Charlottesville Virginia Real Estate

The DailyProgress.com has an exhaustive article today on the places29 plan.  It gives a good overview of transportation and development in the Charlottesville area (though the article is long and unfocused so you need to be pretty interested to make it all the way through).  The Places29 website is detailed with lots of maps.  Judy Wiegand, a county employee in community development oversees the site and the plan (I think) and has really done a great job getting info out there and keeping it fresh.

The images of what the U.S. 29 corridor in northern Albemarle County could look like in the next 20 years show a different world.

Electric lines vanish. New roads appear, giving drivers a way to avoid 29. Some commuters simply avoid the hassle by riding the bus. Walking is encouraged, because residents work, shop and play in coordinated communities.

Places29 lays out that vision, one very different from how many picture Albemarle’s U.S. 29 corridor today, as an 11-mile stretch of construction and congestion connecting the U.S. 250 Bypass to the Greene County line. Planners, however, envision an emerging community where residents can walk up, down and across U.S. 29 to take advantage of coffee shops, stores and restaurants, and where home is somewhere nearby.

Laid out in a series of colorful maps, Places29 suggests how land could be used during the next 20 years and proposes a road network to cope with the growth that county officials say is inevitable. The plan, now in draft form, is to be considered by the Board of Supervisors late this year. Places29 proposes a specific vision, one the board will ultimately mold and then decide whether to embrace or discard.

Some say it’s a vision that provides for development residents do not want, a blueprint for employment and housing that will only attract unwanted newcomers. Other residents and business owners say that Places29 looks great, but ask: Who will pay for it?

The plan has supporters and detractors. What most agree on is that the vision of Albemarle’s future is something the county must get right.

A pipe dream?

In some cases, tomorrow is already here.

Places29 envisions the development and redevelopment that planners say is bound to occur during the next several decades. Much new development is already under way in northern Albemarle.

Dotting the sides of the U.S. 29 corridor, construction can be seen popping up everywhere, and more is on the way. The National Ground Intelligence Center is set to expand by adding jobs and facilities; North Pointe, a 900-unit housing development that also includes plans for significant commercial space, has been approved; and Hollymead Town Center, a huge, multi-parcel retail, housing and mixed-use development, continues to expand.

Bill West fears his neighborhood will be consumed by cement.

“We don’t want to be designated a development area,” said West, who lives near Shopper’s World, echoing the sentiments of many residents. “We want to be a residential area.”

Lee Catlin, county spokeswoman, says that Places29 seeks to provide the best of both. Residents should think of Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, she said, not just “high rises and concrete.” While Places29 envisions a retail corridor, the area would still be livable and offer a high quality of life, she said.

It’s a dream that won’t be realized with the Places29 plan, says Wendell Wood, a developer and large landowner in the area.

Wood says the county’s emphasis on “neighborhood centers,” as well as other land-use designations that include plans for smaller retail stores, is “instant bankruptcy.”