Over the summer, the owners of Sal’s Caffe Italia installed a U-shaped service counter around a tree in the space they lease on the Downtown Mall from the City of Charlottesville. They did so without first getting approval from the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services.
“Things on the Mall are supposed to be easily moved,” said Jeff Werner, the city’s historic preservation planner. “If the fire department needs to go down on the Mall, things can be picked up and moved.”
When staff noticed the counter under construction in late May, they had cautioned owner Giuseppe Finazzo that it did not meet guidelines. Finazzo built it anyway and applied for a Certificate of Appropriateness after the fact to see if the Board of Architectural Review would be lenient…