In a 4-1 vote (Republican Rob Schilling dissenting), City Council approved a proclamation against unilateral war against Iraq last night. Charlottesville is one of 62 cities in the nation that are “Cities for Peace,” along with towns like San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Boulder, Des Moines, Baltimore, Detroit, Santa Fe, Ithaca, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. WINA has the story.
Archive for February, 2003
The hard drive on this server (a $300 computer sitting on my desk at my apartment, with the drive in question being a 40GB Maxtor) died a horrible death on Friday. Due to the snow, I couldn’t get back into town to fix it until this evening. I’ve restored to a backup from a week ago, and I’m hoping to recover data from this Maxtor and merge the data with this backup to restore every post and story from the last week. The mechanics of doing so make my head spin, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. In other news, my last week’s e-mail is gone, too. Bummer.
The city was blanketed by a foot or so of snow over the past few days. The snow started on Saturday, and continued off and on through Monday. The powder has a base of ice, with another crust of ice on the top, making anything from driving to walking difficult to do. Pretty much everything was closed on Monday, and it looks like most things will stay shut down on Tuesday. North of here, big cities (DC, NYC, Boston, etc.) received as much as three feet, and south of here received freezing rain. Anybody have any good snow stories?
For the first time in decades, the city is overhauling their zoning ordinances. These rules govern the scale, scope, and nature of development throughout the city, and this major revision will have a strong impact on Charlottesville in the coming decades. cvillenews.com reader Ray Smith attended a presentation on the planned changes last week, and provided a write up of his experiences. Ray works at Videos, Etc. here in town, a local video store that includes a back room that sells “adult” movies and novelties, and so his interest is with regard to the proposed adult use zoning standards. (If this story seems familiar, it’s because it ran about a week ago — the recent hard drive crash on the server resulted in the loss of this story, but Ray thoughtfully resubmitted this story.) Keep reading to see Ray’s write up.
Jim Tolbert of Charlottesville’s Neighborhood Development Services answered questions Monday night about the draft of the new Zoning Ordinance. Citizens filled the dining room of the Fry Springs Beach Club and listened intently to a 30 minute PowerPoint presentation on all but one of the major changes to Charlottesville land-use regulations. I was there because of the major change that was not mentioned in the PowerPoint presentation: the Adult Use Division regulating adult entertainment. Also present for fielding questions was Kevin O’Halloran, new chair of the Planning Commission.
According to Tolbert, the current Ordinance was drafted in the 70’s and, although it has been amended over 50 times, has never been revamped in such a major way. He said that the Zoning Committee wanted to “be different” this time in their process of drafting the ordinance. No outside planning consultants, no small cadre of authors from the city staff, “but by committee. We want to involve as many people as possible in the process of drafting.” Tolbert told me before the meeting that there have been hundreds of people involved in this process over the past 2 years, and that much of the draft came out of citizen committees.
Tolbert began his presentation by explaining the Comprehensive Plan, the long-term guidelines for the vision of Charlottesville. Everything in the ordinance must comply with the goals of the “Comp Plan”.
The major changes to the zoning ordinance include: dividing the city into 23 “urban design corridors” to better provide for the different zoning needs of the city’s neighborhoods; adding new historic districts and studying the possibility of the Belmont and Locust Ave neighborhoods becoming historic districts; handicap “visitability” requirements; the ability to build a detached “accessory apartment”; eliminating heavy manufacturing zones so that businesses such as junkyards and meat-packing plants cannot establish in the city; control of spillover lighting from parking lots; and smoothing out the Board of Architectural Review’s review/appeal process.
Unmentioned in his presentation was Section 8, Division 10, the very last pages of the proposed zoning ordinance: the brand new sex entertainment section. I shot in with the first question after his presentation ended: “Why no inclusion of the adult use section in your presentation?” He responded that he just didn’t include it at this time. While I was trying to figure out if he’d just told me that he didn’t include it because he didn’t include it, he was onto the next question.
The audience had their own favorites. There were audible gasps from this JPA-heavy group when Tolbert revealed that the new ordinance would allow increased apartment density in the University district. Not only that, but it reduces the minimum required parking spaces to 1/2 per apartment. Tolbert defended these by stating that the goal was to decrease student car use by keeping them within walking distance of Central Grounds. He also noted that many apartment parking lots are currently underused. To further the goal of corralling students into the neighborhoods closer to Grounds, the ordinance creates a district around the University district wherein 1 family homes cannot be split into 2 family, and the number of unrelated people allowed to live in one residence is reduced from 4 to 3. The above-mentioned allowance of “accessory/garage apartments” would not, however, be allowed in the University district, so as to prevent drastic changes to the look of the homes in that area.
Another change to the University district would be the allowance of businesses on the first floor of buildings in the JPA neighborhood. Again, the Zoning Committee’s thinking was to provide for student needs in that neighborhood so that they would not increase traffic by driving to the shopping centers. Tolbert implied that the businesses would tend to be laundromats or convenience stores, but at the query of one citizen, Kevin O’Halloran admitted that restaurants and bars would be allowable. That citizen was very concerned that bars with live music would increase the noise pollution in the neighborhood, saying that “we have fought a 15 year battle against noise” from outdoor parties. Another citizen wondered if the JPA neighborhood was being “picked on”, and asked why there couldn’t be more residential expansion on east Emmet St or west Main. There were lots of groans and nods of approval to this.
Citizens were also concerned about Tolbert’s statement that “it only takes 3 votes” for City Council to decide to sell park land. Tolbert reassured the crowd that any sale of park land must be cohesive with the Comprehensive Plan and would have to pass public hearings before the Planning Commission and City Council.
I got to ask more questions towards the end. “What city interests are you protecting with the adult use section?” Tolbert responded that there are “proper places” for this kind of material and that he didn’t want it to be available around our children. I asked him if he thought that retailers of sexual items caused more harm to neighborhoods than vendors of alcohol. He demurred, saying “I don’t want to debate this issue now. City Council will determine whether this is of value.” I knew this was my only chance, so I cruised in with a third question, “Do you think there is a difference between stores that sell sexually explicit literature, media and paraphernalia and businesses that engage in public nudity, like strip clubs?” He replied affirmatively, saying that the zoning ordinance treats those 2 classes of business differently. I asked him if he was sure, because I’ve read it a dozen times and know that it doesn’t. He said he was certain. (Later in the meeting he said that the draft that was publicly available was out of date and that an update would be posted to the City’s website within 2 weeks.) At this point a citizen said out loud that he wouldn’t that kind of business in the Fontaine area. For a split second, I thought he was joking. Then I responded, “There has been, for 16 years, and with no negative effects on the neighborhood.” A citizen behind me muttered spookily under her breath, “How do you know?”
Many people had questions and Tolbert did not get to them all. He informed us that the Planning Commission was meeting the following night (Tuesday the 11th at 7:30) and would determine a date for a public hearing for the ordinance draft, which, if passed, would go to a public hearing before City Council.
There are a lot of changes afoot in Our Fair City, with many long-planned municipal constructions projects going forward and a few new plans. At last week’s Planning Commission meeting, a variety of projects were discussed, including Court Square improvements in April, the renovation of the Trailways bus station, the demolition of New Cabell Hall, a pedestrian bridge over Emmet St., the completion of the (public bathroom-less Recreation Center overhaul, and many other things. Ray Smith, who recently provided a write up a recent hearing regarding planned zoning changes, has provided a run-down of the planned projects; keep reading to read it.
I unknowingly arrived late to this month’s Planning Commission meeting (a person working that night in City Hall had told me the meeting started at 7:30, but it had begun much earlier) to ask the Commission for a few things about the Adult Use section. I had missed the “Matters presented by the public” section, so I just sat in on Jim Tolbert’s Construction Report. (Tolbert is the Director of Neighborhood Development Services.)
I was glad I was late, because there are some major construction happenings planned:
The Planning Commission also decided that their next meeting would be March 11 at 6:30. They wanted a separate date for a public hearing for the zoning ordinance, and chose March 26 at 6:30.
Ntelos (nee Intelos, nee CFW, as in Clifton Forge Waynesboro Telephone Cooperative) failed to pay their interest payments, due yesterday, to bondholders. They were scheduled to pay $24.6MM, but failed to do so. Ntelos has 30 days before their creditors can take action. A year ago, they had $7.3MM in cash — now they’re down to just a hair over a half million. The company went from a small telephone co-op to a big wireless and Internet company beginning in the mid 90s, and they now provide services like paging, DSL, cable television, wireless Internet access, website hosting, and PCS in five states. The Washington Post has the story, and Ntelos has a relevant press release on their site. 02/20 Update: Looks like Standard & Poor’s has cut their credit rating, and Ntelos is closing a call center, selling the $8MM building, and moving 100 jobs, as a cost-cutting move. It’s not expected that many of the employees will move from the Portsmouth location to their Waynesboro or Daleville locations, because the pay is around $9/hour.
Cecil writes: I heard on the radio this morning (2/20) that Albemarle County and Charlottesville City schools (among others) are closed today. I don’t have a problem with that; I don’t even have a child in the school system. But I am curious - -it seems to me that the streets are pretty much clear, at least in the city. Why do they remain closed? Does anyone have any experience with these kinds of school-closing decisions, someone who could shed light on what factors go into consideration? This layperson wonders.
In 1979, the U.S. Senate commissioned a study on the effects of nuclear war. They wanted to know what would happen to government, the economy, and society if nuclear war were to break out between the USSR and the United States. What would the country be like afterwards? The result was a study (titled, appropriate, “The Effects of Nuclear War,” that outlined the specific effects of various attack scenarios, determining kill rates, illness levels, the effects on food supplies, etc. The interesting bit is that they commissioned a 15-page fictionalized short story of life after the war in one specific city. The author, Nan Randall, wrote about Charlottesville. Good news: we survive. Lots of refugees come here from all over the country, we communicate via CB radio, WCHV broadcasts messages from the president (who is in a bunker in the midwest), the city manager becomes the totalitarian ruler of Charlottesville and Albemarle, and…well, I won’t ruin it for you. The story is only available as a PDF (77k), but it makes for great reading.
Jefferson Madison Regional Library, because they’re just cool like that, has made a bookmarklet in the LibraryLookup format that allows people to easily see if a book is available at the library. When you’re on a book-related site (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, whatever), before you buy the book, you can use this bookmarklet (which is basically a bookmark that does something interesting) to see if you could just check it out instead of buying it. Just drag this link: [Library Lookup] to the toolbar at the top of your browser to activate it on your system. For example, if you were looking at my mother’s book on Amazon, you could click on the LibraryLookup bookmarklet to query JMRL’s catalog for it, and you’d discover that it’s checked out at Gordon and Central, but available at Northside and Louisa. Save money, make use of the library, try the LibraryLookup bookmarklet. Full disclosure: I represent Charlottesville on the Board of Trustees for JMRL.
Everybody’s favorite (and only) whipping-boy on the human rights violations front, The Brown Schools, has sold their Charlottesville mental health center two years after it opened. The residential adolescent mental-health facility has chalked up over 100 human rights violations in the past year, ranging from sex with patients to a staffer threatening to kill a patient, employing untrained temps to beating patients with belts. The new owner is Psychiatric Solutions Inc. of Franklin, TN. The CEO of the company says that he intends to “keep violations to a minimum,” and intends to employ the same technique that the previous owner did: change the name. Claudia Pinto has the story in Sunday’s Progress.
The Richmond Building and Construction Trades Council has accused Tenaska of bringing in out-of-state workers to construct their new Fluvanna power plant, making their provision $50MM in wages considerably less useful to the county. Says a member of the trade union, regarding the imported workers, “if we had these jobs, money would be recirculated throughout the state, whereas these guys aren?t paying property taxes and are renting homes. They’re basically taking from the area, but they?re not giving a whole lot back.” Tenaska denies the accusation, and says that they’ll ultimately spend $50MM with area businesses. If all of this seems a bit familiar, it might because a cvillenews.com user forecast this scenario back in October. Austin Graham has the story in Sunday’s Progress.
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