Rivanna Restoration at Riverview Park: Reconnecting a City to its River

November 2024 Project Update

We are very excited to announce that the Rivanna Restoration at Riverview Park project is moving forward thanks to a kickoff grant of $500,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, with support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Chesapeake Bay Program.

With this initial investment, the project team, including RCA, the City of Charlottesville, and local design firms Ecosystem Services and Wolf Josey Landscape Architects, are currently creating the more detailed engineering and landscape designs needed to secure permits for the project. Once permits are in place, the next steps will be to complete the final design and select the construction contractor(s). The goal is for the project to be constructed during winter 2025-2026. RCA and the City are continuing to raise funds to ensure the project can meet this timeline.

We continue to be grateful to the hundreds of community members whose input shaped the project’s conceptual design (scroll to bottom of page for details about community input). In addition to ideas from the community, the design is also informed by detailed technical analyses of river conditions; a topographic survey; riverbank restoration best practices; park user circulation patterns; and location of utility lines, easements, and other existing park features.

Project Overview

As the City of Charlottesville’s only public access point to the Rivanna River, there is a lot to love about Riverview Park. The Park offers the community a welcoming place to exercise, cool off, paddle, fish, play, explore, observe nature, and escape from the day-to-day stresses of life.

Anyone who has spent time in Riverview Park has likely noticed signs that the Park is suffering from high rates of riverbank erosion and other challenges, including:

Trees that are being undermined and falling into the water
Portions of the trail and the river access stairs that have washed away during large storms
Invasive species that have damaged the forests and meadows
Sediment that has degraded habitat for fish and other aquatic organisms
Steep, dangerous banks that have cut us off physically and visually from the River

These challenges threaten not only the integrity of the Park itself, but also the community’s use and enjoyment of it.

In December 2021, these public access stairs were washed completely away in a storm, never to be found.

Erosion is undermining trees growing along the riverbanks, causing them to topple into the water. Significant amounts of soil wash in from the banks, contributing to water pollution and damage to aquatic habitat.

The eroding stormwater channel creates a safety hazard for Park visitors and contributes to water pollution.

The goal of the Rivanna Restoration at Riverview Park project is to use appropriate natural stream and landscape restoration approaches to address these problems. The project will restore more than 900 feet of eroding riverbank starting just below the stormwater outfall channel and extending upriver to the first powerline cut. The project will also fill in and stabilize the rapidly degrading stormwater channel pictured above. Additionally, the project will add several new river access areas, protect the Rivanna trail and add new trails, create new river viewing areas, restore native habitats through tree and meadow plantings, and more.

With this project we can:

Protect the land, trees, and trails from erosion
Reduce water pollution
Improve opportunities for boating, wading, and observing wildlife
Enhance habitat for birds, fish, and other wildlife
Protect public safety and existing infrastructure

By working together to implement it, we can restore Riverview Park and reconnect our community with our river.

What Do We Mean by Restoration?

When we talk about “restoration” of Riverview Park, we are referring directly to a set of landscape practices that mimic natural riverine structures and processes to return a river or stream to a stable, natural state.

Restoration techniques are used to stabilize riverbanks, reduce erosion, increase coverage of the land by native vegetation, reduce water pollution, improve habitat, and more. In Riverview Park, natural stream restoration techniques will be used to stabilize eroding riverbanks to prevent further damage to the Park and to create a safe place for the public to recreate, both on land and in the water.

The blue line shows the approximate extent of the riverbank restoration area. The orange line shows the approximate extent of the stormwater outfall restoration area. The yellow line is the border between the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

Project Timeline

Completed

Winter 2021 – Preliminary planning & assessment
Spring and Summer 2022 – Community outreach for preliminary design
Fall 2022 – Design engineering to incorporate feedback
February 2022 – Engineering studies begin
March 15, 2022 – Virtual community forum to collect input on project goals and priorities
March – May, 2022 – Initial project design created based on study results and public input
Summer 2022 – Second community input forum to collect feedback on initial designs
2024 – RCA awarded implementation grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

In progress and future

2024-2025 – Continue fundraising
2024-2025 – Complete design
2024-2025 – Permitting and contractor selection
Winter 2025-2026 – Construction

Community Input

Community input and support are essential to the success of this restoration project. In spring and summer 2022, RCA collected community input forms and hosted an initial community meeting. A second round of community input and a second community meeting took place during the fall and winter of 2022. Links to the feedback collected during these times are listed below. Thank you for your feedback on this project! Questions about the project can be directed to exec@rivannariver.org.

Fall 2022 community input:

Spring and summer 2022 community input:

Connection with Community Plans and Priorities

The Rivanna Restoration at Riverview Park project supports other plans and priorities established for the Rivanna River. Water quality improvements from the restoration work will contribute to meeting the goals for local water quality cleanup plans. The project also aligns closely with the recently released Urban Rivanna River Corridor Plan. This planning process was initiated by the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County and led by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. It engaged groups of local officials, technical experts, and area residents to create recommendations for the corridor. These groups identified restoration, preservation, and stewardship as the primary goals for this area and specifically identified Riverview Park as one of the three highest priority locations for restoration.

Project Background

In 2020 and 2021, the Rivanna Conservation Alliance collaborated with Ecosystem Services on the Rivanna Prioritization Study and Capacity Building Project. Funded by a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) Planning and Technical Assistance grant, this effort inventoried, assessed, and prioritized potential restoration project areas along a five-mile stretch of the Rivanna River from the confluence of the North and South Forks to Moores Creek.

The project team scored 31 project areas on ten criteria developed with stakeholder input. Criteria included: habitat creation, water quality, recreation access, public safety improvements, aesthetic uplift potential, ease of access, likelihood of landowner participation, potential conflicts with utilities, likelihood of success, and risk of unintended consequences. Field and desktop analyses informed the scoring, including a drone survey of the river corridor.

The project generated two reports, a Streambank Assessment Report and a Prioritization Technical Report. The grant also supported the selection of one restoration project to pursue for implementation, including the creation of high-level conceptual renderings. Based on its potential to generate so many different benefits for the community and the environment, the project team selected Riverview Park as the potential implementation location. In late 2021, NFWF awarded the project team a second Planning and Technical Assistance grant. This second grant supported preliminary engineering and survey work that determined technically feasible restoration options for Riverview Park. It also supported efforts to connect with community members and project partners to ensure that their priorities and interests guided the effort. The outcome of this second grant was a preliminary restoration project design and cost estimate.

More Information on Stream Restoration

This series of videos from Oklahoma State University provides more detailed information on healthy streams (or rivers) (Part I), how streams become degraded (Part II), and some approaches for restoring streams to a balanced, healthier condition (Part III). The restoration techniques in Part III are not all appropriate for a river the size of the Rivanna, but are still helpful to understand.