Nestled between hotels, banks, and a busy downtown street, Charlottesville’s latest island of green space in a sea of asphalt and concrete will open to the public next week. The so-called “pocket park” adjacent to Patton Mansion’s UVA Community Credit Union on West Main Street is at the end of its construction process, just in time for its original mid-July deadline, according to UVA Foundation CEO Tim Rose.
“Possibly next week all will be complete, including the mansion,” Rose said in an e-mail. The mansion underwent a face lift to remove the defunct Papa John’s annex and return the building to its historic facade. With the completion of a few final touch-ups, such as trimming the trees and replacing some concrete, the park will be ready for use.
How high?
The median sales price of a Charlottesville area house in 2007 was $276,950. That's $6,950 more than last year's median, according to the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors. As the market slowed towards the end of 2007, the Charlottesville area showed a decrease in the average price per square foot, with city homes generally more expensive thanks to their location, according to CAAR.
Big deals
Albemarle County may not be Beverly Hills, but that doesn't mean some serious coin hasn't been dropped for prominent properties in the area. In 2004, John Carr and Raymond Hunniston III ponied up $24 million for the Castle Hill estate in Cismont, a favorite breakfast spot of would-be gubernatorial kidnappers. As steep as those figures are, they're nothing compared to two monster transactions in 2005. Fred Scott sold Bundoran farm in North Garden to Qroe Farm Preservation Development for a reported $33 million, and Hunter Craig shelled out a whopping $46 million for the land surrounding artists' enclave Biscuit Run. No recent transactions have even approached those price tags: 2006's biggest sale come when Clover Hill Farm went on the block and sold to Robert Micley and Carolyn Henderson for $13 million. 2007's biggest transaction was even lower: the Howe family sold a Barborsville residence to Red Horse L.L.C. for $4.75 million.
A cool down?
While it may be a buyer's market these days, the market has cooled throughout 2007. The average number of days a house stayed on the market rose from 75 in 2006 to 96 in 2007. Also, in 2007, 3,560 residential parcels changed hands in Charlottesville, Albemarle and the surrounding counties, down 835 from 4,332 a year earlier. And currently 3,072 homes languish on "for sale" lists, up from 2,504 this time last year. These houses carry a median price of $324,600, making Charlottesville a foreboding place for first-time buyers. No wonder there are so many real estate agents around here! --data source: CAAR
On the level
Dave Phillips, CEO of the Charlottesville Albemarle Association of Realtors, says 2007 presented the real estate market with "anything but an ordinary year." "By historic standards, 2007 will go down as the fourth best year for real estate in our area," he said in a 2007 Year-End report, noting that 2007 started in a flurry of sales but slowed considerably toward the end of the year. "The rest of the year will remain a buyer's market," he says. "There's way too much inventory on the market right now, which we won't see going back to normal levels for another year."
Who's moving here?
Retirees and others fleeing high taxes and living costs are relocating to Central Virginia-- thanks to a lot of fanfare in publications like Money Magazine. Then the rush turned into a stampede on March 30, 2004, when a book called Cities Ranked & Rated, from Frommer's, ranked Charlottesville #1 among American cities. But perhaps Frommer's, too, has felt the real estate chill. We dropped to #17 in the 2006 edition.
Total assess
By state law, the municipality is required to assess at market prices. For reassessmsent, call the Equalization Board, but beware that this three-person, court-appointed body has the power not only to decrease but quite possibly increase your assessment. If recent years are any indicator, that's a likely possibility.
CHARLOTTESVILLE-- Values continue to rise, though at a steadier pace. A 23 percent jump in 2003 was followed by 17 percent in 2005, 14.3 percent in 2006, and 4.24% in 2007. "This definitely forecasts a slowdown in the sales coming in," City Assessor Roosevelt Barbour says. "The residential market is going to be flat this year."
Assessor: Roosevelt Barbour 970-3136
ALBEMARLE- Albemarle County has grown rapidly through the years, only now seeing real estate values start to level off: 18.7 percent jump in 2003; 27 percent in 2005; 29.8 percent in 2007-- but now just 0.14 percent in the start of 2008! Albemarle has begun to reassess annually. Assessor: Bruce Woodzell 296-5856
Checking properties
CHARLOTTESVILLE
Assessment data can be found online or by phoning or visiting the City Assessor's Office on the top floor of City Hall. 970-3136.
The deeds are located a few blocks away in the clerk's office in the basement of the Circuit Court at 315 E. High St. 970-3766
Circuit Court Clerk: Paul Garrett
ALBEMARLE
Assessment data can be found online or by visiting or phoning the County Assessor's Office in the County Office Building. 296-5856
The actual deeds are located on the second floor of the Courthouse Annex by Jackson Park in Court Square. 972-4083
Circuit Court Clerk: Debra Shipp
-->>For more info on neighborhoods, check out our Newcomer section.
First-time buyers
Free home-buyer classes-- The Piedmont Housing Alliance offers free three-hour seminars to first-time home-buyers twice a month. 817-2436
Information on low-interest loans can be found from various local sources, but a good starting point is the Piedmont Housing Alliance (817-2436). This private non-profit shares information on various assistance programs including the Albemarle Housing Program (296-5839) and Jimmy Carter's favorite house-building charity, Habitat for Humanity. 293-9066.
Building and renovating
So you wanna build?
ALBEMARLE-- The rules can be obtained from the Community Development Office in the County Office Building. 296-5832
CHARLOTTESVILLE-- Taking a cue from Albemarle, the City also consolidated its zoning, building, and neighborhood offices into Neighborhood Development Services in City Hall. 970-3182
So you wanna dig?
Call "Miss Utility" at 800-552-7001 at least 48 hours before you plan to dig, so you don't hit an underground pipe or wire and kill yourself and/or others.
"I saw the sign"
When Albemarle County developers request a zoning change, officials put up a beige sign with a code number to alert neighbors about an upcoming public hearing. Besides checking the number online, interested citizens can call the zoning office (296-5832) for sign numbers 1-25, which typically indicate a variance issue or an appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals. The Community Development Office (296-5832) handles sign numbers 26-99, which generally concern special use permits or rezonings.
ACE Program
ALBEMARLE- In its quest to keep a little bit of land undeveloped, the County began in 2002 buying development rights through its Acquisition of Conservation Easements (ACE) project. With the County budgeting $1 million per year for the program, perhaps you'll want to sell yours? 296-5832
Proffers!
What's a proffer? There's no secretive or dirty trick involved; it's basically an above-the-table bribe from a developer to the County to get a zoning amendment. You can see all the proffers dating back to 1979 on Albemarle's website.
Relief for elderly/disabled
ALBEMARLE-- If you're over 65 and/or permanently disabled, make less than $25K, and have a net worth under $80K (excluding your house), you may be eligible for rent relief. 296-5851 x3117
CHARLOTTESVILLE-- Similar situation. The City offers a "wealth" of relief measures for disabled and elderly homeowners and renters including a package adminstered by the Commissioner of Revenue that offers tax relief (20-100 percent of property taxes), free trash stickers, and several hundred dollars off one's annual utility bills. 970-3160
Welfare for the rich?
Farmette owners are notorious for taking advantage of something called "Land Use Taxation," which means that a mogul with an 8,900-square-foot palace can pay just $976 in taxes on his 50 acres-- about as much as the owner of a one-acre lot in Forest Lakes pays. Defenders of the program point out that the discount fosters agriculture-- or at least open spaces.
The man
Blue Ridge Home Builders Association-- This trade association represents builders and suppliers, and every spring it hosts the three-day "Home Show" and the newly minted "Earthcraft House Tour," which features resource and energy efficient homes in various phases of construction. Every fall it sponsors the "Parade of Homes." 973-8652
Watchdogs
PEC-- The Piedmont Environmental Council, although based in Warrenton, has a strong presence here as a voice for moderating growth. 977-2033
ASAP-- Advocates for a Sustainable Population goes farther than PEC; ASAP actually wants to stop growth. 974-6390
SELC -- The Southern Environmental Law Center is a multi-state organization headquarted on West Main Street. The organization tries to work from within all branches of government to conserve and sustain. 977-4090
Miller Center uploads presidents to YouTube
by Lindsay Barnes
As an extension of their study of the American presidency, the Miller Center has put video of 88 speeches by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton on YouTube. The speeches run the gamut for each president, from the good times (Reagan’s first inaugural, Bush’s post-Gulf War address to Congress, Clinton’s remarks at the Rabin-Arafat treaty signing ceremony), the bad times (Reagan’s Challenger address, Clinton’s speech on the Oklahoma City bombings), to the just plain infamous (Reagan’s TV address on the Iran-Contra scandal, Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman“).
Affordable housing
In the last decade, the city embarked on a campaign to attract upper and middle class residents inside the boundaries of Charlottesville, an effort that, coupled with market forces, proved remarkably successful in luring a more affluent populace to town that transformed the Downtown Mall into a commercial center in the process. It also raised housing prices to extraordinary highs—between 2000 and 2006 the median sales price nearly doubled—that forced the poorer of its citizens out of town or onto the streets. In 2004, the transformation was completed when the town was named the best place to live in the USA by Frommer’s Cities Ranked & Rated. Simultaneously, its authors noted in passing that the high housing prices were the sole “negative and directly reflect the quality of life and resistance to sprawl.”
“The same reasons that made us a Number 1 city are the reasons now that we’re not,” says City Councilor Holly Edwards. At this point, everyone seems to agree Charlottesville needs some cheaper places to live. “That was my primary motivation for being on City Council,” city Mayor Dave Norris says, “the fact that we were not doing enough.”
Since his arrival on Council, Charlottesville has pledged more and more money to developing less expensive residences, from $400,000 the year before he arrived to over $1.4 million this year. “It’s been a struggle,” says Norris, who is also the executive director of a winter homeless shelter called PACEM. In reality, it will likely take the area years to reverse the efforts that made our town the No. 1 place to buy a tony residence—that’s if the city even wants to change.
Homeless in Charlottesville:
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Coming to terms with the city’s homeless problem
With the closing of the Hope shelter less than two months ago, Charlottesville’s homeless have nowhere to live. Does the city have an immediate plan? Does anyone?
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BY JAYSON WHITEHEAD
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In 1998, the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless was formed to deal with the approximately 100 or so homeless believed to be living in Charlottesville. “These are not transient drunks,” then co-chair Reed Banks told C-VILLE. “For the most part, the homeless in Charlottesville are people who have lived here all their lives, and they’ve fallen out of the community because they can’t afford housing. They are working people. They are families with children.”
Those words are still largely true and TJACH is still struggling to deal with the area’s homeless who are at least 200 more strong. While it is advertised as “a broad-based coalition of individuals and organizations working to end homelessness in our region through strategic planning, coordination of services, and public education/advocacy on the causes and impacts of homelessness,” the group has only decided in the last month to officially incorporate as a nonprofit.
They did so after the rise and fall of Hope’s homeless shelter exposed a lack of leadership within the homeless service community (with Norris abstaining while on Council). If you’re interested in participating, TJACH has regular meetings at the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission the third Tuesday of each month that are open to the public.
By Will Goldsmith, in the Cville Weekly:
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Saint Anne’s-Belfield, the Charlottesville private school adept at soaking up the children of the elites, including those of John Grisham and Howie Long, has been granted $30 million in low-interest loans issued by the Albemarle County Industrial Development Authority to expand its lower school campus and, in the process, tear down a 94-year-old house that currently serves as the headmaster’s house.
Hmm… A well-endowed local institution gets low-interest loans to finance a new building that will involve the demolition of a 94-year-old building. That story line probably sounds familiar to anyone who followed the recent Beta House controversy.
Anyone interested in a 5,500-square-foot, five-bedroom Colonial Revival house should contact Saint Anne’s-Belfield, which says it’s open to discussion if you want to move it. |
Last year, after local government agreed to issue $18 million in bonds, the Jefferson Scholars Foundation came back for an additional $3 million for its new Graduate Fellowship Center. The first time the Foundation came, government officials didn’t think to ask what would happen to the site’s 94-year-old former Beta House, which was designed by Eugene Bradbury as a residence. But UVA Professor Dan Bluestone made sure that City Council was aware the second time. Council deferred a decision on the $3 million, but the Jeff Scholars opted to move on without the extra cash, and tore down the building this winter.
Saint Anne’s-Belfield (STAB) has plans for a 90,000-square-foot building that will accommodate both lower- and middle-school students, who are currently housed on the upper school campus. Head of School David Lourie says that the headmaster’s house doesn’t fit into the expansion.
“We looked at all options in regards to the head of school’s house,” says Lourie, who notes the high environmental standards for the planned building.
To cover its bases, STAB hired an architectural historian, Maral Kalbian, to report on the worthiness of the building, which was originally a residence for Henry Renwick. She found that the headmaster’s house wouldn’t qualify for the National Register of Historic Places. The house “is not architecturally distinguished or unusual and there are many better preserved examples of comparable dwellings in the area.” No one famous was ever associated with the house (sorry Henry Renwick, whomever you were).
Still, Eryn Brennan of Preservation Piedmont says that the house could be a valuable teaching tool. “This historic building adds to the vitality, history and longevity of the school, and embodies the tradition so touted by Mr. Lourie on the website,” Brennan says via e-mail. “It is easy to tear it down, but it would be extraordinary to save it.”
But if there is no way to incorporate it into the site, what about moving it?
“I think that moving a building in this day and age is a very real and reasonable proposal,” says Gate Pratt, a local architect. Pratt says the base cost of moving a house is probably in the tens of thousands of dollars, but if the house is in good shape, he suspects that the incumbent costs would outweigh the cost of new construction.
“We just don’t have room on our parcels of property to move the house,” says Lourie. He says that he didn’t find any interest from anyone to take the house, though he does say he’s open to discussion.
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