Richmond zoning overhaul sparks heated debate
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A Homes for All sign in a local yard and an anti-Code Refresh billboard. Images: Courtesy of Barry O'Keefe and Sabrina Moreno
The fight over how to best update the city's decades-old zoning code is heating up as Richmond approaches the two-year mark on the effort.
Why it matters: The city hopes to have a final proposal before City Council by summer, but first there's at least one more draft to go, possibly more, as debates rage in community meetings and online neighborhood groups.
State of play: The Code Refresh is the city's biggest update to its zoning ordinances since the 1970s. These ordinances dictate the type, use and size of buildings that can be constructed in which parts of the city.
- The city's chief goal with the update is to create more housing by allowing denser development — like duplexes and apartments — across the city, including in neighborhoods long restricted to single-family homes.
- On one side, groups like Richmond Civic League — led by former City Council member Marty Jewell — argue the plan is being driven by developers and will erode the character of the city's existing neighborhoods.
- On the other, groups like Homes for All Our Neighbors — a coalition of nonprofits that support the proposed zoning changes — see more housing as the only way to address housing affordability and meet the current and future demands of a growing city.
The latest: Now, both groups are hosting community meetings and letter-writing campaigns.
- They're also attempting to drum up support with yard signs promising "homes for all our neighbors" on one side and billboards threatening a "neighborhood nightmare" on the other.
- A mid-February Homes for All meeting was well-attended by renters, non-English-speaking residents and South Richmonders — people the city has said it wanted to hear more from, eager to share their housing needs, a spokesperson for the group tells Axios.
- At a community meeting held by the Richmond Civic League last week, attendees who "skewed older and appeared to be mostly homeowners" rallied to keep the status quo while pledging to fight the Code Refresh, The Richmonder reports.
Context: A big issue for both groups is the elimination of single-family-only neighborhoods and the shrinking of lot sizes, something included in both drafts of the plan, which came out in June and November, though draft two increased the lot size allowance.
- Opponents argue the change will benefit developers, destroy neighborhood character and do little to bring down housing costs.
- Proponents say more housing is desperately needed and that the existing code is long overdue for an update.
- "[T]he outdated zoning code at the center of this debate is the same one that, for decades, made it easy to build in majority-Black neighborhoods while protecting wealthier, whiter parts of the city from any development at all," said Annika Schunn, HOME of VA policy advocate.
Zoom out: Richmond isn't alone in the fight over zoning.
- Similar updates in other parts of Virginia, like Charlottesville and Arlington, have resulted in lawsuits by residents attempting to preserve single-family-only neighborhoods.
What's next: The third draft should come out sometime this spring, and Mayor Danny Avula hopes to have a final proposal before City Council this summer, per The Richmonder.
- Locals will have another chance to learn more about the Code Refresh at the next Zoning Advisory Council on March 18, from 4-6:30pm in the 5th Floor Conference Room at City Hall.