Podcast for March 9, 2026: A look at Charlottesville’s FY27 budget and two future development projects

Another week is upon us with the prospect of many more stories about all of the usual topics covered by Charlottesville Community Engagement. I'm Sean Tubbs, the president and publisher of Town Crier Productions, an entity created in the summer of 2020 to help me try to bring in revenue so I can share my research into what happens in local, regional, and Virginia government. This is an audio version that is largely based on what aired on WTJU on this past Saturday morning. This podcast edition for March 9th adds a couple of other stories and even contains one that has not yet been in print form. What are those stories? Well, Charlottesville City Manager Sam Bernie Sanders will detail the need for a two-cent increase on the real property tax rate. Bernie Sanders also announces that Charlottesville's pre-K center will be at Walker Upper Elementary School, not Oakland. The city has installed equipment at garages to allow customers to pay without a phone. Sharwitzville's Board of Architectural Review takes a look at two new development projects, and the University of Virginia's board of visitors met this week, and the Buildings and Grounds Committee learned of a new building on Kay Ivey Road, as well as a future road connection between Millmont and Copley Road. Today's shoutouts are from the WTJU version.

increasing revenue and decreasing expenses. Those are only two choices, and I've looked under every seat because you're trying to find an alternative, and there isn't one. Bernie Sanders' draft budget for fiscal year 27 is based on total revenues of $531,778,000, and $435, an amount that includes rates paid for water, sewer, and natural gas. as well as the capital improvement program for the year. Bernie Sanders said he was able to get about $500,000 in reductions made after asking departments for cuts. The general fund budget for fiscal year 27 is proposed at 277,175,674, a 4.5% increase over the current fiscal year. The presentation describes the revenue growth as natural. But what the budget does not tell you is that Virginia law requires localities to advertise what the real property tax rate would be to bring in the same amount of revenue as the current fiscal year. That number is 0.9476 per $100 of assessed value. The new budget creates five new positions for a total of 1,123 city employees. Two of the new positions are licensed clinicians for the anchor team, and another will help some in the city cope with an increasing tax burden. Tax relief specialists to continue to work on our tax relief program specifically because as we have had challenges and the need has grown, we have had more work that now requires an additional set of hands to manage it. In December, City Councilors were told that Charlottesville Area Transit needs 42 drivers to have enough people to implement a system optimization plan that Council first saw in 2021. There has not been a single Sunday bus since March of 2020. The draft fiscal year 27 plan includes an additional $2.2 million in city funds to hire 10 drivers and five support staff with similar step increases in the next three years. Bernie Sanders said this amount also helps cover the increased costs that come with collective bargaining and keeps rides free for passengers. We want to optimize this system. and service. And in order to do that, we were able to work through the consultants that we've been working with to update what it requires to reach optimization. However, Bernie Sanders expressed skepticism that Kat will actually be able to hire 10 drivers each year due to a competitive market. The reality is that we are in a community of roughly 160, 75,000 people, and we have five transit systems. That's our problem. City Councilor Michael Payne and City Councilor Jan Fleischer were present at a February 23 event held by the Advocacy Group Impact, which lobbies for funding for housing and transit. Payne said the group is now requesting to know the cost of hiring 15 drivers a year. I mean, we're kind of close to what that would look like here. Essentially, it would be at about over $400,000 to this number.

Bernie Sanders said he does not have that number handy and would need to discuss with cat management, but said the information will be made available. The Affordable Housing Plan, adopted by Council in March of 2021, made a moral commitment that the city would spend at least $10 million on affordable housing initiatives, and the fiscal year 27 budget has $11.5 million for that purpose. That includes the second of three $5 million payments to the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority for the first phase of West Haven. There are also increases in funding to CRHA, as well as the advocacy group that lobbies on behalf of people who live in public housing. CRHA received $137,000 for operations in fiscal year 26. That will increase to $300,000 in fiscal year 27. Funding for the Public Housing Association of Residents will jump from 66,000 to 125,000. Neither of those numbers match what they requested. But both of those numbers indicate the seriousness in which the city is working to try to support organizations that are working hard for certain populations in our community who struggle. Four of the six eligible collective bargaining units are now in place. The fiscal year 27 budget has a 2% step increase for non-union employees, as well as a 2% pay scale adjustment. Those in the other units get more due to negotiations. You can see the details in the newsletter at infoceville.com. Bernie Sanders said the city has had to hire staff just to work on the constant negotiations. Having four contracts is quite a pickle that you have put us in with having us have this many contracts to manage. We're in a perpetual state of constantly negotiating. That is the reality. We finish one and we move to the next one and sometimes we have two at the same time. The city's budget also includes $21.88 million from an Albemar County that comes from a revenue-sharing agreement agreed to in 1982 at a time when annexation was still possible. This agreement remains in place until one of three things happen. The county and city become a single political subdivision. The concept for independent cities presently existing in Virginia is altered by the state law in such a manner that real property in the city becomes part of the county's tax base, or the county and city mutually agree to cancel or change the agreement. More on the budget as we go forward. What questions do you have? Leave a comment somewhere, and I will try to get you the answer. or just keep reading, Charlottesville Community Engagement at Infoceville.com. In February, Demolition Cruise took down an older section of Charlottesville Middle School that had held the sign with the former name of Buford. The work is part of an ongoing renovation to get the facility ready to add sixth grade students later this year.

When the rehabilitation is complete, Charlottesville City Schools will move forward with an early education center at a temporary location first, and there is funding in the draft capital improvement plan to move forward with design and construction of a permanent location. Last year, the city worked with the University of Virginia on a long-term lease to potentially use the Oak Lawn Estate in Fifeville for the center rather than at Walker Upper Elementary School. Oakland is adjacent to Charlottesville Middle School. On March 2nd, Charlottesville City Manager Sam Bernie Sanders told counsel a decision has been made to convert the place where fifth and sixth grade students now attend into the pre-k kindergarten center. It will occur at Walker because the Oakland property is not available to us to be able to do what we would like to do there. So our capital development division is back now working on activating a pre-K center at Walker. The draft capital improvement plan anticipates $10 million in fiscal year 27 and $20 million in fiscal year 28 for what is referred to in the budget as Charlottesville Pre-K Center. On March 4th, Charlottesville School Superintendent Royal Gurley formally announced the definite new home of the Charlottesville Early Learning Center, which he said will be at the main academic building at Walker, and the Early Childhood Center will be there in the future at the same campus. His announcement sheds more light on why the Oak Lawn site was discarded as an option. The lease with UVA came with provisions that historic preservations remain on the property. Gurley said the city was unable to resolve those in time for the CLC project to move forward at that location. However, he did say that one day the Oak Lawn site might be a welcome center for families. For more information on the Early Learning Center and how you might potentially send a child there, visit the link that's in the newsletter at infoceville.com.

In December, the company that operates two municipal parking garages, managed by the city of Charlottesville, switched to a system that requires parkers to use their phone to enter in billing information, a name, a telephone number, and a license number. The company Metropolis uses artificial intelligence to track vehicles with the supposed benefit of allowing people to simply drive in and out of parking garages without needing a ticket. Here's a section from a November 6th information release announcing the company's receipt of $1.6 billion in financing. The real world is messy, analog and full of friction. Our platform leverages computer vision to eliminate friction and repetition, transforming everyday experiences through recognition and personalization. The system's debut last year in Charlottesville was met with opposition from some concerned about potential privacy violations. In response, the city agreed in January to purchase an add-on that will allow drivers to bypass the use of a phone to track them. Here is Deputy City Manager James Fries. Payment kiosks in the two parking garages are now up and operational. So now there's more than one way for folks to pay for their parking and use the new parking system. The section of the Charlottesville parking website does not yet mention the alternate method and how it might be used. The city signed a contract with SP Plus Corporation on March 18, 24, to operate the Market Street and Water Street garages, and that company was later acquired by Metropolis. This contract runs through March 31, 2021, 29. The contract sets an initial payment of $40,000 a year to Metropolis, plus a processing fee of 33 cents per Parker. A transaction fee of up to 99 cents per Parker is authorized, but the contract does not state what the amount will be. Section 20 of the contract limits what Metropolis can do with data collected. Here's the first sentence of this section. Unless expressly agreed to the contrary in writing, all goods, products, materials, documents, reports, writings, video image, photographs, or papers of any nature, including software or computer images prepared or provided by the contractor or its subcontractors for the city will not be disclosed to any other person or entity without the written permission of the city. The second sentence states that the city owns all intellectual property rights created by the transactions. Will this come up again in the future? Most likely. Stay tuned. You're listening to Sharwitzville Community Engagement, and in today's second public service announcement, the Early Music Access Project presents alchemy.

the Brooklyn-based medieval ensemble who will present, watch your sign, music that shows traces of the medieval zodiac and the ways it mapped onto daily life. The concert takes place on Sunday, March 8th at 8 p.m. at UVA's Rotunda in Charlottesville. Constellations projected onto the Rotunda dome will serve as a bot drop. for this unique performance. The event is free, but prior registration is required by visiting early musicseville.org. Out and about, Charlottesville's LGBT Plus social group will host a Meet the Artist's reception in the Rotunda's Lower West Oval Room at 7 p.m. open to all. When Charlottesville City Council adopted a new zoning code in late 2023, the new rules eliminated much of the role that they and the Planning Commission play in determining the fate of development projects, as well as how they are designed. However, the new development code retained historic and architectural design control districts, and the Board of Architectural Review continues to play a role in what happens in those locations, as well as on individually protected properties. Perhaps the biggest example of the BAR's power is a vote in December to deny a certificate of appropriateness for a seven-story building in Fifeville that sought to incorporate two protected structures into the design. City Council will take up an appeal in the near future. Under the new zoning, developers meet with city staff in preliminary meetings to discuss potential projects. These are not open to the public. However, if a project is within the jurisdiction of the BAR, those preliminary discussions are public. On February 18th, the body saw two projects, with the first being a proposal to construct nine townhouses at 528 Valley Road. An entity called AVP-528 Valley LLC purchased the 0.47 acre site in September 2023 for $868,000. The property is residential B and the project is by right, except for the need for the BAR to sign off due to this being in the Oakhurst-Gildesleeve ADC District. Jeff Werner is the city's preservation planner. Existing on this site is a colonial revival brick dwelling that was constructed in 1937. Werner said the house will remain, and the new units will be constructed in three new buildings. This is an example of where we're heading with the new coded development, looking at higher density infill adjacent to single-family. What had been single-family dwellings are certainly a single-family dwelling neighborhood. The BAR's review is called for in Section 5.27 of the Development Code, as this is technically an addition of structures to a property in an ADC. Warner wanted members of the BAR to decide on parameters for their review. Do you want to look at this as an addition? I know it's not an addition, but look at it in terms of being subordinate to...

the primary structure. The buildings are being designed by the Gaines Group, an architect Adrian Strong, said the project is purely new construction. We did approach the project from a standpoint of preserving the existing house there and not touching it. So that's really what this is in response to the city zoning and what's being allowed in the residential lots and trying to squeeze in that needed housing stock. B.A.R. Chair James Zemer said that he also sees this project as new construction, but said the body still has a role to play. We should certainly. kind of take the house into consideration as we're looking at these buildings, but to me it's new construction. That means the BAR can look at the massing and scale of the new structures and can suggest alterations. Strong was asked to explain how the design fits in with the design guidelines for the Oakhurst-Gildersleeve ADC. Because of the zoning, we do have a minimum, but also a maximum setback from the road. So these structures do have to get closer to the road. There's also a build-to-it. Strong said the scale has been reduced somewhat in response to nearby buildings, and the design is intended to match. And then looked at some of the colors from the neighborhood to really pull in some of the existing greens. There's some green roofs, green shutters throughout the neighborhood that would try to emulate with this, but also make it look like it's new stock and it's not trying to replicate something that's existing there. One licensed architect who sits on the BAR had notes on one of the buildings closest to the street. Here is Catherine Snyder to Boney. This building feels like it's too far forward and too... big on the street. This is just sort of a kind of my gut reaction. Carl Schwartz, who was also a member of the Planning Commission, had other direction for that first building. Is there a way to break the massing down? So yes, either treat it like townhouses or something so it's more vertical and it's breakdown so it doesn't feel quite so wide or maybe there's a way to modulate the facade a little bit so it's not so flat. George was not as concerned about the two other buildings. He did say that the vinyl windows being suggested for the project would not be approved because they are not allowed under the guidelines. The second project up for preliminary review was for a vacant lot in the 700 block of Lexington Avenue in the Martha Jefferson Historic Conservation District. The property is 0.181 acres and zoned residential B. The owners want to build a single-family house. The design showed a carport and several members of the BAR expressed concern. Schwartz said the active depth requirements in the development code might prevent that from being allowed. Maybe there's an exception somewhere that I missed, but my understanding is that for 65% of the plot width has to be building without cars in it.

Others were more in support of the carport, and both items will come back to the BAR after formal applications are filed. In recent years, Chartwoodsville's bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee has been leading monthly walks across the city's neighborhoods as a way of encouraging exploration and direct experience of the many different parts of the community. On March 8th, the group will head to the northwest corner of Charlottesville for one of the city's most unique precincts. Here is City Councilor Natalie Oshran at the March 2nd, 2026 City Council meeting. The neighborhood will be the Meadows. So the walk will be meeting at 10 a.m. on Sunday, the 8th at the Best Buy, and then we'll loop through that neighborhood, which is... has some city-county interplay there. According to a fact sheet put together by the city of Charlottesville, the Meadows makes up about 0.56 square miles and is the fifth least dense of the city's 19 neighborhoods and the seventh least populace. The average rent is $1,580 a month, lower than the 2100 average for the city as a whole. There are also more renters than most neighborhoods with 83% of households compared to a citywide average of 61%. The Meadows neighborhood also has the largest percentage of commercial area compared to residential area. 42% of land is commercial, 28% is single-family residential, 20% is government or nonprofit, and the rest is multifamily residential. Here's a section from the fact sheet. The eastern portion contains restaurants, businesses, hotels, and shopping centers along Hillsdale Drive, as well as public and private market apartment homes along Mickey Drive. More apartment homes lined hydraulic road, while the western edge bordering Albemar County has a more suburban neighborhood of homes built in the 1950s and 1960s. The neighborhood's future will be influenced by a zoning code with much of the area zoned in one of the three node mixed-use zones. These allow for a mix of office, commercial, and residential uses with base level heights of five, eight, or ten stories. There are several stories that I have written about the neighborhood's neighborhood, which is going to transform over the next few years with lots of different projects. Stay tuned to Information Charlottesville and Infoceville.com. And April's walk will be on the University of Virginia grounds.

The amount of available space in the University of Virginia's Emmett Kay Ivey Corridor continues to decrease as the area that was once taxable land continues to be developed for the future of higher education. Alice Roche is the architect of the University of Virginia. We've been working on the development of the Emmett Kay Ivey Corridor, since the Board of Visitors approved the Framer Plan in 2016. Under construction at the moment are the Karsh Institute of Democracy. around 800 beds of student housing, and the Virginia guest house. The latter is a hotel and convention center that is expected to open in April. One of the first new buildings to come into active use was the School of Data Science, which opened in April of 2024. By the end of that year, the Quantitative Foundation contributed an additional $20 million for a new structure. That entity donated $120 million to the first building in 2018. Last June, the Buildings and Grounds Committee of UVA's Board of Visitors agreed to add an adjacent building to the Major Capital Plan for Entrepreneurship. In September, the panel approved the concept, site, and design guidelines, and they got an update at their meeting on March 5th. The site, which is directly adjacent to the School of Data Science. will enable broad, collaborative research and entrepreneurial endeavors both within the school and across grounds. Another future project in the Emmett Kay Ivey Corridor is the Center for Arts, which would be built along Emmett Street to the north of an amphitheater outside the existing school of data science building. Only two spaces remain to be programmed in the Emmett Kay Ivey Corridor. The new data science building is being designed to flow into the existing structure. The ground floor courtyard and the upper level connecting bridge between the two allow efficient circulation between the communal spaces and classrooms in SDS on the right and the seminar rooms and classrooms in the new building. One committee member expressed concern about how the connection to central grounds would be affected. Rache responded that a lot of work has been done and will be done to increase capacity for pedestrians and bikes. For instance, the city is moving forward with a smart scale-funded project to reconfigure the intersection of Emmett and Kay Ivey with wider sidewalks. I think with the beautification and the widening of the public realm that we have done as well, both sides of Kay Ivey Road have been widened and made tree-lined. I think it is a natural course to be in a quasi-urban environment to be able to wait for a streetlight and able to cross. Rache said one of the options at the Center for the Arts is to have a pedestrian bridge crossing across Emmett Street. The design for the second School of Data Science will come back at a later date. The Buildings and Grounds Committee also got a look at potential additions to the major capital plan, the document that tracks planning for future buildings in infrastructure. One of those additions is $100,000 to plan for a roadway to connect Copley Road to Millmont Street across Arlington Boulevard, creating a new four-way intersection.

Copley Road currently runs from Kay Ivey Road through North Grounds before turning to the east where it terminates with Emmett Street. Here is Lois Stanley, UVA's Senior Vice President for Operations. The 2019 Northgrounds Athletics Plan recommended road construction from Copley Road to the Millmont-Arlington Boulevard intersection to relieve Constance. congestion during peak commute times and for patrons when they're exiting the large JPJ arena events. Few details about the scope of the future roadway were mentioned at the meeting, but the UVA Foundation owns all of the land immediately to the south of Millmont Road's intersection with Arlington Boulevard. In December 2019, the UVA Foundation paid $10 million for Arlington Park townhomes and its 2.12 acres. In June of 2020, the Foundation paid another $10 million for an apartment building just to the south. The UVA Foundation is a result of an agreement signed in 1986 between Albemarrow, Charlottesville, and UVA to set expectations about how each would approach growth. The foundation pays real property taxes to the city, but that stops as soon as the Board of Visitors formally takes ownership. Other additions to the Major Capital Plan include $13 million for construction of a multi-purpose practice field and $12.5 million for two new health system buildings. The plan will come back for formal approval at the Board of Visitors meeting in June.

And that is the end of Sharwitzville Community Engagement for what day is this? March 9th. I think this is March 9th. At least that's what it says on my calendar. I am glad you're listening. I have a long explanation in, well, actually didn't explain very much. I'll explain to you that it just seems to be more and more difficult to get to the audio version a lot these days. A real... killer for me is that the fact that for whatever reason at the moment all of the existing equipment I have doesn't allow me to hear my voice in the headphones very well which sounds weird but it means I can't monitor for mistakes which means a lot more audio mistakes for making it in it's not a mistake to continue doing this and I'm glad to do it I'm glad to have the music of Vrocky In the audio mix from the very beginning, more on that in the future. It's time to get on. I just want to say that Rocky actually bought me this microphone for Christmas. I'm finally getting, or was it my birthday? I don't know. I'm just grateful to have a new microphone. Now I need to get a new way to fix other things, and I will because...

I like doing this, and I'm glad to do it. I hope you enjoy listening. Goodbye.