The median home price in Albemarle County this May was $554,000 and the median rent is around $2,200. Either is out of reach of many in the community—especially those on government salaries. “Police officers start at $60,798, firefighters at $59,825,” said Kaki Dimock, Albemarle’s chief of human services, at a June 17 Board of Supervisors […]
One of the tasks awaiting Charlottesville’s next director of Neighborhood Development Services is how to respond to ongoing calls to amend the city’s 2023 zoning code to hinder the construction of tall buildings in some areas. “There are a lot of unintended consequences because of some of the decisions that were made in the ordinance,” […]
When Katharine DeGeorge and Jeremy Kent bought a house on 7.86 acres in May 2022, previous owner David A. Powell signed an affidavit stating he knew of no violations of county ordinance nor any issues related to securing permission to build on the property. That turned out not to be true, and the couple is […]
For the second time in a few weeks, Woodard Properties has filed a development plan with the City of Charlottesville for a building in what the new zoning code refers to as a Core Neighborhood Overlay District. According to the Development Code, the district is intended “to implement the Comprehensive Plan goals of encouraging construction […]
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 […]
In a community with as much wealth as Albemarle, providing new housing units at an affordable price can be challenging. Nonprofit developers use many tools to subsidize costs, such as selling tax credits for money that can be used for construction. In February 2024, Albemarle County supervisors created an Affordable Rental Housing Incentive Program to […]
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 […]