After a good discussion on Bluesky the other day, I asked Michael Monaco if he was interested in writing a post for the RealCrozetVA/Crozet community. We’re lucky he obliged!
by: Michael Monaco
In a few days, on December 17th, the Planning Commission will hold their hearing on the proposed Oak Bluff development in Crozet.
(From Jim – Learn more about Oak Bluff at the Albemarle County Planning Commission site)
Much has been said about this development; much is said about every development. A lot of albatrosses have been slung around Oak Bluff’s neck – the long-long-long-awaited Eastern Avenue connector chief among them.
It’s important to remember the actual decision being made, on the recommendation of the Planning Commission, eventually by the Board of Supervisors. Should the zoning on these parcels be changed from R1-Residential to Planned Residential Development? And what difference does it make?
If you have the time, you can (and maybe even should) read the definitions for the different zoning district categories in the Albemarle County municipal code. It’s dry reading, certainly, but it’s also instructive. R1 zoning, you can learn, has a gross density of 0.97 to 1.45 dwelling units per acre. Planned Residential Development is intended for higher density; PRD is intended to defer to the comprehensive plan, which in this case recommends 3-6 dwelling units per acre on the Oak Bluff parcels. The proposed site plan has about 135 homes on the 30-odd acres; the math checks out there.
But I think this planning-focused approach to zoning only tells part of the story. I find it enormously helpful to look around me at what already exists, and to see what story zoning tells.
In Crozet, we have six residential zoning districts that contain more than 50 parcels. There are a few specialty zoning districts, like the Downtown Crozet zoning and the R10 Residential zoning, that contain only a few parcels; I’ll set them aside, and just focus on the big ones.
The Albemarle County GIS page has a wealth of information available for download. If we take a look at residential parcels with homes built on them in the Crozet development area, we can learn a lot about what zoning looks like in reality.
Neighborhood Model District zoning claims the top spot for homes in Crozet. If it helps to visualize the neighborhoods within each major zoning district:
- NMD makes up the bulk of Old Trail, as well as Wickham Pond, Liberty Hall, and the future Old Dominion Village.
- R6 Residential is also found in Old Trail, as well as Pleasant Green, Crozet Crossing, Parkside Village, Foothill Crossing, Glenbrook, and Westhall.
- R4 Residential is found in the Highlands, Western Ridge, Cory Farm, Westhall, and Grayrock Orchard.
- R2 Residential makes up a lot of the older neighborhoods in Crozet – the St. George area and along Three Notch’d past Starr Hill, as well as Park View and other neighborhoods abutting the park.
- R1 Residential – the least dense of the residential zoning districts – is found in parts of Old Trail (Windmere and Welbourne in particular), Chesterfield Landing, White Oaks, Sparrow Hill, Foothill Crossing, and Westlake Hills.
- Finally, Planned Residential Development zoning dots various parts of Crozet. Slices of Western Ridge and Westhall are PRD; Crozet Meadows and the Meadowlands, Crozet’s only subsidized affordable housing, are on Planned Residential Development parcels as well. Waylands Grant, Bargamin Park, Jarman Gap Estates, and Emerson Commons are all PRD.
(If that all feels like gibberish, I have a map of Crozet zoning districts on a Tableau Public dashboard – that dashboard also contains all the other visualized data in this post!)
This chart shows all the parcels in each major zoning district in Crozet, along with the median assessed value (rounded to the nearest ten thousand; these values, and all data in this post, are all as of a 12/10/2024 download). Clearly, R1 Residential zoning tends to be more expensive. Very expensive, in fact. The May 2024 Annual Affordable Housing Report from Albemarle County cites the median home value county-wide as $522,160.
If you’re like me, you’re easily led down a tangent. R2 Residential homes seem far more affordable than any other category. Why would that be?
Looking at the median year built – the age of the home – provides some answers. Maybe if Albemarle County is looking to identify “naturally occurring” affordable housing, they should start with R2 Residential homes in Crozet – older homes. But finished square footage tells a compelling story, too:
Again, for your naturally-occurring affordable housing in Crozet, look no further than R2 zoning.
While it’s not particularly useful to consider “Year Built” when thinking about future developments, I want to highlight the direct comparison between R1 homes and PRD homes, since that’s the decision in play regarding Oak Bluff:
I’m not an expert in the real estate market; I won’t claim to know or predict demand in any way. But:
If a family makes exactly the Albemarle County Area Median Income ($124,200, as of the time of writing), and buys a home today, with interest rates around 7%, with a 20% down payment, that family is able to afford a home that is just about $490,000.
Or rather – the mortgage payments on a home, in that scenario, would hit 30% of the household income for a home value of $490k.
Or: existing homes in Planned Residential Development zoning in Crozet are almost exactly, just barely, affordable to the median Albemarle County household.
Real Estate Market Thoughts from Jim
My thoughts on the Crozet real estate market coming on Monday.
For a bit of historical context, here’s a story from 2016 looking at Crozet’s housing buildout. My questions now have not changed from 2016 (and earlier):
Questions
- Can the infrastructure handle the growth?
- Bike lanes, sidewalks, roads
- Can the schools?
- What businesses are being sought to balance the growth, so that tax burden isn’t shouldered by residential?
To clarify, Oak Bluff is proposed at maximum Neighborhood Density Residetial 6 units/acre (yellow on the Crozet Master Plan Land Use Map). The allowable range is 3-6 units for NDR. The buildable area is 22.37 acres net — flood plain, Lickinghole Creek, and preserved slopes are not included in the calculation of buildable acreage.
County approves a specific density, not a general PRD designation.
To build Oak Bluff, the developer proposes to take land from the Westhall HOA, Liberty Hall HOA, and to avoid the ARB process of the Westlake HOA. Some people object to subsidizing the profits of a private developer and dealing with the resulting traffic, safety, WAHS overcrowding, Rivanna Water issues, overflow parking that clogs our streets, etc. that will be made worse by Oak Bluff.
I won’t even address Eastern to 250, which is a unrealistic as Eastern to 240. The County already has killed the Eastern/240 end of the “connector”, so it will never really be the north-south route promised in Master Plans for 40 years (it was eliminated from the Future Street Network Map in the 2021 Crozet Master Plan).
Instead of focusing on the goal of approving the number of new residential units needed in twenty years, the County has become obsessed with efficiency to the exclusion of all else.
Efficiency is a useful metric if you are warehousing human beings, but not if you want to encourage healthy, safe communities where families of all types and sizes can thrive.
I personally disagree with the County allowing the exclusion of flood plain, etc when doing the calculations.
” but not if you want to encourage healthy, safe communities where families of all types and sizes can thrive.”
I’ve been advocating for decades for more bike lanes and pedestrian facilities, to no avail. I’d wager that if a developer were to include non-vehicular safe connections, they’d be better received by some neighbors.
I suspect the connector will happen, and there will be horse trading to get it done.
And to those arguing for cars? 🙂
“Never forget, when you’re being asked to prove that safe bike-lanes or pedestrian crossings across unsafe conditions are ‘needed,’ it’s hard to justify a bridge by the number of people swimming across a raging river.”
How do you keep the calculations equivalent across a wide range of properties with a variety of “challenges” (riparian areas, preserved slopes, dam innundation areas, high power electric easements and other utility easements, rail crossings, etc.) if you don’t subtract those areas that are not buildable to reach a net number? You can’t compare apples and oranges.
You do realize that one day you will be older and maybe not walk too well or ride a bike. Maybe then it will finally dawn on you that there is still a large slice of the population being ignored.. Shoving alternate anything down people’s throats is not a good thing, especially when you want them to pay for it…