Tag: Justin Shimp

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In brief: FOIA fun, both sides—not, gabapentin implicated, and more

You say sunshine, we say FOIA

Reporters know one of the greatest tools for keeping the public informed is FOIA—the Freedom of Information Act. As Virginia Code notes: “The affairs of government are not intended to be conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy since at all times the public is to be the beneficiary of any action taken at any level of government.” Federal and state FOIA laws ensure that public meetings and information are truly available to the public.

Sunshine Week, an annual event to promote freedom of information and open government, falls around father-of-the-Constitution James Madison’s March 16 birthday. Smart Cville and the Virginia Coalition for Open Government hosted a FOIA panel March 25 for people appointed to boards and commissions, and we figured it’s never too late to share some FOIA highlights.

“We organized this event because we value transparency and knew others, within government and outside, have similar values,” says Smart Cville founder Lucas Ames. “If we’re truly committed to transparency and openness, it’s important that we take steps to promote those ideals, including educating local citizens who sit on boards and commissions that fall under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.”

Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, regularly fields FOIA questions, and ran down a few of the most common.

1. How to request: A FOIA request doesn’t have to be written, but it’s a good idea. An email can read: Under the Freedom of Information Act, I’m requesting all records from DATE to DATE that deal with X. Please provide an estimate to fulfill this request.

2. Fees: People aren’t always aware that they can be charged for copies of documents, particularly those that involve a lot of staff time to pull together. Government bodies can give you an estimate—but you have to ask for it, says Rhyne.

3. Response: A government body has five days to reply. Typical exemptions to FOIA: police investigative files, personnel records, working papers.

4. Not exempt: Messages dealing with public business on personal devices and in personal accounts. Government employees’ salaries must be disclosed.

5. Meetings: FOIA also mandates that the public be notified of meetings of elected and appointed officials, and these meetings are supposed to be open to the public. But the law does not require public comment, which surprises a lot of citizens, says Rhyne. Public notice of a meeting is required, except for staff meetings. Three or more members of an elected or appointed body cannot meet for coffee to talk about public business unless the public is notified.

Quote of the week

“In Charlottesville and around the globe, we stand firmly in stating: There are not very fine people on both sides of this issue.”—Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney on the racist threat that closed city schools

In brief

Albemarle ditched

Last spring, Governor Ralph Northam was here to tout construction software company CoConstruct’s $485,000 investment that would create 69 new jobs in Albemarle County. On March 22, CoConstruct announced it was moving to downtown Charlottesville and will lease 40,000 square feet in the five-story office building under construction on Garrett Street. 3TWENTY3 bought the property from Oliver Kuttner for $5.4 million in October.

Crozet crash

Jack Looney

The National Transportation Safety Board released its 1,600-page report on the January 31, 2018, collision of an Amtrak train and a Time Disposal garbage truck. The NTSB concluded the truck went around downed crossing arms and driver Dana Naylor, who was acquitted of criminal charges last month, was impaired by marijuana and gabapentin, a drug used to control seizures or relieve nerve pain, for which he didn’t have a prescription.

Farm scuttled

Developer Justin Shimp’s plans to build the controversial Hogwaller Farm, an apartment complex and urban farm concept that would straddle Charlottesville and Albemarle, were put on hold when City Council voted 3-2 to deny a rezoning request necessary to build an on-site greenhouse. Shimp says he’s planning to pursue a similar opportunity on the property, according to Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Equity loans

Charlottesville launched its Business Equity Loan program earlier in March for existing businesses whose owners are socially disadvantaged either by race, ethnicity, or gender. The city allocated $100,000 to the Wes Bellamy initiative, and applicants who have been in business for at least six months can apply for loans from up to $25,000, according to Hollie Lee, an economic development specialist.

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Hogwaller haggling: Urban farm developer struggles to move forward

Developer Justin Shimp wants to build a nine-acre urban farm and residential complex on a city floodplain, which worries some local residents. Photo by Stephen Barling

When Hurricane Camille dumped 10 inches of rain on Charlottesville in August 1969, folks were spotted rowing their boats up and down Nassau Street.

Now, developer Justin Shimp has proposed to build an urban farm and residential complex on the same floodplain. The project, called Hogwaller Farm, is in compliance with the city’s safety and environmental guidelines. But when Shimp went before the city’s planning commission December 11 to request the special-use permit and zoning change he needs to build it, the commission voted 3-2 against it. City Council will make the final call next year.

Shimp’s nine-acre development, which includes two multi-story apartment buildings, a greenhouse, a farmstand, and farmland, would straddle Charlottesville and Albemarle. The residential buildings and structures would be on the city’s side, with the county’s land saved for agricultural use. This is likely because Albemarle does not allow residential development in the floodplain.

The dangers of building in such an area are well-documented. A November 29 article in Slate, titled “How We Built Our Way into an Urban Flooding Epidemic,” says the country has seen approximately 3,600 instances of urban flooding over the past 25 years, or about one every two to three days. And it’s largely a result of man-made landscapes of asphalt, concrete, and iron.

“If you fill in a floodplain, the water is going to be pushed on somebody else,” says Kimber Hawkey, a community member who has advocated against the approval of Hogwaller Farm for mostly environmental reasons.

City floodplain administrator Tony Edwards says the city now receives between five and 10 applications to build on the floodplain each year, because that’s where the available land is. The city generally approves these as long as developers meet certain requirements meant to minimize the risk.

Shimp, as he told the planning commission, has already met the city’s requirements by demonstrating his project won’t raise flood elevations or cause erosion. He’ll use compacted soil that he excavates, or “native soil from the area,” he says.

The developer has had a fill permit for about a year, and he’s only recently started to hear any opposition to it, he adds.

“The floodplain thing never really came up,” Shimp says, adding that neighbors were previously “very concerned” about the potential for existing contaminated soils on his site.

“I spent a couple thousand bucks doing soil tests,” he says. The lab results came back clean, except for one test near the drainage output, which returned higher levels of hydrocarbons. Shimp says he’ll run more tests at that location before growing any vegetables there.

Community members are also concerned about the impact new development could have on nearby Moores Creek, which is already considered “impaired” by the city. The marshy Hogwaller site has long acted as a natural sponge and filter, which absorbs stormwater runoff and cleans it before it enters the creek, and eventually, the Rivanna River.

For this reason, Hawkey says the construction of Hogwaller Farm won’t jive with the city’s comprehensive plan, which has specific goals of protecting the riverine system and water quality, and managing stormwater runoff.

While planning commissioner Lyle Solla-Yates says the development would go against a land-use map (which he says is outdated), it does address a number of needs discussed in the plan’s housing chapter and an updated housing needs assessment “that we are not succeeding at.”

Hogwaller Farm’s apartments will include three units—10 percent of the total—of designated affordable housing. Shimp is requesting a rezoning from residential to highway corridor, because that’s the only type of zoning that would allow him to build a greenhouse. And he’ll need a special-use permit to build the apartments.

“Three units is not really gonna move the needle on the affordable housing crisis,” commissioner Taneia Dowell said at the meeting.

While Dowell voted against recommending Hogwaller Farm, Solla-Yates was one of the two commissioners in favor of it. He says city planners get “very few” opportunities to use special-use permits, and though they don’t get much housing out of issuing them, it’s one of the only tools they have for building affordable housing units.

“I know there are people in the city who have real concerns with projects like this in the floodplain, but we are out of land and out of options,” says Solla-Yates. “If we can’t use the tools we have, and we don’t have new tools, our problems will get even worse.”

Environmental review has been a priority for council for years, and the city is “amazingly well-staffed” for it, according to Solla-Yates.

“We have the resources to do floodplain development safely and responsibly,” he adds. “We paid for that, but if we don’t trust our staff to carry through we are wasting that public investment at a time when every dollar counts.”

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Development discontent: A Hogwaller by any other name

Hogwaller Farm will include two multi-story residential buildings, with 12 one-bedroom and 18 two-bedroom apartments on Nassau Street, and several acres of farmland and a farm stand. Courtesy of Justin Shimp

A new development proposed in Hogwaller—that fabled southeast corner of the Belmont-Carlton neighborhood—would give residents the opportunity to live and grow their own food on a small urban pasture called Hogwaller Farm.

However, some people have objected to its location. And its name.

Developer Justin Shimp, an engineer, says his idea for the new community comes from his own experience gardening and tending to chickens and goats while growing up in Amherst.

“That opportunity is lost to a lot of people because of how they live and what housing is available,” says Shimp.

He plans to build two multi-story residential buildings with 12 one-bedroom and 18 two-bedroom apartments on his nine-acre Nassau Street site that spans both Charlottesville and Albemarle County. At least two of the units will be dedicated affordable housing, he says, and he’ll save some space for farmland, a greenhouse, and a farmstand.

He says he’s been approached by a group that would like to create a nonprofit, potentially named Hogwaller Community Farm, to run the farm.

“They want to use it as an education space, which I think is a great idea,” says Shimp. “They could have classes there to educate people on how you can be more sustainable in your production and consumption of food.”

As with most developments in town, this one has been met with controversy—mostly centered around building on a floodplain.

Belmont resident Karen Katz says that’s a concern of hers. She also worries about proper stormwater management, and the possibility that the area’s water and soil could already be contaminated by major runoff from the city that flows down to Shimp’s site.

“Imagine the harm and the scandal that would be laid upon us” she says, if the Hogwaller Farm site, where Habitat for Humanity and other developers have built affordable and market-rate housing nearby, “were to be found unsuitable for building.”

Because testing the water and soil isn’t required, Katz says she and a group of concerned citizens have reached an “out of the box” agreement with Shimp to have an independent testing lab examine samples from his site.

And Shimp says he plans to do so before December. The testing will likely be done through the Virginia Cooperative Extension, which uses resources from Virginia Tech and Virginia State University for agricultural research.

The developer specifies that he mostly won’t be building on the floodplain, anyway, because that’s “all farm,” except for a 600-square-foot tractor shed and a “tiny bit” of an apartment building.

Another point of contention has been the project’s use of the word Hogwaller in its name.

“It is clearly offensive to some people who come up from very poor rural backgrounds,” says Katz. “Why insist on a controversial name for your already controversial project?”

She also says it just doesn’t sound good. “Do you want to tell your friends that you live at Hogwaller?”

It has long been believed that this area in Belmont was named after a nearby livestock market, and when Moore’s Creek rises, it creates a muddy pit where the pigs can wallow.

The name has never officially been recognized by the city, but Shimp says he likes its historical significance. “A long time ago, there were literally hogs on the property that I’m going to be farming,” he says.

With an approval already granted from the county, the city’s planning commission will vote on the project in December. If they like it, it’ll go to City Council for final approval early next year.

The developer says there’s a need for this “missing middle housing” all over the city.

Though he hasn’t worked out rental rates yet, Shimp says, “It’s going to be housing that’s new, that’s quality, but that’s not excessively expensive.”

His original application to the county proposed the cultivation of “Hogwaller weed” on the urban farm.

“We thought it would be funny if we proposed a pot farm,” he says. “[But] it was never my intention to do [that].”

It’s illegal to build security fencing on a floodplain, he explains. And, of course, growing recreational marijuana isn’t legal in Virginia.

“Yet,” says Shimp. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it if it could be done.”

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This week in brief: Snuffing out tiki torches, ‘really dank bud’ and too cute puppies

Close up of a burning tiki torch on a blurred colored background.

Candles in, tiki torches out

Just ahead of Jason Kessler’s March 6 lawsuit against the city complaining that City Manager Maurice Jones unconstitutionally denied his permit for a two-day August 12 anniversary rally—Jones also denied five other applicants’ permit requests for the weekend—City Council updated its event permit regulations February 20.

  • 45-day notice if street closure requested, 30 days if not
  • Prohibited: Open flames, except for hand-held candles for ceremonial events
  • Prohibited (partial list): Pellet guns, air rifles, nunchucks, tasers, heavy gauge metal chains, poles, bricks, rocks, metal beverage or food cans or containers, glass bottles, axes, skateboards, swords, knives, metal pipes, pepper or bear spray, mace, bats, sticks, clubs, drones and explosives
  • Prohibited: Dressing like cops, military or emergency personnel
  • Small group exception: Up to 50 citizens may spontaneously demonstrate without a permit

Highlights from Kessler’s complaint:

  • The city couldn’t guarantee a clear path to enter Emancipation Park for his fellow Lee statue-loving protesters.
  • The permit denial is based on crowd size, but there’s plenty of room in the one-acre park, which could hold as many as 20,000 people “cheek to jowl.”
  • Because of the city’s “misconduct,” fewer people will attend and a “reduced crowd will dilute” Kessler’s message.
  • The city’s denial was based on Kessler’s viewpoint and violates his First and 14th Amendment rights.

 

Quote of the Week: “You’re more likely to be killed by @timkaine running mate @HillaryClinton than you are by an AR-15.” —A March 8 tweet by failed gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, who stopped by Charlottesville March 10 during his campaign for Senate.

 

How much is that puppy in the browsing window?

Attorney General Mark Herring says his consumer protection team continues to receive complaints from people “who thought they were buying an incredibly cute puppy from an online breeder, only to find out it was a scam and the dog didn’t exist.” Red flags for this scam include stock photos, exotic or designer breeds for cheap, and poorly made websites that include misspellings and grammatical errors, he says.

Life and then some

Cathy Rothgeb

A jury recommended a 184-year sentence for Cathy S. Rothgeb, the former Orange County youth softball coach found guilty on March 12 on 30 of 34 charges, which include forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery and object sexual penetration of two former athletes. The alleged molestations began in the ’90s, when one victim testified that she was 9 years old.

Assault and battery

A Western Albemarle High School teacher has been placed on administrative leave after he was arrested for a physical altercation with a student on February 16. Oluwole Adesina, a 53-year-old Crozet resident, faces up to a year in jail or a $2,500 fine for the misdemeanor assault and battery charge.

Green acres

Hogwaller Farm, a nine-acre development with 30 apartments and an urban farm, has been proposed near Moores Creek along Nassau Street, according to the Daily Progress, which reported March 11 that developer Justin Shimp submitted a zoning amendment pre-application last summer to ask Albemarle officials to change the light-industrial designation to rural so he could plant seven acres of “really dank bud.”

New hire

Roger Johnson. Courtesy of Albemarle County

Albemarle County announced its hiring of economic development director Roger Johnson from Greenville, North Carolina on March 7, for a job that’s been open for over a year. The last person to hold it lasted for 19 months.

Guilty plea

Joshua Lamar Carter, 27, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on March 12 for firing a gun at city police officers in 2016. In a plea agreement, he entered an Alford plea to one charge of attempted second-degree murder and pleaded guilty to shooting a gun in a public place and illegally possessing a firearm as a felon.

A headline we’re starting to get used to: Another August 12 lawsuit

Georgetown Law’s Civil Rights Clinic filed a federal defamation lawsuit March 13 on behalf of a Unite the Right rally counterprotester who claims to be a victim of fake news conspiracies.

Brennan Gilmore’s cell phone footage of the deadly car attack on Fourth Street went viral on August 12, and “Gilmore was contacted by media outlets to discuss his experience and soon became the target of elaborate online conspiracies that placed him at the center of a ‘deep-state’ plot to stage the attack and destabilize the Trump administration,” says a press release from the law group.

Now he’s suing defendants Alex Jones, Infowars, former Congressman Allen West and others for “intentional infliction of emotional distress” and “mobilizing an army of followers to pursue a campaign of harassment and threats against him.” The lawsuit seeks punitive damages and compensation for Gilmore’s alleged reputational injuries and emotional distress.

“From Sandy Hook to Pizzagate to Charlottesville, Las Vegas and now Parkland, the defendants thrive by inciting devastating real-world consequences with the propaganda and lies they publish as news,” says Gilmore. “Today, I’m asking a court to hold them responsible for the personal and professional damage their lies have caused me, and, more importantly, to deter them from repeating this dangerous pattern of defamation and intimidation.”