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Charlottesville continues to appear at the top of "best places to live" lists published by national magazines. As our city's reputation grows, it creates a good news/challenging news situation. More and more people become of aware of our special community, resulting in increased development, more traffic, higher property assessments (and thus, higher taxes). What can City Council do? I. Make Charlottesville More Affordable 1. Expand creative approaches that reduce the cost of housing. We propose that Council dedicate an annual source of local revenue, to leverage additional dollars from state, federal & private sources and provide flexible financing for creation of new, housing opportunities for lower- and moderate-income residents. This Charlottesville Affordable Housing Investment Fund would be modeled on programs in place in over 350 communities across the country, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel in implementing it; furthermore, it utilizes existing tax revenues, not new taxes. One of the main beneficiaries of the Investment Fund would be the Piedmont Housing Trust, which was created by the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors and the Piedmont Housing Alliance and is designed to promote workforce housing for those public sector employees (teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, etc.) who wish to live in the community that they serve. 2. Expand the new property tax rebate program. The Democrats on Council voted for a. Charter Amendment that will allow us to give significant rebates on property taxes. David Toscano and Creigh Deeds fought to get it approved by the General Assembly, and Mr. Schilling voted against it. We strongly support it. It will provide annual property tax rebates of $250 or more to homeowners of low and moderate incomes. Working out the details on this rebate program will be one of the first challenges of the new Council. We will push to make it available to large numbers of moderate and low income people who wish to buy a home. 3. Revitalize our public housing neighborhoods. The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority is one of the largest land owners in the City. We should work in collaborative partnership with residents and for-profit & non-profit developers alike, to build affordable housing on some of the land owned by the Authority. This process has the potential to both improve the quality of life for public housing residents and significantly expand affordable rental and homeownership opportunities for hard-working citizens. 4. Provide density bonuses for developers who sell some of their units at more affordable prices. The Planning Commission is working on this now. The City can increase the number of units in new developments that are sold at affordable prices, by offering developers the incentive of building more units per acre. This program has worked in other communities that experience the huge increases in housing values that Charlottesville is seeing. The City currently offers this option, but it is rarely used. It will work if Council places a priority on it, if we form good working relationships with developers, if we market it far more aggressively, and provide large enough incentives to make it financially advantageous. 5. Provide builders with incentives to build energy efficient homes. Some estimates show that homeowners can save up to 50% on their monthly utility bills, in such houses. The City can provide tax incentives, density bonuses, and other incentives to builders who create energy efficient homes. II. Improve Our Management of Traffic Resulting From New Development 1. Create a Regional Transit Authority. Currently, our transportation systems operate with little coordination. If you wait for a City bus, and watch as 3 or 4 University buses go right by, you wonder why the two systems aren't integrated. They won't be until we create a single transit authority. 2. Create a Park and Ride Program. This is not a new idea. Many other cities utilize this, and it makes a difference. A regional transit authority should both create parking lots and garages at locations convenient to large numbers of vehicles bound for the City and UVA each day. Bus service from these locations to UVA, downtown and other areas would be provided at frequent intervals. The parking locations might include the area at Fontaine Ave. and the Rte 29 Bypass, 5'h St. Extended South of the City, and a location on Rte. 29 North. In addition, we could negotiate with owners of large existing parking lots, to set aside space on Monday-Friday for drivers to leave their cars (some will shop when they return in the afternoon). Experience in other cities shows that many people will get out of their cars and take a bus to work, IF the bus is clean, safe, and runs frequently and regularly. Ideally, the wait should be no more than 5-10 minutes, 15 minutes maximum. 3. Actively promote carpooling. City and University owned parking lots and garages should charge less for vehicles carrying two or more passengers. Those who carpool and must pay to park in garages and lots every day will experience a significant reduction in parking costs. 4. Extend CTS bus service to developments in the County. A regional transit authority could coordinate this. We should conduct a one-year experiment, providing bus service from large developments in the County to downtown, UVA and Barracks Road during rush hours Monday-Friday, and determine if this has an impact on the number of vehicles being driven into the City. 5. Promote a regional network of roads that steers traffic around, and not through, our residential neighborhoods. The city of Charlottesville is currently the crossroads of the region for those commuters who are attempting to get from one Albemarle County growth area to another. We need to prioritize the construction of connector roads that take much of this through-traffic off of our city streets. 6. Ensure that our neighborhoods are fully involved in the planning process
for new developments. A common refrain from neighborhood residents and neighborhood
associations is that their quality of life is deteriorating (largely because
of new traffic), and they do not feel their pleas/ are being heard or their
concerns are being adequately addressed. We need to do a much better job
of listening to our neighborhoods, involving them from the beginning in
the planning process for new developments, incorporating their concerns
in the development plans, and maintaining regular and ongoing communication
with residents throughout the development process. We should also do what
we can to revitalize the Federation of Neighborhood Associations so as to
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