Monthly Archives: January 2022

Rivanna bridge options narrowed to two

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Plans are being made to build a pedestrian and bicycle bridge over the Rivanna River and the Charlottesville Planning Commission got an update last night. The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Committee is leading the efforts and a stakeholders group has been meeting to review options. One of its members is Planning Commission Karim Habbab. 

“The two options that we’re looking at are a connection near Riverview Park on Chesapeake and the other would be at the Wool Factory,” Habbab said. “One would span between city and county and the other would be basically on county land.”

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Regional planners get preview of North Fork rezoning

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An official group of planning officials from around the Charlottesville area got a preview last month on a major rezoning on land at the University of Virginia Foundation’s North Fork research park. The Land Use Environmental and Planning Committee was created in 2019 when elected officials agreed to cease meeting in public as a body known as the Planning and Coordination Council.  One of its members is Hosea Mitchell of the Charlottesville Planning Commission.

“They are actually asking for a rezoning and the rezoning is to allow for residential to be included in the industrial developments that they’re doing there,” Mitchell said. 

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Charlottesville Democrats pick new chairs

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There’s new leadership in the Charlottesville Democratic Committee. At a reorganizational meeting on Monday, about a hundred participants selected John McLaren and Dashad Cooper to serve as the co-chairs of the committee.

McLaren is a resident of the Martha Jefferson neighborhood and Cooper is a student at Piedmont Virginia Community College who worked on the City Council campaigns of Brian Pinkston and Juandiego Wade. 

The vice chair is Nancy Damon, a Fry’s Spring resident and former member of the Charlottesville Planning Commission. The secretary will continue to be Mary Ann Harris. Jason Vandever is the party’s treasurer.  Vandever was elected as the city’s treasurer in a special election in 2013 and has held the position ever since. 

The Republican Party of Charlottesville has not fielded a City Council candidate since 2015 when Anson Parker was their candidate. The chair of the party in Charlottesville is Dan Moy and the treasurer is Buddy Weber. Weber ran for Council in 2013 along with former Planning Commissioner Mike Farruggio. 

Anonymous group of city property owners files suit against Comprehensive Plan adoption

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Comprehensive Plan lawsuit

Last week, a group of citizens filed a lawsuit in Charlottesville Circuit Court against the validity of the Comprehensive Plan. The argument cites four specific failures and asks that Council’s vote be held null and void. The seven plaintiffs are Charlottesville residents seeking to withhold their identity. They argue the Future Land Use Map “radically increases density within the city” in a way that violates state code. (read the argument)

“Unlike the Comprehensive Plans that are contemplated by the General Assembly…the Plan at issue is very specific, and assigns new zoning designations to each specific parcel in the City,” reads paragraph 15 of the argument. “As a result of this approach, the City’s actions are already  having a direct impact on property owners.” 

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Charlottesville zoning rewrite to begin this year

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In November, the City Council adopted a new Comprehensive Plan as the second leg of the Cville Plans Together initiative. The first was adoption of a new affordable housing plan in March. The next step is the rewriting of the city’s zoning code. James Freas, the director of Neighborhood Development Services, told the Charlottesville Planning Commission that the public process for the three phases of the zoning rewrite will kick off at the end of the month.

“What we are looking at is a complete rewrite,” Freas said. “This isn’t going to take your existing ordinance and redline it and make changes. This is going to be a complete rewrite.” 

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