4 projects from Biscuit Run to UVA

written by Newspack Team | November 13, 2006

The

Albemarle County Planning Commission

is holding a

public work session

on the proposed Biscuit Run development this Tuesday evening November 14th at 6:00 PM at the County Office Building SOUTH on Fifth Street.  The public will be allowed to make comments on the rezoning request.


Biscuit Run

is now proposed to be a 3,500 home development on about 900 acres.  The applicant has asked that the property in Albemarle’s designated growth area be rezoned in accordance with the County’s neighborhood model to support three neighborhood town centers, an elementary school, a mix of residential housing types, commercial buildings, and offices.


Also during this month, the Planning Commission is taking action on

three other projects




all within 2 miles of Biscuit Run.

In the map at the right you can see the line up of all these developments between UVA’s Fontaine Research Park and Biscuit Run.

In total, the projects may include up to 4,200 new homes and 1 million square feet of new office space.


UVA-Fontaine:

On Nov. 7th, the UVA Foundation received approval to expand the Fontaine Research Park by 30,000 sq. ft.  The County Board of Supervisors is expecting another request to add 300,000 to 500,000 sq. ft. of space at Fontaine in the near future.


Granger Property:

Coran Capshaw (Stribling Holdings LLC) has a request in front of the Planning Commission on Nov. 28th to lay the groundwork for a development on almost 70 acres just South of the Fontaine Research Park (accessible via Sunset Avenue Ext in the County and Stribling Avenue in the City).  The project (concept master plan shown at left) is expected to yield about 500,000 sq. ft. of office space (in 4-story buildings) and 400 housing units (in buildings that may be up to 8 stories). Albemarle County would like to connect this property to the Fontaine Research Park by getting proffers for the construction of what is known as the Fontaine/Sunset Connector.  There will be multiple work sessions on this project, the first of which is Nov. 28th.  A future work session is expected to include the City Planning Commission. [

Click here for more images

(1.3 MB PDF) from the August 2005 Granger proposal]


Woodlands:

On Nov. 7th, the Planning Commission approved the final site plan for the Woodlands development off Sunset Avenue Ext.  It will have 300 apartment units on 24 acres bordering on the Sherwood Manor neighborhood.


Biscuit Run:

As mentioned above, the Biscuit Run rezoning request is back before the Planning Commission on Nov. 14th.  It has been scaled back from 5,000 homes to 3,500.  The applicant has retained the firm Torti Gallas & Partners as their land planners.  Torti Gallas literally wrote the book on the County’s Neighborhood Model as they were the consulting firm that led the effort to define a new form of development in the County’s urban areas.  One iteration of the traffic impact study has been completed and is now expected to be adjusted for the smaller number of homes.  This is the first of what will be multiple work sessions to allow the County to review the revised Biscuit Run development.

All these developments need to be assessed as part of the big picture of land use and transportation issues in the City and the County and the meetings on November 14th and November 28th give

you

the opportunity to speak up and provide feedback to the County Planning Commission.

Brian Wheeler