This material is made possible by supporters of Charlottesville Community Engagement, a service of Sean Tubbs and his new media venture. Thanks to subscribers, Sean was able to spend some time putting together this summary. It will also available on the CCE website along with a podcast version.
All across the country, advocates of affordable housing have been combing through zoning codes to find ways to increase the number of homes in urban areas.
One idea is to increase the number of duplexes, town-homes, triplexes and other types of housing that allow for more people to live in an area. Many zoning codes across America prohibit these so-called “missing middle” homes.
“They’re called missing because these aren’t being built very often right now,” said Rachel Falkenstein, a senior planner with the county. “Often times we see both ends of the spectrum but you don’t see the middle housing types being built, primarily because these are prohibited by a lot of local zoning ordinances.”
The conversation about middle-missing housing has come to Albemarle as review of the Crozet Master Plan continues. On September 1, 2020, the Albemarle Planning Commission held a work session on the Future Land Use Map for Crozet, one of the county’s seven designated growth areas. (staff report for the meeting)
County staff are recommending new land use categories to the future land use map for Crozet, including the downtown area.
“We first want to check in about two new land use tools we’re exploring with this master plan that we have not used before so we wanted to get the Commission’s buy-in first,” said principal planner Andrew Knuppel.
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