The Board of Supervisors approved “Cascadia” last night, Charlottesville Tomorrow reports. The vote was 5-1, Dennis Rooker dissenting. The 61-acre suburban development on Rt. 20, just north of Pantops, which will be bolted onto Fontana, a similar recent suburban development. It will include 330 houses and condos.
There was also a 5-1 vote against the 38-home Westhall development in Crozet, with four supervisors saying that the infrastructure in Crozet won’t support it and objecting to the growth on general principle. Ken Boyd said that he’s convinced Crozet is growing too much, citing the “need to draw the line.” Dennis Rooker was not pleased with Frank Stoner’s $3,000/unit proffers, suggesting something closer to $25,000 would be more like it. Bafflingly, David Slutsky was the lone vote in favor of the development. (Did I miss a memo?) The whole thing amounted to a sea change in the BoS’ take on growth — Charlottesville Tomorrow podcasts the audio of the discussion.
How do we know when we’re done growing? When we run out of space?
I’m not sure why all of the sudden, Crozet “has no infrastructure” is a valid reason not to go forward w/the development. The rest of Albemarle Co. has no infrastructure for development either. Specificaly when it comes to traffic. Both 5th st and Pantops are difficult to travel now, wait until the development is in place. Although, I do like the idea of a hardware store on the southern end of the county.
So in other words, the Board of Supervisors voted 5 to 1 in favor of needing a tax hike in 5 years. All of these huge new developments are going to lead to population growth that requires increases in public services including roads, policing, schools, water & sewage and fire stations. A vote for a big, new development is always a vote to take money out of your pocket.
Forgive the reminiscence from a Cville townie who grew up in the Rt. 20N area, but this post plus Waldo’s Albemarle County Fair post got me thinking about the halycon days of my youth (’70’s) when the Dogwood Festival carnival used to be located in the Food Lion shopping center at the bottom of Pantops. Used to be a big field.
Better stop before I start rambling about going to the Ridge Drive-In at the Kroger’s across from KMart….
i thought cascadia was the band those two guys from duran duran started back in the late 80s.
Yep that’s about right.
The problem is that Virginia doesn’t allow localities to *require* proffers from developers to pay for the infrastructure upgrade costs which they pass on to everyone else- costs which should be born in part by the developer and by those choosing to purchase in the new development creating the drain on infrastructure.
(And I don’t want to hear the “affordable housing” argument against proffers. Affordable housing in this area is a joke.)
Couldn’t have said it better TrvlnMn
That’s what made it so laughable when Kim Tingley — running for the Democratic nomination for the 57th HoD seat — repeatedly claimed that there is no power reserved by the state that would help to control growth. He insisted that localities have every tool that they need or want. It was as if he’d never been to a BoS meeting, met a member of the BoS, or read an article about growth.
I would agree with much of what has been said except “So in other words, the Board of Supervisors voted 5 to 1 in favor of needing a tax hike in 5 years” but with one caveat that you would have to assume little or no inflation in property values.
We have a quite low tax rate in the county and if you took out what is “given” to the city it would be less than 70 cents per hundred. Also growth of population has not seen much growth in the county school system either, which has had little growth for five years.
The only real limiting factors to growth are water and traffic and the politicians that allow growth. Though with zoning laws there is only so long you can deny someone the right to build. It is only when builders want zoning changes that county officials have any real power.