Coat Drive Drop off in Crozet

I don’t care about the politics of this, just that a group is collecting and distributing warm clothes to those in need, and we can drop off said warm clothes at the Crozet Mudhouse. While I don’t make a habit of posting political stuff, it’s cold outside. Warm clothes can help.

via email:

We will be collecting and sorting  warm clothes, then distributing them to local charities on January 4th which is a statewide Day of Service in honor of Terry McAuliffe’s inauguration.
 
Here’s how you can help:

(1) Volunteer your time by helping sort clothing at the Ix Building  (945 Second St NE Charlottesville 22902) 12n – 4pm  every Tuesday and Saturday until January 4, 2014.

(2) Volunteer to sort and distribute warm clothing on January 4, 2014. We will be meeting at the Ix Building from 9am-5pm.

(3) Donate gently used warm clothing (i.e., coats, hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters, long sleeved shirts, winter pants, shoes, socks, etc) at designated drop off locations listed below.

Drop Off Locations:

– C’ville Coffee
– Toddsbury of Ivy
– Foods of all Nations in Ivy
– The Mudhouse in Crozet

Questions? Call Patty Haling – (704) 351-7002

Help the Crozet Lions and Salvation Army

via email:

This year the Lions Club of Crozet is organizing opportunities for ringing Bells for the Salvation Army in front of the Crozet Great Valu Market, and we want to invite all friends and neighbors in Crozet and environs to participate.

We have scheduled bell ringing for the following dates:

Friday, and Saturday afternoons and/early evenings, on December 13 and 14, and on December 20 and 21, and on Monday and Tuesday December 23 and 24.

We have set up two simple procedures for everyone to sign up.

For those who are comfortable with email, we have set up an account with Signup Genius.???The address is:  www.SignUpGenius.com/go/60B0A49A4A6292-ring

For those who are not comfortable with email, please call Phil Best at (434) 823-2431. Continue reading “Help the Crozet Lions and Salvation Army”

Angel Tree in Crozet – Accomplished!

I shared this the other day on Facebook, but the blog has more readers …

Feeling grateful for the Crozet community. 180 kids taken care of on the Crozet Angel Tree in 9 days.

From Lisa Ebanks:

“I’m happy to report all the angels are spoken for!! Crozet is the best!! 180 kids will receive warm clothes this Christmas! Thanks to all who are participating!!”

Thank you, Crozet, for being such a wonderful community.

Crozet Streetscape Meeting Recap – 3 December 2013

Thank you – thank you to all who attended and all who tweeted the meeting. Thank you particularly to @tim_dodson,@kellygobble, @crozetbulldogs, and @tfjtolson for tweeting the meeting – you made it a much richer experience (and equally easier and harder for me to storify this!) Seriously, using the #CrozetStreetscape hashtag made this much, much easier to follow.

I’ll update this post when the Crozet Gazette and Charlottesville Tomorrow publish their stories.

Update – stories by Crozet Gazette and Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Highlights

– This is going to be un-fun. But it’s something we as a Crozet community can get through together

– Work starting the first week of January 2014

Work will take about a year.

– Tabor is first, going to be partially closed for ~ 6 weeks or …

– ~ 2 weeks if they close it and route traffic through the lumberyard (this is as of yet undecided) …

– Which would impact the merchants in the Square significantly

– The County has a comprehensive and evolving communication plan to inform the community about the Streetscape project

– The County wants to know what events they need to be aware of and work around – i.e.: 4th of July Parade, Crozet Arts & Crafts Festival.

PDF of the streetscape overview is here.

Click through to read the full story. Click through, scroll to the bottom – and ask questions. Continue reading “Crozet Streetscape Meeting Recap – 3 December 2013”

CCAC Meeting – Through the Eyes of a WAHS Student

Last month’s Crozet Community Advisory Council meeting was well-attended, and well-tweeted! One of the attendees was Tim Dodson, a junior at Western Albemarle High School and the news editor of the Western Hemisphere. His tweets were insightful and added a perspective that is lacking at most CCAC meetings (no disrespect intended) – that of youth. So I asked him to write a guest post and he graciously accepted. The next scheduled CCAC meeting is 16 December . A sincere thanks to Tim for attending, tweeting and writing this story.

I’ve sat through a lot of tedious Board of Supervisors and School Board meetings before, so I figured my experience with the Crozet Community Advisory Council (CCAC) wouldn’t be much different when I attended the November 21 CCAC meeting last Thursday. I was totally wrong.

The meeting was at the Meadows Community Center and started at 7pm. I drove up, and at first I thought I was at the wrong place. There weren’t too many people inside, perhaps five or six. More people started to show up and within 10 minutes the CCAC members were seated and a small audience had arrived as well. I was seated next to Kim Connolly, and as it turned out, both of us were there to live-tweet the meeting. CCAC members appeared to be surprised by the seven person public turnout, so I guess these meeting aren’t well attended.

The CCAC is actually a pretty diverse group, with Board of Supervisors member Ann Mallek, PTO reps, longtime Crozet residents, and several individuals with ties to local organizations. Perhaps the only group not represented is high school students.

As the meeting progressed, the council addressed a variety of topics, including Crozet Library fundraising, Streetscape, sidewalks near Crozet Elementary, Barnes Lumber Company, and contamination at the Wilson Jones site.
I appreciated the informal debate flow of the council and the frequent opportunities for public input into the discussions.

I was mostly interested in the Crozet Library and Streetscape agenda items, and as a teen driver, found the conversations about possible stop lights and three-way intersections quite relevant. My favorite update that evening was the fact that the stop bar at the intersection of Crozet Ave. and Jarman’s Gap Rd. will be moved up once Streetscape is complete. It’s about time that happened!

Although I didn’t have the background knowledge for the conversations about Wilson Jones and Barnes Lumber, the discussions that they prompted led me to do some googling afterwards and become more informed.

The meeting finished on time at 9pm, and as I got in my car and drove away, I realized that time had flown by and reflected on the meaningful discussions that I observed.

In general, CCAC is an engaging way for the Crozet community to have a voice in county affairs and influence local policymaking. I’ve never seen people so passionate about zoning, libraries, and sidewalks until I came to the CCAC meeting; it’s reassuring to know that the people on CCAC actually care about what goes on in Crozet and that active citizens are leading the way.

Anyone with a connection to Crozet – whether you live in Crozet, attend school in Crozet, or frequently use the library – should try to attend a CCAC meeting and chime in on the conversations. These meetings are lively, open, and in some ways, enlightening.

editor’s note: I’d love to see more attendance and public input at CCAC meetings, and hope that Tim’s attendance inspires more youth insight and input – from WAHS students and the Crozet community.

Brief Market Update for Crozet – December 2013

When do homes come on the market in Crozet- - Zoho Sheet.jpg

I looked at this data a couple months ago but was curious as to what was happening now in the market.

Keep in mind that these numbers are a bit skewed as so much of the Crozet real estate market is new construction:

– Of the 238 homes that have sold this year in the Charlottesville area MLS, 90 are marked as new construction* – nearly 40% of homes sold this year in Crozet are new construction! And that’s a lower percentage than last year, when 48% of the homes sold in Crozet from 1/1/12-12/1/12 were marked as new construction.

That said, in short:

– New resale listings are trending downward, month over month and year over year
– Contracts are trending slightly up
– Closings are moving downward, month over month and year over year

Fewer listings coming on the market with contracts remaining steady may indicate that now could be a good time to consider putting your home on the market …

Have questions? Ask me. (I’m a real estate agent) Continue reading “Brief Market Update for Crozet – December 2013”