While Roell admits the zoning application will take about a year, he says some construction could begin in two years.
I spoke with Ann Mallek today about this, and encourage you to do so as well.
What do you think?
A Crozet “Downtown Mall”?
Dreamers are awesome. I’m a dreamer. I dream of a better job, with more pay and a bigger house.
Sigh.
Then reality sets in like cold heartless bitch.
The economy. Also this is Albemarle county, the nation’s birthplace of Red Tape.
Until then, I’ll stick to my dreams and pretend this is a reality. Just like I pretend Crozet Elementary playground is the same size as Brownsville’s.
You know longtime residents will be against it. It just reeks with progress!
Great ideas and visions for the future of Crozet!
Yes, it may take a year to have a project of this size approved ( it will take almost that amount of time to draw the plans) and yes, times are tough. But maybe we should remember that it is some of that “red tape” that keeps this area rated in the top 10 place to live in the country. Some of those evoking the “red tape” also help bring the Crozet street renovation, the original (and first in the county) Crozet Master Plan, the revised Crozet Master Plan, the Crozet Community Advisory Council (the first advisory council in the County), plans for the new Crozet Library (pending funding) and the Western Park (pending funding). These are a few of the results of community involvement and “red tape”.
It is up to each of us to GET INVOLVED and try to direct our community toward a better future.
Rebuilding an area to maintain a “top ten” rating? If we lose this rating
can we tear it all down? I plead with people to get involved. The area
would look far different if a majority of people would… Crozet should
become a town with it’s own elected Govt. and, own budget. Then you
will see how much of this stuff people want and are willing to pay for.
This vision is becoming entertaining. When I have them they have nothing to do with civil and social engineering. Expanding a bedroom community, quite a vision…
Let’s be real. Shopping malls need consumers, and one this size will need a lot of them. Judging from the “success” of the mini malls on 250 and the slow growth at Old Trails, we need to ask ourselves if a collection of empty commercial spaces is really what we want for Crozet. Build it and they will come, the developers say. Once they come to what we already have, I’ll happily reconsider. Until then, I’m totally unconvinced.
What we need is for the Barnes Lumber site to become a solid-paying job generator. That will take more time, but we need jobs in Crozet to achieve a sustainable local economy. They said converting the old Del Monte/Agra foods plant was a pipe dream. What has been done there should be the model for our community. Not the fancy filaments of a developer’s spin.
But why interfere with the rights of the property owner? I mean if it works for the Restore N …