Community Workshop on Environmental Issues

Do you have ideas on how to improve our natural environment? Would you like to have easier access to a trail in your neighborhood? Are you concerned about water quality of the Rivanna and other streams in our region? Come share your thoughts at a public workshop on environmental issues on September 29, the first in a series of events which will inform the Charlottesville and Albemarle Comprehensive Plan updates.

A major component of the Many Plans, One Community initiative is to gather community input related to the updates of both the Charlottesville and Albemarle Comprehensive Plans. While Charlottesville and Albemarle are governed separately and thus have distinct comprehensive plans, our communities are inherently linked. The two municipalities hope to bring their plans into greater alignment – thus improving the lives of their citizens, who typically live, work, shop, play, and learn across city/county boundaries – with this joint planning process. While each comprehensive plan will be unique, reflecting the needs and goals of each place, by updating the two comprehensive plans at the same time, common goals can be set for the entire region.

In order to gather public input that will shape the updates to the comprehensive plans – and guide future development in our region – TJPDC, the City and the County are hosting a series of community workshops over the next year. Each workshop will focus on a particular aspect of the comprehensive plan, such as housing, transportation, or the economy. The full calendar of workshops can be found here.

The first workshop in the series will focus on environmental issues including parks and greenways, sustainable development, water quality and stormwater management, and natural resource protection. Come learn what the city and county have been doing to protect the natural environment, then provide feedback and share your vision for our region. 

Community Workshop on Environmental Issues

Thursday, September 29, 2011

4-7pm

Cityspace

100 5th St. NE
Charlottesville, VA 22902

Where Are We Now?

How will we know if the Charlottesville-Albemarle area has been successful in creating a more livable community in five, ten or even twenty years from now? In order to measure our progress, it’s important to have a snapshot of where we stand today. For this reason, the Livability project has designed a Performance Measurement System to evaluate where we stand in key areas of our community. This system will be shared with the public in its current, preliminary form this Thursday (details below).

The Performance Measurement System contains indicators which fall into six categories:

• Natural Resources
• Housing & the Built Environment
• Communities & Neighborhoods
• Transportation
• Economy
• Infrastructure

For each of these categories, 10-15 indicators were chosen to measure current outcomes in that category. Each of the systems and indicators are based on goals and values as expressed in the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County Comprehensive Plans. These documents have been approved by each locality’s elected officials and summarize the county or city’s vision for their future.

For example, one of the indicators measured in the Natural Resources system is the portion of our rivers that are currently considered impaired (for having bacteria or pollutant levels above standards). The comprehensive plans of both Charlottesville and Albemarle place importance on clean waterways, for ecological benefits as well as the protection of our drinking water supply. This indicator gives us a snapshot of the health of our waterways today, and can be compared to future evaluations of our streams to let us know if we have made progress in reducing pollution levels.

We hope you will join us at the Open House this Thursday to review each of the chosen indicators in detail and provide feedback. If you can’t make it, check the website on Friday for digital versions of the information that will be shared and leave your comments on the site.

Performance Measurement System Open House
Thursday, June 23
4:00-7:00pm
Saunders Hall
UVA Darden School of Business (North Grounds Campus)
100 Darden Blvd. Charlottesville, VA 22903

Full details and directions can be found under the Meetings & Events tab on this site.