Week Ahead for April 21, 2025: Albemarle Supervisors to hold budget public hearing Wednesday; Charlottesville to learn how $55.87 million in affordable housing funds have been used in past three years
Plus: Two transportation meetings, one water and sewer meeting, and so much more!
A funny thing happened on the way to this newsletter. Or at least, all of the municipal websites that use the Civic Plus platform keep crashing. You may see that if you click on the various links to staff reports for Charlottesville and Greene County which use that software.
And I do hope you will click on the links. I hope you never take my word for anything but instead look at the work I cite in order to bring you his information. I want everyone reading to know that they could produce this work if they wanted to do so. I do this work because I’ve created a business over the past five years and people pay me because
There are also sponsors such as the Piedmont Environmental Council who make it possible for me to continue doing this weekly look at local and regional government.
The budget process continues with public hearings in Albemarle, Charlottesville, Fluvanna, and Greene. Details of when and where below.
Charlottesville City Council will get a check-in on tens of millions in spending on affordable housing in the last three years as well as a briefing on a plan to create a new entity to buy and distribute property for this purpose.
Greene County Supervisors will consider an amendment to a resolution to proceed with some financing for water infrastructure projects, making me really wish I could stop time and write up a full status report.
Nelson County Supervisors will meet with the Planning Commission to further discuss changes to the zoning code, but I’m going to have to get that full story to you later in the week
Albemarle’s Places29-Rio Community Advisory Committee will have a community meeting for two projects on Thursday
There are no meetings in Louisa County this week
Monday, April 21, 2025
Charlottesville City Council to get update on how $58.77 million has been spent on affordable housing from FY22 to FY25
The five members of the Charlottesville City Council will meet at 4 p.m. for a work session at which an important report will be presented followed by a regular meeting that begins at 6:30 p.m. It’s a full meeting. (meeting overview)
There is a tendency in recent years for Council to have a lot of important conversations during the 4 p.m work session. For instance, the April 4, 2022 work session was on affordable housing. At the time, Sam Sanders was Deputy City Manager.
“I have been spending a lot of time observing, reviewing, questioning, complaining, evaluating, and testing all of what we do, how we do it, why we do it, and trying to figure out what else we can do to make it all run more smoothly and definitely be run better,” Sanders said at the beginning of a work session 1,112 days ago.
An Affordable Housing Plan adopted by Council in March 2021 morally committed the City Council to spend $10 million a year for at least ten years. At that meeting in April 2022, Sanders reported on a study of how the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund had been used since it was created in 2008. You can go back and read or listen to my story here.
In the here and now, Charlottesville City Council will get another update on affordable housing investments made since adoption of the Affordable Housing Plan. This one details how $58.77 million has been spent between FY22 and FY25. That includes $9.58 million in tax relief programs.
I will do a full report from this meeting. For now, here are the materials:
Attachment C from the report (the presentation)
Attachment D consists of specific pages of the Affordable Housing Plan
The work session continues with a presentation on two new policy tools that Council is being asked to consider. One is the creation of a new land bank authority to purchase property for the purpose of affordable Housing. Currently the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority is purchasing land for their expansion while nonprofit groups purchase land for initiatives such as the Piedmont Community Land Trust.
In the packet is a proposed ordinance to create a Land Bank Authority and specifies it cannot use eminent domain. The authority would be tax-exempt. Take a look at the presentation here.
Next up is the introduction of another acronym that I refuse to use in any situation whatsoever. Acronyms can be useful but they can often be overused to the point where no one remembers the underlying words.
The second policy tool is the creation of a mechanism to give developers lowered taxes or rebates to assist with the financial loss they will take by having to build units that must be rented or sold below market level.
“The [Charlottesville Affordable Housing Tax Abatement Program] could help continue the City’s broader strategy to ensure that affordability, displacement prevention, and housing access are not just aspirational goals, but measurable outcomes embedded in local development practice,” reads the agenda memo.
These details will be important to get out in a story, as is the idea that the Land Bank Authority of Charlottesville and the tax abatement program could fit together. The details will be worth writing out and we’ll see how it looks from three years from now.
Charlottesville City Council to hold public hearing for tax rates
The regular meeting of the Charlottesville City Council begins at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers. They’ll begin with a proclamation for International Dark Sky Week which runs April 21 through April 28.
“City of Charlottesville is in close proximity to the Shenandoah National Park and is surrounded by rural Albemarle County and these natural landscapes are home to many species which rely on undisturbed night environments to hunt, mate, and thrive,” reads the proclamation.
Albemarle Supervisors adopted the same resolution earlier this month.
There’s an item on the consent agenda that has me doing a bit more research. Sometimes a staff report doesn’t really tell anyone what’s going on. In this case, there is a resolution to appropriate $1,304,308 from the Virginia Department of Transportation for the “Monticello 2nd Project” but there’s no written description of what this. We do know from the staff report that $485,177 has previously been allocated to the project. We also know that the project code, or UPC, is 113917.
Let’s first see if we can find any information on the city’s website. I enter “Monticello 2nd Project” into the main search box and the first hit brings up a status page that has the same UPC.
I then remembered the city has recently created a web page with updates on transportation improvements. This project is listed as “Monticello Ave/ 2nd Street Ped Improvements” which lists this project as having started in 2018.
I note that the VDOT does not have this project on their list of active initiatives in the Culpeper District. This shouldn’t be surprising given that the city maintains its own roadways. But the city has also struggled to manage them and has been canceling projects to get back in VDOT’s good graces. City Council learned last April at a work session that VDOT at one point ranked the city’s efforts as “deficient.” Go back and read the story I wrote if you are interested in learning more.
There are two public hearings at this meeting.
The first is a third attempt at holding a public hearing for the tax rates for 2025. This has been twice postponed due to advertising errors. While there was no rate increase, there is an increase in the amount of revenue the city will bring in through real property taxes because of higher assessments.
Virginia code requires localities to tell the public what the real property tax rate would need to be to bring in the same amount of revenue. That figure is $0.9128 per $100 of assessed value as published in the public notice and reported by me.
After the public hearing, Council will hold the first of two readings adopting the tax rate. They have to do a second reading and that is scheduled for April 24.
The second public hearing is for the city’s allocation of funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME programs.
“At this time, the City has not been made aware of any funding decisions by HUD for the 2025-26 Program Year,” reads the staff report.
That’s not necessarily unusual as the exact allocations usually come after the public process is complete. Staff and the CDBG Task Force make their recommendations based on last year’s figures.
Recommended for funding are:
$25,000 to the Charlottesville Investment Collaborative for their Entrepreneurial Programs
$50,000 to the Literacy Volunteers Charlottesville / Albemarle for a beginning workforce development program
$20,500 to the Arc of the Piedmont for a shower replacement at one of their group homes
$140,000 to Albemarle Housing Improvement Program for critical home repairs in Charlottesville
$21,342 for the Piedmont Housing Alliance’s Financial Opportunity Center Credit Hub
$22,618.55 to the Public Housing Association of Residents for their program to involve residents in the redevelopment process
$21,832 to The Haven for coordination of community service providers
$87,723.40 to Charlottesville for administrative work
$49,601.05 to an unallocated reserve
Council will hold a second public hearing on this on May 5 and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission will hold one on May 1.
Next up, you may recall from my coverage of Council’s April 10 budget work session that the Blue Ridge Coalition for the Homeless failed to receive a $250,000 federal grant they were expecting due to a clerical error.
Council agreed to provide replacement funding and part of the way that will work is that the Blue Ridge Coalition for the Homeless will get a $35,000 payment from the FY2025 from unallocated funds from the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund. (staff report)
Next up is a resolution for the city to participate in the Biophilic Cities program.
“There is no financial impact on the City's General Fund,” reads the staff report.
None? None ever? No sending of staff to conferences? No staff time that goes toward participation?
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Greene County Board of Supervisors to hold public hearings on FY26 budget, tax rates
The five members of the Greene County Board of Supervisors will meet at 5:30 p.m. and immediately go into closed session as they do every meeting. Then they’ll reconvene at 6:30 p.m.
As Albemarle continues to grow and promote economic development, Greene County may continue to feel the effects of more people moving to the area. There are big stories I am not able to get to such as the details of how the water supply plan is moving forward. I shall aspire to try harder.
As it stands, there are public hearings on the budget, the capital improvement plan, and a resolution to adopt the tax rates.
There is a resolution to adopt a fee schedule for land use applications for FY2026. More information on this is available here.
There is a public hearing on the tax rates for 2025. It should be noted that public notices are now filed with the online Piedmont Journal Record and not with a print newspaper.
Following these hearings, there will be a report from the Move Safely Blue Ridge initiative. I had hoped to write about the one from Nelson County from earlier this month, but I so far can’t get to all of the stories.
After that, there will be a resolution to clarify an April 8, 2025 vote on a bond anticipation note (BAN) related to borrowing for water facilities. I really would like to be able to read reports on all of the details. Especially when one at least one member of the Board of Supervisors is suggesting digging more wells for municipal water supply plan rather than build the long-planned reservoir. (link to a redlined resolution)
Albemarle Planning Commission to hold public hearing for Woolen Mills project
In Virginia, cities and counties are independent. There is no obligation for one community to tell another what is happening just across the border. I don’t work for any government, but a main purpose of Town Crier Productions is to point out when land use applications are along Albemarle and Charlottesville’s border.
For instance, last week I reported that there’s a by-right development of 17 units on four acres on East Rio Road in Albemarle just across the border. This development is also directly across from a rezoning in Albemarle called Lochlyn Commons that seeks 75 units.
There’s also the case of two separate developments on U.S. 29 that are adjacent to each other. I wrote about this for C-Ville Weekly last July.
The City of Charlottesville’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services continues to review a proposal to convert 1185 Seminole Trail from the Hibachi Grill restaurant to a 250-unit apartment complex. The project is being processed under the old zoning code and NDS staff issued another denial on April 5.
The next property to the north is in Albemarle County and the Planning Commission there recommended approval of a 165-unit redevelopment of the space where Cville Oriental still operates and a pair of vehicle-related businesses are already out of business. However, this rezoning is listed as “on hold” in the county’s Civic Access portal.
The Albemarle Planning Commission will hold a public hearing for another border-straddling project at a meeting that begins at 6 p.m. in Lane Auditorium of the county’s office building at 401 McIntire Road. (meeting info)
This public hearing is a request from the owners of the Woolen Mills Light Industrial Park to be able to fill-in the floodplain on a portion of the property. There was a community meeting for this last week and the staff report states that Planning Commissions will get a verbal report from that event. The staff report also addresses the geography.
“The parcel is undeveloped, zoned Light Industrial and entirely within the Flood Hazard Overlay District,” reads the staff report. “During a flood event , a backwater condition from the Rivanna River extends through the stream reach of Moore’s Creek. Property adjacent to the west in the City is developed residentially. All other surroundings and nearby properties in the County are zoned Light Industrial.”
The adjacent property in the city is the Carlton Mobile Home Park which has been purchased by a coalition consisting of the Piedmont Housing Alliance and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville. City Council is backing the purchase with a $8.7 million forgivable loan.
Albemarle County has long-term vision for its portion of this landscape in the Belmont Blueprint. Charlottesville has no equivalent vision. The two are not obligated to talk to each other. Might there be a better way to do things in areas of joint mutual interest?
In one other meeting:
The Board of Directors of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority will meet at 2:15 p.m. at the Rivanna Administration Building in the 2nd Floor Conference Room at 695 Moores Creek Lane, Charlottesville, VA 22902. (agenda)
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Albemarle Supervisors to hold second public hearing on FY2026 budget
There is only item on the agenda for the Albemarle Board of Supervisors meeting scheduled for April 23 at 6 p.m. is a public hearing on the budget for FY2026. That should not be confused with a public hearing scheduled for April 30 on the tax rate but one is connected to the other. (meeting info) (agenda)
There is no write-up in the agenda other than us being told the point of the public hearing is “to receive comments on the Proposed FY 26 Operating and Capital Budgets.”
Want to know more? Let’s first start with resources on the county website.
Here is a link to all of the presentations from the five work sessions as well as other meetings along the way.
Here is a link to a list of questions and answers Supervisors came up with during the process.
There have been just under a hundred views of the county’s Budget Town Hall from Monticello High School. There is still time to get that up to 108! Take a look!
Town Crier Productions has provided the most coverage of this process. Albemarle County has a population of over 117,000. The population in 2000 was under 80,000. Projections show the number of people continuing to grow. As a one-person information outlet, I’m making a bet there are people who continue to want to know the story of how Albemarle will grow. So I just do the work and give you these stories:
Coalition wants Albemarle County to pay $10 million a year toward construction and preservation of affordable housing, February 8, 2025
Richardson proposes four cent real estate tax increase for Albemarle’s FY26 budget with most of that revenue going to cover fire and EMS personnel, February 27, 2025
Many people weigh in on Albemarle’s recommended budget at first public hearing, March 18, 2025
An account of Albemarle County’s first work session on the FY2026 budget, March 19, 2025
Albemarle budget staff provide broad overview of where $480.5 million in spending will go in FY26, March 20, 2025
Albemarle’s police chief and fire chief explain why they need additional funds, March 21, 2025
Albemarle Supervisors briefed on climate funding, pay increases, and future direction for FY2027, March 26, 2025
Albemarle Budget Review: A review of housing funds, dedicated tax funds, April 2, 2025
Albemarle Supervisors skeptical of proposal to use dedicated housing fund proceeds as debt service, April 10, 2025
Albemarle Supervisors vote to add another $1 million to affordable housing fund, $200,000 to emergency fund in FY2026 budget, April 11, 2025
I believe this is important. I believe people need to know the complexity of these matters. I believe I’ll keep writing as long as people keep paying me, and I hope I can train younger journalists who want to keep this type of work alive.
I will have one more story on Albemarle’s budget before this public hearing. I wanted to do the reporting now, but I’m running out of time.
Fluvanna County Supervisors to adopt budget
Every year I have high hopes that I will be able to write up full descriptions of the budget process in each of the counties of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. At the heart of my work is a curiosity for why different localities have different political cultures and how those cultures might shift over time.
How did I do this year? Check and see what I got to in Fluvanna County. One story about the introduction of the budget. That’s it. Perhaps I will make a point to write up the meeting of the Board of Supervisors this Wednesday. It’s a special meeting to adopt the FY26 budget, but also to authorize a public hearing on May 21 for the Virginia Department of Transportation’s secondary six year road plan. (meeting agenda)
The budget for FY26 is based on a tax rate of $0.75 per $100 of assessed value, a personal property tax rate of $4.10 per $100 of assessed value. The total budget is $117,769,609 including a $10.26 million capital improvement program.
In other meetings:
The Charlottesville Retirement Commission will meet new Joe Gilkerson, the city’s new human resources director. This will take place at a meeting at 8:30 a.m. in City Space. (agenda) (minutes from March 2025 meeting)
The Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Board will meet at 4 p.m. There’s a lot on this agenda but today’s newsletter is full. They’ll get an update on the Safe Streets for All process as well as projects that VDOT is currently studying.(meeting page)
The Albemarle Broadband Authority will meet at 5 p.m. in Room 241 at Albemarle’s office building at 401 McIntire Road. (meeting info)
The Nelson County Board of Supervisors will meet with the Nelson Planning Commission from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. There is no agenda packet available at this point but I believe this is about the zoning update currently underway. I plan to have a full story written before we get to that point. (meeting info)
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Places29-Rio group to hold two community meetings
Albemarle County code requires developers to hold community meetings for applications for special use permits and rezonings. A potential forum to hold these are the community advisory committees. The Places29-Rio group will hold two at their meeting at Room 241 in the county’s office building at 401 McIntire Road.
The first is for ZMA-2024-00006 which goes by the name Arden II. All of the materials can be downloaded here including the narrative. This is a technical rezoning which seeks an adjustment to the Rio 29 Form-Based Code. Two stories I’ve written about it:
Arden Place developers seek amendment to Rio Road form based code, September 28, 2024
Developer seeks more time on request to to change Rio Road form-based code, November 24, 2024
The second is for ZMA-2025-00001 which does not have a project name. You can see all of the material here. I wrote about this in early March.
“The applicant intends to construct several new multi-family and two family buildings, and preserve the existing five townhomes on the property while enabling the possibility for those units to be redeveloped at some point in the future, for a maximum of 153 units on the property,” reads a description on Albemarle’s land use application portal and included in the story.
I’m glad to be able to write these stories. We all learn together!
In other meetings:
Albemarle County will hold another lunch and learn related to the Comprehensive Plan update. This one is on the Housing and Community Facilities chapters. I am hoping to have stories out on each by this online presentation which starts at noon. (learn more)
The Fluvanna Board of Equalization meets at 1 p.m. in the Morris Room of the Fluvanna County Administration Building. There are four cases to be heard. (agenda)
The Regional Transit Partnership will meet at 4 p.m. at 407 Water Street but the materials are not posted online at publication time. An email with the agenda was sent around to people on a list so I can tell you there will be an update on transit planning in Charlottesville, an annual report on the Afton Express, and an update on the Regional Transit Authority Working Group. (meeting info)
Charlottesville City Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. to hold the second reading of the resolution adopting the tax rates for 2025. The agenda is not yet available to review. Will they add anything else? That’s the sort of thing I always watch for because you never know. (agenda will be here)