Tag: Planning & Development

C-VILLE Weekly’s planning and development coverage features regular stories on Charlottesville and Albemarle County real estate and local government actions.

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News

City approves master plan for east side of McIntire Park

A detail from a McIntire Park East planning diagram circulated earlier this year. Photo: City of Charlottesville

It’s been over a year in the making, and City Council finally voted on it: the master plan for the eastern side of McIntire Park. Citizens have shown up for meeting after meeting to express concerns about golf, gardens, soccer fields, and skate parks, and after several presentations and revisions, Tuesday night Council adopted a plan that was recommended for approval by both the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the Planning Commission.

The plan includes a family activity center complete with playgrounds, an aquatic feature, shelters, restrooms, educational space, and an open play area. In response to requests from city and county residents, the advisory board also incorporated a botanical garden area, which will include a lake or pond and integrate with passive park land.

Relocating of the skate park and parking expansions were also discussed Wednesday, but the most controversial aspect of the master plan was what to do about the golf course.

The original plan suggested phasing golf out of the park by 2020, but in response to requests from Council, the advisory board recommended that golf be eliminated entirely by the end of year 2016, giving First Tee four years to find a new, permanent home.

Phillip Seay, director of First Tee, the youth golf program that inhabits McIntire Park, was present at the meeting but did not speak for or against the plan.

Councilor Dede Smith, who cast the only vote against the plan, suggested phasing golf out of the park gradually, eliminating one hole each year so as not to burden future councilors with yet another decision regarding golf in the park.

“I just don’t think a decision to take the golf course out in four years is a decision to take the golf course out,” Smith said.

Her fellow councilors disagreed, saying it would be unfair to tell golfers they must begin leaving gradually starting now, even though they already have a deadline to leave for good.

“I really feel like we’ve asked a lot of the golfers,” said Councilor Kristin Szakos. She said the First Tee members may not like the outcome, but they stuck it out and she wants to ensure that the program finds “a long-time home, maybe even better than McIntire Park.”

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Living

The wonder years: How real estate and gentrification changed Belmont for good

Photo: John Robinson

“One big problem is change. [The older residents] don’t understand change is happening and why it’s happening, and sometimes I don’t understand it myself.” – Jimmy Dettor, lifelong Belmont resident. From the documentary, Still Life With Donuts.

When she arrived in Charlottesville in the summer of 1976, Joan Schatzman didn’t think of herself as a pioneer. She was 24, fresh out of college, and when her best friend Debbie decided to go to grad school at UVA, she went along for the ride.

Initially they rented an apartment near Grounds, but in the spring of 1978, Joan, Debbie, and another friend decided to buy a house across town in an old, run-down neighborhood called Belmont.

“Belmont?” people said. “You can’t live in Belmont!”

“Why?”

“Nothing but trouble there.”

“What trouble?” Schatzman wondered. She’d grown up on the south side of Chicago; what was so scary about a sleepy Southern town? The only problem she could see was that the residents were kind of racist, but she didn’t think they’d bother her. Besides, the house was so cheap, $14,500 for a three bedroom place on Levy Avenue where the mortgage split three ways was cheaper than rent anywhere else in town.

In 2005, 27 years later, houses in Belmont were routinely selling for over $400,000. The neighborhood was hip, “the SoHo of Charlottesville,” “one of America’s Best Secret Neighborhoods.” Schatzman still lived there. In the intervening years she’d bought out her roommates, sold the house on Levy, and purchased four houses on nearby Douglas Avenue.

Buy the house, fix the house, sell the house. The bourgeois American dream.

Belmont’s change from a neighborhood the tonier set studiously avoided, to one where they got into bidding wars, seemed strange to people watching from the outside; if you were caught up in the madness, it could be kind of terrifying. One of Schatzman’s neighbors paid $450,000 for his house, and as both reality and panic set in, he anxiously asked Schatzman if she thought he’d paid too much.

There was a class Schatzman remembered from college titled “Urban Geography,” which she explained to me like this: “Cities go through cycles. There’s a central business district and there’s rings around it where the rich people live, so they can walk downtown. And then as they get more affluent, they want to move a little further out… The inner ring of fine, nice, beautiful homes now becomes devalued.”

It wasn’t because she was rich that Schatzman had been able to buy so many houses in Belmont. She wasn’t rich, she was in the right place at the right time, able to recognize an area filled with well-built, undervalued properties.

“I kind of identified Belmont as a place at the bottom of its cycle,” she said. “And I thought, ‘You know what? I’m gonna kill myself to buy. Whatever it takes, I’ll tighten the belt.”

Which is exactly what she did.

Until 2005, when something told her that things were going to change. The market was peaking, it was time to get out of the game. She sold two of her houses and rented out the third.

And then her new neighbor went and bought his house for $450,000 and asked her if he’d paid too much.

What she said was, “No,” but what she was thinking was, “Heck, yeah.”

Hitting bottom

“This is a rough neighborhood. The police are almost scared to get out of their cars.”—anonymous man in front of Belmont Market, The Daily Progress, 1984

“Belmont has had a boo-hiss-hiss, God-you-live-there? Reputation.” —Pat Weis, Belmont resident, The Daily Progress, 1990

In 1980 a handful of Belmont business owners and residents, determined to fight the “growing adolescent youth problem,” hired off-duty cops to patrol the small commercial section along Monticello Road at night. Spearheading the project was Bill Lanier, a self-described eccentric and entrepreneur who, despite having lived in the neighborhood for less than a year, claimed to be the unofficial “Mayor of Belmont.”

The patrols were not cheap, Lanier told the Daily Progress, but they were worth it. Local store owners, he said, were worried about more than their businesses; they were worried about their community.

It was nothing new, this sense of  worry. Around 1960, most Belmont residents began to feel like their neighborhood was changing for the worse. As older homeowners died off, commercial landlords began buying their houses to convert into cheap rental units. By the end of the 1970’s, rentals outnumbered owner-occupied houses and the neighborhood’s reputation had become one of crime and neglect.

The Charlottesville Department of Community Development sent out  a memo in September of 1979 to announce the creation of a Belmont neighborhood association. Around 100 Belmont residents showed up, only to be told that the memo had been sent by mistake; there were no current plans to set up a neighborhood group, the purpose of the meeting was simply to let residents speak their minds. And speak they did, telling Community Development head (now Mayor) Satyendra Huja about the problems they saw destroying their neighborhood: vandalism, drugs, neglected rental properties that were starting to decay, and most of all, “loitering juveniles.”

Where were the cops when you needed them?

According to the police, they were in Belmont, one of the most heavily patrolled areas in the city, even though its crime rate was no higher than anywhere else. The biggest problems cops faced in Belmont were drunken fights and domestic disputes, and unless they actually committed a crime, there wasn’t much they could do about kids hanging out.

John DeK. Bowen, Charlottesville’s chief of police at the time, blamed the tensions in Belmont on the fact that the neighborhood was changing from an all-white, owner-occupied neighborhood, to a racially mixed neighborhood with a lot of renters. It’s hard to see what was mixed about it. Belmont in 1980 was 90 percent white (the rest of the city was more like 75 percent). When it came to race, it was everything around Belmont that was changing.

Between 1979 and 1981, three public housing projects opened up just beyond Belmont’s borders: Garrett Square (now Friendship Court), Sixth Street, and South First Street. Where Belmont was mostly white, the projects were almost entirely black, and as Joan Schatzman remembers it, the two groups rarely crossed over into each other’s territory.

A 1980 report by the city on conditions in Belmont noted that “[m]any residents fear that the changing nature of the Belmont area has had a negative impact upon local youth, leading to increased vandalism, drug use and general delinquency.” But the report also said that things were starting to get better. The number of rentals was leveling off and the number of homeowners rising again. The Department of Community Development said that Belmont was in a “transition phase.”

Bill Lanier didn’t need an official report to tell him things were changing; he was out there making it happen. There were the police patrols, the shirts he was selling that said “Beautiful Downtown Belmont” and the Belmont Community Fair he’d organized that year.

“Free Chicken! Free Ice Cream! Live Bands!” the poster promised.

But Lanier’s interest went beyond community PR. Where most people saw a dilapidated corner of the city, he saw dollar signs. Lanier bought two houses in Belmont and flipped both for a tidy profit, deals that helped him to facilitate the purchase of three commercial buildings for a group of investors from Northern Virginia. The dollar figures involved were nothing compared to what they’d be later, but “The Mayor of Belmont” had seen the future, and the future was good.

“Three years ago to say that any house in Belmont was worth more than $35,000 was a joke,” he told the Daily Progress. “Now you can see a relatively new Jaguar go down the street in Belmont and pull into a driveway.”

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News

Alternative septic in Albemarle County: new technology, new worries

Living Machine employees
Employees examine a setup at Charlottesville's Living Machine, a company that builds high-tech wastewater reclamation systems based on living wetlands. Their systems are one highly advanced example of alternative onsite septic systems, which, per state mandate, Virginia municipalities can no longer ban. Photo by John Robinson.

A slightly abridged version of this story appears in the August 28 issue of C-VILLE. As always, there’s more that we wanted to tell—and we’re glad we can offer it here. —Graelyn Brashear 

What to do with wastewater has long been a limiting factor in rural development. If space or soil made a septic field impossible, a would-be builder was, for the most part, out of luck. The development of so-called alternative onsite septic systems that contain and process sewage is giving landowners another option, but not everyone is welcoming the new technology with open arms.

Officials in northern Virginia started clamoring for a special set of regulations for the new systems when some of them failed, “and failed spectacularly,” said Albemarle County Supervisor Ann Mallek.

Dan Holmes, state policy director for the Piedmont Environmental Council, said the new systems are more like mini wastewater treatment plants than traditional septic fields, and they need regular maintenance to work properly. But those check-ups are costly, and sometimes didn’t happen, said Holmes.

“In certain areas they would have fairly high rates of failure,” he said. “For every day one of these things is malfunctioning, it basically could operate just like a straight pipe for wastewater.” What’s worse, he said, the systems are often in areas with compromised drainage and soils that don’t perc.

State legislators addressed some of those concerns when they adopted new regulations last December—once-yearly maintenance checks being one of them. But at the same time, the state removed local governments’ ability to impose their own restrictions. And that has some elected officials worried.

Mallek joined fellow Democratic Supervisor Chris Dumler in voting against adjusting the county’s zoning rules to bring them up to speed with state regulations—a symbolic move, she said, but one she felt was important.

“Virginia already has low requirements for percolation for a septic field,” she said. “Our water quality standards are among the lowest in the country. So when we’re talking about removing more of those rules, it’s very scary.”

The worries go beyond wastewater, though. There’s vast rural acreage in the Commonwealth that was previously undevelopable because it was unsuitable for septic fields. The state’s acceptance of alternative systems changes things.

“Localities now have to adopt land use plans, zoning ordinance language, and subdivision ordinance language for these areas, anticipating what could happen now that lands once not open to development all of a sudden become a free-for-all under their current ordinances and plans,” said Holmes.

But the technology is here—and advancing. Charlottesville-based alternative septic company Living Machine creates self-contained systems modeled after tidal wetlands to recycle wastewater. They’ve installed their plant-filled tanks all over the country, including a high-profile setup in the lobby of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission building (yes, indoors—the plant-and-gravel filtration effectively squelches any smells). So far, Living Machine has built very few systems Virginia, said spokesman William Kirksey, but that’s likely to change.

When it comes to alternative septic, “the overall climate around the country is improving for a number of reasons,” he said. Companies like his are developing cleaner, safer systems—albeit more expensive ones—that keep sewage waste out of the ground and produce reusable water, “so you can save money by decentralizing your wastewater and water systems,” Kirksey said. “You don’t have to run a pipeline from a distant development to a water treatment plant.”

Will it impact rural development? Most likely, Kirksey said, but localities have a number of tools they can use to control growth—and putting the brakes on new technology shouldn’t one of them. “If there are reasons for wanting to limit development in an area, you have to do it for other reasons,” he said.

Republican County Supervisor Ken Boyd agreed. “I’m not afraid of the technology,” he said. “I’m a property rights person. If people have property, they ought to be able to do what they want to do with it.”

Albemarle Director of Community Development Mark Graham said there aren’t many of the systems currently up and running in the area—in part because local regulations have mostly made them feasible only when traditional septic systems fail, but also because the alternative options cost about two to three times more. But there’s reason to believe they’ll become a more popular option. Despite the added expense of installation and maintenance, they have the potential to raise some land values considerably.

“If you had a piece of property that had no development potential because it was simply not a place you could put a septic field, and now you could put one of these (alternative systems) there, all of a sudden it becomes a developable lot again,” he said. It definitely has the potential to change the dynamic of growth in Albemarle, Graham said, but in a county where supply of rural land that can be developed has so far well outpaced demand, it’s hard to predict exactly what will happen.

But Mallek said there’s good reason to remain cautious. Tested, trusted companies like Living Machine aren’t the norm, she said, and most alternative septic systems have real potential to fail without close oversight—and that could harm not just one homeowner, but many.

That’s why she intends to push for tighter state regulations. It’s the only option, she said, because when it comes to the new septic systems, “the state legislature has very effectively put the kibosh on local government.”

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The Editor's Desk

Editor’s Note: Gentrification, poison, and country living

The poison and the antidote were anciently understood to be of the same substance, so that the word pharmakon was used in Greek to name both toxin and treatment. The Asclepian medical symbol employs the image of the snake, a reminder of the principle underlying healing practices, which administer little deaths to preserve life. Inoculation and cure, then, are metaphysical pals, an idea that can be used to understand the perils of missionary vigor or, closer to home, the genesis of gentrification.

This week’s cover story—part of a series penned by J. Tobias Beard to recognize Charlottesville’s 250th anniversary—looks at how Belmont changed from an insular working class neighborhood with one foot in the country to a hip, young bungalow district with its head in the clouds. The story isn’t new, but it’s fundamental. Part of what we’ve wanted to do with this series is to bring some focus to the major ongoing creative tensions in town through the lens of history. It’s worth noting that the same type of people who gentrify neighborhoods—artists, grad students, hippies—are the ones who will most actively decry the act, particularly when their own lead is followed by, gasp, the yuppies.

I’m no sentimentalist when it comes to neighborhoods. I knew a dude named Buddie in Cambridge, and he’d lived in Central Square all his life, watched his neighborhood turn from Jewish to black to Harvard over 60-some years. He’d run his first touchdown back in the park I lived on, and he was still there, hustling public court tennis with a brace on every joint. Neighborhoods change, he said. No point in crying about it.

But there is a point to understanding what you’re losing. Charlottesville is not cool as an urban scene. It’s cool because of the intersection of what it was and what it’s becoming. It’s cool  because of what Belmont used to be. City workers with country roots made the town go, and they brought the downhome character and values of the hills along with them. Last night when I was walking the dog, I listened to two old-timers in my neighborhood trade stories about getting a Christmas tree and a pony into the backseat of a ’60s ragtop. Then I passed a Volvo SUV with a “Baby yogi on board” sticker. If Austin is fighting to stay weird, let’s us fight to stay a little bit country.—Giles Morris 

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News

Will Wegmans’ arrival spell trouble for existing groceries?

When Wegmans arrives at the new Fifth Street Station shopping center south of the city in 2015, it could throw two close-by Food Lion stores into competition with the newcomer and each other. Image by Aaron Shrewsbury.

Charlottesville is buzzing about the arrival of a Wegmans grocery store in the planned Fifth Street Station shopping center, which won rezoning approval from the Albemarle County Planning Commission last week. But the chain’s arrival in town could shake up the grocery scene in surrounding neighborhoods, already home to two Food Lion stores.

Riverbend Management, owned by big-time Charlottesville developer Coran Capshaw, confirmed in June that Wegmans would be the anchor tenant in the new 80-acre, $21.7 million shopping center, due to be completed in 2015.

The Rochester-based Wegmans has 80 stores between Virginia and New York, six of them in the Commonwealth. The company is well known for inspiring customer loyalty, and it can point to national ratings that back up its cult status: Consumer Reports named Wegmans the country’s top grocery chain in 2012.

Riverbend’s zoning permit is contingent on the construction of a connector between Fifth Street and Avon Street Extended, parallel roads that head southwest out of town less than half a mile apart. The two are currently joined within the city limits only by Elliott Avenue, but once the new road is completed, the streets and the areas around them—Fry’s Spring and numerous county developments along Fifth; south Belmont and the Monticello High School feeder neighborhoods off Avon—will be more accessible to each other.

But that also means two existing Food Lion stores that serve the separate areas may face the double blow of competition with another chain as well as with each other. One outlet is in the Willoughby Square shopping center off Fifth Street in the city, the other is on Mill Creek Drive off Avon in the county. Though they’re less than a mile away as the crow flies, it currently takes about 10 minutes to drive from one to the other, and both are kept busy by different sets of customers.

Last week, shoppers at the existing stores were unconcerned about possible negative impacts on the local shopping landscape.

Nick Michaels said he’s stuck by his Food Lion on Mill Creek Drive for more than a decade out of convenience. He lives off Route 20 in the county, and has to drive by the store on his daily commute. The novelty of a Wegmans may draw some people in, he said, but he doesn’t think a new connector road will spell doom for the neighboring groceries.

“It’s an alternative,” he said. “But how often do you actually need to get from Avon to Fifth?”

Not far away, Brenda Kolfanty paused on her way out of the Fifth Street store to cheer the arrival of the shopping center.

“It’s about time something came down to this end of town,” she said. Kolfanty works in the city and frequently stays at her daughter’s home in Willoughby, the neighborhood just north of the planned development. She said she’s thrilled to soon have another grocery option, but didn’t think the existing stores would suffer significantly. A big cross-section of residents shop there, she said, but their customer base comes from the lower-income neighborhoods nearby—a group less likely to shell out for groceries at the more upscale Wegmans.

“This place is always busy,” Korfanty said. “That’s just Food Lion.”

Food Lion shares a similarly sunny view. Though the chain’s parent company closed 113 stores nationwide earlier this year, corporate spokeswoman Tenisha Waldo said five local stores, which each employ about 40 people, have recently seen a “brand relaunch” that has gone over well. “While the grocery market in Charlottesville is very competitive, we are pleased with the performance of our stores in the area,” she said.

 

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News

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter is popular here, but does the model hold up?

Use of the crowdfunding site Kickstarter is booming in Charlottesville, and it’s no wonder. The website was created in 2008 as a low-risk fundraising platform for creative projects, and it’s been embraced with a good deal of success here, where indie-minded artists and musicians—and those willing to shell out a few bucks to support them directly—are thick on the ground.

More than 50 projects started in the Charlottesville area have had successful Kickstarter campaigns. Local band Sons of Bill financed its third album through the site, and other area musicians have followed suit. Singer John Thackston, a UVA fourth year whose Kickstarter campaign footed the bill for his first record, deemed the site “the single most important development in the music industry since magnetic tape.”

But as Kickstarter has grown, some see it facing a kind of mission creep, making the company and observers revisit the question of what defines a creative project—and what’s reasonably enforceable.

Unlike other crowdfunding initiatives, Kickstarter doesn’t offer backers a cut of project revenues. Instead, creators post projects online and offer rewards to entice donors. The better the incentives you offer, the better the odds of reaching your funding goal. Fall short of your goal, and those who pledged won’t get charged, and you won’t see a dime.

The model has proved popular—and successful. Since its launch, Kickstarter users have funded 26,000 projects. Two Kickstarter-funded films have received Oscar nods, and site-funded art exhibits have been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art and the prestigious Whitney Biennial.

Still, backing a project is always a gamble, because creators aren’t obligated to complete their projects as promised. Kickstarter spokesman Justin Kazmark said most people organizing campaigns do follow through when they get funded, largely because there’s a good deal of accountability in small, creative networks. “A lot of times the backers are actually people the creator knows—friends, family, fans,” he said. “It takes a lot of work to get fans and maintain friendships, and you don’t want to burn those bridges.”

Local photographer Peter Krebs used Kickstarter to fund his exhibit Monticello Road, which debuted at The Bridge PAI in April. Krebs wanted his photographs to be “completely accessible to everyone—far beyond the usual suspects who go to openings.” He explained, “Everything was either free or pay-what-you-can. Yet it all cost money.” That’s where Kickstarter came in.

“I wanted to find a way to fundraise that was completely optional and that would allow people with little means to make small contributions and have it be really meaningful,” Krebs said. “The whole thing is about community, and this allowed really wide participation.”

Crowdfunding liberates artists from the traditionally sales-driven art world, said Krebs, who praised Kickstarter for “taking the whole selling business out of the equation.”

But some are seeing serious profit potential in the model. While Kickstarter doesn’t allow people to request money for general support—“fund my paycheck” pitches get pulled down from the site—businesses are increasingly using the site to boost sales and launch new products. Here in Charlottesville, clothing company Robert Redd launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise nearly $300,000 to fund a new T-shirt line. Director of operations Todd Campbell explained, “We’ve been mulling different ways to finally launch our ladies’ offerings, and Kickstarter crowdfunding is really catching on right now.”

Connecting with consumers is crucial, and crowdfunding could help bridge the producer-consumer divide. “It gives your customers an opportunity to validate what you’re doing and give their input at each step,” Campbell said. In e-mails promoting the campaign, the company called on people to “support Robert Redd’s growth.”

But the approach didn’t appear to be paying off for the company. With a little more than a day left for pledges, the project had still garnered less than $20,000.

The growth in use by those pushing business ventures has also opened the door to flops, and even scams. People looking to fund tech projects have raked in millions for their inventions—even though many lack the know-how to turn their wild ideas into tangible products.

Take Seattle company “Eyez” for example. Last year, the would-be creators of video-recording glasses earned a whopping $343,415, meeting their goal, but the backers have yet to receive finished products, and many fear the creators have abandoned the project altogether.

Who’s to stop them? No one, it seems. Kickstarter can’t take legal action, and since the average donation is small, few backers have a big enough stake to sue the project’s creators.

So are companies twisting Kickstarter’s original mission by painting purely profit-driven projects as creative exercises? And does the chance for scams make the business model suspect?

No and no, says Kickstarter. According to Kazmark, there’s room for everyone. “Kickstarter is in some ways arts patronage,” he said. “In some ways it’s commerce.”

And though Kickstarter employees aren’t scouring the site for scammers, Kickstarter users act as their own police force.

“You’re not on something like eBay where it might be one-to-one, and in order for something bad to happen, you just have to pull the wool over one person’s eyes,” Kazmark said. “On Kickstarter, there’s a lot of people looking at the projects, making sure they are who they say they are.”

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News

Officials pull the plug on live music in Woolen Mills

Black Market Moto Saloon
Black Market Moto Saloon owner Matteus Frankovich said he just wants to provide a neighborhood gathering place for Woolen Mills, and plans to apply for a $1,500 special use permit so the restaurant can continue hosting live music. Photo by John Robinson.

Editor’s note: We used comments in this story that we later realized were shared privately via Facebook—which means we shouldn’t have run them. We talked with the person affected and apologized, and this post came out of that conversation. Please give it a read.

City officials have put an end to live music at the corner of Market Street and Meade Avenue, and two local restaurants—Black Market Moto Saloon and the Lunchbox—are feeling the pressure of keeping customers in a now concert-free zone. The business owners know that they must acquire special use permits, but many music lovers are still perplexed by the city’s decision to quiet the neighborhood.

Two years ago, noise complaints aimed at the Belmont restaurant Bel Rio led to a widespread debate over amplified music and its effect on the surrounding neighborhoods. Shortly after the issue’s resolution, the city changed its zoning regulations, and the only Charlottesville venues with by-right music privileges are on the Downtown Mall, along West Main Street, and on the Corner.

The zoning ordinance states that restaurant owners must obtain a special use permit from the city in order to host live, amplified music. But the application alone costs $1,500, takes 60-90 days to process, and does not guarantee a permit.

According to Neighborhood Development Services Director Jim Tolbert, both the Moto Saloon and the Lunchbox were given written warnings, but the Moto Saloon chose to continue to host live music. Tolbert said owner Matteus Frankovich received a letter stating that his certificate of occupancy did not allow amplified music. After handling an “altercation” at the bar on Thursday, July 5, police reported a band playing, and the city responded by revoking the Saloon’s certificate of occupancy the following day. Around 10pm on Saturday, July 7, Tolbert arrived at the restaurant with two police officers and informed Frankovich that he was to shut down immediately for operating illegally.

Frankovich was given permission the following Monday to reopen the Moto Saloon, but in addition to business lost and the hassle of paying $1,500 for a permit that is not guaranteed, he believes he was treated unfairly.

“We did not have any music,” Frankovich said regarding the evening the Saloon was shut down. “We had a nice dinner crowd. Meanwhile, across the street at the Lunchbox, they’re having an outdoor hip hop show.” Under the impression that both restaurants had received warnings at the same time, Frankovich said he wondered if the city was acting on “some sort of personal vendetta.”

Tolbert’s reasoning was that the Lunchbox was quiet on July 7, with no evidence of a band or amplified music, and that its owners had complied with the city’s warning against live music without a permit.

But lunchbox co-owner Joe Young confirmed that hip hop artists Griff and John Mingsley began performing at 9pm on July 7. He said the group played until about 11pm, and he received his letter of warning from the city the following Monday.

The Charlottesville Police Department said it has received 13 noise complaints in the area since February—12 specifically mentioned the Lunchbox, with one complaint about “the area.”

Heather Cromer lives about a block away from the Lunchbox, and said she rarely hears music while she is home.

“I’ve only heard it on the weekends, and I can’t hear it from inside,” she said. Cromer said she thought the regulations were unfair, and added that she can often hear music from the Pavilion late at night.

Tanya Rutherford, who also lives within walking distance of the two bars, said she understands the city’s stance, and could empathize with the families who lived next door.

“The residents were there first,” she said. “It shouldn’t be their responsibility to keep the neighborhood quiet.”
But as a music fan, Rutherford said she was glad to have options closer to home than the Downtown Mall.

“I’m a big music fan, and that’s one of the great aspects of Charlottesville,” she said. “I love having them here.”

She said the younger generation seems to be more amenable to change in the neighborhood, but “those in power now may be stagnant and fairly traditional.”
Regardless of neighborhood opinion, both establishments must go through the process of applying for a special use permit if the owners wish to continue offering live music.

“It doesn’t matter how many neighbors complained,” Tolbert said. “It doesn’t matter if nobody complained at all. It’s illegal.”

Woolen Mills neighborhood association president Victoria Dunham has voiced her disapproval of both restaurants, and took it to another level last week, when she represented the polarization of the neighborhood by posting about the issue on her personal Facebook page, disparaging the “hipster douchebags” for what they’ve done to the neighborhood.

“Unfortunately, the ‘hood is having a bit of an infestation of vermin lately,” she posted, along with the song “Something Against you” by the Pixies. “Perhaps this little song will make ‘em scram. If not, then we’ll just have to get out that can of Raid we keep on reserve for times like these.”

Frankovich said live music is essential to what he is trying to accomplish at his restaurant, and with the support of regular customers and a petition with more than 200 signatures, he plans to move forward with the permit application and attend the September 11 Planning Commission meeting to address the issue.

“I see this neighborhood as an underserviced region,” Frankovich said. “I just want to offer something for Woolen Mills—not a music club, but more of a neighborhood pub.”

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News

Stonefield developer will keep fighting permit violation from city

A cross-jurisdictional fight over storm-water runoff has pitched one developer against another, and city and county are taking sides as the dispute appears headed for court.

Edens, the developers of Stonefield, a 65-acre shopping center underway at the intersection of Route 29 and Hydraulic Road in Albemarle County, was told by city staff last month that it was in violation of an erosion permit. But at least one county official says the city is holding them over a barrel at the request of another developer.

Edens’ site development plan proposed running a pipe under Route 29 to carry runoff from its site and the land just uphill to an existing channel across the highway that eventually flows into Meadow Creek.

The 72″ pipe, which came out about 30′ from an existing 42″ culvert, ended up within city limits, which meant Edens had to get a city permit to move forward. In late 2009, the company presented its soil erosion plan to the city. Before it unplugged its new pipe, the company would create a channel of loose rock called riprap, designed to slow down the flow of water, to bridge the gap between the pipe and the existing stormwater channel that flows into Meadow Creek.

The city approved the plan, but a property line caused problems in its implementation. The new pipe opened up onto land owned by the U.S. Post Office, which granted permission for the work. But the channel receiving water from both outfall points is on the property of Seminole Square Shopping Center. Seminole owner Great Eastern Management Company refused to grant Edens the easements needed to remove a fence separating the properties and merge the new channel with the old one, saying the rival developer would have to pay extra to safeguard against flooding Seminole’s property downstream.

Edens built to the fence, stopped, and pulled the plug. On June 1, the city notified the company it was in violation of its permit. Edens has appealed to the City Planning Commission and the City Council in turn, both of which have upheld planning staffs’ judgement.

The dispute has come down to language. Does tying in the new riprap mean laying rock to the property line, or to the existing channel itself? Charlottesville Neighborhood Development Services Director Jim Tolbert points to a June memo that shows Edens knew it had to build more than it did.

“If they didn’t think they needed to do something, there would have been no reason for them to plug the pipe in the first place,” he said.

But everybody involved seems to agree on one thing: The riprap may be the sticking point, but the dispute is about more than rocks.

Great Eastern attorney Fredrick Payne said his client has been raising concerns about additional stormwater on its property throughout the development process.

“We don’t care what happens on the west side of 29 as long as it doesn’t impact the east side of 29,” he said. “Our consultants are of the opinion that both the county and the city have an obligation to protect against flooding, and they haven’t done so.” The underlying and more basic issue at hand, he added, is one brought up by Council members: “Does this mean that the owner of a commercial property has a right to put his surface water onto another property owner without the property owner’s permission?”

Tolbert put it more bluntly. “If you own property and someone said, ‘I’m going to build a big development that’s going to compete with you, but I’ve got to flood your property to do it,’ do you not think they’ll want some compensation for that?”

But the threat of flooding is a red herring, said Edens managing director Steve Boyle. His company has spent millions on stormwater management features that will ensure slow release of water through the drainage pipes. His company is more than willing to install additional riprap where the drainage channels meet, he said—they’ve even bonded for it.

All of Edens’ plans and work have met state guidelines, Boyle said, and because Seminole and the city can’t win the war over water, they’re picking a fight over rocks. His company is likely to appeal in Charlottesville Circuit Court, he said.

“We’ve done the right thing,” said Boyle. “We’ve contemplated the impact such a big development would have. We’ve tried to be good stewards and new people in the community, but for whatever reason, this particular neighbor has been resistant in a way where we can’t see eye to eye.”

The neighbor is Charles Rotgin, owner of Great Eastern, and his own public comment record shows he’s not always been a proponent of strict stormwater regulations. In 2009, Rotgin wrote to the state Department of Conservation and Recreation opposing amendments to Virginia’s stormwater permitting rules that would have further restricted developers.

The increased regulation would slow business investment, he said, and he argued for “latitude for local engineering departments to modify or waive certain requirements in instances where they are impractical to implement,” among other modifications.

Rotgin did not return calls requesting comment. But Albemarle County Supervisor Dennis Rooker, whose district is home to the Stonefield development, said he didn’t think Rotgin would insist on the same standards for his own developments.

“There’s not a requirement that I’m aware of anywhere in the state of Virginia when a developer…has to account for all the impacts of a 100-year storm,” Rooker said. “And I would suggest that the development community would never let it get through.”

Rooker said he understands Rotgin is just protecting his interests. But he also said he believes the city has been doing the bidding of the Seminole owner in putting its foot down over the erosion permit. Rotgin might have legitimate concerns about future flooding, Rooker said, but Edens shouldn’t necessarily be on the hook.

“Whether that should be a concern that’s compensable from the other property owner—that to me is a question of private property law,” he said.

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Green Dot to tackle income inequality with job hub

On a recent sweltering July morning, Toan Nguyen and Fabian Kuttner stood in a vast basement in the IX complex on Second Street Southeast. As forklifts rumbled across the warehouse floor above them, they explained how the raw space could be a catalyst for change.

Despite its relative affluence, Charlottesville has an income gap problem, Nguyen said, and the way to close it is with jobs. The city needs a light industrial hub, a central spot where people can find meaningful work. Nguyen, an entrepreneur, and Kuttner, part owner and manager of IX, are among a number business-minded residents ready to make it happen with the Green Dot Cooperative, a partner-owned corporation that will steer jobs and wealth to where they’re needed most.

The effort is in its infancy, but it’s gaining key supporters. Kuttner is offering the IX warehouse at a low rent, and Charlottesville City Councilor Kathy Galvin brought a group of young architects onboard who are volunteering their time to design the space. Supporters feel like they’ve hit on a winning formula.

“It’s a deeper understanding of poverty, and a deeper understanding of how to end it,” Kuttner said.

The challenge was laid out last September in a report created by former Tom Perriello aide Ridge Schuyler and colleague Meg Hannan. Dubbed the Orange Dot Project, it tracked income disparities revealed by the newest census data. Among the city’s wealthier green-colored neighborhoods were pockets where the household incomes fell well below the city’s median—concentrations of poverty delineated by orange dots.

The cure, according to Schuyler and Hannan’s report, was employment. They envisioned a job hub that could act as both a bridge and a buffer by rallying lower-income entrepreneurs and workers around small businesses capable of winning big contracts with UVA and the City, while absorbing some of the risk inherent in doing business with small startups.

Toan Nguyen wasn’t willing to leave things there. The C’ville Coffee owner and Darden grad has already poured time and energy into finding ways to solve Charlottesville’s income inequality problem. This spring, he and partners kick-started the Community Investment Collaborative, a nonprofit that offers education and loans to low-income entrepreneurs. But organizing businesses is one problem. Winning major contracts is another.

Nguyen said local and state governments and UVA set aside big chunks of their budget for contracts with minority-owned businesses, and a cooperative corporation could capture a lot of those contracts and give the work to Charlottesville’s unemployed—many of them poor minorities.

The setup could solve a lot of the problems that often stymie startups, and create more jobs at the same time. “You have to scale it up,” he said. “But it’s doable.”

A brand new catering company would have a hard time getting hired by UVA, for instance, Nguyen said. But if people pooled their capital, built a shared commercial kitchen, and brought on a team of job-seekers, they could land big contracts and help their neighbors in the process.

“It provides stability; it provides insurance,” he said. “No matter what happens, you’ll fulfill that contract.”

Nguyen and his partners and supporters—Kuttner, Galvin, the businesses involved in CIC, and members of Charlottesville’s growning start-up community, including Darden School leaders—have named the corporation the Green Dot Cooperative, because it aims to turn the orange parts of Schuyler and Hannan’s map green. It doesn’t yet have a board or a CEO. But thanks to Kuttner, it has a home, and there’s a talented team working to give it shape.
The Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects’ Emerging Leaders in Architecture program, which each year gives up-and-comers the chance to work on a design challenge somewhere in the Commonwealth, is focusing on turning part of the IX space into the kitchen Nguyen said will be a key first step in launching Green Dot.

Eventually, the warehouse could also house textile production, woodworking, and computer repair enterprises. Before that, there needs to be a business plan, and that’s going to require time and money.

But Nguyen is working to build interest in the idea among public officials, UVA leaders, and members of the business community, from potential big investors to the entrepreneurs who might soon be co-op members.

Bernard Whitsett II, a financial consultant, chair of the local Minority Business Council, and a Green Dot supporter, said getting the people who will benefit most to buy in will be a challenge—but a winnable one.

Whitsett grew up in the 10th and Page community, one of the city’s historically black neighborhoods and a spot that remains stubbornly orange on the income gap map. He said it can be hard to convince people that building wealth isn’t a zero sum game.

“We have to bring this before a lot of different folks,” he said. “You have to allow people to see the vision.”

Nguyen has vision in abundance. He sees potential, he said—in the dusty warehouse, and in the neighborhoods Green Dot wants to empower.

“I’m so excited about what this can be,” he said.

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City of Promise settles in

The next round of federal funding for City of Promise is up in the air, but it looks like the cradle-to-college outreach program that came to Charlottesville’s low-income neighborhoods a few months ago is here to stay. Director Sarad Davenport’s team of staff and community members is growing, and last Monday, City Council passed a resolution to commit funds for construction of a home for City of Promise in the middle of the neighborhood it serves.

Charlottesville was one of 15 communities nationwide to receive the $470,000 Promise Neighborhood grant from the Department of Education in 2011, from which City of Promise was born. The program is based on New York City’s Harlem Children Zone, which serves more than 10,000 children with goals in academic excellence and social and character development.

The mission of City of Promise is to break the cycle of poverty in Westhaven and the 10th and Page and Starr Hill neighborhoods, and ultimately in all of Charlottesville, by helping families keep their kids in school and on track from birth to high school graduation and beyond.

“We’re holding the adults accountable for the outcomes of the children,” Daven port said. “It is our responsibility to do whatever it takes to make sure the kids are successful.”
Davenport said the program’s ultimate goal is for college graduates to return to Charlottesville and share their experiences and serve as role models for younger kids.

“If Harlem can do it with 10,000 kids, we should definitely be able to make some differences in Charlottesville,” he said.

City of Promise has been in the planning stage since February. Davenport and his team have had more than 140 one-on-one conversations on public housing to assess what the community needs before moving forward.

“We’ve been doing a lot of listening,” Davenport said. “These conversations have been instrumental to whatever pathway gets constructed, and we’ve learned a lot about what’s important to people.” The discussions were designed to be inclusive and avoid alienating residents who may already be weary of groups trying to fix their neighborhood, and Davenport held public meetings for folks to respond to the information gathered.

The next step is putting the plans into action. Davenport and his team are applying for an implementation grant from the Department of Education, a highly competitive grant of $4-6 million for three to five years. Because the funding is not guaranteed, he said they are pursuing other grants and alternative sources as well.

Essential to helping the community, Davenport said, is getting the community involved. Four low-income residents have joined the steering committee, and more than 15 neighborhood kids are on the Youth Council, a group that meets bi-weekly to set and evaluate academic, personal, and service goals.

At its July 2 meeting, the City Council voted to allocate $20,000 from its housing funds to construct a house at 204 Eighth St. that City of Promise will use for office space, meetings, and community gatherings. If the program ceases operation or no longer has use for the building, it will then be converted into a single-family home for low-income residents.

Councilor Dede Smith, who describes herself as “a bit of a fiscal conservative,” cast the only vote against the resolution because she felt it was an inappropriate use of the city’s finances. “We have a limited amount of housing funds,” she said, “and I would like to see them used to maximum potential.”

But Davenport said proximity is an integral part of the work City of Promise does in the neighborhoods it serves, and the building will give residents more accessibility.
“We want to be close to the community and make sure they’re able to access us at any time,” he said. “It’s going to make a difference when people are looking for resources and they can just walk down the street.”

Public housing resident and mother of two Sabrina Allen, who was recently nominated and elected onto the City of Promise steering committee due to her involvement and outreach in the public housing community, thinks the house is an “amazing idea,” and has been “hoping and rooting for it” after seeing a similar model in Harlem.

Last month, Allen traveled to New York City with a group that included five other public housing residents to explore the Harlem Children Zone. The program’s vast impact hit close to home, she said.

Since 2010, Allen has been leading a small social dance group for young girls. Every Monday through Saturday afternoon throughout the summer, she teaches the girls dance skills, provides snacks, and encourages the girls to discuss issues going on at home and at school.
“It was really hard to get them to open up in the beginning,” she said. But with the help of City of Promise organizers providing occasional snacks, transportation, and other support, and her 16-year-old daughter serving as a group mentor, Allen has created and maintained a welcoming environment for girls who might otherwise fall through the cracks.

“It gives them something to do so they don’t get lost in the summertime,” she said. Having grown up in Charlottesville, Allen said she had nothing to do during the summer as a girl, and designed the group to keep neighborhood kids busy and stimulated.
It was because of her community involvement and outreach that Allen was elected to the City of Promise steering committee, which she said was both an honor and a surprise.

“I was nominated sooner than I thought,” she said, “but I’ll work for the City of Promise to the fullest because I think it’s going to work.” This summer, Allen will have the opportunity to witness firsthand one of the first implemented programs. City of Promise has partnered with the School of Architecture at UVA to form the Community Planning and Design Institute, a two-week summer program for kids in eighth grade and up with an interest in architecture. Allen’s 16-year-old daughter will take introductory architecture classes, stay on Grounds, eat in the dining hall, and even participate in community design at the end of the program.

The two-week program, Davenport said, is designed to invoke excitement about college in youth growing up in “families that might not necessarily have a college-going culture.”

“This is our first cohort that will give the community tangible ideas of what City of Promise could be,” he said.