CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – New Albemarle County Supervisor for the Samuel Miller District Fred Missel had a unique opportunity to vote a second time on two projects that were approved unanimously by the Planning Commission during his time there. Now, as a Supervisor, he would like to find ways to accelerate such projects through the county process.
The first action item at Wednesday night’s meeting was a rezoning of property at 5546 Three Notch’d Road near Starr Hill Brewery just outside of Crozet, where Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville will build a duplex with affordable units for two families.
“This is the kind of project we need to be supporting in this community,” Missel told WINA’s Morning News. “It provides the ability for folks to build wealth by allowing home ownership opportunities. It also followed the Housing Albemarle policy to a ‘t’, and there was one adjustment to it as the amount of time that it needed to remain as affordable was moved and proffered to be 40 years.”
The application had that initially at 30 years.
The other project approved was rezoning the old Moose Lodge at 3756 Richmond Road in Rivanna across from Glenmore where Funk Brothers Furniture wants to move from Charlottesville and build a bigger facility.
The application said they employ four-to-eight people at a time, the hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., they have no heavy machinery or noise and walk-in customer traffic is usually just single individuals with ample parking available, with 90 spaces had been available for Moose Lodge events.
Missel said he had the opportunity to approve these projects with the Planning Commission and got to vote on them again. He noted he didn’t know how long the Habitat project has been in the hopper, but he knew the Funk Brothers approval process took around two years.
“When we redo our zoning ordinance, we modernize it, thinking of ways on projects like this that we can help really very common sense and supportive projects move through the system more efficiently and effectively,” he said.
