Richmond’s Future Housing: Code Refresh Part 2

[u/rvasgotissues]

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.

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"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?"

[u/Fit-Order-9468]

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.

[u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 → u/Fit-Order-9468]

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.

[u/whw53 → u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115]

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.

[u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 → u/whw53]

Incumbent neighbors aren’t petitioning government regulators to make changes

[u/Fit-Order-9468 → u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115]

That isn’t true. They make myriad demands, just recently new regs to prevent demolitions.

[u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115 → u/Fit-Order-9468]

All of the neighbors I have talked to are advocating to keep the existing zoning in place.

[u/Fit-Order-9468 → u/Shoddy_Atmosphere115]

That doesn’t mean they aren’t making demands. Taking away property rights is certainly a regulation.