C-Ville (no longer available) has a couple of interesting stories this week.
Snippets –
Rather than fight the Parkway on its merits, one resident seemingly chooses to fight with bureaucracy. We need this road. Badly
Local road expert Peter Kleeman has been writing letters to the Federal Highway Administration and the Virginia Department of Transportation, suggesting potential problems with the City’s plans to build the Parkway and the interchange. Kleeman says the City is not qualified to perform the environmental studies the project requires.
The end of the world as we know it (maybe). If Toll Brothers comes to Central VA to build their McMansions and continue the NoVa-i-zation of our area, I personally will be saddened. One of the nice things about the development community here is that for the most part, they are not your typical track-home builders. Most of them have roots in the area and take personal pride in their projects. Once that pride is subjugated to a build-by-numbers game, I think any remaining character we have as a region is further endangered.
“The current quality of suburban construction is disposable,” says Werner (archived: 2007), speaking from experience with similar developments and as a former builder. “I sincerely don’t think that 130 years from now much of what’s being built in suburbia today is going to be around…Toll Brothers and Ryan Homes build a lot and fast. They’re about growth. Is this community ready for the scale of growth that these large-scale builders are going to bring? I don’t know.”
I will try to remember to re-post this story once C-Ville archives their stories.
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Jim Duncan has been helping buyers and sellers in Charlottesville’s neighborhoods for 25 years. Get local insight born of experience.
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