Charlottesville - Albemarle Project (VA)
SELC and partners tackle stormwater runoff in Charlottesville and Albemarle County
As part of our effort to protect the valuable natural resources that help define the Charlottesville-Albemarle area, SELC has undertaken an important initiative to combat a leading cause of poor water quality in this community: polluted stormwater runoff.
Working with the Rivanna Conservation Society and the Environmental Law and Conservation Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law, SELC has performed an extensive analysis of the development ordinances and policies currently in effect in the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. This analysis allowed us to identify specific code provisions and regulatory practices in both localities that could be improved to reduce the damage that polluted runoff is inflicting on local waterways.
We then authored a pair of detailed reports that highlight our findings and offer a set of straightforward recommendations to both localities for improving their existing ordinances and policies. The reports point to specific ways each locality could remove unnecessary regulatory obstacles to smarter development patterns and eliminate loopholes from their existing water protections.
We are already making headway with this important initiative. At the City Planning Commission's direction, City staff has begun working with us to advance the recommendations we present in our Charlottesville report. We plan to bring the highest priority recommendations back to the planning commission for a work session in the fall. Having just completed our Albemarle report, we have begun initial efforts to implement those recommendations as well.
