Developer Oliver Kuttner has been spending most of his time in Lynchburg lately. “I have 750,000 square feet in Lynchburg,” says Kuttner, talking on his cell phone while standing in one of his Lynchburg properties. “I’m down here every day.”
 The city Board of Architectural Review decided that this addition and carriage way for cars aren’t “sympathetic” to the South Street house. |
But he owns the house at 226 South St. with a partner and thought he could squeeze in a Charlottesville project to give the partner something to do. So he had architect Gate Pratt of Limehouse Architects cook up some preliminary sketches for an addition of eight to 12 residential units behind the existing house. The lot stretches to the railroad tracks, and the parcel will possibly be downzoned if a density change goes through.
| Other news in development CVS architects out of Baltimore finally figured out what they’re getting into with their plans for a Corner pharmacy when they were chided by the Board of Architectural Review for the location of a new door in the back of the Anderson Building. The Great Mall Brick Debate has come to a close with the BAR’s affirmation of City Council’s decision for 4"x12" bricks instead of 4"x8" bricks, though the latter will be used for the auto crossings. William “Bill” Emory has been appointed to the city Planning Commission. For years, he has been a vocal member of the Woolen Mills neighborhood and only recently dropped a lawsuit against the city in what is known as the “taking-by-typo” case. The controversy over the big house on Second Street NE came to a resolution at City Council last week, with property owners opting for a more “context sensitive” design that neighbors could live with. The Jefferson School committee presented plans to City Council and is planning to get construction started by next summer. It still needs to get the city to transfer the deed and allocate $5.8 million, both actions the city has said in the past it will do if everything goes according to plan. |
The current driveway is too narrow for code, so Pratt and Kuttner came up with a novel idea of putting 17-car parking underneath the existing house without disturbing it or the porch that fronts on South Street.
But even with the logistics solved, he still had to get the idea past the city Board of Architectural Review (BAR). At a meeting on August 19, he explained his idea. “I think the objective with cars is to make them disappear,” said Kuttner. “The house is framed in such a way that it’s quite easy to do.”
The BAR wasn’t hearing it. Brian Hogg, whose day job is historic preservation planner for UVA, said it wasn’t sympathetic to the house, calling the idea “a total nonstarter.” “Having a giant hole under a turn of the 20th century house for a driveway is not an appropriate intervention,” he said. Most of the others echoed his sentiments.
BAR members Michael Osteen and Eryn Brennan pointed out that he wasn’t required to provide parking—why not design it for people who didn’t have cars?
“People don’t want to live without their cars,” Kuttner said. “The single biggest construction error I ever made was not to put parking under The Terraces,” the building that stretches from the Mall to Water Street along First Street.
So what’ll he do now? Go back to Lynchburg, where he says city government is more accommodating to development.
He says he doesn’t blame the BAR and understands their decision, but “what they don’t know is that it would have been great.”
“It’s fine, it’s not a big deal,” says Kuttner. “My only regret is that I spent $5,000 on architectural drawings that are garbage, that I can throw in the trash.”
But he does think that the city has become too development unfriendly. “Today in Charlottesville there’s nothing you can take to the bank,” says Kuttner. “I want to know when I buy a building I can do what I’m thinking of doing. With the special-use permits, combined with the BAR, combined with any number of citizens’ problems that arise when you build, it becomes something that has to pay a premium to make it worth it.”
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