jon - Little High Neighborhood Association

Neighborhood Picnic 6/4/23

May 27, 2023

ALL neighborhood residents and friends are invited to the Little High Neighborhood picnic on Sunday, June 4, 4:30-6:30pm at Meade Park pavilion.

The neighborhood association is providing pizza, sides, desserts, and a variety of non-alcoholic beverages.

This is a great opportunity to get to know more of your neighbors, enjoy the neighbors you already know, and become involved in the neighborhood association if you are so inclined (definitely NOT a requirement).

This is also a convenient opportunity to pay your neighborhood association dues should you wish to do so (i.e., neighborhood association dues are purely voluntary). Neighborhood association dues are just $10 per family/household (although we will happily collect more to help us do even more for the neighborhood). Your dues help support neighborhood association activities like this upcoming picnic! You can bring cash, check or Venmo Little High neighborhood association Czar, Julia Rubarth at @Julia-Rubarth.

Update on Affordable Housing in Charlottesville

May 1, 2023

The Future of Housing in Charlottesville
Wednesday, May 15, 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm | The Center at Belvedere, 540 Belvedere Blvd
What does the future hold for affordable and low-income housing in Charlottesville? How can we increase homeownership? What are the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and UVA doing to alleviate our housing shortage?

Maxicelia Robinson moderates a panel of government representatives and housing advocates including Dr. Wes Bellamy, S. Lisa Herndon, Dave Norris, Luis Oyola, and Councilor Michael Payne. Click here for more information and register to attend virtually.

Our sidewalks suck — update April 2024 — LESS

March 23, 2023

Construction and maintenance of sidewalks is one of the most basic responsibilities of any city government. But generations of Charlottesville city leaders have neglected this mundane yet absolutely essential job. The Little High neighborhood association and many neighborhood residents have been asking city officials for years to help make our neighborhood more walkable by building more and better sidewalks. We’re still waiting.

Providing for this basic infrastructure need is especially important now because of the City’s pledge to sharply reduce carbon emissions within just a few years and because the new zoning plan will increase housing density. More people mean more cars no matter what the pious wishes of city leaders may be and more cars and more people mean it’s no longer going to be safe to walk in the roadways as we have long been accustomed to doing. The slideshow below highlights the many areas of our neighborhood where sidewalks don’t exist, end abruptly, or are inadequate and not compliant with ADA standards (among other things, ADA standards require sidewalks to be a minimum of 3 feet wide).

Little High between 12th and 13th streets
East Jefferson, near 12th Street. One resident turned this spot where the sidewalk abruptly drop off into a decorative summertime fin de trottoir.
Little High and 13th streets
East High. Where some stretches of sidewalk nominally exist, they are often too narrow for wheelchair or even stroller access very difficult. ADA standards require sidewalks to be a minimum of three feet wide.
12th Street between East Jefferson and Little High
East Market Street where it intersects with 10th and 11th streets
12th Street between Little High and Meriwether streets. The lack of sidewalks is a very great disservice to the elderly, children, parents pushing a stroller, and everyone else who isn't able to quickly get out of the way of an oncoming car.
13th Street off of East Jefferson is a dead end street with no sidewalks on either side of the street
East Market near 9th Street
11th Street between East High and Little High
Meade Ave and East Jefferson (area where there is no sidewalk is marked in red)
13th and Little High
The city of Charlottesville is building a very short stretch of sidewalk in front of 1430 East High street (not in the Little High neighborhood but just a few blocks away) in November 2023. We applaud any and all new sidewalk construction wherever it happens in the city.
13th and East Jefferson
Meriwether, between 12th and 13th streets

Zoning Updates & Upcoming Meetings

February 20, 2023

The first module of the new draft zoning ordinance is available for community review. “Module 1 of the Draft Zoning Ordinance” includes all of the regulations pertaining to the proposed new zoning districts as well as the zoning map.Upcoming public meetings schedule, links to all the main information sources about the current round of proposed zoning changes, and information about how and where to submit questions and/or comments may be found below.

Current Zoning Draft Highlights

General Features

Affordable Housing

There is an “inclusionary zoning policy” that requires the inclusion of 10% affordable units in developments of 10 or more homes, in any zoning district. This is an important but, frankly, still modest step toward building actually affordable housing. It appears to us at this writing — and we could be wrong so we will clarify as soon as we can — that the 10% rule does not involve any numerical rounding. If true, this would mean, in practice, that real estate developers could build even fewer affordable housing units than even the nominal 10% requirement. For example, a new building with 19 housing units would only have to include one affordable housing unit. In this theoretical example, the effective rate would be 5.26% which, frankly, is too modest. We will clarify as soon as possible.

Setbacks, Height, Width and Other Building Requirements

Regulations regarding setbacks (i.e., the distance between a house or other building and the property line), building width, building height, are among the current rules being eased significantly. Requirements vary by zoning classification. These changes are for the purpose of facilitating the increase in housing density by allowing homes and businesses to take up more of their lot than is presently allowed.

Walkability

The overall goal of the zoning plan is, of course, to increase housing density in Charlottesville. Unfortunately, neither Cville Plans Together nor any other part of Charlottesville city government has made plans to build adequate sidewalks. A decent sidewalk network is essential requirement for increased housing density, especially as part of the zoning plan will reduce the number of parking spaces developers have to build. We can’t plan for fewer cars if residents don’t have safe alternatives for getting around town. Public transportation and much better bike lanes will also have to be part of the plan for greater population density, but adequate sidewalks are essential for residents of all ages and abilities to move around safely.

Zoning Issues Directly Affecting Little High

Medium Intensity Residential Area on Meade Ave

The Medium Intensity Residential Area from the Future Land Use Map is divided into two proposed zoning districts, the Residential-B (R-B: the base limit allows up to 6 units) and the Residential-C (R-C: the base limit allows up to 8 units). As the detailed view at right taken from the interactive zoning map shows, most of the neighborhood lots on Meade Avenue (from East Jefferson to Stewart Street) are in the Residential-B category, meaning up to 6 housing units can be built per lot. The five residential lots on Meade Avenue between East Jefferson going toward East Market are in the Residential-C category, meaning that up to 8 housing units can be built per lot.

This is potentially a significant increase in housing density in the neighborhood because both of the above categories allow greater amounts of housing for developments that are entirely affordable housing (affordable for a household with 60% of Area Median Income). In other words, more housing units can be built on both types of lot if they are affordable to people making 60% of AMI.

Mixed Use Nodes and Corridors

Also notable in the current zoning draft is that most of East Market, 11th, and East High streets are classified as various types of Neighborhood Mixed Use Corridor (in various shades of brown in the above graphic) while most of the area between 9th and 10th streets is designated as various types of Mixed Node (various shades of purple). You can click on the image above for a larger view or look at Cville Plans Together’s interactive map. Details about what is allowed by the various CX and NX zoning classifications can be found in the Draft Zoning Districts and Rules.

Zoning Information Meetings

Have questions or want to find out more? Important in-person public meetings are happening soon:

February 22: Charlottesville High School (cafeteria), 6:00-8:30pm
February 23: Buford Middle School (cafeteria), 6:00-8:30pm
February 25: CitySpace, 11:00am-1:30pm

Sources from Cville Plans Together

Draft Zoning – Module 1 (February 2023) (on YouTube)
Module 1 of the Draft Zoning Ordinance (overview of the entire process)
Module 1: Executive Summary (.pdf) (only 8 pages)
Draft Zoning Districts and Rules
Draft Zoning Map (.pdf)
Draft Zoning Map (interactive)
Zoning District & Map Overview by Neighborhood

Share Your Feedback

This phase of the rezoning proposals are open for public comment through March 31, 2023.

There are several ways to share your comments and questions:

Online Feedback Form: Google Form
Email Engage@cvilleplanstogether.com
Comment form on the Cville Plans Together website
Postal Mail: Neighborhood Development Services, City Hall, P.O. Box 911, Charlottesville, VA 22902

Piedmont Mobility Summit

February 20, 2023

The Piedmont Environmental Council is hosting its 3rd annual Piedmont Mobility Summit on Friday, February 24, from 9am to 3pm, at CitySpace (located at 100 5th Street Northeast).

This workshop is free but registration is required. Representatives from organizations, local businesses, agencies and passionate individuals who share a mission to promote walking, biking, running, everyday access to nature and active lifestyles will gather to identify areas of collaboration and lay out work plans.

This is the third annual iteration of the Mobility Summit, and will be facilitated by Dr. Selena Cozart. It is free and anyone can attend as long as they bring a willingness to work, with great ideas. Like previous years, it will celebrate recent successes in the community and be an opportunity to advance several collaborative projects that no individual or group can accomplish alone.

Schedule [Read more…]

Upcoming Events at a Glance