The Advocacy Committee has been hard at work sharing letters to the City of Charlottesville in the past months as the City works on the rezoning ordinance update. Our organization has followed the Cville Plans Together process with great interest. A summary of the letters are listed below and a copies of all letters is available for downloading.
We believe protection of cultural resources is not just good preservation practice; it is inherently sustainable, enhances our environment and sense of place, and nurtures Charlottesville's legacy of craftsmanship, design, and landscape stewardship across multiple neighborhoods. Best preservation practices do not freeze a building or neighborhood in one "historic" state; they offer strategies to manage change in environmentally and culturally significant and sensitive places.
September 6, 2022: The three types of Historic Preservation and Design Review Overlay Zoning Districts - this letter outlines the three existing zoning overlay districts related to historic preservation and design that Preservation Piedmont states are essential to the implementation of Charlottesville’s 2021 Comprehensive Plan. Historic Resources play a major economic role in Charlottesville and are essential components of the City’s affordable housing building stock, cultural tourism appeal, and many economic development scenarios.
September 1, 2022: Re: Inclusionary Zoning Report - Preservation Piedmont provides brief comments regarding the Inclusionary Zoning Report, including that the report should address how Inclusionary Zoning will be implemented in Architectural Design Control (ADC) Districts and Historic Conservation Districts (HCD).
August 30, 2022: Re: Appendices in the Draft Zoning Diagnostic + Approach Report - Preservation Piedmont offers the detail-level comments on the appendices that follow the Zoning Diagnostic + Approach report shared for community review.
August 24: Letter to Planning Director and Cville Plans Together Consultants - consistent with our advocacy for best practices in historic preservation, Preservation Piedmont offers comments on the Zoning Diagnostic + Approach report shared for community review on 16 June 2022. We also encourage reading our bigger picture reactions from our letter sent to City Council and the Board of Architectural Review (BAR) on August 2.
August 2: Letter to City Councilors - we offer comments on the Zoning Diagnostic + Approach report shared for community review on 16 June 2022.
Preservation Piedmont echoes the statement of Neighborhood Development Services Director Freas in his introductory letter to the report: "The challenge of this zoning rewrite is to provide a set of rules that enable this kind of incremental evolution and preserve the unique qualities that define the city’s built character and sense of community." We sincerely hope the zoning update can meet this challenge.