Author: Sean Tubbs

When Albemarle County supervisors adopted a Small Area Plan in December 2018 for the intersection of Rio Road and Route 29, the idea was to reimagine it for a less car dependent 21st century. 

“We invite our partners to work with us and to think creatively about the future of Rio29, because doing so can create community-wide opportunities and facilitate the creation of a great place,” reads what the county at the time described as an “opportunity plan.”

The idea was to build on the public-sector investment, such as VDOT’s $69 million grade-separation project at Rio and Route 29, as well as Albemarle’s $11.8 million acquisition of property for and construction of the new Northside Library that opened in March 2015.  Six “catalyst” projects were to be built by the county, including a commuter bus stop and a Library Plaza, but none of them ended up in the budget for capital projects. 

Since the Small Area Plan adoption, however, most of the businesses that have opened in the vicinity are automotive in nature. These include a vehicle body shop in the former Goodwill space and conversion of a Hardee’s into a car dealership. Further to the north, an office building on Woodbrook Drive was torn down and replaced with a car wash. 

Now, 4.67 acres of land to the east of the Northside Library has sold for $3.53 million to a company that plans to open an equipment rental facility. 

“The equipment to be rented out to customers from the Property by Carter will include a variety of hydraulic excavators, backhoes, compact track loaders, telehandlers, skid steer loaders, boom lifts, and scissor lifts,” reads a November 8 letter from a law firm seeking confirmation from Albemarle County that the use would be allowed under Highway Commercial zoning. 

The county responded with a “letter of zoning compliance” that the storage of use as described would not be allowed at 721 Rio Rd. West without a rezoning because of the use of heavy equipment. Outdoor storage and display requires a special use permit, and the existing site plan for the old Phillips Supply Building would need to be amended. 

The auto-centric nature of the area has already manifested itself in Northside Library’s need to rent space from its neighbors for additional parking spaces. These include 10 spots in front of 721 Rio Rd. West.

At the public hearing for the Small Area Plan in December 2018, Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum argued that the county had to do more to convince private participation in the vision. He continues to hold that view today. 

“I believe the market has identified the current condition to be best suited toward interchange uses,” Williamson says. “The bottom line is that nothing happens absent a willing property owner.” 

Albemarle County is reporting another increase in average property values for 2024, but its not as high as in the past two years. 

“This year what we’re looking at is a 4.07 percent overall increase to the tax base based on the reassessment,” says Peter Lynch, Albemarle’s assessor. 

Albemarle switched to annual assessments in 2009, which means 15 years of data to sift through. Average values declined the first five years, with a decrease of 2.3 percent in 2013. Percentage changes have been positive ever since, with highs of 8.4 percent in 2022, and 13.46 percent in 2023. This year’s values are on a par with 2019, when 4 percent was at the time a record-setting increase.

“Luckily this year, at least to me, it makes our job a little easier when those increases aren’t so high as they were the last couple of years,” Lynch says. 

Lynch explained to the Board of Supervisors how his staff audits the sales that are based on valid fair-market transactions. Invalid ones do not contribute to the calculations, such as the county’s $58 million purchase of 462 acres around Rivanna Station. 

An example of a valid transaction is the December 19, 2023, purchase of a four-bedroom house on Shiffletts Mill Road in the White Hall District for $1.3 million. That was 26.58 percent above the 2023 assessment. 

That transaction was one of 1,856 valid market sales in 2023, down from a high of 2,389 in 2021. In all, there are 37,419 taxable properties in Albemarle as of the end of the year. 

Assessments were up highest in the 348 parcels of land in the Town of Scottsville, which had a 10.31 percent average increase. The Scottsville Magisterial District is next with the 7,034 parcels having an average increase of 6.98 percent. The average increases were smaller in Rivanna and White Hall, with figures of 2.64 percent and 2.48 percent, respectively. 

Lynch can also break the data down via land classification. The 23,093 parcels designated in the Comprehensive Plan as Urban Residential increased an average of 4.49 percent and the 17,540 classified as “Other Residential up to 20 acres” increased by 4.28 percent. The 1,387 properties listed as Commercial/Industrial went up 3.09 percent. 

Actual numbers will vary depending on unique circumstances. 

“The majority of the properties are going to experience a negative 5 to a positive 5 percent change,” Lynch says. “An additional 32 percent will increase a 5 percent to 15 percent increase.” 

Six percent are in excess of 15 percent. 

But why the increase? Lynch says one possible explanation is that construction of new homes has not kept up with demand. Data from the county’s Community Development reports the issuance of a total of 408 certificates of occupancy in 2015, a number that climbed to 1,143 in 2020 before dropping back to 779 in 2022. 

Anyone who wishes to dispute their assessment must contact the assessor’s office by February 28. Applications to appeal to the Board of Equalization are due April 1. 

The City of Charlottesville will release their property assessment data on Friday, January 26, with notices being mailed out on January 30. 

Nearly a month has passed since Charlottesville City Council approved a new development code intended to increase the number of places for people to live. But the city still has several finishing touches to put in place before the code goes into effect on February 19. 

One of them is the adoption of a manual to govern the various requirements for affordable housing construction. 

“This manual outlines the responsibilities of developers in complying with the zoning code and the duties of city staff in ensuring this compliance,” reads a written response to questions asked at a December 21 meeting between city officials and neighborhood leaders. 

The manual will also include the amount that would be paid by developers who choose not to build units below-market. City Council is expected to take up the draft on February 5. 

One of the first tests of the Board of Architectural Review’s power to influence the size of new buildings could soon come with the redevelopment of 715-729 West Main. That’s the site of Mel’s Diner, a structure that’s part of the street’s Architectural Design Control District. 

The BAR will hear a preliminary review of a redevelopment proposal on January 17, but no materials were made available in advance. The project could also involve 118 Cream St. and 731 West Main, since all three properties have the same owner. Specifics for the proposal will be presented at the meeting. 

Under the new zoning, an eight-story building could be built by-right. The previous maximum height for this property was 52 feet. 

The BAR would have to approve a demolition request, if one is made, but there are nearby precedents for historic structures to be incorporated into a new development, such as at Six Hundred West Main and the Quirk hotel. 

Several people have expressed concern that the new code will encourage the purchase of homes by out-of-town investors. 

“On Little High we’ve seen several cases where an investor buys a house, and it stays empty and unused for years afterward,” said a speaker at the recent neighborhood leaders meeting. 

The city responded in writing, saying that steps are being taken to give more tools to people who want to buy homes to live in. 

“One way the city is doing this is by supporting affordable housing programs that offer down payment assistance through the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund and subsidy layering for rental/multi-family development,” officials wrote. 

Another person asked if the city will track people who are asked to leave rental homes because landlords decide to build newer units. (Charlottesville’s new housing program manager will have a lot on their plate.) 

The city says it “will be monitoring the impact of new developments on low-income residents and will use regular data runs and reports from various sources, such as the market, [city staff], and third-party providers, to track displacements and ensure that new developments include affordable units.” 

Others expressed concern about potential impacts from the decision to no longer require developers to include off-street parking. The city’s response is that market conditions will dictate they be built to satisfy customers and that a parking study will be initiated to see if the city’s on-street permit parking program should be expanded.

Rezonings for large, mixed-use complexes include a legally binding document called a “code of development” that lays out what can be built in a given project and how much the public can expect. 

In October 2020, the Board of Supervisors approved the Albemarle Business Campus, a mixed-use development on Fifth Street Extended that allowed for a maximum of 128 residential units and 401,000 square feet of non-residential use. 

Developer Kyle Redinger now wants to amend ABC’s code of development to allow a maximum of 368 units. The application, crafted by Shimp Engineering, was the last rezoning filed in 2023. 

“The Charlottesville area has a chronic housing shortage, and there will continue to be more demand for apartments than we can build in the current development area,” Redinger says. The 128 units at 5 Row Apartments that are under construction at ABC are awaiting certificates of occupancy. 

The other tenants at Albemarle Business Campus are a 715-unit storage unit and a firm called PS Fertility, according to the development’s website. Redinger says his company has made efforts to bring in more biotech companies, but nothing has materialized. He says the amendment to the rezoning would provide the flexibility to go in a different direction if need be. 

“This is due to local market challenges and macro real estate factors such as post-COVID demand changes, interest rates, affordability challenges, and so on,” Redinger says. “Of course, we welcome office and biotech tenants, but we just want to make sure we have a viable project if our office tenant does not materialize over the next few years.” 

Bioscience and medical devices is one of the target industries identified by Albemarle’s economic development office, with companies such as Afton Scientific and MicroAire. 

There are nearly 2,000 people in the area who work in the biotech sector, according to the data tracked by the advocacy group CvilleBioHub. A map on its website shows these are clustered in downtown Charlottesville and along Route 29, with none currently in the vicinity of ABC. 

There’s also currently nothing shown at UVA’s Fontaine Research Park, which in a few years will be home to the Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology. 

Redinger had previously sought to build more units at ABC. In October 2019, the Albemarle Planning Commission recommended denial of a version of the plan that had 300 units.

ABC is in what Albemarle planners refer to as Neighborhood 5, which also includes a maximum of 1,450 homes in the two phases of Southwood as well as another 100 homes allowed to be built in a portion of the Biscuit Run development that stayed in private ownership. 

The plans for ABC also show land that will be dedicated for the roundabout that will be built at the intersection of Old Lynchburg Road and Fifth Street Extended. That work will be done as part of a design build bundle with three other roundabouts in Albemarle and another intersection improvement at Belvedere. 

Now that 2024 is here, one of the challenges for a land-use reporter will be how to cover potential buildings as they make their way through Charlottesville’s new rules for building. City Council adopted a zoning code on December 18 that eliminated most discretionary review of land-use applications.  

One day later, Charlottesville’s Board of Architectural Review held a preliminary review of one project for which a site plan had been submitted in mid-November. That’s after the August 18 cut off, as recommended by staff and agreed upon by council, so it will be reviewed under the new rules. 

The site plan by Two Street Studios shows a five-story building with 192 residential units constructed in what is now a surface parking lot for the building that formerly housed Martha Jefferson Hospital. An internal garage will supply spaces for both the new homes and the converted office building. 

The property at 915 E. High St. is in one of the city’s historic conservation districts. That will continue to give the BAR a role to play in shaping future buildings. 

“The design guidelines would say new construction should be at the prevailing height,” says Jeff Werner, the city’s preservation planner. “That would suggest two stories.”

However the guidelines would also allow the BAR to issue a certificate of appropriateness for a structure to be 200 percent of the prevailing height. 

“The new zoning, once everything gets put in place, would allow a 10-story building at this site,” Werner says. “It’s not a single-family detached house. This is a building within a neighborhood of single-family detached homes.” 

The new zoning ordinance will cap the building width at 175 feet, and Warner says a new design will need to incorporate some sort of a break in the structure to avoid it becoming too monolithic. 

Planning Commissioner Carl Schwarz also sits on the BAR, and he pointed out that the original design may not fit under the new zoning.

“The setbacks on this project are significantly greater than would be allowed by what I believe our new zoning code is going to permit,” Schwarz says. 

Schwarz wanted to know how much leeway the BAR might have in granting greater setbacks. Werner says some of the ramifications of the new zoning will come out as individual projects are reviewed.

“Now that they’ve approved the ordinance, staff kind of got to the point where we said, ‘Let’s see what they approve and then we’ll go back in and become experts on it,’” Werner says. 

The BAR review also allows a conduit for neighborhood feedback to be taken into consideration. Chair Breck Gastinger read the comments from people who wanted more information on how the project would improve pedestrian connectivity in the area. He also added his own comment. 

“I think it could be appropriate to add height on East High Street if that is desired,” Gastinger says. “Having more height variation across that facade would break down the mass.”  That additional height would be allowed by-right under the Node Mixed Use 10 zoning that is now codified in the approved zoning ordinance. 

On Wednesday, December 13, Albemarle supervisors will get an update on a study of the 462 acres near Rivanna Station that the county wants to preserve for a major employer.   

The defense sector is the number-two industry in Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Greene, with a $1.2 billion a year impact, according to a report from the Weldon Cooper Center released in May. That’s in part due to the presence of the National Ground Intelligence Center and other military assets at Rivanna Station. And Albemarle hopes to grow that impact on the area through the creation of the Intelligence and National Security Innovation Acceleration Campus.  

A study overseen by civil engineering firm Line and Grade has informed a proposed adjustment to the boundaries of the 462 acres that Albemarle will purchase from Next Generation LLC, a firm associated with developer Wendell Wood. This could adjust the final purchase price of a reported $58 million. 

Supervisors agreed to purchase the land on May 24. 

About 77 acres of the land is considered unsolicited, meaning it was not originally for sale. The purpose of this additional land is to “ensure a natural buffer around the proposed development to prevent the encroachment by incompatible land uses and bad actors.” 

The buffer will also include land that is outside of the county’s development area. The Line and Grade study sets out how the land will need to be rezoned to light industrial, or perhaps to a new zoning category for defense or government facilities. 

Line and Grade also recommends a master plan be created for the new development, a plan that could help Albemarle County prepare the site under the Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s business readiness program. Such a master plan would build on a 2017 concept commissioned by the Virginia Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs.  

That concept called for a future road network through the area, which would utilize a property on U.S. 29 at Austin Drive that Albemarle bought in 2018 for $250,000. Line and Grade note that a special use permit would be required because a portion of Boulders Road Extended is in a flood plain. 

Rivanna Station is within a stretch of U.S. 29 where the Virginia Department of Transportation wants to limit additional traffic signals. The report also indicates that the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority does not currently have water and sewer capacity to support expansion, so planning should begin for that. 

The due diligence study included a preliminary but informal National Environmental Policy Act review, including a check on endangered species and an inventory of waterways. There’s also a review of cultural resources and recommendations to protect two cemeteries, as well as instructions on what the county will need to do to manage dams on the property. 

Members of the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors who drive to Charlottesville along U.S. 29 from points north for this week’s meeting will pass the latest purchase made on behalf of the public institution.   

The UVA Foundation has paid $3 million for nearly one and a half acres off of Earhart Street. That’s the first right on southbound Emmet Street after passing underneath the U.S. 29/250 bypass bridge. The property currently contains one of UVA’s child care centers as well as an industrial building that’s at least partially vacant. 

The seller is a trust associated with the late Gloria Rennolds, who died in March. Her husband bought the property in 1973 and the trust still owns 1417 Emmet St. N, which is currently rented to several businesses, including the Super Amanecer Latino Market. 

As of November 30, the UVA Foundation owned 24 parcels of land within city limits under its name, but it owns other properties across the community under different names. For instance, an associated entity called Ivy Square of Charlottesville LLC paid $20 million for the Ivy Square Shopping Center in December 2021. 

The Earhart property is outside the scope of the draft master plan for UVA, as is the Oak Lawn estate in Fifeville that UVA itself purchased in late October for $3.5 million. The latter will be used in the short-term by the UVA Health System, but child care is one use suggested for the property near Buford Middle School. 

While there’s no clear indication of what might happen in the long-term to Foods of All Nations and other Ivy Square businesses, the Grounds Plan does lay out a future for the Ivy Garden apartment complex on Old Ivy Road in Albemarle County. The Foundation bought that property in 2016 for nearly $22.4 million, and a master plan has been created for up to 718 units as well as academic and commercial space.

The BOV’s Buildings and Grounds Committee meets on December 7, and its consent agenda includes a resolution to demolish several structures on Ivy Road including 2025 and 2029, a parcel the UVA Foundation paid nearly $1.73 million for in April 2010. 

On November 16, the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia transferred $1.836 million back to the Foundation for land upon which the Karsh Institute of Democracy will be constructed. That took the property off of Charlottesville’s property tax rolls. 

One of the only properties on the north side of Ivy Road not owned by UVA is 2117 Ivy Rd., a one-acre property that is being developed by RMD Properties. At its December 4 meeting, City Council was expected to take up rezoning an eight-story building. The developer reduced the building by two stories following criticism from top officials at the University of Virginia. 

The Buildings and Grounds Committee will also see the schematic design for the new Manning Biotechnology Institute and a new parking garage at Fontaine Research Park. The UVA Foundation owned that property for many years before UVA took possession in January 2018.

A request for comment from the UVA Foundation was not returned by publication time. 

Albemarle hopes to build over 10,000 units by the year 2040, and civil engineer Justin Shimp has an idea for how the county can reach its goal.  

“Within the last 15 years, four manufactured home parks in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area have been sold and redeveloped,” Shimp wrote in an application for a rezoning of 50 acres south of Esmont, in order to build a manufactured home park with 50 lots. 

An LLC associated with Shimp purchased the land off of Chestnut Grove Road on November 17 for $312,000. Last year, the civil engineer was successful in persuading the Board of Supervisors to expand the number of units at the Park Road Mobile Home Community in Crozet. He points to data that says they are a much more affordable option. 

“The replicability, modularity, reduced labor, and decreased construction time all contribute to a more affordable product, enabling lower-income households to own or rent a single unit,” Shimp continued. 

Albemarle’s growth management strategy designates 95 percent of the county’s 726 square miles as rural area, and the land has the default Rural Area zoning. Shimp seeks a rezoning to R-4 so he can then file for a special use permit to build the manufactured home park. The units would be clustered in order to preserve land for open space. 

“Conditions of the special use permit would no longer permit certain by-right and special uses of the R-4 zone to ensure that the rural character of this area of Albemarle County is maintained,” Shimp’s application states. 

Conditions would require a third of the units to be rented or sold to households at less than 50 percent of the area median income, another third at 80 percent and the rest at 100 percent. 

Shimp also notes that since 1971, the development area has been reduced from 48,000 acres to the current 23,800 acres. 

“Certain zoning restrictions, decreasing development land, failure to meet housing demand, and stagnating household income has resulted in high need for affordable housing in Albemarle County,” Shimp writes. 

In recent years, residents of the Ridgewood Mobile Home Community in Hollymead were displaced by the sale of their land to out-of-town developer RST. That company managed to rezone the land for a development that had been intended to have as many 190 affordable units. However, RST moved on after the financing to build those units fell through, and Riverbend Development is now seeking a rezoning to allow for a smaller project. 

Shimp’s application to build new mobile homes will likely face opposition as Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan discourages residential density in rural areas in order to limit the need for services the county has to provide, and to limit the amount of land used to provide septic fields. 

Shimp argues that the additional housing would meet the county’s stated need for more housing and would be preferable to subdividing the 50 acres to create six residential lots.