CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) With the new Charlottesville zoning ordinance that enhances the ability of building higher density developments with the goal of more housing creating more affordable housing declared “null and void” by a Circuit judge, City Councilor Michael Payne does not yet know where the city goes from here. The sure thing is the old city ordinance is in effect, but Payne said he hopes this is “more of a speed bump rather than hitting a wall” in this process. He said councilor haven’t met with the city attorney yet to discuss the situation.

Neil Williamson with the Free Enterprise Forum laid out on WINA’s Morning News three possibilities. One, he said, is a possible appear of the court ruling. However, he opines, emphasizing he’s not a lawyer, since the ruling was on a failure to meet a filing deadline, the only appealable action would perhaps be the punishment. Williamson thinks this is unlikely since there’s likely not another judge who wants to “step on Judge Claude Worrell’s toes” in ruling otherwise.

The two other options involve instituting a new code. Williamson said one of those options would be bringing this same code before a public process, perhaps addressing some of the VDOT issue, and maybe another issue mentioned in the lawsuit. Keeping most of the code together with some tweaks Williamson speculates maybe gets voting on by the end of the year. The other option is starting the public process over again, essentially. This involves “engaging new consultants or the same consultants, going through that same path, but having an important citizen engagement process and all the other review,” according to Williamson.

“We’re looking at 24-to-36 months before getting to a new zoning ordinance,” Williamson said.

Payne told Cville Right Now, “This obviously introduces a lot of uncertainty now as to what next steps for Charlottesville’s zoning ordinance are going to be.”

Whatever steps those will be, he maintains the goal of “changes to the zoning code that are actually accomplishing our goals of promoting affordable housing and promoting affordable housing options throughout every income range in the city.”

He also is unsure of what options there are addressing outside counsel Gentry Locke’s apparent error in missing the deadline.

“I think certainly for City Council and certainly for community members, I think frustration, anger, and questions of how does something as basic as this happen is kind of my first reaction,” Payne said.

Payne noted this is also an example of how important it is to have stability in city departments and leadership. “I mean, the reason we hired outside counsel through Gentry Locke to handle significant portions of this case is because there had been so much turnover in the city attorney’s office over multiple years, not just the head of the office but also deputy city attorneys and others within the office,” Payne said.