A major purpose of the Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter is to keep an eye on development projects in the City of Charlottesville in the wake of a new zoning code adopted in December 2023 and implemented in February 2024.
A major theme of the code was to transfer a lot of power over density and height from City Council to staff in the Department of Neighborhood Development Services. Council’s role is now more limited but does include the approval of special exceptions to technical parameters.
One of those parameters is called “active depth” and it is one of those terms which may not immediately make sense to the non-architect but is important to try to grasp.
“The horizontal depth of a building that must contain active spaces,” reads page 143 of the Development Code.
No more than twenty percent of a facade can be “inactive” which includes stairways, parking spaces, and travel ways.
The developers of a 16-unit apartment complex at 1906 Stadium Road have filed for such an exception. The development plan for the project has gone through three rounds of review by NDS staff. That is allowed under the Residential Mixed Use 3 zoning. An entity called Stadium Road Real Estate LLC paid $275,000 for the 0.166 acre property on July 27, 2023 and filed the plans in October 2025.
The last review resulted in another denial on July 2, 2026, but the comment letter is not yet in the city’s permit portal. (PL-25-0151)
In June, Shimp Engineering filed an application for a special exception to be relieved from active depth requirements.
“Along Stadium Rd., the stairways make up about 24 percent of the required active depth area,” reads the June 5 request. “Along Harmon Street, the travel way and stairway are about 71 percent of the required active depth area.”
The matter will first go before the Planning Commission in the near future.
“Active depth” is one of the areas that has been recommended for further review in the on-going “clean-up” of the development code but it is unclear on when and how this might be addressed.
“The Clean‑Up is not a rewrite of zoning policy or a reconsideration of the City’s broader land‑use direction,” reads the NDS website on the clean-up. “Larger strategic or policy‑level items that emerge during the review are documented and forwarded to Long‑Range Planning for future work.”
The topic was discussed at a Planning Commission work session on July 28. I’ve not yet had a chance to write this up, but will do so when there is an actual recommendation for a change. In the meantime, the current rules still apply and the Planning Commission will take up the special exception at a later date. (summary)
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 September 9, 2026 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. You can either subscribe through Substack or make a charitable contribution.
Discover more from Information Charlottesville
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
