Preservation Piedmont
invites you to join them for their third annual Labor Day Open House at the Woolen Mills Chapel, 1819 East Market Street, Monday September 1, 11:00am to 1:00pm.
Bring a bag lunch, enjoy the traditional Irish Music of King Golden Banshee.
Preservation Piedmont will provide drinks and desert.
My neighbor Roy. I met him in 1990. I was on the roof of my house and this 75 year old guy climbed the 32 foot extension ladder and introduced himself.
Two pages excerpted from: FROM PORCH SWINGS TO PATIOS
An Oral History Project of Charlottesville Neighborhoods1914 to 1984.
Prepared By The Department of Community Development, Charlottesville,Virginia, 1990
Sunday May 11 thirty bipedal folk showed up for BPAC’s monthly neighborhood walking tour.
We walked and talked. Didn’t manage to go everywhere and see everything. But we did see where Woolies worked, where they went to Sunday school…
Where they were laid to rest.
Ben Chambers and Tommy Safranek of the City planned the route. Julie Basic of the Historic Resources Committee supplied an excellent historic fact sheet. The weather was perfect.
We talked about asphalt, sidewalks, fire engines, life in the 19th century, zoning, flood plain fill, alleys, easements, right sized streets, cut through traffic, historic rehabilitation, affordable housing, sewer sheds, water treatment, giant sequoias, trespassing. We talked about Dominion Power, the Railroad, Bagby Circus Grounds, Parks and Rec, the car jumping the railroad track, the car hitting a house. The senior silo. The young people taking care of the old folk. It was a hardy group. We had an excellent time.
Photo from above the site looking south-west, Franklin Street wetlands to the left, City neighborhood to the right.
Photo from above the site looking north-west, working peoples’ homes.
Photo from above the site looking north-north-east
Photo from above the site looking down. Franklin street wetland to the left, a portion of the proposed site in the middle, Carter’s Breads to the right.
Photo from above Carter’s Breads looking south
I write regarding SP202400026, a request to grade and fill 1.5 acres of the Rivanna floodplain adjacent to the seven acre Franklin Street wetland conserved by the RWSA.
Biodiverse land adjacent to river systems, land which provides inestimable environmental services being zoned as “industrial” is an obsolete and ill-informed and destructive practice.
For decades the County’s policy has been to protect wetlands and floodplains wherever possible. Retaining and restoring land cover near streams is fundamental for biodiversity, water quality and the common good. Such conservation is a first rate example of the purpose and benefits of planning. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title15.2/chapter22/section15.2-2223/
Typical site-specific studies and models almost always show flooding changes are projected to be minimal. However, the cumulative effects of reducing floodplains exact a price professional planning can avoid.
Just say no.
For decades Woolen Mills neighbors have asked the City for relief from “cut through” traffic, vehicles using neighborhood streets to avoid traffic lights. The step in that direction from the city has been signage. We are a City of literati and surely, the written word should suffice. The above is the first sign on E Market warning truck drivers.
The second sign strongly suggests that tractor trailers turn right…
Dead end! This third sign is within the area the City designates as the Woolen Mills neighborhood.
And so, vehicles proceed. Maybe they didn’t understand? Maybe they thought the warning applied to others?
I think the yellow signs are advisory. They are a suggestion. I don’t think the drivers get tickets for their incursions or suffer financial penalties for the items they break.
Recently the TJPDC voted to raise the Federal Classification of our neighborhood streets to a more intense category “minor collector”. Will that help?
Possibly employ a different advisory sign?
A page from the 1975 Street Tree Plan
Join Preservation Piedmont for the second annual Labor Day Open House at the Woolen Mills Chapel on Monday, September 2, 9:30 AM -11:00 AM!
Enjoy coffee, donuts and conversation with friends and neighbors, and a chance to hear the latest on Preservation Piedmont’s work to repair and revive the chapel.
Additionally, ReLeaf will be at the Chapel Open House to provide you with information on this fall’s Woolen Mills neighborhood free tree planting program.
In 1987, 73 year old Roy Jackson Baltimore introduced himself to me. Explained that I was living in his uncle John Baltimore’s house. The explaining started then and continued for decades.
Roy had much to share. He loved his neighborhood. (1516 E Market visible in the background)
Parks and Recreation is doing a master plan. Consider participating..
Parks and Recreation Dept <ParkandRec@charlottesville.gov>
Dear Charlottesville Parks & Recreation Stakeholder,
This is a reminder email to respond to the invite below for the Parks & Recreation Master Plan Focus Group Meetings. If you have already responded, please ignore. Thank you.
Planning is underway to develop a Comprehensive Parks and Recreation Master Plan for the Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Department. This document will guide future planning, policy, and development of Charlottesville Parks and Recreation programs and facilities for many years. The goal of the Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Master Plan is to provide a concise and user-friendly roadmap that will incorporate the community’s values to assist the City with decision-making regarding key issues.
We know you are passionate about parks and recreation and we are respectfully requesting your valuable input at an upcoming Focus Group Meeting so that the collective park and recreation vision of the community in Charlottesville can be developed.
The City of Charlottesville has contracted with PROS Consulting to conduct and develop this study and they will be in town the week of February 5th to conduct focus group meetings in-person. Our consultant, Mike Svetz, is copied on this email to assist with scheduling. We are very excited to have PROS on board as they did a fantastic job with our 2005 Master Plan. Once we hear back from the majority of you all, Mike will email to you a calendar invite for the meeting. The focus groups will be conducted IN-PERSON and will last approximately 50 minutes.
Monday February 5th:
10-10:50am, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
11-11:50am, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
1-1:50pm, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
2-2:50pm, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
6-6:50pm, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
Wednesday February 7th:
9-9:50am, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
10-10:50am, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
11-11:50am, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
1-1:50pm, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
2-2:50pm, Parks & Recreation Admin Office, 501 East Main Street
If you are unable to attend a focus group meeting, we hope you will provide feedback on Charlottesville Parks and Recreation on the project website Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Master Plan | EngagePros (mysocialpinpoint.com).
Thank you for your interest in Charlottesville Parks and Recreation and we look forward to hearing from you one way or the other by Monday January 22nd.
Once we receive responses from most people, we will send out meeting invites to confirm your date and time no later than Wednesday January 24th.
We are looking forward to hearing back from you all.
At this point the driver has failed to see several signs regarding street usage. Tell them, tell them again, tell them again
Zoning is a tool that legislators use to direct the day to day life in their territory. Zoning can be a glass of water for a thirsty person or club against the head of an enemy.
For 40+ years, neighbors have corresponded with legislators and folk in Government about Woolen Mills zoning. This year, an advisory board member responded (thank you Lyle) but otherwise, no member of the City Council, of the deciders, has chosen to engage us in conversation.
In 2000, for the Comprehensive Plan, NDS came to the neighborhood and requested input. It was a different era.
This post is a cursory examination of zoning when used without the consideration of The People whose neighborhood will be shaped by the zoning. We are interested in why zoning practice is repeatedly bad zoning practice. We interact and interact and little changes.
Mr.Tolbert on the “very hard line between industrial and residential.” Now the hard line is between IX-5, NX-3 and residential. Carrying forward the vision of Council from 1957.
South of Market Street/Woolen Mills Road subdivision plat
A neighborhood is a living thing composed of topography, culture, people, plants, pathways, businesses, animals and architecture. Neighborhoods require planning and care. It has been So Discouraging trying to obtain planning and care from our City. Neighborhoods are sensitive.
The land affected by split parcel zoning lies in the area of the Woolen Mills between Carlton Road and Franklin Street. It is the land north of the C&O railroad tracks and south of East Market. This acreage has been the seed for multiple conflicts in the past 35 years.
7 years before the annexation of the area in eastern Woolen Mills and Harland Bartholomew and Associates has a plan to line the south side of Market all the way to the Rivanna with Industrial.
In the beginning, In the 1950’s, around the time that Council approved Harland Bartholomew’s “Workable Program for Urban Renewal” they looked down the road with guidance from HBA and made decisions regarding future zoning of Woolen Mills backyards.
AlbCo adopted zoning in the late 1960s (1969?) Zoning wasn’t a concept familiar to Woolen Mills people, planning for the zoning was done to them in advance of the 1963 annexation. We are not aware of a public process.
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This is the region of split parcel zoning, residential in the north, industrial in the south.
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With the passage of the decades the green residential boundary bordering the southern edge of Market Street has gradually been eroded.
The proposed zoning map removes another 390 feet of the residential gateway to the neighborhood on the south side of Market. For decades we have fought lot by lot to determine the zoned future of the WMN.
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