All had seemed to be floating along just fine with the downtown Crozet rezoning, when suddenly some staff changes caught several active residents off guard.
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Crozet dreams of improved downtown |
"I’m really upset about the process that I see here," said Sandy Wilcox, a member of the Downtown Crozet Association at the November 27 Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting. "None of this was discussed. I think that it’s creative writing."
The frustration expressed by Wilcox and other Crozet residents in large part stemmed from county staff’s recommended boundary for the downtown area. Consultant firm Community Planning & Design, led by UVA professor Ken Schwartz, had suggested four different downtown zones in order to transition from a business core to the residential outskirts. The Downtown Crozet Association [pdf], backed by the Crozet Community Advisory Council (CCAC), suggested a slightly smaller area with a uniform zoning code. But then staff recommended a much smaller area that excluded a large lumberyard in the center of town as well as parcels on the western side of Carter Street.
Why the exclusions? To get proffer money to pay for infrastructure costs when (and if) those excluded landowners opt to redevelop. Staff wasn’t especially direct in laying that out, but Mike Marshall, CCAC chairman and publisher of the Crozet Gazette, certainly was.
"This is now the 26th meeting I’ve attended on downtown zoning, and this is the first time that I’ve heard there’s a conflict about including the lumberyard in the downtown," Marshall said. "This is really about generating future income for the county."
Up to this point, the process of a massive downtown rezoning has gone relatively well, despite (or perhaps as a result of) the controversy created by the Crozet Master Plan. That document projected a maximum Crozet population of 12,000, but in fact allowed a maximum build-out for a population closer to 24,000, ruffling the feathers of a number of Crozetians. Marshall seemed to reference that brouhaha during his comments, noting the latest communication breakdown "was consistent with the Crozet experience."
But the Planning Commission did much to smooth things over, recommending the Crozet Downtown Association’s boundary. It took a little longer to come to a conclusion about a requirement for mixed-use—Commissioner Bill Edgerton in particular was reluctant to let go of a requirement ubiquitous across the rest of the county—but ultimately the Commission backed residents’ requests to do away with the demand.
Marshall is likely to tally 30-plus meetings before downtown Crozet has new zoning. The rezoning still has several work sessions and public hearings before the Board of Supervisors will take a vote.
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