KAL, you are in a time warp. There was no charge when the article was written in 2015. SCC granted approval of a non communicating meter fee (about $11/month) in 2024. Things change. Get the smart meter, there is no charge, and no monthly fee. It’s painless.

Jim,
Welcome to the mass platform digital world. I do not use it, but you realize that some world leaders use X. It simply mirrors our culture and current state of the world. Just learn to hold your nose and say what you want to say…

You and I have different definitions of “normal.”

… “X is a thriving hub for Nazi support and propaganda, with paid subscribers sharing speeches by Adolf Hitler or content praising his genocidal regime. ”

Source: NBC News.

And

Grok floods X with sexualized images of women and children

And

X represents a context where disinformation is not only rampant
but masquerades as AI, delivering the only truth. Those who dare to criticize the platform’s owners are subject to court cases and online attacks.

Digital authoritarian contexts must be studied as the birthplace of techno-fascism. There, a personality cult around a platform owner is so strong that it changes policies and ultimately the frequent visitors to this public space. Politics cannot be nourished as a result of trolls activities and hate speech. The public town square is besieged, silent, and oppressed.

What we witness in this digital age is a metamorphosis in the constellation of power, where tech oligarchs own public spaces and serve for the government, but are neither equipped with a clear mandate nor subject to clear accountability mechanisms

Source: EUR Research

Jim, here is what Southwood is: “Southwood Redevelopment
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville is supporting the redevelopment of the Southwood Mobile Home Park as the nonprofit owner, developer, and property manager. Habitat purchased the park in 2007 to prevent massive and catastrophic resident displacement and has invested more than $25M to stabilize operations ever since. Long term, Habitat’s goal is to turn over complete ownership to the residents themselves in a redeveloped community of sustainable, permanent housing”. And why can’t the County build public housing or allow mobile homes on 1/2 acre lots? Just because you are not willing to go that far to actually get affordable housing does not mean it cannot get done. Hopefully will finally get the population mix in Crozet back to where it was before the invasion. Most will not admit it but, that mix of people created the area that everyone, now it seems, wants to come to. Fastest solution is mobile homes on 1/2 acre lots then get whole County buy-in on subsidized public housing like what exists up by 250 and across the tracks opposite Buck Road. With County support Habitat could develop a tract of land in the Growth Area. Instead of tract housing we would have something that actually benefits the local population.
Where have you lived before this that poor people were totally ignored??? On the County level there is currently the right mix of people where this could get done.

What are you talking about? Seriously. Southwood development has been ongoing – and will continue to be ongoing – for years.

And I know you know that zoning changes are *never* done in “months.” Not the best example, but Windy Knoll has been trying for a long time to get things done.

And what Public Housing has been built?

Habitat is not public housing.

Ok, but don’t you think that the County building more Public Housing and allowing Mobile Homes on 1/2 acre lots would address this problem faster? A zoning change would only take months and Public Housing can go up quickly as witnessed by the Southwood development in Charlottesville. If the goal is more affordable housing that is the proven way to do it. If you want to continue population/demographic control there are these other ways.

Which Community are you claiming to represent? When you claim things like that even the good ideas you have lose all credibility… If we, residents and property
owners, wanted what you claim is wanted we would of had it long ago. We went along with a growth area, not an Urban area and none was ever promised. I will say with some knowledge that a majority of Western Albemarle residents are happy to be here and do not want to pay even higher taxes to create an small city in Crozet.
Since Crozet does not pay it’s own way, that is a fact. If Crozet would incorporate it could, but then I doubt that most of them would agree to the higher taxes. Too bad that you moved to such an area that is so difficult for you that you have to claim that children are being used as a traffic calming measure. What possibly do you think that you gain by saying that???

The problem with your solution is that none of the older developments in Crozet have either sidewalks or curb and gutter, and the community decided a long time ago not to use our children as a traffic-calming measure, not to mention the county is sure as hell not going to pay for a retrofit of the necessary infrastructure.

I don’t think the government should *force* that, but to incentivize more dense infill would be an appropriate use of government zoning and regulations.

Would that not be denying an owner their property rights? Why should we convert rural land to urban housing? Most newcomers enjoy the mix of rural and semi rural that we now have. Since the County has done this before, expand public housing in the Growth area, change the demographics and the current bunch will flee again causing a glut of empty homes which will lead to affordability. If you are truly interested in lowering the cost of housing these are doable options along with
again allowing mobile homes on 1/2 acre lots. You realize that property rights are very strong in Virginia.

Thanks Tom. I agree with most of what you wrote.

One point —

In fact, the biggest threat to affordable housing is the potential redevelopment of Crozet’s older neighborhoods. Recently, a perfectly good brick ranch house on Jarman Gap Road was demolished, and in its place will go a new home costing over a million dollars.

I’d argue that older houses that are torn down should be replaced by tri- or quad-plexes.

Yes, anything is possible but, the majority of people moving to the Crozet Growth Area do not want an Urban Area. And the County never promised one. What you say about Charlottesville sounds logical but how do you convince people with heavily mortgaged properties to suddenly accept less money? The same for Old Trail.
You have local people that bought up “cheap” housing units that are living way beyond their means with the crazy rent they are charging. another fact is the only logical reason for the great migration to Crozet is demographics. Having driven a lot of the local population out what remains does not reflect what Western Albemarle used to represent. People did not flee from the large Northern Cities to nowhere just to create the demographic they left. And Charlottesville currently is looking for solutions for the poor and homeless. The renovation of the poorest areas is more a priority as with partnering with Habitat. When you drive under a bridge in town look closely under it. You will probably see someone looking back at you. As a life long resident it is embarrassing to me to see this. The county and city need to create a partnership to create subsidized housing in the growth areas. This would change the demographics which would then cause people to leave which would then create a more favorable housing market for all. I cannot understand humans that continue to advocate what they want over the needs of people that have nothing at all. When we were a community all voices were heard…

You made the following statement in this article: “We need to build generationally — mixed use, meaning housing on top of coffee shops and shopping centers, integrating appropriate infrastructure, and jobs. We need places where people can live and work close-by.” It will be interesting to see if the plan for Crozet downtown comes close to what you describe, especially since the first rendering presented to the community was nothing like your ideal.

If you have ever read the original Crozet Master Plan, you would find language very similar to your own statement. The development model found in the Crozet Master Plan best fits the language of “New Urbanism”. It called for a mix of housing types, and the community went so far as to have one of our local artists render a design of this form of development, which was presented before the BOS during the rezoning for the Gray Rock development.

Despite the community’s efforts to implement the new design model, the BOS voted for the “same old, same old” development pattern. The Crozet Community, however, was not without success. Two developments, “Wayland’s Grant” and Bargamin Park, along Jarman Gap Road, both have a mix of housing types and a range of affordability. Unfortunately for Crozet, this new form of development became the exception and not the rule.

This is not to mention the fact that the community had multiple meetings with PHA to build a mixed-use development in a new urbanist style, only to have PHA sell the land, and what we got was a new apartment complex that destroyed one of the older homes in Crozet.

Finally, the 15 percent affordable housing proffer has been a miserable failure, as a Crozet Gazette article shows, with a 9 percent success rate in Crozet. I did a bit of simple math and looked at the number of developments built in Crozet since the original Master Planning process, using the 15 percent affordable housing proffer, to find that, if implemented, there would be one affordable house for every 9 acres in the growth area.

In fact, the biggest threat to affordable housing is the potential redevelopment of Crozet’s older neighborhoods. Recently, a perfectly good brick ranch house on Jarman Gap Road was demolished, and in its place will go a new home costing over a million dollars.

It is indeed good to hear your ideas, which are consistent with the Crozet Master Plan. However, while I may agree with your statement above, for the most part, they are too little, too late for Crozet, except for our downtown, and I do not hold out much hope for a development form we would both like to see in the future.

—
Jim’s edit: I put line breaks in so that the comment is more readable.

Fair point, and I’d gently push back on the fatalism. Yes, Charlottesville keeps going up. But *why* it keeps going up matters, because the answer tells us what to do about it.

The data in this post is pretty unambiguous: we are not building enough. Albemarle needs roughly 10,000 affordable units by 2040 and currently has about 2,230. Even accounting for everything in the pipeline, we’re still short by approximately 4,800 units — and closing that gap would require 75% of every home built beyond the current pipeline to be affordable. That’s not going to happen without a fundamental change in how we approach supply.

Basic economics still applies here, even in markets with idiosyncrasies like ours. Constrained supply plus sustained demand equals rising prices. Building more housing — even imperfect, market-rate housing — exerts downward pressure over time. The research on this is consistent, and our local numbers bear it out. We’ve been restricting supply for decades and wondering why affordability gets worse.

Here’s something worth paying closer attention to: UVA is actively adding significant on-Grounds student housing. The Board of Visitors approved a [$160 million Ivy Corridor project in February 2025](https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2026/02/ivy-corridor-student-housing-set-to-open-by-2027) — 750-800 beds in apartment-style housing set to open by 2027, part of a broader 2,000-bed initiative.

Applications for upperclass on-Grounds housing increased 81% from Fall 2021 to Fall 2025, which tells you the demand for on-Grounds living is real and growing.

When students move back on Grounds, they vacate off-Grounds rental units that have historically been locked up by the student market. Those units re-enter the broader rental pool — available to the childcare workers, EMTs, bus drivers, and service workers who have been competing for housing against students with parental subsidies or financial aid covering rent. That’s a meaningful supply injection.

Walkability matters — enormously — but it’s a complement to affordability, not a substitute for it. We’ve built walkable and unaffordable before. The answer is to build more, at more price points, with the infrastructure to support it. That requires getting serious about density, about the development area boundaries, and about the fact that we are nearly out of runway under current policy.

The people who need affordable housing by 2040 don’t have the luxury of waiting for perfect solutions.

Answering specific claims with facts is the real issue and purpose of a conversation If you cannot answer any of the points being discussed what is the whole point of this? There is really so much false information being presented that something needed to be said. The law is easy and can be looked up and quoted. There seems not to be any interest in that. Hollering that it is raining when the sun is shining does not serve any purpose…

In general, I was pleased that the proposed second exit was moved from their original idea on Indigo, and that the footprint of the facility was greatly reduced. There will be less impact on the pond and park than was evident in the original plans.

It is also worth noting that this is a $18 million project, and they are currently in the quiet phase of fundraising, looking for those big donors and partners. They plan to raise $13 million and get a $5 million bank loan. We’re a long ways off from this becoming reality.

Hey Edward, just wanted to say I wasn’t trying to make this personal. I was really focused on the purpose of this blog, and everything else you’re bringing up isn’t really my focus for this specific piece.

First off, there is not any “we” issue. I address Jim’s concerns about legal with facts. You have not answered anything and seem to by trying to manipulate an outcome. I answered every point that was trying to be made. You have not answered one point. only generalizations. I am going to make it simple. People that have been given removal orders from a Judge should no longer be in this country. People, any people should not be murdered. The process if that happens is a trial. Not a ranting comedian or mob logic. You do not have to let Police in your home without a warrant but, if they come back with one it is on you when they break the door down. Following law enforcement around, blocking roads, damaging their vehicles, interfering with them might seem cool to your friends but will lead you to something painful that you do not want. Where you get your information and what you want to believe is totally on you. I have no interest in convincing you of anything. I actually suggest you read and understand what is written before commenting on it…

Edward… I’m hoping we can move past the ‘us vs. them vs they’ rhetoric and stick to the legal issues. When we focus on personal habits or broad stereotypes, the discussion becomes less about learning and more about winning an argument. Can we get back to the specifics? You mentioned an exaggeration—could you clarify which part you mean so we can actually address the substance?