Category: Housing
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Housing Cost Burdens in Virginia – A Survey
by James C. Sherlock With all of the public policy discussion of housing in Virginia, it is useful to examine how burdened Virginians are by the costs of their housing. Based on brand new data from the Bureau of the Census, the average Virginia homeowner is in pretty good shape compared to others in America.…
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Youngkin’s Housing Start
by Adam A. Millsap U.S. housing prices have risen 10 percent since last September and 41 percent since before the pandemic. Though prices have dipped slightly over the last three months, inflated costs remain a major problem. Policymakers around the country are trying to bring prices down, and a new proposal from Virginia governor Glenn…
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Suggestions to Ease Virginia’s Housing Crisis without Additional State Money
by James C. Sherlock The Richmond Times-Dispatch, on cue, wrote in an editorial the other day that more state money was needed to fund local housing. Maybe. But that is not the first place to look. The governor wants to condition development aid to local communities on their reforming land-use policies to permit more construction.…
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Are Virginians Putting the State’s Economy on Their Credit Cards?
by James C. Sherlock I wrote the other day about efforts to increase housing in Virginia. That story is very complicated at the levels of the federal, state and local governments. But at the end of that pipeline is the economy. We have read in many places that consumers are spending the savings they built…
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Housing in Virginia – Context for Debates
by James C. Sherlock Dick Hall-Sizemore did a nice job earlier today describing the phenomenon in which people are specifically against in a particular iteration public policies that they support in the abstract. The subject was middle income housing in Arlington County. The problem with short articles by anyone (including me) about housing issues is…
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The “Missing Middle”: Is it an Answer to the Affordable Housing Problem?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Three years ago, in one of his periodic pleas for more flexibility in zoning laws to enable more affordable housing, Jim Bacon discussed “missing middle” housing and noted that Arlington County was beginning to consider how to address that idea. Arlington released its study late last year and the concept and recommendations…
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Homelessness in Petersburg – Part 2
by James C. Sherlock I wrote yesterday about the excellent investigative reporting by the Progress-Index about the knock-on effects of the renewal of fire and building code enforcement in Petersburg. My position is that Petersburg must enforce its codes for public safety and the livability of the city. But I also recognize the need to provide…
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Petersburg Resumes Important Actions Against City Code Violators — Homeless Needs Increase
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes absolutely necessary actions have more than one outcome. Such is the case in Petersburg. Joyce Chu of Petersburg’s indispensable Progress- Index last evening initiated a multi-part series on the impacts of the city’s closure due to safety violations of two motels used by otherwise homeless people. Her first article makes…
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Youngkin Affordable-Housing Plan: Reform Regs to Increase Supply
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin unveiled his plan Friday to promote the supply of affordable housing across Virginia. Other than a couple of television stations, the legacy media ignored the story on how the Governor proposes to address one of the most pressing public policy issues in Virginia. Too bad. The plan represents…
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What Housing Slowdown?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore I keep reading and hearing that the housing market has cooled. Well, the folks in my neighborhood have not gotten the message. About three weeks ago, a house a block and a half from me went on the market. It quickly went under contract. Then, a couple of weeks ago, a “For…
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“The City Is Shaming Itself”
by Jon Baliles It was cold at night this week but not as cold as it will soon get, and a warming trend over the next week looks likely (never trust the weather forecast more than 48 hours in advance). That is good news for those who seek a warm place to sleep at night,…
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Things Fall Apart: Virginia Homelessness Up 7%
by James A. Bacon An estimated 5,335 people lived in homeless shelters in Virginia in 2021, a 7% increase from the previous year, according to an article in Stacker, a national nonprofit news source. The Old Dominion ranked 10th nationally in the size of its percentage increase since 2020. Nationally, the number of people living…
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Richmond Tax Assessments: Through the Roof
by Jon Baliles One story you will be hearing about and living through in the next week or so (if you live in the City) is that the new assessment notifications are arriving in people’s mailboxes. And they are literally though the roof. Some areas are up from 18% in the Westover Hills area and…
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North of the James: Fastest Growing Housing Prices on the East Coast
by James A. Bacon Ever since the late 1930s Virginia’s population has grown faster than that of the nation — until the past few years, that is. Recently, Virginia has experienced a slight net out-migration of domestic residents, and population growth has slowed to match that of the U.S. as a whole. Writing in the…
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Systemic Racism Lives
by Dick Hall-Sizemore For those folks on this blog who keep denying that systemic racism either ever existed or is still a factor in today’s society, I offer an incident reported in today’s New York Times as evidence that systemic racism is still alive and operating to discriminate against Blacks. Last summer, a Black couple…