Sean Tubbs

This week, Charlottesville is expected to release the second of three sections of a new zoning code that is intended to increase residential density across the entire city and make it easier for developers to build with fewer government hurdles.    The first section established the basic rules for what can be built where. At […]

As the third month of the third year of the third decade gets underway, Charlottesville is poised for a new future. All over the city, landowners will have more space to build under the adopted Comprehensive Plan and the new zoning rules that are being written this spring.   Some of the places where more […]

Many of the development firms that build new spaces to live in the Charlottesville area are homegrown with a close-up view of this dynamic market. Names like Southern Development, Riverbend Development, Stony Point Development Group, and Great Eastern Management Company come up a lot when new projects become public.   But in the last several […]

A look through real estate sales in Charlottesville for the first month of the year shows a market with signs of a cooler 2023, while also revealing hints that there is money to be made in the future. Sales volumes are down from January 2022, while inventories are beginning to increase.   “January saw fewer transactions […]

The draft zoning map for Charlottesville points the way to a dense future for the city, all in the name of providing affordable housing. But the existing zoning still provides opportunities for additional residential density for those who can pay for it. Sometimes that means removing houses.   For example, a house built in 1893 […]

Twenty years ago, Charlottesville City Council upzoned West Main Street to clear the way for taller buildings that would allow for more people to live close to the Downtown Mall and the University of Virginia.  That vision began to be realized 10 years later with the construction of the Flats at West Village, a development […]

For the second year in a row, the average real estate assessment has increased by double digits.  Residential parcels increased by an average of 11.52 percent, based on 15,148 taxable properties. Commercial properties went up an average of 12.16 percent, and that includes apartment complexes, retail, and office space. When you throw in new construction, […]

Charlottesville is completely surrounded by Albemarle County, which means there are bound to be several areas where land-use decisions made in one place affect the other—or vice versa.  One of the places in the new Future Land Use Map where this comes into play is the conversion of around three dozen parcels in the city’s […]

There’s a long way to go until the end of 2023, but key metrics are coming in on how the real estate market fared in the last 12 months. But what impact will this new information have on transactions between now and December?   “Assessed values are a number that people look at, and while […]