Cville Tomorrow News

Another candidate announces for City Council

5/29/2011 * The Daily Progress [full story]

Andrew D. Williams says improving race relations in Charlottesville will help enable the city’s long-term success.

Williams, 24, announced Sunday that he’s throwing his hat in the ring for the City Council as an independent candidate.

“I want to be a liaison between the Charlottesville residents, small-business owners and the city,” Williams said.

Death by "livability?"

5/31/2011 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

In 2007, Charlottesville and Albemarle government officials identified sustainable development as a priority in their respective comprehensive plans. Last October, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC) received nearly $1 million in federal grant money to start a “livability” plan and help both city and county achieve those goals.

Now, however, members of the Jefferson Area Tea Party (JATP) say “sustainable” is a term they can’t live with, and “livable” is a term they won’t sustain. Following a March Tea Party event where speakers conflated local sustainability initiatives with a socialist agenda backed by the United Nations, a few Albemarle supervisors want to put the brakes on the s-word.

In March, Jefferson Area Tea Party Chair Carole Thorpe organized an event focused on “The Deceptive Agenda of Sustainability in Local Government.” She told C-VILLE at the time, “We are disturbed that both the county and the city are dues-paying members of ICLEI.”
On June 8, county supervisors will hold a work session to discuss the local impact of International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives—better known as ICLEI, a nonprofit organization that advises more than 600 American cities and counties on energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

Bridge work hurting JPA businesses

5/27/2011 * The Daily Progress [full story]

With the beep-beep of backing trucks, the grind of heavy equipment and the hiss of welding, the corner of Fontaine Avenue and Jefferson Park Avenue is a good location quickly going bad.

The Virginia Department of Transportation’s $5.8 million bridge replacement project at the crossroads has disrupted traffic to businesses in the Wayside commercial center. That’s resulted in income cuts of between 30 percent and 40 percent, business owners say.

Albemarle wants other localities to pay more for library system

5/28/2011 * The Daily Progress [full story]

Earlier this year, Albemarle County officials decided that breaking away from the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library wasn’t a good idea, but now they’re pushing for changes to the agreement that governs the library system.

An Albemarle study found that the library system, which will serve roughly 1.2 million visitors this fiscal year, actually provides quite a good value, assuming the county wants to maintain its current level of service, in part because the state financially favors those libraries operated as regional systems rather than single-county enterprises. But last week county officials started trying to rework the agreement, listing among their aims several provisions that would favor Albemarle County.

 

Charles Hurt adds Scottsville tire plant to land holdings

5/26/11 * Cville Weekly [full story]

Dr. Charles Hurt, one of the largest landowners in Albemarle County for more than two decades, has reportedly signed a deal to purchase the 61-acre Hyosung Tire plant in Scottsville. The 180,000-square-foot plant is currently assessed at $3.9 million, down from a $4.2 million assessment in 2008. However, the property recently bore a $2.2 million price tag. Hurt has not offered comment about the price of purchase.

The former U.S. Rubber Company plant was built by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1944 to manufacture tires for military vehicles.

Battle ready: Seven story West Main transformation begins

5/25/11 * The Hook [full story]

Seven stories right on West Main.

Work has finally begun on the massive $141 million, 180,000 square-foot Battle Building at the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital, which will take three years to build and set the tone for future development between the Corner and the Downtown Mall. On April 27, Richmond-based general contractor Kjellstrom and Lee got the building permit for $12.8 million of foundation work on the former parking lot between the Blake Center and the building housing the defunct 12th Street Taphouse. Construction barricades went up earlier this month.
 
Architect for the University David Neuman has called the structure a "prototype" for West Main, the central road whose redevelopment has been discussed for at least two decades.

Named after Barry and Bill Battle, longtime champions of children’s health, the structure will serve as outpatient surgery and rehabilitative care facility for children and their families.

The long wait for Section 8

5/24/11 * Cville Weekly [full story]

In both Charlottesville and Albemarle County, the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program last opened three years ago during an intense stretch of the economic recession, then swiftly shut. The city accepted applicants for a mere week, from September 10 to 16, then the waiting list closed, and has remained shut since. Prior to that, Charlottesville last accepted voucher applicants in 2004.

Section 8 is a federal rent subsidy program created to help low-income residents secure safe housing. Residents enrolled in the program—households whose incomes do not exceed 50 percent of the median income, about $32,000 for a family of four—pay 30 percent of their income in rent and utilities. The vouchers pick up the balance.

However, making progress on the list can be slow.

City's rate stabilization fund gets political

5/22/11 * The Daily Progress [full story]

A fund used by the city of Charlottesville to prevent residents from seeing spikes in their water and sewer bills has emerged as a political issue that could be used as leverage in the ongoing debate over the region’s long-term water supply.

Since fiscal 2009, the city has used “rate stabilization funds” to help smooth out annual increases on water and sewer bills. Those bills could soon jump due to rising debt costs as the city and the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority continue to spend on upgrades to aging water and sewer systems. How dramatically those bills will rise depends — to some degree — on how much money the city can spend to suppress them.

Opponents of the 50-year water-supply plan have seized on the use of stabilization funds to argue that the practice hides the true impact of the city’s water and sewer decisions.

Developer set to buy tire plant

5/21/11 * The Daily Progress [full story]

Dr. Charles W. Hurt, a local real estate entrepreneur, developer and founder of Virginia Land Co., has entered into a contract to purchase the former Hyosung Tire plant near Scottsville.

Hurt confirmed the agreement to purchase the property, saying that the deal has not yet closed. He said the property is undergoing an environmental survey and other pre-closing inspections.

Hurt said the property is a good investment.

“It has some high ground and is one of the natural places to build some small homes that would be close to downtown Scottsville,” Hurt said. “It would give people a chance to be close to the community and the library and it’s a very nice area.”

Va. should OK Amtrack train-bus

5/20/11 * The Daily Progress [full story]

Since October 2009, Amtrak’s Lynchburg train has benefitted Charlottesville greatly, providing an inexpensive, relaxing and safe green link to the Northeast and the world through connections to three D.C. airports.

According to Amtrak figures between last October to February, Charlottesville was the fifth-busiest station and fourth-fastest growing station in Virginia. If state transportation officials next month approve a Lynchburg train-bus connection to Roanoke (daily) and Blacksburg-Virginia Tech (Friday through Sunday), one half million more residents and students will have their first direct access to Amtrak in more than 30 years, and Charlottesville will be a major beneficiary in several major ways.