Albemarle Budget, Comp Plan, 500 Units in Ivy? And DCI Meeting

Wednesday, 1 March will be an interesting Albemarle County Board of Supervisors meeting; the afternoon session starts at 6pm.

My quick thoughts:

  • How many of us will attend or email the Board about either of these?
  • Albemarle and Charlottesville need more housing; the Old Ivy Road location is a great location, particularly as it’s close enough to benefit those seeking to walk or ride bicycles places (in other words, not be forced to drive everywhere), and especially if they can somehow work to solve the infrastructure dilemma on Old Ivy Road/Old Garth (21 Curves), 250. Maybe … limit parking to further encourage people who live there to not use cars?
  • $551M budget; that’s a lot of money.

Attending these meetings is the best way to support or oppose something; those who show up have their voices heard. Commenting on Nextdoor, Twitter, FB, may serve the need to “feel” heard, but emailing or showing up to the Board are the absolute best ways to voice your opinion.

From Charlottesville Community Engagement

There are two public hearings in the evening session which begins at 6 p.m.

The first is on the $551.5 million budget proposed for Albemarle by County Executive Jeffrey Richardson. For those details, check out the most recent edition of the newsletter.

The second is for a rezoning for Old Ivy Residences. If the strategy with this timing is to find a way to get more people in to pay attention to the budget, it will likely pay off. Greystar Development is seeking a rezoning to allow up to 525 homes. For background, here are some recent stories:

The Planning Commission’s denial was in part because of a concern about whether sufficient transportation projects would be in place to address the development’s impacts on road congestion. At play is a condition from a rezoning in 1985. 

“The Commission recommended denial of the ZMA202100008 because it found that the Old Ivy Road traffic conditions, while different from 1985 when the Proffer in ZMA1985-21 was established, do not appear at a level of improvement to satisfy the condition precedent established by ZMA 1985-21 and address transportation concerns,” reads the staff report.

There is a new proffer associated with this rezoning that would commit an additional $500,000 in cash for a new receiving lane on the northbound on-ramp to the U.S. 250 bypass. 


The Albemarle County Comp plan …

… is still underway; how many of you have visited the AC44 site, filled out the surveys, or attended a pop-up? Albemarle staff are doing amazing attempting outreach.


DCI Meeting 1 March

While the DCI meeting at 7pm at Crozet Library is full, they are offering a zoom option.

As with most events, our community meetings came to a halt in March 2020. However, there has been a lot of work behind the scenes over the past few years, and we’re excited to share our updates with you.

Proposed Agenda:

1.  Brief Introduction of the Downtown Crozet Initiative

2.  Barnes Lumber/Plaza /Crozet Square Project Update (Frank Stoner, Crozet New Town Associates) This will include an overview of the projects in downtown Crozet, as well as updates on the roads, buildings, Plaza, Crozet Square streetscape, project schedule and more.   

3.  Crozet Plaza Project Next Steps 

4.   Future DCI Activities/Meetings

It’s been nearly a decade since this CCAC April 2014 meeting story; I find that the conversations we are having today are almost the exact same as we were having then, and even many of the same people are still talking.

Something to say?