EC Virginia News

City of Charlottesville issued the following announcement on Jan. 28

The City has started the process of updating the Zoning Ordinance, the first major action to implement the newly adopted Comprehensive Plan and Affordable Housing Plan.  This work will take just over a year and the City is actively seeking input and feedback from the entire community.  The City is working with a consultant team led by Rhodeside Harwell, Inc.

Overview

The City of Charlottesville Department of Neighborhood Development Services has been working in partnership with a consultant team on a three-part process.  Earlier efforts focused on updating Charlottesville’s Comprehensive Plan (adopted November 2021) and creation of an Affordable Housing Plan (endorsed by City Council in March 2021).  The third and final part of this project (called Cville Plans Together) is a zoning ordinance rewrite.

Zoning is the body of municipal laws that regulate the development of buildings and the use of land.  Zoning is an important factor in the affordability of housing, the availability of commercial space, and in how the community manages and prepares for the growth and evolution of its physical space.

Purpose

Cville Plans Together is an ambitious effort by the City to create a vision for the City's future and identify actions to get us there with an emphasis on addressing critical issues of equity and affordable housing.  The goal of the zoning ordinance rewrite is two-fold:

• To ensure that the zoning ordinance effectively implements the Affordable Housing Plan and the newly updated Comprehensive Plan, including the Future Land Use Map
• To make other needed updates to streamline and clarify the ordinance

Current Activities

The first steps in the zoning ordinance rewrite are to identify the changes that are needed to the zoning ordinance and lay out a process for addressing them. The Cville Plans Together team will be working on this element of the project in Winter 2022, and plans to share materials for public input in Spring 2022.

• You can find out more about the process and view materials from previous phases at Cville Plans Together
• To stay informed on upcoming opportunities to review materials and provide your input, please sign up for the project Email List

Questions related to this news release may be directed to James Freas, Director of Neighborhood Development Services at freasj@charlottesville.gov.

Original source can be found here.