Activity Centers are places with various businesses, services, and housing (now or in the future) where we can gather, shop, stroll, work, and meet our daily needs. They can be small or large—a neighborhood corridor or a downtown. Ideally, walking, biking, and transit are the main ways people get around in an Activity Center. There are four types of activity centers that range in scale: Local, Community, Employment, and Regional Centers.
Learn more about Activity Centers.
The purpose of Activity Centers is to promote density within the Development Areas, help prioritize public projects, encourage redevelopment of underutilized areas, and improve coordination between land use and transportation planning. Higher density development makes multimodal transportation, especially transit, more cost-effective and feasible.
The updated Comprehensive Plan proposes to consolidate the 50 centers that are currently designated across the five Area Plans (Places29, Southern and Western, Pantops, Crozet, and Village of Rivanna) into 30 Activity Centers. Many of the current 50 centers are small and not currently or expected to be mixed-use. These 30 Activity Centers would update and replace the 50 centers in the Area Plans when the AC44 Comprehensive Plan is adopted. This would create a consistent set of center place types across the Area Plans and better focus future investments and projects.
The map below shows the proposed 30 Activity Centers in Albemarle County.
