There are just over six months until Albemarle County Supervisors are expected to adopt a new Comprehensive Plan after just under four years of review. Eight out of eleven draft chapters are available for the public to read and provide comment.
One of the chapters left to be released to the public is the one called Historic, Scenic, and Cultural Resources. Staff presented some of the draft actions to the Albemarle Architectural Review Board at their meeting on April 7. (review the draft Cultural Resources goal statement, objectives, and actions dated March 28, 2025)
“The way this work went, there was some text for each of the chapters provided months ago that you all looked at,” said Margaret Maliszewski, a planning manager with Albemarle County. “And then we looked at goals and objectives. And so now we’re sort of at the next step where we’ve got the more detailed action steps.”
The Historic Preservation Committee has already taken a look at this information.
The goal statement reads as follows:
“Albemarle County will recognize, celebrate and promote awareness of its rich and extensive historic, cultural, and scenic resources, and will actively work to identify, preserve and protect these valuable resources.”
The ARB reviews projects within Entrance Corridor Districts in order to grant required Certificates of Appropriateness. Objective 5 perhaps pertains the most and and action H in the draft calls for an expansion of “opportunities for streamlined review of ARB applications, including more categories of staff-level review.”
ARB Member Frank Stoner asked if staff had any ideas for what that expansion might look like. Maliszewski said there are none at this time.
“The way that would work is either either you all would have ideas for ways to do that or staff would come up with that and then we would bring it to you and then it would move back up to the, to the board for approval,” Maliszewski said.
The draft of the chapter is not yet available. Maliszewski said one item that will be explained are the difference between scenic by-ways, scenic highways, and other road designations.
Objective six of the draft chapter gives the county more moral weight toward any future plans to preserve dark skies. This object reads: “Reduce light pollution to protect and enhance the dark sky while balancing the need for a safe environment.”
Maliszewski detailed some of the actions.
“6A is about updating the lighting ordinance and B, lead the protection of dark skies by designing and implementing lighting for county facilities that are energy efficient and dark sky friendly,” Maliszewski said.
Objective 1 in the draft plan calls for an “accurate and comprehensive inventory of the historic, cultural, scenic, and rural resources that contribute to Albemarle’s unique sense of place.”
Albemarle County does not have a historic protection ordinance and there are no requirements preventing demolition of historic buildings.
“There might be some resources out there that have some protection through conservation easements, or there could be conditions of a special use permit or rezoning, but I don’t think those numbers are very high,” Maliszewski said.
Objective 3 calls for study of more ways to increase the number of places under historic protection.
More on AC44 hopefully this week with a story on the Planning Commission’s discussion on the Housing chapter.
Before you go: This story was originally posted in the April 8, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. To support this work, consider a paid subscription to the newsletter or support through Patreon. Checks are also welcome!
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