Since Charlottesville City Council adopted a new zoning code in December 2023, there has already been one round of changes for minor alterations for clarification and to correct technical errors.
A second round of minor changes kicked off on June 23 when the Planning Commission held a listening session for developers.
“Our inaugural year was the 2025 cycle where we completed 83amendments to the development code,” said Matt Alfele, the city’s development planning manager. “They were small technical corrections and just small refinements to the code. It was in a three tiered system where we were focusing on tier one and tier two and tier three were policy issues that we as a group were gathering.”
Resources:
- Watch the recording on Boxcast
- Staff report
- Development Code Proposed Amendments Working and Tracking Document 2026
- Executive Summary of Code Amendment Issues
- Presentation for the work session
What were called “Tier 3” projects are now to be reviewed by the long range planning division in the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services (NDS). That may or may not include a look at the Development Code to expand the areas covered by the Core Neighborhood Overlay District. There is no identified timeline for when Tier 3 issues will be dealt with. The tier system has also been eliminated.
“For this year’s cycle, we are not doing the tiered approach,” Alfele said. “That did cause a lot of confusion within the community, especially because there are a lot of policy issues I think a lot of people wanted to talk about. Because we are in very close communication with our developers and the community, we felt we were in a good position to hear those larger policy issues and to gather them so that the NDS director could work those into a larger work plan.”
Developers and builders were asked three questions:
- Please begin by sharing your role in the development process and how you interact with the Development Code in your work
- What parts of the Code create confusion or slowdowns, and what small, technical adjustments could improve clarity or predictability?
- What elements of the Code are currently working well and should remain unchanged during this Clean-up cycle?
At least half the speakers were not members of the development community but the first person to go had a story to tell about how the code itself became an obstacle to meeting the goal of increasing residential density.
One of the first development plans to be filed was for six townhouses to replace a single-family home at 303 Alderman Road. Evergreen Homebuilders purchased the 0.31 acre property zoned Residential-B. They filed their plan in August 2024 and withdrew it after being denied three times by staff. One of the issues was a need for waiver to exceed the maximum width allowed under the code.
“We were proposing three townhouses to front on Alderman,” said the company’s Eric Sartain. “We were told that they must be considered a single building, which is what led to the max width issue because it wasn’t three townhomes, it was one building.”
Evergreen sold the property and the existing house is now being renovated as a single-family residential structure. (read my story)
There was no response as Planning Commission Chair Carl Schwarz said he did not want back and forth dialogue at the event.
Former Planning Commissioner and Board of Zoning Appeals Member Genevieve Keller took the opportunity to state a claim that very people in the city understand what is in the Development Code and potential conflicts are looming.
Keller said the BZA has heard testimony from people concerned about the amount of density that can come with Residential B such as at a hearing in May 2025 about an administrative modification for a 24-unit development at 2030 Barracks Road. Residential-B allows for up to six units on a lot and up to 12 units if half are affordable. (read my story about that BZA hearing)
“They did not understand that this was possible in their neighborhoods, and they did not see it as an opportunity,” Keller said. “And I would say, personally, those R-B sites are kind of scattered around. They don’t really make a lot of sense. And a lot of those were just because of the width of the lot on a primary street.”
Keller said she wants Council to remove the provisions in code that allow for student housing. She was one of two votes on the BZA against a determination that the seven-story Mark project in Fifeville qualifies for that category which has lower payment-in-lieu fees and no requirement to build affordable units. (read my story about that BZA hearing)
Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum asked the Planning Commission to talk about the Tier 3 issues even if staff has not laid out a work plan for how they will be dealt with. He said one issue is whether requirements for affordable housing are blocking developers from pursuing projects.
“I talked to many people with regard to the affordable housing provisions and the inclusionary zoning requirements and adjusting those numbers,” Williamson said.
Under the Development Code, one in ten units must be designated as affordable to households at 60 percent or below the area median income for a term of 99 years.
Developer and land use attorney Nicole Scro appeared as well and said she is doing a lot of consultant work for property owners who want to redevelop single family lots for multiple units. She said consistency in processing applications is crucial.
“I have to be able to tell people this can get done in X amount of time with some amount of confidence,” Scro said. “And that’s been hard recently. People need to plan and financially plan. But that’s changing and getting better.”
Scro also said there needs to be a mechanism to create sublots in the Mixed Use zoning districts because there are many smaller parcels that will never be consolidated into bigger ones. She also said there is a lot of tension between the need for utility easements which eliminates buildable space.
Schwarz asked Scro to email specific examples.
Valerie Long, a prolific attorney with Williams Mullen, said she appreciated the technical changes approved in the first phase of changes except one. Under the updated rules that went into effect in March, design approval must be completed before a development plan can be approved.
“I don’t think design review is part of zoning, unlike the dimensional requirements in the Development Code,” Long said. “Height, transparency, active depth, building lengths, you know, lot covered, all those dimensional objective criteria, very different from design review.”
Jean Hiatt of Preservation Piedmont said there is tension in Charlottesville caused by a zoning ordinance that was rushed at the end of 2023.
“There’s a lot of unintended consequences because of some of the decisions that were made in the ordinance,” Hiatt said. “I think we should get rid of the student housing designation which really, really impacts the historically African American neighborhoods.”
Hiatt also wants the special use permit process to be reimposed for large developments to restore Council control and wants maximum building heights reduced.
Planning Commissioner Hosea Mitchell also served on the BZA and he said there should be a listening session with neighborhoods.
“It would be helpful if we could one sit down with the neighborhoods again and walk them through what it is and then get this kind of Feedback from Fifeville and Tenth and Page and all the other neighborhoods,” Mitchell said.
Commissioner Lyle Solla-Yates was on the Planning Commission in 2019 when the process to update the Comprehensive Plan broke down leading to the Cville Plans Together project. He wanted to know who would take on the policy issues now that there is no NDS director and the manager of the long range planning division is now the assistant director of communications.
“[Deputy City Manager] James Freas is the acting director when Kellie leaves us this week,” Alfele said. “We have a long range planning department division which is right now it is Tori Canalopoulos is running that division.”
Alfele said his work is on the technical side. As the meeting wrapped up, he reminded everyone they can follow along with the Development Code Clean-Up at Connect Charlottesville.
Before you go: The goal of Town Crier Productions is to increase awareness about what is happening at the local, regional, state, and federal government levels. Please share the work with others if you want people to know things. Paid subscribers cover the cost of conducting research for this article which was originally published in the June 25, 2026 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. You can either subscribe through Substack or make a charitable contribution.
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