Posts tagged Albemarle

What is Rio Road Going to Look Like in 5 Years?

in Albemarle Charlottesville Transportation on

It’s almost like the County and City leaders don’t care about the ramifications of their collective (in)decisions.

In five years:

– The City of Charlottesville still won’t have built their portion of the Meadowcreek Parkway

– The County of Albemarle will still be approving developments with no regard for their impact on traffic, schools, water, sewer, quality of life.

– The City and County will still be unable to work together as well as they should for the benefit of CharlAlbemarle citizens.

I have long struggled with my opinions about growth in Charlottesville/Albemarle. In the nearly five years since I wrote that post, nothing has changed.

Don’t get me wrong; I love living in Charlottesville (actually Crozet, but we all refer ourselves as being from “Charlottesville”), but how can we achieve balance?

Questions:

– What infrastructure improvements are being planned to accommodate all of these new units?
– The City of Charlottesville is encouraging more employment growth (good – see CFA and Worldstrides) but not working with the County to facilitate infrastructure improvements. Why?

.

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Christmas Trees in and Around Charlottesville

in Albemarle Charlottesville on

Oh, Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree:

Where do you get Christmas trees in (around) Charlottesville?

The place where we used to cut ours when I was a kid is now a subdivision.

Here are a few where you can cut your own:

– Ralph’s Christmas Trees in Nelson County
– Foxfire Farm in Buckingham County
– Bit-O-Honey Farm in Fishersville
– An aggregate site for pick your own Christmas trees
– Greene Meadows Farm in Greene County
– Kris Kringle’s Tree Farm in Nelson County

(The ones in Nelson get my vote as they’re on the Brew Ridge Trail)

And here are a few favorites for pre-cut Christmas trees –

– The Ivy Store on 250 West
– Boy Scouts’ locations all around town (we frequently get ours in from the ones in Crozet)
– AM Fog in Nelson (just before Blue Mountain Brewery on 151)
– In Albemarle Square, they have trees and are a local family that has been selling trees and wreaths for over 100 years

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Case Shiller’s Perspective on the Charlottesville Real Estate Market

in Albemarle Charlottesville Fluvanna Greene Market statistics Nelson on

Case Shiller doesn’t track the Charlottesville real estate market. Nor Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna, Nelson, Waynesboro, Augusta … Case Schiller doesn’t track Charlottesville.

I wrote in early 2008 that The Charlottesville/Central Virginia/Shenandoah Valley markets are not covered by the Case-Shiller index. Real estate is local; while trends may be drawn from this type of research, and while the proverbial turned-corner may still be just over the horizon, it’s important to put his study in the appropriate context.

Crap. That “horizon” to which I referred is still a ways off. But … what I said remains true. Case Schiller doesn’t track our market.

But.

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Walk Score of Charlottesville, Virginia

What is Walking Distance to You? (in Charlottesville)

in Albemarle Charlottesville Politics Transportation on

“Walkable houses in Charlottesville” – one of the more frequent requests I get both from buyer clients and from visitors to this site.

But “walkable” means different things to different people.

Clarifying and pulling out buyers’ true intents is one of the most useful skills a good real estate agent brings to the table. For example, when a new buyer client tells me that he wants to be within “walking distance” of the Downtown Mall, I always follow up with:

“What is walking distance to you?”

Your response of “less than 30 minute walking distance” is why I asked … my non-American-based clients have a much more liberal definition of close (usually less than 30 minutes or 2 miles) than do my American clients (less than 10 minutes or 5 blocks).

So the question is – what does walkable mean to you?

As I do with a lot of the stories that make it to this here real estate blog, I started by asking on the social networks – Twitter, Facebook and Google+

The City of Charlottesville has a lot of highly “walkable” homes, using Walkscore as the guide, and there are an awful lot of condos in the City of Charlottesville that offer walkability.

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UVA Continuing to Grow – Adding Stability to Charlottesville’s Economy

in Albemarle Charlottesville UVa on

One of the brightest spots in the Charlottesville area economy is the University of Virginia. Love ’em or hate ’em, they provide stability and opportunity.

Charlottesville Tomorrow reports:

Noticeable at the Planning and Coordination Council meeting was the contrast between the scale and ambition of a university angling to become “the premier undergraduate experience of the Americas” and those of the county government, which has had to cut back construction plans due to ongoing revenue shortfalls.

…
The university is primarily pursuing infill development within the current grounds, but is still aggressively expanding capacity. This is largely due to an agreement with the state government to increase undergraduate enrollment by 1,400 students by 2018, which is in addition to an increase of 271 outstanding from a previous plan.

While the University grows, the City and County continue to struggle.

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