Rezoning Richmond

Rich Meagher:

Welcome to RVAs. Got Issues. The show that brings you the people and ideas that are reshaping greater Richmond. I’m your host, Rich Meagher for the first time in 50 years, the city’s zoning code. The rules that say what can be built and where is being revised, it’s definitely time. The need for housing is desperate, but with a stunning reversal of white flight, an influx of young professionals into the city. How do we preserve the Richmond? We love for everyone

Vox-Pop:

a reality that younger folks are experiencing our living, that they cannot get into the housing market. They cannot buy a home. You know, I’ve invested in my home, it has a value. And if apartment building went up right next to my home, my property value would drop. The series are overcrowded. And don’t get no order. Fix what you have and then go and develop from there.

Rich Meagher:

If we’re doing a zoning code refresh, how do we do it? Right? A recent op-ed published in RVA magazine tried to answer that question, and the authors are here with us now. Thomas Acuta Fitzpatrick is the Executive Director of Housing Opportunities made equal of Virginia or home of VA a Richmond nonprofit. And Ellen Robertson, a member of the Richmond City Council, also a member of the Code Refresh Advisory Council. Ellen Tom, welcome.

Ellen Robertson:

Good Morning.

Tom Fitzpatrick:

Good Morning.

Rich Meagher:

So it’s, it’s easy to understand why we need a code refresh, you know, 50-year-old rules that are making it hard to keep up with the housing market. And we’ll get into that later. But I wanna know why you felt you had to speak up now in this way. Uh, Ellen, what, what brought you two together for this op-ed?

Ellen Robertson:

Well, you know, I have had the good fortune of working for housing opportunities made equal years ago. I had asked Tom if he would work with me to better understand what was happening in the city and the impact of gentrification in the city. And I was particularly concerned about some of our neighborhoods that were subject to property values changes and so forth that would result in some of our older residents and older communities being impacted by gentrification and priced outta the community. And so Tom conducted a study for us and found some extraordinary results that were beyond what we could imagine.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. And I want to get to that study in a minute, but I, I, I want to talk about this key issue that you found, right? It’s not just the gentrification, right? It’s what happens as a result. You talk about displacement of, of existing folks. So you wrote in the op-ed growing numbers of our black neighbors, find that an influx of white residents with higher incomes have driven up property values pushing their own real estate taxes to unaffordable levels in response, many leave not by choice. So it sounds to me like a reversal of the white flight happened in the sixties and seventies, right? Yes, yes. Is that what we’re experiencing?

Ellen Robertson:

We absolutely have experienced that. And what I found interesting is the two districts that we had the greatest impact of loss of African American families, and they, uh, were the fifth district voter district of the city, and the third and the two swing districts, if, if you will, that determine who would be successful in winning the election, uh, for the mayorship has always been the fifth district and the third district.

Rich Meagher:

Right? So there are consequences that extend far beyond just even the housing market. We’re talking about political power, we’re talking about demographics in the city. Uh, Tom, I wanted to ask you about the report that Ellen mentioned, right? Your organization, home of VA, identified like not just this problem of displacement, right? But longstanding problems with racial disparities. What did you find in that report?

Tom Fitzpatrick:

Sure. So the report looked at the valuation of properties in black neighborhoods compared to white neighborhoods. And what we realized, and what we found was that the biggest indicator for the value of a house is the racial composition of its neighborhood.

Rich Meagher:

Hmm.

Tom Fitzpatrick:

It’s not the condition of the house, it’s not, its proximity to amenities. It’s not even the square footage of the house. It is the racial composition of its neighborhood. And that’s a legacy that goes on for centuries. We talk about redlining, and I think it’s a term that more people know now, and we think that’s just a government, um, action of where government chose to invest and not invest, but it’s corporations where they chose to invest and not invest too. And so what we realized was by artificially keeping black neighborhoods lower value, it created a ripe environment for rapid influx of white homeowners. Mm-hmm. As they were trying to find houses that they could afford and caused a lot of this, this displacement pressures that we are facing now.

Rich Meagher:

And I wonder how this is playing out for your residents, right? You quoted in your article a black resident at the East End saying, I never would’ve thought that I would be the minority in my neighborhood. So, so Ellen, how are you hearing from your residents in, in black neighborhoods about the effects of gentrification and displacement on, on their daily lives?

Ellen Robertson:

It’s very devastating. Um, I live in Highland Park. The demographics of Highland Park has changed drastically. So, I mean, I was just reelected in November. Okay? So knocking on doors, many of the black families that I knew, they’re no longer there. Many of them are not there because they sold their home because they couldn’t afford to live in it any longer. Uh, many of them are not there because, uh, they were not owners, but they were renting. And the rent has gone up tremendously. So they are displaced. And, you know, I’ve been cursed out in the community mm-hmm <affirmative>. By residents in the grocery store less. I remember I was in the grocery store one day and a lady was in the, she was in the checkout and she saw me when I walked past and she just cursed me out because she felt like I was not doing anything to protect her.

Rich Meagher:

And, and how did you feel when she said that? Did you feel like this was a valid critique?

Ellen Robertson:

Yeah, it does strike you personally. It, it, it hurts, uh, that there are not tools in place that we can implement to protect homeowners that have lived in these communities. Because when she first moved into that neighborhood, 45% of the properties in the neighborhood were blighted.

Ellen Robertson:

So they have paid the price of bringing the community to a place that we have a beautiful park with, uh, playground equipment and tennis courts, and we have successfully moved the city from the capital city of murder. They made that sacrifice. They were the trailblazers, and then they find themselves in a place that they’re being pushed out.

Rich Meagher:

Let’s go back to the code refresh for a minute. Now. You both support the code refresh.

Tom Fitzpatrick:

I think that was in the details. Do I support the idea that we need to re-look at our zoning? Absolutely. Um, we are living with a legacy zoning code that has created creating equities.

Rich Meagher:

Mm-hmm

Tom Fitzpatrick:

Um, it is built on exclusion. When you have 57% of the land in the city of Richmond zoned for single family homes. Um, what you’re doing is concentrating wealth in certain neighborhoods. We often talk about this idea for, the city’s been talking about deconcentration of poverty, right? For decades. We don’t talk about the deconcentration of wealth mm-hmm <affirmative>. But when you look at the way we are zoned, when you look at the way the demographics have panned out throughout the city, what you see is that we have concentrations of white, historically white neighborhoods with wealth, um, where we don’t have access to affordable housing, but we have a lot of access to amenities

Rich Meagher:

Mm-hmm.

Tom Fitzpatrick:

And it’s time to rethink the way we do that so that everyone has an equal opportunity to live where they wanna live, to be able to live where they have those resources. And this is one of the tools to be able to do that.

Rich Meagher:

So you’re saying, uh, Tom, it was it 57% of the city zone for, for single family housing, but the right number and which neighborhoods and how that zoning changes, uh, is I think producing a little bit of fear in some neighborhoods. Right. Some people in those neighborhoods, the term we often hear is nimby, not in my backyard. Right? We don’t want new density, new apartments because we’re worried about our property values or a changing neighborhoods. Do you hear this in your neighborhoods, Ellen? I know you mentioned the concerns about displacement. Are you also hearing from the people worried about changes in their neighborhood?

Ellen Robertson:

I do. The challenge is because we have so many communities that are single family homes, it’s a way of life for many. And the question is, what does Richmond wanna become? Do we wanna become a community that only folk that, you know, can afford at least a half a million dollars for a home can live in the city of Richmond? And we do not want this zoning to restrict us to that

Vox-Pop:

Richmond has come far and away from where we were 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. But we will not be successful if we don’t bring everyone with us. There are too many places in our region where, where you were born determines your destiny. And that is vastly different depending on what part of town you live in, what part of the region you live in. And that’s entirely unfair.

One of my biggest things is I go and look in archival photos of the city, and I feel a certain sense of loss at how, particularly things like the world’s first electric streetcar that no longer exists. And so I’d like us to work towards restoring some of those things, making things more affordable, and allowing existing communities to stay here as Richmond continues to grow and evolve and move towards a brighter future.

Rich Meagher:

So Tom, I know home of VA has been active in a, a similar kind of code refresh going on in Chesterfield County. Any lessons there that can be brought to Richmond?

Tom Fitzpatrick:

So the lessons that we learned from Chesterfield, I think, is that the fear of NIMBY does not always materialize.

Rich Meagher:

Mm.

Tom Fitzpatrick:

Right. What they’re worried about is there home value? They’re worried about what might see changes in life. But as we started engaging with, um, residents of Chesterfield County, what we heard where folks said, no, we wanna have inclusive and welcoming neighbors. And I think too often leaders are worried about that, no, we don’t want it. We don’t want it without digesting and understanding, well, what is it that you’re scared of? What is it that you worry about? Is it land value? Because what we discovered in lots of other studies is that adding gentle density increases doesn’t decrease the land value. And here’s the reality. When you look at who moved into some of those one and two bedroom apartment complexes in Chesterfield County, those are families with kids. They’re just doubling up because they need affordable housing too. And I think that we need to understand that when you have a constrained housing market, people are gonna move where they can. Because the other part is that we can’t address this alone. It really is gonna take a regional approach. Um, we’re gonna have to engage and really think about how do we all address both affordable housing and the pressures of displacement.

Rich Meagher:

So Ellen, I I wanted to check in just ’cause you serve a very unique role. I think you’re the only person, right? The only member of city council who’s on the code refresh advisory council. So you’re essentially helping to shape this code refresh and then presumably are gonna be able to vote on it, right?

Ellen Robertson:

Absolutely.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. So, I mean, do you, what do you see your role there then?

Ellen Robertson:

One of the things that I want to see happen is that Richmond always be a sustainable, affordable city to live in. And that means also that we have to have enough revenue to be able to afford to operate the city. Right? And in order to do that, it’s like anything else. If you have a limited supply of housing, then the cost is gonna be more, and the taxpayer, it’s gonna pay more. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want rental housing, if you don’t want more apartments in your neighborhood. The question is, do you want to continue to pay or pay even more per tax for your residency in order for us to continue to have the revenue that we need to operate the city? And is that sustainable? So a part of this zoning, helping people to understand the merits of what you are trying to achieve as it relates to having the choices of houses and getting them away from just the fear that if I look out my window, I can’t see, you know, the tree across the street or something. You know,

Rich Meagher:

I wanna go back to the op-ed. You wrote one of the worst things about most op-eds is they state a problem and then no solution. Mm-hmm.. But you folks didn’t do that. Right? and, and you talk about a couple of things that we can do in the code refresh to try to address displacement. Uh, I wanted to ask about that. Tom, you mentioned in the op-eds something about like sensitive communities. Can you tell us about that?

Tom Fitzpatrick:

Yeah. So some of the lessons that we learned from what Charlottesville did when they did their most, uh, recent zoning was that for some of these historically black neighborhoods, when you change the zoning, it could exasperate potential displacement, right? So while we generally want more density in the city and that we think that there’s lots of areas that can grow and have more density, we’re very concerned of some of these historically black neighborhoods that haven’t changed yet, but are gonna change or could change if we did not put some protections in place. And so what Charlottesville did was they had a protected neighborhood that said, in these neighborhoods, the, the degree to which they were add density will be slightly curtailed to ensure that the residents that have lived there can continue to live there. Um, and I think it’s an important way to both think about how we increase affordable housing everywhere, um, and also protect the neighborhoods that have been historically affordable. And there are ways to do that by, as we think about what the zoning in those areas looks like, either put delays in when they can change or gradual, you know, more protections in those areas.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. Like the gradual idea. You also talked about this idea of limiting upzoning to like one level, right? Yeah. So if you have single family homes, it’s not that there’s a a 40 apartment building moving next door, but maybe a duplex, right? Is that, is that

Tom Fitzpatrick:

How that works? That’s, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. Yeah.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. And, and it sounds lovely, right? But it’s hard to balance this stuff, right? To balance the affordability and the need for affordable housing versus these very real concerns about displacement that you’re talking about here. If the code refresh doesn’t do enough to combat displacement, will you vote against it or to vote to slow or stop it?

Ellen Robertson:

It won’t come outta committee.

Rich Meagher:

So it’s not gonna get to a vote if it doesn’t have displacement address that.

Ellen Robertson:

That’s my vote. I’m one of nine

Tom Fitzpatrick:

Um, the city must do this if we don’t do this. And if we don’t get this right, we’re not gonna see the same Richmond that we have enjoyed this Richmond, that people come to the mixture of culture and arts and vibrant restaurant scenes. If we have a city that’s made for millionaires, then it’s not the city that we know and we love. And it’s not the reason why people grew up here, stay here, move here. Um, so we are an affection point, but we need to get this right and I believe wholeheartedly the city will get this right.

Rich Meagher:

Tom Fitzpatrick is the executive director of Home of va Ellen Robertson represents the sixth district on the Richmond City Council. Ellen, Tom, thank you so much.

Ellen Robertson:

Thank you.

Tom Fitzpatrick:

Thank you, Rich.

Rich Meagher:

It’s not just a zoning refresh. We’re dealing with how do we preserve Richmond’s history without getting in the way of housing progress? That’s next. When we come back on RVAs got issues, we’re back with RVAs got issues. It’s not just a code refresh that we’re dealing with. There’s a whole other effort to preserve Richmond’s history. It’s called the Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan. And it’s bringing historical preservation into the conversation about the future of Richmond. We’re joined now by someone who knows this plan. Well, Cyane Crump is executive director of Historic Richmond, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving Richmond’s historic fabric. Cyane, welcome.

Cyane Crump:

Thanks so much for being here. It’s exciting to be down on Sesame Street. Yeah. But we can’t wait for you guys to come join us in the city in downtown Richmond.

Rich Meagher:

That’s right. We’re excited about it too. So I wanna unpack the term historic preservation, right? I think people kind of generally know what it is, but historic preservation, let’s talk specifics. How do you decide that something is a project worth investing in?

Cyane Crump:

So I ask myself three questions. One, does the building or place have architectural historical or cultural value? The second is, does the community wanna save it? And the third is, is there a viable plan for its adaptive reuse?

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. I wanna unpack that a little bit, right? This idea of adaptive reuse and, and your your point that, you know, does the community want this building to be preserved? And I get that, you know, you don’t necessarily want to knock down every old building and put up ugly mm-hmm. You know, Northern Virginia condos, uh, but we do need more housing. How do you balance all that stuff when you’re thinking about adaptive reuse?

Cyane Crump:

Well, I think we can look at downtown Richmond, for example. There’s a really interesting dynamic happening there. We’re now seeing a trend with COVID and remote work of historic office buildings being converted into housing. And so we’ve got these tall steel structures well-built, the mutual building, dominion headquarters building. The eighth and main building is in discussion to be turned into apartments. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You can put 200 apartment units into these buildings. So, um, as we talk about housing, that is a significant need in our community where at crisis levels, let’s look at how we can adapt some of these historic structures from tobacco warehouses to other types of warehouses to office buildings, and provide the housing that we need.

Rich Meagher:

So I think some people, when they hear historic preservation, they might have heard it in the context of like, we need to preserve everything exactly the way it is, and so therefore we can’t change anything.

Cyane Crump:

Well, I think that’s one of the preconceived notions about historic preservation, is that preservationists want to see things frozen in amber. And in fact, preservation, as I said earlier, is all about people. As we look at what the community wants and needs, we need to grow. We need to thrive. We want an exciting, growing and thriving city. And the Richmond that everybody knows and loves has a lot of that historic fabric woven in with the new construction that will help us grow and thrive. So how do we blend the old and the new? How do we use our historic built environment to shape our bright and exciting and vibrant future?

Rich Meagher:

So speaking of our bright and vibrant future, right? The city’s planning for this. It’s part of the Richmond 300 effort. Uh, and so let’s talk about the city’s cultural heritage stewardship plan. Uh, and this is about preserving historical buildings and thinking about that, what was your role with the stewardship plan

Cyane Crump:

With the Richmond 300? I was on the advisory committee and the Richmond 300 is called the Richmond 300, a Guide for Growth. It was designed to plan for what we want Richmond to be in the next 20 years. It was intended to engage all aspects of the community and identify, uh, policy recommendations that might be helpful. And I think it’s a very well done plan. We are looking forward to engaging with all stakeholders going forward and looking forward to an opportunity, uh, hopefully with the planning commission’s ongoing process of having some more community engagement.

Rich Meagher:

I mean, I think some of the concerns raised were about the cost for the plan, uh, cost of tax abatements, the idea that if you renovate your house, maybe you pay a fewer taxes on it. Do you think those concerns are misplaced for this stewardship plan?

Cyane Crump:

I think there’s maybe some misunderstandings about what the cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan was recommending. The rehab tax abatement, as it was originally envisioned, required homeowners to invest some level of resources in their home and assumed that that additional investment would increase the assessed value of that home, and then that extra amount of value. Um, the tax on that was abated, so it didn’t eliminate the tax, uh, on the home, but it helped ease the pain for a homeowner of that increased tax value. The tax abatement for residential structures for individual homeowners went away, um, in 2020, right? When homeowners in areas that had been historically redlined such as Highland Park, um, or Blackwell, might have been able to take advantage of the tax abatement. So this cultural Heritage stewardship plan actually recommends how to tweak the tax abatement so that it is a more inclusive approach, will allow lower income homeowners to maybe take advantage of it. We can’t just build our way out of the affordable housing crisis we are in. We need to keep what we have.

Rich Meagher:

So, shifting gears here, I think when people hear historic preservation, right, they do often think about big historic buildings, and you do this. So for example, you have the monumental church downtown that’s right across from the Capitol. Why is that building important?

Cyane Crump:

Yeah, so Monumental Church is probably one of the top two buildings in Richmond in terms of architectural historical and cultural importance for the city. It was built on the site of and to commemorate the victims of the Richmond Theater Fire, which was a terribly tragic event, maybe the worst urban tragedy in early America. The fire occurred on December 26th, 1811 and 72 people perished in the fire. The victims were a cross section of the community, black, white, free and enslaved men, women, children, Christian and Jew. And the Richmond community decided to bury the victims together in a common crypt. And so that is the one example in Richmond that I’m aware of from this period of time where burials were commingled by race and religion. And the community came together and said, not only do we want to bury them in a common crypt on the site, we want to build an architectural masterpiece to commemorate that loss. And the Monumental Church was built, it’s, uh, it was designed by Robert Mills, who was the nation’s first native born, native trained American architect, Thomas Jefferson’s only student, um, architecture student. Um, and he later went on to build the Washington Monument. So I’ve heard, heard that know his, know his work Well, uh, the Monumental Church also has a monument out front, which identifies the names of each and every one of the victims, which is remarkable.

Rich Meagher:

Right. So you say it’s not just buildings at Historic Richmond, right? There’s education, there’s economic development, and you say especially it’s about people. Um, so can you give us an example of how this works? I, I think you mentioned, uh, to our producer earlier, there was this project in Barton Heights in Northside that you folks were working on.

Cyane Crump:

So we partnered with another nonprofit and the City of Richmond to rehabilitate several structures in Southern Barton Heights. We thought that that was a really interesting area. It was Richmond’s first streetcar suburb and was annexed into the city after these structures were built. The homes that we picked were representative of the different architectural styles in the neighborhood, and each of them was sized appropriately for a below median income homeowner, not too large, so easier to heat and cool. We added an addition on the back of each house that could house the heating and the air conditioning and the kitchens and the bathrooms. They were sold through the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, so that hopefully they will be permanently affordable housing. So it was a great project that made an impact on the neighborhood.

Rich Meagher:

So you’re celebrating 90 years of Historic Richmond this fall. Congratulations. What are you excited about coming up for the group?

Cyane Crump:

Well, we have a lot going on. We’ve got a big celebration planned for this fall. We’re gonna be celebrating the many hands that have to building these places that are welcoming and connecting and transformational and aspirational.

Rich Meagher:

Cyane Crump is Executive Director of Historic Richmond. Thanks so much.

Cyane Crump:

Thanks so much for having me.

Rich Meagher:

That’s our show. Thanks to our guests, Tom Fitzpatrick, Ellen Robertson and Cyane Crump. Find out more about our show and tell us about your issues at our website, RVAs issues.vpm.org. Remember to tell your friends about us, share a social media post or leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform. RVAs Got Issues is produced by Max Wasserman and Rachel Dwyer. Script editing by Donna Lack and Rachel Dwyer audio mixed by Steve Lack. Our intern is Kate McKenzie. Our theme music was composed by Alexander Hitchens. Meg Lindholm is our executive producer. Steve Humble is VP’s Chief Content Officer. I’m your host, Rich Meagher. Thanks for listening.