Scrolling with Sally Vol. 1. No. 3

In a world of constant content, the amount of information can be overwhelming. And yet. We still want to be informed. We want to be connected. One of the best parts of social media is that it is social; we get to know each other and learn from each other. In my case, I often “like, share, and subscribe” as if it’s second nature. And so it only seems natural to continue that habit with you. Here are some of the happenings in our community, the things I am doing, reading, and learning, both online and off. 

The Jouett Journey - what your Supervisor has been up to lately 

Well friends, it has been quite a week! (Quite a month, tbh.) The sleet and ice has been pretty, and pretty annoying. At the end of the last BOS meeting, we briefly discussed the possibility of creating a sidewalk snow ordinance, and the effects of not having one are on clear display right now. (My personal preference is to have one that addresses the main roads and bus stops.)

So, the only Supervisory thing I've done in the past couple of weeks is attend the first CARTA meeting of the year. This meets every other month, and currently the only voting members are me, Supervisor Pruitt, and Councilors Oschrin and Fleisher from the city. It's a great way to learn about what is going on with the various transit organizations in the community (their presentations are linked above if you want to look at the slides), but the ultimate goal is to figure out a source of funding so we can improve transit throughout the entirety of Region 10.

See your Neighbors! - events and activities around town 

Check updated dates because of the snow! The State of the Community event was rescheduled for Feb 20th, and Restaurant Week has been extended through this week. But this Thursday night, AHIP is celebrating their 50th anniversary at Three Notch'd, and A.D. Carson is doing a book reading at New Dominion. (If you don't know of Dr. Carson, here's a nice intro to his dissertation album, and you can listen and learn more at his website.)

On the Agenda - things I found interesting from the Board of Supervisors meeting

We have a BOS meeting on Wednesday, but a light agenda doesn't necessarily mean an uninteresting one! This week the main items are a couple of public hearings for special use permits - one for Habitat for Humanity to build a duplex in Crozet, and another for a furniture shop to move into a building out towards Keswick with a retail portion for customers to come in.

One thing I want to do over the next few months is to finish reading the municipal code - I think its important to be at least vaguely familiar with what's in it. I don't know if you know this or not, but reading code is actually not fascinating. So I'm trying to read the sections as they come up in the course of our meetings. This weekend I read the entirety of Chapter 18, the zoning chapter, and if you would like to join in the fun, here you go.

Municode Library

MunicodeNEXT, the industry’s leading search application with over 3,300 codes and growing!

Municode Codification

One easy(ish) thing about residential zoning is that the designations of R1, R2, R4 etc. are not randomly numbered. In general, they are equal to how many dwelling units you're allowed to have per acre on a parcel. It's not quite that simple when you add in the overlay districts and density bonuses, but it is a starting point to keep in mind when you are reading articles about zoning!

This week's agenda also includes a nice transportation quarterly update. These reports are such a great way to get up to speed on projects going on throughout the county, and to realize that yes, infrastructure does get built after we get housing developments in place!

The Receipts - learning about the county budget 

Assessments have gone out and emails are coming in. There is a mechanism to appeal your assessment if you feel it is inaccurate. You do need to do it by March 2nd, though. Here is a flyer with FAQ about the process, and here is a direct link to fill out the form. An important thing to keep in mind is that "assessments are required by the Code of Virginia to be at 100% of Fair Market Value." There is not always a lot of leeway in assessing values. Again, as developable land becomes scare and housing becomes scarce, the cost of existing properties are going to rise. And look, I'm in the same boat. My neighborhood went up by 16% and the only one in my situation who will eventually benefit is my landlord. I do think it's also helpful to keep in mind that many areas had their assessments lowered.

Anyway, I thought it would also be good to see how else the county gets money, besides residential property taxes.

What I personally find interesting is the transient occupancy (hotels) and the food & beverage taxes. If you compare our $5.3 million in hotels with Charlottesville (below), the city gets much more income from hotels than we do. Same with food - they have $21.2 million compared to our $18.7.

I think those are areas where we can grow and earn more revenue - especially with hotels. We do not have enough hotels in the area, and especially not when it comes to convention-sized hotels (I mean we can't even hold kids' sports tournaments because we don't have the infrastructure for it. That's a ton of tourism money!) If we could manage to someday have a hotel space with convention space, that is a lot of economic development and tourism dollars that we could use, and then we wouldn't be so reliant on personal property taxes.

The Weekly Brainrot - pop culture I’ve been consuming lately 

I spent part of the snow week watching the first half of the new season of Bridgerton, and it might actually be my favorite one? Maybe not. I think it has lost something with the secret of Lady Whistledown being revealed, but it probably would have gotten annoying to drag that out. But this season is a Cinderella story and knowing the general plot actually makes it so more fun to watch.

As always, these newsletters are solely my opinions, my experiences, and my personal take on the issues as we all work together to continue making Albemarle County an even better, more affordable place to call home.