Will Charlottesville’s Hardy Drive go the way of St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe, the 33 buildings on 57 acres that St. Louis used to ghettoize its poor in the 1950s.
Photo: U.S. Dept of Housing and Urban Development

Charlottesville wants to redevelop its public housing projects. That means that everything from adding new foliage around the front doors to pulling a “Pruitt-Igoe,” i.e. demolishing all the stuff, is on the table.

As usual for Charlottesville facelifts, Philadelphia-based Wallace Roberts Todd, or WRT, is running the show, and the first community meeting is Monday, June 29 at 6:30pm.

Other meetings will follow Tuesday, and interested citizens can follow the situation on a special redevelopment website.

Why is demolition an option? Because, according to the minutes of a May 11 consultants’ meeting, maintaining the existing building inventory “will not be viable” for Housing Authority over the long-term.

In addition to finding that even wait-listed would-be residents won’t move into the Westhaven complex on Hardy Drive, the apartments owned by the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority are “not comparable to what is available in the private marketplace, and that gap will continue to widen if the Housing Authority does not pursue rehab and/or redevelopment strategies.”

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The outrage that put City Councilor Holly Edwards (left) and County Supervisor Sally Thomas (right) onto the Rivanna board last month didn’t stop the planned highway-hugging mega-dam pushed by chair Michael Gaffney (center).
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Three hours before the June 25 vote to replace the embattled engineering firm guiding the local water supply, Kevin Lynch was blasting the leadership of the waterworks. “How much longer,” asked Lynch, a former City Councilor, “will Rivanna throw good money after bad?”

The question came the same day that the Daily Progress revealed that the waterworks, the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority, was paying a lawyer $515 an hour— sometimes over $20,000 a month— to review documents.

The Progress also reported that the Authority– which has come under fire for (more)

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The splashing has begun at Onesty Family Aquatic Center, and neighbors say parking’s not a problem.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

After weeks of worrying about parking problems at Onesty Family Aquatic Center, pool neighbors say a smooth opening weekend has slowed the ripples of anxiety.

“I was shocked that cars weren’t in my yard,” says Eleanor Wilson, who lives three houses away from the $3.8 million complex on Chesapeake Street and had feared her street would be lined with the cars of poolgoers.

According to Wilson, who doesn’t have a driveway and thus relies on street parking, her fears weren’t realized. In fact, she says cars never parked farther than her next door neighbor’s house.

Bob Manners, the City’s supervisor of aquatics, says the opening weekend was “a huge success.”

(more)

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John Martin embraces conservation-minded rates, but he still wants to build a giant new reservoir.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Albemarle County, which has been sending a message of seeking ever more water via a controversial dam proposal, abruptly altered course Thursday morning by approving a new rate structure that subsidizes thrifty households and punishes water hogs with rates that quadruple as use increases.

“I think it’s great,” says water watcher Betty Mooney. “They’re encouraging conservation by charging the people who use the most water the most money.”

The new rates, approved June 18 by the Albemarle County Service Authority, price a single-family home’s first 3,000 gallons at just $3.32/1,000 gallons, which is (more)

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This hole in the ground near the corner of Verona Drive and Olympia Drive in Fontana is all that’s left of Tuesday’s blast.
PHOTO BY LINDSAY BARNES

It was an otherwise sleepy Tuesday afternoon in the Fontana subdivision, which overlooks Darden Towe Park, as Carrie Hanley sat on her back porch to enjoy the the mild weather of June 16. Around 12:30pm, the only thing out of the ordinary was that just down the hill, as some workers were getting ready to blast their way through some rock in order to install a new sewage line.

So it came as little surprise when Hanley heard the low rumble from the detonation. What came as a surprise is what happened next.

“It was just like the movies,” says Hanley. “We just saw this big, black cloud coming toward us.”

Hanley says (more)

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Pat Craig was struck in a crosswalk as she and her 16-year-old poodle, Lady, crossed South Street on Monday morning, June 1.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on improved crosswalks may be helping make city streets safer, but it’s small consolation to one downtown resident who was struck in a crosswalk on Monday morning, June 1, as she attempted to cross South Street.

Sixty-three-year-old Pat Craig was waiting on a sidewalk between Water and South streets around 8:20am, on her way home to subsidized apartment complex Midway Manor. Believing that cars in all directions at the five-way intersection of Ridge/Main/Water/South streets were stopped, Craig, using a cane and walking her 16-year-old poodle, Lady, says she (more)

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Capturing the market: Peter Van der Linde’s recycling facility, which opened last December, is already handling over 250 tons of trash a day.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

Recycling entrepreneur Peter Van der Linde, who opened an $11 million state-of-the-art recycling facility in Zion Crossroads last December, recently did a round of local radio interviews, drawing attention once again to his ongoing legal battle with the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, which has filed a $3.5 million lawsuit against him.

“If this doesn’t bother you, nothing will,” declared former Republican City Councilor Rob Schilling on his WINA radio program, saying he was “disgusted” by the Authority’s action against Van der Linde. “It’s wrong in every single way.”

After having toured Van der Linde’s facility, Schilling told listeners (more)

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This new concrete speed bump at Second Street NW has been gouged from passing vehicles.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

No one questions whether drivers should go slowly as they cross the Downtown Mall. But the speed bumps installed earlier this month as part of the pedestrian area’s rebricking are doing more than just slowing drivers down– they may be damaging the vehicles that cross and are becoming damaged themselves in the process.

“Even when you drive forward slowly, you still drag,” says J.R. Graves, who delivers prescription drugs for CVS pharmacy and drives across the Mall several times a day in either his Toyota Corolla or a Chevy sedan.

Graves says he isn’t driving fast over the bumps, and indeed, on Wednesday afternoon, May 20, a Hook reporter on the Mall handing out free CDs heard dozens of cars scrape one of the raised concrete devices.

There is visible evidence of the dragging. Less than a month after installation, gouges and black marks mar the surface of the concrete bumps at both the Second Street NW and Fourth Street SE crossings.

“It’s two inches too high,” says Sam Rochester, chef at the Downtown Grille, who says (more)

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