CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Westhaven residents and activists turned out to Tuesday’s Board of Architectural Review pre-application meeting to voice their opposition to the scaled-down development plans they say would cut the primarily Black neighborhood off from the rest of the city.

LV Collective presented a revised plan for a multi-story luxury student housing building on three parcels of property on the north side of West Main, but about two dozen people showed up to express their continued resistance to the project.

“There are still ongoing conversations with the community, not everybody’s concerns have been met,” LV Collective Vice President Brittani Sanders said. “But LV is at the table and I think we’ve made some productive progress and we hope to continue that progress.”

LV has shrunk the proposed buildings from 11 stories to eight along West Main and six on the Westhaven side

Many of the same people who turned out Tuesday packed a Planning Commission pre-application meeting last August as the developer presented what was then an 11-story plan to be built right next to The Standard as Westhaven residents complain the building would literally and figuratively cast a shadow over their neighborhood as those residents are putting together the neighborhood overhaul project.

Sanders told Tuesday night’s BAR meeting that the developer made wholesale changes instead of gradual tweaks after hearing the public’s concerns.

“I heard feedback firsthand, I heard the community’s feedback and I think what you’re going to see today is a thoughtful and direct response to both levels of those feedback, specifically around the height with it coming down from 11 stories to 6 and 8,” she said. “We didn’t just step it. We ripped the Band-Aid off to try to be very respectful of the feedback.”

Westhaven residents also complained last summer that the project, again, both literally and figuratively cuts off the Westhaven community from the West Main business corridor. Sanders said the revised plan avoids that through the inclusion of walkway.

“The walkway was something else that was really important and we now have direct access to Westhaven’s walkway that’s there, and then we’re also proposing to carry that across Main Street in the form of an elevated, large pedestrian connection,” Sanders said.

Angela Carr, who grew up in Westhaven, expressed concern that not all members of the community are being included in the discussions.

“When you say you’ve worked with the community, my mom told me never to call anyone a liar, but that is a fib because you have not worked with the community,” she said. “If you’ve worked with community, we would have seen you walking through Westhaven, and you’re not on the cameras.”

Several community members have held and participated in planning meetings for Westhaven over the months.

“How can you just take control of something? It’s not fair. It’s not right,” Carr said. “It’s like someone coming into your home and walking right past you and your wife and not speaking, but taking their shoes off and getting comfortable and you don’t address the people who live there. That’s how you do it respectfully, and that’s how you gain respect and that’s how you gain the community’s trust.”

Board members indeed addressed some of the technical aspects such as rejected the plan’s vinyl windows, and discouraging concrete boards they say don’t hold up over time.

Ron Bailey said he appreciates the reduction in building height in response to community concerns.

But, he said, “To the extent we’re supposed to consider whether it fits in its context, the fact of the matter is it’s on West Main Street and West Main Street is already designated for buildings this size or larger.”

Board member David Timmerman agreed the building scale has been reduced admirably, “And much more attention has been paid to how to activate the street, and so I’m certainly encouraged that just after our one meeting those comments have been heard and responded to in some way, shape, or form.”

He agreed with Bailey that if larger buildings are going to be built, although “we may differ as we move back certain blocks”, Main Street is the obvious corridor to do it.

Timmerman said, also, that it’s scaled with similar buildings to do it and they have to consider all factors as there’s nothing in violation of the new zoning code.

Several BAR members expressed the desire of doing an extensive solar study of the proposal to determine how much Westhaven will be shaded by the project.

Developers will now work on formal applications to the BAR and Planning Commission for what is now a 182-unit, 517-bed student apartment proposal.

LV’s plan for the property also has 2,400-square foot retail space for a public cafe.