Date Archives July 2010

Renovating an Historic Home? The Commonwealth of Virginia wants to Give you Money.

in Green on

Frankly, as an architect who has specialized in building rehabilitation, renovation, restoration, and repair for nigh on 22 years, I share a sentiment that pervades the historic preservation community, including the staff at the Commonwealth Department of Historic Resources: This is free money.

…The house must be a) listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register or b) a “contributing structure” to a Virginia Landmarks Register District or c) judged “register eligible.” … If Landmark District designation is officially pending, and your house is listed as contributing to that District, you may proceed with your rehabilitation project. … Oh, if, at any point during this process, you cannot resist the urge to paint your house lime green, or international orange, or white with red polka dots, there’s no rule or regulation or tax credit standard that will stop you from doing so.

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UVA Poised for Tremendous Growth

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“If we can reduce the number of parking spaces needed, then we can save that land for a higher and better use, which for us would be classrooms,” said Julia Monteith, UVa’s senior land use officer, at Wednesday’s meeting of the regional Metropolitan Planning Organization. … As part of the program, the school’s transit service entered into a reciprocity program with the Charlottesville bus system, started a car-sharing program and made it cheaper for those who carpool to park. … “ Instead of just focusing on how cars move around Grounds, we [wanted to] be able to look at more multi-modal transportation and be thinking about this in more of a forward-thinking way ,” Monteith said. … If we could just get the City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle to look forward in a similar way – focusing on doing rather than studying – we would all benefit.

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I Tried to Show a House This Weekend

in Public Perception on

The lockbox doesn’t work and apparently hasn’t worked for many months; another Charlottesville Realtor told me that he had tried to show the house five times, to no avail … seven months ago. … But I’m left agreeing with my clients that the Realtor isn’t doing his job, that the house might have been worth something nine months ago. … Think about this – nearly 28% of the houses currently on the market in the Charlottesville MSA are vacant – that’s about 700 homes. … About 155 homes have been on the market for at least a year . 72 of these vacant homes have been on the market for at least 600 days.

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A Shift in Charlottesville Soccer

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Update 16 July 2010: Charlottesville’s getting an indoor turf field … at the Ice Park.

Plans are to offer an ice rink for six months of the year, from October through March, and a turf field for the remainder of the year. Visitors to the arena will now be able to take part in both winter and summer sports programs, from public ice skating to indoor soccer and lacrosse.

Courteney Stuart has more at the HooK on Mark Brown, the new owner of the Ice Park.

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You probably didn’t hear it, but a shift happened on Sunday in the Charlottesville soccer scene.

Playing and coaching soccer in Charlottesville for years, first coaching one kid from U-8 up and in the process of starting another, playing in SOCA’s adult league for nearly seven years, I have always lamented the lack of soccer league competition. No more.

Last Sunday marked the first week of soccer for CvilleSocial. The early reviews are that it’s fantastic to have soccer competition in Charlottesville. Turf fields. For soccer players in Charlottesville, this is Huge.

The big dog in the Charlottesville soccer scene has (always) been SOCA – the Soccer Organization of Charlottesville. Monticello United has recently offered competition for the youth league as well, but there has never been more than one option for adult soccer in Charlottesville.

Here’s a quick primer on adult soccer in Charlottesville/Albemarle:

SOCA offers Spring and Fall 11 -v- 11, Summer 8 -v- 8 and Winter indoor 5 -v- 5 (our region desperately needs an indoor soccer facility … and there might be hope for that).

CvilleSocial’s Summer offering is 6 -v- 6 on TURF fields. Yep, turf. At the newly-renovated Park at UVA. The Park is located just down the hill from UVA’s Law and JAG schools.

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