Charlottesville Neighborhood Development Services planner Brian Haluska AICP presents information regarding the purpose and intent of the “Special Use Permit” provision within the zoning code. How are such permits applied for? Who can grant an SUP?
The informational meeting was held at the Woolen Mills Chapel, organized by Cindy Cartwright and Bill Lankford. Attended by 30 citizens…
Mr. Haluska pointed the assembled toward the definition and regulations pertaining to music halls.
Category: neighborhood
transmute? transmogrify?
JABA will break ground on Tuesday, May 8, 2012, from 10 to 11 AM for its affordable senior housing development, Timberlake Place, 1512 East Market Street, in the historic Woolen Mills neighborhood of Charlottesville.
trans·mute–verb (used with object), verb (used without object), trans·mut·ed, trans·mut·ing.
to change from one nature, substance, form, or condition into another; transform.trans·mog·ri·fy–verb (used with object), trans·mog·ri·fied, trans·mog·ri·fy·ing.
to change in appearance or form, especially strangely or grotesquely; transform. —Dictionary.com
Holloway house
The physical accommodation of a community requires more than the addition of a bunch of “roofs.”
A community is about scale and detail, about context, about soil, about lighting, about gardens, about mass and form. It is critical to create a place worth caring about, a place worth loving.
These things are part of the armature, they lend stability. In a living neighborhood our homes are more than storage places for isolated individuals, they are a part of the larger community, they relate a narrative about us and about our predecessors.
(A neighbor was arrested for trespassing, attempting to persuade the real estate developer to preserve the trees.
The Hook, WVIR and the Daily Progress have the story.)
day of rest
Victoria Dunham and I are doing a presentation of the Woolen Mills Village and WM Neighborhood this afternoon. Arg. Some technology involved. HDMI, UDF, MP4, codecs. Crazy modern stuff.
I went for a walk in the brilliant morning light, in the graveyard. I know a lot of people in graveyards. In the memory business. In the learning business. Learning from the lives of others, learning from our own, it is important, joyful and simultaneously very very sad.
Talk is at Cville Coffee, 1500hrs.
Arlington
Thomas Eugene Branham died on February 19
my girlfriend and her dog
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth
unto those things which are before.–Philippians 3:13 KJV
stories
The great grand-daughter and the great-great grand-daughter of the lady who built my house visited last night.
They visit partially for love of place and because they value a tradition where tales are told to succeeding generations of preceding generations.
Who will tell your story?
Who will give a tinker’s dam.
Lola and Ranger
Woolen Mills neighbor Lola Holloway Thomas Knight died this week. Lola was born March 12, 1909, lived most of her life on Woolen Mills Road.
We miss Lola.
Daily Progress has the obit.
Collateral damage
This afternoon the RWSA Board of Directors will continue to address the issue of sanitary sewer overflows (SSO’s) occurring in their transmission system secondary to failed infrastructure (leaky pipes) that are part of the collection system.
Fixing the pipes is the expensive option, 400 million to 2 billion dollars.
Building a new sewage pumping plant is the quick fix for SSO’s and comparatively inexpensive (labor and materials cost 25-37 million dollars).
The concern of central Virginians is the collateral damage, the loss of value to our region. Pumping plant plan pricetags discussed to date do not reflect collateral damage costs, damage to the social, economic and cultural fabric at the foot of Monticello Mountain, impacts to a city park, the primary gateway to the Rivanna River, impacts to a national historic district and impacts to a neighborhood.
The overall cost of the project, to date, has not reflected the cost of locating the pumping station in “the wrong place”.
The cost of building a new 53 million gallon per day pumping plant must include the costs to mitigate its calamitous side effects, costs not reflected in the “materials and labor” estimate.
Meetings (laughing)
The existing Rivanna Pump Station is in close proximity to houses in the Woolen Mills.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone. For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own.–E. W. Wilcox
There are different types of laughter: etiquette laughter; nervous laughter; silent laughter; belly laughter; cruel laughter. Are any of these appropriate in a public meeting?
Political bodies have different “laughter cultures”. Locally, I don’t hear the Board of Supervisors or the City Council laughing but the Charlottesville Planning Commission likes to laugh. The local kings of laughter are the members of the Albemarle County Service Authority.
A bit of levity can lift the mood in a long meeting. Everyone loves a laugh. But laughter at the public’s expense, laughter where the citizens are the butt of the joke, this would seem to be inappropriate emanating from public servants. Audio clips are posted below, please listen for yourself and listen for the laughs. Is it proper?
Buy & Relocate
Convenience & View
Trailer-Mounted Pump Station
Sound bites are misleading. Every interview subject fears sound bites, with good reason. Statements are abstracted from context and standing alone, take on an entirely different meaning.
The bites here can be heard in context on Charlotteville Tomorrow’s website.
Mini-Rotunda is about 12:20 in to the 3/17/2011 ACSA meeting.
Buy & Relocate is approximately 52 minutes into the 5/19/2011 meeting
Convenience & View is 16:20 in to the May Meeting
Trailer-Mounted Pump Station is approximately 58 minutes in to the May meeting
Because of the limited utility of sound-bites to convey the essence of a meeting, I heartily endorse our local C-Span, Charlotteville Tomorrow. Charlottesville Tomorrow provides gavel to gavel audio coverage of important local meetings. I urge you to support this critical community service. I encourage you to be involved with local boards, commissions and legislative bodies. Serve on them, attend the meetings. Our collective quality of life rests on the shoulders of an engaged public.
(All audio presented here was recorded by Charlottesville Tomorrow)