Charlottesville Planning Commission reviews $136M capital improvement plan

There are still many more months to go before Charlottesville City Council adopts a budget for FY2025. One major step each year is the introduction of the Capital Improvement Program budget to the Planning Commission which frequently takes place the last week of November. 

This year that took place on November 28 and the work session was an opportunity for Commissioners to ask questions about the budget.

This will be the first budget for City Manager Sam Sanders.

“There are a great number of priorities as you all well know and Council having adopted their strategic outcome areas in September identifying nine areas and a commitment to [Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, so ten,” Sanders said. “How to balance all of those things?”

Sanders said room has been freed up in the capital budget to make room for new items to be added.  Some of you may be new to this sort of thing, so let’s recap what a capital budget does.

“The capital budget is a multi-year plan,” said Krisy Hammill, the city’s director of budget and performance management. “We do a five year plan and it forecasts spending and revenue for all anticipated capital projects.”

Hammill said there are talks about creating an informal ten year plan to better guide future investments. That’s one thing that will be discussed with Council this budget cycle. 

Hammill said the capital budget also takes direction from the Comprehensive Plan. Capital budgets can have appropriations carry over from year to year while projects move from planning to construction. 

“A well-planned CIP ensures that major expenditures are aligned with community expectations, anticipated growth, all while making sure that it also remains within our financial capabilities,” Hammill said. 

In recent years, Council had been constrained by an approaching debt limit but Hammill said that is not the case at the moment. 

“In the last few years, as you know, we’ve continued to have a very strong recovery from COVID as well as a very strong real estate market, which has contributed to the growth of our general fund budget, making our capacity not so much the issue as affordability,” Hammill said. 

That refers to the city’s ability to pay back bonds through debt services. Interest rates are kept low by the AAA bond rating. 

Hamill went through the proposed budget and here are some highlights.

• Charlottesville is contributing funds to Albemarle County’s project to build a joint General District Court to serve both communities. A new hearing room has been added to the scope and the city’s projected share in FY2025 is $410,000 with another $201,838 in FY2026 programmed for furniture for the new space. 
• The city’s share is $1.788 million for a new baling facility to assist the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority with paper recycling. An engineering study for this purpose was conducted in the fall of 2021 as I wrote about at the time. (learn more on city’s Budget Explorer)
• There’s $1 million set aside each year for “climate action initiatives” and City Manager Sanders said projects have not been identified. This funding may be used for local matches for external grants. (learn more on city’s Budget Explorer) 
• There is $100,000 set aside in FY2026 for the repurposing of the existing U.S. 250 bypass fire station which will not be demolished when the new one is built. (learn more on city’s Budget Explorer) 
• There is $4.217 million in FY2025 for the upgrade of Stribling Avenue to have a sidewalk and curb and gutter. Interim Deputy City Manager Steven Hicks said a consultant has been hired to help the city come up with a pathway toward building the pathway which may be built on alternating sides. More information will be available in February or March. (learn more from the city’s Budget Explorer)
• There’s an additional $750,000 in city-required funding for the Fontaine Avenue Streetscape. This is to cover costs that the Virginia Department of Transportation has indicated they will not pay.  (The Budget Explorer has more info on that project here)
• City Manager Sam Sanders said he would add an item to his work plan to have a published sidewalk priority list by the end of the fiscal year. 
• The Dogwood Vietnam Memorial secured $600,000 in state grant for a safer connection to the facility in McIntire Park. 
• There is $2 million toward replacing the irrigation system at MeadowCreek Golf Course whose debt service will be paid for through revenues from the city’s golf fund. In other words, eliminating this expenditure would not free up $2 million for use elsewhere. 

Commissioners were also briefed on affordable housing projects in the CIP. Commissioner Karim Habbab sought to recuse himself given that his work for local firm BRW Architects includes design services provided for Piedmont Housing Alliance. 

Commission Chair Hosea Mitchell asked if this was necessary.

“Did you run that by legal?” Mitchell asked.

“They did not respond with a formal statement I should make,” Habbab said.

James Freas, the director of Neighborhood Development Services, said he could not offer an opinion on the matter. 

Planning Commissioner Carl Schwarz is also an architect and said he’s also been contracted to do a mock-up for one of the projects, but said he felt they could still discuss the work as Planning Commissioners were not voting on anything at the work session. 

Sanders said there would be a legal opinion in time for the public hearing in January. 

The big project added is $15 million for Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority over three years for the redevelopment of Westhaven, or about ten percent of the project’s total cost. City Council got a small preview at a work session in October as part of a presentation of a sustainability plan created by the firm Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures.

CRHA is also slated to receive $3 million in FY25 and $3 million in FY26 for redevelopment, as well as $900,000 a year to help fund supplemental housing vouchers. This latter fund has been used recently to allow CRHA to purchase single family homes across the city. Sanders mentioned during the work session that CRHA has requested a fund that will allow it to acquire more property. 

Piedmont Housing Alliance has withdrawn a request for additional funding for the second phase of Kindlewood, but there is $500,000 slated in FY25 for infrastructure improvements for what had been known as Friendship Court. There is additional funding in future years for phase three and phase four.

Piedmont Housing Alliance has other funds coming its way to help subsidize construction at the MACAA site and at Park Street Christian Church. The project to build affordable units at 501 Cherry Avenue is slated to receive $1 million in FY26 and $2.15 million in FY27. 

Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg asked if the 501 Cherry Avenue funding had gone through a competitive process. 

“It gives me a little bit of heartburn because we lock ourselves into it before we’ve been able to weigh it against other affordable housing priorities,” Stolzenberg said. 

Sanders said Piedmont Housing Alliance did submit an application through the capital investment process in 2022 as part of reform called for in the Affordable Housing Plan.  

“We formalized the [Notice of Funding Availability] and so we published that advance and there was a successive round of [request for proposals],” Sanders said. “One of the RFP rounds is the capital investment opportunity. No money allocated so we’re not making any commitment. Everyone applies but what we intend for that to do is  inform the city of what are the sizeable projects that may be [Low-Income Housing Tax Credit] oriented.” 

Sanders said the Planning Commission’s recommendation for the approval of a rezoning for the project was taken as a sign to proceed. Stolzenberg said he thought that should be a separate process. 

The Planning Commission will have a public hearing on the capital improvement program at their meeting on January 9.  Any feedback may be taken into consideration as Sanders crafts the final draft budget to be presented to Council in early March. Council will adopt the entire budget in April. 

Before you go: The time to write and research of this article is covered by paid subscribers to Charlottesville Community Engagement. In fact, this particular installment comes from the December 8, 2023.

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