Crozet's community blog
Interested in a home energy checkup? Two years ago I had an energy checkup and makeover with LEAP (Local Energy Alliance Program) and it was a great success. LEAP is coming to Crozet January 6-17 and looking for folks who want to have energy checkups.
Continue reading “Get an Energy Checkup with LEAP – 6-17 January 2014”
Drop off your tree at Crozet Park and Greenwood Community Center between 7am and dark.
via press release:
Continue reading “Recycle those Christmas Trees at Crozet Park (2013 edition)”
Update 31 December 2013:
I’ve reverted to the old theme. While I really liked the new, modern, clean one, there was a loss of functionality, namely on the Crozet Calendar and other pages that I no longer have the time or knowledge to fix. While I’d love to update the theme to a 2014 style, what’s here works. Darn it.
It’s been a long time since I updated the design of RealCrozetVA and the new WordPress default theme tempted me.
I’m still finding and tweaking pages, layouts, and other such things, but so far I think it’s looking a bit better and it’s definitely better looking on mobile devices.
Thoughts?
If you’re curious, this is what the site looked like two days ago.
– Continue reading “What Do you Think about RealCrozetVA’s new Design?”
via press release –
Starting in early January Albemarle County Parks will begin our Swimming Dock and Bridge Capital Improvement Replacement Project at Mint Spring Park’s Upper Lake “Swimming Lake”. The project will require the pumping down of the lake and maintaining the level low enough to allow the repair and rebuild of the Swimming Dock and Beach Access Bridge. This scheduled maintenance rebuild will involve the removal and replacement of the sub structure, cross members, deck trusses, decking and bridge railings. The project is expected to take 45 days pending weather and pump down progress. The attached signs will be posted around the upper lake starting December 23rd, to notify the public and aid in securing the lake for safety after the project begins. Continue reading “Mint Springs Improvements Coming in January”
2013 – lots happened in Crozet this year – a lot of good, some bad, and I tried to capture most of it here. 2013 is the year that the RealCrozetVA Facebook page (I don’t like FB, but it’s awfully useful) became the third leg in the RealCrozetVA community, the recaps of the Crozet Community Advisory Council meetings proved quite useful, and the Crozet community time and again demonstrated why this is a great place to live. If you’re interested in browsing all the stories, you can see the 2013 archives – 165 stories all – here.
I’ve highlighted some of the stories I posted from each month and done my very best to not editorialize (although if I did, “Crozet Library opened” would have an exclamation point!).
Five things:
– You can subscribe to RealCrozetVA by email, follow RealCrozetVA on Twitter, or like RealCrozetVA on Facebook. A note on Facebook – we tend to have very good conversations and interaction there, but I don’t post everything there that gets published here.
– I’m a Realtor who lives in and loves Crozet. In my ideal world, I’d never get off my bicycle to show houses or meet seller clients. (and I know this will likely never happen). I rarely explicitly say this, but if you’re moving to Crozet or thinking about selling your home, I’d appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.
– If you’re curious, these are some of the photos I’ve taken in Crozet this year.
– Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Crozet for reading, commenting and sharing what you see here with your friends. You truly make this a great place.
– Really, thank you. Whenever I hear from people how they read about Crozet here, or used RealCrozetVA to research Crozet before they moved here, or when you let the community know about power outages and such via the RealCrozetVA twitter feed, I’m ever more grateful for the Crozet community and your support here. Thank you.
We had a good discussion about Crozet school’s competitiveness and a great conversation about what we want Crozet to be.
A hotel was announced to be coming to Old Trail in Crozet and many of you described your neighborhoods in Crozet.
We had a rare (and appreciated!) guest post recapping the March Crozet Community Association meeting.
WAHS got a new principal, the Daily Progress called for retrofitting 250 West, a guest’s reflection on the James Sun Memorial 5k, Crozet Volunteer Fire Department got a Twitter account, and the Crozet real estate market started to really pick up.
May 2013
King Family Vineyards responded to the soggy pitch by having Nolo Weekend – and it was tons of fun. A 10 year old was accidentally shot in Crozet. I started to recap the CCAC meetings using Storify – and subsequently did it many more times to what I think is a great success.
June 2013
WAHS’ new principal answered 10 questions, Crozet got another new great restaurant, Restoration and the Field School put together a great kids’ triathlon.
July 2013
The Crozet Gators won the Jefferson Swim League Championship for the first time in 22 years and Restore N Station finally broke ground.
August 2013
We discussed where the next Crozet stop light will be, I thanked Blue Ridge Internetworks for hosting RealCrozetVA, I summarized the CCAC meeting and the Crozet community suffered another rash of car break-ins.
September 2013
The Crozet Library opened, the community responded to a survey on new Crozet hotel, I recapped the September CCAC meeting, I looked at when homes come on the market in Crozet, Ned Gallaway, Albemarle’s At-Large school board member hosted the first community conversation about Albemarle County Schools that I can remember being held by a school board member in Crozet, and you voiced your opinions on what should happen to the old Crozet Library.
October 2013
We figured out what the utility work in front of BP was, I relaunched the Crozet Calendar – and it’s now available for community members to post their own events (ask me how), y’all answered the question – What’s the first thing you tell someone about Crozet?, the 3rd Quarter Crozet real estate market report was interesting, the recap of the CCAC meeting proved useful and interesting, and we had a good conversation about the walkability of Crozet.
November 2013
Lots happened in Crozet on the Crozet Calendar, the awesome Crozet Trails Crew reached a few milestones, the Crozet Angel Tree was quickly accomplished, the buildings downtown were re-sided and the CCAC meeting was live-tweeted by a chorus of people! and recapped here on RealCrozetVA.
December 2013
The Crozet Streetscape meeting was very informative, I looked at the Crozet real estate market in December, Tim Dodson, WAHS junior, wrote about his perspective after having attended and live-tweeted the CCAC meeting, the Streetscape really is coming, we can now drive faster (legally) on 64, and the Barnes Lumberyard redevelopment may be moving forward – see this recap of the December CCAC meeting.
via email:
This year the Lions Club of Crozet helped organize opportunities to ring Bells for the Salvation Army in front of the Crozet Great Valu Market. ?The bell ringers included members of the Crozet Lions Club, the Western Albemarle High School Key Club and members of a few Crozet Churches and neighborhood associations. ??Recruiting of volunteers was helped by RealCrozetVA.
Continue reading “Crozet Community Members Ring Bells at Great Valu”
I’m going to update this later today, but wanted to publish a draft for those interested in last night’s conversation. It was, in my opinion, a great conversation and dialogue. Great input from the public and the CCAC. There was a lot of information covered last night – from possible timelines, challenges with developing such a large parcel in such a relatively small town, possible businesses that could go in, probable residential components, zoning … a lot. Much of that was captured by @Tim_Dodson and @CvilleKim (and @RealCrozetVA) on Twitter and quite a few not at the meeting few engaged on Twitter as well. Grab a cup of coffee and digest the tweets – and then … ask questions.
Frank Stoner with opening remarks – "we don't intend this to be a presentation as much as a dialogue" pic.twitter.com/E5uAPYydlN
— realcrozetva (@realcrozetva) December 20, 2013
Update: Charlottesville Tomorrow has a great story about last night’s meeting.
– For those curious, the hashtag #CCAC1213 was used to track the conversation on Twitter.
A few of the best questions/topics that were addressed and I’ll address in the update, but ultimately, this was a conversation about the former Barnes property and the future of Crozet:
– (Frank) Stoner: what’s the unique value proposition to bring people downtown? #CCAC1213
– What are some towns that are what you’d like Crozet to be? #CCAC1213
– #CCAC1213 today the challenge for developers is that the infrastructure requirements take up so much of the costs
– Stoner: challenge of replicating old town feel is the execution #CCAC1213 Continue reading “Recapping CCAC – Future of Barnes Lumber Property”
via press release:
SPEED LIMIT INCREASE SET FOR I-64 IN ALBEMARLE CO.
12-mile section between Crozet and U.S. 29 will see 70 mph limit this week
This should be a good one, folks. One of the most-discussed and most important pieces of land in Crozet is the Barnes Lumberyard. This will be a great opportunity to listen and learn more. (as seen on the Crozet Calendar)
Who’s up for tweeting this meeting? The tweeting of the last CCAC meeting was a great success.
CROZET COMMUNITY ADVISORY COUNCIL
The Meadows, Crozet (5735 Meadows Dr.)
Thursday, December 19, 2013 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Agenda
1. Agenda Review. (Meg Holden – CCAC chair)
2. Approval of Minutes from November 21, 2013 meeting, if available.
3. Presentation by Frank Stoner regarding the Barnes Lumber property.
4. Announcements.
5. Future Agenda Items.
If you read the recap from last week’s Crozet Streetscape post, you know that Crozet is in for a bit of construction starting in a couple weeks. I’m going to do everything I can to let y’all know of happenings through the blog, Facebook page and Twitter stream (I much prefer Twitter over Facebook), and much of those updates will likely come from the County.
I’ve also set up a Streetscape blog category for aggregation of all stuff streetscape-related.
Albemarle County have set up a page for Crozet Streetscape updates.
The County has launched a website for the Crozet Streetscape project at www.albemarle.org/CrozetStreetscape where we will be posting important information regarding the status and progress of the project. We have posted information from the December 3, 2013, community meeting including the presentation, construction phasing and a summary of questions/answers and comments from the meeting. We encourage you to bookmark this website and visit it regularly once construction begins in early January.
Also, please note the following opportunities to stay informed about the project:
• There will be a groundbreaking ceremony in January, 2014 – details will be shared as they become available.
• The project website, www.albemarle.org/CrozetStreetscape, will be updated every two weeks, or more frequently as needed depending on project activity.
• The Crozet Amail enews list will receive an update every two weeks, or more frequently as needed depending on project activity – sign up for that eNews list is available at http://www.albemarle.org/AMail
• Social media opportunities will be available on Facebook and Twitter once the project begins.
• Members of the project team are available to speak at community meetings and will hold onsite project update drop in hours on a regular basis.