Last night, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the construction of a huge new development in Crozet, Jessica Kitchin reports in today’s Progress. Developer Gaylon Beights plans 2,000 houses and 250,000 square feet of retail. Just about everybody who spoke up about the development was opposed to it, noting that 250 isn’t designed for the traffic, the schools can’t take the students, and Crozet’s infrastructure can’t support it.
Prior to the vote, during a work session about the Rural Area Comprehensive Plan:
[Dennis] Rooker…challenged the group to make some difficult decisions.
“What do we have the guts to do to preserve rural areas?”
Apparently, not much.
Are there proposed site plans online anywhere?
at least they will have 500 grand a piece homes, MORE TAX DOLLARS and less average middle class people for ALBEMARLE, woohoo!
Are there proposed site plans online anywhere?
This map is all that I’ve been able to find. Not terribly detailed, but it’s something.
Link had an extra character.
I have two older files here.
This is not new information. Crozet has been designated as a growth area for years. This plan has been available for many months at the county office building and has gone though ARB, Zoning, and the Board of Supervisors. The fact that it has been under reported is solely the fault of local media. No one covers zoning or ARB and the newest and most clueless Progress reporters cut their teeth on Board of Supervisors. Bob Gibson doesn’t dirty his hands with local politics.
Dennis Rucker is talking about a place that had already been designated for YEARS as a growth area. His empty lament is more the product of a election year then it is of true courage.
Now that is funny.
Waldo, I like to say your quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy affect me like this quote from the same source but, alas, it did not.
“When you’re cruising down the road in the fast lane and you lazily pass a few hard-driving cars and are feeling pretty pleased with yourself and then accidentally change down from fourth to first instead of third thus making your engine leap out of your hood in a rather ugly mess, it tends to throw you off your stride in much the same way that this remark threw Ford Prefect off his.”
But it this is probably better explains your thought again from the book;
“Part of his brain told him that he knew perfectly well what he was looking at and what the shapes represented while another quite sensibly refused to countenance the idea and abdicated responsibility for any further thinking in that direction.”
Bravo. :)
Hold on! Crozet is a good area to target for growth. 250 isn’t an issue, because I-64 is there!
But… the BOS approved a huge development yet there’s little available info on specifics to the public? We better hope the BOS has smart people on board… NOT!
What happened with Albemarle Place? I read a couple of months ago that they were trying to start construction by the end of year. I have noticed that Blockbuster has moved and the pet store is moving up the street (where Chang House used to be)… Anyone have any info?
Just got back to this – thanks very much Jim & Waldo for the links.
I must say, I’m not at all pessimistic about the general location…Crozet has been part of the high-density targeted growth plans for a while. Given that it will have access to 250 between (it looks) Henley and Western, and almost immediately adjacent to 64, it seems like the roads will not be an issue. I would imagine it will be necessary to signalize the intersection(s) and probably ultimately widen 250 through there. Of course, I doubt very much if the developers will have to finance that (which they should do).
Same with the schools, which will have to expand: is the developer going to pay for that (well, the homebuyers)? What is the plan for water & sewer out there? Is Beaver Creek supposed to supply this?
I hate to be pessimistic, but as with all things, the devil’s in the details, and I expect the BOS is not sharing those for a reason…
cville-libre- excellent questions! I think you got it right about the use of 64.
Water and sewer is part of the planning process. Interestingly there exist an excess of water in the Crozet area, currently that system has a higher capacity than demand. How is that possible you might ask? There use to be a Morton frozen foods plant, which was Albemarle county largest business user of water. When the plant closed down that capacity (not interconnected to the remainder of Albemarle) became an oversupply of water capacity. This and the lost of that very plant jobs is one of the reason Crozet was named a growth area.
The most interesting thing is that the Albemarle School has experienced almost no growth in the past 5 years. Hard to believe but true, this is one of the big lies of local government. This last year was the first time that the number of students was higher than it was 4 years ago. This has happen for two distinct reasons. The first is that Albemarle newest transplants are mostly retirees (no kids to educate). The second is the new catholic school and the expansion of other private schools.