The North Charlottesville Business Council is asking the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and the General Assembly to consider temporarily reducing or suspending taxes for businesses that will be affected by road projects in the U.S. 29 corridor.
In a letter dated Monday sent to the supervisors and 11 members of the General Assembly, the council, which is part of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, asks for a 50 percent local property tax reduction and a 50 percent reduction or a possible suspension of the business professional occupation license tax in the areas that will be affected by construction.
The construction projects — an extension of Berkmar Drive; a grade-separated interchange at Rio Road and U.S. 29; and widening the highway between Polo Grounds Road north to Hollymead Town Center — are part of a $230 million package of work that’s intended to ease congestion along the highway.
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In ongoing discussions with businesses owners in and around northern Albemarle, Lloyd F. Wood, chairman of the business council, said the potential disruption of and maintaining access to business is “the No. 1 concern” he’s heard.
Last month, Philip A. Shucet, a former Virginia Department of Transportation commissioner hired to oversee and implement the U.S. 29 projects, acknowledged that a three-month closure of the Rio Road intersection might be required to complete that project, which has an estimated cost of $81 million.
“If you close down Rio Road for three months, there’s going to be business disruption,” said Wood, a former county supervisor whose business interests include a miniature golf park and a storage facility on East Rio Road.
“We all agree that those projects — being advanced by the commonwealth of Virginia with the approval of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors — will be significantly disruptive to the economic sustainability of numerous businesses along the corridor during construction,” the letter says.
The letter does not indicate nor request a specific dollar amount of tax relief, nor does it specify the zone where the tax amendments would apply.
A financial report recently presented to the supervisors showed that, overall, the county collected about $10.2 million in BPOL taxes in the 2014 fiscal year. That figure, along with the rest of the information in the report, is based on preliminary, unaudited data, and it is not yet final or official, county spokeswoman Lee Catlin said Tuesday.
“As the summer progressed, we discussed the concept of targeted tax relief for businesses where traffic flows will be disrupted during the construction of the intersection,” Jane Dittmar, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, said in an email.
According to the letter, the measures might require authorization from the General Assembly. Dittmar said the county attorney agreed and further determined that Virginia counties “do not have permission from the General Assembly to discriminate among taxpayers.”
“That said,” Dittmar continued, “with carefully researched analytics and a clearly defined scope, they may provide enabling legislation to allow us to offer a creative relief formula during construction.”
Rio District Supervisor Brad Sheffield said the letter is the business community’s first formal response to the board regarding potential disruptions from construction on U.S. 29.
“The assistance offered will not be limited to one or two ideas, so we need to get all of the ideas on the table, as well as a better assessment of impacts, before the Board of Supervisors starts defining their support,” Sheffield said in an email.
Sheffield said he’d like “to work with businesses to define the last seven-year trend of sales revenues and sales taxes to supplement the understanding of the benefit this idea may have.” He also said there should be more discussion about how the projects will affect adjacent neighborhoods.
“There has been a longstanding problem with cut-through traffic and speeding in the older neighborhoods due to poor traffic management and growth in the northern area,” Sheffield said. “And while there are concerns that this could elevate with U.S. 29 construction, these problems should have been addressed many years ago.”
Shucet also oversees the Route 29 Project Delivery Advisory Panel, a 12-member group of local business representatives and elected officials. The panel has not had specific discussions about the tax relief initiative, and Shucet said he couldn’t speak to the specifics of that request, but “in my book, it’s a good thing for the business community and all parties — the county, city and VDOT — to continue to engage in meaningful and productive fact-based discussions about how to best deliver all of the Route 29 Solutions projects,” Shucet said in an email.
Timothy Hulbert, president of the chamber, said the impact of the projects likely will last much longer than three months.
“We appreciate that this will not be easy,” Hulbert said. “Our main view has been and continues to be that even after construction, there will be diminished business sustainability.”
Tax relief, signage and advertising campaigns are all good steps to take, but Hulbert said those measures will only go so far.
“You can do all kinds of things to tell a community that businesses are open in a construction zone, but human psychology trumps that,” Hulbert said. As individuals, “we all will take whatever measures we can to avoid congestion and construction.”
A meeting for business owners and managers about the U.S. 29 projects is set for 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Jack Jouett Middle School. Dittmar said the ideas generated at the meeting will be shared at a special work session for the entire board Oct. 30.
Nate Delesline III is the business editor for The Daily Progress. Contact him at (434) 978-7243, ndelesline@dailyprogress.com or @natedelesline3 on Twitter.