House sized

Councilor Szakos said she understands that the person who built this are not the same people coming forth with the application. Can we assume that when this was built, the zoning would not permit a triplex there so it was being built as a single family home? Mr. Haluska said the previous owners had begun work on a structure that is technically allowed under the city’s zoning code, but the proposed use as three apartment units is not. The original building plans for the project were for a 7,000-square-foot, single-family detached residence.ZM15-00004 June 2016 Planning Commission

Mary Carey 100 Ridge Street; said she appreciates what Planning Commission has done not agreeing with everything.
She said you’ve done good and a lot of people don’t give you the praise you should get. You are making people feel you
are dealing with the people and not the developers, because the developers are taking over our city. It’s all about money.

It seems a majority of Charlottesville City Councilors feel that the structure at 624 Booker is house sized (their current definition of house sized is 9500 sq ft) and could be built on any residential lot in Charlottesville?

Six Men

Ron Higgins office
What can zoning not fix?
Commissioner Schwarz
Commissioner Stolzenberg
Commissioner d’Oronzio
Commissioner Solla-Yates
Chairman Mitchell
Commissioner Habbab
September 14, 2023, draft zoning ordinance Public Hearing, 110 speakers…

Dear Commissioners,
I appreciate your efforts to address displacement pressure, it is a great challenge.
People need safe places.

I think of the decades of back and forth with the Council and the Commission over the disposition of a handful of lots on Market Street and you all are contemplating catalytic changes to thousands of lots.
Wow.

I hope you are as wise as Solomon. I pray that your recommendation to Council doesn’t have as many unanticipated/untoward effects on our City as the arrival of the automobile.

As you strive to do good strive also to limit the damage.
The City is a sensitive living thing.
Good luck

Neighborhood Development Services director Freas

The discussion continues.

Draft Zoning Ordinance

Green energ hq downtown
Charlottesville is riding the zoning wave.

The implementation of the draft zoning ordinance will further decrease the City’s shrinking tree canopy. How low can the canopy percentage go? The code writers say we can’t ask developers for more than 20% canopy coverage, the State’s maximum requirement.
But developers and landlords can be incentivized,
the code’s green-scape zones and setbacks can be adjusted
and we can ask our City Councilors to join us in this goal.
Look at the money. The City takes in 100 million in real estate tax, the city spends one thousandth of that planting trees.
We talk the green City talk, let’s start walking the walk.
Trees and density can coexist, you just act. Plant a $10 tree in the ground, care for it, and step back.
1975 street tree plan
1975 street tree plan

In 1975 the City had a plan to plant a multitude of trees in the commons, in the right of way. In the Woolen Mills 90 trees would line East Market Street from Firefly to the Rivanna. Shade, walkability, habitat, carbon sequestration, oxygen production, stormwater control! Of the 90 trees, one has been planted at 1606 E Market.
Square that lack of follow through with the Standards and Design Manual chapter 9.6.4 which reads

“Trees must be installed along all rights-of-way regardless of location of overhead or underground utilities.”

Ask the City to plant the commons and to support designs that incorporate nature in housing plans.
I am a small scale, affordable housing provider going for 100% canopy.
We can get this done.

In the words of Wangari Muta Maathai:

“We need to promote development that does not destroy our environment.”
“Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You are just talking.”

Changeless change

Chesapeake MIR
Yesterday I listened to a portion of a discussion from 2012 with NDS regarding the future of our neighborhood. Discomfort was expressed. Who knew what the future held? AI, MIR, DZO, Cville Plans Together. We had zero expectation of the rezoning of modest homes.
 "Since the city and consultants first introduced the Future Land Use Map in 2021, right up until the most recent pop-ups held by consultants and NDS on the Draft Zoning Ordinance (DZO), residents have asked for visualizations of what actual Charlottesville streetscapes could look like under the new regulations. Neither the city nor its consultants have obliged. We believe that while visualizations do not function as arguments for or against the DZO, they are an indispensable tool for residents trying to form an opinion on various aspects of the proposal. We have therefore prepared several simulated visualization of specific blocks in Charlottesville -- both to provide the tools that residents asked for and didn't get and to show that there was no difficulty involved in preparing visualizations that could have reasonably prevented a competent consultant or NDS department from providing them. You can find the videos below. We anticipate the we will add more over time. If you have an area for which you'd like to see a visualization, please reach out to us via email. Please bear in mind that the purpose of the videos is to help give viewers a concrete sense of height, massing and coverage. These are not architectural renderings or surveys and are necessarily approximate. We do not suggest that the generic 3D models we used are predictive of the architectural styles developers would use or that the blocks we simulate are more likely than others to be redeveloped."--A Nonymous

petition to dial back proposed zoning

Street Trees

STL
There is a concept in urban street tree gardening called tree stocking. The term refers to tree density. If you plant a tree every thirty feet or so, you end up with continuous limbs and leaves over the street. A canopy street! The trees shade the asphalt, they shade the sidewalk. It is not rocket science. Garrett Street. used to be a canopy street. It was a great place to walk.
You can start a tree in a flowerpot. Put it in the ground with a tube around it. There is a prevailing newspaper wisdom that neighborhoods don’t have trees because of structural racism. Certainly that is 5% true. The City of Charlottesville has demonstrated a pronounced reluctance to plant trees in the public ROW. Why is that? I don’t know.
If you like shade, if you like trees, plant one a year on your street every year for ten years. Plant noble native trees like these Sycamores in Saint Louis. The planting will transform the neighborhood, it will transform your life.

Read Gregory McPherson’s article about urban trees.
In 1975 Charlottesville had a Street Tree Planting plan, never happened.
2014, the trees on Garret started to fall.
Why Trees Matter by Jim Robbins. 2013

Esau Sells His Birthright

LanCoVA BOS
Issue: This issue is a special exception request to the Board of Supervisors for Special Exception by Waller Solar 1, LLC., 1105 Navasota St., Austin, Texas, for Special Exception as required by Article 3-1-36, 4-1-58 and Article 28 of the Lancaster County Zoning Ordinance to permit the establishment of a Utility Scale Solar Facility, 131-megawatts and 1,400 acres and 2,706.8 acres total lease area described as tax map parcel numbers 7-3 8-35A 8-17, 7-36, 7-36A, 14-52, 14-52B, 8-14, 13-164, 8-12, 8-13, 8-2, 8-2A, 3-2B, 8-34, 13-160, 13-162, 13-163, 6-47 and 7-3, located off Field Trial, Nuttsville, Morattico, Courthouse, Beanes, Miskimon, Lara, Giese, Mary Ball, White Chapel and Alfonso Road in Districts 1 and 2.

Genesis 25:29

29 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. 
30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) 
31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” 
32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 
33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 
34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.–ESV

{25:29} And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he [was] faint:
{25:30} And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red [pottage;] for I [am] faint: therefore was his name called Edom.
{25:31} And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
{25:32} And Esau said, Behold, I [am] at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
{25:33} And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
{25:34} Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised [his] birthright.–KJV

negative externalities of green new deal. Paving paradise with solar panels…

there goes the neighborhood

LHS Red Devil cafeteria
slide presenting a fraction of the 1000’s of acres of habitat to be destroyed for solar “farms” on the Northern Neck of Virginia.

“We must recognize the serious nature of the industrial solar farm threat and strongly urge that our local planning commissions and boards of supervisors reject proposals for solar farms in zoning districts that are intended to preserve farmland and forestland​.” Essex County Conservation Alliance

Cville Plans Together

west view Carlton Avenue 2003
March 1 City Council endorsed the affordable housing plan, the lead piece of the three part Cville Plans Together effort. The three easy pieces, the housing plan, a rewritten “Comprehensive” plan and a rewritten zoning ordinance. Who will make the money from this effort? Who will loose?
Carlton Views III under construction
The 4.86 acre H.T.Ferron plant, once zoned for manufacturing, is now zoned for PUD. No one agrees what PUD is. That is what is so wonderful about PUD. You see what you want to see. Possibly we’ll rezone the entire city PUD?