The best way to increase Charlottesville and Albemarle County’s stock of affordable housing is to up the ante on local funding, a joint task force has determined.
“It is a regional problem and we need to deal with it regionally,” said City Councilor Satyendra Huja, who sat on the task force made up of city and county officials and residents, as well as officials from the University of Virginia.
The task force convened in December 2007 and released its final report on the region’s affordable housing problems Thursday morning. Most of the report’s recommendations were directed toward the city and county because UVa faces legal constraints that could limit its participation.
The call for increased funding was echoed in a recommendation for both the city and the county to encourage the creation of a regional housing fund, which could accept funds from both public and private sources. David L. Slutzky, chairman of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, said the regional fund would be managed by a housing committee to ensure that not all the money is spent on maintaining existing affordable units instead of constructing new ones.
“We could put constraints on the fund and likely will,” Slutzky said.
Charlottesville already has its own housing fund, which contains $1.4 million this year. And while the city funds affordable housing much more than it did in the past, the fund’s amount declined from $2.1 million in fiscal 2008, and $1 million is being proposed for fiscal 2010.
Mayor Dave Norris, one of the city’s biggest proponents of more affordable housing, said, “Part of the challenge is figuring out how to stretch our dollars further.”
Albemarle’s fiscal 2009 budget notes that the county designates about $1 million each year from its general fund for housing initiatives and additional funding for programs such as the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program.
Slutzky said the county, in particular, needs to devote more resources to help solve the region’s affordability problems.
“The city has been far more proactive historically than the county,” he said.
Supervisor Kenneth C. Boyd said he was not opposed to putting up more money, but, he said, “I don’t think it’s a consensus report and I’m concerned about some parts in there.” County and city elected officials will review the report at upcoming meetings.
Many of the report’s recommendations overlapped for the localities, such as continuing to fund housing nonprofits such as the Piedmont Housing Alliance. Both the city and county have increased funding to the organization in the last five fiscal years, but things could change this year — Slutzky said both governments are going to have “a heck of a time” figuring out how to fund its priorities.
Norris said the challenges now are implementing the report’s recommendations.
“So many reports like this end up on a shelf collecting dust,” he said.
Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum agreed, and encouraged Albemarle officials to follow Charlottesville’s move toward faster reviews for projects that contain affordable units.
“Albemarle County has been woefully behind the city,” he said. “Regulatory reform is part of it.”
Other priorities for the localities are to revise existing proffer policies to promote long-term affordability and create policies to preserve existing units, establish a housing ombudsman office and support increasing household income.
The suggestions for revising each locality’s proffer policies advise that the affordable units should be equally divided for extremely low-, very low- and low-income families — the task force found that proffered units for sale were generally affordable for those making around 80 percent of the area median income, but not those in lower income groups.
City officials are crafting a more specific proffer policy, which emphasizes a desire for more affordable units with projects that are seeking rezonings. And in addition to encouraging that 15 percent of units in a rezoned development be set aside at affordable rates, the county allows cash to be given by developers in lieu of building their own units.
The recommendations also say that Albemarle should increase the term of affordability for proffered rental units to a minimum of 15 years.
Because of the economy, Slutzky said, “affordable housing is going to become an even more critical issue.”
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