The Vest Invests: What We Know About the Governor’s Plan on Housing

The Vest Invests: What We Know About the Governor’s Plan on Housing
By Tommy Herbert, VAMA Manager of Government Affairs

 

Although the walk from the Virginia Capitol to his current home is hardly one hundred feet, Governor Youngkin may need the protection of his familiar red vest as he commutes to seek General Assembly support for his plan to address Virginia’s chronic shortage of housing. Governor Youngkin announced his “Make Virginia Home” plan at this year’s annual Governor’s Housing Conference, held in the housing policy lava pool of Arlington County in November.

 

The plan broadly seeks to partner state resources with localities to shear off some of the mounting pressure on our inadequate supply of rental and for-sale housing here that is driving housing costs for Virginians so high. The General Assembly’s research arm, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Council (JLARC), has identified a shortage of over 200,000 affordable rental units, and new industry research indicates that we need to meet a pace of 7,000 new units online per year at a minimum. Based on past performance, we have our work cut out for us.  

 

Youngkin’s concept seeks to put tools in the hands of local governments and developers to sweep away obstacles to the necessary housing construction, with the state providing a backstop of accountibility. It does this in a couple of ways:

 

First, the plan explicitly links economic development and housing development, and asks localities to find ways to reduce unnecessary regulatory barriers to new housing development. This commitment is important, because localities rely heavily on the state in many ways to support their efforts in local economic development. Shifting the policy paradigm to take the necessary housing into account right alongside decisions around economic development ties an activity that localities are eager to do together with something that they may perhaps be less eager to do.

 

Secondly, it seeks to give local governments tools to blunt perennial “Not In My Back Yard,” or NIMBY, opposition to new housing development, specifically multifamily development. This unfortunate but reliable phenomenon has also been lampooned as BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) or CAVE (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) opposition, and it is one of the primary obstacles to the new housing supply that Virginia needs. Localities, and the officials who run them, are often held hostage by this type of activism, no matter how short-sighted or ultimately unpopular with the community at-large it may be.

 

Though details remain scarce about the plan, “Make Virginia Home” gives optimistic vibes, as the younger folks are wont to say. It shares certain aspects even across party lines. Incentivizing localities to rethink the restrictive zoning and permitting policies that drive housing shortage not only appears in the Governor’s plan, but also in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s. Boosting state support for the preservation of existing affordable housing is a part of President Joe Biden’s plan on housing, and it is also part of Glenn Youngkin’s. Few issues are stark enough, and few of their solutions clear enough to garner that kind of broad-based support across the political spectrum. But it is on us to act.

 

We applaud Governor Youngkin for taking the first step toward that action.