Supervisors accept open space for Arden Place development; Widen trail and require pedestrian connection to Woodbrook

This article is an extended version of what appears in today's Daily Progress.

By Connie Chang & Brian Wheeler
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has overruled the recommendations of its planning commission, and the wishes of many in the Woodbrook neighborhood, by requiring the developer of a luxury apartment complex to widen a proposed trail and connect it to public property.

 The 212-unit Arden Place development was approved by the planning commission in September and is located on land off of Rio Road behind the Albemarle Square Shopping Center.  Coleway Development agreed to provide open space and a trail in order to qualify for a density bonus of 25 additional residential units. 

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On Wednesday, the board accepted Coleway’s proposal, but not before making modifications.  Supervisors added requirements that a pedestrian trail be widened from 5 feet to 8 feet and be connected to a planned stormwater management project called the Woodbrook Lagoon Project. 

At the public hearing in September, many Woodbrook residents voiced opposition to a wider trail and any connection in the vicinity of their neighborhood.  No residents were present at the Wednesday morning meeting.

Some Supervisors thought the 5-foot wide pathway would be too narrow to be effective.
Supervisor Sally Thomas (Samuel Miller) noted that a pathway would need to be at least 8 feet to accommodate bicycle traffic.

“Someone’s going to be sorry if we don’t make this wide enough to make it usable,” said Thomas.

“If you want to create an access that allows people to get from this area into the commercial areas to the north and west, [then] you don’t want it to be what would be considered a narrow sidewalk,” said Dennis Rooker (Jack Jouett). “It needs to be a width people can push a carriage on easily, bicycles could go on.”

Woodbrook residents have previously lobbied against any connection from Arden Place to the nearby Woodbrook Lagoon Project.  Even a trail, they said, would diminish the safety and security of their neighborhood.

However, several Supervisors felt that blocking access to public property by the broader community was a more significant concern.

“I do have some reluctance to endorsing that a particular piece of county-owned property is really only available to one neighborhood,” said Ann Mallek. “It is public property and we are making a significant improvement to it for many good reasons.”

In an interview, former Woodbrook Association President, John Gallagher, expressed disappointment over the Board’s decision, especially in regards to the re-establishment of a connection to Woodbrook.  He said residents had made headway in a long battle to remove what was once proposed to be a vehicular connection.

“Our neighborhood has one way in and one way out and it has been that way for 40 years or so,” said Gallagher. “What this pathway does is breach our security. That pathway is going to dump people into a place without sidewalks or streetlights. [The Board] is creating a safety issue.”

Supervisor David Slutzky (Rio) reiterated the concerns he had heard from Woodbrook residents in his district.

“One of the reasons why the Woodbrook community seemed to react so strongly to that connection is that there are no public facilities other than the street for people to walk on,” said Slutzky. “They were worried about a lot of kids now walking down the streets of Woodbrook where they don’t have sidewalks.”

Andrew McGinty, developer for the Arden Place project, noted that the Board’s decision will certainly come as a surprise to the majority of Woodbrook residents.

“[The Board’s decision] was a departure from what was negotiated in the planning commission meeting,” said McGinty. “You have to sympathize somewhat with Woodbrook.”

“We worked very closely with the Woodbrook residents throughout this process trying to implement and incorporate their suggestions,” said Valerie Long, Coleway’s attorney.

Pending easement agreements and other signed documentation with Gardens Shopping Center, the proposed Arden Place development will also have vehicular access to the Carmike Theater. Although this connection will be gated and limited only to Arden Place residents, Woodbrook residents still worry over the potential for strangers to access their neighborhood.

“[The pedestrian connection] blows a hole into the commercial area, the outside world,” said Gallagher.

In an initial motion, Slutzky moved to grant the dedication of open space with the only added condition that the path be widened from 5 feet to 8 feet. After that motion failed on a 2-4 vote (Slutzky and Ken Boyd in favor), the motion was revised to include the condition that the path also connect to the Woodbrook Lagoon Project. That motion passed by a 5-1 vote with Ken Boyd (Rivanna) voting against.

In an interview after the meeting, Boyd said he supported the development, but wanted the neighborhood’s input on the changes from the board.

“I am in favor of the project as presented and agreed to by the Woodbrook neighbors,” said Boyd.  “I couldn’t vote in favor without first giving them a chance to weigh in again.”

Comments

[Dan Gould]

The issue here is not how wide the path will be or where it will terminate. The issue is the failure of the Board of Supervisors to respect the established process for resolving such matters.

Throughout this summer and fall, over 100 Woodbrook residents gave hundreds of man-hours to research, organize, report on, and cooperate with County planners and the Planning Commission to achieve a result acceptable to all parties. Then, in just forty-eight minutes a largely uninformed Board of Supervisors set that effort aside with anecdotal comments and limited planning skills. One supervisor even went so far as to say "I'm not familiar with the geography of the area." Not even the impassioned arguments of County Planning staffer Bill Fritz or the Arden Place developers themselves were enough to sway the Board to honor the Planning Commission's decision.

Personally, I support the concept of neighborhoods interconnected by footpaths and said so publicly at the Albemarle County Planning Commission hearing in June. You might think I would welcome the Board of Supervisor's decision. But instead I find myself deeply disappointed in a planning process that clearly doesn't work.

In an October 11, 2009 telephone interview with the Woodbrook Neighborhood Blog, Supervisor David Slutzky congratulated Woodbrook residents for becoming engaged in the civic planning process in an educated and mature way. Apparently not all members of the Board were as impressed.

While it's true that the Board of Supervisors are ultimately responsibility for all County planning, they can hardly expect civic participation in the planning process if arbitrary planning decisions are subsequently made without public comment. (Yesterday's meeting was closed to public comment). If the Board was uncomfortable with the Planning Commission's recommendations, they should have exercised their right to send the matter back to the Commission for review.

[John Gallagher]

Over 400 people showed up at 2 different Planning Commission Meetings. Over 90% of the people soundly rejected a new connection to Woodbrook. Only 3 people expressed interest in a connection. ALL THREE PEOPLE, including Gould, live FAR AWAY from the proposed road. If the proposed road was being built next to the Gould's home, you can bet big money they would be against the connection too. Via his private blog, he continually tries to present his MINORITY opinion as a majority opinion, which could not be further from the truth. This false impression caused the County to think that lots of people in Woodbrook "secretly" wanted the new road, which is totally false. Thanks a lot Goulds. If you want trails, move somewhere where they have them.

Additionally, the Planning Commission, TWICE, removed the connection to Woodbrook. Apparently the BOS thinks the people they appointed to the Planning Commission are all incompetent, because they overruled the PC's UNANIMOUS decisions. The PC, the developer and the residents of Woodbrook came up with a wonderful, mutually agreeable plan we could all live with. But Sally, obviously with arteries beginning to harden, ignored all that input to jam a boondoggle down out throats. She wants an 8 foot roadway to run from Rio Rd to Woodbrook's cesspool. Oh, didn't they tell you that part? The "Lagoon Project" is NOT A PARK. It is a stream buffer reconfiguation project to put a polluted creek back into its proper bed. The lagoon was Woodbrook's cesspool for many years, before sewers were added. I hope Sally's kids are the first to go and swim in this wonderful cesspool park.

So, while the teachers and other public servants can not have raises or the staffs they need, Sally and the the BOS want to spend the COunty's money on a road and a bridge to the cesspool that no one want! And she creates a multitude of safety and security issues. Boy, talk about making decisions in a vacuum without knowing all the facts! Do you think the local government has their priorities screwed up and aren't listening to their citizens?

Finally, Slutsky "appeared" to side with Woodbrook through this process, and did some pandering before the election. Looks like it was all a big lie, as he abandoned us and voted for the connection. Good thing we are cleaning house in the BOS. Maybe the new folks will do a better job of listening to their constituents.

[Dan Gould]

We are flattered that Mr. Gallagher believes that our little blog could influence both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. We are not so arrogant as to think so ourselves.

The Woodbrook Neighborhood Blog is an experiment in citizen journalism. It is modeled after Charlottesville Tomorrow at the micro level. We work very hard to keep its content opinion free.

Like Charlottesville Tomorrow, we try to make available the original audio of any event we cover, or interview we do, so that Woodbrook residents can form their own opinion from original source material. For those that don't have the time to listen to the audio, we provide an impartial summary of the event. We invite respectful comment on all the stories we post.

[Leonard Schoppa]

I understand that Woodbrook residents are worried about change, but I wish they had the imagination to see the benefits of improved pedestrian connections. With the set of connections planned, kids in Woodbrook will be able to walk to Carmike and watch a movie, families will be able to walk to the Northside library or dinner at Thai 99, kids in Woodbrook will be able to visit new friends at Arden, kids in Arden will be able to walk to school at Woodbrook Elementary. Meanwhile, adults in Woodbrook who rely entirely on autos to get around will have the option of getting exercise by choosing to walk on foot to local destinations instead of driving.

I live in the City on grid streets, some of which have sidewalks and some don't, but since most folks driving on residential streets realize the roads are being used by walkers and bikers, we all manage to share the streets without incident. I walk to Barracks Rd shops and Downtown, each of which is about 20-25 minutes away, on routes that include many streets without sidewalks. We get a variety of people walking and biking down our street, but then I walk on other people's streets as well. This is what makes a community.

I'm glad the County Board had the courage to imagine how an area with a lot of mixed uses could be integrated by building these pedestrian connections, and I urge them to do more of the same.

Len Schopppa
Alliance for Community Choice in Transportation