This post was lost in the redesign and relaunch of RealCrozetVA, so I’m republishing it.
There’s always a lot happening in Crozet; I’m writing these as much for you as for me — my clients expect me to know my market, and this is part of my ongoing research.*
Top line: On Wednesday, Oct. 21, the Board of Supervisors votes on this year’s affordable housing grants. One recommended grant includes two new Habitat for Humanity homes in Crozet.
Why this stuff matters for Crozet buyers, sellers and neighbors
- Two homes won’t move the Crozet market. They add to a small number of permanently affordable homes in Crozet; Habitat has built here before, including in Old Trail.
- Homes with long affordability terms don’t resell at market prices, so don’t treat them as comps.
- Nothing else on Wednesday’s agenda is about Crozet: no rezonings and no road funding. The Beaver Hill mobile home park expansion, which the Planning Commission recommended denying in April, still hasn’t been scheduled for the supervisors as far as I can tell.
- The economic outlook matters to us all, and affects the county budget, our budget, property taxes, etc.
1. Board of Supervisors – Wednesday, Oct. 21, 1 p.m., Lane Auditorium
Housing Investment Fund grants
The supervisors will decide how to spend the county’s FY2027 Housing Investment Fund, about $7 million this year. Seven groups applied. Staff recommend funding four of them plus a few smaller staff-initiated items.
The highest-scoring application, from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville, asks for $1.77 million for 59 new single-family homes: 46 in Southwood, 11 on Proffit Road, and 2 in Crozet. Staff recommend funding it in full. The homes carry a 90-year affordability period. The county documents don’t say where in Crozet the two homes would go or how much of the money is for them.
Sources: county agenda item; FY2027 Housing Investment Fund score sheet (PDF); Oct. 21 agenda; CCE Week Ahead, Oct. 18.
Albemarle’s annual economic outlook: “cautious”
The Board of Supervisors gets its Annual Economic Outlook Report on Wednesday, Oct. 21. Virginia Tech prepared it for the county, and it calls the outlook “cautious.” The local economy held up better than the state’s: the Charlottesville area added about 1,200 jobs in 2025, while Virginia lost 16,400 jobs, mostly because of federal job and contract cuts. Growth in health care and state government made up for losses in federal and professional-services jobs, a sector the report says a notable share of county residents work in.
The report also tells the county to plan for tighter budgets, with slower revenue growth, expiring federal grants and possibly less state and federal money. It doesn’t name projects. My own read is that it matters for county-funded projects already under pressure, like the Library Avenue extension at Barnes Lumber.
The housing section is the part I’d pay attention to. The report says the 30-year mortgage rate climbed back to 7.4% in early October, the highest in almost three years. In Albemarle through August, year-to-date sales were down 0.7% from last year, but new listings were up 21%, active listings were up about 40%, and months of supply rose to 4.4. The year-to-date median price still rose 5.5% to $574,995, the highest in the region. Nationally, the median price of a new home has fallen about $42,000 below the median for existing homes because builders are cutting prices and offering incentives.
The report doesn’t break out Crozet, but if you’ve been reading the analysis on RealCentralVA and RealCrozetVA, this won’t be a surprise to you.
Sources: Annual Economic Outlook Report for Albemarle County, Oct. 2026, pp. 6–9 and 48–55 (PDF via Legistar); Oct. 21 Board of Supervisors agenda. The report’s market figures come from the Virginia Association of Realtors, CAAR and Freddie Mac.
The county’s requests to the General Assembly
Also on Wednesday, the supervisors are scheduled to adopt their requests to the General Assembly. None mention Crozet by name, but a few would reach us.
- Speed cameras: The county wants authority to use speed cameras on secondary roads posted at 35 mph or higher where there’s a documented speeding or crash problem.
- Old development approvals: It wants the state to let older approvals expire. Since 2009 the state has repeatedly extended them, so some approved but unbuilt projects from as long as 15 years ago are still valid.
- Rural land and easements: For Greenwood and the rural land around Crozet, the county supports continued state money for its ACE conservation easement program, more incentives for easements, and restoring a $50,000-per-year cap on the Land Preservation Tax Credit.
- Data centers and solar: It wants to keep local control over where data centers and utility-scale solar can go.
The rest covers long-term road and regional transit funding and a change to the state school-funding formula that should send Albemarle more money. There’s also an $80 million state request for rental help for 5,000 families.
Both documents are marked draft and still subject to the Board’s adoption, so the list could change Wednesday.
Sources: Oct. 21 agenda item; Proposed 2027 Legislative Program (draft Sept. 17) and Proposed 2027 Legislative Positions (attachments to that item).
2. Monday, Oct. 26, 6:30 p.m.: Three Notched Trail open house at Henley
I already covered this last week, and the county re-sent the notice on Oct. 16 with no new details.
*Framework and sourcing provided by Claude; edited and vetted by me.
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