City Councilor Michael Payne cast a protest vote, urging further reforms to the city’s zoning code.
When Charlottesville City Council adopted a new zoning code in December 2023, the intent was to streamline the development process to make it easier for new construction to get built.
“As expected with any framework, we identified areas that need a refinement and over the past year, staff and the Planning Commission has worked to address these issues through a tiered approach,” said Matt Alfele, the city’s development planning manager.
The first set of changes are minor in nature and went before Council on February 17. These were highly technical changes and nothing jumped out to City Councilor Lloyd Snook.
“That’s the sort of thing that I’ve always relied on the Planning Commission to get right,” Snook said. “They spend more time with the details than the Council does.”
The Legal Aid Justice Center helped push for the new zoning code as part of the overall Cville Plans Together initiative, which also created a new housing policy and a Comprehensive Plan that encouraged more residential density across the entire city. Development is only restricted on sections of Cherry and Preston avenues.
However, organizer Emily Dreyfus said the changes before Council were not relevant to most people and called on Council to immediately amend the zoning to extend “core neighborhood” protections to prevent buildings higher than five stories adjacent to neighborhoods like 10th and Page.
“We don’t need studies or lengthy engagement processes because we did that from 2019 to 2023,” Dreyfus said. “Core neighborhood residents should not have massive new developments overshadowing and isolating them and eroding their communities.”
Dreyfus was joined by several others who expressed disappointment that projects such as an 11-story building at 843 W. Main St. and a seven-story building in Fifeville continue to move forward with no work underway to reduce property rights created by the new zoning.
“Why is the planning department not engaging a little bit more with the community that these changes that you’re making are going to affect us?” asked Joy Johnson, a long-time Westhaven resident and chair of the Public Housing Association of Residents.
City Councilor Michael Payne claimed he had nothing against the minor changes being made, but said he would cast a protest vote to encourage at least two of his colleagues to direct staff to study further reform.
“City Council has to adjust and acknowledge we made a mistake,” Payne said.
The old code required a special use permit for additional height on West Main Street but the new zoning dropped that step. Snook said he wanted to keep the permit in place during deliberations but did not have enough support.
“Because we’ve got a couple new members of Council now that we didn’t have at that time, maybe there would be a change in the numbers, that would be fine,” Snook said.
Council is next scheduled to check in on the zoning code at an April 20 work session.
As for the two developments, Neighborhood Development Services staff denied a site plan last August for LV Collective’s proposed building on West Main Street and a new version has not yet been submitted. In December, the Board of Architectural Review denied a necessary approval for the proposed Mark building on Seventh Street SW in Fifeville. Developer LCD Acquisitions has appealed to Council.
