Growth, Politics, Money, Development and Albemarle County
And a local land baron to boot. Very interesting conversation at Cvillenews centered around the Daily Progress' excellent piece on the possibility of a(nother) Wal-Mart on 29 North. As with most anything in this world, it seems that money talks. And Places 29 needs a…
Charlottesville is Wine Country
Walla Walla Valley, Washington. Anderson Valley, California. Between Hermann and New Haven, Missouri. Charlottesville, Virginia*. Thanks, CNN. Virginia's premier wine country, dotted with working farms and over 1,000 acres of grape vines, spreads out around the city of Charlottesville in the foothills of the Blue…
Here’s One Voice for Smaller Albemarle County Schools
The prospect of consolidating three smaller Albemarle County elementary schools is a troubling one - this is one of the areas in which economics may need to take a secondary position to sociological and societal benefits. Anecdotally, smaller schools are better. Better for classes, for…
Charlottesville Real Estate Market – We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know
With all due respect to Don Rumsfeld ... Some segments of the local real estate market are absolutely seeing improvements while others are just beginning to experience significant downturns. Calls for an "end to the recession" however are premature and, in my opinion, irresponsible. We…
What’s the Population Cap for Charlottesville and Albemarle?
Should there be a population cap for Charlottesville and Albemarle? Who should decide? If the "maximum" population is X, what happens when we reach X + 1? Make no mistake, ASAP is a slow-no growth organization; their URL is stopgrowthasap.org, for goodness sakes. That said,…
If Land Use has to be Re-Validated, Why Not Revenue Sharing?
If Albemarle County is forcing landowners to re-validate and prove that their taking advantage of the land use tax break is a valid use ... County residents getting land use tax break are urged to send in revalidation forms as deadline looms Albemarle County landowners…
Four Corners Principle
As a Buyer's Agent, I can tell you about what is contained within the four corners of the property and can (and do with the appropriate caveats) speculate about what may happen outside those four corners. Heck, I heard a story last week about people…
Crozet – Grow Downtown, on 250, in Old Trail?
I imagine the debate about how big and whether Crozet should grow will never end. Living in Crozet as I do, I look forward to some of the growth, but really wish that infrastructure would be built to go along with the growth. What good…
Belvedere Pioneers Celebrate One Year
A fascinating and insightful post from Kate at Belvedere that is clearly heartfelt and one she may have struggled to write. She highlights some of the ups, downs, surprises and disappointments. As I represented them and they are friends, I'm delighted with her closing: "but…
Albemarle County’s Land Use Re-Validation Progam
According to Albemarle County, as of 1 October 2008, there were "4,981 tax parcels in the Use Value Tax Program." I haven't seen much recent discussion about the potential impacts of the land use re-validation program in Albemarle County. The Free Enterprise Forum discussed it…