Albemarle County seeking changes to form-based code at Rio / 29

The Albemarle Board of Supervisors adopted the Places29 Master Plan in September 2011 as a guide for new development along a major U.S. highway that runs through the county’s biggest growth area.

Ten years later, the elected body adopted a form-based zoning code for 411 acres around the intersection of U.S. 29 and Rio Road to try to encourage a more urban community that itself was called for in the Rio / 29 Small Area Plan adopted in December 2018.

“Form based codes differ from traditional conventional zoning districts by focusing on how the building relates to sidewalks and streets to create a place rather than governing development through land use or residential density,” said Mariah Gleason, a senior planner with Albemarle County.

Participation in the zoning overlay district is optional but many of the plans that have come through since then did not meet expectations or were not compatible due to a lack of standards, and the Board of Supervisors agreed to amend the code.

The Planning Commission had the first of two work sessions on some of those changes on January 13. Gleason said the work has been reviewed by members of the development community as well as the Places29-Rio Community Advisory Committee.

“The proposed changes staff are presenting tonight and at the upcoming meeting are updates intended to address known administration and implementation challenges identified since adoption,” Gleason said.

There are six changes and one of them is to break the areas depicted as “core” from a single mass focused on the intersection of U.S. 29 and Rio Road and instead focus them on Fashion Square Mall, Albemarle Square, and the Rio Hills Shopping Center.

“These areas have the densest development, highest levels of activity and most urban forms, so you can think of this as the district’s focal point or destination,” Gleason said. “So to give you a sense of the feel of this character area, you would see the tallest buildings here positioned close to the street, typically with parking behind and highly transparent first floors to support commercial uses.”

Another change is the new definition of a “destination street” with Bond Street in Stonefield as one example.

Commissioner Karen Firehock was skeptical of whether a form-based code will incentivize private developers to invest in many of the amenities desired by staff.

“I’m obviously not on the Board of Supervisors,” Firehock said. “It’s not my money, but it just seems like the county may need to invest more substantively to actually spur this.”

The draft changes would also encourage developers to create new street grids when property is redeveloped.

“Part of this thing is not being so prescriptive from the government side, but to try and set a ground set of rules, you build this form, you can put as much density in the types of uses that you want,” said Michael Barnes, the county’s planning director. “For the most part, it’s a different way than we normally approach zoning in our community.”

One area where public interest might come into play is the potential realignment of Hillsdale Drive. That project was identified in the Rio 29 Small Area plan and ranked fourth in the county’s 2019 transportation priority list. That list has not been updated since.

A second work session on changes to the Rio / 29 form-based code had been scheduled for January 27 but canceled due to the ice storm.

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