Tag: Growth

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Barnes Lumberyard Proposal Decision Deferred 8 Weeks

– The Applicant (Milestone Partners) requested and was granted an 8 week deferral.

– The Planning Commission seemingly relied heavily on the CCAC’s opinion and resolution concerning the proposal (I assume this is the one).

– The Barnes Lumber property is currently zoned for heavy industrial.

– Apparently the CCAC voted 10-3 in support of this resolution, but you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t follow the CCAC meeting on Twitter or read the Storify of the tweets as the CCAC have no minutes online for the entirety of 2014 and most of 2013 (and the roster is out of date).

– I’m grateful for those who give their time to tweet these meetings; without them the community would be less informed. Thank you!

– When is the next CCAC meeting? If you support or oppose this proposal, now’s (really, 6 months ago) the time to get informed and involved. These decisions affect all of us.

– Update: the Sec. of the CCAC just called and said that he had just sent all of the missing minutes to the County. We can expect them to be online in the next 48 hours. Thank you to those who alerted the CCAC about this. Transparency is good for all.

Continue reading “Barnes Lumberyard Proposal Decision Deferred 8 Weeks”

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Recapping the CCAC Meeting – 20 March 2014

Lots happened at the Crozet Community Advisory Council Meeting on 20 March 2014. Click through to read the embedding of the tweets from the meeting. Hopefully you find this helpful. I hope I captured everything accurately; between my tweets and Tim’s, there are 118 tweets in this story.

– 13 members of the public attended. A relatively huge crowd.

– More members of the public are needed to tweet. Really. Please?

– Brief update on Barnes Lumberyard development. In short: process is ongoing, comments going back and forth between developer and county. CCAC wants to stick to the master plan. The focus is said to be on bringing employment centers to downtown Crozet. But what kind? Suggestions?

– A brewery may be interested in building in Albemarle County, specifically in Old Trail. NOTHING is set or proposed; it’s merely a conversation at this point. But bringing in 376 jobs would be an outstanding addition to Crozet.

– Would some neighbors from Old Trail please attend these meetings? We’d all benefit from more participation from our neighbors.

– Lots of good conversation at this meeting.

Continue reading “Recapping the CCAC Meeting – 20 March 2014”

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CCAC Meeting – 20 March 2014

Who’s up for tweeting what should be a really interesting meeting? (bolding in the agenda below is mine)

CROZET COMMUNITY ADVISORY COUNCIL The Meadows, Crozet (5735 Meadows Dr.) Thursday, March 20, 2014 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Agenda

Agenda Review. (Meg Holden – CCAC chair)

Approval of Minutes from January 16, 2014 meeting.

Project Updates/Information:

– Library updates– Bill Schrader
– CCAC officers and new CCAC members
– Any Streetscape issues – including how we can continue to support local businesses during this time
– Restore-n-Station
– Acme Visible records
– Update and discussion of Downtown development (Barnes Lumber Property), pursuant to email with county comments
– Discussion of commercial development in Old Trail

News concerning area schools which affects development area.

Future meeting date and place (library) – Bill Schrader.

Items not listed on the agenda.

Announcements.

Future Agenda Items.

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Recapping the CCAC Meeting of 20 February 2014

The Albemarle County school budget, Barnes Lumberyard and the developers’ intentions, the Crozet library is busy and needs funding and more. Huge thanks to @CVilleKim and @TfjTolson for tweeting the meeting!

As a reminder, this is the Crozet Master Plan (it’s referred to a lot).

Click through, scroll to the bottom and read the tweets from tonight’s meeting. Continue reading “Recapping the CCAC Meeting of 20 February 2014”

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Recapping CCAC Meeting – 16 January 2014

– The redevelopment of downtown Crozet was the big point of discussion – about 90 minutes’ worth. The gist: this is a huge thing, let’s get more information, follow the Crozet Master Plan. Community is cynical and cautious.

– The pedestrian crossing at Harris Teeter is funded.

– There may be openings on the CCAC board. Interested?

– Field School will have Catholic Mass on second Sunday.

Click through, scroll to the bottom of the embedded tweets to see what was discussed. Big thanks to Tim Tolson for tweeting.

Questions? Thoughts? Continue reading “Recapping CCAC Meeting – 16 January 2014”

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Crozet’s 2013 in Review on RealCrozetVA


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.

January 2013

We had a good discussion about Crozet school’s competitiveness and a great conversation about what we want Crozet to be.

February 2013

A hotel was announced to be coming to Old Trail in Crozet and many of you described your neighborhoods in Crozet.

March 2013

We had a rare (and appreciated!) guest post recapping the March Crozet Community Association meeting.

April 2013

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.

Continue reading “Crozet’s 2013 in Review on RealCrozetVA”

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Recapping CCAC – Future of Barnes Lumber Property

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.

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”

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CCAC Meeting – 19 December 2013

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.

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Crozet Community Advisory Council Meeting – 21 November 2013

If anyone – anyone – is willing to live-tweet this meeting, please let me know asap. The agenda is chock-full of really interesting, relevant, important stuff. (bolding mine)

* Update: two volunteers have stepped forward to live-tweet the meeting and one more is likely to write a guest post. At the very least there will be at least three more people there. Thank you!

Live-tweeting the meetings accomplishes several things:

1) It gets you (or me) to attend the meeting to listen and learn

2) Tweeting the meeting engages the folks who are at home, unable to attend but really want to be informed

3) It allows me to capture the tweets and post them in a blog post here for anyone/everyone else who is interested in the meeting and can neither attend nor follow on Twitter.

4) It helps the CCAC know that people are paying attention.

5) Tweets capture more than almost any news story can.

CROZET COMMUNITY ADVISORY COUNCIL The Meadows, Crozet (5735 Meadows Dr.)

Thursday, November 21, 2013 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

1. Agenda Review. (Meg Holden – CCAC chair)

2. Approval of Minutes from October 17, 2013 meeting.

3. Project Updates/Information:

• Library fundraising update – Bill Schrader.

• Streetscape update and overview of town hall meeting – Lee Caitlin

• Discussion of Barnes Lumber company – Leslie Burns and Meg Holden

• Update on plans for pedestrian crossing signal at Clover Lawn/Harris

Teeter.

• Update on Safe Routes to School project, with information specific to

the crossing at Crozet Elementary

• Hotel project

• Wilson Jones property environmental remediation

• Resolution for extension of Crozet library hours

4. News concerning area schools affecting development area.

5. Change of meeting date and place – Bill Schrader.

6. Items not listed on the agenda

7. Announcements.

8. Future Agenda Items.