Category: environmental justice

H.T.Ferron

cutting towers with acetylene
Demo is well underway at the former H.T.Ferron ready-mix plant on Carlton Avenue.
No one in the neighborhood gets to sleep late. Lots of noise needed to take apart a concrete plant.
H.T. Ferron site, lots of concrete
Coming soon for the rock pile, a 52,939 square foot building.
PHASE II (PARCEL C) – 54 (1-3 BEDROOMS) APARTMENT RENTAL UNITS PROPOSED.
NOTE, A MINIMUM OF 30% AFFORDABLE HOUSING, DEFINED AS RESIDENTS EARNING UP TO 60% OF AREA MEDIAN INCOME,
SHALL BE INCLUDED ON THE THREE PARCELS.
view from 2 years aho
Where does one locate affordable housing? Everywhere! But so far our City seems slow to learn that lesson. We concentrate.

Put a lid on it

primary clarifier
January 27, 2015- 2:15 p.m.at the regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of RWSA,
Administration Building 695 Moores Creek Lane. Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Staff
will recommend that the Board adopt a revised dollar figure for odor control capital expenditures 2015-2019.
Previously, the odor control figure was 2 million dollars, RWSA staff recommend increasing that figure to
9.3 million dollars in an effort to keep odors on-site at the Moores Creek sewage treatment plant.
The outlay would fund:
“The proposed improvements include covering the primary clarifiers, equalization and grit removal upgrades,
covering the headworks and screening channels, hauling improvements associated with the biosolids storage area,
eliminating the post digestion clarifiers, digester interior coating, cleaning the holding ponds and
equalization basins, and providing a centralized odor scrubber unit to treat foul air.”
Both the Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Service Authority have passed resolutions
in support of the proposed odor control expenditures.
sewage sludge awaits shipment
biosolids (sewage sludge) awaiting transport

quiet enjoyment

131003 Our Town

People have been living in this neighborhood, this place, for thousands of years.
We live in the bend of a state scenic River, on rich, fertile ground, Davidson Loam. Seated here we are eight tenths of a mile from the front porch of Monticello, a mile and 2/10ths from the downtown mall. Seated here we are home, in the center of our universe.
But often we feel, as a neighborhood, that we are in the center of the crosshairs.
Over the years our discussions with the Council have focused on a handful of issues. We’ve asked for reductions in traffic speed and volume, we’ve asked for a reduction of the sewage smell. We’ve asked for pedestrian safety improvements and we have asked that planning and zoning be used to conserve our cultural and natural resources as well as our quality of life.
We have partnered with government entities in the creation of a national historic district, in the design of a sewage pumping station and in the care of our City park. We plant streetscape trees. We pick up trash, we attend City meetings. We have accomplished much but still, we feel threatened.
We are reassured by statements from Mayor Huja and Vice Mayor Szakos in opposition to a bridge through the Woolen Mills. We thank Dave Norris for his enduring stand against the County using City neighborhoods as an interchange.
Diversity is a strength to our way of thinking. We are all kinds of people in this neighborhood. But our mixed status, our socio-economic profile, seems to attract locally unwanted landuses.
Please work with us in our effort to secure the quiet enjoyment of our own homes and the health, safety and welfare of our neighborhood. Together we can make it so.

mice and men


Tonight, last thing on the agenda, Council considers housing for the last people on anyone’s mind.


A developer from Richmond has applied for a special use permit to locate 102 apartments on the eastern and western edges of the former H.T.Ferron ready mix plant on Carlton Avenue.


Tonight, Council will hold a public hearing and discuss the proposed 2013 Comprehensive plan. These plans make a difference. With the new
millennium came a comp plan came high density zoning around UVA and along certain corridors in CHO (Main Street) where services are available.


Was there a memo, was there planning that called for density on the Carlton Avenue corridor? Is Carlton Avenue a corridor. Is it a catchbasin?

fence


In the world of small town zoning there is the concept of the “buffer”. The buffer is akin to the roll of super absorbent paper towels produced on the home-front after an accident has occurred.
So, lets say the City planners locate Industrial zoning in a low income neighborhood next to houses. Such a fence can be required as a buffer.

Screen 3 (“S-3”).  The S-3 buffer/screen requires an opaque landscaping scheme, one that blocks views between two adjacent properties. This type of screening is for use between dissimilar land uses, where the maximum amount of visual shielding is desired. The plantings allowed by the S-3 designation consist of the following…
…With the approval of the director, an opaque wall or fence may be utilized for, or as part of, a required S-3 screen. Where allowed, such wall or fence (including any gate(s) forming a portion of such structure) shall be at least six (6) feet tall, or an alternate height deemed necessary by the director to protect required sight distances along a public right-of-way.–CHO Code 34-871

Does the fence stop the noise? Does it stop the smell? Does it block the view of the 85 foot tall manufacturing facility? No.
But it makes the planners feel they have done their job.

I&I


Bruce Edmonds made an excellent suggestion during the Rivanna Pumping Station meeting. It would be helpful to see a listing of sewage pumping plants permitted by the Army Corps of Engineers in a floodplain, in a park in a 100% residential area.
If there are a few of these beasts east of the Mississippi, road trip! Go see, touch and smell…
That is my recollection of what he said.
Hoping that Charlottesville Tomorrow will post audio…

Current pumping station capacity, 25 million gallons per day (mgd).
Required Capacity per Comprehensive Sewer Interceptor Study to meet a severe wet weather event (2-Year Recurrence Storm) is 51 mgd. (source, RWSA presentation)
In 2010, peak flows for this station in dry weather were around 8 million gallons per day. When it rains hard, another 43 million gallons of infiltrate and inflow rush into the homeowners’ sewer laterals and RWSA, City and ACSA pipes.
The infrastructure is full of holes…