Good morning, RVA! It's 29 °F, and warmer weather arrives today with highs clocking in just south of 60 °F. You should expect partly or mostly cloudy conditions starting now, through the weekend, and into the early part of next week (which will probably bring with it some rain). It’s a great day to sit quietly and stare moodily out a window—bonus points for doing it on a bus.
Water cooler
Richmond Police are reporting that, yesterday morning, a driver hit and seriously injured a person walking at the intersection of Broad and Lombardy: “At approximately 8:45 a.m., officers were called to the intersection of West Broad and North Lombardy streets for the report of a pedestrian struck. Officers arrived and located an adult female who had been struck by a vehicle, a pickup truck, which had left the scene. The victim was transported to a local hospital for injuries that are considered to be life threatening. The Richmond Police Department Crash Team responded. Investigators determined the pedestrian was crossing West Broad Street southbound in the crosswalk when the driver...disregarded the red traffic signal, struck the pedestrian, and fled the scene without rendering aid.“ Scary stuff. This is a known bad intersection and one I move through several times a week. I’m going to guess speed was a contributing factor to the seriousness of this crash, and I wonder what can be done to slow drivers down on Broad Street so that when they make a mistake like this it doesn’t forever change someone’s life.
Barry Greene Jr. at VPM writes about Virginia Union’s plans to build “at least 130 residences [for] the general public for rental or purchase” on the northern edge of their campus. VUU will partner with The Steinbridge Group, which has committed $42 million towards the project. This part, in particular, is interesting: “The collaborative venture entails joint ownership of the planned property, with both VUU and The Steinbridge Group sharing in potential profits. ‘This is the first time that two Black-owned corporations will turn and give the resources to the future of a Black college in the community,’ added Rev. Franklyn Richardson, chairperson of the Virginia Union Board of Trustees.”
Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has some frustrating comments from a member of the City’s Planning Commission about a potential new development coming to Hull Street. The commissioner, who voted against the project, “used to live in Austin, Texas, and she said building dense housing there did not make homes more affordable...’Density isn’t always the answer.’” Is that true though? CNBC says “Home affordability has gotten worse in most major U.S. cities — except for Austin, Texas.” Newsweek reports “Now [housing] prices in Austin are dropping 10 times faster than the national average.” But it’s not like Austin has solved housing affordability, though, and the Texas Tribune points out that city officials are, in fact, proposing “a number of measures to try to stimulate more and denser housing” as they try to address “a supply and demand problem.” I understand the concerns about historic preservation (the area is a historic district), but comments like this give NIMBY and NIMBY-adjacent folks more ground to stand on when they come out in opposition to the housing we need to keep building in Richmond.
The Urban Design Committee will meet today and consider an interesting change to their rules. Currently, UDC must officially review any setback—like, how far your building is set back from the street or sidewalk—greater than what is permitted by zoning. This makes a lot of sense most times. For example, you don’t want huge, horrible parking lots fronting buildings on our densest corridors, and you definitely want those sorts of proposals to run through the appropriate processes. But, sometimes, you just need to push the building back 18 inches for boring utility reasons—which is exactly the case for VPM’s new building on Broad Street. Enter UDC 2024-06 which would allow the Committee to delegate review of minor setbacks to staff and let developers skip the whole official review process: “Staff requests the delegation of setback review in instances of less than 1000 square ft. or less than 10ft in depth. Staff finds these thresholds to be logically determined and reasonable to facilitate both adequate protections and review while also facilitating concise development application processes.” Tap through to read how exactly staff set those thresholds for “minor setbacks,” which I found really fascinating. I love this sort of stuff!
I think you should read yesterday’s newsletter from the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy. Not for any specific updates on any particular bills (although the one on the minimum wage bill is interesting (HB 1)), but it’s just a great example of the appropriate mindset to have while following a General Assembly session.
This morning's longread
How I got scammed
Cory Doctorow, author of literal books about cons and scams and technology, is one of the last people in the world I’d pick to get tricked into giving out his credit card over the phone to a fraudster. But it happened! And if it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone, so read this as a cautionary tale and keep it in mind next time “your bank” gives you a call.
If I hadn't reinstalled my mobile OS the day before. If I hadn't published a pair of big articles the day before. If we hadn't been late getting out the door. If we had been a little more late getting out the door (so that I'd have seen the multiple DMs, which would have tipped me off). There's a name for this in security circles: "Swiss-cheese security." Imagine multiple slices of Swiss cheese all stacked up, the holes in one slice blocked by the slice below it. All the slices move around and every now and again, a hole opens up that goes all the way through the stack. Zap! The fraudster who tricked me out of my credit card number had Swiss cheese security on his side.
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Picture of the Day
Get a bowl for your stuff.
