Charlottesville, Virginia, spent most of a decade revising its zoning code.
It held endless community meetings.
It gave opponents ample opportunity to make their case.
They lost.
But a handful of rich homeowners sued and have gotten the new Charlottesville zoning code overturned on a technicality
https://communityengagement.substack.com/p/june-30-2025-judge-worrell-voids?r=blgf
9 millionaire homeowners, who couldn’t persuade Charlottesville residents and couldn’t win at the ballot box, decided they would throw everything they had to nullify their defeat.
And it worked
What is the scope of the zoning plan densification?
If they’re taking single family homes and putting up high rise towers; if the city did not expand transportation or public services(water and sewage) in any way (bigger sidewalks, buses, trams, bike lanes) the assholes are right.
I thought maybe I wasn’t understanding something, since millionaires are supposed to = bad, but the assholes are indeed right. Another example of wealth and influence changing outcomes that the rest of us can’t compete with - yes. Silver lining is they actually did a good thing.
I think the homeowners are right regardless. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that even a moderately higher population density increases transportation demand. Even doubling the density could affect traffic considerably.
Now before the haters come out: I’m not saying that the transportation demand must be addressed by more or bigger roads.
Could be that the road isn’t utilized to the full capacity yet. I’ve been involved in zoning projects where that was the case, the existing road and other infrastructure was adequate to fit the bigger population without modification.
well even if you subscribe to carbrainism it doesn’t make sense to just add lanes to roads, lanes are almost never the bottleneck. What you want is higher-capacity junctions.
now i’m hungry