Category: CCAC

The CCAC meeting on 10 April 2024 was an open house at Brownsville.

Spend some time going through the slides. The transportation section is particularly interesting.

A few highlights:

• Read about the Albemarle County 2024 Budget at Charlottesville Community Engagement
• County Schools account for 45% of the County budget
• 3 new schools will be built in Albemarle in the next three years.
• The police gave an update on traffic issues; zero discussion about how to minimize traffic issues by having more bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
• Albemarle County’s transportation dashboard is here. Getting transportation projects completed is a massive challenge as so many things (and humans and humans’ agendas) need to align to get funding.
• A resident from Pleasant Green asks why don’t developers build sidewalks? We don’t have a safe sidewalk route. Answer was that in 2016 the Commonwealth eliminated proffers, and those were what funded offsite improvements (Read — sidewalks, etc not in a specific development)
• Westlake residents suggested revisiting the Crozet Master Plan, as it was predicated on the Eastern Connector, which is so very much delayed.
• “A comment about not enough parking in the new square and people are upset about not being able to make left into the square Ann – right in/right out has been planned for 15 years. Me: people are complaining about having to drive a few extra feet?”
  • The Left turn into the Square is a disaster, particularly in mornings and afternoons.
  • If we as a community – Crozet & Albemarle – are truly concerned about traffic, we need fewer cars on the roads.
  • “Never forget, when you’re being asked to prove that safe bike-lanes or pedestrian crossings across unsafe conditions are ‘needed,’ it’s hard to justify a bridge by the number of people swimming across a raging river.”
  • Me: the county and VDOT don’t require connectivity. They build just for cars.
• There was a question about an infrastructure gap analysis, asking for an analysis about lacking infrastructure. No good answer was given.

From the CCAC meeting last week (thanks to Crozet Gazette for the video below!)

If you have an hour, please watch the video. If you don’t, please read or skim the information below.

My notes from watching the video

• The Square project and Barnes Lumber are two separate and distinct projects, despite efforts to coordinate and execute together
• 11 month project
• Christmas tree going away; chance a tree will be in the Plaza
• No left turn into the Mudhouse – finally.
• Replacing sidewalks at the end of the project… Five phases
• No improvements to Tabor and Jarman
• $2 million project
• Seven years since the project was first funded
• Will there be a webcam for the public to watch? Great question.
• I’ve written about The Square many times over the years, from the railroad fence to the sinkhole to the sign in the Square. And a lot more.
• I saw no mention of bike parking, despite evidence that bike infrastructure is profitable.
  • In the minds of many business owners, though, there’s still a direct correlation between cars and customers. Too often, the opposition to bicycle infrastructure is led by retailers who believe ample car parking space is critical to their customer base. But that belief could be depriving businesses of their best potential patrons: cyclists. … 2009 study of Bloor Street in Toronto, ON, found that customers who arrive by foot and bicycle visit the most often and spend the most money per month.” (bolding mine)
• More members are needed to join the Crozet Community Advisory Committee. They need fresh faces and new blood. 🙂

The PDF of the presentation is here.

From Charlottesville Community Engagement on 20 February 2024

Albemarle report provides details into Crozet’s Square project

In June 2012, Albemarle County acquired a 0.36 acre parcel in downtown Crozet from CSX Transportation in a transaction in which no money changed hands. The strip of land is known as The Square and spans between Crozet Avenue and Oak Street on the western edge of the Barnes Lumberyard. 

As ever, thanks to Crozet Gazette for the recording. If you can find the time to watch the meeting, I think it’s an instructive background into growth in Albemarle and Crozet going forward. Start or continue your learning about Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan at Engage Albemarle.

I missed the meeting, and it looks like it was sparsely-attended, despite transportation and infrastructure being such important parts of our community conversation.

A few things jumped out as I watched the meeting

• 12:07 multi modal planning approach; focusing growth within development areas
• 15:50 centers and destinations of activity – Crozet is a bit ahead of other development areas
• 16:55 jobs & people densities — this is really interesting
• 21 modes
• 25:00 — urban design conversation, context, vocabulary are too complicated for an an average citizen to understand? Planning and development are meaty topics that affect us all, and the November CCAC meeting is an example of why it’s important to consistently pay attention to local government.
• 45:00 — AC44 future land use and planning designations; this is important (and technical) stuff that affects how we live and grow. There are 24 land use designations (confusing) across 5 master plans.

January’s meeting will be about the Crozet Square!

Via email from the County

(me: I always forget there’s a Crozet CAC folder on the County’s site.)

Here are the individual links

Crozet CAC AC44 Presentation

Crozet Modal Emphasis Map

Draft Updated Land Use Designations for AC44

And, just a reminder, questionnaires are open online for the following chapter draft goals and objectives:

• Housing

• Economic Development

• Environmental Stewardship

• Parks and Recreation

• Historic, Scenic, and Cultural Resources

We need infrastructure – not just roads, sidewalks, bike lanes, but internet as well.

From Joe Fore, CCAC Chair:

“Our main agenda item will be a discussion with the Albemarle County Broadband Accessiblity and Affordability Office about broadband internet use and needs in the Crozet area. I haven’t received any materials that they’d like us to review ahead of time, but if I do, I’ll circulate them before the meeting. We’ll also hear updates from the Crozet Trails Crew and from our Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors liaisons.

Two other Crozet-related items that I wanted to pass along:

• The County’s Comprehensive Plan revision process is now in Phase 2, and the County is seeking input on several areas. Three of the topics seem particularly relevant to Crozet:
  • Criteria for expanding the development areas
  • Activity centers in development areas
  • Rural interstate interchanges (including the Yancey Mills interchange at Exit 107)

• In April, we heard from Tim Tolson of the Crozet Community Association about the Crozet Independence Day Celebration, which will take place on Saturday, July 1. Details about the day’s events are available here. Of course, this phenomenal community event doesn’t occur by magic; it relies on Crozetians who are willing to contribute their time and money to help make it happen. The above link includes information about how to donate and how to volunteer for a 1-hour slot to help with set-up and clean-up. I hope you’ll all consider doing both.”

Agenda and draft minutes after the break

Last month’s CCAC meeting was interesting. I’m curious how many people will attend this week’s meeting.

Water is a big topic, and one that will become of greater interest in the coming years.

#CCAC0523

via email, from Joe Fore, CCAC Chair:

The Crozet Community Advisory Committee will meet next Wednesday, May 10, at 7 pm in the large meeting room at the Crozet Library. (If you can arrive a few minutes early to help set up the room, it will help ensure that we can start promptly at 7.) I’ve attached the agenda and the April meeting minutes. 

Our main agenda item will be an update from the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority about their Crozet-area projects. I’ve asked them to share their meeting materials ahead of time, but they’re not quite ready. I’ll circulate those when I get them.

We’ll have time for some committee business. We’ll debrief the Oak Bluff community meeting and talk, more generally, about our procedures for holding future community meetings. We’ll also have time to discuss our summer meeting schedule and potential topics for those meetings. We will also circle back to an idea we discussed several months ago: tracking previously discussed development projects. I’ve attached a PDF version of a document we can use to divvy up and track those projects.

Lastly, we’ll be electing officers for the upcoming year. We have three positions available: Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary. Please let me know before Wednesday’s meeting if you’d be interested in taking on any of those roles–or if you have any other items you’d like to add to the agenda.

Attachments below

In a near-first, we have a copy of the presentation *before* the meeting.