Albemarle and Charlottesville are two communities both known for high levels of planning as well as major efforts to engage the community. There is a tremendous will to plan, perhaps best evidenced by the large amount of time both localities put into their Comprehensive Plans.
However, many of the barriers to implementing these plans across greater Charlottesville were created because both communities that have often planned in reaction to the other. For much of the 20th century, Charlottesville's plan to grow was to annex Albemarle County. In response, Albemarle laid the foundation for its growth management policy by adopting a Comprehensive Plan that sought to demonstrate to the state that it could provide urban services to its citizens. However, Charlottesville continued to take land away from Albemarle until the county agreed to a landmark revenue-sharing agreement in 1982. From that time forth, the two communities have experienced soft hostility, complicating the will to cooperate on planning.
Many times the two communities will come very close to cooperating on something, only to have it collapse at the last minute. Two recent examples are discussion about creating a Regional Transit Authority in the late 2000's, as well as the failure of a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to coordinate the Comprehensive Plan updates in both Albemarle and Charlottsville. In both cases, failure for the planning to result in meaningful implementation fell apart because of a distrust between both communities.
In the transit situation, Charlottesville staff had deep concerns about Albemarle's willingness to pay its share of the new authority. The General Assembly did not pass a bill requesting a referendum on a sales tax increase to create a dedicated fund for the service. With no new funding in sight, the idea fizzled out of the minds of elected officials in 2010.
In the Comprehensive Plan situation, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission received the grant but some members of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors were skeptical. The $1 million was to help the coordinate plan review with the goal of addressing sustainability. Members of the Jefferson Area Tea Party attacked the grant and demanded that the county not participate in an exercise they believed subverted the citizens of Albemarle. The original goal of the planning grant was quickly lost, and the two plans were not adopted in synch. An opportunity to plan was lost.
However, the future of planning is much more positive than those two examples might indicate. Since those two failures, newer elected officials in both the city and county have pledged to work together on implementation, as well as planning. This resulted in the signing of a series of memorandums of understanding on topics including transportation, education and affordable housing. These memos have provided the underpinning for a series of initiatives that are ongoing, such as a regional transit partnership, a regional housing partnership and a renewed effort for both communities to work on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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