More than a dozen constituents spoke at the August 5 council meeting. Photo by Eze Amos.
Charlottesville City Council had a jam-packed meeting on August 5, covering everything from affordable housing efforts to potential salary increases for councilors.
Earlier this year, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, introduced by Charlottesville-area Del. Katrina Callsen, which allows city councils to increase compensation for their members. Currently, Charlottesville city councilors receive a salary of $18,000 annually, with the mayor’s salary slightly higher at $20,000. Under the proposed ordinance, councilors’ pay would increase to $34,000 and the mayor’s to $37,000, effective July 1, 2026.
Discussion by council showed support from a majority, with the sole dissent coming from Councilor Lloyd Snook.
“I think at a time when we are raising taxes on basically every tax we could raise this past year, it’s certainly not good politics and probably not wise more broadly for us to take the most full advantage of what the General Assembly has done,” said Snook. “If we want to be really honest with ourselves, … if we’re looking to keep pace with inflation … raise it to $22,500 for councilors and $25,000 for the mayor.”
The rest of the city council spoke in support of the ordinance.
“I disagree with the fundamental proposition that the original salary, when it was set way back in the dark ages, was anywhere close to what it should have been,” said Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston.
Pinkston and the councilors in favor of the salary increase also cited the potential for a pay improvement to allow more people the financial opportunity to serve on council.
“The thing about this role, and the reason I love it, is that you’re always carrying the city around with you in your heart and your mind,” said Pinkston. “I will wholeheartedly and enthusiastically vote for this without any shame whatsoever.”
Councilors Michael Payne and Natalie Oschrin echoed Pinkston’s points.
“There’s an idea that [this] could be a fully part-time volunteer legislature, but with the complexity of local government, I think it’s more akin to a second job,” said Payne. “I have talked to people who thought about running for office. … Financially, it wouldn’t be feasible for them.”
“More people should be able to do this and the money help[s] make it more accessible to more folks by voting for this increase,” said Oschrin. “We’re not voting necessarily on our own salaries. We’re voting on the salaries of the next incoming councilors.”
Mayor Juandiego Wade also weighed in on the potential salary increase: “I think it’s one of the most significant things that I can do as an individual councilor to increase the diversity on this board.”
While he is able to take time off of work for council obligations, Wade highlighted how that is not a reality for a significant number of potential council members.
Constituents were divided on the salary ordinance.
“This is one of the single most important things that you guys can do to help us become a more equitable city going forward,” said one public commenter in favor of the pay raise. “If people can’t afford to live in this town, they can’t serve on council—it’s that simple. … I would like as broad of a spectrum [as possible] of people from our population to be able to afford to serve. … There’s a reason why our general assembly is largely composed of doctors and lawyers, and no disrespect to them, but I don’t feel that that is a proportional representation of the people in our Commonwealth.”
Another speaker was decidedly against the measure. “It is completely unfathomable to me that you all would sit with the possibility of discussing a pay raise tonight—not just any pay raise, [but] a pay raise somewhere 88 to 89 percent over where you currently are,” he said. “You are actually going to sit and vote on this subject when just outside your door there are homeless people that need to be addressed.”
The vote on the ordinance increasing city councilors’ salaries is scheduled for the next council meeting on August 19. A second public hearing will be held at that time.
Another major development at the council meeting was the approval by Piedmont Housing Alliance and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville Area of city funds going toward the offer on Carlton Mobile Home Park.
With this financing, PHA and Habitat were able to proceed with a $7.25 million offer on the park before the August 6 deadline for consideration.
Under the agreement, the city will not have ownership of any portion of the park if the offer goes through but will assist with the financing of interest and principal payments. In an agreement with residents, Carlton will remain a mobile home park, but the purchase lays the groundwork for eventual redevelopment into deeply affordable housing.
“I want to remind everybody that this is an offer. Our fingers are crossed and hopefully it works out, but it’s not in our hands after today,” said Oschrin. “Part of why I am so supportive of this is that it will be getting redeveloped, and it is not being purchased to freeze in amber. It will become more housing for more people, which is obviously what we need.”
There has been no additional developments on the joint city, PHA, and Habitat offer on Carlton Mobile Home Park at press time.
Southern Development seeks a rezoning to allow for eight affordable units slated for a project on Stribling Avenue to be built at the company’s Flint Hill community instead.
Photo by Sean Tubbs.
When Southern Development Homes won a rezoning in Charlottesville to allow for the construction of 170 dwelling units on Stribling Avenue, the idea was that all of the required affordable units would be built on the 11-acre site in Fry’s Spring.
As part of the rezoning in late April 2022, Southern Development agreed to designate 15 percent of the units as affordable to households with gross earnings of less than 60 percent of area median income (AMI). Under the city’s definitions, that’s classified as “low- and moderate-income.”
A new request from the developer seeks to add the definition of “very low-income household,” reserved for families who earn between 30 percent and 50 percent of AMI. But the amendment also requests permission to build at most eight of those units elsewhere so that they are available to potential residents sooner.
“Assuming the final site plan approval proceeds in a timely manner, construction of new homes [at 240 Stribling] is still likely to be no less than two years in the future, and possibly more,” reads the narrative for the request.
Southern Development also points out that construction is underway at its Flint Hill project, which is also in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood. Tree-clearing has begun for the 60-unit community built between Moseley and Longwood drives.
Under the Flint Hill rezoning, granted in April 2020, eight affordable units are required to be built and the new request transfers the obligation to build—at most—eight of 240 Stribling’s 26 units to the Flint Hill project. That would create up to 16 units there, with at least two of them reserved for the “very low-income” category.
Southern Development is working with Habitat for Humanity to build those units.
“We’ve had some amazing recent partnerships with them at Burnet Commons and Southwood,” says Charlie Armstrong, vice president at Southern Development. “They will definitely be building eight Habitat units at Flint Hill and we want them to build 16.”
Meanwhile, the city continues to work on the design for infrastructure to support the Stribling project. The council’s original vote to rezone was conditional upon the city entering into a public-private partnership with Southern Development to upgrade Stribling Avenue with sidewalks. The road currently lacks walkways and drainage. The city has created drawings and a final version is expected to be ready for public review in July.
This will be the first rezoning under the city’s new Development Code. Southern Development is not asking for any other changes to the rezoning beyond the affordability provisions.
Three UVA or UVA Foundation properties—the Piedmont community off Fontaine Avenue, 1010 Wertland St., and portions of North Fork UVA discovery park on 29 North—are part of the university’s new affordable housing development initiative. Photo: University of Virginia
From redlining to racial covenants, Charlottesville’s long history of racism and segregation has created the affordable housing crisis the city now faces. Over the years, the city’s largest employer, the University of Virginia, has contributed to the problem. As UVA continues to grow and expand, more and more students have signed leases at apartments and houses around the university, leaving less and less affordable housing available for the city’s low-income residents.
In 2020, UVA President Jim Ryan announced that the school would take proactive measures to address the situation. Over the next decade, UVA plans to support the development of 1,000 to 1,500 units of affordable housing in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. UVA and the UVA Foundation will retain ownership of the land for the affordable housing developments, and partner with third-party developers to design, finance, build, and manage the new units.
Last month, the university announced three prospective sites—all owned by the university or the UVA Foundation—for new affordable housing units: UVA’s Piedmont community off Fontaine Avenue, portions of the North Fork UVA discovery park on Route 29, and the 1010 Wertland St. building at the corner of Wertland and 10th Street. The existing buildings, excluding a historic structure at the Piedmont site, would be replaced with new ones.
Among the key questions facing the project is just how affordable the units will be. City councilor and longtime affordable housing advocate Michael Payne hopes the dwellings will be available at a variety of rental prices—at all area median income levels. “Our biggest need, and the most difficult affordable housing to build, is having units at zero to 30 percent AMI,” he says.
Moriah Wilkins, Skadden Legal Fellow at the Legal Aid Justice Center, says the units need to be affordable specifically for local residents who make below $50,000 a year. “A lot of the low-income housing tax credit units that we have in the community right now accommodate people who have far more than $50,000, so we need to make sure we’re targeting the right demographic,” she explains.
While the units will be available to the entire community, they should be easily accessible to UVA employees, including dining hall staff, custodians, and other service workers, says Public Housing Association of Residents Executive Director Shelby Edwards.
“People who work at UVA should have the ability to live in the city if they’re going to be expected to work in the city,” says Edwards. “Low-income people, specifically Black people, over the past few years have been moving out of Charlottesville.”
According to a report published by the Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition in 2020, around 25 percent of all city residents currently do not make enough money to afford to live here.
In addition to one- and two-bedroom units, the new developments should have plenty of units for larger households, as well as elderly and disabled residents, stresses Wilkins. It’s also important that the units offer opportunities for homeownership, giving Black residents a chance to build generational wealth.
Payne also encourages the university to explore adopting a community land trust model, in which a nonprofit organization owns land and leases it to homeowners, maintaining permanent affordability. “They’ll be able to reach deeper AMI levels, potentially open up wealth-building opportunities to more people, and ensure that those units aren’t just affordable for 10, 15, or 20 years, which is often the case in some affordable housing developments,” he says.
Two of the potential affordable housing sites, Piedmont and 1010 Wertland St., currently have residents. After receiving some pushback from the residents, this month the university notified those who are eligible to renew their leases that they could do so through spring 2023, and would not have to move out this spring.
“We are beginning discussions about how to assist current residents as we get a better understanding of the needs,” said Assistant Vice President for Economic Development Pace Lochte in an email.
Affordable housing advocates point to Charlottesville’s troubled history of displacing vulnerable residents. In 1964, the city razed Vinegar Hill, a historically Black neighborhood and business hub. Former residents were forced to move to the city’s first public housing development, Westhaven. In 1969, Charlottesville also expanded City Yard into Page Street, another historically Black neighborhood, but refused to assist residents with finding alternative housing.
UVA should start helping residents of Piedmont and 1010 Wertland St. find new housing now, says Wilkins. It should also give them the option to live in the new affordable units once they are built, and offer them the same rental rate they had before—or a lower one, says Edwards.
“It’s really critical to have a survey of everyone who is living in these units who is facing displacement, [and] for UVA to know what their situations are—is it mainly students, community members, how long they’ve been living in that unit, what’s their current rent,” adds Payne. “[They should] use that information to definitely be 100 percent certain that no one is displaced.”
Piedmont residents have echoed these concerns. Since announcing the proposed sites, UVA has been collecting community feedback through an online (or mail-in) survey, as well as a comment wall on the affordable housing initiative’s website.
“If dozens of families lose their homes simultaneously or within a few months, the Charlottesville housing market cannot absorb all of them. Some families might not be able to find a place that is available, affordable, or that will accept their application (because of income, credit score or legal status),” wrote one commenter.
“We just moved in this summer and our new life is just settled down totally. My kids are just get used to their school,” said another resident. “That would be great for kids to stay in same school. Hope we could live at piedmont for full 4 years.”
The 1010 Wertland St. and North Fork sites have received more positive—albeit less—feedback. Commenters would like to see access to public transportation at the affordable housing sites, as well as green infrastructure, sustainable building practices, and community services.
As the project’s team moves forward with the community engagement process, Wilkins urges UVA representatives to visit low-income neighborhoods and public housing communities in person.
“Not everybody—especially low-income folks—has access to the internet and the same resources…so we really need to go into these communities as much as we can and engage in a way that speaks to them,” she says.
Payne hopes UVA will continue to work with local nonprofits, public housing communities, and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority to ensure that the new construction “is meeting the biggest needs in the community” and “won’t have unintended consequences [for] the people around the sites.” He also encourages the school to partner with the city on housing projects that are already in the works, like the redevelopment of South First Street.
UVA is collecting comments from the public until January 31. It plans to issue a Request for Qualifications from developers this spring.
“UVA has been around for so long, and there’s so much undoing of work that needs to happen,” says Edwards. “They started it, and they still have a long way to go.”
City Council agreed in October to contribute $5.5 million in a forgivable loan to support the first phase of the Piedmont Housing Alliance’s redevelopment of Friendship Court, the 150-unit downtown public housing complex that was built in 1978. PC: Grimm + Parker Architects
In a year where many of us followed guidelines to stay at home, the skies of downtown Charlottesville were marked by cranes building new spaces for the 21st century. In their shadow, projects to provide more affordable units moved through the bureaucratic process required to keep them below-market. Before the clock strikes 2021, let’s look back at some of what happened in 2020.
Public housing
After years of planning and complaints of decay from residents, Charlottesville’s government took steps to renovate the city’s public housing stock. In October, City Council agreed to spend $3 million to help finance the renovation of Crescent Halls and the construction of 62 new units on an athletic field at South First Street. A date for groundbreaking has been postponed several times, but officials with the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority hope it will occur early next year.
At the same meeting, council also agreed to contribute $5.5 million in a forgivable loan to support the first phase of the Piedmont Housing Alliance’s redevelopment of Friendship Court. The 150-unit complex was built in 1978 in an area cleared by urban renewal. The first phase will see up to 106 units built on vacant land along Monticello Avenue and Sixth Street SE. The loan dictates that the new homes must be made affordable to people who earn less than the area median income. As with CRHA, there’s no set date for groundbreaking yet.
Also this year, a firm hired to complete an overhaul of Charlottesville’s Comprehensive Plan unveiled a draft of an affordable housing plan that calls for $10 million a year in city investment in similar projects. The draft also asks “to bring diverse voices from the community into decision making structure of the City and partners it funds.”
As the Comprehensive Plan edit process continues, affordable housing advocates hope to reform the zoning ordinance to make it easier to build more housing units without seeking permission from council. This conversation will spill over to 2021, as work on the Comprehensive Plan continues and as voters prepare to elect or re-elect two members of City Council in November.
Downtown towers
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of square feet for offices and other commercial uses are under construction. The largest is the Center of Developing Entrepreneurs, which is being erected on Water Street on the site of the former Main Street Arena. The triangle-shaped nine-story building will include a public courtyard, retail area, and incubator space intended to grow new businesses. Completion is expected by August 2021.
On Second Street, within sight of the CODE building, a nine-story office building called 3Twenty3 nears completion, despite a crane collapse in early January. The structure is ready for occupancy and tenants include Manchester Capital, CoConstruct, and McGuire Woods.
Not too far behind is the new headquarters for Apex Clean Energy, an eight-story timber-built structure on Garrett Street designed by Charlottesville-based William McDonough + Partners. Ground was broken in October 2019 and the building could be completed by the end of 2021.
Elsewhere in Charlottesville, Albemarle County hired Fentress Architects to design the $45.2 million renovation of the judicial complex in Court Square. The new general district court complex will be shared by both localities. Construction on the court building won’t begin until at least 2022, but the project is already drawing plenty of attention, as the city continues to move forward with the planning process for a parking structure at Market and Ninth streets to support the new facility.
A previous City Council bought the Market Street parcel in January 2017 for $2.85 million, and the current plan is to build a four-level parking structure with 300 spaces and 12,000 square feet of commercial space. Opponents have argued the structure isn’t needed and the city could invest the $10 million price tag in other projects, including affordable housing. The city says the new spaces would provide enough inventory to allow the nearby Market Street Parking Garage to be retired and redeveloped in the decades to come. The hulking parking garage is among the biggest decisions council will need to make as it hashes out a capital budget for next year.
What about Albemarle?
Albemarle County is also working on a new affordable housing plan. The draft calls for zoning changes that would allow for thousands more units to be built compared to the existing rules. This year, however, the county Board of Supervisors has not approved two projects that would have added to that number. In June, concerns about traffic left the board deadlocked on a vote that would have seen 328 units built on 27 acres at the northern end of the John Warner Parkway. In early January, supervisors are expected to take a vote on a rezoning for 130 units to be built near Glenmore. Neighbors cite traffic concerns for their vehement opposition to the project.
Fifteen percent of the housing in the new Flint Hill housing development will be affordable units PC: Roudabush, Gale & Associates, Inc.
Second chance
City Council approves Flint Hill development
After nearly an hour of discussion, and midway through a meeting that lasted until 2:30am, City Council voted July 20 to move forward with the Flint Hill housing development, a set of new homes to be constructed in Fry’s Spring.
Last year, council rejected an initial proposal for the project, but Southern Development has since made substantial changes to its plan. It now wants to build 37 single-family homes and two eight-unit condominium buildings, dumping its original plan for 50 townhouses.
The developers have also boosted the number of affordable units, from 10 percent to at least 15 percent. The units will be affordable for 30 years, and priced to house residents from 25 to 60 percent of area median income.
With a density of six units per acre, there will be some room left for homeowners to add accessory dwelling units, such as a basement apartment or guest house. And there will be almost five acres of green space along Moores Creek, including trails and places to gather.
Last month, the Charlottesville Planning Commission unanimously endorsed the revamped plans.
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville has partnered with Southern Development, and will build 30 percent of the units. Because the average area median income for Habitat families is 32 percent, Habitat’s president, Dan Rosensweig, said that Flint Hill would be “really good” for them, and for the city.
“It’s the kind of neighborhood our families have told us they’d like to live in,” he added. “This isn’t an answer to all affordable housing issues…[but] we’re really excited to be part of this project.”
Multiple people voiced their support for the development during public comment, including a current Habitat homeowner.
While Mayor Nikuyah Walker had several concerns, including when families would be able to move into the affordable units, she admitted the project was “better than anything” she’s seen regarding affordable housing since she’s been on council.
Two ordinances and a resolution for the development will be put on the consent agenda for council’s next meeting on August 3, and the project will move forward from there.
__________________
Quote of the week
“As you consider defunding the police, my message to you is to fund diversity in crisis responders…[The public mental health system] has just as much systemic bias issues as law enforcement.”
—Black mental health advocate Myra Anderson, speaking to City Council.
__________________
In brief
Military grade
On Monday, City Council voted to ban the Charlottesville Police Department from obtaining weapons from the military and participating in military training. But ahead of the meeting, Planning Commission member Rory Stolzenberg pointed out a variety of loopholes in the resolution—military equipment could still be purchased from private sellers, and the resolution doesn’t address the military-style equipment already in CPD’s arsenal. Stolzenberg, along with other public speakers, urged council to pull the policy from the consent agenda and strengthen it, but council passed the resolution anyway. “Just because it’s not pulled tonight, doesn’t mean we’re not going to work on this,” said Vice-Mayor Sena Magill.
Beer and spirits
Three Notch’d Brewing Company is the latest local business to strip Confederate imagery from its brand. For years, the Charlottesville-based brewers have been selling The Ghost APA, which is named for John S. Mosby, a Charlottesville native and Confederate officer nicknamed the Gray Ghost. The beer will now be called Ghost of the James, a reference to the reserve fleet of U.S. military boats currently stored on the river. The packaging has shifted from gray to blue.
Nick Frietas PC: Gage Skidmore
Freitas tries again
Last week, Nick Freitas won the Republican primary to challenge freshman U.S. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger for Virginia’s competitive 10th District seat. Freitas lost to far-right statue defender Corey Stewart in the 2018 Republican U.S. Senate primary, and won his current seat in the House of Delegates through a write-in campaign, after failing to file paperwork to get himself on the ballot. He nearly made the same mistake this year, but the Virginia Board of Elections extended the deadline for filing, a move the Democratic Party has contested.
Gwen Cassady is a formerly homeless Charlottesville resident turned activist and entrepreneur. Photo: Eze Amos
Gwen Cassady has lived a lot more life than could fit into a half-page newspaper profile. She’s been homeless four times, and spent a period living out of an office on the Downtown Mall. She’s been to 64 countries, as well as a royal Saudi compound, earned two degrees from UVA, and is currently enrolled in a Harvard graduate program. Next week, she’ll speak about her experience with homelessness in front of the United Nations as part of the organization’s Civil Society Forum.
Through all those twists and turns, Cassady’s entrepreneurial spirit hasn’t wavered. She’s got a studio now, a small room tucked in the side of a warehouse in Woolen Mills, jammed with boxes overflowing with fabrics and beads. She has a dozen projects in the works, everything from a “net-positive, off-grid, small-home community” in Greene County to a jewelry business that sends 100 percent of profits to victims of Boko Haram in Nigeria. Her latest endeavor is Eco Chic Boutique, a clothing shop and tailoring service that Cassady coordinates with local refugees. They sell jeans, bridesmaid dresses, and other custom-fit apparel.
She’s also become a tireless advocate for homelessness awareness in Charlottesville, where our housing crisis has exacerbated an already difficult situation. Cassady is working on three documentaries about homelessness, and will premiere one of them at the UN. We caught up with her ahead of her speech on February 13.
C-VILLE: What’s the movie about?
GC: We focus on the global pandemic of homelessness, but our primary focus is on Charlottesville. We interview a lot of really awesome people, amazing people who are currently homeless, people who are formerly homeless.
What support was most valuable to you during your periods of homelessness?
I found that in Charlottesville, when I had too much pride to ask my closest friends for help and assistance, my homeless friends always looked out for me. My 35th birthday, I will never forget…They were pooling all their money from food stamps and from SNAP benefits, which I was on too, just so I could have a nice steak dinner on my birthday. I remember exactly where we were standing, right outside the library.
How have you managed to survive in so many different environments?
I’ve always been able to blend in to any environment because I’ve always treated everyone the same.
You’ve been knocked down plenty of times, but you always get back up. Where does that resilience come from?
My daily driving forces are my friends who are currently homeless. Like Ricky on the Downtown Mall. Chris, in D.C., who was lit on fire by rich white kids. Understanding the systemic issues, I just want to make a difference.
What can we as individuals do to help?
My whole speech [at the UN] is about how the kindness of strangers reinstated my faith in humanity when I was homeless here on the streets of Charlottesville…You offer random acts of kindness. You do what you can do.
How does it feel to be speaking at the UN, after all you’ve been through?
It’s surreal beyond words. I still can’t wrap my head around it. I will never be able to, fully, even while I’m speaking.
Gwen Cassady, in brief
Education: UVA economics BA ’97, UVA education MA ’14, Harvard sustainability masters in progress
If you could pass any law what would it be: Removing the statute of limitations on sexual assault.
Priority for change in Charlottesville: Building more affordable housing.
Meaningful quotation: “The poverty of being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for is the greatest poverty of all.” —Mother Teresa
LaTita Talbert in front of her new home. Photo: John Robinson
LaTita Talbert is a single mother of six, a city bus driver, and a commissioner on the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority—and now, she’s a homeowner. On January 25, Talbert’s friends and family gathered in the backyard of the neat gray house on Sixth Street SE that Talbert renovated with Habitat for Humanity, to celebrate.
“It’s a privilege. We’ve worked very hard to get to this point,” Talbert says. “I’m excited about being loved and having so many family members and friends come out to celebrate us. It’s a joy.”
The day had been a long time coming for Talbert. Habitat purchased the house more than a year and half ago, and construction began nine months ago. Talbert moved to Charlottesville in 2006 and lived in public housing and Section 8 rentals until she moved in to her new home.
“Just from the standpoint of being low-income, and the stigma that comes along with being low-income, where people think that they can’t have anything, they can’t do anything—I think that I pushed some boundaries,” Talbert says.
She hopes she can be an example for others. “I’d like to see every housing resident as a homeowner,” Talbert says. “I know that it’s possible that somebody sees me and says, ‘She did it, I can too.’”
Dan Rosensweig, CEO of Charlottesville Habitat for Humanity, says Habitat selects potential homeowners based on their “willingness to partner and the housing conditions that folks are in.”
“Then they get into the program and they start doing what’s called sweat equity,” Rosensweig says. Talbert did more than 150 hours of that work: contributing to other Habitat job sites, taking home ownership classes, and participating in community service projects.
Talbert’s house was purchased after a foreclosure and then renovated. Rosensweig says the property, on the west edge of Belmont, was chosen in part to combat gentrification in Charlottesville. “Our goal, in addition to building as many homes as we can, is to find those neighborhoods that might be ripe for gentrification and try to make sure that we can keep low-income home ownership, affordable home ownership, as part of the mix for people who’ve been here,” Rosensweig says.
Habitat does three things: “We build homes in mixed-income communities, we rehab neighborhoods without displacement, and we’re trying to work on the policy level to try to, essentially, fix a broken housing system,” says Rosensweig. He thinks Talbert’s house project helps Habitat with all three of those goals.
Talbert says participating in the renovation made the payoff even more satisfying. “You can walk through your own home and say, ‘I painted that wall. I did that nail. I put that together. I helped do that.’ It’s exciting to see the end process from the beginning.”
“I’m trying to retrain my mind from saying, ‘I’m paying rent,’ to ‘I’m paying a mortgage,’” she says.
Talbert’s success offers a stark reminder of the dire housing situation in Charlottesville. According to a 2019 report from the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership, more than 16,000 people in the region are cost-burdened or severely cost-burdened by housing. Hundreds of people are on the waitlist for public housing, and wait times can be as long as eight years. Average rents are rising.
Habitat works wonders for the individuals who pass through the program, but at this point it’s not a large-scale solution for the deeply ingrained issues facing the town. Rosensweig says application cycles often see roughly 150 people apply for about 20 Habitat homes.
On Saturday, however, the mood was celebratory. Talbert and her children sat across folding chairs in the backyard, with friends and family and Habitat employees scattered behind them.
Pastor Stanley L. Speed of God’s House of Faith began the proceedings with a prayer. “I thank God for this moment,” Speed said. “I praise God for the Talbert family, the action of faith coming to fruition today.”
In her remarks at the end of the ceremony, Talbert thanked her church community. “The days I was frustrated, trying to juggle life and Habitat and everything else, they held me up,” she said.
Vice-Mayor Sena Magill spoke briefly as well. “On behalf of the City of Charlottesville, welcome home. You have earned this. Habitat is not an easy program,” Magill said. City Councilor Heather Hill and former vice-mayor Wes Bellamy were also in attendance.
Magill emphasized the importance of property ownership as a building block towards a fairer Charlottesville. “Home ownership is where true equity begins,” Magill said. “Now you have something that you can leave to your children.”
In a city beset by a housing crisis, Talbert’s new homeownership represents both an admirable success story and a reminder of the tremendous amount of work left to do.
“To see where we came from to where we are now, it’s just like, wow,” Talbert says. “It’s a wow moment. We really did this.”
New Year’s is a time for resolutions, but this year, we decided to focus our attention on city improvements, not self-improvement. So we asked a bunch of community leaders about their hopes for Charlottesville (and added a few of our own). Here’s to a new year, a new decade, and new visions for a community that’s bigger and better than ever.
Kari Miller, executive director and founder, International Neighbors
1. That employee income increases as fast—or faster (imagine that!)—as housing costs rise.
2. That each resourced resident (most of us) connect with one neighbor in need (many of us) in order to make Charlottesville/Albemarle the best place for all of us.
3. That special immigrant visa holders, or SIVs, receive the official status of U.S. veterans of war for their service and sacrifice for the U.S. military during conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many SIVs live in Charlottesville—they are our neighbors—and deserve our respect and support. The presence of these people of unparalleled patriotism makes Charlottesville/Albemarle a stronger community, and yet they struggle to survive, despite having put themselves at great risk to protect our common values.
Deborah McLeod, Photo Amy and Jackson Smith
Deborah McLeod, Chroma Gallery
1. A pedestrian bridge across the Rivanna joining River View with the Darden trail on the Albemarle side.
2. A better designed bus system that responds to the needs of the users (present AND potential) that is hub based rather than the current over long circuits that make commuting take so absurdly long—and add more buses.
3. Create a charming enterprise business zone at the Friendship Court stretch along Second Street leading toward IX.
Michael Payne, City Council member
I love Charlottesville, but I canhardly afford to live here! Three improvements:
1. A more robust public transit system with more frequent stops.
2. Achieving carbon neutrality and local climate resilience.
3. Expanding affordable housing opportunities, including public housing and community land trusts.
Sean Tubbs, resident and public transit advocate
1. The creation of a Charlottesville Karaoke League.
2. The establishment or promotion of an all-ages social gathering space to break down generational silos.
3. More reporting from more sources on more issues. There are so many stories that need to be told.
Stephen Hitchcock, executive director of The Haven
1. More affordable housing.
2. More affordable housing.
3. More affordable housing.
Peter Krebs, community outreach coordinator at Piedmont Environmental Council
1. A Connected Community: I would love to see safe and comprehensive bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure that links homes to jobs, schools, shopping, and recreation, and that supports area-wide transit. Progress to date has been much too slow and I would like to see it accelerated.
2. A Thriving Community: I would like to see everyone, regardless of age, ability, or any other factor be able to move about and pursue their dreams in a vibrant urban area that is healthy, sustainable, rich in opportunity, and surrounded predominantly by intact forests, farms, and ecosystems.
3. A Community that Works Together: I would like to see Albemarle, Charlottesville, and UVA working together systematically and methodically on transportation, housing, economic development, and environmental protection and conservation. The existing memoranda of understanding are a great start but I’d love to see a much more ambitious level of cooperation.
More than a parking lot
The City Yard, a 9.4-acre municipal works lot in the heart of Charlottesville is, as we wrote last year, “large, central, under-used and under government control”—so why hasn’t it been developed?
The yard, home to black and mixed-race residents more than a century ago, was also the site of the city’s gas works. For decades, concerns about possible contamination kept its use limited to public works vehicles and maintenance facilities.
But faced with a growing population and an increasingly urgent affordable housing crisis, the city is taking a second look.
“I think with City Yard and a few other places near downtown, you could afford to do some unconventional experimentation,” former mayor Maurice Cox told us this spring. “I think it’s too valuable to stay fallow, but it’s too big and difficult to use a conventional set of tools.”
In November 2018, City Council awarded $500,000 to New Hill Development Corporation, an African American-led nonprofit group, to study redevelopment in the Starr Hill area, which includes the City Yard. This fall, they presented their plan, proposing to develop the City Yard into a mixed-use area with 85 to 255 majority affordable housing units and flexible business/commercial spaces focused on workforce development.
It’s part of a larger push to revitalize the area and, with the proposal’s emphasis on open, pedestrian-friendly streets and the transformation of the Jefferson School into a “public square,” it feels like a way to right some of the city’s historic wrongs. After the razing of Vinegar Hill and the walling off of 10th and Page, a redevelopment of the area would reconnect one of the city’s last remaining African American neighborhoods with its increasingly vital downtown. So while many big hurdles remain—most notably whether the site needs environmental cleanup, and if so how much it will cost—it’s a vision worth pursuing. –Laura Longhine
Hunter Smith, founder and CEO, Champion Brewing Company
1. Elimination of food insecurity in the greater Charlottesville-Albemarle area. We have way too many restaurants per capita and disposable income in this community to have hungry neighbors. In 2020, I’d like to challenge myself and fellow restaurateurs to find a way to fight food waste and instability together.
2. More public/private initiatives. As long as the Dillon Rule stands, there are many things the city can’t do that residents expect it to do when it comes to affordable housing and other community priorities. With more projects like New Hill Development, the city can leverage its resources and staff to support not-for-profits that are capable of doing the work the city often cannot.
3. Dewberry Hotel (formerly the Landmark). Good lord, what an eyesore. It’s kind of amazing that the Downtown Mall is still such a destination with that hulk looming
around. There’s a lot of opportunity for a decade-old, derelict structure to be put to better use.
Alan Goffinski, executive director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative
My wish for the city is that Charlottesville might institute an Office of Getting Sh*t Done within city government that supports individuals and nonprofits with good ideas by identifying resources, connecting like-minded folks, streamlining procedures and application processes, and navigating the intimidating aspects of government bureaucracy.
Heather Hill. Photo: Eze Amos
Heather Hill, City Council member
1. Public meeting spaces that are welcoming and respectful of different perspectives, inviting collaboration versus division.
2. A community commitment to investing public and private resources in our schools’ infrastructure.
3. A more regional approach to taking tangible steps that address priorities, including connectivity and housing.
Walt Heinecke, associate professor of Educational Research, Statistics, & Evaluation at UVA
1. I would like to see the new City Council replace the watered-down bylaws and ordinance for the Police Civilian Review Board recently passed by council in Novemberwith the original bylaws and ordinance submitted by the initial CRB in August. The latter bylaws and ordinance provided the strongest model for community oversight and complaint review allowed by state law.
2. I would like to see all racist statues in Charlottesville, including the George Rogers Clark statue at UVA, removed.
3. I would like to see UVA establish a Center for the Study of Race and Social Justice and acknowledge that the university exists on stolen Monacan land; establish a formal and respectful relationship with the Monacan Nation; establish a fully funded indigenous studies center with adequate faculty hires, a substantive effort to increase Indigenous student enrollment, and a physical building for the center.
Jeff Dreyfus. Photo: Martyn Kyle
Jeff Dreyfus and partners, Bushman Dreyfus Architects
1. City Council devises a proactive, achievable plan for increasing affordable housing in the city.
2. The city and county begin incentivizing the production of solar energy.
3. City and county governments merge services and programs that overlap or are redundant to better utilize the limited resources we have.
Devin Floyd, founder, director, principal investigator at the Center for Urban Habitats
1. Environmental education: I would like to see schools not only put a greater emphasis on the arts and sciences, but also afford our youth opportunities to leave the classroom and learn more about local natural history. The more they get the chance to explore the plants, animals, and ecosystems that they share the land with, the more informed and compassionate they will be as stewards of the natural world. Children must be allowed the chance to get close enough to a salamander to see their own reflection in its eyes.
2. Daylighting streams: Natural springs, creeks, and rivers are the heart of our region’s biodiversity. I want the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County to ban the practice of burying streams for development. Furthermore, I call for action toward creating a strategic plan for daylighting all springs and creeks that have been buried, and restoring a portion of the wetlands, grasslands, and forests they should be associated with. This will have the effect of creating a network of urban and suburban wild spaces, with associated parks and trails.
3. The new all-American lawn: I want to see our city and county governments take more responsibility for supporting sustainable landscaping practices. To this end, I dream of a new type of lawn, one that is beautiful, handles its own storm water (slowing it and cleaning it before it reaches local streams), requires but one trimming a year, supports wildlife, keeps its fallen leaves, and inspires young and old to explore. In this vision lawns become extensions of nature, and urban areas become bastions for biodiversity. I want people to have hope again. All is not lost; not even in an urban landscape. Nature is resilient, and powerful. We can each have a positive impact on the environment, even in a tiny lawn.
Patsy Chadwick. File photo
Patsy Chadwick, outgoing president, current board member, Piedmont Master Gardeners
1. Eliminate invasive species throughout Albemarle County. As I drive around the area, I am mortified by the vast numbers of invasive species along our roads, including ailanthus trees, Russian olive shrubs, English ivy, and kudzu, among others. It would be a herculean effort to eradicate these plants and replace them with more environmentally beneficial plantings, but we could begin to address the problem with a cooperative effort of state, county, and city government, private homeowners, and groups such as Piedmont Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, PRISM, local garden clubs, and others.
2. Greater emphasis in our communities on planting trees—particularly, native species—to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and provide more shade during heat waves. I don’t think people realize just what an impact trees can make in helping to offset the effects of climate change.
3. Wiser management of water resources, including: 1) capturing rainwater in barrels and cisterns; 2) planting drought- and heat-tolerant plants that can survive with less water; 3) using drip-irrigation systems to put water where it is most needed; 4) not wasting water on lawns that have gone dormant.
Sunshine Mathon, CEO, Piedmont Housing Alliance
This next year could have remarkable impact if we come together with common purpose. Yet this work cannot be accomplished in a single effort or a single year. The strata of power, the scaffolding that frames our systems and institutions, took us 400 years to construct. With layer upon layer of root, flesh, and stone, we have laid beaten paths of opportunity and exclusion. And yet, though we may be overwhelmed by the scale of what must be undone, or what authority we must emancipate, this work is made imaginable when we laugh and breathe together, when we sweat hand in hand as we yoke ourselves to the labor, and when we cast our gaze to what we can accomplish in this single year.
1. Redevelopment begins: For years-decades-generations, community members from historically excluded neighborhoods have called for investment in their communities…but on their terms and in their interest. Within this next year, all the activism, the tears, and the planning will culminate in a remarkable, near-simultaneous achievement—the ground-breaking of redevelopment for three communities: Friendship Court, public housing, and Southwood. By this time next year, their foundational aspirations will become manifest in the bones of buildings, the homes they themselves designed.
2. A Strategic Housing Plan: Over the coming year, Charlottesville will develop a new strategic housing plan, a community-based process that can and will dig deep into our history, preparing us for future interventions. This housing plan will inform and guide the completion of the city’s comprehensive plan and a land use zoning code revision, culminating in a plan of action. Some aspects of the implementation will require strong political will, and a willingness to look inward to fulfill our collective responsibility, reprioritize resources, and redress past trespasses. These actions cannot be incremental. The accrued legacy is too deep and pervasive. Only bold action will enable our convictions.
3. A Common Analysis: Centuries of policies, incentives, and race-based decision-making have calcified the strata of power and advantage across the nation with people of color accruing the least of it. In the coming year, if our community is to accomplish some authentic progress, we must engage the work with a common analysis—specifically, an analysis of the institutional racism that permeates our systems, by intention and by neglect. By this time next year, our community could achieve a critical threshold. Research suggests that only 3.5 percent of a population must become actively engaged on a singular goal to reach a cultural tipping point. Through shared trainings, deliberate conversations, and active partnership, just 5,000 of us could lead our community to the fulcrum of change.
The Landmark/Dewberry/Laramore. Just call it an eyesore. Photo: Skyclad Aerial
The biggest joke in town
I’ve read a lot about John Dewberry recently and, man, he is a funny guy. Not funny “ha-ha,” but funny, like, “Dude, really?” For the uninitiated, Dewberry is the do-nothing developer who owns the largest urinal in town. It’s eight stories tall and holds down the corner of Second and West Main on the Downtown Mall.
The vision for a boutique hotel on the site reportedly originated with developer Lee Danielson, all the way back in 2004. Construction ceased in 2009, and Dewberry swooped to the rescue, or so we thought, in 2012. But so far, all he’s done is change the concept from luxury hotel to luxury apartments (just what we need) and the name from The Landmark to The Dewberry and, recently, The Laramore—an insult to the late local architect Jack Laramore, who designed the black granite street-level façade.
I wasted about 25 phone calls and six emails trying to contact Dewberry so he could tell me his plans for the vacant property in 2020. A spokesperson replied on behalf of the busy boss: “Hello, Joe. No updates at this time, but thank you so much for reaching out.”
Brian Wheeler, our fair city’s director of communications, indicated that Charlottesville has given up on trying to rectify the blighted blunder. Citing Dewberry’s “personal property rights,” Wheeler said, “He can own that structure [and] as long as it’s not a harm to others, he can keep it in that condition for as long as he likes.”
Whether Dewberry will ever do anything with the downtown carcass is unknown. But history isn’t comforting: Bloomberg Businessweek chose the headline “Atlanta’s Emperor of Empty Lots” for a 2017 profile of Dewberry, who has sat on valuable vacant land on that city’s Peachtree Street for 20 years. In Charleston, South Carolina, he bought a vacant government building and waited eight years to transform it into the luxury hotel that bears his name.
It’s funny, because the Bloomberg story quotes Charles Rea, who was once Dewberry’s director of operations, as saying: “He’s not going to put his name on anything that’s not superior, in his point of view.” Another former colleague said that Dewberry “…used to talk about Dupont Circle, Rockefeller Center. He wants his projects to stack up against the best.” You see? John Dewberry really is funny. –Joe Bargmann
Wilson Richey, partner and founder, Ten Course Hospitality
1. Double down on support of local businesses: Charlottesville’s small, independently owned businesses—shops opened and operated with great passion, meaning, and thought—are collectively one of the city’s most defining and important assets. As a local small business owner, I am worried that our current leadership has not been able to grasp this as they struggle to handle the many challenges of guiding a city that is growing so quickly. I believe our elected officials must show greater support for existing small businesses, and incentivize startups, so that these entities can make our city a stronger, more wonderful place than it already is.
2. Ditto, support for local artists: I grew up in a sleepy suburb of Washington, D.C. When I arrived in Charlottesville, I quickly realized the importance of the local artists and musicians. They lift our spirits, strengthen our cultural fabric, and make our city a happier, livelier, and more colorful place. In 2020, I’d like to see more support for the arts, both by Charlottesville’s leaders and each and every one of us.
3. Double-ditto, support for local agriculture. This is such an important issue, culturally and environmentally. It is a global issue in which Charlottesville has historically been a regional leader. But I believe we need to renew and increase our commitment to supporting sustainable, local agricultural efforts. We would all be healthier and happier for having done so!
Matthew McLendon, director ofThe Fralin Museum of Art
Matthew McLendon. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
1. I’d love to see an expanded, more robust, efficient, and reliable public transport system in Charlottesville that ties the surrounding counties to the city and makes getting around Charlottesville easier. Reliable and efficient public transport is the thing I miss most from my experience living in major cities. If done right, it is an important tool for greater equity, accessibility, and inclusion.
2. Following on with this theme (holiday traffic is on my mind, I guess), I wish that there would be a wide-scale overhaul on the timing of the traffic lights. I never feel that they are synced in the most efficient manner.
3. Finally, I am continuing to work with my colleagues on the vision and realization of a new center for the arts at UVA that would include greatly expanded university art museums, co-locating The Fralin and the Kluge-Ruhe to better serve not only UVA but also Charlottesville and central Virginia. With the intellectual and creative resources of UVA and the wider communities invested in our work, we have the ability to lead in creating the dynamic museum of the 21st century—a convening space for all who are curious and want to be engaged in the discussions art and artists can help to ignite.
Jody Kielbasa, Vice Provost for the Arts at UVA, director of the Virginia Film Festival
1. I would like to see the city and the county make a greater investment in the arts so that our arts organizations and artists can continue to enrich and bring us together as a community while serving as a catalyst to drive tourism and economic development.
2. I would like to see our public schools fully embrace the acronym S.T.E.A.M. over S.T.E.M. to recognize, foster, and celebrate the arts impact on our children’s well-being, learning, and self- expression. The arts make the world a better place.
3. I look forward to the development of a creative nexus on the Emmet/Ivy corridor as part of UVA’s 2030 strategic plan that would welcome the Charlottesville community to better engage with the arts at UVA.
Beryl Solla, gallery director, Piedmont Virginia Community College
My big issue is climate change. I would love to see the city make young trees available for people to plant in their yards. I know the city is working on this for public spaces, but we need to use every space available to help turn climate change around.
I would love to see all city buildings outfitted with solar roof panels and/or green roofs.
I would love to see our city make decisions based on a better, healthier quality of life for all of our citizens, with an emphasis on inclusion and sustainability.
If allowed another big wish, I would move the questionable sculptures in town out of public parks/public spaces and replace them with beautifully made, figurative sculptures that tell everyone’s story. The agenda would be historical accuracy, racial inclusion, and fair payment for the artists.
Brian Wimer. Photo: Eze Amos
Brian Wimer, Amoeba Films
Before we start changing anything, it might help for us to understand who we are. A cohesive vision for the future would certainly be beneficial, if not just pragmatic. But not the future of five days from now. That’s parking lots and like buying stock in Blockbuster. How do we want to live 50 years from now? A hundred years? Can we use our collective imaginations and make the bold, innovative choices that bring our community closer? Sure, I can name three things we could work on: multi-modal transportation, multi-cultural programming, and a new Charlottesville identity (can we please drop the “World Class City” nonsense and try to be a world class village?).
Part of that identity is pride. Ever arrived at the Amtrak station and wondered if you were home—greeted by a concrete tunnel and a chain link fence? Not much pride there. Do I hear someone say “mural?” Something that shouts welcome.
But regardless of what projects and programs we initiate, they won’t be effective if we don’t start at the basic foundation of what makes community: trust and gratitude. I think we have a long way to go there. Some folks don’t even want to discuss such esoteric and sticky principles. But without trust and gratitude you might as well shut down this whole social experiment—Netflix and Trader Joe’s will likely not provide what our souls are searching for. Nor will more parking lots or business incubators or beer festivals. We have an opportunity to promote a new paradigm based on unifying principles. Failure to do so would demonstrate not only bureaucratic sloth and a wasted potential—but also a lack of collective imagination. If we want a better city, we need to ask “What if?”
Editors’ note: Since publication, some readers have rightly called out the fact that none of the respondents in this piece are people of color, and that there are far more men than women represented. While we reached out to a diverse range of sources, many did not respond to our repeated requests (or said they would get back to us, but didn’t). And in a shortened production week due to the holidays, I didn’t notice how skewed the group we ended up with was until it was too late.
While this was meant to be a fairly casual survey (unlike, for instance, our 8/12 anniversary feature), we regret that the responses don’t reflect our entire community. As editor, I’m particularly sorry to have made such a careless mistake, which is not typical of our sourcing or our work in general, as I would hope any regular readers would recognize. We try hard to elevate marginalized voices and stories, and we will continue to do so.
“It’s hard to know how to navigate all the different things coming our way on the global and national stage,” Stephen Hitchcock, the executive director of The Haven told me recently. “To understand how to think well and live well in light of the systems we’re entangled in. It can feel almost paralyzing.”
That’s one of the reasons Hitchcock does the work he does, running The Haven, the downtown day shelter for homeless and extremely low-income people in the heart of Charlottesville. “To give my time and attention to this group of folks feels like a small way forward.”
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of spending some time at The Haven, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this January. The range of help it provides is hard to summarize: from basics like a hot breakfast, a clean pair of socks, and a warm, dry place to spend the day, to services like a walk-in medical clinic (run by UVA), free counseling, assistance in getting an ID, and an array of housing programs to help guests get and keep a permanent place to live.
More than anything, The Haven is a model of community, of kindness and respect. It runs on generosity, from the local businesses that donate food and services to the former teachers frying eggs and the one-time guests returning to give back to the place that helped them get a new start.
“To see these volunteers coming here, looking for nothing in return, you don’t get that in the world a lot,” Keavon, a recent guest, told me.
It feels like an example of the best that Charlottesville has to offer, and one that’s particularly welcome this time of year. When I asked Owen Brennan, the director of operations, why he does this work, he paused for a long time. “I think because I, on a regular basis, get glimpses of how we’re meant to live together, as human beings,” he said.
You can’t get a better Christmas message than that.
“By failing to fund affordable housing in your city, you are quite literally causing and creating homelessness,” said Alliance for Interfaith Ministries director Kimberly Fontaine at the Planning Commission’s public hearing for the city’s Capital Improvement Plan last week.
The Capital Improvement Plan covers non-recurring projects that last for five or more years and cost upwards of $50,000 each. Every year, the city manager’s office drafts a five-year plan, and the planning commission then puts forward non-binding recommendations. This year’s plan includes almost $5 million for a new parking lot on Market Street and another $5 million for the Belmont Bridge, along with smaller projects like replacement traffic lights, new police radios, and air quality adjustments at the Smith Aquatic Center.
What’s absent from the budget, however, drew the most comments at the hearing. As testimony after testimony piled up, the meeting became an emotional referendum on Charlottesville’s housing emergency. The proposed CIP spreads out appropriations for the Charlottesville Regional Housing Authority over a longer period of time than initially proposed, effectively resulting in a 50 percent cut to the CRHA budget for the next two fiscal years.
Council chambers were standing-room only, even though the CIP won’t go into effect until April. Many people in the audience held printed signs reading “Fully Fund Affordable Housing.”
“It takes at least two and a half full-time minimum wage jobs to afford a market rate two-bedroom rental home here in Charlottesville,” said Sunshine Mathon, CEO of the Piedmont Housing Alliance. “We have an opportunity to realign our priorities, redressing the historical outcomes our systems were designed to—and did—produce.”
Elena Cleveland owns a house built by Habitat for Humanity. She said her mortgage is half of what she used to pay in rent. “With the rent being so high, we didn’t have money for anything else,” Cleveland said.
“We’ve been talking about this for a long, long time,” said public housing resident and activist Joy Johnson. “We live in the city, we’re taxpayers. You have a responsibility to make sure that folks who are not homeowners still have affordable housing to live in.”
Former mayor Dave Norris reminded the commission that city investment in housing earns generous matches from philanthropic groups and state programs. “That $3 million that was allocated this year leveraged in turn about eight dollars for every one dollar put in by the city,” Norris said.
Housing wasn’t the only point of contention—other residents voiced their concerns about the potential environmental impacts of the new plan. The proposed CIP includes funding for an $8.5 million parking garage on Market Street, but does not include any new money for sidewalks or bicycle infrastructure.
“If you keep burning more and more fossil fuels, you will accelerate the destruction of this planet, said resident Josh Clark. “Which is a different kind of housing crisis, if you think about it.”
“As we turn our sights to hitting our city’s emissions targets, the city has few levers to pull,” said resident Andrew Jones. “Encouraging zero-carbon, low-cost transportation through cycling and pedestrian infrastructure is one of the few obvious paths forward to hitting these targets.”
For some, those concerns were secondary to housing. “If people can’t afford to live here, it doesn’t matter how many bike lanes we put in,” said resident Don Gathers.
After more than 90 minutes of public comment, Commissioner Lyle Solla-Yates put forward a motion: “I’d like to move that the CIP needs additional work.”
The planning commission addressed housing first. “Why are we making this so much harder than it needs to be? We’re fully funding it,” said Commissioner Taneia Dowell.
The commission passed an amendment recommending that the city front-load their six-year, $15 million commitment to the Charlottesville Regional Housing Authority, increasing the budget from $1.5 million to $3 million for fiscal years 2021 and 2022 and effectively reversing this CIP’s proposed cut. The commission also asked the city to increase funding for the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund over the next five years.
Freeing up funds for housing meant cutting other projects. The commission identified the Market Street parking garage construction as fat that could be trimmed. Building a new parking garage is “morally wrong, at any dollar amount,” said Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg.
“I do think there’s something that can be done there, other than just an ugly old parking garage,” said Commissioner Lisa Green. “There’s so many options out there.”
The commission recommended that the project remain unfunded until the city has had an opportunity to produce alternate options.
From there, finding projects to defund became more difficult. At one point, Solla-Yates suggested postponing a request for a new ambulance. “It wasn’t in the projection, it’s not an emergency,” he said. His motion died without being seconded.
“A friendly reminder to my fellow planning commissioners,” Solla-Yates said. “If we don’t decrease anything, we don’t get to increase anything.”
Towards the end of the discussion, Mayor Nikuyah Walker said that simply setting aside more funding for public housing wouldn’t solve the problem. The city wouldn’t know how to spend the money even if it became available.
“Where’s all this affordable housing we’ve been funding for years?” Walker said. “We are talking about meeting the needs of thousands of families. We haven’t been able to produce a quality program that can do that.”
Walker said she doesn’t want to “keep tossing money into a lot of different things without measuring the effectiveness.”
The Planning Commission eventually passed a motion with nine amendments, each suggesting revisions to the CIP. Its resolutions are not binding. City Council will vote on a finalized plan in April.
Updated 12/18 to clarify the location of the garage.
