Early on in a March 6 work session, Albemarle Planning Commissioner Eric Strucko was stuck on an issue put forward by a planning staff report on a proposed 476,335-square-foot shopping center sandwiched in between Fifth Street and Avon Street: Should a critical slopes waiver be processed as part of this rezoning?
The big-box retail project on the southern side of Charlottesville is scheduled to include a home improvement store, a discount department store, a grocery store and several smaller shops and restaurants. Developers, rumored to include Coran Capshaw and Hunter Craig, brought the plans forward last year, only to have it deferred in October. They argue that the retail space would give southern Albemarle residents an alternative to heading up Route 29N.
 County staff wondered whether this proposed connector road between Fifth and Avon streets would cause too much damage to Moore’s Creek, but the Planning Commission opted at a work session to keep the road where it is. |
A planned road connecting Fifth Street and Avon Street Extended snakes through the property by winding alongside historic Moore’s Creek. Initially, Strucko seemed taken aback by the road’s predicted encroachment on a waterway already in need of improvements regardless of any development.
In addition to road construction, the mammoth shopping center will sit uphill from the creek. The staff report made clear that revised plans show areas of tree preservation—approximately 20 percent—that would in fact be impossible to preserve. As those trees act as stream buffers, Moore’s Creek is also threatened by all the mud and refuse that would necessarily drift downhill and into its veins.
Addressing Strucko’s concerns, Chair Marcia Joseph put the Commission’s conundrum in a nutshell: “Are there some things that you would like to see that would help mitigate the effect of this? Whether they don’t disturb beyond a certain area or if they have to disturb, maybe they have to put in some retaining walls or maybe re-vegetate,” she suggested, before offering a dose of reality.
“We did approve a road pretty much in this location,” she pointed out. “We did know that it was going near a stream that we know needs help. Is there any way that we can get some help for the stream so that we can re-establish it…so that the county gains by allowing this intrusion here?”
Strucko would not budge. “Why doesn’t the road go right through the middle of the shopping center?” he asked. Attorney Steven Blaine, representing the developers, explained that that approach had already been considered in an earlier plan and that the Commission had in fact rejected that option. Strucko was in a pickle and he knew it was time to move on. Waiver unnecessary.
For more information about upcoming Albemarle Planning Commission meetings, go to:
www.albemarle.org
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