Sustainability Fair at old Lane High School

Francis Fife on right, Charlottesville Mayor 1972-74, civil rights opponent.

Charlottesville, Va. - The past gave a glimpse into the future at the first local sustainability infomercial. The posters contained revised history and important omissions.

The presence of "respected" leaders helps explain why the information is so misleading. These leaders from the past, such as Francis Fife and Nancy O'brien, and leaders from the present, such as Peter Kleeman, don't care enough about Charlottesville to speak up and correct the official history.

The timeline poster has the first comprehensive housing strategy in 1990. But the city has had public housing since the 1960s. Was there no housing strategy before 1990? Of course there was. But this history is now lost because our leaders can't remember their actions. City staff, Housing Authority, and City Council are actively blocking publication of the full housing archives to present the false history that 1990 is the first local housing plan.

And now the sustainability people are complicit in passing along misleading information.

But the timeline does show the 2003 Mixed-use Rezoning that seeks to bring back the characteristics of city neighborhoods lost to urban renewal, namely diversity of residents and businesses. Sadly you cannot mandate the ideal neighborhood or bring back what was destroyed.

The Housing Poster claims the Housing Authority owns 40 acres of seized land, which they now want to develop after decades of efforts to develop those properties where people once lived and worked. The poster claims only 376 public housing units, intentionally ommitting the 150 units at Frienship Court, cleared in 1977.

Housing and Urban Development is offering million dollar grants for communities to think about sustainability. HUD has funded the destruction of minority neighborhoods nationwide since the 1940s, including Garrett Street and Vinegar Hill in Charlottesville.

Please click on the photos to read the posters. The final image shows how the University of Virgina campus has remained in the county while the city limits expanded because of annexations.

Sustainability comes to Council for $1 million, Apr. 18, 2011.

Many Plans - One Community website http://www.1-community.org