Charlottesville, Virginia, spent most of a decade revising its zoning code.

It held endless community meetings.

It gave opponents ample opportunity to make their case.

They lost.

But a handful of rich homeowners sued and have gotten the new Charlottesville zoning code overturned on a technicality

https://communityengagement.substack.com/p/june-30-2025-judge-worrell-voids?r=blgf

https://www.cvilletomorrow.org/newsletter/nine-charlottesville-residents-who-own-expensive-properties-are-suing-to-stop-upzoning/

9 millionaire homeowners, who couldn’t persuade Charlottesville residents and couldn’t win at the ballot box, decided they would throw everything they had to nullify their defeat.

And it worked

  • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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    17 hours ago

    I think the homeowners are right regardless. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that even a moderately higher population density increases transportation demand. Even doubling the density could affect traffic considerably.

    Now before the haters come out: I’m not saying that the transportation demand must be addressed by more or bigger roads.

    • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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      17 hours ago

      Could be that the road isn’t utilized to the full capacity yet. I’ve been involved in zoning projects where that was the case, the existing road and other infrastructure was adequate to fit the bigger population without modification.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      13 hours ago

      well even if you subscribe to carbrainism it doesn’t make sense to just add lanes to roads, lanes are almost never the bottleneck. What you want is higher-capacity junctions.