CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – As mortgage interest rates continue to remain higher than 6%, the real estate market both locally and nationally has expectedly slowed. There is less inventory, and fewer people are willing to put there house on the market out of concern for where they would move to given the lack of inventory, especially in the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. The problem is also complicated due to the fact that only 5% of Albemarle’s 721 square miles is marked for development.
There have also been a number of complaints over the years from developers who wanted to pursue both residential and commercial projects that the permitting, approval and inspection processes took entirely too long. Officials in the county now say that they have heard that community feedback and that they have implemented a new system where project applicants can track their approval process through a new online system. Ann Wall, the Deputy County Executive over community engagement, parks and recreation and development said it’s an important priority of the county to listen to the feedback of their constituents.
“Our communications and public engagement department is tasked with two very important things, the first is that their tasked with is really communicating what’s going on with the county, what meetings are we doing, what’s the news from the county, what’s the information that the community members need,” Wall told WINA Morning News. “The second task of that really important mission is that their tasked with really engaging our community, getting feedback, what do people think about what we’re doing and we do that across a variety of ways, we do that through a set of community meetings where our staff goes out, we have community engagement committees in several of the magisterial districts. Additionally we have a website called engage Albemarle, on engage Albemarle you can find the status on a variety of projects with opportunities for community members to sort of say, here’s what I think of this, I think you’re on the right track county this is great or county I think you’ve missed it and I think you need to think of these components over here.”…