Category Archives: Housing

Short Term Rentals — Long Term Impact

Posted on September 2, 2023 by | 1 comment

by Jon Balilies 

The City of Richmond has been discussing altering and revising regulations about short-term rentals (STR’s) and the next action will take place at the Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday afternoon (September 5th). It is an important decision because it is entirely possible the decision by the Commission and ultimately City Council could have a tremendous impact on housing availability, high sale prices, and neighborhood character.

For the last few years, the city has done a good job of holding public meetings and soliciting feedback through various methods and gathering information about short-term rental properties (like AirBnB and VRBO, etc.). Until 2020, they were technically illegal and unregulated but they did exist (they rose to a more visible status when the UCI 2015 Bike Championships came to town).

In gathering information and developing the first ordinance, the city said it wanted to find the right balance to allow property owners to take part, but also make sure it was done right to protect neighborhoods. Some other cities dove in head-first with few, if any, regulations, which led to adverse, if somewhat predictable, effects. Richmond smartly agreed to revisit the ordinance after having some time to evaluate the initial regulations. Currently, in residentially zoned areas, the city requires that owners must claim primary residence at least 185 days (just over half the year) to rent out as a STR. If the property owner has a converted garage, etc., then they may rent that out all year. In commercially- zoned areas, there is no residency requirement being proposed in the new legislation. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Economic development, Housing, Leadership

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Broken Doorknobs, Broken Locks

Posted on August 24, 2023 by | 7 comments

Memorial to Jwanta Scarbor. Photo credit: The Virginian-Pilot

Last year Jwanta Scarbor, a resident of public housing in Norfolk, was found shot to death in her apartment. Now her mother has filed suit against the Norfolk Redevelopment and  Housing Authority on the grounds that it failed, despite repeated requests, to fix broken doorknobs, locks and windows.

“My family is destroyed,” Tawanda Scarbor told The Virginian-Pilot. “Literally destroyed.”

The killing remains unresolved, according to Norfolk police. There is nothing in the article to suggest that malfunctioning locks and doorknobs allowed the killer access he would not have been granted otherwise. Regardless, it is not unreasonable for tenants to expect landlords to maintain basic security features in proper working order.

It is entirely legitimate to ask why the Norfolk public housing authority did not, or could not, respond in a timely manner to requests for apparently simple repairs. This is not an isolated incident. Poor maintenance of public housing seems to be a systemic problem. Why is that? Continue reading →

7 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Housing

Slush Funding Housing

Posted on July 22, 2023 by | 15 comments

by Jon Baliles

There has been a lot of talk about the affordable housing crisis in the region in recent years, but it has been constant in 2023. The entire region needs 39,000 units as fast as it can get them; but interest rates are high, the market is stalling — every week there is a new twist or turn in the drama. And this week is no exception.

Em Holter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a disturbing story about the meeting this week of the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) Board that drew an overflow crowd reacting to the reckless idea by Mayor Levar Stoney and his administration for dissolving the Board and creating a commission instead, that allegedly would allow for raising more money from other sources and involve other partners. The mayor’s and the administration’s argument is that because there is more money to be allocated, there should be more oversight. But what they are proposing is not more sunlight, but less.

The AHTF Board is tasked with oversight of the money in the fund to help support and spur more affordable housing projects. Just last year, the Mayor and Council finally approved a commitment of putting $10 million per year in the fund for five years. Who doesn’t need more money and more partners to help tackle an issue as large and complex affordable housing? Sounds sensible, right? Except…

As the Times-Dispatch article points out, what this is really about is who controls the money and who gets to pick the “partners”:

But with more funding comes more oversight, which city administrators are hoping to achieve. To do so, City Hall wants to eliminate the board and establish a commission that would allow for more money and more partners.

Those in opposition argue that administrators are overstepping their bounds, which could lead to an imbalance of power, loss of control of funds and elimination of public input.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Central planning, Governance, Government Oversight, Housing, Uncategorized

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How Wokeism Is Ruining Medicine

Posted on June 22, 2023 by | 105 comments

Stanley Goldfarb

by James A. Bacon

The Woke Revolution’s takeover of K-12 schools, the criminal justice system, higher ed, the media, the military, the C-suite, museums, and other cultural institutions has been highly visible, playing out in blogs and the media for all to see. The conquest of the healthcare system has attracted far less attention, though arguably it is the most consequential. After all, human lives are at stake.

Many U.S. medical schools have embraced the idea that American healthcare is systemically racist, that White physicians and other providers are infected with racial bias, that racism accounts for the disparities in health outcomes between Blacks and Whites, and that the only antidote to racism is “anti-racism,” warns Stanley Goldfarb, author of Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns: Why Turning Doctors into Social Justice Warriors Is Destroying American Medicine.

Goldfarb bases his critique on his own experiences as a nephrologist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, an extensive review of the academic literature on racial disparities, and his role as founder of Do No Harm, a nonprofit formed to combat racial essentialism in medicine. Wokeness, he argues, is profoundly destructive. By misdiagnosing racial disparities in health outcomes, the anti-racism movement focuses attention on a nearly non-existent problem and distracts from real causes and solutions.

The predictable result: woke medicine will harm African Americans and other marginalized groups it purports to help. In that regard, it is similar to woke K-12 education, where the racial achievement gap is getting worse; woke criminal justice, which leads to more African American homicides; woke colleges and universities, where African Americans feel less sense of acceptance and belonging than in years past; and woke everything else, the poisoned fruit of which is grievance, resentment, and alienation. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Housing

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The Song’s Not New Just Because You Haven’t Heard It Before

Posted on May 23, 2023 by | 1 comment

by Joe Fitzgerald

When I was a younger man and indulged in that lowdown southern whiskey, I would sometimes sum up the next day by saying, “I don’t remember church bells.”

Astute observers will immediately recognize literary allusions to Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken,” one of the great rock-and-roll story songs.

Now, 41 years sober, I hear the song differently. It’s the story of someone finding out that an experience may have been unique to him, but wasn’t unique.

Which leads me back, to the surprise of no regular reader, to Bluestone Town Center. BTC is an ill-advised development based on empty promises, misguided good intentions, and governmental obtuseness. Those wishing to know the other side of the story are welcome to Google it.

I was struck during the discussions of the project by how often supporters of the project fell back on baseless accusations of racism and privilege or answered objections that hadn’t been raised. I also noticed things in the city’s deeply flawed housing report that had little to do with building or selling housing.

Come to find out, any discussion of housing faces an underlying set of assumptions. And as any student of left-leaning politics knows, many of those assumptions lead to the expectation that anyone opposing any housing issue must prove their motivations and intentions are not racist, classicist, ageist, or ableist. Continue reading →

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Posted in Economic development, Efficiency in government, Governance, Housing, Land use & development

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As U.S. Teeters On the Brink of Recession, Virginia Beach Hikes Taxes

Posted on May 11, 2023 by | 12 comments

Clouds gather over Va Beach. (Bob Rayner)

by Kerry Dougherty

Do you mind if I’m brutally honest for a minute? Good. Because there’s no stopping me today.

Any member of the Virginia Beach City Council majority who voted Tuesday to approve an obscene $2.5 billion budget as the country teeters on the edge of a recession is a liar if they try to tell you they didn’t raise taxes.

I mean it. Join me in calling them LIARS.

While it’s true these politicians left the tax RATE alone, assessments jumped an average of 9%, with some of us seeing much sharper increases.

That means almost every homeowner in Virginia Beach just got a big fat tax hike. Combine that with an inflation rate of about 5%and the average working family trying to stay above water in the resort city is drowning.
Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Economic development, Efficiency in government, Finance (government), Governance, Housing, Recession, Taxes, Uncategorized

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RVA 5×5: Valet Parking

Posted on April 23, 2023 by | 11 comments

by Jon Baliles

There was a lot of talk and coverage this week about the City of Richmond’s Planning Commission unanimously approving the removal of parking minimums citywide with the full City Council expected to take the matter up at its meeting Monday night.

The ordinance as written would allow developers to decide how much parking to include in new developments anywhere in the city — or if they need to include any parking at all to serve the development. For decades, the city-required developments to also provide a certain number of off-street parking spaces based on the size of development, the number of dwelling units, type of use, or total floor area.

The end goal is to allow developers to determine how much parking to provide in their developments and if they don’t have to provide expensive parking, they will then increase the supply of needed housing units. The city recently declared a “housing crisis,” and the need for more housing across the entire region is urgent. The proposal is one of the recommendations from the Richmond 300 master plan, which is in favor of less “auto-centric” zoning and more in favor of denser and more walkable mixed-use neighborhoods.
Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Economic development, Government Oversight, Housing, Infrastructure, Planning, Transportation

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Unaffordable Housing, Redux

Posted on April 19, 2023 by | 10 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

Proposed housing construction in the city of Harrisonburg could add about 1,200 students to the Harrisonburg City Public Schools, with housing already under construction in Rockingham County possibly adding 400 more.

A quarter of the 1,600 potential students could be absorbed by the opening of Rocktown High School, leaving the city to build however many new schools it takes to educate 1,200 elementary and middle school students.

This projection is based on my using other people’s multipliers on a compilation by the invaluable Scott Rogers on HarrisonburgHousingToday.com. The housing count is Scott Rogers’; the school estimates are mine.

The multipliers in question come from Harrisonburg City Public Schools (HCPS) and from Econsult Solutions Inc. (ESI). HCPS came up with its numbers based on who lives where in the city, and ESI does it for a living. They vary, somewhat. ESI thinks a townhouse will generate .52 students and the HCPS method forecasts .45 students.
Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Children and families, Education (K-12), Housing, Land use & development, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Virginia Very Low Income Housing Voucher Waiting Lists are Closed

Posted on April 4, 2023 by | 28 comments

SeaView Lofts apartments in Newport News

by James C. Sherlock

Some things don’t change that should.

Or don’t change fast enough to keep up with markets.

Which means they will fail.

From Virginia Housing’s discussion of the Housing Choice Voucher Program

The Housing Choice Voucher Program is the federal government’s major program for assisting very low-income families, low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to decent, safe, and affordable housing in the private market.

Housing assistance is provided on behalf of the family or individual, and allows you to find housing (single-family homes, townhouses, mobile homes, and apartments) that that [sic] fits your needs.

Or not.  From the Housing Choice Voucher Waiting List Portal

We are sorry, but none of Virginia Housing waiting lists are currently open.

That is the list for the entire Commonwealth.

The program is broken. So, what is going on? Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Efficiency in government, Federal, Housing

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Crime in Virginia — the Statistics of Race and their Causes

Posted on March 27, 2023 by | 121 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Crime, especially violent crime, is a constant topic in private conversations and in public politics, and thus here on Bacon’s Rebellion.

Comments on BR crime-related articles turn quickly to race, often without basis in fact.

I will offer below the actual crime statistics by race from 2021, the latest available year, in an attempt to cure that.

Then I will write about the causes.

I will almost certainly be called a racist. Continue reading →

121 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Children and families, Civil Rights, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Demographics, Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Health Care, Housing, Land use & development, Law enforcement, Mental illness and substance abuse, Parental Rights, Politics, Public corruption, Public safety & health, Race and race relations

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RVA 5×5: Incentivizing Derelicts

Posted on March 11, 2023 by | 2 comments

by Jon Baliles

Housing has become a vital issue all across our region; it is a pressing need, but not simple to resolve. It will be with us for some time to come and we have to seek out a multi-prong strategy to address it. But there are some steps that can be taken to set the conditions of success, one parcel at a time. Joseph Maltby in the Henrico Citizen had an interesting story with wider implications about one of those solutions.

He writes about a development along Chamberlayne Road just north of Azalea Avenue in Henrico County that will see a new, 186-unit, affordable housing development with density (three and four story buildings) along with other amenities. The interesting part of the story is that the eight-acre property was “declared derelict in 2019 and put on the county’s list of properties designated for redevelopment,” and the former Days Inn motel was demolished.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Economic development, Housing, Land use & development, Uncategorized

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Public Hearing, Private Decision

Posted on March 1, 2023 by | 14 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

The Bluestone Town Center (BTC), according to council members who voted 3-2 to approve it, was decided in secret meetings between those council members and the applicants. At Tuesday’s open meeting in which they voted to approve BTC, those council members rather shamelessly admitted to those sessions.

City staff and the city manager effectively sat on their hands during the discussion, which brought questionable numbers and questionable rhetoric from rookie council members Dany Fleming and Monica Robinson, respectively. It was left to Councilman Chris Jones and Mayor Deanna Reed to present the arguments against the development with an assist from City Attorney Chris Brown.

The city manager was mostly silent throughout the conversation.

Also mostly silent was Councilwoman Laura Dent. She made the motion to grant the rezoning BTC sought, and followed the motion with a rambling explanation of what she seemed to say was one of the best things about the project for her, the promise of solar energy panels. Her motion effectively released the developers from their legally binding proffer to provide the panels, but she said she believed they would be installed anyway based on her private discussions with the developers. Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Economic development, Finance (government), Governance, Housing, Land use & development, Open Government, Uncategorized

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362 is more than 273

Posted on February 22, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

Take our word but not our numbers, Bluestone Town Center (BTC) backers seem to say

The moral of this story is: what the City Council doesn’t know won’t hurt the HRHA.

When I first heard about the scope of the BTC, I did some quick arithmetic and came up with an astronomical estimate of how many new K-12 students it would generate. I was wrong; the total was merely stratospheric.

Perhaps unwilling to accept the blog post of an ex-mayor, HCPS created its own model and discovered my revised numbers were pretty close. (For the record, proving me right is not why they created it.) They came up with a model that said 322 new students.

Worth noting, HCPS provided two sets of numbers. One was if they applied their model to 900 new housing units in Harrisonburg, and the second if they applied it to 900 in the southwest corner of town. The difference wasn’t significant. What was significant was the effort to share all relevant information.

In October, HRHA pointed out to HCPS that 60 of its units were for seniors, so HCPS reconfigured the estimate. (Because there’s a hell of a lot of H’s in this history, let me help: HRHA is Harrisonburg Redevelopment Housing Authority, and HCPS is still Harrisonburg City Public Schools. HRHA is partnered with EquityPlus, or EP, to apply for a rezoning to build BTC.)

The new estimate from HCPS was down to 273. A little more than half an elementary school.
Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Central planning, Education (K-12), Housing, Land use & development, Planning, Uncategorized

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Something Is in the Water

Posted on February 15, 2023 by | 19 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

Those aren’t wood chips or bark in the cow pasture.

David Foster Wallace tells the story of two young fish swimming along when an older, wiser fish swims past and asks, “How’s the water?” One of the young fish looks at the other and asks, “What’s water?”

Absurdity is the water that proponents of the Bluestone Town Center (BTC) are swimming in. Like the young fish, they’ve been in it long enough and deeply enough that they don’t know that’s what it is.

Consider this scenario. A city council member who serves as the council’s representative to the planning commission listens to a long recommendation from the planning staff. She then makes a motion to more or less accept the recommendation. Four weeks later, she asks the planning staff what their recommendation meant.

Yes, this really happened. So did the argument that building apartments in a cow pasture would preserve farmland.
Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Economic development, Efficiency in government, Environment, Government Oversight, Housing, Land use & development, Regulation, Uncategorized

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Affordable Housing For Some

Posted on February 6, 2023 by | 62 comments

Henrico County library at Libby Mill

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

In the discussion over the shortage of “affordable” housing, one could point to one company that could be considered the cause of the disappearance of a lot of the affordable housing stock in the Richmond area:  Gumenick Properties.

The company has redeveloped an 80-acre tract it owned near Broad St. on the Henrico/Richmond boundary to include apartment buildings; commercial space, including restaurants and fitness centers; and a large, state-of-the-art public library (Henrico County).  As reported in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, the company is ready to construct its third large apartment complex on the property.  It will consist of 398 units, ranging from studios to three bedroom apartments.  The rents for its current complexes, which have a maximum of two bedrooms, range from $1,400 to $2,700.  It is reasonable to expect the three-bedroom units to exceed this maximum. Continue reading →

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Posted in Housing

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