There are complex systems in which decisions are made that affect your life and many of them are elusive and opaque. Intentional or a reflection of an erosion of local journalism over the past several decades? I’ll leave that to the academics as I just want to do what I perceive as my job shining light.
Charlottesville Community Engagement seeks to illuminate the choices facing decision-makers in an interlocking mosaic that does not offer an easy legend. In a world of easy explanations and 30-second political advertisements, this newsletter invites you to look at the details of a bigger canvas.
Within these paragraphs are many links to primary sources which I hope some of you will take the time to explore if you want to know more. I have found in my life that when I know more information about something I don’t understand, taking the time to learn what I can reduces anxiety and helps me think.
Maybe it will catch on!
If you’d like to support the work, a charitable contribution will help the batteries stocked in the flashlights.
In this edition:
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The Albemarle Places29-Hydraulic Community Advisory Committee on Monday will hear about a rezoning request for 15 units on an acre on Hydraulic Road.
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Charlottesville’s Planning Commission will weigh in Tuesday on a special exception request needed for three duplexes and will have a public hearing on around half a million in federal funding for affordable housing and other uses.
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Albemarle County Supervisors will learn Wednesday how staff wants to implement the new Comprehensive Plan and will hold the final public hearings on the FY2027 budget.
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Nelson County Supervisors will have four public hearings on Tuesday including a special use request for The Monroe Institute to have a conference center in the rural area. Nelson Supervisors meet again on Thursday for a public hearing on proposed tax rates.
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Albemarle County will have a second community meeting Thursday for a proposed pocket park on Hillsdale Drive.
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The Charlottesville Board of Zoning Appeals will discuss a student housing project in Fifeville on Thursday a few weeks after a deadlocked motion upheld a key zoning determination.
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There are no meetings in Louisa County this week.
Thanks as always to the Piedmont Environmental Council for their continued sponsorship of this newsletter!
Albemarle County’s growth management policy calls for new development to be located within designated areas, areas that are under the jurisdiction of master plans.
Each master plan calls for an advisory panel to help with implementation of visions for the growth area.
“Planning efforts channel growth into these Development Areas in order to facilitate economical service delivery and to promote neighborhood-style development as the preferred design,” reads the introduction to the Places29 Master Plan which was adopted on February 2, 2011 as I reported at the time for Charlottesville Tomorrow.
The plan originally called for one big Places29 Community Advisory Council but this was disbanded at the end of 2014 as I reported at the time for Charlottesville Tomorrow. In 2015, the county created three new committees including one for the southern portion of the sprawling Places29-Area.
The Places29-Hydraulic Community Advisory Committee meets at 5:30 p.m. at the Media Center at Greer Elementary School. (meeting info)
There are two main items on the agenda. The first is a community meeting for a rezoning that seeks to build 15 townhome units on a one-acre lot at 2636 Hydraulic Road. The land is currently zoned Residential-2 and the proposal is to increase that Residential-15.
“The surrounding area comprises mostly larger, denser multifamily developments, including the Arbor Crest, Turtle Creek, and Westgate apartment complexes,” reads the narrative crafted by Shimp Engineering. “There is also a mixture of single family detached homes and commercial uses along this stretch of Hydraulic Road, including the Harrison Dental Associates immediately next to the Property, Central Virginia Endodontics across Hydraulic Road, and the Shops at Stonefield approximately a quarter-mile from the Property.”
Next up, CAC member Vito Cetta will give a developer’s perspective on the county land use process. Cetta’s firm Weather Hill Homes has built Out of Bounds, Spring Hill Village, Wickham Pond and more.
The appointed body that advises Charlottesville city staff on parks and recreation issues has decided to move their meetings from Thursdays to Mondays.
“The board recently changed meeting day/time to avoid conflicts with School Board meetings on Thursday evenings,” said deputy director Katie Lockhart in response to a question about the meeting on a different day.
The meeting will be held in CitySpace but is not televised or recorded.
There are two presentations. One is on a consultation.
“University of Virginia planning students will present their comprehensive access study for Riverview Park, including recommendations and findings from their class project,” reads the agenda.
Second will be a “revisited discussion of trails initiatives to allow adequate Board time for questions, feedback, and determination of follow-up actions.”
Next there will be further discussion of the formation of a Garden Plots subcommittee. The Parks and Recreation Department had a survey about the plots earlier this year but the results are not on the plots website.
There will also be a discussion of the Tonsler Park Outdoor Fitness Area for which a community survey is currently underway. Where should the area be located? Tell the city and the National Fitness Campaign at this link.
In one other meeting:
The Nelson County Board of Supervisors will meet at 2 p.m. in the General District Courtroom at the Courthouse in Lovingston. (meeting packet)
There is an awful lot on this agenda and I lament I will likely not be able to follow up on any of them. I focus my in-week resources on Albemarle and Charlottesville, but Nelson County fascinates me and I would like to see several of the items below fleshed out into stories to explain to the public what is happening.
There are quite a few proclamations on the consent agenda:
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This is Public Safety Telecommunications Week (learn more)
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This is also Animal Care and Control Appreciation Week (learn more)
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April is Fair Housing Month (learn more)
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April is Child Abuse Prevention Month (learn more)
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April is Month of the Military Child (learn more)
There are two presentations from the Virginia Department of Transportation with the first a regular update and the second on the Secondary Six Year Plan. That’s the funding mechanism for paving of rural roads. There will be a public hearing on May 12 about the details of the plan. (learn more)
Under new and unfinished business there will be a vote to authorize a public hearing for the FY27 budget for May 12. Learn more in the resolution. The public hearing on the tax rate is scheduled for April 16.
There is also a proposal from the Sheriff’s Office for a position to do in-house vehicle outfitting.
“With this position, a county employee would be able to install and maintain all aftermarket equipment on law enforcement and emergency vehicles,” reads a March 26 letter from Sheriff Mark Embry. “This equipment includes, but is not limited to, emergency warning lights, sirens, communications radios, prisoner transport cages, mobile data terminals, push bumpers, weapons locking systems, etc.”
There are several reports including correspondence related to the settlement of a lawsuit involving the Region 2000 Service Authority. The details are public and I’m curious if the document in the packet is supposed to be there.
There are four public hearings in the evening session which begins at 7 p.m.
The first is for a special use permit for a new conference center at The Monroe Institute on land zoned A-1. Weddings would not be permitted. (learn more)
“For over 45 years, the Monroe Institute has occupied multiple parcels in Nelson County, establishing itself as a cornerstone of the community,” reads the narrative from Shimp Engineering. “Founded in 1971 by Robert A. Monroe, the Monroe Institute is ‘a leading center for exploring and experiencing expanded states of consciousness.’”
The Monroe Institute wants to construct a building that would include a cafeteria, meeting rooms, a studio, a gift shop, and storage space.
The second is a rezoning for an existing storage use facility at 2731 Arrington Road. (learn more)
The third is for a special use permit for a restaurant at the Rockfish Valley Volunteer Fire Department in Afton at 11100 Rockfish Valley Lane. (learn more)
“The applicants are proposing to establish a community-based mobile coffee business on the property, Turk Mountain Coffee Company, to serve residents and commuters,” reads the staff report.
The fourth is for a special use permit for a campground on Morse Lane in Arrington. (learn more)
The five members of the Greene County Board of Supervisors will convene at 5:30 p.m. in the county meeting and will initially go into closed session before an open meeting at 6:30 p.m. (meeting agenda)
There will be a public hearing to amend the sections of county code that govern water and sewer. According to a redline version of the ordinance, the primary goal is to increase rates. However, the returned payment fee has been lowered from $50 to $35.
Then there will be a workshop with the Planning Commission to discuss priorities. There’s a memo to go through if you’re interested.
Only two members of the Albemarle County Planning Commission showed up for the March 24 meeting. With no quorum, one of the agenda items has been carried over to a meeting that will begin tonight at 6 p.m. in Lane Auditorium in the county’s office building at 401 McIntire Road. (meeting info)
The other item will be deferred indefinitely. This would have been on amendments to the county’s regulation on the importing of fill dirt to properties. Albemarle Supervisors approved those regulations in 2020.
“The revised regulations directly address truck traffic, duration of fill activity, and attempt to facilitate fill operations that directly support agriculture,” reads a staff report for the March 24 meeting. “The revised regulations have been reformatted to make interpretation and enforcement easier.”
For some background, take a look at a story I wrote last September when the Board of Supervisors got an update.
A reason for the deferral is not listed in the agenda.
The remaining item is a special use permit for Crozet Fellowship Church to have up to 400 people attend religious assemblies. The location is within one of the quadrants of the Intersection of Interstate 64 and U.S. 250. The church is within a country store built in the 70’s. (item packet)
“Membership has steadily grown since Crozet Fellowship Church purchased the properties in 2023,” reads the staff report. “The proposed improvements include a new one-story sanctuary building (not to exceed 10,000 square feet and 35 feet in height), associated parking, and new stormwater management facilities.”
Albemarle’s zoning code allows religious assembly for up to 200 people by-right and a permit is required for more.
“The proposed expansion would result in one of the existing single-family homes being demolished in order to accommodate the new building while also minimizing additional disturbance to the site,” reads the applicant’s narrative. “The remaining single-family home would remain on the property.”
Since adoption of the Development Code in late 2023, the Charlottesville Planning Commission has had a lot less to do. That’s because the new zoning rules eliminated the role the PC and the City Council play in deciding where height and density are allowed.
Every now and then, though, there is a meeting with multiple items. That’s the case for the April 14 meeting which begins off-camera in the Neighborhood Development Services Conference Room in City Hall. (meeting overview)
After a series of reports, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on funding to be disbursed through federal funds known as the Community Development Block Grant and the HOME program.
“For the Winter 2026 funding round, the city received thirteen (13) Requests for Proposals (“RFPs”), eleven (11) of which were requests for CDBG funding and two (2) of which were requests for HOME funding,” reads the staff report.
The exact funding amounts are not known and what is recommended in the packet is based on previous allocations.
While the new Development Code no longer has a broad role for the Planning Commission in development projects, the appointed body is charged with weighing in on special exceptions. One is being sought for a project at 408 Harris Road. This is a 0.202 acre parcel zoned Residential-B that is currently undeveloped after a structure was demolished in the mid-2010’s.
Neighborhood Investments has filed a site plan for the property that would divide the property into six sublots for the purposes of building three attached duplexes. NDS staff recommended denial in October 2025.
“The R-B Residential district requires all lots to provide amenity spaces having a cumulative area of 10 percent or more of the lot area,” reads the staff report for a request from the applicant to have a cumulative area of 7.6 percent.
The applicant is working with the firm Roudabush, Gale & Associates to secure the special exception permit. Their letter argues the higher number is not possible due to right-of-way constraints.
“The applicant previously approached the City regarding the potential purchase of the narrow strip of land between the existing property line and the typical 1-foot-behind-sidewalk alignment, but was advised that relief should instead be pursued through a special exception Request,” reads the letter.
Staff recommends denial. Approval is ultimately up to Council to weigh in but the Planning Commission gets to make a recommendation.
The final item is one that I may need to hear in order to provide a decent report. In January the PC got a preliminary briefing on a study of student housing fees and tax abatement. I wrote up that meeting at the time but lacked capacity to get to Council’s results.
Best I can do for now is this link to the presentation on the update.
The Charlottesville Economic Development Authority will hold a meeting in CitySpace at 4 p.m. There are cameras in the room but this will not be recorded or televised. A fully-fledged Town Crier Productions would have a reporter at this meeting.
There are several items on the agenda.
After that will be updates on the Tom Tom Festival (April 22 through April 25), the Piedmont Ascent and Pitch on June 3, and the 50th anniversary of the Downtown Mall on July 3.
The last EDA meeting was held on March 10, 2026.
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No one spoke at the public comment period
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The EDA voted on a proposal to amend a performance agreement between the city, the EDA, and the Piedmont Housing Alliance for the 501 Cherry Avenue project. The original idea was to provide a 50 percent tax abatement for the project but now the Piedmont Housing Alliance will get all of their tax payments reimbursed.
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Stadium Row LLC owns a shopping center on Maury Avenue that is part of a remediation grant from the Virginia Brownfields Restoration and Economic Redevelopment Assistance Fund (VBAF). The work has been completed and now the property is “in a better position for current use and future resale.”
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The city now has a website for the Charlottesville Affordable Bridge Loan program which is intended to provide funds for the creation of subsidized housing. You can find that here.
The start time for the April 15 meeting of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors is one hour later than usual beginning at 2 p.m. in Lane Auditorium. That’s in the county’s office building at 401 McIntire Road. (meeting info)
There is one proclamation and that is to recognize May as Older Americans Month. I’ll hold on to the audio for a couple of weeks.
After that is a work session on next steps for the county’s recently updated Comprehensive Plan. The Board of Supervisors adopted what staff refer to as AC44 on October 15 as I reported around the time in this newsletter. The plan went into effect on January 1.
“As we look ahead, AC44 is well-structured for implementation,” reads the staff report for the work session which will introduce Supervisors to the five priorities staff wants to proceed with. These are reduced from seven “Big Moves” included at the tail end of the Comprehensive Plan’s development.
These five areas are:
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Zoning modernization is intended to “[make] it easier for residents and businesses to understand what’s allowed, to support housing choices, to appropriately manage our rural areas, and to create a more predictable, efficient development process.” Supervisors had a briefing in March as I reported at the time.
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Activity Center Plans will be updated plans for specific geographic areas to “provide a clear roadmap for identified locations of higher-density development and redevelopment, tax base diversification, and public investments as we welcome 31,000 new residents over the next 18 years.” One will be started in the current fiscal year and be completed sometime in the first half of fiscal 2028.
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Multimodal Transportation Planning will update the county’s transportation priority list while creating a funding plan to support “enhanced collaboration with VDOT, CARTA, regional partners, and the community, and provide measurable progress toward AC44 transportation goals, including improved safety, increased mode shift, reduced vehicle miles traveled, and enhanced equity in transportation access.”
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Rural Area Priorities and the Rural Area Plan in the short-term would be about allowing more uses in non-residential structures and developing a process to allow restaurants in the rural area. Over the long term, a Rural Area Plan will be created to “identify desired non-residential land uses that support the Rural Area economy, prioritizing local agriculture and forestry, as well as recreation, agritourism, and other revenue generating uses.”
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The fifth bullet is not a separate item but a justification for AC44 Administration to develop and watch out for metrics.
Resources for this item:
After a closed session, there will be four public hearings.
The first is on proposed changes to the fees that Albemarle County charges for land use applications. These are based on a 2023 report produced by the Berkley Group.
“The consultant recommended periodic fee adjustments linked to inflation, salary changes, or other predictable market factors to maintain transparency and keep pace with economic conditions,” reads the staff report.
Supervisors updated the fee schedule in December 2023 and will do so again. For instance, the cost to seek a major review from the Albemarle Architectural Review Board will go from $1,185 to $1,365. Take a look at all of the changes here.
The other three public hearings related to the FY2027 budget and tax rates for 2026.
The budget recommended by Albemarle Executive Jeffrey Richardson did not anticipate increasing any of the tax rates including the one for real property. However, assessments did increase by 6.2 percent and by Virginia law, Albemarle had to advertise what the tax rate would be to return the same amount of revenues for FY2027.
“The County of Albemarle proposes to adopt a tax rate of $0.894 per $100 of assessed value for calendar year 2026,” reads the notice for the second public hearing. “The difference between the lowered tax rate and the proposed tax rate would be $0.052 per $100, or 6.18 percent.”
The third public hearing is on the personal property tax rate. Richardson had not planned a change but four Supervisors agreed on March 18 to advertise a fifteen cent increase in order to dedicate the money to the Albemarle Housing Investment Fund. If approved, this will increase the rate from $4.28 per $100 of assessed value to $4.43 per $100. More details here.
The fourth public hearing is on the FY2027 budget itself.
Resources for the budget
This newsletter is the trusted source for information about the budget development process in Albemarle County and Charlottesville. Others may have retreated from providing detailed coverage, Town Crier Productions aims to continue to follow the never-ending cycle of local government.
In other meetings:
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The Charlottesville Housing Advisory Committee is scheduled to meet at noon in the Neighborhood Development Services conference room at City Hall. There’s no agenda. The March meeting was canceled. The February 2026 meeting would have been really interesting to write about as there was a presentation from Progressive Housing Solutions LLC. I’m going to go ahead and snag the recording so I can write this up. (meeting info)
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The Fluvanna Board of Supervisors will meet at 6 p.m. in the Fluvanna Courts Building at 72 Main Street in Palmyra. This edition of the newsletter is at 4,000 words as I type this so I’ll provide more information in a newsletter during the week. (meeting packet)
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The University of Virginia Board of Visitors begins a special meeting with a reception. More information coming up later in the week. (learn more)
The April 14 meeting of the Nelson County Board of Supervisors will technically continue at 7 p.m. for a public hearing on the real property tax rate for 2026. (agenda)
“The FY27 proposed budget incorporates retainage of 16 percent of the overall 2026 reassessment increase in values at a Real Property tax rate of $.57/$100 of value,” reads a presentation given to the Board on March 10.
All of the materials on the budget are available here
Last year, Albemarle County began a process of studying how to transform a stormwater basin on Hillsdale Drive into a pocket park. A community meeting was held last November and staff in the Community Development Department are currently reviewing a preliminary site plan.
Staff have now developed a proposed design and will share it at a second community meeting to be held at Aldersgate United Methodist Church at 1500 East Rio Road.
“Located near multifamily housing, shopping centers, and transit routes, the park will serve as a valuable recreational space for nearby residents and visitors alike,” reads the meeting info page.
Find out more about the project on Engage Albemarle.
On March 19, Charlottesville’s Board of Zoning Appeals voted 2-2 on a motion to uphold the zoning administrator’s determination that 208 4th Street is just within a half-mile radius to qualify as student housing. Here’s a story I wrote for C-Ville Weekly.
On April 16, the BZA will meet again at 4 p.m. to discuss the case after having a closed session with legal counsel. What’s going on? I’ll try to have an update before Thursday. (meeting info)
In other meetings:
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The UVA Board of Visitors meets all day with the Finance Committee and the Audit, Compliance, and Risk Committee also convening. Details to come. (meeting info)
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The Virginia Housing Development Authority will hold a public hearing for bond financing for multifamily developments. According to the agenda, two Piedmont Housing Alliance projects are on the docket. One is $8,865,000 for 501-B Cherry and the other is $9,520,000 for 1025 Park Street. (agenda meeting)
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The Charlotteville and Albemarle Community Policy and Management Team will meet at 1 p.m. at the county’s office building at 1600 5th Street Extended. (meeting info)
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The Charlottesville Minority Business Commission will meet at 3 p.m. (meeting info)
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The Albemarle Broadband Authority will meet at 5 p.m. in Room 241 of the county’s office building at 401 McIntire Road. No agenda is available on the meeting info page.
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Charlottesville’s Human Rights Commission will meet at 6:30 p.m. in CitySpace. There’s no advanced material. (meeting info)
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The 5th & Avon Community Advisory Committee will meet at 7 p.m. in Room A of the 5th Street County Office Building at 1600 5th Street Extended. There’s no agenda posted as of publication time. (meeting info)
And that’s the end of another edition! Which of these will make their way into being stories, whether written by me or another journalist?
One day I hope to be able some of these stories to other reporters. That depends on if I can become a better fundraiser. So far just over a dozen have made a contribution to Town Crier Productions through the Tiny News Collective. If you have questions, drop me a line! Take a look here.
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