In the light of last week’s Biscuit Run hearing on adding 3000 homes to the Southern part of CharlAlbemarle, I am faced anew with the struggle our region faces, and how to cope with the challenges of being a Realtor who makes my living marketing and selling houses – across the gamut of price ranges …… As a Realtor, I recognize that people move to the Charlottesville area not necessarily because their jobs are moving, but because we are a destination with a reputed high quality of life…. Here is my question on TDRs: If there are 20,000 development rights in the new “boundary area,” what happens if there are 50,000 development rights to that could be sold in the rural area?… So here is the question – what do we want CharlAlbemarle/Central Virginia to look like in fifty years?*Disclosure: I sit on CAAR’s Board of Directors and am the current Chair of the Realtors’ Government Affairs Committee.
Browsing Category Growth
Transportation in Virginia
If you live in or use the roads of Virginia and you’re not paying attention to the potential remedies, or lack thereof, you need to be.To get you started:RepublitarianBacon’s Rebellion (and here)Raising KaineCharlottesville Tomorrow (and here)What would our area look like if the localities had to pay for subdivision roads?… Those who are our elected representatives need to do what they have volunteered to do – represent the best interests of their constituents. That 2007 is an election year and many will be pandering for re-elections is a shame.Why not light rail or some other form of transit?… Otherwise, we will look back twenty or thirty years from now and curse our predecessors (and ourselves) for our irresponsibility and lack of vision.
Thursday links – 12-14-2006
More will be coming … Condo project shifts to rentals (in DC)A rant against suburbiaWhat do home sellers want?Fascinating and wide-ranging discussion on affordable housing at cvillenews.Charlottesville’s dirty secret is out. (we have traffic – occasionally lots of it) HT: Waldo.
Central Virginia development moves on
The traffic study work session next month should be interesting.As always, Cvilletomorrow has much more information as well as a podcast of the planning commission’s meeting.Wal-mart is finally coming to Greene County!… There has been much discussion locally about the merits of Wal-mart, but I do know that my clients in Greene will welcome this addition to their community. Soon they won’t have to go to Culpeper or CharlAlbemarle, Yesterday at an open house for a new development, I was interested to see that their solution, as approved by the County, to the affordable housing situation is to provide affordable “accessory apartments…. More at the County’s website.Fluvanna’s clustering is moving forward and Daniel has his thoughts on the newest Fluvanna development.Housing inventory is up, but development plugs on, and for many, that’s a good thing.
Housing and Transportation costs
The Center for Housing Policy has released a fascinating report titled: A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Families (PDF). It’s 32 pages long, so I have not had time yet to fully digest it, but the premise is fairly commonsense: It typically costs less to live farther from urban centers…. Driving farther costs more money.As I have noted before, important and clear parallels may be drawn between the Central Virginia and the Northern Virginia market:Among the regions studied,the Washington,D.C.–Baltimore has one of the least affordable housing markets. Both housing costs and housing as a share of income are especially high among the region’s outer suburban and suburban fringe areas.Except for married couples with children who bear the brunt ofthese high costs, Working Families are more likely to live in central city and inner suburban neighborhoods where housing costs and cost burdens are somewhat lower…. This is as true in central city neighborhoods as it is on the suburban fringe.In our market, by contrast, many of those in the City have taken advantage of the recent housing boom and sold their houses and moved out into th Counties…. Locally, just look at the numbers of people who are commuting into Charlottesville/Albemarle (CharlAlbemarle!).These are a few of the stories from my feed reader about this story:Bacon’s RebellionBusiness WeekCommenter EM Risse notes on Bacon’s Rebellion:Of course, as we all know by now, Autonomobility is a dead end. But shared-vehicle systems (aka, “mass transit”) cannot overcome random distribution of origins and destinations.For this reason, studies such as Albemarle’s recent one on residents’ opinions regarding growth serve only to perpetuate the myopic view which local governments continue to reinforce. Unless there is region-wide cooperation, transportation will remain as inefficient as it is today – and will only get worse.
Is Albemarle County growing too fast?
Today’s release of Albemarle County’s citizen survey notes a few interesting facts: (Summary) (Full report – 142 pages!)We as a people have a lot of growing to do…. How we grow, where we grow, and where we locate job centers will determine what type of quality of life we are going to have.Regarding Quality of Life: in spite of the challenges our County has, the QOL factor remains quite high…. Not bad.**What we need is a regional study of the same scope and clarity. What follows are highlights from the report:Citizens don’t seem to recognize the importance of tourism to our area.Top 5Bottom 5Like it or not, tourism brings people here. Sure, some of them purchase homes, but most come, spend money and leave…. Couldn’t these all be wrapped under the heading of “Manage Growth”?All in all, that the County 1) does this survey and 2) it’s so comprehensive and publicly accessible are extraordinary, in my opinion. This page seems to sum up citizens’ views quite succinctly – Services are important…. Ah well, such is life.To put these growth trends in perspective, look at these two charts, courtesy of CensusScope: As usual, cvillenews has a great discussion on this.
Albemarle County Development Survey
If you don’t speak up, no one will listen.As of today, about 300 surveys have been completed. The Albemarle County Development Review Survey has been out since 18 September. It is a survey designed to give the special Task Force and thereby the Board of Supervisors (BoS) input into the development process and the efficiencies/inefficiencies inherent in the process. Note: It’s not a referendum on growth! I have received emails from the Sierra Club, Free Enterprise Forum, Piedmont Environmental Council (if I recall), and a couple of on-the-ball readers. Not to mention Albemarle’s excellent A-Mail program.Seriously, take the survey. With about 84,000 residents, probably 75% of whom have internet access (~65,000 people) 300 responses (0.46%) is mighty paltry. That’s a pretty meager response rate for a populace that professes great concerns about the growth process.