🥮 Good morning, RVA: Landscaping delay, scooching a building, and talented young artists

Good morning, RVA! It’s 62 °F, and today looks lovely. Expect highs in the 80s and good, sunny vibes that carry straight on through the next couple of days. There is a chance for rain on Sunday, but I say live your life and enjoy the weekend!
 

Water cooler

As of last night, the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level for Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield is pretty solidly medium. The 7-day average case rate per 100,000 people in each locality is 194, 102, and 169, respectively, and the 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people is 12.2. We’re definitely on a coronadownswing at the moment, and, if nothing about the world changed over the next few weeks, I’d say we were headed into the peaceful greens of a low Community Level. But, unfortunately, we know COVID-19 typically peaks in the fall, and fall is right around the corner. Luckily for us, unlike previous falls, now basically everyone is eligible for some sort of COVID-19 vaccine—plus we have a brand new tool in the bivalent boosters to help keep folks over the age of 12 extra protected. Speaking of, Katelyn Jetelina digs into the White House’s new plan of making COVID-19 boosters a once-a-year type of deal. She has some concerns—not with the concept but with the amount of science and data we have to support that sort of plan. Anyway, open that link in a tab while you schedule an appointment for your booster this weekend!
 

Jahd Khalil at VPM reports that the City’s Urban Design Committee failed to have a quorum yesterday, which means the committee couldn’t take any action at all on the plans to install landscaping at Marcus-David Peters Circle (aka the Lee Circle). That’s a bummer, but it does sound like Kevin Vonck, Director of Planning, will do his best to keep the plans moving forward so we don’t miss the fall planting window.
 

Charlotte Rene Woods at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that 61 Democrats in the General Assembly have “signed onto a letter addressed to the state’s Air Pollution Control Board opposing Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed regulatory route to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.” The dozens of dems call the regulatory move “improper and illegal” and say if the Commonwealth wants to leave RGGI, then the legislature has to make that decision. If it didn’t already, now it definitely feels like this conversation will find its way to a court at some point.
 

Richmond BizSense’s Mike Platania reports on the ongoing negotiations between developers and the people who want to preserve the view from Legend Brewing Co.’s deck. From the piece: “Avery Hall is also now planning to shorten the length of the eastern building, while increasing its height. Instead of reaching 11 stories, it’ll reach 16 stories along West Sixth Street and 17 stories facing Perry Street, another move that they say will help preserve sightlines.” Maybe this is a clever way of using the view discussion as a way to get the community to accept bigger, taller buildings? Or maybe it’s just shifting around the volume of the currently planned buildings—I can’t really tell.
 

Tonight, from 5:00–8:00 PM, stop by ART 180 to see work by eight young artists who have participated in this summer’s The Residency program. The RTD’s Jessica Nocera wrote about the program and talked to some of the artists earlier in the week, and points out that all of the artwork on display tonight is also for sale. Get in on the ground floor with some of these talented young folk!
 

Celebrate getting your COVID-19 bivalent booster by picking up some food from the Armenian Food Festival today or tomorrow. They have a particularly famous burger at this food festival, the Hye Burger, but I’m more focused on eating every single thing from their dessert menu. Man definitely can live on bread alone.
 

This morning’s patron longread

Town After Town, Residents Are Fighting Affordable Housing in Connecticut

Submitted by Patron Val (the original Patron). It is something else to actively favor some made-up concept of “neighborhood character” over affordable housing. I’m sure we’d see this type of ghoulish behavior locally, too, but, in Virginia, we don’t have much in the way of statewide legislation requiring affordable housing.
 

Many more developers are taking advantage of the law because soaring rents have made it more economically feasible for them to cover the cost of complexes, even with nearly a third of apartments below market rate. For example, Greenwich has received 11 housing applications citing the law in the last few years, after having received only seven in the preceding 30 years, said Katie DeLuca, the director of planning and zoning. “We can build both market-rate and affordable housing with no government funds or tax incentives required. The density allows the math to work,” said Peter Cabrera, the vice president of acquisitions and development for Eagle Ventures, the developer that pulled its application in Greenwich. Some local Republicans are calling for the law to be repealed.
 

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Picture of the Day

We have an uneasy truce when they’re on the outside of the screen.