Daily Progress Editorial on Crozet

Today’s Daily Progress has an

editorial

on the Crozet

Growth Area

and this

past week’s discussions about population estimates

.

One item is misleading in the editorial.  It suggests the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) developed an even greater population projection for up to 33,000 people in Crozet with a master plan in place. To my knowledge, PEC has not done such a public analysis.  Supervisor Dennis Rooker mentioned PEC did provide some back of the napkin estimates about Crozet’s growth in response to this week’s news that the County had determined that Crozet could grow to 24,000 people

after

the first 20 years of the master plan [

County analysis here

].  However, PEC’s estimates should not be interpreted as a detailed analysis of Crozet’s future with a master plan in place.  I don’t think it is helpful for the Daily Progress to throw out another much larger number without being clear about the assumptions for each.  Based on my discussions this week with local leaders, there is a lot that needs clarification about all these estimates.  On that point, I agree with the newspaper.

I did want to follow up on an

email message

where I drew a comparison of Crozet to the City of Charlottesville.  I now have calculations for the size differences in square miles.

Brian Wheeler