The Lewis Mountain Neighborhood Association, Charlottesville City Council and a potential gravesite all have impeded University plans to open a new parking garage at the intersection of Ivy Road and Emmet Street.
Residents have objected to using valuable real estate property for a large parking garage, which will serve the proposed new basketball arena on Massie Road in addition to use for student parking.
According to the original University-commissioned study, the project will not add to current congestion problems.
"It's counterintuitive to most people that you can put 1,200 cars in an intersection and not have negative results," former Charlotteville mayor Blake Caravati said.
Wilbur Smith and Associates, an independent traffic consultant hired by LMNA, found the University's original study to be flawed.
According to Wilbur Smith, the original study used data from non-typical traffic situations such as holidays. Neighborhood residents also argued that the study did not account for basketball game traffic or first-year drivers, as the traffic counts were collected during the fall semester before first years are allowed to bring vehicles.
LMNA President Art Lichtenberger praised Wilbur Smith as being "exceedingly impartial in their dealings with us."
"They never made a verdict on whether they thought the garage was a good idea," he said.
Lichtenberger added that he has suggested to the University that they hire Wilbur Smith to conduct the second study.
The University recently agreed to fund a second traffic study of the area, but it does not plan to halt construction.
Homeowners in the adjacent Lewis Mountain neighborhood also expressed concern for damage to the neighborhood itself resulting from problems with cut-through traffic.
City officials have written several letters to University administrators including President John T. Casteen III and Leonard W. Sandridge, University executive vice president and chief operating officer, requesting to be part of the garage's plans as part of a 1986 Three Party Agreement, which requires cooperation among the University, city and Albemarle County with land-use issues.
"The city first expressed concerns about any issue involving the garage in a letter dated April 24, 2002, and even since that date city officials have continued working with our people to determine how best to control and direct traffic," Casteen said.
Charlottesville officials have asked the University to consider either relocating the garage or reducing the lot's capacity by 250 to 500 cars.
While University administrators have offered to include city officials in the planning process, they will not discuss either the size or location of the structure, Caravati said.
"That's perceived as very arrogant on the part of Lewis Mountain residents," Caravati said.
The University has been working with Charlottesville officials to minimize problems, including plans to synchronize traffic lights, control area access and modify traffic plans during peak hours, Casteen said.
The unmarked grave
University-hired archaeologist Ben Ford discovered possible remnants of a human burial in a grave shaft under the University's planned parking garage site. Five nails, wooden fragments and a U-shaped iron bar suggested that a coffin once was buried at the site.
But until former Charlottesville resident Alice Norris came to meet with University officials, neither the University nor the team of archaeologists possessed any documentation confirming the findings.
Norris, a self-proclaimed amateur genealogist, presented stacks of family documents to University officials providing proof that her great-grandmother Amanda Wood Ford was buried on the site in 1895.
At the time, the land was situated on a family farm owned by Amanda Ford and her husband, George Sidney Ford.
But in 1954, Norris said her great-grandmother's body was exhumed and re-interred at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Ivy, Va., where her husband had been buried in 1911.
To the best of Norris' knowledge, Amanda Ford is the only person ever buried on that site, although she said she does not know "for sure that there wasn't anyone buried before then." Between 1940 and 1954, when Norris lived on the farm, "there were no burials, I can attest to that," she said.
Ben Ford, who has no relationship to Amanda Ford, said he has seen neither documentary evidence nor physical evidence indicating that someone else was buried there in addition to Amanda Ford.
"We're as certain as we can be right now," he said. "It's my best information that no one else was buried there."
It is highly likely that the coffin remains on the site are fragments from Amanda Ford's grave, he said, and not those of another individual.
Sixty years had elapsed between Amanda Ford's initial burial and exhumation, so "if we presume it was just a simple wooden coffin, it probably would not have much left," Ben Ford added.
"In these types of soils, preservation is not good," he added, as further evidence that the remnants probably belonged to Amanda Ford's coffin. Norris' documentation will allow the final stages of excavation to proceed according to the Department of Historic Resources' guidelines for archaeological sites, rather than human burial sites.
Archaeological sites require fewer regulations, but Ben Ford said he will "continue to treat the site with sensitive precautions."
Norris said she hopes the University will incorporate a small remembrance garden into the public space in front of the parking garage. She said this would honor both her great-grandfather, who was a University employee for 30 years.
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