Albemarle PC to review three possibilities for first Activity Center plan

The Albemarle Board of Supervisors adopted a new Comprehensive Plan in October 2025 and the document known as AC44 went into effect on January 1. Growth area boundaries were kept intact and the plan offers several strategies for how to make better use of the area set aside for development.

In April, staff presented the elected officials with a plan for five ways the Department of Community Development will implement the document. These are an update of the zoning code, a multimodal transportation plan, creation of a rural area plan, increased staff time to administer AC44, and creation of Activity Center Plan. Read a story I wrote for a summary.

At a work session that begins at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, the Planning Commission will learn more details about all of the plans with more specifics on the Activity Center plans.

“The Activity Centers identified within AC44 are locations within the County’s Development Areas that are well-suited for higher density, a variety of uses, and walkable streetscapes,” reads the staff report.

What’s the 411 on AC in AC44? You can read a description on page 34 of the Development Areas Land Use chapter which explains that the concept of centers dates back to creation of the Neighborhood Model concept added to the Comprehensive Plan in May 2001. (page 14 of the minutes)

“The purpose of a center is to concentrate the provision of goods and services within an area proximate to nearby residents,” reads AC44.

The original idea is that people in a center could get to anything they needed to within five minutes. Previous Comprehensive Plans have listed as many as 50 but AC44 recognizes the county does not have the resources to focus on that many. The new update whittled the number to 22.

Now Albemarle staff expect to create three detailed plans in the next three years. Six have been studied and that number has been reduced to three:

• The U.S. Route 29 area – Airport Road area south to Ashwood Boulevard
  
  “With the Places29 Master Plan more than a decade old, strong private-sector interest from multiple landowners, and major nearby investments underway at North Pointe, North Fork, and Rivanna Futures, the area could be ripe for a fresh planning effort to address land use, multimodal connectivity, affordable housing, and Development Area expansion questions in a coordinated way.”

• The Route 29 – Rio Road area
  
  “This long-underperforming commercial corridor (aging buildings, vast surface parking, declining retail) includes the Albemarle Square Shopping Center, the Fashion Square Mall area, and the Arden II property.”
  
• South Pantops
  
  ”This fast-growing, destination-rich corridor along Route 250 east of the Rivanna River includes the underutilized Pantops Shopping Center, major nearby institutional anchors (Sentara/Martha Jefferson Hospital, Peter Jefferson Place), significant undeveloped landholdings (Worrell Development and Sentara parcels flanking South Pantops Drive and State Farm Boulevard), possibilities to coordinate with the City around Free Bridge, and extensive natural and recreational resources along the Rivanna River, including the new Free Bridge Lane pedestrian amenity.”

The pre-analysis for this round of prioritization removed consideration of some potential activity centers.

“Locations not carried forward into the scoring analysis included the Village of Rivanna, Fontaine Research Park and county areas along Ivy Road, and Crozet,” reads the report. “Research indicated that these areas were recently master planned or lacking in development or redevelopment potential and meaningful County leverage points to make an Activity Center Plan productive at this time.”

The Planning Commission will also be asked for their thoughts on a suggestion in AC44 that Supervisors consider restoring the ability of landowners to initiate the Comprehensive Plan process to change their land use designation.

“Based on [an] assessment, staff recommended maintaining the current approach to processing requests for Comprehensive Plan amendments, which calls for the ‘requestor’ to directly contact the Board/Board member to seek Board support to study the amendment proposal,” reads the staff report.

In May, Supervisors appeared to want to keep things the way they are.

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