In what is expected to become commonplace under a new Development Code, the Charlottesville Planning Commission had no public hearings at its meeting on February 13, 2024. There were several updates from Commissioners, including a preview of one item that the University of Virginia’s governing body will hear next week.
“The Darden Graduate apartment building is being brought to the Board of Visitors for final approval later this month and that will begin construction shortly thereafter with a a tentative projected opening in 2026 and that’s an additional 350 beds,” said Michael Joy, the recently appointed non-voting representative from the University of Virginia.
The Board of Visitors’ Buildings and Grounds Committee had a preliminary look at their meeting in December, as I wrote about at the time.
Joy also mentioned that UVA and the UVA Foundation are partnering with non-profit groups on two affordable housing projects. The Piedmont Housing Alliance is working on the Piedmont site off of Fontaine Avenue and a group called Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) is working on a site at the corner of 10th and Wertland. I covered that back on February 15, 2023.
Commissioner Carl Schwarz, a 10th and Page resident, had a question about the latter.
“Our neighborhood association tried to reach out to POAH at one point and they said the contracts had not been signed yet,” Schwarz said. “Has that been finalized?”
“My understanding is that today I was told that everything is fully active and they are working within the community,” Joy said.
According to the website of the President’s Council on UVA-Community Partnerships, work on community engagement is expected to begin in early 2024.
“The timeline for construction will depend on the rezoning process and the financing,” reads an update. “Based on conversations with the developers, construction likely will not commence before 2026 at the earliest.”
The third site selected by UVA for an affordable housing project is at the UVA Foundation’s North Fork Discovery Park. The Albemarle Board of Supervisors approved a rezoning to allow residential uses at their meeting on February 7.
Michael Joy did not attend the January 19 meeting of the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee (LUEPC), a closed-door body that succeeded the public Planning and Coordination Council after the latter was dissolved in late 2019. Planning Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg did attend that one according to the minutes.
“We discussed essentially the Three Party Agreement that is the basis of why LUEPC exists and is the basis of cooperation between the three entities,” Stolzenberg said.
The three parties are Albemarle, Charlottesville, and the University of Virginia and the agreement was signed in 1986 after UVA expressed concerns about Albemarle’s approval of a rezoning of land on Fontaine Avenue for a shopping center. Stolzenberg said there was discussion about whether the agreement should be revisited.
“Revisiting it to an extent to perhaps further define how some of the processes are supposed to work,” Stolzenberg said. “In many ways the agreement is vague.”
The public is not allowed to attend meetings of the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee, but materials are posted after the fact. Slide 9 of the 13-page presentation appears to indicate that LUEPC may be used in the future to review land use changes in what’s known as Area B.
The Three Party Agreement also established that UVA would be able to appoint non-voting members of the Planning Commissions of both Albemarle and Charlottesville, which is how Michael Joy sits on the city’s body.
There is currently no non-voting UVA member of the Albemarle Planning Commission, but a top official in the UVA Architect’s office was appointed by the Board of Supervisors in January 2022 as a voting member. Additionally, the UVA Foundation’s director of design and development is the Scottsville District representative. In that capacity, Fred Missel also attends meetings of the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee. In 2024, the Planning Commission elected him as chair and Luis Carrazana is the vice chair.
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