Many Crozetians like to have their world apart from Charlottesville. They have their own monthly newspaper, their own July 4 fireworks display and their own pizza. At their town-hall style meeting May 10, residents at the Crozet Community Association said they wanted their own recycling center—“not like the one in Charlottesville.”
The Community Planning and Design consulting team, which is working with the county to help implement the Crozet Master Plan, recognized Crozet’s distinct flavor as they led a brainstorming session to gather input from Crozet residents about what they want to see in a revitalized downtown. “Maybe there do need to be issues that are unique to Crozet that are not one and the same with the way zoning plays out elsewhere in Albemarle County,” said Kenneth Schwartz, lead consultant (and UVA professor).
The 80-plus locals in attendance had an air of tolerant skepticism toward the event—curious enough to show up, but uncertain whether the talk was just pie in the sky. Perhaps Crozetians have a right to be skeptical: Schwartz also led the team that produced the much maligned Crozet Master Plan in 2004, a document criticized for having a build-out possibility of 24,000 people. That was very much on the mind of Tom Loach, a Crozet resident who addressed the crowd about his bid for the Board of Supervisors, promising to keep the population figures as close to 12,000 as possible: “Too many people think the master plan is over—I don’t.”
The night’s discussion showed that the master plan was not over—the point of the exercise was to make the master plan’s designs for Crozet’s downtown come to life. The story presented by Schwartz and his team was the typical one argued by New Urbanists: that one-size-meets-all county zoning, favoring suburban-sprawl-style segregation of residential and commercial and retail, conspired to undercut mixed-use centers like downtown Crozet.
Tentatively asking questions at first, the crowd warmed up to the idea of letting the consultants know what is on their minds. Ideas for downtown included a more pedestrian-friendly streetscape, more common spaces, and zoning that encourages business.
Some sample comments: “I’ve never understood why 240 is an entrance corridor to Charlottesville. …If anything it’s an entrance corridor to Crozet.”
“I just hope someone brings up the traffic lights, because last time I heard we were going to have four of them.”
“Crozet should have our own architectural review board.”
The consultants will now cook up some options for how to achieve this vision of a pedestrian-friendly, business-friendly, traffic-friendly downtown Crozet—whether by imposing a historic overlay district or outright alterations of the zoning or some other method known in the worlds of planners and land-use academics. They will present these options to Crozet on May 24.
“It may not change for 20 years, it’s hard to say,” said Schwartz. “But the zoning describes the expectations over time.”
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