Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity plans to support several bills, constitutional amendments, and budget amendments during this year’s Virginia General Assembly. Thank you to all of our housing advocacy partners, including the Virginia Housing Alliance, the Virginia Poverty Law Center, and Housing Opportunities Made Equal who are working diligently to ensure that everyone has access to safe and affordable housing.
Support the addition of a Constitutional Amendment that allows localities to create real estate tax relief programs.
Homeowners across the state, including our Habitat homeowners, are experiencing rising real estate tax costs due to increases in property values. This makes homeownership less affordable and can cause displacement of long-term homeowners. Habitat supports the passing of a constitutional amendment enabling local governments to grant property tax exemptions to low-income, long-term homeowners residing in gentrifying neighborhoods with rapidly rising homeownership costs.
Increase and defend the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
We support an additional investment of $75M in the Virginia Housing Trust Fund (HTF) which will bring the total amount of funding to $150M for FY24. This amount will help responsibly scale up the program to more rapidly address Virginia’s shortage of nearly 300,000 affordable homes.
Make Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) by right in single-family only zones.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are residential units that exist on the same parcel as single-family homes. In order for a single-family homeowner to add an ADU, they must go through an expensive and time consuming process with the local government. ADU’s provide a cost-effective way of addressing Virginia’s affordable housing supply challenge.
Grant all localities the opportunity to develop effective inclusionary zoning programs.
Inclusionary housing programs, or affordable dwelling unit ordinances, generally incentivize or require developers to set aside a portion of their units as affordable. Under current law, all localities can establish such programs, but only seven are given the flexibility to design program details according to their own discretion. Due to these restrictions, not many localities have chosen to utilize inclusionary zoning in their efforts to address the affordable housing crisis.
Require the Department of Housing and Community Development conduct a Housing Plan every 5 years, and a Housing Needs Assessment biannually
Virginia has never committed to a recurring, comprehensive state plan to address housing affordability. While agencies do create and follow plans for some specific initiatives, the lack of a high-level guiding framework limits efficiency and collaboration. A housing needs assessment and housing plan will help Virginia plan for and take steps to meeting the growing housing affordability needs of its community members.
Fund the Virginia Housing Stability Fund to Provide Critical Rental Assistance to our Most Vulnerable Neighbors.
Fund a pilot program to provide state-funded rental subsidies for low-income Virginians, in accordance with recommendations from the study conducted by DHCD in 2022. The program will serve extremely low-income families with children through long-term project- and tenant-based rental assistance.We support $738 million to fund a 3 year pilot rental assistance program.
