CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – City Council will hear an update to the Parks & Recreation master plan and consider shifting $1 million currently appropriated for Kindlewood Phase 3 to a principal payment for the already-completed Carlton Mobile Home Park rebuild, during its Monday meeting.
The Parks & Rec Master Plan report calls itself “a 10-year framework for equitable, resilient, and joyful public spaces.”
Among the projects covered in the $78.2 million 10-year plan are restroom improvements at Washington Park; three monument sign designs done by city-based Burruss Signs; site furnishings across the parks like benches, picnic tables, grills, trash and dog-waste stations; upgrades and maintenance of all playgrounds at city schools and parks; and connecting trails throughout the city with each other.
A major city parks initiative is the Jefferson School-approved Swords Into Plowshares refurbishment of the metal from the former Robert E. Lee statue into a new piece of public art that centers on Market Street Park, but also have distributions Washington, Belmont, Forest Hills, and Tonsler parks. The City will still have to approve those plans.
At the evening session, Council will consider a Week Without Driving proclamation.
The proclamation “invites residents to experience their community from the perspective of a nondriver by choosing, whenever possible, to walk, bike, scoot, ride public transportation, or ask for a ride for a single trip, a day, or the entire week” Oct. 1 through 8.
Among the public hearings are considerations of appropriating $55,000 to BEACON Kitchen and $25,000 to IX Arts Park for accessibility improvements.
The final action item is a proposal to reallocate $1 million to the Piedmont Housing Authority from the Kindlewood Phase 3 project toward the financing of the Carlton Mobile Home Park rebuild.
PHA joined with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville and other entities in 2024 for a purchase and rebuild of the Carlton facility that had aged and deteriorated so residents could remain in their homes, similar to the Habitat rebuild currently occurring at Southwood, and a smaller, earlier rebuild of Sunrise.
The city also has made investments in both projects.
Regarding the Carlton financing agreement, the Monday night policy briefing stated, “The FY26 CIP budget included five years of payments for the CMHP loan based on amortization schedules provided by PHA that included annual principal and interest payments. For FY27, the City requested an updated amortization schedule from PHA. PHA understood the request to be for an updated schedule reflecting changes to the interest payments, as the annual principal payment requirements had not changed. The updated schedule provided therefore only reflected the updated interest payments but did not separately reflect the annual $1,000,000 principal paydowns as it was assumed this remained unchanged. Unfortunately, the misunderstanding in scope between what was being requested and what was provided resulted in a CIP schedule change that does not fit the loan repayment requirements.”
Therefore, city staff determined this reallocation is necessary.
“The budgets for both the Kindlewood Phase 3 and Carlton Mobile Home Park projects will be re-adjusted during the FY28 CIP annual budget process,” according to the briefing.
