Today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out comes from a contributor who wants to say:
"Early voting is underway for all registered voters. Vote in-person or request a ballot by mail. Register to vote by October 13. Visit elections.virginia.gov/registration/voter-forms to do so today.”
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The seven day average for positive test results in Virginia has dropped to its lowest level yet with 4.7 percent reported by the state Department of Health. That’s down from 5.7 percent a week ago. Over the weekend, the state passed the two million mark for the number of PCR tests conducted.
On Saturday the VDH reported 975 new cases, 736 on Sunday and 449 this morning. In Charlottesville, 78 new cases have been reported since Friday, with 41 in Albemarle. In Charlottesville, the seven-day average of new cases per 100,000 is 40.7. In Albemarle that figure is 9.9 today, and statewide the figure is 9.1 today.
The seven-day average for positive tests in the Thomas Jefferson Health District is at 4.1 percent. That number was also 4.1 percent last Monday and increased to as high as 4.9 percent in the last week.
The University of Virginia reported 41 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday afternoon, and will not update their official tracker with the weekend’s results until later on today. Later this week residents of two residence halls will receive follow-up tests, including Hancock where the University reported 16 cases among 115 residents on Thursday. There have been no new updates on the the UVA Facebook page since. Last week, President Jim Ryan announced a five-person limit on gatherings for students on and off Grounds as well as mandatory mask use.
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Water that fell on the Charlottesville region this weekend is slowly finding its way into the Rivanna River, and one major overarching environmental goal of the last century is to prevent as many pollutants from going along for the ride. On Friday, a governmental agency that seeks to promote awareness of the Rivanna River’s watershed gathered virtually for an online conference.
Anne Coates is the director of the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District, part of a nationwide network formed nearly a hundred years ago when few considerations were given to how land was used and the air was thick with sediment windborne from poorly managed properties across the country.
“We were formed in the 1930’s in response to the dustbowl,” said Anne Coates, the TJSWCD’s director. “[President] Roosevelt sent letters to all the Governors nationwide asking them to set up local legislation that would allow for what he considered to be for important local influence. He wanted local landowners to work with local directors and decision makers to really determine what the resource concerns were in their area and not have their federal government tell them they needed to do something specific.”
Nationwide there are 3,000 such districts, and the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation district is one of 47 in Virginia. The local district dates back to 1939 and consists of elected and appointed officials in Albemarle, Charlottesville and surrounding counties, with direct election of ten of its board of directors.
Coates said our district focuses mostly on agriculture, though residential property owners can also qualify for funding in some situations. The goal is to reduce the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that makes it way into the Chesapeake Bay, which is where rain that falls here ends up. They do that by helping to pay for projects like keeping livestock out of creeks and streams.
“Most of our programs are voluntary programs, certainly our agricultural program is, and that’s been primarily, the success of the program is because it’s voluntary based,” Coates said.
Coates said partnerships between the government and landowners have resulted in protection of over 3,000 acres of riparian buffers and 300 miles of streambank in the district since 1998. In Albemarle County, that number is 122 miles of streambank.
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Over six months have passed since the beginning of the pandemic and that’s enough time to get some sense of how the sudden change in the economy affected the local real estate market. Dr. Lisa Sturtevant is chief economist for Virginia Realtors and she was the first speaker in a series the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is putting on to promote its Regional Housing Partnership. She set the stage by describing where the sales market is at the moment.
“We’ve gone through a really dramatic downturn in the economy and we are now in sort of a period of recovery,” Sturtevant said. “And we’ve heard all sorts of different letters for how the recovery may happen. A V-shape, a W-shape, an L-shape. And the latest letter is K and this K shape recovery is one way to think about how some people are benefitting in this recovery more than others.”
Sturtevant said some sectors of the economy were hit harder than others, with sharp decreases in the hospitality sector. Still, Virginia and the nation have seen four straight months of job growth, and in August the unemployment rate was 6.1 percent.
“But keep in mind last year at this time the unemployment rate was about three percent,” Sturtevant said. She said the number of people who applied for benefits hit a peak in March and April, and then tapered down.
“And in mid-September, about 186,000 Virginians were receiving unemployment which is well below where we were this spring but well above where a typical economy would be,” Sturtevant said.
Sturtevant said the housing market has improved faster than the rest of the economy. A lack of supply is increasing sales prices across the state.
“Inventory, though, supply, remains the major constraint and COVID has exacerbated what was already a tight housing market in just about every regional housing market across Virginia,” Sturtevant said. “We’ve seen similar trends in the Charlottesville area where inventory has been on the decline really for five or six straight years and in August, the number of active listings was down by about 43 percent compared to a year ago.”
The next installment of the Regional Housing Partnership’s Speaker Series is set for October 22 and the topic is Regional Housing Strategies and Policies.
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Today in meetings, the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority meets at 6 p.m. with updates on safety and redevelopment efforts. There’s still no date for when ground will break for new public housing units at South First Street or when work to renovate Crescent Halls will begin. However, a redevelopment update in the meeting packet has a lot of details about what needs to happen first.
Interested in parks and greenways in the Pantops area? The Community Advisory Committee for that part of Albemarle meets at six and has an update from parks planner Tim Padalino. (meeting info)
Interested in Albemarle history? You might consider the Albemarle Historic Preservation Committee will begin its regular monthly gathering at 4:30 p.m. They will get an update on the Crozet Master Plan and potential conservation easements. There will also be a further discussion of new historical markers in Albemarle as well as potential policy options to increase historical preservation efforts in the county. (meeting info)
September 28, 2020: Positive test rate drops to 4.7 percent; Charlottesville housing market info