🍾 Good morning, RVA: 2024!, interesting legislation, and regional public transportation

Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, and today looks clear and cool with highs in the mid 40s. I keep looking ahead, deep into the 10-day forecast, for a really, truly cold day that might bring with it a chance of snow. So far, no dice. I’m keeping my fingers firmly crossed, though.
 

Water cooler

Hello and welcome to 2024! I hope you had a chance to rest and reflect over the last week, or, honestly, a chance to binge, like, three TV shows and not think a single thought. I managed to do mostly the latter (Beef, For All Mankind, and Haikyu!!), but, on one very caffeinated morning, I went through the GMRVA Legislation Tracker and pulled last year’s Most Interesting Ordinances and Resolutions. I probably missed a few here and there (please let me know if I missed something major), but it feels like 2023 was a mostly chill year for Council—at least in terms of the legislation they passed.
 

The Three Zoning Changes

To me, the legislation from 2023 that’ll have the largest and longest impact on the City are the Three Zoning Changes. Individually, these are pretty progressive updates to Richmond zoning code, but, taken together, and it’s something straight out of Minneapolis. Ten high fives to the Planning staff for putting this together, and a single high five each for the Councilmembers who made it official.
 

• ORD. 2023–101 — Get rid of parking minimums
• ORD. 2023–235 — Update the Airbnb rules
• ORD. 2023–196 — ADUs everywhere!

Other stuff

Here’s the other legislation that felt worth mentioning this morning—like I said, please let me know what I forgot!
 

• RES. 2021-R026 — Embarassing amendments to Richmond 300. Council ended up eventually passing this laundry list of changes to Richmond 300 but, thankfully, did so in a way that didn’t totally beef the hard work done to put together our City’s award winning master plan. And, adding a Priority Neighborhood chapter that guides development in and around our public housing neighborhoods, was a good outcome.
• RES. 2023-R019 — Declare a housing crisis. These XYZ IS A CRISIS! resolutions don’t actually do a whole lot, but they do help set priorities and serve as a foundation for future legislation.
• ORD. 2023–123 — Buy Mayo Island. Finally! The fewer privately-owned islands the better, I say.
• RES. 2023-R023 — Overrule the fire training facility on the Southside. Aside from Casino 2.0, overruling both the Urban Design Committee and the Planing Commission and approving the fire training facility was City Council’s biggest misstep of 2023.
• RES. 2023-R057 — Charter Changes! Council didn’t ask the General Assembly to make any of the big, bold changes suggested by the Charter Review Commission, but maybe New Council will after this November’s election?

Speaking of City Council, they waste no time getting down to business and will meet today to elect a new president and vice president and to seat interim 9th District member Nicole Jones. Exciting stuff! Also, if you want to really dig back in, on this the second day of 2024, Planning Commission will meet to consider ORD. 2023–369 which makes a bunch of tweaks to TOD-1 zoning. As with any zoning change, the details certainly matter, and I’m hoping that someone way smarter than me will holler if any of these suggested changes seem like a step backward.
 

Last week, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Editorial Board wrote this piece in support of building a truly regional public transportation system. The mere existence of this editorial would shock Ten Years Ago Ross, and it marks the serious progress advocates have made in shifting the conversation on public transportation. Great work, everyone! One interesting, new-to-me tidbit: GRTC hopes to create a “public-private joint venture, a Transit Access Partnership program” to cover the cost of free fares once state funding runs out in June. June is right around the corner, and that’s not a whole lot of time to find a few millions dollars in the region’s couch cushions. Keep your eye on this, and keep your fingers crossed that we don’t end up sacrificing useful bus service to keep the buses free.
 

Richmond BizSense put together a shortlist of the things you need to watch in 2024—stuff like the Diamond District, Henrico’s GreenCity, and how electing a bunch of local Democrats will impact Chesterfield and Henrico. I think I have most of these on my list, too, and I’ll add the massive project of rewriting Richmond’s zoning ordinance.
 

This morning’s longread

Stop making plans

My dearest friend Susan has a weekly book email that you should go ahead and sign up for this morning. For years, the vast majority of the books I’ve read were Susan Recommendations—some from this year: Now Is Not the Time to Panic, The Whalebone Theatre, and Sweet Lamb of Heaven—and now you can get those same recommendations without having known her for decades! In this, her last email of 2023, she write about how reading goals and themes should make you happy and how you should throw them straight into the trash if they make you feel otherwise. Great advice!
 

I did a reading contest with my friend Kira last year (she handily won), and we both agreed the experience kind of sucked. Reading is not a competitive sport! I always have friends who get guilty looks on their faces when they tell me they don’t read as much as they’d like. Guilty-looking friends, banish this look! It simply doesn’t matter, unless reading is something you wish you had more time for because it makes you happy and your time is being taken up by things that make you unhappy. In that case, then yes. Delete those other things, and slot in more books. But don’t feel like you are a lesser person because your book count is lower than mine or your brother-in-law’s. There are plenty of garbage books out there that are not making anyone smarter. Some of my favorite genius friends read very few books or no books at all! Who cares! Reading is just my hobby, and if you read one book a year and I can help you choose which book that is, then, well, I will be that much more pleased.
 

If you’d like to suggest a longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
 

Picture of the Day

A holiday reminder found in a northside alley.