Following up on my new study for my Eco-Broker certification, I see this article about a Charlottesville company, Greenlight Energy:In the next two years, a Virginia company hopes to pump upward of $400 million into what could be Colorado’s largest wind farm on private grazing land near Grover in northeast Colorado.

Greenlight Energy Inc. of Charlottesville, Va., is planning the Cedar Creek Wind Energy Project on several hundred acres adjacent to Pawnee National Grassland to take advantage of some of the best wind in the country. 
Green technologies are next. They seem to be good for our environment, and ultimately good for business.
Date Archives December 2005
Rivanna Village public forum
From Jessica Kitchin’s story this morning in the DP:On Tuesday, the 88-acre development will be the focus of a town hall meeting in the designated-growth area that surrounds it.”The residents of the Village of Rivanna will have NO VOICE, NO VOTE on the Rivanna Village [zoning] and other development within the Village of Rivanna growth area unless we step up, speak up and act for ourselves,” an e-mail sent out by the Rivanna Citizens Committee states. “This meeting is our opportunity to weigh in. We have some options.”Rivanna Village is a mixed-use development in the planning stages that would be built off U.S. 250, east of Charlottesville. It is up for rezoning that would change it from rural area to neighborhood model, opening the door for KG Associates and Cox Associates to build up to 495 residential units and up to 240,000 square feet of commercial space…. The County has some credibility issues regarding rezoning of land. You can’t please everybody – that is an impossible task. At least the County will go through the motions of listening to the people. The County’s own survey shows that residents are becoming less satisfied with the growth plan.The survey indicated continued support for the county’s major growth management policies, with approximately 70% of respondents favoring concentrating development in the urban areas to protect the rural areas, but that percentage showed a significant decline in support from the 2002 survey where almost 80% of respondents said they favored concentrated growth. For more on the County’s growth plans, they have an excellent website.I think this meeting presents an excellent opportunity for a podcast.
School closings?
Our area is expecting a little bit of snow today and this evening. For the most up to date info, I have found that NBC29 tends to have the most accurate info. Albemarle’s school closing link is a dead link to NBC29. We tend to have an inordinate amount of school closings, in my opinion. The primary reason for this is that our counties still are quite rural. My understanding is that if one rural road is dangerous, the entirety of the school division shuts down. Surprisingly, 29 does not yet have their red jackets on yet.
December Forum Watch is out
The Free Enterprise Forum has published online its Forum Watch for December. This is an excellent resource for educating yourself about the goings-on in public policy, growth, etc in the region.
Phone numbers and websites
Ever since mobile phone portability became a reality, I have been meaning to do this. I registered 4342427140.com and 4342427140.net this evening. Each one goes to either my website or this blog; either way (I hope) it will be easier for clients and potential clients to contact me.
Where is Albemarle Growing?
From Brian Wheeler’s SchoolMatters: Where is Albemarle Growing?:I recently updated my analysis of the Albemarle County building reports from the past two years which document each quarter where new building permits are being issued in the County. These do not reflect newly approved developments (e.g. Old Trail Village), but rather homes in developments previously approved where a building permit has now been issued.The report includes all types of housing, but my analysis is limited to single family detached homes, as those are a leading indicator of future enrollment growth for Albemarle County Schools.Brian has done an excellent job and service by providing the actual data that should be used when considering redistricting in Albemarle County. Determining where the growth will be is a difficult task. From one of Brian’s previous posts: If you look at the list of proposed and current housing developments used by the Redistricting Committee and Dr. Castner in isolation, you can easily conclude about 50% of the development is coming up Route 29 North. However, this report does not include Old Trail Village or Wickham Pond (two developments in Crozet submitted after the committee started its work). It also does not include the proposed development at the Breeden Farm (south of I-64 near Mill Creek and 5th Street). The Breeden Farm alone could be larger than all of the growth projected for Crozet (i.e. there could be housing for more than 12,000 people, the number projected for Crozet)…. Maintaining relatively small class sizes and efficient feeder patterns should be priorities. Using accurate, up to date data should be too.
Judging customers
There is an almost-legendary story in my office of a client who walked in on Christmas Eve (New Year’s Eve?) many years ago dressed in raggedly-looking clothes who wanted to see a property or two. Despite the client’s not looking like he could afford to look at even one $50k property, the agent on duty (we’re open 7 days a week) sized him up, showed him the properties and, as legend has it, eventually sold him over one million dollars’ worth of real estate. Yesterday, dressed in jeans, boots and a fleece, I was looking at some shoes in Nordstrom in Short Pump. I was killing time waiting for my wife and was unsure as to whether I should buy them (or try them on without the wife’s approval). I was talking to the salesman and commenting on the quality of the leather, the sole, etc. They happened to be fairly expensive … the gentleman “helping” me nonchalantly took the shoe out of my hands with the comment of “well, they are quite nice, but they are quite expensive too, you really get what you pay for …”… or one who may want to purchase a $150k condo, move up in five years, then again in seven, all the while referring their friends and colleagues to me …