Sean Tubbs

The tension between Charlottesville’s permissive new zoning code and public housing advocates continued to be on display when the Board of Architectural Review took a preliminary look at a revised proposal for another student housing building on West Main Street during its May 19 meeting.  “Ultimately something’s going to get built here,” said BAR Chairman […]

Charlottesville’s Rose Hill neighborhood is the second-least-populous neighborhood in the city, according to a fact sheet produced by Neighborhood Development Services, but that might change if a proposed apartment building at 601 Albemarle St. makes it through the city’s review process.  Woodard Properties filed a development plan with the city to build a seven-story apartment […]

In the latest test of Charlottesville’s new zoning code, City Council voted 3-2 on May 4 to allow developers of a private seven-story student housing project to make minor changes to two historic buildings on Seventh Street SW.  “We need more housing,” said Mayor Juandiego Wade during the Council meeting. “This project is the best […]

When Albemarle County supervisors adopted a new Comprehensive Plan last October, they retained a growth management policy intended to limit development in crucial areas.  “The Natural Resources chapter of AC44 places importance on water resource protection, especially the public water supply system,” said county planner Jered Tate at an April 28 public hearing on a […]

There is a trend of late in Albemarle County for developers to return to the Community Development Department to amend previous rezonings and request that commercial space be swapped out for more residential units.  For instance, in April the Board of Supervisors approved a request from Great Eastern Management Company to add more than 700 […]

The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia projects that more than 137,000 people will call Albemarle County home by 2040, or about 18,000 more than their estimate for July 2026.  “Now is the time for managing that growth through activity center plans and multimodal transportation plans,” said Tonya Swartzendruber, a […]

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors opted not to proceed with a 15 cent increase on the personal property tax rate on April 15, but it did come up with an additional $2 million for the county’s nascent affordable housing investment fund.  “What government does is it steps in and it identifies places where there […]