Code Refresh Report

Rich Meagher:

Welcome to RVAs Got Issues. I’m your host, Rich Meagher. No matter where you are on the income scale, it’s getting harder and harder to find affordable housing, not just in the city but in the whole region. One proposed solution is the D word density, concentrating more apartments, duplexes, row homes and townhouses in our city. Even adding extra apartments and basements, backyards or above garages. Housing advocates say that D word density can lower rents and make home prices more affordable. But where this housing goes and how much we add is a much trickier question. The city of Richmond says the answer is a code refresh. This would change what developers and property owners are allowed to build. And where. Some folks in the city say, this is a long overdue and can’t wait for more housing. Others see this code refresh as a code rewrite that threatens their neighborhoods, their property values, maybe their very way of life. It can be hard to figure out what exactly is at stake with all the noise. So today we’re sorting it all out. We’ve asked some experts onto the show to tell us what are people getting right and wrong about the code refresh and what will it do in RVA to shape the future of housing and well everything. First up, Kevin Vonck, he works for the city of Richmond as the director for the Department of Planning and Development Review. Welcome Kevin.

Kevin Vonck:

Thanks. Thanks for having me here today.

Rich Meagher:

So Kevin, this code refresh is kind of a big deal, right? It’s part of the what’s literally called big moves.

Kevin Vonck:

Yes.

Rich Meagher:

Right in the Richmond 300 planning document that’s guiding the, the city for the future. So what’s at stake here with this code refresh?

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah, it’s a huge move, right? So we last overhauled our zoning code in 1976, uh, and you were here in 1976. Uh, Richmond’s a very different city today. And so Richmond 300 set out who we wanna be as a city. It’s an aspirational document. And it talked about how we wanted to develop, where we wanted to develop, providing housing equity, the environment. And so one of the big moves is to say, Hey, if we wanna get to that place, one of the things we need to do is rewrite the zoning ordinance. And the zoning ordinance basically shapes what you can build, where you can build it, how you can use it. And so this will touch every single parcel in the city of Richmond. So it’s really important that we get as much feedback as possible because this is going to impact everyone here.

Rich Meagher:

And so what are some of the kind of smaller goals that we’re trying to accomplish with the code refresh, I imagine?

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah,

Rich Meagher:

Housing supply is a big part of it.

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah. I mean like other cities we struggle with housing supply and housing affordability. And especially, you know, in the last few years we’ve seen great increases in market prices. And so it’s becoming much harder for a lot of households to be able to find a place to live in the city. We also look at how can we better align land use and transportations along bus rapid transit or bike lanes or sidewalks, right? Looking at places for density along those corridors. In terms of population growth, we’re gonna continue to see an increase. It’s great that Richmond is growing ’cause we have not always been that way,

Rich Meagher:

Right?

Kevin Vonck:

Um, but you know, as those people move to the region and and move to the city, like where are we going to provide them housing?

Rich Meagher:

And not only that, but when they come here they’re gonna want services and need amenities and and things.

Kevin Vonck:

Yep.

Rich Meagher:

So we need to expand the tax base too, right? That’s part of it.

Kevin Vonck:

Correct. I think in terms of just providing places to work, places to eat, recreate, one of the goals is people’s fear of change, right? What we’re discussing is trying to provide that level of certainty. Like right now, especially like through a special use permit process, you’re rolling the dice and when I say rolling the dice, a developer’s rolling the dice, like, I don’t know, will council approve it? Neighborhood’s rolling the dice. Like, oh, what’s council gonna approve? I may love it, I may hate it. And, and so to the degree that we can make more things like buy right? And say like, look, I know what I can do with my property. I know what my neighbor can do with his or her property. Like it’s gonna be kind of within this range of options. And I think that’s good for a homeowner, that’s good for a neighbor, it’s also good for a developer and just understanding here’s what I can and cannot do.

Rich Meagher:

You say the zoning code was last updated in 1976? The culture, the politics of, of Richmond was a lot different in the seventies, right? We were moving out of Jim Crow and all that. So is some of this that we’re trying to fix some very, very old rules that may have contributed to segregation in the city or leaning back on like old redlining maps and things like that?

Kevin Vonck:

Yes. You know, so if you look at uh, zoning historically in the city of Richmond, we were one of the first cities actually to use racially based zoning in our ordinance. Thankfully it got thrown out by the courts a few years later. But that legacy, you know, was kind of rooted in our initial zoning. You still see, I’ll say some remnants of it even in the 76 zoning where you’ll look at particular neighborhoods and two thirds of the neighborhood is zoned one category, but then a pocket is zoned something different. And you’ll see usually those areas where things were up zoned to allow for more density were communities of color.

Rich Meagher:

So some people are enthusiastic about this change, right? And others, let’s say less so. Do you have a sense of the kind of different sides here and where people are aligning in their approach to the code refresh?

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah. Um, redoing a zoning code, you know, we’re trying to balance all sorts of objectives and you know, those objectives sometimes for individuals can be at very different ends of the spectrum, right? So you have on one hand people who just love the way things are exactly as they are and would love to, to keep it as close to it as possible. And others who have said, you know, it’s time for us to change and we need to be able to grow. And so like, let’s do a lot. And also thinking about how we go forward in terms of historic preservation and and cultural assets. Balancing that tension between preservation and and understanding like what communities are and how we allow them to evolve in into the future.

Rich Meagher:

So that’s a nice nuanced way of saying what sometimes feels like, at least in the media or on the internet as a kinda YIMBY versus NIMBY, right? The yes in my backyard to no in my backyard. Does it feel like that to you sometimes from your perspective?

Kevin Vonck:

Um, at some of our public engagement meetings, yes. I think the way we’re trying to frame it is kind of evolution, right? How do cities evolve? Like the fan generally looks the same as it did 50 years ago, but it doesn’t, it’s different. And so thinking about in 50 years it’s gonna look different, but you’re still gonna know it’s the fan. How do we shape the rules to allow for that incremental growth and development over that time period?

Rich Meagher:

So does the city have any concrete numbers about this, right? We know we need more housing. Do we know how much we need?

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah. In Richmond 300, which is our master plan, the guide for like how we’re going to zone. Um, it talked about a few different scenarios in terms of our population growth moving from about 240,000 up to 340,000 by 2040. So that’s, that’s a lot of people.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah.

Kevin Vonck:

We, we’ve never been able to catch up in terms of like housing production post 2008. And so to think about all those units that we’re behind on plus the additional demand from people who are moving here, it’s into tens of thousands of housing units that will be needed during this time period.

Rich Meagher:

I think there are people who are concerned about the code refresh, some of it could be just kind of knee-jerk nimby, nothing should ever change, but some changes do seem pretty dramatic. I wanted to unpack some of the concerns, maybe do some myth busting if they have it wrong. So for example, some opponents have said that the code refresh is gonna eliminate single family housing zones, the kind of places where you can only build single family homes. Is that true?

Kevin Vonck:

No. What’s proposed is a change. So in the city we have about 76,000 parcels.

Rich Meagher:

Hmm

Kevin Vonck:

44,000 of those parcels. The most that you can build is a single family residence. And then we amended code about two years ago. You could also build an accessory dwelling in it, something that’s smaller and di minimus. So you can build your house and then you can build a garage, um,

Rich Meagher:

right

Kevin Vonck:

with an ADU over it or a basement apartment or an attic or something. But you can do one plus one. And so what is proposed in the new code is a two plus one. You could build a duplex and an ADU, like what does that two plus one look like? Is it all in one structure? Is it two structures? Is it three structures? Do you need to keep the original structure that’s on site? It raises the bar in terms of your ability to, from a base level, build more housing units. If you want to build just a single family house, nothing else. You still can do that. It never forces anybody to build anything more than they want to build.

Rich Meagher:

So let’s talk about that.

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah.

Rich Meagher:

You mentioned the ADUs sometimes called Granny Flats or for fans of Happy Days Fonzi Flats, right? Yeah. Fonzi living above the garage.

Kevin Vonck:

And for some, that might’ve been a radical concept at the time, but it was a way to provide affordable housing. Yeah. So for somebody who maybe like couldn’t afford the rent or couldn’t afford to buy a place, hey I’m a single guy, I only need so much space. Here’s a way for me to have the opportunity to one, have housing but also have housing in a resource rich area.

Rich Meagher:

But you do understand like people’s concerns about that, right? ’cause it does seem like, you know, you’re living in a single family neighborhood, that’s why you chose that neighborhood and suddenly it seems like there are these like triplexes all over your neighborhood and lots more people, lots more density than what you were expecting. Are you getting that concern that people have about that?

Kevin Vonck:

Yes, it’s change, but in the same degree, I think what we’re looking at is, I’ll say that incremental change, it’s not talking about going from one unit to like 10, 12 large a hundred unit complexes. It’s kind of that incremental step.

Rich Meagher:

So you know, Ginter Park’s neighborhood Association have been really vocal in their concerns about the the code refresh. They wanna pump the brakes. What’s your response to them directly or any other neighborhood association or or anybody who’s worried about the character of their neighborhood divide?

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah, I mean the first thing I say is just be vocal, get involved, participate in the process right now, and then help us wrestle with these tensions in terms of we have people wanting to come to this community. We have a housing shortage, we have an affordability problem. There’s a lot of ways we can shape how that looks. Maybe there’s prohibitions on demolition so you can only add those extra units like in the back or inside. So there’s actually no change from the outside.

Rich Meagher:

So in other words, would you say that it’s possible to do this code refresh to raise the number of units even in our existing neighborhoods without changing the character of those neighborhoods?

Kevin Vonck:

Yes, absolutely. Building code actually does not differentiate between a structure with one housing unit or two housing units in. It’s treated the same under the residential code. And so from the outside you could see the structure and go by and like are there one unit or two units inside? And so I think there’s a way to again, work on preservation of, of some of those character concerns, but also allowing for that housing to be produced. Balancing that out,

Rich Meagher:

These sort of historical neighborhoods aside, one of the things that the code refresh wants to do is, as you mentioned, realign transit, more of our arteries, our corridors, think about where people are and where they go and get some more density there. Right there we might be talking about apartment buildings there, we might be talking about mixed use buildings, things like that. Chamberlayne Avenue’s become kind of a flashpoint about this in part because of related plans from the GRTC, right? The city’s transit agency to expand the pulse BRT rapid bus line north and south. So the big concern is, is Chamberlayne Avenue gonna turn into the north south version of Broad Street?

Kevin Vonck:

I think Chamberlayne is definitely one of the, the challenging spots in terms of looking at better aligning land use with transportation infrastructure and especially around the stations. That is an appropriate spot for density, that is an appropriate spot for mixed use to get people to use the system and, and vice versa, you have a system that supports it looking at these corridors as appropriate places for, I’ll say more market change. One of the things I think is to do some economic modeling. If we zone this, what may happen?

Rich Meagher:

Hmm.

Kevin Vonck:

What may be the rate of change and just trying to like understand eyes wide open. I I think also part of the balance too is the master plan is our 2037 vision for like where we wanna be. The zoning doesn’t have to get us all the way there today, right?

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Kevin Vonck:

We still got 12 plus years. It may be a more incremental approach

Rich Meagher:

Because I think people really are worried about like they think it is gonna go zero to 60, like all the trees are gonna go away or it’s suddenly gonna become a six lane highway overnight.

Kevin Vonck:

Well, and I think maybe part of the balance in, in in broad, or you look at Midlothian or Hull where it’s just one long commercial strip that was developed under auspices of seventies or pre seventies zoning, but also ones that were really geared towards automobile transportation, generous surface parking, lots, lots of drive-throughs. If you were to do that today, you probably wouldn’t design that in the same way. You would design around particular spots or particular nodes. Not just have one long strip. In terms of Chamberlayne, I don’t think the vision even in the master plan is to say like, this becomes one long commercial strip. Like broad is, it’s to say, Hey, are there some appropriate spots maybe at the stops or or certain intersections where you do have some commercial development and, and the rest of it in between remains the same or again, slowly, incrementally evolves.

Rich Meagher:

So I think this whole discussion about Chamberlayne brings up a a bigger question, right? Because people who are opposed to the code refresh or concerned about it sometimes get characterized just as NIMBYs. They wanna just keep everything the same. They’re older white people and white neighborhoods that just want to maintain their wealth and don’t want to give up anything. But people are also just really worried about we can loosen the reins and let developers in on the city and then suddenly neighborhoods like Chamberlayne, yeah, we get built up, we had this more housing, but then all that housing becomes gentrification, right? It just changes so much the nature of the neighborhood, even if it’s bringing in more money and more housing in the city, the people who live there now don’t get the benefit, right?

Kevin Vonck:

Correct.

Rich Meagher:

’cause they’re forced outta their homes ’cause of high property tax assessments or they can’t afford the rents anymore. So what are you doing or what can you do to try to hold off gentrification?

Kevin Vonck:

Sure. I think zoning can do a lot of things. It cannot save the world <laugh>, uh, But

Rich Meagher:

Fix everything Kevin.

Kevin Vonck:

Right? I know, but it’s an important tool in the toolbox. And I think we talk about property ownership and and balance. If you have your home as your single biggest investment, you want to see that appreciate in value, especially for like homeowners who have been there a long time and had it paid off. This is wealth and in some cases generational wealth at the same aspect as those property values rise, so do the taxes and the cost of staying in that place. Council has looked at and discussed different ways of how do you split that balance in terms of allowing somebody’s asset to appreciate but providing some relief, Hey, I’m just here and I’ve been here a long time, giving me some relief on in terms of the property tax issue. I’m gonna pass that over maybe to mayor and council, like having some of those discussions to help people stay where they’re at longer. And then, hey, as that property turns or it gets sold, then they come up with a new rate or pay, uh, accordingly.

Rich Meagher:

So just to be clear, like you say, zoning can’t solve all of the problems of the world. So in terms of gentrification, some of this, it’s gonna have to come from city council and the mayor in terms of making sure people’s fears of displacement don’t play out. Does that sound right?

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah. And I, I think when you talk about gentrification or evolution, that it comes not at the cost of displacement. You know, again, looking at overall development and growth as, as a good thing or a net positive for the city, just being eyes wide open about what might be the potential repercussions in terms of particular households or neighborhoods that may experience more of the negative externalities and trying to understand what those are upfront and then if possible, putting together tools in place to be able to allow those households to, at the end of the day, stay in, in the place that they’ve learned to love.

Rich Meagher:

So can you lay out a timeline, like what’s next and what can people do if they do want to provide their input?

Kevin Vonck:

Sure. Spring, early summer, we put out draft one of the ordinance. And the ordinance is basically, here are all the districts and here’s how we’re going to map them. And we kind of gave our best effort in terms of here’s what the future zoning should be. So right now through the end of the month, we’re taking comments on both the districts, the regulations, the map, we’re going out to civic associations, we’re having public meetings, we’re just trying to get as much input as possible right now on this initial draft that we’ll then take back and work with our consultant. We’ll work with our zoning advisory committee to make some changes to that and come back with a second draft. We’re planning for another round of engagement in the month of November, hopefully moving closer towards something that’s more in consensus and then taking comments from that round with a third draft that we will hopefully put forward to consideration for planning commission and our city council in early 2026.

Rich Meagher:

So we talked to one housing advocate who’s worried about community engagement. And I, I think this is true all the time of community engagement, right? It’s great to go out to the community, but you worry sometimes that you’re only hearing from the most resourced or the loudest voices. So what are you doing to try to push past that so you’re not just hearing the loudest voices in the room?

Kevin Vonck:

Yeah, Absolutely. I think that’s something right from the start that we’ve considered. We worked with our consultant to hire a sub consultant specifically working on engagement and outreach. And so a lot of the things that we’re doing in addition to just the open public meetings, we’ve convened a set of, of round tables that focus on specific discussions, looking at what’s proposed in the code through a housing lens or a sustainability lens, um, quality of life lens. And, and so bringing in stakeholders from different areas, we try as best we can to work through our council members, their liaisons to understand where in your community do we need to go to like here. We’ve set up dozens of pop-up events, we’ll just show up at an event that’s happening and if people wanna talk zoning, they’re free to do so. We also have some community ambassadors who are trying to work on, on these networks, so people who normally haven’t or, or wouldn’t participate in the process overall. I just wanna make sure when we are ready to bring this forward to council, that we can say the demographics of those engagement efforts at least more closely represent the demographics of Richmond as a whole.

Rich Meagher:

And so if our listeners want to weigh in, what do they do?

Kevin Vonck:

They contact me, they contact the city. Um, rva.gov/code refresh is everything you’ve ever wanted to know on this project. It’s, it’s a long history of what we’ve done, where we’re at right now, where we’re going and contact information and we’ll be happy to set something up and come to you and have a discussion no matter how small or how large.

Rich Meagher:

Kevin Vonck is director of the Department of Planning and Development review for the City of Richmond. A link to the draft plan will be in our show notes. Thanks Kevin.

Kevin Vonck:

Thank Rich

Rich Meagher:

Richmond isn’t the only place facing a housing crisis. Of course. What have other cities done? And can we actually build our way out of our housing problems? That’s when we come back on RVAs Got Issues. Welcome back to RVAs Got Issues? I’m Rich Meagher, what can we learn from places that have already gone through the process of updating their outdated zoning? To find out, I’m with Emily Hamilton. She’s a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and studies urban land use and housing rules. Emily, welcome.

Emily Hamilton:

Thanks Rich. Great to be talking with you.

Rich Meagher:

So Emily, let’s get into some details on what other cities have done. So you’ve done some research and analysis of zoning across the country. What did you learn about what works?

Emily Hamilton:

So I would divide what works into a couple of different buckets. One thing that’s been proven in several parts of the country is that upzoning outdated commercial corridors for multifamily housing can definitely work.

Rich Meagher:

So it’s like a, like an abandoned shopping mall area or like a, a main street kind of. There were lots of buildings there, but it’s no longer viable. So so getting more houses into there, right? That’s the idea.

Emily Hamilton:

Exactly. Yeah. And that can be a real win-win because a dead strip mall or whatever type of outdated commercial use really isn’t benefiting anyone. Um, so why not let people live there? A second approach is allowing incrementally more housing in existing residential neighborhoods. And there are a couple of paths on this front that have demonstrated to facilitate a lot of construction. One is a legalizing accessory dwelling units, which of course Richmond has already worked on.

Rich Meagher:

That’s the granny flats, the ADUs, the the apartment over the garage kind of thing.

Emily Hamilton:

Yes.

Rich Meagher:

So these rule changes, do they actually work? Like how is this played out in other cities? Do you get more homes in these neighborhoods? You get these commercial corridors changing?

Emily Hamilton:

Absolutely. Yeah. The, the county of Arlington, for example, is a very small jurisdiction that has increased its population by about 30% through

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Emily Hamilton:

infill multifamily alone. But some places where we have seen a lot of ADU construction are some of the west coast cities like Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, this marginal development has made a substantial impact in their new supply of housing there.

Rich Meagher:

Okay, so that’s a supply side, right? So they’ve gotten more homes. Does it actually make it more affordable if these new homes come online?

Emily Hamilton:

Yeah, so with accessory dwelling units, we can say that they generally cost a few hundred dollars less per month than another type of apartment would in the same neighborhood. One reason might be that homeowners know and like the tenant in their accessory dwelling unit, so they may not want to raise the rent over time. Um, and it also might be because these are generally pretty basic units that don’t offer all of the amenities of a new apartment building.

Rich Meagher:

I know this is a, a big way to put this question, but is it possible then to build our way out of the housing crisis?

Emily Hamilton:

I would say yes. Uh, another place where I’ve done a lot of research is on the city of Houston. And one reform that they’ve done toward the marginal densification of existing residential neighborhoods is allowing for smaller lot development. So this has made it possible to replace one single family house with two or three, depending on the lot size, sometimes many more if it’s, if it’s on a large lot. And I would say in Houston they’ve shown that this market-based approach really has made the housing market serve many people much better than other Sunbelt metros, for example.

Rich Meagher:

So are any of these solutions feasible in the current environment? Right? So a lot of the research you’ve done, many of these cities rezoned before the current federal administration. Like how are federal government actions, particularly in recent months, impacting this equation more broadly?

Emily Hamilton:

Yeah, that’s a great question. And my research focuses very narrowly on the land use and building code regulation side. So I can’t get into too many specifics on some of the federal policies that affect housing construction. But things like high interest rates, which are going to be difficult to bring down given an expanding federal budget deficit, high tariffs and deportation of some of our construction labor force are certainly headwinds. Um, and depending on the market that we’re talking about, those federal policy issues might make it very difficult to see results from local or state regulatory reform in the near term.

Rich Meagher:

So at the end of the day, what kind of tools makes for a successful rezoning effort, or, or how would, would you even measure what a successful rezoning effort is?

Emily Hamilton:

Well, one challenge that we’ve seen across the country and specifically in Virginia is that a lot of local upzoning efforts, like what Richmond is working on have been challenged with lawsuits. And in many cases, um, localities or states that have embarked on land use liberalization have had their reforms upheld in court. But nonetheless, these lawsuits are expensive. Their bad pr, they delay these reforms. So I would say one aspect of a successful zoning reform is that it brings at least the vast majority of people in the locality along with it. So that might mean pursuing changes that can be effective on the housing supply side, but also that maybe avoid the most controversial aspects, whatever those may be in a community.

Rich Meagher:

You know, we’re, we’re all worked up here in Richmond about the code refresh, right? We’re reworking our zoning code and trying to solve some of our housing problems there. Are there other places we should be looking instead? Are there other things that we can do that might have either as much or maybe even more of an effect on housing affordability and availability?

Emily Hamilton:

Yes. So I would say sometimes looking at opportunities for permit streamlining can be non-controversial and really effective. And that’s even truer in a high interest rate environment where it’s easier for projects to die just due to delays because money is very expensive right now. So if there are tweaks that can be made to things like site plan review or the subdivision process or different types of, of zoning and building permit approval processes, those are things that maybe just about everyone would agree these should go faster. Like <laugh>, there’s no benefit

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Emily Hamilton:

to the red tape and can make a big difference in the viability of a project.

Rich Meagher:

Emily Hamilton is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Thanks, Emily.

Emily Hamilton:

Thank you, Rich. Great talking with you.

Rich Meagher:

That’s our show. Thanks to our guests, Kevin Vonck and Emily Hamilton. Tell us about your issues by visiting our website, RVAsGotissues.vpm.org, or send us an email at [email protected]. Leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform. RVAs Got Issues is produced by Max Wasserman and Rachel Dwyer. Script editing on this episode by Nicki Stein and Rachel Dwyer. Audio mix by Steve Lack. Our theme music was composed by Alexander Hitchens. Shawn Freude is our executive producer. Steve Humble is VP’s Chief Content Officer. I’m your host, Rich Meagher. Thanks for listening.