Tag: Planning & Development

In 2018, 54-year-old Joseph Mark Audia was killed when he was crushed between two cars in the Jak ’n Jil restaurant parking lot on East High Street. The Louisa County man was standing next to his car when a pickup truck ran off the road and crashed into several parked cars, trapping Audia between his car and another one. 

More pedestrians could be injured or even killed if critical improvements are not made to East High, fears Dwight Corle, owner of Charlottesville Glass & Mirror. 

“What we have is people cutting through parking lots starting at Jak ’n Jill, [who] will try to turn onto Hazel [Street] cutting through our lot, endangering the lives of myself, my employees,” explains Corle, who has owned his business for over 40 years. “Almost everybody who works here has had their life in jeopardy multiple times over the last 15, 20 years—it’s just gotten worse.”

For decades, Corle has asked the City of Charlottesville to rebuild the curbs and gutters that have eroded away in front of his shop, and create an adequate entrance. Because there are no barriers separating Jak ’n Jil and Charlottesville Glass & Mirror from East High Street, impatient drivers can easily cut through the business’ parking lots to get to Hazel Street. Curbs would also help divert stormwater runoff coming down Hazel Street into drains, instead of his store’s parking lot.

“If the curbs and gutters were there, it would be much more difficult for people to drive into the parking lot,” says longtime pedestrian advocate Kevin Cox, who became a school crossing guard at East High and Hazel streets this fall. “[Drivers are] not going to want to jump a four- to six-inch curb and damage their car potentially to cut through a parking lot.”

On September 25, Mayor Lloyd Snook joined Corle, Cox, and other concerned residents for a walk on East High to see the infrastructure issues that plague the street. The advocates also hosted a bake sale in front of Corle’s store, and collected around 34 petition signatures in support of the street improvements.

In addition, pedestrian advocates are pushing the city to move the bus stop and crosswalk located in front of the glass shop near the intersection of East High and Hazel streets—where they have seen multiple people almost get hit by cars—to a location further down the road. They suggest widening the new crosswalk, and adding plastic pylons and signs that remind drivers to yield to pedestrians. 

Once pedestrians walking down East High toward Tubby’s get near Fisher Auto Parts, they have very few sidewalks. In front of the former AT&T building, located next to Charlottesville Glass & Mirror, there is only a rough dirt path—a danger to those with disabilities.

“If [they’re] using a wheelchair to get around, people will go into the street because that dirt path is so rocky, and they don’t want to fall over,” says Cox. “I’ve literally helped people off the ground multiple times,” adds Corle. 

Some improvements to the street may be coming soon: “The consideration of moving the bus stop has been initiated, and I am awaiting staff reports on how soon we might be able to affect the change,” said Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders in an email to C-VILLE on September 28.

However, the city does not have a funded project yet for additional improvements, like sidewalks or curbs. “E. High is on the priority list of corridor projects in the city, [but] does not rank in the Top 5. … In the meantime, we continue to look at E. High because of the Safe Routes to School priority that aligns with this roadway, [and] are committed to exploring additional fixes in the interim,” said Sanders in his email.

As a temporary measure, the city recently provided Corle with plastic barriers to put between his store and Jak ’n Jill—but some people still drive around them. He hopes city leadership will implement more permanent solutions soon, and suggests they completely redesign East High after the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority installs a central water line under the street in two to three years.

“If they’re going to be ripping all of this pavement up,” says Corle, “what a great time to put it back and put it back right the way it should be.”

For decades, two of Albemarle’s toniest enclaves—Farmington and Ednam Forest—have lived in proximity to a less desirable neighbor. Charlottesville Oil, built in 1950, has long been known for the junked vehicles and debris outside. And inside, when it rained, it poured.  

Albemarle County finally noticed. On April 22, it sent Charlottesville Oil president James F. “Phil” Dulaney Jr. a preliminary determination that “the property at 2839 Ivy Road is blighted.” Among the 10 violations cited are “overall lack of any or no maintenance to the building and outside property,” holes in the roof and floor, hazardous materials, mold and mildew, “unsanitary conditions” inside the building, and no heat for employees.

That was followed by an April 27 letter from county Assistant Fire Marshal Micaiah Ledford, who noted “continuing violations” of fire codes, as well as local and state statutes. He set out a timeline for hazardous materials cleanup, asbestos abatement, and demolition permits for unsafe structural sections.

On July 13, county Zoning Administrator Bart Svoboda sent Dulaney an official notice of violation. He listed the accumulation of tires and trash, multiple inoperable vehicles, structures, and a roofing contractor whose business was not a permitted use. Svoboda warned Dulaney the violations could be subject to criminal and civil penalties, and to bring the property into compliance by August 15. 

Albemarle’s deadline for compliance has been extended because Charlottesville Oil is “making forward progress,” says county spokesperson Emily Kilroy, who clarifies that the property has not been condemned. The county has taken the owners of blighted properties to court, but “that’s not where we want to be,” she says, noting the cost to taxpayers. “The opportunity to address real safety and health issues is a better outcome.”

The fire marshal was involved, she explains, because “unsafe structures pose huge risks to firefighters.” 

In an emailed statement, Dulaney says, “We have completed the asbestos removal phase and are coordinating with Albemarle County to take down what needs to be taken down and fixing up what needs to be fixed up. We look forward to a completed project in the near future.”

Dulaney owns a large portfolio of properties in prominent locations, the most notorious at Rockfish Gap where the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah national parks meet. The Howard Johnson restaurant and Holiday Inn there were thriving businesses when he took control of the primo real estate 50 years ago. 

The site included a gas station and the Skyline Parkway Motor Court, which became the target of arsonists in the early 2000s and has been partially demolished. Dulaney also faced fire code violations in 2011 and 2012 at the former Holiday Inn, by then known as the Afton Inn.

Today, only the orange HoJo’s roof seems to have survived the half century intact, and a popcorn truck is the only business in operation.

Swannanoa, a 1912 palace on the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places, is also Dulaney-owned, as are the parcels housing Wayside Chicken and the former Toddsbury in Ivy. 

Bruce Kirtley ran the Ivy convenience store for 25 years, closing it in 2019, he said, because Dulaney refused to do any maintenance. A faulty septic system was the breaking point for Kirtley, who told C-VILLE, “If I owned it, I’d fix it. That’s what rational people do. His properties speak for themselves.”

Anderson’s Seafood and Catering has resided under a canopy in the Charlottesville Oil parking lot for eight years. That use is not within the parameters of the zoning violations, says Kilroy.

“So many customers have been concerned that we’d have to move,” says Ted Anderson. “It’s the best location we’ve ever been in.” He says he has five times the business he’s had in previous locations. Dulaney and his associate, Mike Jones, “have been fantastic to work with,” Anderson says, but he does acknowledge that inside the building, “it wasn’t in very good shape.” 

The closer scrutiny of Charlottesville Oil came about after a complaint earlier this year, Kilroy says. C-VILLE Weekly did a story on Dulaney’s properties in 2015 called “The ruins of Afton Mountain: Eyesores along a scenic byway,” which reported—with photographs—the busted-up vehicles at Charlottesville Oil, and asked the director of zoning about the county’s junked vehicles ordinance.

“It’s a fair question,” concedes Kilroy about the lack of action seven years ago. She says the county was unaware of the mysterious “Crozet hum,” a noise ultimately linked to Yancey Lumber in 2018, until a Crozet Gazette reporter got in touch. “If folks see something that needs addressing, they should reach out to us.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of county Zoning Administrator Bart Svoboda.

After several hours of discussion, Charlottesville’s Planning Commission recommended City Council deny a controversial rezoning proposal that would build up to 72 new apartments and a daycare center in the Locust Grove neighborhood. During a September 13 joint meeting, the commission cited issues with the project’s affordable units and infrastructure. However, commissioners and councilors expressed general support for the high-density development—which has received criticism from dozens of neighbors—and remained open to approving a revised proposal in the near future.

The proposal asks to rezone two empty lots next to Mount View Baptist Church on St. Clair Avenue from two-family residential to planned unit development, allowing the developers, led by Craig Builders, to build a mixture of efficiency, one-, two-, and three-bedroom units that would appear as a series of linked townhomes. The development would feature a central greenspace and a multi-use path within the Otter Street right-of-way that would be constructed to connect Landonia Circle and St. Clair Avenue. The church has also expressed interest in opening a daycare, which the PUD zoning would permit.

Seven of the new units would be set aside as affordable housing. While four would be reserved for households making less than 65 percent of the area median income, three would be for households making less than 80 percent—however, an affordable unit could become available to higher earners if it remains vacant for longer than 90 days, and all affordable units would convert to market rate after 10 years, per the current proposal.

Planning commissioners criticized the project’s short affordability period, and pushed for it to accept housing vouchers. Councilor Michael Payne urged the developers to align with the city’s draft inclusionary zoning policy and require new developments (with 10 or more units) to set aside at least 10 percent of units as affordable housing for households making 60 percent or less of the AMI—for at least 99 years. 

The developers are open to dropping the 90-day vacancy rule, and now want to make all the affordable units up to 80 percent AMI, the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s payment standard, said engineer Justin Shimp, who represented the developers. “If someone has a voucher, they qualify for that standard.”

Shimp argued that the seven units could remain affordable after 10 years—Wickham Pond, a similar development in Crozet, still has affordable units today, five years after its affordability period ended.

But “I can’t think of a project that’s got 30-year, 99-year [affordability] without some kind of subsidy,” said Shimp. “This [development] is like a $200,000 basically donation to affordable housing, when you make these sort of reduced-rent restrictions.” 

Commissioners expressed additional concerns about the development’s impact on traffic, as well as pedestrian and transit connectivity in the surrounding neighborhood, particularly incomplete and inadequate sidewalks. Shimp replied that there are five CAT bus stops within a five-minute walk from the proposed site, and the developers are “open and willing to fill in those two missing pieces of sidewalk” on River Vista Avenue.

Ahead of last week’s meeting, Neighborhood Development Services staff also recommended denying the rezoning request, arguing that the development’s infrastructure and affordability issues do not comply with the city’s new comprehensive plan.

“Staff is concerned that while the proposed development includes multiple smaller buildings, these buildings are not ‘house‐sized’ in relation to the surrounding neighborhood,” which largely consists of single-family homes, reads the staff report, “[and] that no improvements to the existing River Vista Avenue sidewalk network are proposed. The existing network on the southern side of River Vista Avenue … includes multiple gaps where no sidewalk exists. Staff is also concerned that no pedestrian connection through Landonia Circle to Long Street (Route 250 Bypass) is provided.”

During public comment, multiple neighborhood residents spoke out against the development, echoing concerns brought up by commissioners and city staff. Elizabeth Hand claimed the high number of units was not “consistent” with the neighbor­hood, while Elizabeth Alcorn pointed to the area’s traffic problems.

“Two weeks ago one of my neighbors [had] her car totaled while it was parked on Calhoun Street because of the narrow width of the street and the heavy traffic—until this problem is fixed, there should be no development going on in the neighborhood,” said Alcorn.

Some neighbors, though, urged the city to approve the high-density development. Former city councilor Kristin Szakos reflected on the many proposals for denser housing she saw denied “because they were not perfect.”

“The results of those years of denials and of zoning that encouraged large houses on individual lots is that our city is experiencing a crisis,” said Szakos. “This project is not perfect, but it offers what I hope will be one of many responses to that crisis—we need housing.”

“Our neighborhood looking ahead is never going to become walkable until we increase the density to support non-residential mixed uses. Lack of density is what’s holding back walkability in our neighborhood,” added Josh Krahn. 

Over the past few months, several dozen other neighborhood residents have sent the commission emails urging it to deny the rezoning request, criticizing the project’s high density, increased traffic, parking needs, and other concerns. “THERE WILL BE A DISRUPTION OF NEIGHBORHOOD INTEGRITY AND VALUES … THIS INCREASE IN POPULATION DENSITY IS A SERIOUS ASSAULT ON THE NEEDS OF EXISTING RESIDENTS,” reads one email included in last week’s meeting packet. Around a dozen neighbors sent messages in support of the project, praising it for bringing more diverse housing options to Locust Grove.

Councilor Juandiego Wade expressed concerns about the affordable units, while Councilor Brian Pinkston encouraged the developers to address traffic issues—but felt the proposal was “in general, a good project in a good place.” 

“This is the kind of density of a project that our zoning rewrite encourages … so I want to figure out how we can get to yes,” said Payne. “I just don’t think the affordability proffers are quite there yet.”

The developers will work with city staff over the next few weeks to improve their proposal, before it goes before City Council for a vote next month. 

Ask anyone about Charlottesville’s most pressing problems, and chances are affordable housing will top their list. The city’s new Future Land Use Map, adopted last November as part of the comprehensive plan, has been touted as a solution. It aims to increase housing supply by allowing greater density in every city neighborhood from three units per parcel in general residential areas to more than 13 units per parcel in areas designated high density. While the details of the zoning are still being worked out, the plan has been met with fierce opposition. 

First came a lawsuit from anonymous plaintiffs alleging the city violated state law when it adopted the FLUM. After three of the four complaints in that suit were dismissed by a Charlottesville judge in August, dozens of city residents have now signed an open letter that claims the process to create the Future Land Use Map has been “flawed from the beginning” and that it is not the best way to accomplish the city’s affordable housing goals.

“Insufficient data was collected, insufficient analysis was done on data, insufficient citizen participation was solicited, which led to a faulty diagnosis of the problem in Charlottes­ville with housing affordability, which is leading now to a proposed treatment which is not indicated,” says Ben Heller, one of the city residents who signed the letter.

“The idea of upzoning is [that] pure density solves the problem, and it’s not been demonstrated in any city that’s tried it,” says Martha Smythe, another letter signer. 

The letter’s other stated concerns include that the city’s consultants never provided the number of needed units at various levels of affordability, that the Plan did not address the infrastructure needs of the city today or those required to accommodate implied future growth, and that the character of existing neighborhoods is threatened.

“The idea of going and upzoning the whole city, if you stop and think about it, feels very much like trying to make amends for past faults and past issues,” says another letter signatory, Philip Harway. The FLUM “feels like our elected and appointed representatives are throwing a Hail Mary pass.”

Vice-Mayor Juandiego Wade, who had just been elected to council last November when the previous council voted to adopt the FLUM, disputes that characterization. He says the actual zoning ordinance will take about a year to be finalized. Even then, council can make adjustments. 

“If we approve something and two months or two weeks later, we see something needs to be changed, then we can change it,” he says. “I see it as a dynamic process.”

The other councilors were either unavailable or did not respond to a request for comment.

Real estate analyst Quinton Beckham, principal broker for K.W. Alliance, agrees with the letter’s claim that higher density alone will not solve the affordable housing crisis.

“How this affects affordable housing in our city is one cog in a very, very large machine,” says Beckham, noting that the lack of housing inventory does contribute to the high cost of homes and increasing the number of units will relieve some of the market pressure.

“Every person that we get placed is one less person that strains the system,” he says. Beckham disputes the letter’s claims that higher density creates more traffic—“it’s sprawl that increases traffic”—and says greater density reduces other costs associated with growth.

Developer Kyle Redinger also disputes some of the letter’s assertions and says Charlottesville hasn’t kept up with the pace of housing demand. He says greater density is overdue.

“When people see the zoning opportunity, they get nervous because they think they’re going to have a lot more density in their part of the city. And the reality is, that should have happened 20 years ago,” he says. In his opinion, the FLUM doesn’t go far enough.

“If your goal is to solve housing affordability, any restrictions or barriers to land use has to be done away with,” he says. 

The controversy is likely to continue as the city completes the zoning process. Heller says more specifically targeted density should be a part of the affordable housing picture, but he says there are better solutions than zoning. 

“We could look at making it easier to convert commercial centers to residential housing. We could look at land trusts where the city contributes its own land to developers in exchange for affordable housing,” he says.

While Habitat for Humanity and Piedmont Housing Alliance are the major players in constructing Charlottesville-area affordable housing, Heller believes there are other organizations in the country that could do the same work for lower per-unit price. 

Wade says council is “listening to what people have to say,” but Harway claims better communication and more public input during the process would have reduced some of the current opposition. 

“I think there’s really an issue of trust with the city that a lot of residents have expressed to us that they do not trust what the city’s doing as being in their best interests,” says Harway. “And, yes, these are mostly middle class folks. But they’ve been paying the taxes for, you know, as long as they have owned homes here. And to ignore them and put them at risk is certainly not a smart move.” 

Courteney Stuart is the host of “Charlottes­ville Right Now” on WINA. You can hear interviews with Martha Smythe, Ben Heller, Philip Harway, Quinton Beckham, and Kyle Redinger at wina.com.  

Nearly a year ago in the early hours of September 13, 2021, Sarah Peaslee got the knock on the door no parent ever wants to hear. A police officer told her that her son, 29-year-old Will Davis, had been struck by a motorcycle crossing Richmond Road—U.S. 250 east—and died instantly.

“Will was coming home from a friend,” she says. Will, the grandson of Charlottesville Observer founder Kay Peaslee, was staying with his mother at Carriage Hill on Pantops, and she acknowledges he jaywalked. “He was jaywalking because it’s frustrating to try to cross.” 

Richmond Road is not the only Albemarle County road built to move cars, not pedestrians, and eight pedestrians have died on county roads since 2016, compared to the five deaths in Charlottesville’s city limits over the past 10 years.

Through the ’80s and ’90s, “the flow of vehicles was considered more important than pedestrians,” says Kevin McDermott, Albemarle’s planning manager. At U.S. 250 on Pantops, “we had eliminated all of the opportunities for pedestrians to cross from the [Rivanna] river to I-64. The sidewalk system is inadequate and that’s why we’ve ended up with a road not safe to walk along or to cross.”

Five-lane Richmond Road is notorious for late-night speeding, says Peaslee. While the speed of the BMW motorcycle that struck Davis has not been determined, after it hit him, it totaled a parked Mercedes at the dealership there and its driver, Robert Nikodem, was hospitalized for weeks, she adds. 

Nikodem has been charged with driving under the influence. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Lawton Tufts declined to comment on the case, and says the investigation is ongoing. C-VILLE was unable to reach Nikodem.

While Richmond Road has seen two pedestrian fatalities in the past two years, it’s not the deadliest road in the county. The worst, says McDermott, is U.S. 29 from the city limit at Hydraulic to Hollymead. “Currently there are only two designated pedestrian crossings,” he says. “Drive on 29 any day, you’re going to see pedestrians dash across four or five lanes to the median.”

He says, “I consider that our most unsafe corridor for pedestrians.”

One option Albemarle’s Board of Supervisors likes a lot is photo speed cameras, which warns drivers, snaps pictures of speeders, and sends a ticket in the mail, but that may be a long-shot in photo-ticketing-averse Virginia.

“It’s very effective,” says Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley. “To me it seems like a no-brainer. We have to use technology because we don’t have the people to enforce speed limits.” Photo speed cameras are at the top of the board’s legislative agenda, she says.

Delegate Rob Bell carried a photo speed camera bill in this year’s General Assembly, but he says it was geared toward two-lane rural roads where it’s unsafe for police to ticket safely. That bill died in subcommittee. 

Cameras have been used to target redlight-runners and school-bus-passers, notes Bell, but the “idea of the presumption of guilt and mailed tickets is not something generally done in Virginia.”

And when a bill fails 10-0, “I’m not planning to bring it back,” he says.

Albemarle is looking at other ways to make crossing multi-lane thoroughfares safer, says McDermott. Pedestrian crossings are in design for Richmond Road at Route 20/Stony Point Road and at Rolkin Road. 

The 250 Access Management Project would close the center lane used for both right and left turns, which LaPisto-Kirtley dubs the “suicide lane,” and put in a median. The project should be ready for public feedback in spring 2023, with construction two years after that, says McDermott.

The recent federal infrastructure bill offers a Reconnecting Communities grant, dedicated to those areas—often African American—that previously were cut off from economic opportunities by transportation infrastructure. The county is applying for a grant, says McDermott, to “identify places we want to enhance safety.”

Plans for U.S. 29 include a pedestrian bridge north of Hydraulic at Zan Road, and an at-grade crossing south of the Hydraulic intersection, he says.

And unlike in the past, when adding more lanes was often a solution to traffic woes, “We don’t do any major transportation projects without a major pedestrian component,” McDermott says.

Albemarle traditionally has a higher number of traffic fatalities than the city, and county police are using public outreach, public education, and targeted enforcement to address dangerous behaviors by all road users, says county spokesperson Emily Kilroy. 

With the shortage of school bus drivers and more children walking to school, pedestrian safety is an even bigger concern. Police posted a ped safety graphic on social media to lay out the best practices for walking, especially on roads without sidewalks or crosswalks.

Will Davis was “quite adventurous,” a big biker and walker who was interested in community permaculture, mushrooms, and music, says his mother. His family describes him with the phrase, “Where there’s a Will, there’s a way.”

Peaslee may be channeling her son in her efforts to prevent such accidents with safer crossings and attention to speeding and drinking. “I’d like his memory to live on as a safe crossing so that this doesn’t keep happening.”

She sighs. “It’s just so slow to get anything done.”

Expanded walk zones. Double bus routes. Delayed student arrivals. The bus driver shortage in Albemarle and Charlottesville is creating challenges for schools, drivers, kids, and parents. 

“It’s an inconvenience,” says Teresa Green, a mother of two students at Charlottesville High School. Green and her family live in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood, and both her kids rode a bus to public school until the driver shortage changed that in the 2020-21 school year.

“My son did bike a couple of times to Buford, but I was always worried,” says Green, who has now arranged a carpool for her kids—a neighbor drives them in the morning and she or her husband do afternoon pickup. 

This summer, in response to the severe driver shortage, Charlottesville City Schools announced a plan to address the problem: expanded walk zones of varying distances, depending on student age, as well as “walking school buses,” in which students would be led by an adult on foot. 

But even though Green’s neighborhood is far beyond acceptable walking distance at 4.4 miles, including a long stretch on Fifth Street, only one of her children was offered a seat on a bus. She declined it.

“What if there’s a parent out there who doesn’t have a car or who doesn’t have access or whatever?” she says. “I don’t want to take somebody else’s seat because we don’t really have a way of knowing if there’s kids who have more needs than my kids.”

Charlottesville Schools Superintendent Royal Gurley says that’s an issue the administration considered.

“Some of our most vulnerable students can potentially be impacted by this, meaning that on inclement weather days, they can’t just jump in the car with mom and come to school because the car doesn’t exist,” he says, noting that community partners have offered rainy day transportation and assistance. 

Albemarle County is also dealing with a severe school bus driver shortage, and since much of the area is too rural for students to walk, spokesperson Phil Giaramita says many parents are driving and forming carpools to ease the burden.

“We began last year with about 8,000 students requesting bus service. And it turns out that about 5,000 students actually rode our buses,” he says. 

Both Gurley and Giaramita say the pandemic exacerbated the already developing shortage, and Albemarle school bus driver Earl Smith agrees. He estimates about 75 percent of the Albemarle drivers were retirees doing the job for the benefits.

“Suddenly you’ve got this pandemic starting and nobody knows if you’re going to live or die,” he says. “Why would they stay?” 

Smith, who took the job so he’d have time in the middle of the day to care for his ailing mother, is hoping that some of the school system’s recruitment efforts, including higher pay and immediate employment start times, will help fill the empty driver spots. Recruiting single parents, who can bring their kids on the bus, and other people who need a job that leaves their midday free also helps. 

“Making it look like a cooler job,” he says. “When you say to somebody, ‘Come drive a bus,’ they go, ‘Oh my God, I can’t keep up with them kids.’” He laughs. “It’s not that hard to put up with these kids, I swear.” 

Courteney Stuart is the host of “Charlottes­ville Right Now” on WINA. You can hear interviews about the school bus driver shortage at wina.com.