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
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
Tagged James Sherlock
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
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
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
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
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
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 high-flown principles behind what they’re doing and what great things they hope to do for the Black community in the South.
The pragmatic leftist sees two things wrong. First, the couple is already registered; the organizers should move on to someone who’s not. Second, they’re drinking a week’s worth of coffee from a couple too proud to say anything.
Fast could be heavy-handed in his writing — but he made a good point. The people who thought they were doing the couple a favor just didn’t get it. The dew is in the eyes of proponents of the Bluestone Town Center (BTC) today.
Continue reading
by Joe Fitzgerald
There’s a box, and there’s a snowball.
The box is the support of the Bluestone Town Center. It is a well-constructed but beautifully decorated box, built on strong buzzwords. Affordable Housing, and Climate Change, and Dense Development are the shiny wrapping on this gift. The snowball of opposition rolling toward City Hall grows each time a post on social media begins, “I didn’t realize ….” Didn’t realize how big it is, how much traffic, how much impact on the schools, how far from the center of town it is.
The box is being built purposefully. Proponents on the Planning Commission and City Council who have not yet heard the presentation of pros and cons are publicly and privately adding items to the box. Their box is a container for their support of the project, and they will only add those things that bolster their case.
The snowball is built on surprise. With local journalism struggling, people find out in bits and pieces how large the thing is, how many cars and students it will add, how badly proponents have considered flooding, runoff, and blasting.
The box includes support that’s at best half-hearted from city staff. The recommendation from the Community Development staff reads less like approval and more like, “Well, we guess it’s OK.” The City Attorney outlines why the offers to mitigate school impact are illegal under current law and an administrative nightmare if the city changes the law to accommodate them.
The Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority (HRHA) and the tax specialists will open their box at the Planning Commission meeting Tuesday, where they will explain how this is the greatest thing since the golf course. The snowball of citizens will attempt to deliver death by a thousand cuts. They don’t have the staff, they don’t have the legal help, and they don’t have elected and appointed officials who’ve already made up their minds. They only have the spirit of those who have throughout our history stood up and told their government it’s wrong.
Opponents have already been described in whispers as NIMBYs, or “not in my back yard.” I live two miles away, so it’s hardly in my back yard. But what if it were? Rezoning requests like this one are required to inform neighbors. The whole idea of zoning is to regulate what is built next to what. Homeowners’ defense of their surroundings should not be subordinate to what a planning commission or HRHA chair thinks is best for them and their neighbors.
As this proposal goes forward, I hope elected and appointed officials will remember that they serve the entire city and not just the preferences of a vocal political minority. For the people we elect and the people they appoint, the whole city is supposed to be their back yard.
Joe Fitzgerald is a former mayor of Harrisonburg. This column is republished with permission from his blog, Still Not Sleeping.
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 quality of housing available.
But Democrat-run Loudoun County is now asking the Virginia legislature for the power to impose rent control. DC News Now reported in December that “New policies could soon be introduced in Richmond at the request of Loudoun County. One would place a limit on rent increases.”
This is surprising, because even left-leaning economists mostly think rent control is stupid, as expressed by Swedish economics professor Assar Lindbeck. He said, “Rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing.”
In 1989, Vietnam’s socialist leaders reluctantly admitted that their policy of rent control had destroyed the housing stock of Vietnam’s capital city, which had been sturdy enough to survive years of American bombing during the Vietnam War. Vietnam’s foreign minister said, “The Americans couldn’t destroy Hanoi, but we have destroyed our city by very low rents. We realized it was stupid and that we must change policy.”
Yet State Senator Jennifer Boysko, who represents Virginia’s Loudoun County, has introduced SB 1278, a rent-control bill. It would allow cities and counties to adopt rent control ordinances, under which rent increases would be limited to inflation or less. Her legislation states that such ordinances “shall prohibit any increase in the rent by such landlord of more than” the “percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index,” and “may allow rent increases … by an amount not to exceed” that inflation rate. The same bill has been introduced in the Virginia House of Delegates by Democratic socialist Nadarius Clark and four other Democrats, as HB 1532. Continue reading
Posted in Business and Economy, Economic development, General Assembly, Housing, Planning, Property rights, Regulation, Uncategorized
Tagged Hans Bader
by Jon Baliles
The inability of the City to open warm weather shelters for the homeless during the big freeze on Christmas weekend was enough to draw the ire of most of City Council and many others. The recent thawing of temperatures has made it less of a pressing issue, but the cold is coming back. Thankfully, however, it seems the City has now reached an agreement to open a third shelter with 60 more beds through Commonwealth Catholic Charities (CCC) and a fourth shelter should open next week, according to Tyler Layne at CBS6.
“Praise God,” said 5th District Councilwoman Stephanie Lynch, who for months has been the foremost voice at City Hall trying to get the shelters open. “I think that the stakeholders, community members, the city, and certainly city council have put a lot of work and a lot of time into standing up a continuum of shelters,” she said. “I feel like we have arrived at a much better place than where we were even several weeks ago.”
Amen.
CCC has been bounced around like a yo-yo by the City since late summer and even raised $30,000 in private funds so they could open temporarily to help the homeless survive the Christmas deep freeze.
“The outpouring of financial support from individuals and community partners has been truly remarkable,” said Jay Brown, CEO of Commonwealth Catholic Charities. “Their generosity and compassion enabled us to open the shelter when freezing temperatures threatened lives.”
The shelter on Chamberlayne Avenue will remain open through April 14, and the contract with the City will provide 60 beds, meals, restroom facilities, case management, and other resources. The fourth shelter at 5th Street Baptist Church, also in Northside, should open next week.
A spokesperson for the City told Jeremy Wall at WRIC: “The City of Richmond is grateful for the partnership with Commonwealth Catholic Charities and their continued commitment to our unhoused residents. The contract that was signed allows the city to add another 60 beds to the 100 we currently provide. We count today as a good day because we have expanded the capacity to provide shelter for our residents.”
So we can be thankful this winter’s capacity is finally coming online after months of inexcusable delays. But we also need to make sure the ineptitude does not return next winter (yes, winter will come back next year). That’s why it is good to see that Lynch is still calling for an investigation into how the administration is managing its shelters and spending funds. She said she’d like to see all four shelters finalize contracts with the city, as RVA Sisters Keeper and United Nations Church have been operating shelters since November without a contract in place. Continue reading
Posted in Homelessness
Tagged cold weather shelters, delays, investigation, Richmond City Council
Richmond City Hall
by Jon Baliles
We can be thankful for a weather warm-up this week after last week’s bitter cold. Maybe it will help thaw the brain freeze at City Hall and enable them to fix the shelter situation before the next bitter cold arrives (hint, it’s coming back).
Last week, after Tyler Lane at CBS6 filed a cringeworthy report about the failure of the City to provide enough shelter and people being turned away, City Hall was opened at the last minute for the two days over the Christmas weekend for people to warm up. But then those in need were turned back out into the cold at 4 p.m. each day just as the temperature fell back into the teens.
The City did get two shelters open in Manchester with a capacity of about 100 beds in November (with about 450 needed total) through two non-profits. The excuses from the Administration for not opening the other shelters and expanding capacity were legion. The City is still quibbling with one non-profit over contract terms before they can get funding and open for the winter (they opened last week briefly with private funds to get through the cold spell). Continue reading
by Jon Baliles
Left In The Cold
The Richmond Free Press Editorial Page ends the year batting 1.000 and goes two for two this week. The main editorial covers the disgraceful lack of attention, urgency and concern by the mayor and the administration for those in need of shelter during last week’s arctic blast. It opens with two sentences any “leader” should be ashamed of:
“Here’s the good news: So far, there have been no reports of unsheltered people freezing to death in the arctic blast that hit the Richmond area just before Christmas. With private and city-supported shelters full, people were left in the cold.”
It goes through the debacle over the past few months (you can read more here and here) and questions why zoning and special use permits were held out among the excuses as to why shelters in certain parts of town were unable to open. I recall a time not too distant when the mayor used “emergency powers” for numerous other issues during the pandemic; I guess emergency shelter for the homeless in 10-degree weather does not qualify.
The editorial also notes that the Council approved a special use permit two years ago for a shelter by a different operator in the same spot on Chamberlayne Avenue in Northside, but this year they are still waiting to get through the red tape.
“It would seem simple enough to create a legal fig leaf that would have allowed CCC (Commonwealth Catholic Charities) to fully open. No, it was more important that CCC gain its own permission slip, even if that took forever and left desperate people in the cold.”
And then, the brilliant denouement:
“Mayor Stoney has lectured everyone about how this city’s goal is to create One Richmond and equity for all. Apparently, you had to read the fine print on his messaging: Legal niceties are more important than people. Alas.”
Jon Baliles is a former Richmond City Councilman. This column was published originally in his blog RVA 5×5 and is republished here with permission.
Posted in Government Oversight, Homelessness, Public safety & health, Uncategorized
Tagged Jon Baliles
by Jon Baliles
It’s Friday! Which means this newsletter would normally be filled with stories and analysis about what is happening in the RVA region (not all of it good), with an honest and insightful take (so far as that is possible). For instance, this week we could have stories about:
A non-profit that presented a homeless shelter plan to the City in June and still hasn’t received the go-ahead or money to open; so they raised $30,000 on their own this week to open a shelter this weekend because the Mayor and City haven’t been able to get their head out of the sand for SIX MONTHS to execute a contract. If a timeline helps your perspective, the City sent the latest contract to the non-profit on November 13th, which returned it to the City within two days. The non-profit did not receive a response until December 20. Temperatures will get down to ten degrees tonight and won’t get above 32 degrees until Monday. The only explanation has been another word-salad buffet from the mayor’s press office. Shameful.
The first concepts are coming into view about VCU’s 42-acre athletic village across from what will become the Diamond District development. This area is exploding!
At least eight to 10 very old and huge trees (some close to 100 years old) in Mosby Court were razed to the ground this week. Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority said that the trees were being cut “as part of a curb appeal improvement request that came from the City of Richmond to RRHA for several of our public housing sites.” The Mayor’s Office replied that “The city requested RRHA to pick up trash and remove brush — not trees.” This has got to be a government operation. More breadsticks, please. Continue reading
by James C. Sherlock
With all of the public policy discussion of housing in Virginia, it is useful to examine how burdened Virginians are by the costs of their housing.
Based on brand new data from the Bureau of the Census, the average Virginia homeowner is in pretty good shape compared to others in America.
But still over a third of them carry a cost burden for that housing that exceeds the recommended 30% of household income. Those burdens in turn challenge the futures of the very industries that build and finance housing.
In the case of renters, it is difficult to see how half of them can pay the rest of their bills and save to buy a house.
Just like the rest of American renters.
We’ll take a look. Especially at the outlier case of Virginia Beach. Continue reading
by Adam A. Millsap
U.S. housing prices have risen 10 percent since last September and 41 percent since before the pandemic. Though prices have dipped slightly over the last three months, inflated costs remain a major problem. Policymakers around the country are trying to bring prices down, and a new proposal from Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin follows the right playbook but requires further elaboration.
America’s housing crisis is largely a supply problem. Data show that housing prices fell at an annualized rate of 1 percent in September, the third straight monthly decline. While this may seem like progress, the decline is largely driven by the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hikes. A higher benchmark interest rate leads to higher mortgage rates, which means monthly payments—another measure of affordability—remain elevated.
To make housing more affordable, policymakers must boost supply relative to demand, while holding everything else, including interest rates, constant. The press release announcing Youngkin’s Make Virginia Home plan acknowledges the supply problem, promising to “promote increasing the supply of attainable, affordable, and accessible housing across the Commonwealth.” That’s a worthy goal; achieving it is another matter.
Research shows that the primary culprits behind high state and local housing costs are restrictive zoning and land-use regulations that artificially limit the housing supply. Youngkin’s plan is short on details, but it explicitly mentions establishing guardrails for local zoning and land-use review processes. The state would impose deadlines to stop local governments from slow-rolling approvals; such delays impose big costs on developers and make otherwise attractive projects financially infeasible. Continue reading
