Charlottesville City Council weighs in on student housing changes

Governor Abigail Spanberger’s third executive order seeks to increase the number of places to live across Virginia by finding ways to streamline the development process. One obstacle to doing so are decision systems that allow for appointed and elected officials to make decisions about where housing should go and on what scale.

Charlottesville undertook the Cville Plans Together initiative in early 2020 to recommend ways to increase housing production across the city. The Development Code adopted in late 2023 has survived a legal challenge but faces another as a growing number of voices are calling for Council to restore legislative control of apartment buildings in certain parts of the city.

In recent months, groups like the Public Housing Association of Residents and others have demanded Council eliminate development rights granted in the new zoning code to stop an 11-story building at 843 West Main Street and a seven-story building at 208 7th Street SW. In December, the BAR denied a certificate of appropriateness required for the latter project to move forward as is and Council will soon hear an appeal.

Before then, Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders arranged for a discussion to take place at the January 20 Council meeting on potential ways of addressing the issue.

“There’s a lot of work still to be done as the zoning ordinance was adopted,” Sanders said. “It was adopted with the notion that there would be things that we would have to go back and take a look at.”

Any work to review the Development Code is governed by the work plan for the Department of Neighborhood Development Services and reform of the zoning code is underway. On January 13, the Charlottesville Planning Commission had a public hearing on dozens of minor changes that NDS refers to as Tier 1 and Tier 2. To learn more, I covered that for the January 21, 2026 C-Ville Weekly.

Tier 3 changes require more work and community engagement.

Fees associated with student housing comprise one of those Tier 3 issues. According to the University of Virginia’s Office of Institutional Research and Analytics, there were 17,848 undergraduates and 8,837 graduates enrolled in the fall of 2025. There are about 7,000 beds of student housing on campus according to NDS Director Kellie Brown.

“Currently there are a number of projects under construction off grounds totaling about 3,500 beds,” Brown said. “So all told, this means that about 17,000 students will continue to find housing off grounds and in the city and in the county.”

Last March, the Academic and Student Life Committee of the Board of Visitors learned undergraduate enrollment is expected to remain flat through 2031. (read my story from the time)

In recent years there is a trend toward national firms managing student housing complexes such as the Scion Group operating both the Lark on Main and the newly renamed Yugo Crestline. Both were constructed under the previous rules which required Council to approve a special use permit first.

Under the Development Code adopted in 2023, Brown said there are no restrictions about where student housing can be built and there is no overlay district.

“The concept of student housing really only comes into play with regards to requirements for affordable housing,” Brown said.

Under the 2023 code, developers are required to guarantee that one in ten units are reserved for households making under 60 percent of the area median income (AMI). On top of that, developers can get permission from staff for additional height if another ten percent of units are income-restricted to households making less than 50 percent of AMI. A payment-in-lieu fee can be made to buy out those obligations on-site.

“The in lieu fee for residential construction is equal to the average total cost per unit of developing a residential unit in the Charlottesville market based on a bedroom count up to three bedrooms,” Brown said.

There is also a special consideration for units within a half-mile of Central grounds that pay a slightly smaller in-lieu fee.

A study of these payments is being added to the NDS work plan for this fiscal year. Brown wanted to get input from Councilors about what else should be reviewed. Brown also announced there’s a survey available on the city’s new Connect Charlottesville website.

“We are looking to do engagement through February and then hoping that we can develop guiding principles and policy recommendations and potential recommended manual updates and development code amendments, if appropriate, in the spring of this year for your review and consideration,” Brown said.

City Councilor Michael Payne has lead the charge against the current crop of student housing buildings, even appearing before the Board of Architectural Review in December to urge them to deny a certificate of appropriateness. On January 20 he explained his concerns while some members of the audience snapped their fingers in support.

“I’m concerned with the economic impact of these projects in 10th and Page, Fifeville and Rose Hill,” Payne said. “And to me, our primary goal should be trying to stop displacement and economic harm done in those core neighborhoods.”

Payne said that the Development Code has made student housing the “highest and best use” of property in Fifeville and said that wealthier people living there will lead to displacement. He said students living in the Mark on 7th Street might want to spend money on Cherry Avenue changing the character.

“Once that gets built, Cherry Avenue will transform into an area of buy and for UVA students and we will completely lose our ability to have a black owned business district there and build community wealth,” Payne said to more snapping fingers.

Payne wants NDS to study expansion of the Core Neighborhood Overlay District that was added to the Development Code late in the discussion to require developments in parts of Cherry Avenue and Preston Avenue to demonstrate additional community benefit. This was put into place as a reaction to the Stony Point Development Group’s plans for a third phase of Dairy Market.

• More Dairy Market: Stony Point Development Group files plans for the third phase, C-Ville Weekly, July 19, 2023
• Third phase in the works for Dairy Market, July 12, 2023
• Sanders weighs in on Dairy Market Phase 3, August 8, 2023
• Less Dairy Market? Planning Commission set to vote on new zoning code recommendations, C-Ville Weekly, October 18, 202
• A brief update on Dairy Market Phase 3, Development Code, November 19, 2023

Under the Core Neighborhood review process, height would be capped at seven stories and construction would only be possible after Council approved a special exception that meets at least two of several requirements.

City Councilor Natalie Oschrin said the reason West Main Street is attractive for developers of student housing is location. She said one strategy could be to encourage developers to actually build affordable units on-site, perhaps through a tax abatement policy.

“I think we should be able to have integrated incomes throughout the city,” Oschrin said, adding she also wants commercial mixed-use to be allowed across more of Charlottesville as another way to help neighborhoods.

Oschrin expressed skepticism about the overlay district, adding it might have unforeseen consequences for existing property owners.

“We have to not just lock neighborhoods in amber, but give them strategies, give people strategies to make it workable to live and stay in their neighborhoods,” Oschrin said.

Oschrin said the large apartment buildings bring in additional tax revenue that go toward a growing list of government needs ranging for more requests for housing subsidies as well as the hiring of more bus drivers.

No one snapped fingers to Oschrin.

Councilor Jen Fleisher said she would like to see a creation of an overlay district for student housing areas as well as expansion of the Core Neighborhood Overlay District. She would describe it as a “UVA Servicing District.”

“Can we move student housing, for example, to an overlay district that seems protective of core neighborhoods and at the same time funnel the current in-lieu fees directly back into supporting anti displacement measures in core neighborhoods as a requirement of student housing?” Fleisher asked over the sound of more snapping fingers.

Brown said a central theme of the Comprehensive Plan is to encourage more housing across the entire city by-right. The standard leasing practice is for students to rent by the bedroom.

“If we wanted to restrict housing that you couldn’t develop products… that were rented out by the bedroom, that would have the potentially unintended consequence of restricting other sorts of housing that we need in this market,” Brown said.

Mayor Juandiego Wade said he always knew changes would need to be made to the Development Code after the new rules had been tested out. He said he wants a focus on small area plans that were to have been developed.

“And I would like to elevate, you know, the studies of the neighborhoods as soon as we can, as soon as possible,” Wade said. “That’s what I would be in the camp of doing as soon as possible.”

Toward the end of the work session, Sanders said he heard that Council wants to investigate a student housing overlay district and wants staff to study expansion of the core neighborhood overlay.

“I want to make sure that those are two distinct actions,” Sanders said. “They’re not the same thing because I want to make sure we’re not conflating the issue.”

Payne was clear he wants a zoning text amendment to be made soon to direct the Planning Commission to study expansion of the Core Neighborhood Overlay District.

Brown said that could not happen immediately and would require further study.

“We would have to look at the potential legal ramifications of essentially down-zoning what is currently allowed by right to lower heights, and you know, what kind of the parameters are for that sort of consideration,” Brown said.

Payne said 843 West Main Street would interfere with the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing and Authority’s plans to redevelop Westhaven. Council has agreed to provide $15 million in financing for a project that will more than double the amount of units there from 126 to 266 units plus create a three-story mixed-use building on 10th Street.

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