A nine-storey building planned for 201 Avon St. finally was conditionally approved at the Board of Architectural Review (BAR) meeting on December 19 by the slender margin of one vote. A 4-3 decision, it came down to whether enough board members could stomach having such a massive building at the site, which shares a block […]
For 11 years, Gary O’Connell has been the man behind the curtain for the City of Charlottesville: While City councilors come and go, the City manager spans regimes. Though by some measure the puppet of the Council, required to do their bidding based on the priorities they set, he can turn the table—setting the agenda […]
What does “mixed use” mean, anyway? The definition of that term, so often invoked in planning discussions, lies at the root of a civil suit percolating in the Charlottesville Circuit Court between the City and developers in the Fifeville neighborhood. Estes Street Partners LLC, led by Richard G. Carter, has filed suit, asking the court […]
“The relatively pristine, wooded character of the County’s high elevations—the blue backdrop of the mountains—defines much of the character of Albemarle County and has served as an inspiration and cultural landmark for residents since colonial times.” So we need to protect it with more zoning—and government incentives. That’s the thrust of a proposal for a […]
This month, the Board of Supervisors in Northern Virginia’s Prince William County—fed up by lagging infrastructure to accommodate its dramatic growth—voted unanimously for a de facto moratorium on approving new residential development. They won’t consider any new rezoning requests for all of 2007.
This term’s undergraduates have fled campus, and their exams are now but painful memories and piles upon professors’ desks. Yet what will happen if, in slogging through that stack, a faculty member or teaching assistant comes across what appears to be cheating? They might discuss it with a colleague, or perhaps even with the student […]
Giant bureaucracies aren’t known for responding to the complaints of the little guys. But enough locals applied pressure, and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) (www.virginiadot.org) yielded to concerns expressed by hundreds of residents in northwestern Albemarle County: The Free Union VDOT facility will remain open. Responsible for day-to-day maintenance like snow plow-ing and pothole […]
David Slutzky pins the conception of a local transferable development rights (TDR) plan to an April lunch at Lord Hardwicke’s. Phasing, the primary effort to preserve the rural areas of Albemarle County then on the table, was clearly dying on the vine. So he turned first to a group with “a dog in the fight” […]
Virginia’s longstanding man in the U.S. Senate, John Warner, had some major media coverage last week. As critic of “stay-the-course” and the outgoing chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Warner got a turn in the spotlight when the Hamilton-Baker Iraq Study Group report was released to his committee. Because he marshaled support for Rumsfeld […]
UVA Athletics Director Craig Littlepage last week faced a decision with a large potential impact on athletic finances: whether to extend the contract for Head Football Coach Al Groh an extra year, through 2011. His decision not to (“The expectations for our program are higher than a 5-7 season,” said Littlepage in an e-mail) could […]