City Council briefed on Neighborhood Development Services work plan, forthcoming zoning changes

For the second time since becoming the director of Charlottesville’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services, Kellie Brown has appeared before the City Council to give an overview of what her team will do in the next fiscal year. She started with an overview.

“Neighborhood Development Services is dedicated to creating a sustainable and vibrant community,” Brown said. “We are made up of eight program areas. Zoning, building inspections, development services, property maintenance really fall within our code compliance area focus.”

Since her last appearance on January 21 of this year, the city has hired a long range planning manager and a long range senior planner.

“They’re both part of our team now,” Brown said. “We have a new permit technician. We are still recruiting for a student housing property maintenance inspector, but we have a transit planner on board as well. And we’ve also been continuing to focus on staff development and training with a number of certifications for our building inspection and property maintenance team.”

There are two openings in NDS at the moment including a zoning inspector to focus on properties used for short-term rentals. The other is someone to work on tree preservation and tree removal permits.

In July, the city’s housing programs will also move underneath NDS now that the Office of Community Solutions has been dissolved. Read that story here.

Toward the beginning of her presentation, Brown showed a new Development Map that allows people to visually search for development projects. This is part of the effort to better explain the new Development Code to community members. Brown used the map to show Council that there are a lot of building inspections that need to occur and permits to be reviewed.

“We are looking at opportunities to increase the capacity of that group through a temporary plan reviewer,” Brown said. “That’s something that’s under review by staff right now.”

Brown said that before NDS embarks on any new initiatives not already considered, the department has to focus on the core of its work which is to enforce the Building Code, Property Maintenance Code, development plan review, historic preservation, and zoning enforcement.

“We also are prioritizing new efforts that also are in support of health and safety and then also the implementation of the new development code before we add new initiatives,” Brown said.

This summer the scoping will be completed on a two-year study to look at the city’s rules to protect natural resources. Brown said this will be an attempt to balance out sustainability goals with the city’s goal to build more housing.

“What are the real issues that we face?” Brown asked. “What are the key problems that we need to solve? We’re looking at, you know, how we balance the community vision for healthy air, water and ecosystems, as well as high quality and accessible open space in natural areas and a preserved and enhanced tree canopy with our goals for housing as well.”

City Councilor Michael Payne said he was nervous about removing too many protections and said he did not think environmental regulations were stopping the production of new housing. For instance he said the city should not permit development in floodplains.

“I just worry if we get the balance wrong, we’re really going to be regretting decisions we made in 20 years if a tropical storm makes a direct impact, you know, straight through central Virginia,” Payne said.

Brown said the study could possibly call for a need to strengthen regulations, but NDS has to go through the work first. A key area of review will be on stormwater management and whether there can be more flexibility.

Another initiative in the next year will be a “visioning process” for the Rose Hill and Tenth and Page neighborhoods. Portions of both are designated in the Comprehensive Plan as “Sensitive Communities” that have some protections in the zoning code. When the new rules were adopted, the idea was to create small area plans for both.

“We are in the initial process, really right now, kind of organizing ourselves, establishing those relationships with community members, preparing materials on what are the existing conditions in these neighborhoods that can help community members provide to us, you know, what they envision as the future for their communities and, excuse me, for their neighborhoods,” Brown said.

Brown said the process will begin in the second half of 2025 with recommendations expected in the first half of 2026. She said the plan will be on a short-term planning horizon and one of the questions will be on what residents think of the Residential-Neighborhood A zoning.

“That RNA zoning… really limits the development reinvestment potential in those neighborhoods,” Brown said. “ It doesn’t allow for the same number of units as in other neighborhoods. That is actually something where we want feedback from the community.”

However, the visioning process itself will not include making any changes. That would wait until further review of the development code under what NDS staff would called a “Tier 3” change.

Mayor Juandiego Wade said he wanted to know more about those engagement efforts because he said many people refuse to participate.

“What I found, particularly in 10th and Page, is that when I walk over there, it’s like half dozen people that sits on the porch that won’t attend any meeting,” Wade said.

One initiative underway now is a study of short-term rentals with a survey that closes on June 30. Brown said the ordinance that allows short rentals now is over ten years old and feedback from the survey could inform amendments.

“We will be bringing forward our findings and our recommendations later this year,” Brown said. “We are hoping to bring forward recommendations for amendments to ordinance by the end of the year.”

In the meantime, enforcement efforts will step up against those who are not in compliance.

Another item will be a review of the city’s architectural-design control districts and entrance corridors which Brown said have not been scrutinized for some time. One possible outcome is to reduce the workload of the Board of Architectural Review and the Entrance Corridor Review Board.

“They have not been looked at in a while,” Brown said. “And in that intervening time, we have adopted a new development code. And there certainly are questions about whether there are conflicts or, you know, consistency between the design guidelines and the development code.”

Council gets a look at zoning proposals

Brown then handed over the podium to Matt Alfele, the Development Planning Manager for the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services. He gave a similar presentation to the one the Planning Commission received in late May on potential changes to that development code. (read the story from the PC meeting)

Alfele had statistics on how the development code has been utilized so far.

“We’ve had 90 pre-application meetings in just over a year using the new development code,” Alfele said. “But as you can also see, out of those 90 pre-application meetings we’ve only had 20 projects move forward. And of those 20 projects that have moved forward, we’ve only had four projects that have received approval.”

Alfele went through several projects that are underway, projects that have all been reported in this newsletter. That includes 2030 Barracks Road where 24 units are envisioned on land zoned Residential B.

“This means we are seeing some missing middle housing emerge from these projects,” Alfele said. “However… significant challenges arise during the review process. Obstacles such as closing a public street, navigating discretionary approvals to modify development standards, and addressing utility service upgrades are providing key hurdles to moving these projects forward and eventually into construction.”

In the case of 2030 Barracks Road, the developer needed to get an administrative modification from the Board of Zoning Appeals and Council must grant a special exception from a requirement that all buildings face the primary street.

There was no discussion of the ongoing lawsuit seeking to overturn the zoning code. A jury trial is scheduled for June 2026. The defense filed a new motion this week and there is a hearing set for June 30 to address the plaintiff’s recent motion seeking a default. Read more in this story.

One member of the public appeared at public comment on June 16 to express concern.

“I’m a little concerned that we missed the filing on the zoning case and I’m hoping that will be taken care of,” said Chris Meyer. “I know there are a lot of people who want to build more housing in this community, myself being one of them, and not having certainty in the zoning code and the update in place is very disconcerting.”

Meyer is behind a project at 117 Harris Road which would see an 0.821 acre lot subdivided into two lots with units to be constructed on each for a total of 14 rental units. The existing house built in 1957 would remain on one lot along with new construction. A second submission was made on May 15 following an initial denial.

More on this process as it develops. Any questions? Ask in the comments!

Go if you don’t want to read this: This story was originally published in the June 17, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement and then posted here.