Charlottesville PC takes first look at draft Capital Improvement Program

The Charlottesville Planning Commission has taken a first look at a proposed $201.5 million capital improvement program for a five-year period that begins on July 1, 2026. That includes $48.5 million of spending in FY2027.

The five-year plan anticipates $61.25 million on education spending including $36 million for a pre-K center that would be either at the Walker Upper Elementary site or the Oak Lawn site intended to be conveyed to the City of Charlottesville from the University of Virginia.

“The only reason that Oak Lawn is a part of the consideration is it just landed in our lap the way that it did this fall,” said City Manager Sam Sanders. “Otherwise it would be full steam ahead at the Walker site.”

The idea to build one pre-K center is part of Charlottesville City Schools’ decision to proceed with a renovation and expansion of the city’s middle school to add 6th Grade. Walker Upper Elementary would cease to serve that purpose after 5th grade moves back to the elementary schools. UVA offered Oak Lawn to the city after their bid to inherit the now-closed Federal Executive Institute was accepted by the federal government.

There’s an additional $26.1 million in the draft CIP for capital projects for city-owned buildings. That includes the McGuffey Art Center which is slated for a roof replacement in FY2030 at a cost of $1.2 million.

One Planning Commissioner flagged this expense.

“At the risk of angering the artists who I love, I don’t see a connection to the Comprehensive Plan on this item,” said Commissioner Lyle Solla-Yates.

The McGuffey Arts Association has rented the former elementary school since 1975. As I reported in January 2023, Council agreed to a new lease at $2,593 a month with an automatic annual increase of no more than three percent.

Deputy City Manager James Freas said the lease requires the city to provide maintenance no matter the tenant.

“Broadly, it’s a city facility, right?” Freas said. “So it lives in the world of maintaining city facilities. The roof needs to be replaced one way or the other. And whoever we put within the building, it’s our building to maintain.”

Planning Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg understood Solla-Yates’ point and said ongoing rent under this lease would barely put a dent in the cost to install the new roof.

“We have a five year lease that was signed in 2023,” Stolzenberg noted. “Can we maybe expect revenue coming into the CIP from our tenants there to defray this cost?”

Sanders that is a policy decision up to the City Council when they consider their budget.

Stolzenberg suggested the building could one day be used by Charlottesville Public Schools as it is centrally located and on Charlottesville Area Transit routes.

Another big category in the CIP is transportation with $50.9 million intended to be spent in the five-year period. About a fifth of that will go toward a certain kind of infrastructure.

“You will notice a pretty sizable increase in the new sidewalks,” said Krisy Hammill, the city’s budget director.

On the day of the work session, someone sent an email to the Planning Commission concerned that there is only $100,000 in the first year allocated for bicycle infrastructure. That sparked a conversation about whether West Main Street will be re-striped in a way to accommodate wider bike lanes.

Transportation Planning Manager Ben Chambers said his group is coordinating with both city utilities and the Department of Public Works as they create their paving plans. However, there is no firm timeline for when the work will be done.

“The funding that you’re looking at in the bicycle infrastructure fund, part of the reason that that’s not going up is we have a current balance that we’re spending down on projects,” Chambers said.

One of those projects is the removal of a vehicular lane on Fifth Street Extended as well as work on Rose Hill Drive. Chambers said the Fifth Street project has a cost estimate of about $600,000.

“We’re hoping to work that down with using in-house crews and identifying some cheaper materials than what the VDOT consultants originally gave to us,” Chambers said.

Stolzenberg said there should be more funding for bicycle infrastructure, a line item that has been reduced during his tenure on the Commission. He said that would help build a balance to pay for reconfigurations of West Main Street and Cherry Avenue in near future.

“It seems to me that, you know, based on what council says our priorities are and what our comprehensive plan priorities are, funding this at a third of the level we were 10 years ago seems not to be in line with those priorities,” Stolzenberg said.

Sanders said he inherited a city government that had different practices when it came to planning for how to spend money for capital infrastructure. He said a first step has been to fix the way the city builds new sidewalks and getting students to public schools on safe routes. He added he wanted to be cautious before assigning a lot of money given that Chambers is still working on developing plans for bicycle infrastructure.

“I think if we were just to start putting numbers in the boxes again, we’re just putting numbers there that we don’t know tied to a project list or even are possible for us to get done, that we would have an inability to spend that money that particular year because we need to take that line in proximity to everything else that we’re trying to get done as well,” Sanders said.

For affordable housing, the draft CIP anticipates $40.9 million over four years with nothing anticipated at this time for FY2031. All four years continue to show a $250,000 payment for a low barrier shelter on Cherry Avenue, a project that may be repurposed now that the city owns an office building on Holiday Drive for the same purpose. So far that project is not in the capital improvement program as the $6.3 million purchase price comes out city surplus funds.

“We’re not sure that we’re going to need to do it out of CIP because the intention was that we would not pay into the improvements of the building because our philanthropic friends in the community had offered to step in if we were going to spend that much to acquire something,” Sanders said. “So that’s being negotiated.”

A partial recording of the meeting is available on the city’s website. Click here to observe.

The City Council will have a joint public hearing with the Planning Commission on December 9.

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