Sarah Vogelsong

2 weeks ago | richmonder.org | Sarah Vogelsong

No matter who was talking about the proposed conversion of an old funeral home complex in Barton Heights into a locked addiction rehab facility, they believed the focus was on the wrong thing. Neighbors complained photographs of the site, which includes parcels at both 2700 North Ave. and 2701 Garland Ave., obscured the surrounding community and the impacts the plans could have on it.

3 weeks ago | richmonder.org | Sarah Vogelsong

Richmond’s utilities director says the city wasn’t relying on a potential $12 million federal grant to cover the cost of repairs related to its water treatment plant, although officials had hoped the money could have helped offset increases that will otherwise be borne by customers in the future. On April 11, the federal government announced it was cancelling hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster mitigation grants for state and local governments.

3 weeks ago | richmonder.org | Sarah Vogelsong

The president of the Home Building Association of Richmond says housing demand in the region will likely continue to outstrip supply “for at least the next two or three years.” “We still don’t have enough lots available to kind of meet the demand, and so I’m very nervous about where pricing is going to go over the next six months to a year,” said Chad Joyce Wednesday after an event held by the Home Builders Association of Virginia at Richmond’s Commonwealth Club.

3 weeks ago | richmonder.org | Sarah Vogelsong

Federal funding freezes are preventing one of Richmond’s fire K9s, a 7-year-old dog named Erny, from retiring. “Erny is eligible for retirement, but right now, we’re still going to keep him in service,” Interim Fire Chief Jeffrey Segal told City Council’s Public Safety Committee Tuesday afternoon. While K9s are a familiar part of police forces, they are also used by fire departments nationwide to help detect accelerants like gasoline that are typically used by arsonists to start fires.

3 weeks ago | richmonder.org | Sarah Vogelsong

In a quiet room of Richmond’s Main Library, neither a Venn diagram nor a whiteboard were enough to get nearly a dozen members of the city’s utilities commission and its Department of Public Utilities on the same page.