Monthly Archives: April 2021

University of Virginia resumes housing initiative for up to 1,500 units

(This article originally appeared in the April 30, 2021 installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement)

The University of Virginia has begun planning work to implement their pledge to build up to 1,500 housing units to be designated for people at certain income-levels on land owned by UVA or the UVA real estate foundation. At a virtual event Thursday night, President Jim Ryan said housing is one of five areas identified for community partnership.  The original announcement of the UVA housing initiative was made on March 10, and the news was quickly overshadowed by the World Health Organization declaration the next day of the COVID pandemic. 

“So, a year later I’d like to begin by restating our goal upfront, and the goal is really simple,” Ryan said. “It’s to support the development of a thousand to 1,500 of affordable housing units across Charlottesville and Albemarle County over the next ten years. We’ll do this by contributing land and partnering with a third-party developer. I will say that financial profit is not at all our driver and that our goal has the support of the Board of Visitors and the entire leadership team at the University.” 

UVA President Jim Ryan

In the past year, Charlottesville City Council has adopted a new affordable housing strategy. The Albemarle Planning Commission has a public hearing next Tuesday about the update of the county’s policy. And the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership has been holding a speakers’ series on views from the development community

UVA’s work will happen in that regional background, as UVA steps into a role they’ve not played before. Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis is serving as chair of the UVA Affordable Housing Advisory Group which includes community members. 

“The goal for this initial phase of this work is to learn more about how you see the University contributing to affordable housing solutions in our community and to collect input that will help this stage,” Davis said. 

(visit the Working Group’s website to watch the video and learn more)

No sites have yet been determined for where new units might be. A quick look at area GIS records shows that the UVA Foundation owns around three dozen properties in Charlottesville, and that the Rector and Visitors of the University own around 90. UVA-proper owns over 70 parcels in Albemarle and the foundation owns several dozen. 

To sort through the possibilities and to establish criteria for hiring that third-party developer, UVA has hired Gina Merritt of Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures to work through this phase, which will result in the development of a “request for proposals.” 

“My team’s role in the University’s affordable housing initiative is to help UVA to develop a framework for implementing this initiative,” Merritt said. “The University plans to solicit developers to help develop University property in a way that meets our collective goals.”

This will include market research, review of previous studies, and discussion of comparative examples.

“And once the sites are selected for development, we will evaluate zoning, determine what housing and income types should be located on each site, and then draw diagrams to show the potential scale of these buildings,” Merritt said. “We will run financial models to determine the best way to finance the development and identify possible resources to fund the project.” 

Merritt presented three examples of developments she’s been involved with. One of these is the 70-unit Nannie Hellen at 4800 in Washington D.C. where one-third of the units were replacement units for public housing, and the rest were financed through Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). 

The trio took questions from those on the virtual call. J.J. Davis asked the first.

“A lot of organizations are already doing affordable housing work,” Davis asked. “Where will UVA fit in so that they are not competing or duplicating efforts. Jim?”

“That’s a great question and in some respects that’s part of the community engagement process,” Ryan said. “The landscape is filled with people who are working on this issue already and we want to figure out the best way we can fit into this landscape so that we’re not duplicating efforts or competing but instead complementing the efforts.”

“Next question,” Davis asked. “When will the units be built?” 

“Well, we want to get started as soon as possible,” Ryan said. “As I mentioned earlier, the goal is to complete a thousand to 1,500 units over ten years. Our thought is that we will start with one project. We are not that experienced with this so what we want to do is start with one project and take the lessons we’ve learned there when we move on to the second or third projects.”

Near the end of the presentation, Merritt took advantage of the poll feature in Zoom to take the pulse of those attending. Nearly ninety percent of those participating supported the idea of UVA developing housing for the community on its property. 

President Jim Ryan concluded the event.

“UVA and our neighbors in Charlottesville, Albemarle, and the surrounding counties are linked together and our fates are tied together and one of the reasons for us to be a good neighbor is because of that. I think helping to contribute to… increasing the supply of affordable housing is one part of that,” Ryan said. 

Both CAT and Regional Transit Partnership studying ways to improve serve in northern Albemarle

(This article originally appeared in the April 27, 2021 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. Subscribe now so you don’t miss an episode!)

Preparations continue for a study of how transit could work better in Albemarle County. Some fixed-route service is provided by Charlottesville Area Transit, which is owned by the City of Charlottesville. Jaunt provides fixed-route service between Crozet and Charlottesville as well as paratransit service throughout the region.

The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is shepherding a Regional Transit Vision as well as a study of additional service to serve Albemarle’s urban areas. A kick-off meeting for the study will take place in early June. Jessica Hersh-Ballering is a planner with the TJPDC. She spoke at the April 22 meeting of the Regional Transit Partnership.

“This is a project to determine the best way to expand transit service to three priority locations in Albemarle, and those priority locations are Pantops, north 29, and Monticello,” Hersh-Ballering said. “The goal is to apply for funding to implement that service in fiscal year 2023.” 

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Belmont Bridge update: No bids have qualified yet

The long-awaited construction of the Belmont Bridge in Charlottesville will not begin this spring, and City Council might be briefed on Monday about how to move the long-planned project forward. Several firms submitted bids in time for the March 16, 2021 but the city has not released any further information at this time. 

“The submitted bid proposals for the Belmont Bridge replacement are being evaluated by the City staff and its consultant in accordance with the planned project scope,” reads an email from Brian Wheeler, the city’s director of communications. “This evaluation also includes consideration of the project’s planned budget.”

The current bridge was built in 1962, and city staff recommended in April 2009 that it should be replaced rather than repaired. The firm MMM Design was hired to conduct the design process for what was then a project with a $9 million cost estimate. But there was a fierce public debate about whether the bridge should even be replaced, or if a tunnel underneath the railroad tracks should proceed. MMM Design went out of business soon after Council selected to go with a bridge in July 2014. 

Soon after that, the firm Kimley Horn was selected and began a new review in April 2017. Last August, Council voted to authorize $15.26 million in federal and state funding for the project, which by then had a $31 million cost estimate. At least $7.5 million of that amount are city capital improvement funds. The project was advertised for construction bids earlier this year, but the process is now stalled pending new direction from Council. 

“A recommendation for moving forward is being developed, as are possible options,” Wheeler wrote. 

Check tomorrow to see if the item is on the City Council’s agenda for the May 3 meeting. 

This is the way the finances for the project pencil out in Virginia’s Draft Six-Year Improvement Program for FY22. Take a look!

An update on Franklin Street sidewalk

(This story initially appeared in the April 19, 2021 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement)

Earlier this year, City Council agreed to transfer federal funding that had been allocated to add a sidewalk on Franklin Street, which serves as part of its eastern border with Albemarle County. The project was within the jurisdiction of a task force that was put together to recommend projects eligible for Community Development Block Grant funding distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. Erin Atak is a grants coordinator with the city of Charlottesville.

“This is funding that’s issued by HUD,” Atak said. “These are federal funds that the city receives each year as an entitlement community.”

The city selects a neighborhood every three years to receive the money for infrastructure and a task force is put together to make recommendations to Council. One recent project funded through this process is a pocket park in the 10th and Neighborhood. The current neighborhood receiving funds is the Ridge Street neighborhood. The Belmont task force last met in February 12, 2019. 

“And in this case, the Belmont Priority Neighborhood [Task Force] recommended to City Council the Franklin Street sidewalk which was approved to create a new sidewalk on the west side between north Moores Creek Lane and Nassau Street, which was approximately 1,600 feet of new sidewalk.”

This process is separate from the city’s sidewalk priority process. The Belmont neighborhood was allocated a total of $449,214 and the sidewalk made up a portion of that amount.

Tim Motsch is a transportation project manager with the city, hired in the summer of 2017.

“Myself and Kyle Kling were hired in order to manage transportation projects including the sidewalks which I have been involved in as well as Smart Scale projects that I’ve been involved in such as the East High Streetscape and the Emmet Streetscape.”

More on those projects in a future newsletter. For now, Motsch explained that design for the Frankin Street sidewalk began in late 2018 when the engineering firm A. Morton Thomas was hired to do the work.  Complications happened. 

“It is a challenging plan from the point of the view of stormwater management depending on which map you look at and which datum you refer to, the sidewalk is either right next to the floodplain or in the floodplain,” Motsch said. 

That delayed the design for the project, which included the need to purchase easements from landowners on which mitigating features and drainafe could be built. The pandemic’s effect on the city’s budget also led to a delay. 

“Add to the fact that last year, for several months all sidewalk projects were on hold due to the possibility of having to use city funds,” Motsch said.

Construction is now slated for next spring, but that’s if the right of way can be acquired from around a dozen property owners. 

However, Atak explained that HUD has time limits by which its money can be spent and this project did not make the deadline. 

“Normally funds are required to be spent within one year of receiving CDBG dollars,” Atak said. 

In February, Council transferred the funding to a rent relief initiative for public housing, but Atak said the funding will be restored on July 1, 2022. Everything has to be in place for the project to move forward. 

“It’s very important that we receive public support with the right of way moving forward so that we can secure this funding and there aren’t any delays moving forward,” Atak said. 

Atak said HUD has already issued a warning on the project. 

Motsch said a round of certified letters are being sent out to property owners this week for negotiations, and that the city wants to avoid taking properties by condemnation. One of the abutting landowners is Sunshine Court, which owns a six and a half acre mobile home park on Carlton Avenue. The property has a land value of $2.4 million. 

Developers of affordable housing projects shed light on the process

One of the biggest issues facing any of the candidates elected this November is housing. There are many calls for local governments to invest more in subsidizing the cost to provide units to people whose household incomes are below the area median income. 

To educate policymakers throughout the wider area, the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership has been holding a speaker series to illustrate the challenges and obstacles from the perspective of the building and development community. Yesterday, on April 15, the guest was William Park, the president of Pinnacle Construction. He went through the many line items that go into a financial calculation about how much it costs to build new housing. 

He said at the moment, one of the major factors is rising prices for materials, with some elements costing as high as four times as much as they did a year ago. 

“Give you an example, I was just writing a purchase order the other day that I struggled to sign it,” Park said. “OSB 716 that we use many times for sheeting on our walls and our roofs. In an apartment project, we may have 30,000 sheets of OSB. Typically I’m in the $10 range. I signed a PO the other day for $42 a sheet.” 

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Wade raises $55K in first quarter for Council race

The first campaign finance reports are in for the Charlottesville City Council race and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. The Virginia Public Access Project has updated their campaign finance database with new reports from all of the Democrats who have filed in both races. 

Let’s start with the two seats for City Council. City Councilor Heather Hill is not running for re-election. Independent Mayor Nikuyah Walker announced re-election last year, but the Virginia Public Access Project does not yet include a report from her campaign. 

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Gallaway to seek second term to represent Rio District on Albemarle Board

Ned Gallaway has announced he will seek a second term to represent the Rio District on the Albemarle Board of Supervisors. Gallaway was first elected in 2017 as a Democrat after running unopposed. 

“Four years ago when I ran, I said that my priorities would be public education, public safety and economic development and I feel that after four budgets and many votes that I have stayed true or focused on those priorities,” Gallaway said. 

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Scottsville Town Council briefed on Keene Convenience Center, water supply

Scottsville’s Town Council met this past Monday and got several updates on several infrastructure projects. Planning continues for a park in west downtown funded through a $80,000 grant from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation. Scottsville Town Attorney Jim Bowling said the next step is to sign an easement document for public access on land owned by prominent landowner Dr. Charles Hurt. 

“All of this land is in the flood plain and its proposed to be a permanent recreational easement for the benefit of the town and its citizens,” Bowling said. “The easement will be jointly owned as proposed by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and the town.” 

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Ceremony hold for Crescent Halls kickoff

For the second time in the past six weeks, an official ceremony has been held to begin major construction at a public housing site in Charlottesville. Crescent Halls was built in 1976 at the intersection of Monticello Avenue and 2nd Street SE. Brandon Collins is with the Public Housing Association of Residents.

“As we all know, urban renewal happened in Charlottesville in the 60’s and we hear a lot about Vinegar Hill but it also happened here on Garrett Street and that was the birth of this building, Crescent Halls,” Collins said.

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Albemarle planning staff adjust strategy for Comprehensive Plan update

Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan was last updated in the summer of 2015, and Virginia’s state code states that Planning Commissions are to “prepare and recommend” a document to guide development

So far this year, Albemarle planning staff have taken a scope of work for a revision to the Board of Supervisors twice. When they presented a plan for a three-year process, Supervisors urged staff to speed up the process and to also work on the county’s zoning code. Until now, the Albemarle Planning Commission had not been presented with the plan but that changed on April 13, 2021. (watch the Planning Commission meeting)

Planning Manager Rachel Falkenstein explained Albemarle has made several changes in policy direction since 2015. These include the adoption of the first phase of a Climate Action Plan and adoption of the economic development policy known as Project Enable. 

“We’ve also developed a new office of the Office of Equity and Inclusion and a new community core value that focuses on the topics of equity, inclusion and diversity,” Falkenstein said. 

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