Month: September 2021

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Hoos ready

Coach Bronco Mendenhall has high hopes for this year’s UVA football team. Photo: Matt Riley/UVA Athletics.

This Saturday, the Virginia Cavaliers will return to a full-capacity Scott Stadium for the first time in almost two years. The team will face considerable opposition if it wants to repeat its ACC Coastal Division-winning 2019 performance: Most preseason polls have UVA finishing fifth of eight teams in the Coastal, trailing UNC, Miami, Pitt, and Virginia Tech. UNC and Miami in particular boast strong, star-packed rosters.

But for the Wahoo faithful, there’s plenty of reason to believe. The Cavs handled the tumult of the pandemic remarkably well in 2020, winning four of their last five games to finish the season at 5-5. And heading into 2021, the roster has quite a few players who were a part of the memorable 2019 season, which saw Bryce Perkins lead the Cavaliers to their first ACC Championship appearance in program history. 

On offense

UVA will shine on offense this season. The 2020 unit averaged 30.7 points per game, the first time UVA has averaged more than 30 points per game in the ACC. Quarterback Brennan Armstrong, the 6’2″, 215-pound redshirt junior from Shelby, Ohio, will lead the charge. Armstrong threw for 2,117 yards and 18 touchdowns, and was the Cavaliers’ leading rusher with 552 yards in 2020. He also threw 11 interceptions, more than competitors like UNC’s Sam Howell (seven) and Miami’s D’Eriq King (five). 

Armstrong is one of seven returning quarterbacks in the country with a ProFootballFocus rating over 90. With spring and summer training curtailed by COVID in 2020, he struggled to find rapport with his offense, especially in the early part of the season. After a full season as the starter and a full offseason of work, Armstrong should be better than ever come fall. 

The secret to UVA’s success this year will be keeping the team’s signal caller healthy and out of harm’s way—which is where the Cavaliers’ offensive line comes in. The OL has six key linemen returning: Olusegun Oluwatimi, Ryan Nelson, Chris Glaser, Ryan Swoboda, Bobby Haskins, and Joe Bissinger. Although the starting five have yet to be announced, it’s safe to say that Armstrong has experienced men protecting him.

A good quarterback is nothing without quality receivers and running backs, and luckily Armstrong has plenty. Senior Keytaon Thompson, who serves as a back-up quarterback and wide receiver, returns for the Hoos after rushing 39 times for 234 yards and three touchdowns, and catching seven passes for 98 yards and three TDs. Senior wide receiver Billy Kemp IV is a solid option for Armstrong as well, after rushing 644 yards and securing one touchdown in 2020. Kemp will also be the team’s starting punt returner. Big man Lavel Davis, Jr. made waves last season with 20 receptions for 515 yards and five touchdowns before tearing his ACL. Davis was originally slated to return in November, but in a recent press conference Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall teased a potential earlier return. Dontayvion Wicks, who was out last season due to injury, and Ra’Shaun Henry, who racked up 206 yards and four touchdowns in 2020, are valuable options for Armstrong as well. 

The Cavaliers have three play-making running backs available to start: senior Wayne Taulapapa, sophomore Mike Hollins, and senior Ronnie Walker, Jr. Taulapapa returns for the Hoos after rushing for 395 yards in 2020. He’ll look to add to his 17 career touchdowns. Hollins opted out of the 2020 season but secured three touchdowns in 2019. Walker ran for 66 yards in four games after transferring from Indiana halfway through last year. 

At tight end, Armstrong has an exciting new target to aim for: Jelani Woods, a 6’7″, 275 lb transfer from Oklahoma State. When he arrived at UVA, Woods selected the number 0 for his jersey, because, Woods says, 0 is the number of people who can stop him. Now that’s the right attitude. 

On defense

The secondary will make or break the season for UVA. In 2020, the defense struggled, in part due to injury, giving up an average of 442.9 yards per game (10th in the ACC), 6.4 yards per play (14th in the ACC), and 29.6 points per game (ninth in ACC). The defensive backfield allowed 304 passing yards per game, which ranked last in the ACC and 123rd out of 127 FBS teams. 

On the bright side, last season’s Hoos finished fourth in the ACC in rushing yards allowed per game, sixth in sacks with 32, and sixth in interceptions with 11. These aren’t extraordinary numbers, but at least the team has a foundation to build on entering the season. 

Nick Jackson is the linebacker to watch. As an inside linebacker, he earned a spot on the all-ACC Third Team in 2020 after leading the Hoos with 105 tackles on the inside (ranked sixth nationally) and averaged 10.5 tackles per game (second in the ACC). Jackson was named to the preseason watchlist for the Butkus Award, which goes to the best linebacker in the country.

Senior safeties Joey Blount and De’Vante Cross are ready to rectify the mistakes of last season. Blount, an all-ACC performer in 2019, missed time in 2020 due to an injury but still managed one interception, one forced fumble, and a sack. Cross started all 10 games in 2020 and finished the season with 29 tackles, two interceptions, one sack, and six passes defended. 

Joey Blount, who was injured for half of last season, is making up for lost time as a “super senior,” one of eight UVA players who is taking advantage of an extra year of eligibility. Photo: Matt Riley/UVA Athletics.

Senior cornerback Nick Grant is aided by the addition of grad transfer Anthony Johnson. Grant had 31 total tackles (25 solo), one forced fumble, and two interceptions in 2020. In 2019, Johnson had 27 total tackles, six points defended, three forced fumbles, and one interception at Louisville. 

The defensive line is filled with experienced returning starters: Mandy Alonso, Adeeb Atariwa, Aaron Faumui, and Jahmeer Carter, plus freshman Bryce Carter, UVA’s highest-ranked recruit for 2021.

De’Vante Cross, another super senior, started all 10 games for the Cavs in 2020, and finished the season with 29 tackles, two interceptions, one sack, and six passes defended. Photo: Matt Riley/UVA Athletics.

ON the competition

The Cav’s opening game against William & Mary should get the team off the mark with a win. After that, things quickly get more difficult: UVA has September road games against the season’s two highest-ranked ACC opponents, UNC and Miami. Both programs boast star quarterbacks: UNC starting passer Sam Howell is on the watchlist for the Heisman, and dynamite Miami quarterback D’Eriq King returns for the Hurricanes after tearing his meniscus and ACL. 

The Hoos have a dismal record on the road in recent years. They went 2-3 on the road in 2019 and 0-4 in 2020. Even so, UVA has beaten UNC for the past four years, including last season with Howell under center. 

Miami, however, is a different story. UVA has lost to Miami on the road three times in the past four years. The Cavs beat Miami in 2018, when the Hoos and Hurricanes met at Scott Stadium, where UVA was able to pull off a three-point victory. Despite a stacked offensive roster, the Cavaliers may need a miracle to win at Miami on September 30.

Later in the season, UVA can look forward to a tough home game against highly ranked Notre Dame, and a tricky matchup against Pitt in Pittsburgh on November 20. Then on November 27, Virginia Tech comes to town, and UVA will attempt to win the Commonwealth Cup for just the second time in the last 18 seasons. 

It’s the million dollar question, isn’t it: Will UVA beat Tech? The Hokies shouldn’t be any great shakes this season, coming off a three-year run where the team accumulated a 19-18 record. Quarterback Braxton Burmeister had an injury-riddled, inconsistent season last year before leading Tech to victory over UVA in the annual November matchup. The Hokies lost their best offensive lineman and running back to the NFL, but added a transfer from Clemson along the defensive line. 

With any luck, a jam-packed Scott Stadium crowd will cheer the Hoos as they topple their arch rivals in November. We can dream, can’t we?

Home sweet home

The Cavaliers are 16-2 at home over the last three seasons. They’re 6-13 when playing away from Charlottesville during the same stretch. That home-field advantage should continue this season, as Scott Stadium will be open to its full 61,500-seat capacity to start the season.

Old friends

UVA Class of 2019 star quarterback Bryce Perkins has impressed in this year’s NFL preseason—Perkins threw for more than 450 yards and three touchdowns over the course of the Los Angeles Rams’ three preseason games. The Arizona native went undrafted in 2019 and spent 2020 on the Rams’ practice squad, but now looks set to enter the season as L.A.’s third-string passer.

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Growing in conference

Once the battle over the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was won, environmental activists turned their attention to a variety of other issues, including western Virginia’s Mountain Valley Pipeline and rising sea levels in Hampton Roads. Photo: Mountain Valley Watch.

Environmental activists celebrated last summer when Dominion Energy announced it was canceling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have brought natural gas 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina, crossing right through central Virginia and disrupting a historically Black community in rural Buckingham County. Activists have since turned their focus to the many other environmental issues across the state, from the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline in western Virginia to rising sea levels in Hampton Roads.

Last week, state legislators learned more about the importance of addressing such issues through an equity lens at the first-ever Virginia Environmental Justice Retreat, hosted by the Climate Equity Work Group. Founded in 2019, the organization—composed of representatives from activist groups Appalachian Voices, New Virginia Majority, Progress Virginia, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, and Virginia Organizing—advocates for environmental reforms with a strong focus on racial and economic justice in Virginia.

The two-day virtual retreat featured a dozen speakers, including activists, lawyers, scientists, and more. Thirteen legislators were in attendance, including state Senator Creigh Deeds, who represents Charlottesville and part of Albemarle County.

“Our goal was to meet with, convene with, co-learn, collaborate, and have shared dialogue with our state leaders who have been clearly supportive on these issues in the General Assembly, [and] in their districts,” says Tyneshia Griffin, environmental policy research analyst for New Virginia Majority, a progressive legislation advocacy group. “We really wanted to come together with them, and go a little bit deeper on these issues, so we work from the same foundation and values.”

“This was a way [legislators] could take a bird’s eye view of their work, and why it’s so important they center climate and environmental justice,” adds Faith Harris, co-director of Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, which encourages religious communities to adopt sustainable living practices. “They can accomplish most of their environmental goals by centering climate and environmental justice.”

The retreat focused on the equity issues that come with transitioning to renewable energy, like wind and solar, and the communities often left behind, such as coal miners.

“There needs to be thought and expertise given to how we make that move without bringing harm to those communities that have been based in the fossil fuel industry,” says Harris. “How do we retrain people, recreate services, and rebuild communities based on the loss of the fossil fuel industry?”

Speakers also highlighted a new environmental-justice mapping tool, commissioned by the Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative, which identifies communities in Virginia that face a disproportionate pollution burden, and therefore could require strategic investment and resources. According to the tool, parts of Charlottesville have a high pollution burden, including Ridge Street, Cherry Avenue, and Greenbrier Drive. 

“It was great to learn there are tools that can actually map out communities,” says state Delegate Sam Rasoul, who also attended the retreat. “There are related policies that will hopefully be able to be crafted with all of that in mind. As we’re developing the communities of the future, we need to ensure we have these tools at our disposal.”

State Delegate Sam Rasoul participated in last week’s Climate Equity Work Group conference that emphasized the importance of environmental justice. Supplied photo.

“Any environmental plan must be environmentally just, in a sense that it must be socially just, and racially and economically uplift communities,” he adds. “We must have these conversations in an intersectional way.”

Throughout the retreat, speakers emphasized how environmental issues around the state intersect with ongoing efforts to improve equity in the state. For instance, the transition to electric cars must coincide with a drastic improvement in public transportation, particularly for low-wealth communities that cannot yet afford electric cars.

“In trying to think through what their priorities ought to be, [politicians] hear these as separate issues,” says Harris. “What we’re trying to do is help them see from a larger framework that they’re all connected.”

The Climate Equity Work Group hopes to host the retreat annually, and feature more speakers and legislators next year. 

“I hope that we will be able to take what we learned and really integrate it into our policies,” says Rasoul. “It’s not just enough to advocate for renewable energy—we have to be more holistic in our approach and make sure that environmental and intersectional justice is front and center.”

“I took away a sense of hope about what’s possible for Virginia, and ultimately for our planet,” says Harris. “What we do here has a long reaching impact.”

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Map quest

The Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition is handing out yard signs that express support for reforming the zoning code. Supplied photo.

The latest version of the Future Land Use Map, a much-debated document that will guide Charlottesville’s development as the city begins to rewrite its zoning code, is out for review. The map is intended to steer Charlottesville toward a future with more affordable places to live. 

“We believe this draft continues to support the goal of increasing housing options and affordability throughout the city, by supporting multifamily residential at a variety of scales, on all residential parcels,” said Jennifer Koch of the firm Rhodeside & Harwell (RHI). 

Others aren’t so sure, including at least one member of the Planning Commission. 

“We were promised a process that would be intentional about centering the voices of those who haven’t historically been considered in land use decision making,” said Rory Stolzenberg in a comment on Twitter this past Sunday. “Now it appears that [Cville Plans Together] is specifically prioritizing our wealthiest landowners.”

In late 2019, the city hired RHI to restart a review of the city’s Comprehensive Plan. The first step of that process was to enact an affordable housing plan, which City Council did in March. One high-level priority in the plan is “to address the legacy of exclusionary zoning and constrained housing supply in Charlottesville.”

In order to meet that goal, RHI drafted a land use map, showing where zoning could change in the city to allow more density. In late March, the Planning Commission saw the first version of the map, and a majority of commissioners asked for higher by-right density across the city, particularly in neighborhoods that are currently predominated by single family homes. 

RHI took those comments into consideration and released a second map in late April. At that point, some residents of singe-family neighborhoods expressed concerns that their land was being designated for “medium-intensity residential” with as many as 12 units allowed per lot.  Several “neighborhood mixed-use nodes,” spots where commercial buildings could be added to residential neighborhoods, were spread around the city, which also drew the ire of some homeowners.

Here are some of the changes in the latest version of the city’s proposed Future Land Use Map. In the circled areas, the previous version of the map included mixed-use nodes, meaning commercial and residential buildings of up to five stories would have been allowed. Those areas are once again designated for residential-only construction. Supplied image.

A group called Citizens for Responsible Planning formed to oppose the changes. At the same time, the Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition led a campaign to push for higher densities. 

The latest map scales back many of the more ambitious proposals in from the April version. In the April map, the Lewis Mountain neighborhood had been designated as medium-intensity. In the newest iteration, that has mostly changed back to general residential. Similar scope reductions were made in the Barracks/Rugby and North Downtown neighborhoods. 

The text definition for “general residential” has changed as well, reducing theoretical building height from 3.5 stories to 2.5. However, four units would be allowed on each lot if the fourth one was kept below market value. The first two maps limited that to three. 

A person speaking for Citizens for Responsible Planning said in an email that the latest version is an improvement over the May version. The spokesperson did not want to be identified, but the group’s physical address is the law firm Flora Pettit. 

“We are happy to see some of the more obviously inappropriate Mixed-Use Nodes have been nixed, a few Medium Intensity Residential zones have been pared back, emphasis on actual affordable housing production has been increased, and verbiage has been added to suggest multifamily buildings should be ‘house-sized,’ consider the context of surrounding neighborhoods and respect more reasonable height limits,” reads the email. 

Another group, Livable Cville, has formed to advocate for increased density across the city. Its letter to the Planning Commission asks for the restoration of the second map so that more triplexes and quadplexes can be built across the city. 

“It appears the revised [map] you are considering this week will likely significantly limit Charlottesville’s ability to meet its goal of providing additional multifamily housing without furthering displacement,” reads the letter. “In some cases, the latest draft makes it harder to build new homes than the status quo.” 

Other changes in the map reflect rezoning applications that are making their way through the process. Piedmont Housing Alliance is seeking to build 145 units on a section of Park Street, north of the U.S. 250 bypass. That land is currently designated as low-intensity residential but the new map has increased that to “high-intensity residential.”

The latest draft also includes a proposed overlay for “sensitive communities” in areas with households believed to be prone to displacement. The city’s Housing Advisory Committee argues that the new plan should limit new high-density developments in communities like 10th and Page and Fifeville.

“Retaining existing homes and residents, and supporting homeownership and generational wealth-building, is important throughout the city, but there are sensitive areas that may require additional affordability requirements, incentives, or other tools to support these goals,” reads a portion of RHI’s presentation to the Planning Commission. 

The Planning Commission discussed the land use map at a meeting on Tuesday night that took place too late for this edition. Cville Plans Together will host a public steering committee meeting over Zoom on Wednesday, September 1. Watch this space for updates on the Comprehensive Plan process in the coming weeks.

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Early returns

County schools saw an increase in COVID cases when students returned for five-days-a-week, in-person classes. Photo: Albemarle County Schools.

Last week, city and county public schools welcomed students back for five-days-a-week, in-person instruction for the first time since March 2020. Both districts have already reported COVID-19 cases among students, but say they still feel confident in their health and safety precautions. 

After the first day of classes, two city schools students reported symptoms, and Assistant Superintendent Jim Henderson sent a message to families. 

“This week, we have had several students report COVID diagnoses, including two who spent time at our schools. These situations are unfortunate but, in a pandemic, they are not unexpected,” Henderson wrote on August 25. “We are doing our part by following all CDC recommendations. We continue to tweak our implementation to keep everyone as safe as possible.”

“The health department remains confident in our mitigation measures,” wrote CHS Principal Eric Irizarry after the first day. “While we anticipate that this incident is contained, it’s a good reminder for all of us to promote healthy behaviors.”

At press time, city schools reported 13 total student coronavirus cases and nine staff cases so far this year.

Albemarle County Public Schools report that 18 students and eight staff had confirmed COVID cases between August 23 and August 30. Those were concentrated in elementary schools—Agnor-Hurt and Stone Robinson have reported five and six student cases, respectively. 

In the area, roughly 70 percent of children aged 12 to 17 are vaccinated, according to the Blue Ridge Health District. The city schools require employees to be fully vaccinated by September 15, or they’ll be required to show a weekly negative COVID test. 

City school board member Lashundra Bryson Morsberger expressed some frustration with the state of COVID preventions in schools and the commonwealth. COVID is “worse than last August,” she wrote on Twitter last weekend. “We have less flexibility, and the kids are back in class…It feels like we’re in the twilight zone. This is crazy.”

On Grounds

Meanwhile, at UVA, the first two weeks of classes have seen 114 cases among faculty, staff, students, and contract employees. As of Monday, the university reports 84 active cases. 

Early-semester COVID case spikes were to be expected. Last fall, the rolling seven-day average of total new cases peaked at 26.9, in late September, before declining and leveling off until the beginning of the spring semester. 

The seven-day average for new cases at UVA right now is 10.4. On August 29 of last year, it was 12.7. 

As of August 29, UVA hospital had 50 COVID-positive patients in the building for treatment, including three who had been newly admitted on the 29th.  

A little further afield, Liberty University has put a campus-wide quarantine in effect, just four days after students returned for the fall semester. Unlike other Virginia schools, such as UVA and William & Mary, Liberty didn’t require students to get vaccinated before returning to Lynchburg, and the university reports 159 active cases as of August 25.