A lawsuit involving the City of Charlottesville’s new zoning ordinance will proceed to trial after all.
Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Claude Worrell said in a written opinion issued Friday, Aug. 22 that the case could move ahead to trial, without making any judgement on the merits of the zoning code itself.
In January 2024, a group of Charlottesville residents sued the city over its new zoning ordinance, which the City Council passed unanimously in December 2023 and which took effect in February 2024. The suit alleges that the city did not follow the law when it passed its Comprehensive Plan in November 2021, specifically that it only sent the transportation chapter, and not the entire plan, to the Virginia Department of Transportation, and therefore the plan is void. If the Comprehensive Plan is void, the plaintiffs argue, so is the zoning ordinance based off of it.
The case was set to go to trial when, on June 30, Worrell issued a default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. The reason? Attorneys with Gentry Locke, the law firm hired by the city to handle the case, missed a filing deadline…