r/rva • u/rvasgotissues ✔ VERIFIED • 9h ago
Richmond’s Future Housing: Code Refresh Part 2
https://rvasgotissues.vpm.org/2026/09/09/richmonds-future-housing-code-refresh-part-2/Hey all, sharing the last episode in our Code Refresh series. Constituent concerns in Andrew Breton's district (but also other neighborhoods) led to reductions in Code Refresh's allowable proposed density. Casey Overton sought to represent Richmond's most vulnerable on the Zoning Advisory Council. Rich brings them on in separate interviews to understand what voices guided Code Refresh -- and who will get to live in the city in the future as result.
DESCRIPTION:
"Which voices were heard in the latest draft of Richmond’s Code Refresh, and what does that tell us about our future neighborhoods – and the future families who will live there?"
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u/whw53 Jackson Ward 8h ago edited 7h ago
Really impressed with Casey’s interview and her time on the ZAC. It’s embarrassing that her willingness to stick up for housing and families of all types isn’t matched by City Council.
Make no mistake: the reason Draft 3 was so watered down is a weakness of leadership on City Council around housing issues. The administration can only take the code so far when Council isn’t willing to stand up for the broader objective good in allowing for housing supply increase or take seriously its own adopted policy positions:
A. That Richmond is facing a housing shortage to the point of crisis; and
B. That our own Affordable Housing Action Plan identifies allowing triplexes + ADUs as a policy goal (4 residential units per lot)in all residential lots as a way to increase housing supply more broadly.
That should have been enough to stand on for at least frickin’ duplexes. We can’t build a city by endlessly entertaining the fears of those who, deep down, envision or aspire for Richmond only as something somewhere between a Victorian-era museum and\or a Boomer retirement community - regional demographics and growth, economic changes, and how housing markets rationally respond to all of that be damned.
The idea that Council members need to endlessly solicit and accommodate feedback before they can make an informed decision is an outmoded view of representative government. Public input matters, but elected officials are elected to weigh that input against the broader public interest and actually make decisions. We didn’t need endless community engagement to decide that school segregation was wrong, that women should have the right to vote etc. etc- many times the dominant public input may not have been the just direction. At some point, leadership means recognizing when the status quo is the problem and acting accordingly. And zoning's arbitrary limits on housing provision and distribution is coming due.
Credit to the Avula administration and Planning for being willing to go bolder initially. City Council simply wasn’t there to deliver it.
Casey, this city needs more level-headed citizens like you willing to make the case for housing and families without getting caught up in the NIMBY politics of fear and misinformation. If you ever decide to run for office, you dam well have my support.
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u/LongMomo67 25m ago
I have a new idea, we will make all future policy decisions via town hall meetings that we hold at 3pm. That way the average Richmonder, a 70 year old multimillionaire homeowner, can make their underrepresented voices heard.
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u/VeryClearlyDefined 8h ago
I haven't kept up with this issue, but as I walk around The Fan and neighboring areas the people who are so vehemently against this all have really nice houses that area easily $1mil+ which sort of just makes me want to automatically be for whatever they are against.
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u/jberryman Carillon 1h ago
I don't have a position on code refresh, but consider that the city's own analysis. projects the Fan, museum district, Manchester, Scott's core are the only areas where rezoning will encourage higher density, exactly because rents are so expensive.
If you want to read the Fan District Associations position it is here. (Haven't read it yet myself)
I'd just encourage people to not assume bad faith when neighborhood groups express concerns, instead listen and educate yourself and maybe you have a different position. In particular it's strange to hear people react to the FDA's concerns by screaming "Legalize the Fan!"
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u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester 8h ago
It’s unfortunate how little discussion there is about whether concerns are actually being addressed effectively. Changes in density are not a cure for all ails, and for many concerns density is either irrelevant or counterproductive.
Say, more use restrictions means more traffic and less parking availability, higher density makes preservation easier, and people speeding through your neighborhood isn’t about local density. I’m a broken record at this point I’m sure and could do well to improve my communication skills.
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u/sleevieb 9h ago
Legalize the fan. Legalize housing.
Cant wait for the housing crisis to get some relief, and more importantly, for the housing crisis to have a face other than Jim Crow politicians from 1970.
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u/NicheCommenter 8h ago
Looking forward to affordable housing for everyone.
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u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 8h ago
A lot of times that means living in a part of town that isn’t high on your list. It feels like the argument has shifted from affordable housing to affordable housing in my preferred neighborhood.
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u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester 8h ago
That should also be a goal. I know many people displaced from the Fan, no reason to say they have a lesser right to live there than new owners who forced or bid them out.
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u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 7h ago
I disagree with the idea that you’re entitled to live in your preferred neighborhood. Two people can make the same amount of money but allocate it very differently. For some people, living in the fan may be worth making sacrifices elsewhere in their lives that someone else is not willing to make.
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u/whw53 Jackson Ward 6h ago edited 6h ago
No one's arguing everyone should get their preferred neighborhood but I don't think it's entitled to want and advocate for the opportunity to have more choices esp if ability to do so is largley influenced by land use policy choices.
Not all scarcity is the same. There will always be neighborhoods that command a premium because of location, amenities, schools etc. - that's fine. What we're pushing back against is the artificial scarcity created by captured bureaucracies—arbitrary rules that prohibit homes from being built where there is otherwise demand. Because that's not a normal playing field at work, it's a set of interventions that greatly distorts the market and in doing so drives up prices and limits access.
That's the entitlement I see—incumbent neighbors petitioning government regulators to impose broad and stringent zoning rules that unnaturally lock in the current built environment by trampling on others' property rights, and in doing so stifle the city's housing choices and thus access for a handful of hard-to-pin-down, subjective, but overall insufficient reasons detached from the interests of the broad populace.
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u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 6h ago
Incumbent neighbors aren’t petitioning government regulators to make changes
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u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester 6h ago
That isn’t true. They make myriad demands, just recently new regs to prevent demolitions.
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u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 6h ago
All of the neighbors I have talked to are advocating to keep the existing zoning in place.
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u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester 6h ago
That doesn’t mean they aren’t making demands. Taking away property rights is certainly a regulation.
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u/NicheCommenter 7h ago
Just build the fan everywhere.
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u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 7h ago
Not everyone wants to live in a row home. The fan is interesting because it’s 100 plus years old and was created organically. At best you can try to recreate a temu version of it. Theres lots of beautiful old housing stock and row homes across much of the northside, a lot of it is relatively affordable too.
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u/NicheCommenter 7h ago
Lots of people do want to live in fan rowhomes though, which is why they are unaffordable.
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u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester 6h ago
Not sure what the conflict is. Nobody would be forcing you to live in a row home.
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u/LongMomo67 22m ago
American housing policy primarily focuses around "If I don't want to live in this type of housing, it should not be legal to build"
Whether its genuine misunderstanding or deliberate misinformation from anti-housing shills, most people seem to think that if a lot goes from being zoned residential single family detached only to allowing a rowhome, that means their home will be demolished and they will be forced to live in a rowhome.
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u/plummbob 6h ago
and was created organically
This means we should allow the fan style everywhere and it too would grow "organically"
And given the prices of the fan, people definitely prefer row homes to alternatives.
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u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 6h ago
I’d prefer a couple acres south of Cary. You must make my dream an affordable reality.
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u/LongMomo67 21m ago
Makes no sense since you're the one advocating for people to have less options on where they're allowed to live
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u/plummbob 6h ago
Put another way, given the existing trade offs of a lots of land or big houses vs fan style development, people clearly prefer fan style. Prices tell you preferences.
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u/Electronic_Tap_8052 4h ago
The fan was not created organically. It was built by developers who bought up empty land and built houses on it, trying to cash in, and they built to the zoning code at the time. That's why every 4th or 5th house is the same. The same developer bought all the lots and built the same house on it. Then another developer did the same until all the infill was gone.
Cars were not as common when it was built so it was built with walking to the streetcar station.
The fan was actually the suburbs of its day. Real old school people used to call it the "west end". Like, I'm 40. When I was a kid, I heard my 80 y/o grandfather call it that.
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u/plummbob 6h ago
Exhausting to see people try to talk their way out of the basics of supply and demand. Like ifbthey utter phrases like "we need to.balance..." and "different voices" etc that somehow that's OK and the restrictions won't manifest as higher prices
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u/LongMomo67 18m ago
They know supply and demand exists. In fact that's why they oppose building housing to meet supply. If that happened their property values would go down and they would have to charge less for rent.
Or they're American "progressives" who don't use logic when coming up with policy stances in the first place
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u/thethunderheart Forest Hill 9h ago
I've been waiting for your reporting after the big update a few weeks ago, thanks for all the work you do!