City officials released plans Friday for 18 Charlottesville neighborhoods, from Greenbrier to Woolen Mills. “Everything that you see [in the plans] comes from a citizen,” says Neighborhood Planner Brian Haluska.
The common themes? Transportation. Things like sidewalks, bus service and parking are referenced in all the plans, according to Haluska. He notes that affordable housing and zoning also get heavy rotation.
The City’s Neighborhood Development Services department has learned a few lessons from the last time they made neighborhood plans. For the 2001 neighborhood plans, the department held approximately 150 meetings. “It’s fairly obvious, but we learned you burn out people with that many meetings: staff, public, everyone,” says Haluska.
This year, the plans took only 24 meetings: six during the fall, with follow-up winter meetings for each neighborhood that drew between 300 and 400 residents apiece, according to Haluska. “Because we had a framework, we decided to do something less intense,” he says.
Categories