Month: September 2008

Martha Jefferson Hospital is in the process of narrowing the list of potential partners to redevelop its 13.6-acre Downtown campus, the biggest city project in decades and one that promises to significantly alter the landscape of Charlottesville. The hospital issued a request for developer qualifications (RFQ) that came due August 29, and spokesman Steve Bowers says the hospital is still on course to select a redevelopment partner by the end of the year.

“We sent it out to developers and other people who have expressed interest over the years,” says Bowers. The RFQ asks developers to outline their previous experience and their proposed payment structure. The hospital, which is moving to Pantops by 2012 and is depending on the sale of the city site to help finance its new complex, will use the responses to pick a handful of finalists.

The Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Association wants the hospital to return offices like this one on Locust Avenue to the residential fold.

Interested companies have come from as far west as Chicago and Dallas, says Bowers, but he thinks there will be strong local and regional representation. “We want everyone to really appreciate the unique character of Charlottesville within the context of Central Virginia.” The hospital still hasn’t decided whether it will make the names of finalists public, but it will hold a neighborhood forum so that “everybody goes in with eyes wide open and with hopes for long-term collaboration.”

Maria Chapel, president of the Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Association, says that the hospital has been communicative so far. One potential source of conflict, however, is the status of five former residences that the hospital has turned into offices over the years. The hospital has committed to preserving those structures, but the neighbors want it to go further and actually downzone the land so that they once again become residences.

“We are aggressively working with them on this site to have it fit into our neighborhood,” says Chapel. “From our perspective, we think it would be better for the city, the hospital and the neighborhood to come to an agreement about what the zoning should be so that when companies do apply for this they know exactly what they’re getting into ahead of time.”

The ideal, says Chapel, is to have Taylor Street, which was subsumed into the Martha Jefferson complex, returned to a working street with everything north of it residential or parkland. “We’re really hoping to see some greenspace out of all this,” Chapel says.

Bowers envisions a rezoning taking place once the redevelopment partner is selected. He says the hospital understands the neighbors’ interests in having the site slope down in density. To balance that, the hospital might want to increase the density on the High Street side.

“It’s very complicated from all perspectives,” acknowledges Chapel. “There’s no easy answer. We’re not really looking for an easy answer, but we’re hoping that it’s going to be a graceful renovation of that space.”

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Before she could renovate her newly purchased home on Park Street, Therese Elron had to win over the city Board of Architectural Review (BAR). She weathered two meetings and dozens of questions about trim, brick patterns and the width of railing.

“Are you going to paint your downspouts?” asked BAR member Bill Adams at the August 19 meeting.

“What are you, an architect?” Elron asked facetiously. “Yes, but what color would I paint them? I just haven’t thought about it.”

The conservation districts would be a “lite” version of the ADC districts. Only demolitions and new construction would be policed by the BAR.

In the end, the downspouts weren’t an issue, Elron was complimented for her changes after the first meeting, and her plans were approved. But the BAR approval process—required for even the smallest exterior change to a building in an architectural design control (ADC) district—can be laborious and intimidating, particularly if you’re not comfortable with the language of architects and can’t afford to hire one. A do-it-yourself renovation with Uncle Pete can turn into a baffling discussion in City Hall about the historical context of certain wood stains.

ADC districts afford the city and citizens the opportunity to review exterior changes to buildings, protecting the “fabric of the neighborhood,” as well as property values. The districts can be especially important in a college town like Charlottesville, where the pressure of the student housing market could press into single-family neighborhoods. New development is forced to blend in with existing buildings, keeping Charlottesville from becoming Anywhere, USA.

The city has recently concocted the idea of a less restrictive form of city review called “conservation districts.” The focus is on protecting the scale of the neighborhood. Conservation districts are meant for neighborhoods where residents aren’t interested in having the city oversee their painting choices, but where development pressure could change the character of the neighborhood. Only demolitions and new construction would require BAR review—not renovations. The design guidelines for new construction are only two pages long, as opposed to the thick binder of guidelines for ADC districts.

Martha Jefferson and Woolen Mills neighborhoods have both expressed strong interest in the conservation districts. Other possible neighborhoods include 10th & Page, Starr Hill, Fry’s Spring and North Belmont.

But first, the city has to approve an official ordinance for the conservation districts, and to that end, the city Planning Commission gathered on August 26 to discuss a near-final proposal.

One point the Commission chewed over was how easy or difficult it should be to demolish a building. Commissioner Michael Farruggio likes what Piedmont Housing Alliance did for 10th & Page, though the 31-unit project involved tearing down some houses as well as rehabbing others. “My fear is they won’t be allowed to be torn down, and then the people who want to revitalize that neighborhood won’t get the opportunity,” said Farruggio.”

“I think that you could make the opposite argument, that the demolitions that are allowed by right are more of a threat to a neighborhood than review of them is,” answered Mary Joy Scala, city preservation planner. “And I think that that has happened in Fifeville, for example.”

Indeed, the Fifeville and Fifth & Dice neighborhoods have seen 15 demolitions in the past two years, many of them single family housing more than 100 years old slated to be replaced with high density condo and apartment complexes to serve UVA students. But Fifeville residents were wary of any local control district when the idea was broached in 2006 and 2007, and City Council has ruled that off the table until the neighborhood asks for it.

The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the conservation districts October 14.

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Claude and Annie Miller looked like kids in a candy store. Hand in hand, they strolled down Carr’s Hill Field and jumped with excitement as the drumline’s potent beat reverberated throughout Grounds.

“I’ve always loved marching bands, but they are not part of French culture,” says Claude Miller. “It’s an American thing.” He watches them on YouTube.

Marching bands, perhaps the great symbol of the American dream to young Frenchmen.

The French husband-and-wife duo is researching their next project, a documentary film that chronicles the life of a college marching band.

The backdrop of the film is not music per se, explains director Claude Miller, but rather a more personal look at the students’ involvement in this fall’s presidential elections. “Whatever happens in America in November is important for the world,” says Claude Miller. “It’s a very special moment in history and we want to ask students what they think.”

UVA’s Cavalier Marching Band is one of the two schools chosen to be featured in the film and was selected, says Claude, “because [it is] a good and serious band.”

Their affinity for Virginia was sparked by the founders and directors of Virginia Commonwealth University’s French Film Festival, Dr. Peter Kirkpatrick and Dr. Françoise Ravaux-Kirkpatrick, who invited the Millers and made Claude the honorary chair of last year’s events.

The crew plans to film UVA’s band and contrast it with Petersburg’s Virginia State University, a historically black college.

The couple got the idea of using students’ fanatic school spirit to depict a portrait of American youth and their involvement in politics about a year ago. They recognized the historical importance of these elections as they followed closely the primary season. “If Obama wins, it’s an event, a world event,” says Claude Miller.

The director, whose resumé reflects a concern for humanity’s social values, won a Cesar, France’s academy award, for Best Writing in 1982 for Garde á vue, a story about the human instinct to avenge a crime done to a child. He won the Cannes Jury Prize for La Classe de Neige—Class Trip in 1998. His most recent film is 2003’s La Petite Lili.

The director says he expects a mixed reaction from the French audience. “French youth will see [the movie] as a very exotic thing,” he says. “Maybe they’ll see it as the American dream.” He smiles thinking of when he was 20 and America inspired him to make movies. Nowadays, however, European youth are merely interested in the commercial aspect of the dream, he says. “It’s less about the dream and more about the music, rap and hip-hop.”

The Millers filmed at both schools in August and will be back at the end of October to get reactions around election night, November 4. They hope to have the film ready in time to present it to the Commission of next year’s Cannes Film Festival.

C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.

The Salvation Army plans to lease this property to Mike Brown, not sell it.

Due to a reporting error, we inaccurately stated in the August 19, 2008, issue that the Salvation Army is selling a former KFC [“Salvation Army sells fast food property,” Development News]. In fact, the Salvation Army has a letter of intent to lease the property.
The Salvation Army plans to lease this property to Mike Brown, not sell it.

The 2008 presidential election has attracted a record number of new registered voters throughout the country, and the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County are part of that trend. Since 2004, more than 5,000 new voters registered in the city along with more than 5,000 in the county. But the influx of voters will strain the city’s voting resources.

The reason for that strain comes from legislative hamstringing. In an effort to ease fears of hackers manipulating electronic voting machines, the Virginia General Assembly passed a law in April 2007 that prohibits local governments from purchasing new Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines. If localities need new voting machines, they are expected to turn to optical scanning machines that read paper ballots.

Sheri Iachetta, the city’s general registrar, is worried that Charlottesville will be short on voting machines come November because of a state law that keeps them from purchasing new electronic machines.

According to the Verifiable Voting Coalition of Virginia, the DRE machines have shown to be vulnerable to manipulation and error. For supporters of the new law, paperless machines won’t allow voters to check that their vote was correctly cast.

The city’s electronic machines do not produce a paper record of individual votes. “People didn’t have the confidence in the machines that had no paper trails,” says Sheri Iachetta, the city’s general registrar. “They want us to scrap everything and get new ones.”

But not everyone agrees that more paper is better. “We have 94 localities that use DRE machines,” says Iachetta. “And we love [the machines].”

Initially, the Assembly called for a general changeover to the optical scanners by 2010, but cost concerns and opposition from registrars, including Iachetta, reversed the proposition. Localities are allowed to use the DRE machines for the life of the apparatus—after that, they can only purchase new optical scanners.

Iachetta says the law is unfair. “In 2004, I was able to rent eight more [DRE] machines because of the large increase in voters,” she says. “But this time, we have 5,000 more voters and we are down eight machines.” The Virginia State Board of Elections and the Voter Registrars Association of Virginia intend to appeal the decision after the 2008 elections in November, according to Iachetta. “It’s a bad law,” she says.

The county, however, has enough machines for November, according to General Registrar Jack Washburne. “Before the deadline of the moratorium of April 2007, the county’s Electoral Board decided to purchase six new DRE machines,” says Washburne. “They were concerned about the increase in voter registration.” With the six new machines, purchased for about $39,000, the county has a total of 103 electronic machines in its precincts. “If the projected enormous turnout is true, we do expect to have people wait to find parking,” says Washburne. “There will inevitably be lines, but as far as voting machines, we are in good shape.”

What precincts have seen the biggest increase in registration? In the city, Carver and Jefferson Park precincts have seen a steady increase of new voters, but Recreation precinct, which includes Downtown, has grown the most since 2004.

In the county, Cale precinct increased by 704 voters since 2004. Free Bridge precinct, which includes Pantops, jumped by 607, while the Brownsville precinct, which includes Old Trail, rose by 536 voters.

C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.

Perhaps Mark Warner feels he’s had enough television exposure after his speech at the Democratic National Convention. In a press release, The League of Women Voters of Virginia says it won’t hold its customary senatorial debate because former Governor Mark Warner has opted not to participate.

Voters around the state won’t have a chance to see U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner share a podium with his opponent, Jim Gilmore.

“Exposing voters to a rigorous debate of the critical issues facing this nation today is a cornerstone of the democratic election process in America,” said Peter Maroney, vice president of WTVR, a CBS station that would have aired the debate. “It is regrettable that former Governor Warner has chosen to deny Virginians that opportunity by declining this statewide broadcast opportunity.” WCVE, a PBS station, would have also aired the debate.

Warner and his Republican opponent, Jim Gilmore (another former governor), debated in late July at The Homestead, but the event was not broadcast. They will have one more debate September 18, sponsored by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, but it is only slated to be televised in Northern Virginia.

Traditionally, the frontrunner controls the debate lineup, and Warner is certainly the frontrunner. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll puts Warner up 26 points over Gilmore.

C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.