Good morning, RVA: Housing, housing, housing (and parks)

Good morning, RVA! It’s 35 °F, and temperatures should make their way up into the mid 50s today. Late this evening you can expect rain which should continue into tomorrow morning. The rest of the weekend looks pretty great, through!

Water cooler

Well, it’s not entirely unexpected, but Del. Samirah’s middle housing bill died in subcommittee yesterday. Here’s a bit more from Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury. This doesn’t mean that we’re stuck with all the single-family zoning we’ve got in Virginia forever and ever amen. But it does mean that a lot of work needs to be done across the state to start building support for a bill like this. It is, of course, the right thing to do, but it’s a ton of work. Meanwhile, localities, like Richmond, can and should still peruse similar zoning changes locally. The Richmond 300process is wrapping up, and, if you look at the Future Land Use Map (PDF), you’ll see it recommends allowing duplexes and triplexes in a ton of neighborhoods—mostly the entire city before the final annexation of Chesterfield. It’ll be our job—folks who believe in and advocate for affordable housing, public transportation, and reaching our climate goals—to do the work locally to pass the actual zoning changes that will allow for middle housing. It’s going to be a whole thing, but I’m excited to get started.

A while back I talked about housing choice vouchers and HB 6 which would prevent landlords from denying an applicant because they’ll pay their rent with a voucher. If that’s something you’d like to support, the Virginia Housing Alliance has put together an easy way for you to let your elected representatives down at the General Assembly know. I know Good Morning, RVA is typically very Richmond City focused, but affordable housing is definitely an issue the entire region needs to tackle. Take a look at this (depressing) map of affordable housing vs. life expectancy in the Regional Housing Framework. While the city proper hosts the majority of housing choice vouchers, there are still tons of folks using vouchers in Chesterfield and Henrico. We need more of that across the entire region! So, please, if you’re a county resident and in support of HB 6, let your electeds know!

Gregory J. Gilligan at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says construction on a new 6-story, 53-unit apartment at 6th and E. Main Streets will start in a couple of months. This project is a perfect example of why NoBro’s 80-block BigTIF stresses me out. Development is happening downtown right now, and I’d love to see the City’s General Fund, not the proposed arena, suck up all of those sweet, sweet tax revenues. Not only that, but private developers like this one are building housing that’s price-competitive with the North of Broad project’s housing stock. Gilligan says rents in the new Main Street apartments will start at $1,146, while @_SmithNicholas_ reminds us that, for folks making 80% AMI, rents north of Broad will start at $1,180. I’m not out here arguing against building more (basically) market-rate housing downtown, but I do think it’s important to remember that the private sector is out here doing this thing right now, regardless of arena status.

Huge congratulations to Nathan Burrell for getting an “unsolicited offer from Gov. Ralph Northam” to leave the City’s Parks & Rec department and serve as a deputy director with the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Colleen Curran at the RTD has the details. It’s certainly a loss locally, but he’s still a public servant and now he serves even more of the public. I think that’s great. It’s an exciting time for Parks, what with their recent master plan and hiring a new director, so whoever takes over for Burrell has a lot of momentum to work with.

Neither here nor there, the sky during this morning’s sunrise looked amazing! I hope you were up to enjoy it.

This morning’s patron longread

A Homeric Life: Neil Peart (1952–2020)

Submitted by Patron Kevin. Neil Peart from Rush died! I had no idea, and I also have no idea what it is about Rush that makes people write like this. But I’m into it, and definitely into Moving Pictures.

On September 12, 1952, Neil Ellwood Peart entered the world, appearing first in southeastern Canada, near the coast of Lake Ontario. If, on that day, the earth shuddered, or lightning struck, or a comet flared in the skies, or if some itinerant wisemen showed up at his birth, we no longer possess a record to support such a fact or facts. Yet, it might very well have happened. And, regardless, whatever is lacking in fact is fully alive in faith. On Tuesday, January 7, 2020, Neil Elwood Peart valiantly lost his three and half-year battle against brain cancer. On that same day, he entered Valhalla, escorted by at least one Valkyrie, but quite possibly by two or three.

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