There’s a great example of what this could actually look like, right here in town, said Rosensweig: Altamont Circle.
“It’s beautiful. It has a range of housing, from large single-family homes that’ve been broken up into six different homes, to million-dollar homes, to a five-story apartment building,” he explained. “And it’s wonderful.”
He knows, he says, because he lived on that street.
“And, frankly, it’s pre-zoning, and that’s why it’s wonderful,” Rosensweig added. “It happened a little more organically. It’s also illustrative of the fact that it’s not just the zoning code that has to change, it’s also [the] preconceptions that we have about things like street widths and parking. Some of the things that make that road really beautiful and work for this whole housing ladder of opportunity is that there are no curb cuts for driveways, the houses are served by alleys. The road is 14 feet wide, which, you can’t do right now, but we should be able to do it, because it’s a safe road. There are sight line issues that you can’t do now. There’s a whole suite of trailing policies that would have to happen to make the kind of growth possible by this mixing up of densities and intensities. But we can get there, because you know what? We already have it in Charlottesville.”
So, the general residential or low-intensity category proposed in the tweak, Rosensweig said, is not so much about creating a bunch more, different, structures, but instead allows people to take existing buildings—like those large homes on Altamont Circle, of which there are many throughout the city—and break them up into a few different units. And then a nearby five-story apartment building, like The Altamont, at either medium- or high-intensity (and thus required affordability) could be set up quite well for low-income and other types of affordable apartments.
Mathon and Rosensweig have no illusions that their proposed tweak to the FLUM, will be the ultimate end result, that neither the community or the consultants will say, “yes! This is what we’ve all been looking for!”
Their goal is to present this for public consideration in the overall land use map/zoning code/affordable housing conversation.
They’ve already shared the idea and the map sketches (which, again, are not at all precise—they did not take individual lots into consideration, and the map sketches are NOT proposals for a new FLUM) with the Housing Advisory Committee, some neighborhood leaders, a few existing and aspiring city councilors, and to the consultants from Rhodeside & Harwell, Inc. who are helping guide the Cville Plans Together process.
And now, they’re sharing it more widely with the general public before bringing it to the June 29 Planning Commission work session.
“If there is consensus in the community that we want to continue thinking along these lines, we think we can. We think that ultimately, the community will generate a future land use map and, more importantly, a zoning map that’s fit for purpose,” said Rosensweig.
Wherever Mathon and Rosensweig’s proposal ends up, wherever the Cville Plans draft FLUM ends up, “it’s not a panacea,” said Mathon. “It’s a step in the process that requires all the other steps to be taken. […] The land use map, and even the zoning that comes after, is one necessary but insufficient tool set to further our collective vision. It’s really important to highlight that over and over again. It still requires all the other steps identified in the affordable housing plan, it still requires funding, it still requires a tenants’ rights development, still requires all these other layers.”
There is no silver bullet, Mathon said, nor can we throw the baby out with the bathwater, as one might say.
Mathon said that throughout this Comprehensive Plan update and related land use and zoning code update, he’s often thought back to his experience with a similar process in Austin, Texas, where he lived for years before moving to Charlottesville in 2017.
“There were some similar starting places, where everyone generally agreed that affordable housing was a priority. Everyone generally agreed that the existing system was broken,” said Mathon.
A good starting consensus. But, once people started looking at their neighborhoods, at their own individual lots, “that’s when everyone got entrenched in whatever their viewpoint was. It took years to grind to a halt, but it did. Five years and $7 million in consultant fees later, they abandoned their process as it currently had been, because they couldn’t come to consensus. They couldn’t ever agree.”
But Charlottesville’s not Austin, some might say. True, but there are similarities among them, and ultimately, this is a cautionary tale for any city, any town.
“There’s never, ever going to be maybe even majority agreement on whatever map gets put forth,” said Mathon, though he and Rosensweig hope that their proposed tweak can help reframe the conversation and bring various communities closer to consensus.
“As much as possible, if we can, and I don’t know that this is really possible, but, if we can pull back the heat and recognize that this is a conversation about the future vision of our community, and not ‘my individual lot’ or ‘my individual street,’ I think it opens up a bit of breathing room for having more authentic dialogue around what’s possible for the city.”
Ultimately, though, said Mathon, “it’s going to take an act of will and courage on the point of the planning commission and city council to put a stake in the ground for what they believe is in the best interest of the city.”
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Housing nonprofit directors propose tweaks to Future Land Use Map to enhance affordability - Charlottesville Tomorrow
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