Category: Planning
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Table Stakes: Virginia Nursing Home Chains Selling to REITs
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes, when you are winning big in a table stakes poker game, it can be time to put some money in your pocket. That is part of the game many nursing home chains are playing these days. Everybody wins but the nursing facility residents, Medicare, and Medicaid. The enterprise architecture of…
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Keep Your Hands Off My Single Family Zoning
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The high cost of housing is a frequent topic of discussion in society and on this blog. Some observers fault local governments for their restrictive zoning practices that limit density. According to this argument, increasing density would help mitigate the increase in housing costs. The argument has merit. However, its proponents seem to assume that…
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Governor Youngkin Steps to Curb Anti-Semitic Activities – How about Law Enforcement?
by James C. Sherlock Governor Glenn Youngkin took action today with an Executive Directive to “Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Religious Bigotry in the Commonwealth and on Campuses.” It is excellent, and we look forward to immediate steps by other actors in the Commonwealth.
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Deja Vu, All Over Again
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Today’s Washington Post has an article about efforts to preserve farmland in Loudoun County. That headline instantly took me back to the late 1970s and early 1980s when there was a flurry of activity regarding the need to preserve farmland and provide landowners incentives to keep their farmland from being developed. Loudoun…
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What’s in a Name?
by Joe Fitzgerald I have previously written much about the Bluestone Town Center from a logistical and political standpoint, much of which can be summed up by saying the people planning and approving the project do not understand logistics or politics. The planners and approvers show an understanding of and ability to manipulate governmental processes,…
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Tuition, Room, Board and Fees Up 7% Next Year at Tech – Zero Cuts in Massive Administrative Overhead
by James C. Sherlock From The Roanoke Times Faced with inflationary pressures and state budget uncertainty, the school’s Board of Visitors voted unanimously to markup overall student costs by about 7%, increasing tuition and fees, plus room and board. It was not an easy decision, said Rector Tish Long. ”This is one of the most…
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RVA 5×5: Valet Parking
by Jon Baliles There was a lot of talk and coverage this week about the City of Richmond’s Planning Commission unanimously approving the removal of parking minimums citywide with the full City Council expected to take the matter up at its meeting Monday night. The ordinance as written would allow developers to decide how much…
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Is the Commanders Stadium Coming to Loudoun?
by Jeanine Martin The deal for Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder to sell the team to Josh Harris hasn’t even been inked and yet speculation begins again that the team may move to eastern Loudoun County. Supervisor Tony Buffington (R-Blue Ridge), is opposed to the stadium moving to Loudoun. He said today that he and…
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Sens. Warner, Kaine Visit Roanoke To Tout New Bridge But City Council In The Dark About Scope of Project
by Scott Dreyer On a picture-perfect April 12 with a backdrop of the sparkling Roanoke River and dogwoods and redbuds in bloom, Virginia’s Senator Mark Warner (D) and Senator Tim Kaine (D) visited the Roanoke Greenway at Roanoke City’s Smith Park. The occasion was for the two senators to present a cardboard poster representing a…
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Southern Domination and Beaver Nuggets.
by Kerry Dougherty Sick of politics? Me too. Let’s change it up today. I don’t like to brag, but I’m pretty much an expert on roadside food joints and truck stops. No, not that way, you perverts. I simply love road trips, which means frequent stops for food and fuel. Most truck stops are sort…
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Massive New Bureaucracy in JMU Faculty Hiring Procedures
The Academic Affairs Guidelines for Recruiting and Hiring Instructional Faculty manual provides a glaring look into the bureaucratic and deeply troubling hiring procedures for faculty at James Madison University. Highly bureaucratic systems and policies are nothing new in American higher education, but this manual of edicts from the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice…
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RVA 5×5: RVA = DIY
by Jon Baliles Jack Jacobs at Richmond Biz Sense has an update about the ongoing fallout from the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation last summer. All of the small organizations that used Enrichmond as a fiduciary lost access to their money (which may be gone for good; stay tuned) and other things like insurance coverage.…
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Virginia Emergency Management During COVID – A Well-Documented Scandal
By James C. Sherlock We could see it wasn’t right as it unfolded. Virginia’s flawed response to COVID was slow for all Virginians. Fatal for some. But the public just saw the broad stroke external effects. We saw executive orders that seemed sudden, sweeping, and disconnected from the information we had. It turns out that…
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362 is more than 273
by Joe Fitzgerald Take our word but not our numbers, Bluestone Town Center (BTC) backers seem to say The moral of this story is: what the City Council doesn’t know won’t hurt the HRHA. When I first heard about the scope of the BTC, I did some quick arithmetic and came up with an astronomical…
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Government Actors Try to Deflect, Deny and “Move On” from Failures During COVID
by James C. Sherlock The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is in full self-defense mode. CDC and the left backed, indeed insisted, upon social isolation during the pandemic. Now they deflect and deny agency in the consequences. They continue to try to insulate themselves from the catastrophic educational and mental health effects on…