One of the tasks awaiting Charlottesville’s next director of Neighborhood Development Services is how to respond to ongoing calls to amend the city’s 2023 zoning code to hinder the construction of tall buildings in some areas.
“There are a lot of unintended consequences because of some of the decisions that were made in the ordinance,” said Preservation Piedmont’s Jean Hiatt at a June 23 listening session held by the city’s Neighborhood Development Services department.
Hiatt said that includes the definition allowing “student housing” buildings within a half mile of the legal designation of Central Grounds. The ordinance allowed the firm LCD Acquisitions to propose a seven-story luxury student housing development in Fifeville, without directly constructing some of the required affordable housing. Instead, the developers of The Mark are required to pay more than $4 million into the city’s affordable housing fund…