Good morning, RVA! It's 43 °F, and, honestly, today looks great. Expect highs right around 70 °F with some sunshine—I think we’ve got at least one more day of this beautiful spring weather before rain moves in Friday. Since last we spoke, the forecast for Saturday and Sunday has dried up a bit, so, at least at this point, keep whatever outside plans you have for the weekend on your calendar!
Water cooler
While I’m still riding high from this week’s vote to eliminate parking minimums, I wanted to share this note from yesterday’s Axios Richmond email: “Gramophone Winery, an urban winery that's been in the works for nearly two years in a former dry cleaner at 4827 Forest Hill Ave., is nearly ready to open, owners tell Axios. They'd been held up by the city's parking requirements, which mandated at least 23 spaces. The owners tell Axios they only have 17. With the city council's vote to strike down parking requirements last night, that's presumably no longer an issue. So stay tuned.” See! Parking minimums have (had!) a real and negative impact on folks trying to get a small business off the ground.
As promised, here’s the presentation Fire Chief Melvin Carter gave City Council’s Public Safety committee yesterday. It’s light on details, but I do want to point out that “As of November 1, 2022, all Richmond Public Schools have been inspected, noted violations corrected and currently have a status of No Current Violations.” I haven’t yet, but you can listen to the entire meeting over on the City’s legislative website and VPM’s Connor Scribner has a short recap.
Speaking of legislation, Council’s Governmental Operations committee will consider ORD. 2023-130 which would ban owning, breeding, purchasing, selling, keeping, maintaining, or otherwise possessing any exotic or wild animal in the city. What qualifies as an exotic animal? Well, “For purposes of this section, the term ‘exotic or wild animal’ means any live monkey (non-human primate), raccoon, opossum, skunk, wolf, coyote, squirrel, fox, leopard, panther, tiger, lion, lynx, caracal, bobcat, bear or any other warm-blooded animal which can normally be found in the wild, as well as any venomous or poisonous reptile or amphibian or any member of the crocodilian family, including but not limited to, alligators, crocodiles, caimans and gavials. Ferrets, rabbits, chinchillas, sugar gliders, hedgehogs, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, mice, and rats that have been in captivity and that have never known the wild and domestically bred or legally imported birds, non-venomous reptiles, amphibians, and fish shall not constitute ‘exotic or wild animals.’” The more you know!
Em Holter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that City Council recently voted down a proposal to build a modular home manufacturing facility in a residential area of the 9th District. I think this is a really fascinating situation, and I’m not really sure what was the best possible outcome. On the one hand, project:HOMES is a well-known organization that does tons of work in the affordable housing space and wanted to literally assembly more affordable homes for Richmonders. On the other hand, we’ve only got but so much land in the city, and we need to be really thoughtful about how we use it. On the third hand, the property, which backs up to a forested area behind Rosie’s Gaming Emporium, isn’t in what you’d call a super dense neighborhood where this space could have instead been used for multi-family housing. I think if I were on Council, and I am incredibly happy not to be, I would have voted for building this facility. I do wish that alongside their No votes, though, that Council would have promised to work with project:HOMES on some next steps toward finding an acceptable alternative location.
Tonight at 6:30 PM, PlanRVA (one of our regional planning bodies) will host a Zoom to review the draft report for the “West Broad Street BRT Corridor Analysis.” This analysis is part of the early work needed to extend the Pulse westward—all the way out to Route 288. While I think at least a portion of this expansion will happen within whatever’s left of my lifetime, it will definitely take ages and ages to fully realize, especially the far-west portions running through Short Pump. That said, this is the necessary prepatory work, I’m glad it’s happening, and I wish it would have happened immediately after the Pulse opened five years ago.
This morning's longread
We Can Have It All: Shorter Commutes, Less Traffic. Why Aren’t We Doing It?
This past Monday, in a majorly progressive, urbanist move, Richmond eliminated parking minimums throughout the entire city. In the last couple of days, I’ve seen a bunch of comments from advocates across the country wishing their city would do the same. Honestly, I haven’t see that sort of chatter about Richmond on the national level since we launched the Pulse back in 2018. Next up (at least after authorizing by-right accessory dwelling units everywhere): Entirely rewriting the city’s zoning ordinance to allow for the sort of development that shortens commutes, creates less traffic, reduces air pollution, and lets folks live an all around more pleasant lifestyle. Read this longread about the 15-minute city and think about how our current development patterns (and policies around cars and driving) force us to keep building a 30-, 60-, or even 90-minute Richmond.
Conceived in 2016 by Carlos Moreno, a professor at the Sorbonne, the 15-minute city is a conceptual blueprint for urban planning where most people’s daily needs—including schools, shopping, work, and more—are located within a short walk or bicycle ride from just about anywhere. Cars are not banned but tamed, with street designs that discourage their use for all but essential trips. Without the need to burn fossil fuels to buy groceries or take children to school, air pollution and carbon emissions are greatly reduced. Residents experience better health outcomes and improved quality of life. Moreno’s catchall term for this idea is novel, but the ideas behind it are not; they draw on principles that have organized human civilizations for millennia, at least until the twentieth century when the automobile disrupted everything.
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Picture of the Day
Taken while standing next to people skateboarding.
