Monthly Archive for June, 2009

City Planning Public Housing Redevelopment

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 29, 2009 in Development and Government. 52 Comments

Well, here’s a can of worms: The city is beginning the process of redeveloping its public housing, Hawes Spencer writes for The Hook, and everything is on the table. A series of community meetings are scheduled to determine what to do—demolish and rebuild, fix them up, or nothing—and no doubt they’ll be contentious gatherings. There’s no mistaking that our public housing stock is in rough shape, but with residents that are, for various reasons, often not engaged in the larger community, the road ahead for any redevelopment is perilous for everybody involved.

Judge Upholds Parkway Construction

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 29, 2009 in Development, Law and Justice, Politics and Transportation. 73 Comments

Judge Jay Swett has ruled against the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park in their lawsuit to halt the Meadowcreek Parkway, Sean Tubbs reports for Charlottesville Tomorrow. He found that four of the six parties bringing the lawsuit have standing, but ruled that the state constitution’s requirement that a supermajority of City Council vote to sell any land isn’t applicable here, because use of the land is being provided via an easement and not actually sold. Therefore the 3-2 City Council vote that’s already been held is sufficient to proceed with construction.

Those who are legally inclined can read Judge Swett’s ruling.

Mink Creek Floods Scottsville Homes, Businesses

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 28, 2009 in Weather. 4 Comments

Scottsville’s Mink Creek flooded a bunch of Scottsville on Friday evening, Liz Palka reports for CBS-19. Apparently it rained a lot there on Friday (though I can’t find any record of that from nearby weather stations), which was enough for the downtown creek to jump its banks and leave some homes and businesses with the stream running across their floors.

The odd thing about this is that Scottsville spent millions of dollars to prevent this very thing from happening. Though obviously the James River is the real danger for Scottsville, Mink Creek has been a source of flooding problems for more than a century. That’s why Mink Creek was dammed up in 1975, as a part of the larger project to protect Scottsville from the periodic floods that devastated the town. What with the lack of a hurricane on Friday, it’s tough to understand what happened here. Thanks to “TrvlnMn” for the tip.

UVA Eliminating White Paint from Lawn Building’s Columns

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 28, 2009 in In Brief. 3 Comments

Pavilion X is having its columns stripped of white paint and restored to Jefferson’s design: sandstone colored. My understanding is that’s the plan for the whole of grounds. Some alumni’s heads will explode when they learn about this.  #

Local Gov’t Using Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, etc.

Published by Waldo Jaquith on June 25, 2009 in In Brief. 4 Comments

C’ville and Albemarle are getting hip to social networking, meeting citizens on their own turf, which is great. THOUGH CVILLETWEET IS IN ALL CAPS, oddly.  #