.
Charlottesville received a first round award of $153,500 to create a 2-dimensional stormwater management model of the Moores Creek watershed. (read the application)
In the second round, Charlottesville received $94,276 for a resilience plan (read the application) and the Town of Scottsville obtained $123,346 for a study of the floodplain along the James River (read the application).
Albemarle County received $118,313 in the third round for a resilience plan (application) and Charlottesville got another $275,000 for watershed modeling (application).
Applications for the fourth round close on November 9.
By then, a Floyd County Circuit Court Judge may have ruled on a lawsuit filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center arguing that Youngkin’s withdrawal is unlawful because only the General Assembly could take that action. A hearing was held earlier this month.
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New website for Virginia’s legislative information system
The office inside Virginia’s General Assembly charged with providing information about and access to the legislative branch has unveiled a new version of the main public interface.
“By design, [the Division of Legislative Information Services is set up to serve and support the General Assembly, its agencies, and the public where appropriate,” reads the website for the division.
The new version of the Legislative Information System (LIS) has the same look as the previous one, but has a more modern feel. The site went live and only offers information about bills from this year’s special session and the 2025 session that will get underway in three and a half months on January 8.
“Hundreds of users come to this site daily to stay current on bills and resolutions, search the database, track new legislation, follow the activities of their Delegates and Senators, and generally stay current with the Virginia General Assembly,” reads the training page for the new system.
According to the statistics page, three bills have already been filed for the next session in addition to over 350 that have been carried over from the last session.
HB1548 from Delegate Lee Ware (R-72) would require high school graduates to pass the citizenship test administered to people to qualify for naturalization
SB738 from Senator Stella Pekarskey (D-36) would carve out some exemptions to the Virginia Department of Education’s new policies banning student use of cellphones
HB1549 from Delegate Chad Green (R-69) would make clarify language about the illegality of knowingly allowing a minor to operate a motor vehicle on public roads
The front page of the legislative information system now includes a calendar of upcoming events. That includes training sessions next week on how to use the new system and updates to existing features such as the “lobbyist in a box” system.
Two plays begin this weekend at Live Arts
The theatrical organization known as Live Arts launches its 34th season this weekend with two plays that embody the theme Voyages. One of my hopes for this newsletter and the podcast version is to eventually get back to interviewing people who make theater.
One reason I created the Charlottesville Podcasting Network was to have a place to put longer audio bits like a preview of Live Arts’ Amadeus back in September 2006. Go take a listen!
These days my focus is on other topics, and I’ve not been able to devote any time to this kind of work. I had hoped to do an interview about the two plays that launch their latest season, but I can use this space to let people know they’re happening starting Friday night in the Founders Theater, both with 11-performance runs.
The rotating repertory begins Friday night with An Iliad, directed by David Minton. You can learn more here.
“A Poet wearily enters with a suitcase, having endured an eon of traveling, reciting an age-old epic tale. Every time I sing this song I hope it’s the last time. A brilliant spellbinding, modern retelling of Homer’s classic The Iliad, in a translation by Robert Fagles, AN ILIAD is a play about war and rage that resonates all-too-vividly today. We listen rapt to the Poet’s songs, of Achilles’ wrath, of heroism, loyalty and love, and are enveloped by this timeless story filled with dark humor, cruelty and pathos. The playwrights say in their foreword: “AN ILIAD started out as an examination of war and man’s tendency toward war. In the end, it also became an examination of the theater and the way in which we still tell each other stories in order to try and make sense of ourselves, and our behavior.”
What the Constitution Means To Me is directed by Cady West Garey and begins Saturday. Here is more information:
“Winner of 2019 and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best New American Play, Heidi Schreck’s WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME is at once hilarious, touching, inspiring and thought-provoking. The playwright takes us back to her teenage years when she traveled the country giving speeches about the Constitution at American Legion halls to help her pay for college. Using her very personal journey, along with the stories of her mother and grandmother, she dissects the document penned by our “founding fathers” over 200 years ago. Act Two forefronts a live debate judged by an audience member: Should we keep or abolish the United States Constitution?”
Reading material for #736
ACPD gives inside look to stats on new school zone speed camera, Sarah Allen, CBS19, September 24, 2024
Supervisors approve 2015 Comp Plan; talk dogs, schools and housing, Heather Michon, Fluvanna Review, September 25, 2024
Failed pipe affecting part of Monacan Trail Road, CBS19, September 26, 2024
Batten down the hatch, #736!
Three days, four newsletters. I hope to get another out tomorrow because I don’t have any sound-rich pieces for the radio program on WTJU.
I was going to wait until tomorrow but felt it was important to get out information about the storm, even though I’d like to write much more in that segment.
In a continuing series to let people know how the shout-out system works, the first one comes from a Patreon supporter who contributes over $42 a month. This person also has a paid Substack account, too. I’m grateful for this and this is informing my future.
The second one is a sponsored one for a nominal charge, but every dollar that comes through the door is very important to the future existence of the newsletter.
Ting has been a sponsor since April 2021. The Internet company will provide a match for every new Substack subscriber. If you sign up for service and you are within Ting’s service area, enter the promo code COMMUNITY you’re going to get:
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