Monthly Archives: October 2022

Albemarle County Supervisors adopt new strategic plan goals

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Longtime readers and listeners know by now that this newsletter and podcast seeks to give information about various plans, be they site, Comprehensive, Small Area, Biodiversity Action, strategic, or otherwise. Local governments in Albemarle and Charlottesville have hundreds of employees and in order to run an organization you need some kind of documents to coordinate what everyone’s doing.

Or in many cases, you don’t. 

In any case, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors made progress with two overarching plans at their meeting on October 19, 2022. The first was the Strategic Plan, which sets six overarching goals for what the county government hopes to achieve. These goals and their objectives can be reviewed on the county’s website. Here’s the staff report for the October 19 work session. 

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Medium Intensity density on General Residential land?

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Should areas designated as General Residential be eligible to be considered Medium Intensity Residential if all of the units will be guaranteed to be below-market? That was one question asked of City Council and the Planning Commission at a work session on September 27, 2022.

The Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition sought support for this position with a petition signed by 203 people out of a concern that the Inclusionary Zoning provisions suggested did not go far enough. 

“You are talking about potentially allowing middle density into General Residential density,” said Phillip Kash of the real estate firm HRA Advisors. “That’s a significantly larger and density property.”

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City Council and Planning Commission discuss elimination of minimum lot sizes in new zoning code

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Second of three articles from the September 27, 2022 City Council and Planning Commission

Charlottesville City Council adopted an Affordable Housing Plan in March 2021 and a Comprehensive Plan last November. The zoning is being rewritten to make it easier to build residential units with more density across the entire city. That can take many forms, such as eliminating the role elected bodies play in making land use decisions, and eliminating or reducing requirements.  (review meeting materials for the September 27, 2022 meeting)

On a broad level, the Commission and the Council were asked to give feedback on specific questions. Let’s get right into this one with the second of three questions, asked by Lee Einsweiler of CODE Studio. CODE Studio is a subcontractor hired as part of the Cville Plans Together process. 

“So, the second question is really about lot splits,” Einsweiler said. 

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