Tag: Planning & Development

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.

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.

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.