Category: Planning
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What the Heck Did Norfolk’s Planning Director Say?
by James A. Bacon Norfolk’s planning director, George Homewood, has left his post, and city officials aren’t saying whether he resigned or was fired. But The Virginian-Pilot says the parting of the ways occurred after the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Ethics Committee suspended him for violating the group’s ethics code. Reading the headline…
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Drink Their Coffee, Then the Kool-Aid
by Joe Fitzgerald The only thing I remember from Howard Fast’s Lavette family saga is from the fourth book, The Legacy. A pragmatic leftist organizer is registering Black voters in Mississippi with two dewy-eyed liberals, and an older couple invites the three into their home. They drink coffee and the two liberals talk about the…
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Virginia Democrats’ Rent Control Bills Would Make Housing Scarcer
by Hans Bader In Virginia’s legislature, rent-control legislation has been introduced by five Democratic delegates and a Democratic state senator. Economists oppose rent control because it makes it more difficult for people to find decent housing in the long run. In a 1992 poll, 93% of those surveyed said rent control reduces the quantity and…
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The “Missing Middle”: Is it an Answer to the Affordable Housing Problem?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Three years ago, in one of his periodic pleas for more flexibility in zoning laws to enable more affordable housing, Jim Bacon discussed “missing middle” housing and noted that Arlington County was beginning to consider how to address that idea. Arlington released its study late last year and the concept and recommendations…
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Virginia Needs Better Information Sharing to Provide Mandated Public Services to Illegals Efficiently and Effectively
by James C. Sherlock I am on record as a persistent advocate of improving the quality of both schools and medical services for poor and minority citizens. It has been the main focus of my work for years. In a directly related matter, we read, with different reactions depending upon our politics, of the struggles…
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Home Price Volatility and Virginia Property Taxes
by James C. Sherlock Housing prices have more than doubled since 2012, reflecting shortages of supply and the resulting speculation. The increasing slope of those curves above is not comforting. Prices have soared over 20% in a year. Mortgage rates are up. What could possibly happen next? Most can figure that out. But this article is…
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How are Virginians Preparing for the Coming Food Price Shocks?
by James C. Sherlock Virginians have only begun to experience price inflation at the grocery store. Price increases are in the food pipeline that will be a much bigger problem starting this summer. Farmers and ranchers invest up front. They borrow money to do it. They are incredibly efficient at what they do, but are…
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Welcome to Loudoun – Just Avoid Route 7
by James C. Sherlock Saw this headline in the Washington Business Journal. “Toll Brothers pushes big residential plans in Ashburn — and a tribute to enslaved people who once lived there.” Behind the headline: This is to be a development of 1,300 residences in a project named Mercer Crossing. Since it is being built by…
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Confessions of a Virginia Whistleblower
by James C. Sherlock I decided last week in a paroxysm of good citizenship to contact the Virginia Inspector General (IG) to report wrongdoing by state officials. I have a considerable list centered around the failure of many state officials to carry out their longstanding, formally-assigned duties pre-COVID to plan for a pandemic emergency and…
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All According to Plan – the Biggest Government Scandal in Virginia History
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Mercury published an excellent article on the difficulties being encountered in Virginia in scheduling COVID shots. But who could have anticipated the need? Who indeed. This story is part of the single biggest government scandal in Virginia history and the press is either ignorant of the underlying issue or…
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A Horse Built by a Committee
by James C. Sherlock Updated Jan 31 at 8:46 AM Virginia’s Attorney General has offered a bill to create a new state bureaucracy to handle the opioid settlement money about to flow into the Commonwealth to support prevention, treatment, and recovery. It is going to be a lot of money. The state opioid settlements will…
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Behind Dominion’s Shift to Renewables
By Peter Galuszka Ever wonder why Dominion Energy found religion and announced a major shift to renewable energy? The answer is that modern, high technology businesses want it and the Richmond-based utility wants to respond to their desires. This one of the themes in this recent cover story I did for Style Weekly that explores…
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If You Pay Full Price for Flood Insurance, Ask our City/County Manager Why
by James C. Sherlock There were lots of comments in my last post about government programs to mitigate flooding damage in flood plains, specifically about buying and tearing down houses that repeatedly flood. One of the carrots to do so is Community Rating System (CRS) discounts to flood insurance in communities that take an active…
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The ACP Wins One But The War Drags On
By Peter Galuszka The $8.5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline has won a significant legal victory but the war is far from over. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, has ruled in favor of project operated by Dominion Energy and Duke Energy saying that its 42-inch pipeline can cross under the Appalachian Trail in…
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Why Do 58 Nursing Homes Lack PPE?
by Carol J. Bova The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) publishes COVID-19 data reported by nursing homes as of May 31. Only five Virginia facilities reported not having enough essential supplies for current use, but that still put the safety of 554 residents plus an unknown number of staff members at risk for COVID-19…