Good morning, RVA! It's 29 °F, and today’s the last day of these cooler temperatures for a while. Tomorrow, things start to warm up—with forecasted temperatures on Monday in the 70s??
Water cooler
A jillion years later and finally the Whole Foods in the Fan opens today at 9:00 AM. Listen, y’all know how Richmonders are about grocery stores. We love them so much! Honestly, how do we not have a minor league team of some sort called The Richmond Shopping Carts? Or maybe the RVA Produce Aisles (Mascot: A palm tree, but with, like, all kinds of fruit and vegetables hanging off of it). I guarantee that as I write this, at 6:30 AM, there is at least one person in line waiting for the doors to open. I want to high five that person! Anyway, good luck, god speed, and Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken is still open on the other side of the parking lot.
By the way, here’s the full text of RES. 2020-R009 (PDF), which asks the mayor to: “withdraw the existing Navy Hill Development Project ordinances,” complete a “Navy Hill area plan prior to the issuance of any future requests for proposals,” and “initiate a completely new request for proposal process for redevelopment of the land within the Navy Hill Development Project area.” That latter request is combined with a 12-point list of what the new RFP needs to require and does so in a far less restrictive way than the original RFP—even mentioning maybe not replacing the Coliseum at all. Of course, the Mayor hasn’t budged even a little and, at this point, has no intention of pulling his ordinances. That means as early as February 10th we’ll see a vote on all of this and, with any luck, get to move on with our lives!
Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury says both the House of Delegates and the Senate have voted to rollback some of the restrictions on abortions that Republicans voted into law a couple years back. Personally, I think the restrictions that were just eliminated were paternalistic and not motivated by any real desire to improve health or keep women safe. Unrelated, but ultra interesting, the senate split their vote 20-20 requiring Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax to come in and break the tie. The one Democrat to abstain? Joe Morrissey. One of the story lines I’m waiting for down at the General Assembly this year is Morrissey vs. the Democrats on some big important piece of legislation. It hasn’t happened yet, but there’s still half the GA session left!
Here’s some local media news: Warren Buffett’s “BH Media Group is selling its newspaper operations, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch and nine other daily newspapers in Virginia, to Lee Enterprises Inc. of Davenport, Iowa, a media company that has managed those publications for the past 18 months.” John Reid Blackwell in the now-under-new-ownership Richmond Times-Dispatch has the details. That is the most finance-oriented story about a newspaper I’ve ever read. It barely even mentions news! I wonder if our region—or the state—has anyone with enough money to buy and run the RTD?
Thanks to /r/rva for pointing me towards this Special Use Permit for a new 12-story apartment building at the northwest corner of Broad and Lombardy. Whoa, density! Here’s the thing: I am into this, but we MUST improve the safety of that intersection if we’re dropping in a ton of new homes (168 units says Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense). Also, when can we get an infill Pulse station at Lombardy?
I know I’m overly interested in certain parts of town, but I can’t help it. Therefore, you get to tap on links to stories like this profile, by Eileen Mellon in Richmond Magazine, of Brandi Brown, the owner of Ms. Bee’s Juice Bar. Ms. Bee’s just opened the other day at 114 Brookland Park Boulevard.
We are (maybe) nearing the end of the impeachment of Donald Trump. Yesterday, senators took turns handing Chief Justice John Roberts written questions, which he then spoke aloud to the House managers or president’s defense team. They spent eight hours doing this and asked 93 total questions. Because no normal human can withstand this sort of endlessly halting public meeting, I’m very thankful for the summary over at impeachment.fyi. The written-question process continues today, and then, tomorrow, perhaps a vote on whether or not to allow witnesses!
This morning's Patron longread
Everything You Think You Know About Housing Is Probably Wrong
Submitted by both Patron Lisa and Patron Micheal. Again the NYT with the perhaps overly intense headline, but I really enjoyed this housing piece—especially the bits about how cities can still whiff on density by building sprawly (even if very tall) urban development.
But opposition to density has only stiffened as the gulf widens between the 1 percent and everyone else. Well-to-do NIMBYs, congenitally opposed to new developments, have lately been joined by anti-displacement tenant activists — advocates for poor and working-class residents who might ordinarily want more housing but have come to fear that nearly all development brings gentrification that prices the most vulnerable out of neighborhoods. In cities like New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston, this new alliance means even initiatives promising some subsidized housing have become lines in the sand.
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