Today’s sponsor: Big builds, small repairs, and everything in between, Nola Builds does it all
On August 13, 1900, a steamship called the Deutschland arrived in Plymouth, England, in a journey across the Atlantic Ocean from New York in five days, 11 hours and 45 minutes. That set a new record with the ship surpassing an earlier one set a month earlier. For decades, people have been able to take that same journey on a plane in just over six hours. Charlottesville Community Engagement has never been published from either mode of transport, but perhaps wanderlust will take hold.
In this edition:
The City of Charlottesville holding meeting tonight on changes to traffic patterns in Fifeville
A Charlottesville zoning subcommittee continues work on ways to encourage dense residential infill known as “missing middle”
Charlottesville is seeking applications for grants to help cover one of the costs of homeownership
Albemarle County Supervisors are briefed on the work plan for the Community Development Department
The agenda for tonight’s Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority meeting has been updated and includes a closed session on personnel matters
The inaugural Charlottesville Jazz Fest has come and gone and the Charlottesville Jazz Society is calling the four-day event a success. The organization would like to thank everyone who attended, volunteered, and supported the music with a donation.
Now the Charlottesville Jazz Society wants you to keep the good vibrations going by attending an upcoming show with area musicians. Here’s a glimpse of the calendar. Consider calling ahead before traveling as events can sometimes be canceled or postponed last-minute.
Thursday August 13: Jazz in the Park features Le Hotclub Gypsy Jazz, Gypsy Hill Park (Staunton), 7:00-9:00pm
Sunday August 16: The Trio with Dan Barrale/drums, Bill Edmonds/guitar, Eric Franzen/keys, Chisholm Vineyards, 1-4 pm
Tuesday August 18: Tuesday Jazz with Jeff Massanari, Jeff/guitar, the amazing Stephanie Nakasian/vocals and piano, Karl Kimmel/bass, Keith Willingham/drums, Rapture, 6:30pm
Thursday August 20: Jazz in the Park features GootGenuG, Jeff Young/sax & flute, Pablo Delaloza/keys, Hartwell Gary/bass, Ethan Walker/drums, Gypsy Hill Park (Staunton), 7:00-9:00pm
Friday August 21: Jazz Vespers, Eric Franzen/piano, Dhara Goradia/bass, Stephen LaRue/drums, Bobby Gregg/sax, University Baptist Church, 5:30-6:30pm
Friday August 21: Beleza Duo, Brazilian jazz at Glass House Winery, 6pm
Charlottesville is a destination for people to travel to for work and for tourism and the city’s zoning code is intended to increase the number of people who can live there.
Some of the city’s older neighborhoods are not equipped to handle large volumes of traffic. In early November 2024, a food delivery truck tried to get through the Fifeville neighborhood and ruptured a fuel tank after failing to negotiate a tight turn. That prompted many to ask for better signage to discourage cut-through traffic.
Tonight the city is holding a pop-up workshop at the Tonsler Park Recreation Center to demonstrate a series of changes.
“During the workshop, staff will share proposed improvement in street directions to attempt to address cut-through traffic,” reads the appropriate Connect Charlottesville page. “No additional traffic calming measures are currently proposed.”
The event begins at 6:15 p.m. The materials are not available in advance.
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In January of 2020, a firm hired by the City of Charlottesville began work on an ambitious effort to create a strategy for affordable housing, restart the city’s Comprehensive Plan update, and write a new zoning code.
Over the next three years, Rhodeside & Harwell and other groups worked with local stakeholders and the public in a process called Cville Plans Together that resulted in the completion of all three tasks.
In February, City Council adopted the first set of amendments to the Development Code, the name given to the city’s rules for building. These were largely technical in nature with no major policy changes despite a campaign from some groups seeking to reduce available heights in the West Main corridor and other places.
A fresh code review is underway but will continue to be geared toward minor changes with large policy decisions to be reviewed as described in the work plan of the Department of Neighborhood Development Service.
There is also an effort to find ways to realize the full potential of the Development Code. Since implementation there have been very few examples of single family homes being replaced with multifamily structures.
In May, the Planning Commission learned that a new committee would be formed to work with developers on ways to reduce barriers to more homes being built on single lots. Some refer to this ideas as “missing middle housing.”
“This group will be a mix of staff from across the city along with local builders and developers that focus on building missing middle housing types,” said city planner Dannon O’Connell on May 12. “We are looking for one or two Planning Commissioners to be a part of that working group.”
Those Planning Commissioners ended up being Ross Harness and Betst Roettger. The Missing Middle subcommittee met on July 28.
“The goal that we came up with is to identify the technical challenges that are preventing us from seeing more missing middle housing in the community,” Harness said at the August 11 PC meeting. “And as part of that, we defined missing middle as really anything up to 12 units.”
Harness said the group’s first big project is to review rules on utilities. A final report is expected next spring or summer.
One of the first major development plans to be filed under the new zoning was at 2030 Barracks Road. Greenshire Holdings purchased 2030 Barracks Road in June 2024. The property is a narrow 0.83 acre space zoned Residential-B, which allows up to 12 units per lot if affordability measures are met.
NDS approved a “Development Plan” on August 13, 2025 but the City Council still needs to approve two special exceptions with one being on critical slopes.
NDS is currently without a permanent director after the resignation of Kellie Brown at the end of June. Development Process Manager Matt Alfele gave a brief report including a notification that the next Missing Middle subcommittee meeting is on August 20 and that the code clarification committee will also meet this month.
There was no update on the city’s Environmental Regulations and Policy Review. More information on that can be found on the Connect Charlottesville website.
Charlottesville property owners who are struggling to make ends meet have one potential tool at their disposal. The City of Charlottesville is taking applications through September 1 for a program that provides benefits to qualified households on a sliding scale.
According to an information release sent out on August 12, the Charlottesville Homeowner Assistance Program “provides assistance grants to qualifying low- to moderate-income homeowners to help with the ongoing costs of homeownership.”
To participate, households must have a combined adjusted gross annual income of less than $65,000 for FY2025 and a home’s value cannot exceed $550,000. Amounts span from $1,000 to $2,500 depending on income level. You can apply here.
Last year, 296 households received some amount of funding with a total of $610,500.
Taxable property values in Charlottesville have increased substantially in the last ten years, more than doubling from $5.95 billion in 2016 to $12.16 billion in 2026.
That has come with a doubling of revenue from real property taxes due to the City of Charlottesville from $56,542,376.45 in 2016 to $120,400,281.54. During that time, the City Council has voted to increase the real property tax rate three times with a penny increase in 22, a two-cent increase in 2024, and a penny increase this year to $0.99 per $100 of assessed value.
In March 2021, City Council adopted an affordable housing plan that committed spending of $10 million a year on support for creation of places to live subsidized via a variety of mechanisms.
At Panorama Natural Burial, we believe caring for the deceased can be simple, meaningful, and deeply connected to the natural world. As a natural burial ground just outside Charlottesville, we offer families an alternative to traditional burial that honors both the people we love and the land that will carry them forward.
Whether you are planning ahead, navigating a recent loss, or are just curious about natural burial, we welcome the conversation. We host regular tours and community events throughout the year. At Panorama we are building new ways of understanding death, land, ecology, ritual, memory, and community. We believe that building community around death care helps us all to live fuller lives. We are open to the public daily 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Come visit!
For over 40 years, Albemarle’s Community Development Department has been at the forefront of a policy intended to focus growth within designated areas of the county. In the past year, the department has overseen the update of the Comprehensive Plan and got a new leader in the form of Bart Svoboda.
At a long work session about what the department will be doing in the next year, County Executive Jeffrey Richardson estimated that about 80 percent of time at Board meetings is spent considering an item that stems from the Community Development Department.
“This is the only department in county government where we look at the work plan in front of the Board,” Richardson said. “We don’t do that with any other department and this has been the case certainly since I’ve been here, and I’m in my ninth year.”
In 2025, a total of 118 items from the department went before the Board. So far this year there have been 56. Richardson also said there has been an increase in activity this year for submitted plans, permits to review, and inspections to perform.
Richardson said the purpose of the work session was to manage expectations about the department can do.
“As this board has heard me say a number of times since I’ve been the manager, we can’t do everything,” Richardson said. “And we will not be able to do everything that the board comes up with or the community comes up with as the next new idea.”
Current projects underway in the Community Development Department include zoning modernization, a review of the Housing Albemarle policy, creation of a multimodal transportation plan, and Activity Center planning.
The Community Development Department also supports other county priorities including a major emphasis on economic development.
“Supporting Rivanna Futures, supporting other economic development initiatives,” said Bart Svoboda. “We have Eastern Avenue,Three Notch Trail, our VDOT transportation studies, the six-year road plan, Smart Scale, all those things are encompassed in some of that regular work that we do.”
Svoboda said in the next six months, the department will be preparing changes to the county’s zoning in response to legislation adopted by the General Assembly. There are also initiatives pursued by various community groups such as a desire to expand the county’s biosolids ordinance and to pursue a local ordinance on intense animal feed operations.
I recently wrote about the latter for C-Ville Weekly and the first idea would be to review what other localities in Virgina are doing.
“We would use or would like to use a consultant for that,” Svoboda said. “We are scoping what that means, what that cost is, to see based on the budget allocation that we have and the resources that we are already given, if there’s available funds.”
Two items that are not in the plan for the next year are mapping of private cemeteries and an ordinance to require property owners to remove snow from public sidewalks.
The next edition of this newsletter will have more information about the CAFO as well as Housing Albemarle.
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Articles by other journalists you are encouraged to read next:
Louisa Schools start new year with room to grow as population rises, Brendan King, WTVR Richmond, August 12, 2026
What the data suggests about Greene’s recent immigration raids, Nate Alderman, C-Ville Weekly, August 12, 2026
Va.’s vaccine recommendations, requirements won’t change after Trump order, officials say, Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury, August 12, 2026
Albemarle supervisors will hear proposal to add 165 units at Fifth Street complex, Sean Tubbs, C-Ville Weekly, August 12, 2026
Time to get this one out quick and hope I can find a way to get back into the research. I’ve covered Albemarle County since 2007 or so and these days I find it more difficult to get to the stories. Between now and Monday I am hoping to catch up as best I can.
Why Monday? The Board of Supervisors is going to have a retreat. I want to cover the part about the next strategic plan because that guides the overall direction of government.
Why Albemarle? The county fascinates me and offers an interesting contrast to the City of Charlottesville. I often wonder what would happen if the two were magically transformed to a different state where there are multiple levels of government.
But I also have a deep conviction that Albemarle does not get nearly enough coverage from third-party journalists. That means a lot of people don’t really understand the mechanisms in place. The work of Town Crier Productions is intended to try to provide glimpses and I strive to grow this organization to expand capacity.
And paid subscriptions make it happen. I’m not much of a sales person and saying things like “this is the best coverage in the community” causes me to cringe inside. Of course, I’ve got many testimonials that say that, but I grew up in a way that makes me question praise of any sort.
In any case, I have neglected to write a localized story about Count Binface. The by-election in Clacton-on-Sea is today. Are you aware of Count Binface? Here’s a good place to start!
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