There are many ways to make it more affordable for an individual or family to own a home. One of them is to separate the cost of land from the cost of the structure itself. That’s the business model of the Piedmont Community Land Trust, an entity created in 2008 by the Thomas Jefferson Planning […]
There are many ways to make it more affordable for an individual or family to own a home. One of them is to separate the cost of land from the cost of the structure itself. That’s the business model of the Piedmont Community Land Trust, an entity created in 2008 by the Thomas Jefferson Planning […]
The arrival of spring brings the end of the season for PACEM, a network of churches that provides overnight shelter for hundreds of unhoused individuals in the Charlottesville area each year. Since 2004, the group, officially known as People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry, has since 2004 operated cold-weather shelters across a rotating set of […]
In the past year and a half, at least three different Charlottesville congregations have purchased former churches for a permanent place of worship. Now, there is another example. In January, one non-denominational Christian group purchased a home and a large property on Dairy Road for its growing flock. The Church in Charlottesville paid $990,000 for […]
Virginia Housing, a state agency, has published a list of applications from developers seeking tax credits to cover the cost of building apartments guaranteed to be rented to people with lower incomes than the area median. The Internal Revenue Service allots a limited number of federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits for each state, and Virginia […]
A plan to build a 50-unit mobile home park on a portion of 50 acres in southern Albemarle County is dead after the Board of Supervisors deadlocked 3-3 on rezoning. They did so after a three-hour discussion and a public hearing during which housing advocates urged the county to move past decades of rural area […]
Albemarle County has several rules intended to limit commercial development in the vast majority of its 726 square miles, including large stretches of highway. For instance, you can’t have a country store that’s more than 4,000 square feet in total size. In 2024, the owners of Greenwood Grocery on Rockfish Gap Turnpike learned that the […]
One purpose of urban planning is to determine appropriate places for people to live, but in many localities, elected officials have the final say. For instance, the Town of Scottsville Comprehensive Plan calls for around 1,000 people to reside in that community by 2040. “Growth of small towns more often occurs in periodic jumps, with […]
Unlike in some communities, there is no one entity responsible for building and maintaining trails in the Charlottesville area. The Rivanna Trails Foundation has a mission to “promote, create, and protect pathways, trails, and greenways in the Rivanna River Watershed that connect communities and people to one another and nature,” but it is a volunteer […]
The University of Virginia is moving ahead with an initiative to house more students on Grounds, and one component has shifted slightly this month. A subcommittee of the Board of Visitors is scheduled to hold a special meeting February 19 to approve the schematic design for a $160 million project to build hundreds of bedrooms […]
Almost a year has passed since Charlottesville’s new zoning code went into effect and staff in the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services continue to process applications despite a pending lawsuit. At least 107 different types of plans have been filed since February 19, 2024, when the new system was put in place. This includes […]