Charlottesville Community Engagement for March 9, 2024

Charlottesville Podcasting Network

This is the archive edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement for Saturday, March 9, 2024. I’m Sean Tubbs, a local journalist who writes about infrastructure, budgets, and all sorts of decisions about what gets built. What you’re going to hear is a digest of stories that have been used this week in the podcast version of a newsletter I send out, with much of the sound coming from local government meetings. The idea is to capture this moment in our community’s history in as much detail as possible.

On today’s program:

• The University of Virginia surpasses its $5 billion fundraising campaign and gets two major donations from the Harrison Foundation (read the story)
• An update on UVA’s efforts to build between 1,000 and 1,500 affordable housing units across the community (read the story on C-Ville Weekly)
• The Buildings and Grounds Committee of the UVA Board of Visitors takes action on several items including approving the location for a new parking garage to serve North Grounds (read the story)
• Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders recommends a fiscal year 2025 budget based on raising the real property tax, the meals tax, and the lodging tax to cover the cost of paying unionized and non-unionized city employees more money and benefits (read the story)
• Three new members have been appointed to the city’s Housing Advisory Committee (read the story)
• Charlottesville City Council reallocates $215,000 in federal funds that will enable allow the the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank to offer more produce (read the story)