The Meadowcreek Parkway (MCP) is one step closer to becoming a reality. With a 3-2 vote on December 7, City Council approved a resolution to move forward with the design of the 250 Interchange between the 250 Bypass and McIntire Road, part of MCP.
Mayor Dave Norris, who with Councilor Holly Edwards voted against the resolution, said that while he was not in favor of the project, he appreciated the efforts of Councilor David Brown to make the interchange as safe as possible.
The approved design—G1 Alternative—is a signalized diamond with the smallest ramp configuration possible. The current design, however, has been modified to answer concerns and questions City Council voiced in meetings leading up to the vote. Some city residents’ concerns center on the environmental impact the project will have on both McIntire Park and its surrounding areas.
City resident Patricia Napoleon told Council that she was concerned about a project “lacking in taste and detrimental to the environment, historical resources and quality of life…Moving forward tonight with the information at hand, would be foolish, reckless and irresponsible,” said Napoleon.
Yet, not all residents commented on the negative impacts of the project.
James Shisler, a life-long resident, called the interchange, as well as MCP, necessary to fight traffic. The county portion of MCP, called Meadowcreek Parkway, and McIntire Road Extended, were “a necessity when it was conceived in the 1960s, it was a necessity when Charlottesville High School was built, it’s a necessity today and it’s a necessity for Charlottesville’s future,” he said.
Jim Tolbert, director of Neighborhood Development Services, told councilors that in a meeting on November 24, city staff discussed the arrangement of trails along the proposed project.
Ultimately, the interchange will have a multi-use trail on both sides of the road, which, he said, honors the neighborhoods’ desires.
As requested by councilors when the design of the interchange was last discussed, the pedestrian bridge was considered, but not added. In a memo, Tolbert writes that the location of the bridge—crossing McIntire Road Extended after the 250 Bypass—was questionable: “Until the park is master planned, it is not possible to determine the appropriate location for the bridge, therefore its location and need should be determined at a later date.” Furthermore, according to a study, the added travel distance for pedestrians to walk across the bridge would discourage many residents from using said bridge.
In the end, said Tolbert, a pedestrian bridge is “not warranted at this time” and is not “a wise investment.”
McIntire Road Extended, however, was advertised for construction bids on December 8. All bids are due January 27.
Money allocated for SRO land purchase
With a unanimous vote, City Council also approved the allocation of $1.6 million for the purchase of land for a Single Room Occupancy facility (SRO) on the corner of Fourth Street and Preston Avenue, the former site of Region Ten. Of the sum—$1.55 million for the land and $50,000 for due diligence—$1.07 million from the Charlottesville Housing Fund has already been appropriated. An additional $330,000 will be taken from various Capital Improvement Project (CIP) accounts and the remaining $200,000 will be taken out of the Council Capital Project Priority Initiative, which Council loaded earlier with $1 million. According to Tolbert, one of the possibilities is that the city would buy the land and in turn lease the property to Virginia Supportive Housing (VSH), a Richmond based nonprofit, after a plan for an SRO facility is ready.
In the event that the SRO facility won’t materialize, the property, which will still be owned by the city, could be sold or utilized for different projects.
Ray Masters, president of the Starr Hill Neighborhood Association, told C-VILLE that Council’s vote is “outrageous,” adding that it does not represent the needs and desires of the citizens of Charlottesville. “This Council won’t be in office forever,” he says.
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