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289 Now let's turn from economic development to our second major thrust, our new Housing Strategy, which aims to provide a balance of housing types in the City. We realized we must stop the trend of More Rental Housing-Less Home Ownership AND the loss of middle income families from our neighborhoods, resulting in changes in our schools over time. Home ownership has dropped from 48% to 38% in Charlottesville in the last 20 years. With Piedmont Housing Alliance we have rebuilt Starr Hill and Hinton Avenue houses for home ownership. With private housing developers, we have plans for building homes in the former Treatment Plant property by Penn Park, the Stribling property, Cherry Hill, and the old CSXproperty. Tonight we look at a law allowing a tax abatement to inspire home owners to renovate or make additions to their homes. These home ownership goals, by the way, do not reduce our longtime and continuing commitment to properly care for our low income housing, including our Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, now headed by Councilor Caravati. Linked to our housing strategy is our greatly expanded neighborhood enhancement program, important to homeowners. We have a new department of Neighborhood and Development Services, and the new Comprehensive Plan process will be centered around neighborhoods and their concerns. Please get involved in the Plan for Charlottesville's Future which we kick off Saturday. But the Housing Strategy has just started. We have not yet built an adequate supply of middle income houses, and we will not unless we pursue our goal to build and renovate with dogged determination. This Strategy is not a short term fix; it must be long term city policy. And finally let's-weigh in on education--a major priority of this Council, the road to a secure future for our youth, and the major attractor offamilies. We have raised teacher salaries and will work with the School Board this year to substantially increase beginning' teachers' salaries. Our schools continue to produce outstanding students; 32 students at CHS were named AP Scholars by the College Board in recognition of their exceptional achievement. Our arts programs continue to thrive and have helped to attract about 1 O0 out of jurisdiction students who have enrolled in our schools. But the school challenge is getting harder, not easier. More of our students come to school not ready to learn, and they are not succeeding. It is going to take even more concentration to change this trend; our School Board has recently hem a dialogue about the schools and school facilities. Their conclusions show a need for large renovations and a much expanded pre-school program to improve our children's readiness for school. We also must expand the Healthy Families program and teen pregnancy prevention. Besides our big three, economics, housing and education, there are three other vital issues I will review briefly: Transportation, City-County-University Cooperation and Equal Opportunity. 1. Transportation Our regional transportation Planning Organization is the MPO, now chaired by Meredith Richards. Long hours have gone into developing the CA TS plan (Charlottesville-Albemarle Transportation Study), which includes road plans and alternative transportation. The City's focus on alternative modes includes our new bike lanes, extra money for sidewalks and expanded bus service, which brought us the award given to CTS tonight. A big moment this year was our approval of the Rieley-designed, 2-lane Meadowcreek Parkway, which keeps over 90% of the parkland for a newly designed park, including a lake. And what's the challenge here? First, County Chair Charles Martin and I have called a joint meeting to assess the CATS plan. We will update our transportation goals in our new Comprehensive Plan. But the most important challenge is getting people to