Author: Sean Tubbs

One of the major ideas driving reform of land-use approvals in Charlottesville is the notion that developers will construct much more housing if City Council and the Planning Commission are not involved in deciding what gets built and where.  

“Height restrictions effectively require all multifamily projects to obtain special use permits to make development feasible,” reads the Affordable Housing Plan adopted by City Council in March 2021. “Beyond this, the development processes are cumbersome, and significantly increase the time and cost to develop new housing.” 

Yet the draft version of the Development Code that council will consider at its December 5 public hearing contains elements that will keep appointed and elected officials more involved than had originally been envisioned.

Since the Planning Commission’s public hearing on September 14, two new zoning districts have been created including one where a “special exception permit” would be required for additional height. 

The exact boundaries for these have not yet been finalized, but the Neighborhood Core Overlay District will cover portions of Cherry Avenue and Preston Avenue. Developers will need to demonstrate they’ll provide some community benefit, in addition to providing more affordable units than otherwise required. This was added after concern was shown about the third phase of a large city complex. 

“What’s being proposed for the corridors is responsive to the concerns that were brought to us about the Dairy Market project when we had all of the people showing up at our Planning Commission meeting back in August,” said City Councilor Brian Pinkston at a recent work session.

On November 1, council directed staff to require a special exception to exceed more than five stories in the commercial corridor districts. There’s no map yet for how extensive these may be due to notice requirements for council’s public hearing. 

City Councilor Michael Payne was worried about what a lack of a permit might do to existing businesses. 

The new rules will still give the ability for property owners to change zoning districts through an amendment to the zoning map. At least one developer has signaled it will seek more density on land designated as Residential-A.

Last week, the Charlottesville Planning Commission granted more time for a rezoning application that’s making its way through the existing system. A company called Green Retro Salvage II Holdings wants to upzone three properties currently designated for single-family use to multifamily. That would allow for as many as 44 units on 0.95 acres of land.

That level of density would not be allowed under the future Development Code, which designates the land as Residential-A. That would allow between nine and 16 market-rate units assuming each lot would remain independent. 

Staff has not yet made a decision on when existing applications under the existing rules must be approved, but there will be a provision for developers to seek a rezoning to a different district.

“If it comes down to it and the ordinance is passed and it said ‘we’re cutting it off on this day and you’re not approved’ I think we would simply amend this to like an R-X,” says Justin Shimp, the project’s civil engineer. “My entire career now, I’ve essentially fought against density restrictions everywhere I go.”

City Council will hold one last work session on the Development Code on November 29.

One assumption in the draft of Albemarle’s new Comprehensive Plan is that the county must increase its housing supply.  

“Albemarle County needs to add approximately 10,070 affordable units to our housing stock by 2040 to ensure all current and future residents can enjoy a good quality of life in our community,” reads a section of the draft chapter on housing. 

Since 1980, Albemarle has designated about 5 percent of its land mass for dense development intended to absorb population growth. Over that time, most projects that have been built have come in at lower densities than allowed under the Comprehensive Plan. 

That’s in part due to a legislative process, where the public can express concerns to appointed and elected officials as they consider whether to approve a project or not. That often leads to a reduction in housing units, as happened with the development of the former Ridgewood Mobile Home Community in Hollymead. 

A Virginia Beach developer bought the 19.5-acre property in late 2019 and originally sought a rezoning to allow for a total of 370 units. The Forest Lakes Community Association mounted serious opposition, and the total number of homes was whittled down to 332. When the Board of Supervisors voted 5-1 to approve the rezoning in September 2021, one of the conditions was that 190 were to be affordable under the county’s guidelines. 

The original developer has moved on, however, and Riverbend Development has taken it on. The firm filed for a new rezoning that would reduce the total unit count to 280, and only 15 percent of them will be guaranteed affordable. 

Riverbend is also developing the Brookhill community to the south, where 503 of the 1,550 units approved have been built according to Albemarle’s development pipeline. 

But there’s no shortage of other projects that could help the county meet its housing goals. Immediately to the north is a proposed development called Holly Hills. Dominion Realty Partners and the Stony Point Development Group have filed a rezoning for eight parcels totaling 30,821 acres from Residential-1 to Planned Residential Development. 

“A maximum of 500 dwelling units is proposed, at a gross density of approximately 16 dwelling units/acre and a net density of approximately 24 dwelling units/acre,” reads a recent memo from Albemarle’s Community Development department. “The dwelling units are proposed to be a mixture of single-family attached units and multi-family units.” 

Meanwhile, the county continues to proceed with AC44 (its updated Comprehensive Plan) and is seeking public input through a series of questionnaires, including one for housing. Surveys are also open for economic development, environmental stewardship, parks and recreation, and historic, scenic, and cultural resources.

There is money to be made if you own property and know the right time to sell. And the odds of making even more money increase with every acre of property you own.  

Developer Wendell Wood’s United Land Corporation will take in around $64 million if both Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville purchase land that the company has been assembling over its 60-plus years of operation. 

On November 6, Charlottesville City Council considered spending $5.9 million to buy nearly 24 acres of floodplain land along the Rivanna River that Wood was going to sell to a developer. According to city records, the land was purchased in 1981 for $195,245. 

The Planning Commission ruled in September that public roads to support a 245-unit apartment complex would not be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan, and the city in February hired an appraiser to pave the way for the sale. 

A decision had not been made by press time, but many have asked council to reconsider the purchase, and have argued that housing is more important than environmental considerations. 

“It is counter-productive for the city to pay developers to NOT pursue their by-right ability to build housing,” wrote Steven Johnson of the group Livable Cville in an email to City Manager Sam Sanders.  “The city should have confidence in the legality of its decision-making.” 

There is less controversy over Albemarle County’s announcement in late May that it would spend $58 million to buy 462 acres near Rivanna Station in northern Albemarle from Wood’s New Generation LLC. Wood has been involved with land purchases in that area for decades, and sold land to the U.S. Army for $1 million, allowing them to move the National Ground Intelligence Center out of downtown Charlottesville in 2001. 

Nearly a quarter century later, Albemarle wants to use the land to protect the military base from encroachment and also wants to build a campus for intelligence and high-tech businesses. County officials continue to perform due diligence on what they call Rivanna Futures. 

Wood had no comment on either purchase. 

According to Hunter Wood, Wendell’s son and United Land Corporation vice president, the company’s first purchase was land on Emmet Street near where there’s currently an Arby’s. United Land Corporation has been involved with the development of many shopping centers on U.S. 29, from Barracks Road Shopping Center in the early 1960s to Hollymead Town Center in the 2000s. 

But Wood has not always achieved what he has wanted. In November 2012, county supervisors deadlocked on a motion to consider an expansion of the growth area on Route 20 just east of Mill Creek. The Somerset Farm project would have included up to 1,900 homes, but Wood has not yet come back to ask for an expansion once more.

That may change as Albemarle County continues to review its Comprehensive Plan.

“I am actively following the AC44 process and have been involved with numerous meetings and questionnaires,” said Hunter Wood. “We truly believe that an expansion of the growth area is necessary to meet future needs and demands.” 

For over four decades, Albemarle County has designated areas close to Charlottesville where intense growth is allowed to occur. As this year comes closer to an end, there’s a lot happening in what’s known to planners as Places 29-North. 

“We are reviewing an application for about 1,500 homes in the North Fork area,” says Deputy Director of Planning Kevin McDermott. “Directly across U.S. 29 from there is a development called North Pointe.”

But that’s just some of what’s coming. Albemarle’s development dashboard currently shows nearly 4,000 units approved but not yet built in the Hollymead area, with another 2,916 under review as of October 1. That’s the most of any of the county’s growth areas, but one with limited public transportation options. 

To change that, Albemarle and Charlottesville Area Transit launched a new microtransit service on October 30.

“It offers people an opportunity to take a different way to get into their work and their school and their play, wherever they need to get to,” McDermott says. “It’s not going to take a major amount of cars off the road but it does offer people another choice.” 

McDermott said the one-year pilot program will provide data that can be used to plan future fixed-route buses where there is currently no service. Albemarle County’s urban ring is about 30 square miles compared to just over 10 for the entire City of Charlottesville. Albemarle Board of Supervisors Chair Donna Price says that’s too large an area for hourly bus service, but the on-demand MicroCAT is seen as a first step. 

“The county’s Pantops and U.S. 29 North areas do have sufficient increased density which, while too small to support that fixed-route system, is sufficient to support this on-demand service,” Price says. 

To use the fare-free service, download the MicroCAT app on an Android or Apple iOS device. Or you can call 442-2466 to book a ride. The service operates Monday through Saturday from 6:30am to 9:30pm. 

One of the drivers is Peter Lafford, who told reporters on a ride along that he is glad to be doing the work. He’s a member of IMPACT, a congregation-led group advocating for solutions in the community. 

“They are pointing out issues concerning affordable housing, underserved public transport systems, and after-school programs,” Lafford says. “I was supportive of those efforts, and so now it’s exciting to find I’m a part of a program solving some of those issues.” 

The service will depend on existing roads and streets. 

Over the past several years, Albemarle and the Virginia Department of Transportation have invested in the road network, with projects such as the extension of Berkmar Drive Extended. The UVA Foundation paid $7 million to extend Lewis and Clark Drive to Airport Road, and has offered around $4 million in improvements connected to the North Fork rezoning. 

Meanwhile, the county seeks to purchase 462 acres around the Rivanna Station military base for economic development purposes. Supervisors are seeking state assistance to help cover the $58 million cost to buy the land from developer Wendell Wood, but the deal is expected to close soon. 

After several years of discussion, the Charlottesville Planning Commission has recommended a new zoning code that will increase the amount of buildable space within city limits.

The appointed body has recommended the restoration of an idea to limit development in areas of the city identified as more prone to displacement of Black and other minority residents. That is in addition to a last-minute change to restrict development on Preston Avenue unless there is community input. 

In the new Residential Core Neighborhood A district, property owners could only build one unit on a lot, but they could add two more units if the existing structure is not torn down. As many as six units could be built if all the additional units were guaranteed as affordable.  

The total building footprint allowed on a property in these zones would be restricted to 2,500 square feet for one unit, but 3,000 if there were two units. 

“The idea is to prevent McMansions,” said Commissioner Philip d’Oronzio before the Planning Commission’s October 18 vote. d’Oronzio is a member of the Housing Advisory Committee who argued that the restrictions are necessary. The executive director of Piedmont Housing Alliance briefed Council on the reasons why earlier this month. 

“The anti-displacement zones overlay … grew out of this assessment and attempt to redistribute development pressure by differentiating maximum densities,” said Sunshine Mathon, PHA executive director. “More density in historically exclusionary neighborhoods, less density in anti-displacement zones.”

Several properties in this new area with single-family homes have traded at high sales prices since being identified in the Comprehensive Plan as “Sensitive Communities” more than two years ago. One is 905 Page Street, which sold for $600,000 on October 6. That’s a lot higher than the $30,000 that Loft Realty and Investments paid for the lot in September 2017. 

Vice Chair and Commissioner Carl Schwarz, a resident of the 10th and Page neighborhood, had some concern about the overlay.

“People who have lived in the neighborhood forever, born in the ‘50s, lived their entire lives,” Schwarz said. “Are we cutting out that personal wealth by doing this?” 

d’Oronzio claimed the restrictions had the support of the neighborhood.

“We seem to have a pretty loud and clear signal that neighborhood preservation and housing preservation without developer invasion is heavily weighted against value,” d’Oronzio said. 

d’Oronzio said there would still be value even with fewer development rights. One example is the $510,000 sales price on July 28 for 326 10 ½ Street NW, a property with two structures. The previous owners had purchased that property in January 2017 for $90,000. 

Council’s public hearing on the Development Code has not yet been scheduled 

At the same time, other planks of the Cville Plans Together initiative are also being implemented, such as the spending of at least $10 million per year on affordable units. 

This week, the governing body of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority agreed to purchase 1642 Meridian Street in the Belmont neighborhood for $255,000 in funds to be later approved by City Council. At the same meeting, they agreed to refinancing of a $5 million loan used to help cover the purchase of 74 units scattered across the city.  Council paid the other $5 million for that project.

A long and meticulous conversation has been held all year about proposed new rules and regulations for buildings in Charlottesville, and the Planning Commission will likely take a final vote on a recommendation on October 18.

Since a public hearing was held September 14, the six remaining planning commissioners have held four meetings to finalize their recommendation on what City Council should consider. That has resulted in many potential changes. 

Most notably, there is a new proposal to limit building size on Preston Avenue, unless developers guarantee 20 percent of housing units as affordable and provide community space. Council would need to grant a special exception permit for additional height. Development on all but one other corridor would be by-right. 

“The purpose is to ensure that larger new development projects in these corridors include community supportive amenities, like more affordable housing units, than would otherwise be required, [as well as] affordable commercial space for community assets like grocers, laundromats, or health services, or community-oriented space,” says Neighborhood Development Services Director James Freas.

Under the new proposal, all of the property between Rosser Avenue and Fourth Street NW would be designated as Corridor Mixed Use 3, which would allow less building space than the CX-5 and CX-8 districts that have been on the draft zoning map since it was released in early February. 

That includes the land that Stony Point Development Group announced would be included in its expansion of the mixed-use Dairy Market project. Stony Point had expected to amend an existing special use permit to build seven-story buildings facing Preston Avenue, but withdrew the plans after public outcry. Technically, the company will be able to go through the amendment process even under the new development code, but it would still need approval from City Council. 

The same Core Neighborhoods Corridor Overlay District would also apply to Cherry Avenue between Ridge Street and Roosevelt Brown Boulevard, but the draft zoning map has designated that as CX-3.

There is already a precedent for this approach. In September, City Council approved a rezoning at 501 Cherry Ave., to allow 118 units with 24,000 square feet of new commercial space. Beforehand, Woodard Properties had entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Fifeville Neighborhood Association to work with Piedmont Housing Alliance to provide affordable units and offer space for Twice is Nice and the Music Resource Center. 

Chris Henry, president of Stony Point Development Group, said the point of the zoning rewrite was to set developer expectations by allowing by-right development and not leaving decisions up to council. 

“If a significant reduction in proposed density is desirable on Preston Avenue, we need to be comfortable with the significant reduction of affordable housing, tax revenue, and other community benefits that can be derived from a successful collaboration between city, developer, and community,” Henry said. 

The Planning Commission will also consider a restoration of the “sensitive communities” districts that had been removed at the request of the city’s Housing Advisory Committee. 

The appointed body has also reached consensus to recommend to City Council that some commercial uses be allowed in Residential-B and Residential-C without a special use permit if the property is on a corner lot. It will likely recommend the allowance of more height in several zoning districts. 

City Council will hold two additional work sessions before its public hearing. 

Every quarter, the real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer puts out a list of facts about each market it serves. According to its final fact for the Charlottesville market, “More than 2,000 multifamily units have been built since the start of 2020, expanding the total inventory by more than 16 percent.” 

Such numbers are snapshots into what’s been happening in the built environment at a time when both Albemarle and Charlottesville are seeking to lower barriers to construction of new units. Both also want to augment policies to guarantee some of the units are kept below market. 

A housing policy adopted by the Albemarle Board of Supervisors in July 2021 said the county needed to build 11,750 units over the next 20 years.

Every quarter, Albemarle publishes a list of building permits issued, as well as another document that’s required before anyone can move into a new unit. 

Albemarle issued 1,143 total certificates of occupancy in 2020, 960 in 2021, 779 in 2022, and 388 through June 30 of this year. Notable developments in that time include single-family homes at North Pointe, apartment buildings at Brookhill, and the first few homes at Southwood. 

In Charlottesville, the Cville Plans Together initiative seeks to change the rules for building to significantly increase the number of homes for rent and sale that can be built within city limits. 

However, the city does not make information about what’s actually built readily available, nor is the land use reform process driven by a specific target number of units. Requests for further information and clarification were sent to the city’s Freedom of Information Act officer, who did not respond by press time. 

A housing needs assessment was conducted for Charlottesville in 2018. That study cited the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, and stated that there were 19,886 housing units in Charlottesville in 2015, with 51.5 percent of them single-family detached. The ACS estimated 44,620 in Albemarle that year, and the total figure for the metropolitan area was 99,246. 

Parsing that data for comparable results can be tricky but crucial to measuring the region’s housing supply and tracking whether more units will translate to a stabilization or lowering of rents and sales prices. 

On October 11, Charlottesville City Council will be able to speak about these topics with a top demographer at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Hamilton Lombard, Weldon Cooper’s estimates program manager for the Demographics Research Group, said Cushman & Wakefield’s numbers “sound correct.” 

Many more units are slated to be built in Charlottesville, even without a new zoning code. 

Recently, council sat in on a public hearing for a rezoning to replace 62 units on Stadium Row with over 500 units. In the coming months, the Planning Commission will review site plans for around 170 new units on Stribling Avenue, dozens of units at 2117 Ivy Rd., and Piedmont Housing Alliance’s redevelopment of the MACAA site on Park Street.   

The advent of a new development code has fueled fears of future demolitions, as existing structures are taken down to make way for more building space for homes and businesses.   

The area’s level of demolition has remained steady for the past dozen or so years, according to data gathered through the city’s permit review interface. The city issued 18 permits for residential demolition in 2019, three in 2020, eight in 2021, and six in 2022. 

Any increase in the rate of change can be monitored, and surely will. 

Bill Emory has spent many years advocating for policies to preserve the Woolen Mills neighborhood. He’s also documented a 20th-century landscape in black-and-white photography and poetry. 

Last week, he posted a color photograph of the demolished remains of 1026 Carlton Ave., a one-story, two-bedroom building constructed in 1957. Members of the Bragg family purchased the property in 1977, but it has not been occupied as a house for years.

“Another one bites the dust,” Emory said when asked for comment. “I have seen a number of houses torn down, [and] it always provokes sadness. I like the front porch culture. I like people’s ability to interact with the natural world without having to travel across town. Walk out of the door and into the magic.”

In 2017, the assessor downgraded the improvement value of the Carlton Avenue property to $1,000. The land value has risen from $49,800 in 2016 to $164,100 this year. The 0.161-acre property has been zoned for business use, and will be designated as Corridor Mixed Use 3 in the new zoning code. The demolition was estimated to have a cost of $7,500, according to city records. 

Nearby are several properties owned by an entity called Belmont and Carlton Holdings LLC, which trace back to Riverbend Development. The company bought the land in 2006 for $2 million, three years after the last city-wide rezoning. At least one single-family home on Walnut Street has been removed, according to city demolition records.  

The city’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services is currently reviewing applications to demolish a residential structure at 1003 Carlton Ave. and a business at 1025 Carlton. Each project has an estimated cost of $10,000. 

These properties have been zoned Neighborhood Commercial Corridor since 2003, and will become something called Node Mixed Use 3, which would allow up to three stories by-right, and five, if affordable units are provided. 

Riverbend is proceeding with a by-right site plan under the existing zoning that would allow up to 130 townhomes, according to its most recent site plan, which is also still under review. 

Other pending demolition reviews in the city include permission to remove 416 Garrett St. to make way for more buildings at Kindlewood, and the takedown of a duplex at 1117 Preston Ave. The latter triggered a stop work order when removal of trees began without a permit. 

This past weekend, crews took down the gymnasium at Buford Middle School, for which a permit was issued on August 29.