Construction continues on dozens of new Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority units at Sixth Street SE.
The website for the Cville Plans Together initiative has not been updated since Charlottesville City Council adopted a new zoning code in December 2023, but several events this week show continued progress toward implementing a vision that stems from what had been a stalled process.
In February 2019, City Council agreed to jumpstart an update of the Comprehensive Plan, which got bogged down when some members of the Planning Commission said not enough was being done to increase density in the city’s residential zoning district.
“As we build a strategy to achieve a local housing landscape that is healthy, ample, high quality, and affordable, we must be equally deliberate in dismantling the dynamics and the structures that perpetuate continued inequity,” reads a request for proposals for a firm to produce an affordable housing policy, an updated comp plan, and a new zoning code to make it all work.
The city hired the firm Rhodeside & Harwell to lead the work, and all of the community engagement during the first year was conducted over Zoom due to the pandemic. In addition to adopting the new zoning code in 2023, Council approved the housing plan in March 2021 and a new Comprehensive Plan in November 2021.
On September 8, Council learned at a work session that $65.8 million has been spent so far on housing projects, putting the city way ahead of a housing plan goal to spend $10 million annually over a 10-year period. That includes $52.3 million in direct housing investment that has gone to groups like the Piedmont Housing Alliance and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority to build or renovate affordable places to live.
The Comprehensive Plan survived a legal challenge from plaintiffs and has been amended a few times to respond to some of the claims and to add both the Climate Action Plan and the latest update of the Parks & Recreation Master Plan.
On September 9, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on another amendment to the Comprehensive Plan that would update the Community Facilities and Services chapter with the latest details on where public utilities like water and sewer lines will be located.
One future project is being added: “a strategy for the future Schenks Branch Sewer Interceptor Upgrade Project.” While one phase has been completed, a second phase has been stalled due to a disagreement between Albemarle and Charlottesville about the exact route it will take.
Virginia law requires a full review of the Comprehensive Plan every five years, but there’s no indication on when that work might begin. Staff in Charlottesville’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services is conducting an ongoing review of the zoning code, but so far only minor changes have been updated.
A coalition of groups has come together to ask Council to take a more aggressive reform of the Development Code to address concerns that the existing rules make it too easy to build density in Fifeville, Rose Hill, and 10th and Page. So far Council has declined to direct staff to do so.
