Both City and County governments have been working on adding new tools to allow them to address two hot-button issues: adding affordable housing and substracting rural development. Several City leaders have been pushing for an ordinance that would give developers increased density in exchange for affordable housing; in the County, Supervisor David Slutzky has championed a transferable development rights (TDR) plan that would accompany a massive downzoning of the rural areas.
But both ideas have been snagged on a technicality: They aren’t entirely legal. In Virginia, localities can’t pass laws unless the General Assembly explicitly allows it.
Enter Charlottesville Delegate David Toscano (www.davidtoscano.com). He has patroned enabling bills on the issues and both have moved on to the Senate for debate and a vote.
The TDR bill is all but assured of passage as a bill identical to Toscano’s passed unanimously in the Senate. In order for Slutzky’s plan to work, the legal definition of a development right needed tweaking so that, for instance, a landowner with 210 acres would have up to 10 development rights she could sell, even after the land was downzoned to one lot per 50 acres from one lot per 21 acres.
This bill would also allow Charlottesville to become a receiving area for those development rights—rather than just designated growth areas in the county. “I don’t envision the City being a participant in our proposal in the near term,” says Slutzky, “but it’s a nice additional option that might have use down the road.”
The Board of Supervisors (www.albemarle.org) have a work session scheduled next month to look at the TDR proposal in more depth. “I’m fine with [the plan] changing, but we’ve got to do something [to protect the rural areas], and this is something,” Slutzky says.
Toscano’s affordable housing bill is less certain of passage. “The bill is still a work in progress and there’re a lot of hands in the pie,” Toscano says. “There must be 50 people who are weighing in on various drafts.” The essential feature is that developers would get the right to increased density if a certain percentage of the units are affordable—or if they pay equivalent cash to a housing fund. The City’s director of Neighborhood Development Services, Jim Tolbert, won’t speculate on the precise mechanics of an ordinance, but says that the City definitely wants the option. The County already accepts cash in lieu of housing units as part of an existing affordable housing policy.
[track the bill on the VA Legislative Information System]
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