Category: Charlottesville

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Market Street Park aerial
This is the park that launched a thousand ships, Market Street Park. Formerly Emancipation Park, formerly Lee Park, formerly…
These days the park is home to a number of people who can’t afford the highly inflated rents and real estate prices in Charlottesville.
There is an open house at the park today (Saturday October 21)

more cowbell

through a mirror darkly
I ran into Steve Ashby. Steve made the mistake of telling me he enjoyed looking at the antiquated photography stuff on this site. He said it like an English major would say it (didn’t use word “stuff”). I was flattered… Mercy, what words do I want to hear “can I give you a thousand dollars? Do you want another drink?”
Yes! three times three
more cowbell

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

Arbor Day

catalpa McIntire Park
The Spanish village of Mondoñedo held the first documented arbor plantation festival in the world organized by its mayor in 1594. The place remains as Alameda de los Remedios and it is still planted with lime and horse-chestnut trees. A humble granite marker and a bronze plate recall the event. Additionally, the small Spanish village of Villanueva de la Sierra held the first modern Arbor Day, an initiative launched in 1805 by the local priest with the enthusiastic support of the entire population.–Wikipedia
stormwater
Every year for at least the last ten Charlottesville Parks and Rec staff, city leaders, Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards, Druids and others celebrate Arbor Day, often designating a Landmark Tree. Today the event was rained out (3 inches of precip before midday). Above, Parks and Rec staff clears out a stormwater drain in McIntire Park downhill from the catalpa.
branch of the Catalpa
I didn’t get the memo that the event had been rescheduled. Missed the people but the Catalpa was there.
tree dog man
Matilda and I took a self portrait with the Catalpa. Charlottesville is recognized as a “Tree City” by the Arbor Day Foundation. We are a tree city with a declining percentage of tree canopy. There is work to be done.

Arbor Day 2013
Arbor Day 2012
Arbor Day 2011

natural black and white

Pantops view
Usually I desaturate photographs, I take the color out. It is an extra step that has been introduced to the b&w workflow since the days of shooting only black and white film.
Monticello hotel
On occasion there are natural conditions where the quality of the light available seems to strip most color from the scene. As a person in pursuit of b&w photos I love it when the natural b&w occurs.
This is the view from the Martha Jefferson Hospital parking lot. In the distance, the silhouette of the Monticello Hotel, in the far distance, the Blue Ridge Mountains.