Cville Tomorrow News

City earmarks money to buy new parkland

7/10/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

For the first time in recent memory, Charlottesville has earmarked money in its capital budget to be spent specifically on acquiring more parkland.

The move comes roughly 29 years after the city last bought land to expand its parks system, and as it has come under fire for its handling of McIntire Park, where the Meadowcreek Parkway will trim acreage and where a new YMCA will be built.“Parkland is sort of the liver and lungs of a city,” said Planning Commissioner Bill Emory, one of the commission’s strongest backers of using money to expand the city’s inventory. “It’s important to acquire more greenspace and more parkland.”

The city’s fiscal 2010 Capital Improvement Program allocates $100,000 for parkland purchases. Officials said the last time the city spent money to add land to its park system was in 1980, when it spent $23,500 for land in the Starr Hill neighborhood. Starr Hill Park is about 0.4 acres.

Dog’s Day: Supes opt to put down rural bark ban

7/9/09 * The Hook [full story]

After nearly three and a half hours of oft-impassioned testimony from citizens, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors decided Wednesday night in a vote of 5-1 not to extend to rural areas a ban on dog barking that it passed in 2008. Kenneth Boyd voted against the board’s decision.

This has been a hotly debated issue, and nowhere has the heat been hotter than Peavine Hollow Road where neighbors on two adjoining rural parcels— defined here as larger than five acres—  have been butting heads for several years over the alleged volume of the guard dogs one of them keeps. The feud was the subject of the Hook’s July 2 cover story.

“It was the right move,” says Kristina Lawwill, farm owner who was a part of that story and attended the vote. “It preserves the rural character.”

Firms to compete for dredging study

7/9/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

A committee’s decision Wednesday has left two firms battling over which should be hired to study the feasibility of dredging the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.

Interviews will likely be held late this month or in early August.

In May, officials agreed to submit a request for proposals for a dredging study. Though many firms submitted proposals, members of the dredging committee agreed that two firms appeared to be most qualified: HDR Engineering Inc. of Omaha and F.X. Browne of Lansdale, Pa.

County muzzles tougher dog law

7/9/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors decided Wednesday not to expand the county’s noisy dog ordinance to rural areas.

Under the ordinance the county amended Wednesday, it will still be unlawful when a dog makes excessive, untimely or continuous noises, such as howling or barking, for 30 consecutive minutes or more.

The rule applies to properties in the county’s “growth area” and properties smaller than 5 acres that are located in the “rural area.” County staff had recommended the board make the noise regulations apply generally to the rural area, too, but the board voted the recommendation down.

Few more weeds OK by Albemarle

7/7/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

An Albemarle County governmental “green” policy has weeds growing up around the fences of ball fields and county employees thinking outside the box.

In June 2008, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the Safer Chemical Management Procedure, a department-level program that promotes using non-chemical methods to handle day-to-day county operations such as clearing parks and cleaning bathrooms.

The program, which took effect last summer, has been very effective, said Sarah Temple, environmental compliance manager for the county.

City prepares to make over Belmont area

7/7/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

The Charlottesville government likely will incorporate new improvements in Belmont to address the neighborhood’s growth issues, which came under the spotlight after a controversial rezoning to turn a house into a restaurant.

“A lot of the issues raised were not going to go away if that rezoning was approved or denied,” City Planner Brian Haluska said in an interview.

Haluska was referring to the rezoning of the Belmont house at 814 Hinton Ave., which will bring another restaurant to the neighborhood located just south of downtown. The City Council narrowly approved the house’s rezoning at its Monday meeting, with Councilors Satyendra Huja and Julian Taliaferro voting against.

Judge Swett rules Meadowcreek Parkway land transfer legal

7/7/09 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

After deliberating for six weeks, Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Jay Swett has made his decision: He ruled that the 3-2 City Council vote that granted the State easement for a parcel of recreational land was constitutional.

On May 19, John Cruickshank and other members of the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park appeared in court as part of the latest lawsuit filed against the City of Charlottesville and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to stop the construction of the Meadowcreek Parkway (MCP).

The group argued that City Council granted the easement without a supermajority, an illegal vote according to Article 7, Section 9 of the Virginia Constitution, which states local governments need a supermajority vote—or three-quarters—to transfer land to the state transportation agency.

Taking the long view on local transportation

6/6/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

Whether it’s roads, buses, bikes or rail, the Charlottesville area has countless individuals advocating for their preferred mode of transportation. But Steve Williams describes himself as a pusher of not one form, but all.“All pieces bring value to the transportation system,” said Williams, the new executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. “But none of them can do it on their own.”

Now having spent nearly two months on the job as the agency’s head, Williams has the task of effectively planning the entire region’s transportation network and developing projects even as traffic worsens and state funding dwindles.

U.S. 29 in Charlottesville and the urban ring of Albemarle County is a well-known challenge, Williams said, but its problems are drifting elsewhere. U.S. 29 to Greene County and U.S. 250 from Crozet into the city are becoming increasingly clogged, and transit needs to be implemented more to solve congestion issues.

Parkway opponents try Plan B

6/5/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

Opponents of the Meadowcreek Parkway are moving onto their next battle, this time arguing that the 2-mile road was separated purposefully into three sections to evade federal environmental protection and historic preservation laws.

“We are not giving up,” said John Cruickshank, chairman of the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club and a member of the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park.

Having been in the planning process for four decades, the parkway would connect East Rio Road in Albemarle County to the U.S. 250 Bypass at McIntire Road in Charlottesville, and its terminus would be a grade-separated interchange. The interchange, a $32.5 million project, is the only part that is being funded with federal, state and local dollars. The actual roadway, whose construction began in February in the county, is being financed with state and local dollars from the city and county.

User-generated encyclopedia hits Net

6/5/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

A local nonprofit has given birth to an online encyclopedia, hoping it will become the most comprehensive, user-friendly source for information about Albemarle County and Charlottesville.

Charlottesville Tomorrow, an online nonprofit media organization that covers local government and development issues, launched “Cvillepedia” in May. Information on the site is user-generated. It details, for example, how Sally H. Thomas was first elected to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors in 1993 as a write-in candidate, and that the University of Virginia first opened in 1825 with only 123 students.

“Information is key,” said Charlottesville Tomorrow Program Officer Sean Tubbs, adding that Cvillepedia will allow the community to publish facts about virtually anything related to Charlottesville and Albemarle. “We want our community to know itself better.”

UVa preservation project creates colorful debate

6/5/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

Some University of Virginia alumni are upset and others are intrigued that UVa is embarking on a historic preservation project that will alter the iconic appearance of the Lawn.

UVa wants to restore the Academical Village to the original designs of Thomas Jefferson, starting with restoration work on Pavilion X and its two adjacent student rooms. Yet some alumni worry the project will too drastically change the university’s historic heart that they remember from their time at UVa.

The university hired the historic preservationist architecture firm Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker Architects of Williamsburg to investigate the physical and documentary history of Pavilion X. The firm’s findings are helping guide UVa’s efforts on the Lawn.

City, county giving rain barrel rebates

6/3/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

Charlottesville and Albemarle are giving a $30 rebate for those who purchase new rain barrels, which hold water and are seen as an environmental conservation measure to reduce consumption and runoff.

Generally sized between 50 and 60 gallons, a rain barrel is a container connected to a downspout on a home, office or garage. Its purpose is to capture some of the precipitation that lands on the roof and store it for future use.

Up to two rebates can be used per address, and participants can purchase barrels from any vendor as long as a receipt is shown.

VDOT installing stop at county intersection

6/3/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

Safety concerns are spurring the Virginia Department of Transportation to establish a new four-way stop at the intersection of Route 676, Route 660 and Route 1040 in Albemarle County.

Road crews plan to carry out the change Monday, weather permitting. The insection has stop signs for traffic approaching on Route 660 — Reas Ford Road — and Route 1040 — Dunromin Road — but not on Route 676, Woodlands Road.

Stop bars and “stop ahead” pavement markings will be added to the intersection as well.

Water costs raise concern

7/1/09 * Daily Progress editorial [full story]

Opponents of the Ragged Mountain dam expansion have said for months that the dam was too expensive.

Now members of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority agree. They have fired the engineering firm that last year hit the agency with a cost estimate more than double its original projection.

But officials and opponents still don’t agree on the future of water supply for the Charlottesville-Albemarle area.

Admit defeat? Plaintiffs lose one battle against Parkway

7/2/09 * The Hook [full story]

After waiting for nearly six weeks, a group of Charlottesville citizens fighting against the Meadowcreek Parkway finally heard the judge had ruled against them in their lawsuit to stop the controversial road.

The plaintiffs argued May 19 that the city of Charlottesville illegally sold a nine-acre stretch of land east of Melbourne Road to the Virginia Department of Transportation by evading a three-fourths super-majority vote required by the Virginia Constitution.  The land will be used in one part of the three-sectioned parkway project.

The argument, however, failed to convince Judge Jay Swett, who said that the easement of land from the city to VDOT was “not the type of conveyance contemplated by the framers of the Constitution” in Article VII section 9.