Good morning, RVA! It's 38 °F and bleh. Today you can expect highs in the low 40s and a chance of cold rain until the sun goes down. Probably best to stay inside if you can and hold your outside plans until tomorrow (which looks pretty nice at the moment).
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,130 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 41 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 96 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 46, Henrico: 33, and Richmond: 17). Since this pandemic began, 1,174 people have died in the Richmond region. As the seven-day average of new reported cases creeps lower and lower—1,325 this morning—it is important to remain vigilant! UVA’s model, which, admittedly hasn’t been updated in a week, notes that “News has been encouraging lately. Case rates are declining and the vaccine seems to be having an early impact. However, new variants and pandemic fatigue create additional risks. If new variants become widespread as residents loosen prevention measures, Virginia may see another peak, with cases peaking at 40,532 per week during the week ending July 4, 2021.” For context, our seven-day average of new cases the last week of January—the darkest of times—peaked at 6,149 or 43,043 cases per week. So please, wear a mask, keep your distance, work from home, and get vaccinated if you can.
Speaking of getting vaccinated if you can, as of yesterday over one million Virginians are now fully vaccinated! That's about an eighth of the entire population, and 21.1% of the state has received at least one dose. The Governor and First Lady also joined the list of the fully vaccinated, and got their one-and-done dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Whoa, OK, late last night, like almost today, the RPS School Board voted for a traditional calendar for this coming school year. NBC 12's Brent Solomon has the details. I thought for sure the Board would punt the decision a couple weeks down the road—which they did decide to do early in the meeting (which is when I stopped watching). Apparently, two-and-a-half hours after reading 56 pages of public comments, they changed their minds and ended up voting for the traditional calendar to allow more time, in Solomon's words, "to collect data and get the public's input" on year-round school. This random post on /r/rva says Superintendent Kamras pushed the board to make a decision either way last night so families and staff could know the plan for next year.
It's not until next month, but the City's Urban Design Committee will consider a new parklet out front of Ms. Bee's Juice Bar on Brookland Park Boulevard. It's charming, and it's made out of hexagons! Tap through to page 29 to see what the final, pretty rad, design would look like. We still don't have any parklets that take advantage of the City's parklet ordinance—which probably tells you something about the efficacy of the ordinance—but I'm glad Venture Richmond has started to push on this. Once we have even just a few successful parklets, I think we'll start to see them popping up in a neighborhood near you.
Today the Land Use, Housing and Transportation committee will consider RES. 2021-R017, which will declare a public necessity to rezone to TOD-1 the area "north and south of West Broad Street from Interstate Route I-195 west to the City's corporate boundary with Henrico County." I don't imagine that "north and south of W. Broad Street" penetrates very far off of actual W. Broad Street itself, but, still, increasing the density of the Pulse Corridor makes a ton of sense. That hellscape of parking lots and low-slung strip malls needs some in-filling like whoa. Anyway, as y'all know by now, passing this resolution is the first step in actually doing a rezoning, so I'll for sure be keeping an eye on it throughout the rest of the process. You should probably prepare yourself for some gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over "shade" and "crime."
Patrick Larson at VPM reports that Swansboro Park on the Southside now has 50 new trees due to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Greening Southside Richmond project. Trees are amazing and do all sorts of things to improve a neighborhood: look sweet, reduce the urban heat island effect, filter runoff, and, of course, provide shade. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is right now! I love this saying and think about it constantly.
Music to my ears! Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense writes that "a proposed 254-unit apartment building would replace a parking lot in Jackson Ward." This is that terrible parking lot on the north-east corner of 2nd and Marshall that just so happens to be adjacent to really great transit and flush with good restaurants. It's already kind of in process, but 2nd Street is about to blow up!
This morning's longread
First comprehensive study of indoor pot farm emissions uncovers a giant climate hot spot
Unsurprisingly, everything we do has an impact on the environment.
Regardless of location, the top two factors contributing to carbon emissions from indoor cannabis growing are climate control (cannabis plants need stable temperature and humidity but regular turnover of fresh air) and high-intensity grow lights. “While it is well known that lights are energy intensive, maintaining a comfortable environment for the plants is just as intensive if not more,” says Quinn. Another surprising source of emissions: “Bottled carbon dioxide is added to indoor grow spaces for increased plant growth and accounts for 11-25% of cannabis emissions, depending on location,” says study team member Hailey Summers, a graduate student at Colorado State University. The emissions don’t come from the CO2 itself (which is a byproduct of other industrial processes and would otherwise be released into the atmosphere) but from compressing it into liquid form and bottling it.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
