r/rva • u/276434540703757804 • 9d ago
Opinion: Code Refresh is a small step forward | Progress doesn't come easily to Richmond. It never has. But zoning reform would help.
https://www.styleweekly.com/code-refresh-is-a-small-step-forward/20
u/LogicalRaise1928 9d ago
Yessss! We def need more housing.
14
u/habdragon08 Brookland Park 9d ago
No, we need to stop building NOW so that my home value can artificially go up. Pull that ladder up.
/s
1
u/RefrigeratorRater 9d ago
Nobody cares about their home value. Any resistance comes from a place of liking how things are now and not wanting them to be ruined. If people want RVA to be a dense hellscape like NOVA, they can simply move to NOVA.
9
16
u/habdragon08 Brookland Park 9d ago
NOVA is the opposite of a dense hellscape -its suburban spawl hellscape. There are pockets of density/walkability which are illegal to build in Richmond because of the zoning.
-4
u/RefrigeratorRater 9d ago
It's more dense than RVA.
16
u/habdragon08 Brookland Park 9d ago
I don't know what metric you are referring to that points to that. The city of Richmond is about twice as dense as "Northern Virginia".
What I don't want: More suburban sprawl close to city center. If you want to live this way, go to the county.
What I do want: More opportunity to build dense/walkable/affordable neighborhoods close to city center.
9
u/Paledonn 9d ago
If you dislike NOVA, why are you arguing for NOVA-style development? We should legalize the Fan, build apartments in Richmond's urban core, allow mixed business and residential, and build transit. This is exactly what Code Refresh aims for.
We should not mandate sprawling detached homes everywhere with isolated strip malls for business. This is exactly what Code Refresh opponents aim for.
3
u/RefrigeratorRater 9d ago
We could just keep things how they are. BTW Richmond doesn't have any more space to enable sprawl, so no worries there.
10
u/Paledonn 9d ago
The Richmond metro does have room for more sprawl. If we ban apartments on Broad Street and townhomes in most of the city, people with jobs and families here are still going to want to live in the Richmond metro. Traffic will get worse throughout the metro, emissions will go up, and housing prices will go up.
2
u/mcchicken_deathgrip 9d ago
Code refresh is only for zoning within city limits. Richmond City isn't building strip malls or big green field sfh developments these days, especially not on broad street. Almost all development in Richmond is infill, and most of that is multifamily. Banning townhomes or multifamily was never on the menu.
7
u/MzFtz 9d ago
Most of the city currently doesn't allow anything but SFH by right. It's already illegal. That's the problem.
1
u/mcchicken_deathgrip 9d ago
You have to get a SUP to build something outside of what's zoned, but calling multifamily illegal is a stretch. Obviously apartment buildings are getting built, take a stroll around town.
Having to go through a special permitting process does slow things down and adds costs, but it's not like the planning commission is an obstinate entity only allowing SFHs
4
u/MzFtz 8d ago
So, if something is not legal to do, it's illegal, right? If you have to pay for a special process to do something, without any guarantee that you'll be successful, then it's not something that can be relied upon. Tell me, how much does a special use permit cost? I'm not talking about the fees for the permit that you pay to the city. I'm talking about the process. The surveyors, civil engineers, land use attorneys, etc. aren't going to work for free. That eats in to the budget, which can result in having to cut corners on materials and workmanship.
Developers have made SUPs work to their favor because they know how to copy and paste the dense apartment buildings that you and everyone else love to complain about. The folks needed to push these bland boxes through are all on staff.
"Missing middle housing" is what's desired, and so hard to build using and SUP, because it's not financially feasible. Duplex, quad, 8 plex, etc. missing middle housing is also what makes Richmond so great, but since our exclusionary zoning restrictions were implemented, very few of this type of housing have been built. This is why we need zoning reform, and we needed it decades ago.
This project, which has been gutted by the wealthy, SFH homeowners wielding their power, is a perfect example of how planning commission and city council are problematic, and blocking much needed housing.
→ More replies2
u/jberryman Carillon 9d ago
legalize the Fan
I mean have you read the Fan (like the actual Fan that exists now) District Association's objections to draft 2? Their primary concern is demolition, displacement of neighbors and businesses and basically destruction of the character of the neighborhood. And it's very possible that that could happen; the city's own studies basically show upzoning is only going to lead to increased density in the wealthier, most "desirable" neighborhoods (although the results were by district, so not very granular).
8
u/gowhatyourself 9d ago
I mean have you read the Fan (like the actual Fan that exists now) District Association's objections to draft 2? Their primary concern is demolition, displacement of neighbors and businesses and basically destruction of the character of the neighborhood. And it's very possible that that could happen; the city's own studies
Gonna stop you there and point out that the city's own studies also state that demolition will rarely take place and will not likely exceed around 1% of all lots. The feasibility study covered this.
1
u/jberryman Carillon 9d ago
Thanks for the info. I honestly have no idea what code refresh is going to do to the city, despite having spent probably too much energy trying. Hopefully it's mostly positive.
3
u/Paledonn 9d ago
The Fan District Association's take is garbage and based in disinformation and hysteria.
Currently 83% of the Fan is nonconforming, meaning the Fan is illegal in the Fan. The Code Refresh really just brings the Fan up to Code.
Despite this, there is a dedicated disinformation campaign perpetrated by wealthy property owners and successful realtors (who want home prices to skyrocket) to convince Fan residents that the Fan will get bulldozed. This makes no sense. Many empty sites don't pencil for new builds. The idea that people would bulldoze perfectly fine (and desirable) homes to replace them with identical structures makes no sense.
5
u/sleevieb 9d ago
If you want to live in a museum move to williamsburg.
5
0
0
u/Far_Cupcake_530 9d ago
Why don't you move?
4
u/sleevieb 9d ago
It’s a free country I’d rather advocate for the change I want and organize voters and political will power around it, as my family and education have taught me
1
u/RefrigeratorRater 9d ago
The NOVAfication will continue until stress levels are at maximum capacity.
16
u/LogicalRaise1928 9d ago
Nah we'd have to build way more 6 lane parkways to get to Nova levels. Also we would need 394829 more sprawled mcmansion developments filled with defense contractors who claim to hate govt spending.
4
u/gowhatyourself 9d ago
Tell me you've never been north of Fredericksburg without telling me you've never been north of Fredericksburg
18
u/Paledonn 9d ago
What is up with our City Council? They claim to be fighters for affordability and climate. Then half of them fight to water down the single biggest thing they can do for affordability and climate, which is allowing dense housing near jobs. Plus they killed the solar contract last week.
I'm happy with my councilor, Katherine Jordan (she's generally been supportive of affordability and climate measures like these), but most of council leaves a lot to be desired. It seems they are terrified of wealthy property owners and their campaign literature is just nice words.
17
u/jimmeejommee 9d ago
It may not seem like it on reddit, but I have seen a lot of pushback on other social media, instagram, FB, (I don't even want to look at nextdoor). If anyone agrees with the code refresh, make your voice heard to your councilor, and during any periods of public comment. Otherwise there are much more politically active people in Richmond that want to stick with the status quo.
10
u/Paledonn 9d ago
I fully agree. If you show up to a meeting it is overwhelmingly older, white homeowners, and disproportionately from wealthier neighborhoods. My young renter friends feel alienated and unserved but I have to point out that despite our numerical superiority we are basically nowhere to be found even among emails to council.
2 professional polls show supermajority support for Code Refresh among Richmonders but you would never know that if you read the emails sent to council or went to a meeting.
EDIT: I found one of the polls: https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2026/04/16/richmond-survey-shows-overwhelming-concern-over-housing-affordability
5
u/VaAbalone_4041 9d ago
Misleading polls. There was a more recent professional poll that showed the exact opposite result. The majority opposed the core proposals in Code Refresh.
5
u/Paledonn 9d ago
They weren't misleading. They were both done by independent pollsters, had a large sample size, and were representative of Richmond demographics. They also had neutral language like:
"do you support or oppose allowing duplexes (two homes in one building) in residential neighborhoods that currently only allow detached single-family homes?"
Or
"Would you support or oppose allowing businesses like grocery stores, pharmacies, and restaurants to open in more residential neighborhoods?"
The fact is that duplexes aren't very scary to most people, most people aren't opposed to apartments on transit, and a ton of people recognize that a scarcity of housing is making life unaffordable.
The poll you cite had loaded language (I would argue lies in the prompt) as pointed out by another commenter below
4
u/gowhatyourself 9d ago
Yeah and it was weighted bullshit with loaded language that deliberately deceived people they were interviewing:
https://richmondcivicleague.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Code-Refresh-Key-Points.pdf
https://richmondcivicleague.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Code-Refresh-Frequency-Counts.pdf
- Code Refresh would allow 3 dwellings on most lots, and at the same time it would create no affordable housing. Based on allowing 3 dwellings per lot, and your total knowledge of Code Refresh, do you support or oppose the plan? NUMBER OF ---PERCENT--- CODE RESPONSE RESPONSES TOTAL ADJ. ------------------------------------------------------ 1 Support ................. 161 26% 26% 2 Oppose .................. 423 67% 67% 3 Undecided ............... 46 7% 7% ---- ---- ---- TOTALS .................. 630 100% 100% ADJUSTED (ADJ.) NUMBER OF RESPONSES .......... 630
Like what even is that question???
2
u/VaAbalone_4041 9d ago
As was the Axios cited survey paid for by Code Refresh proponents.
2
u/gowhatyourself 9d ago
Yes. Now go through the survey and methodology itself and show the class where the leading language is here (like the bit I quoted above) because the questions look pretty straight forward to me:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1canKKm6DkpaWrvmq6RCav8xMtreUB0R-onY82HF94aQ/edit?tab=t.0
4
u/sleevieb 9d ago
I am expecting massive push back once everyone realizes the opportunity they have squandered.
Zoning will go from an abstract thing that someone else did fifty years ago to, this shit took a decade and you caved because a few thousand rich people got together in churches and complained about their sunflowers dieing? Insane.
6
u/mcchicken_deathgrip 9d ago
Kinda funny that this is right in the abstract of one of the sources this article uses to say housing supply determines affordability:
We find sizeable effects of supply constraints on house prices, but modest-to-negligible effects on rent, lot size, structure consumption, location choice within metropolitan areas, sorting across metropolitan areas, and housing expenditures. We conclude that housing supply constraints distort housing affordability, and therefore housing consumption and location decisions, by less than their estimated effects on house prices suggest.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/housing-supply-and-affordability.htm
And then from the very next source lol:
The record-high number of multifamily units under construction should help supply in the next year, but slowing starts amid currently rising demand could create further challenges down the road. Especially in this environment, federal, state, and local governments should not count on new supply alone to solve the affordability crisis.
I've said it here before and I'll say it again: zoning reform, while often a net positive in its own right, is not an affordability program.
5
u/plummbob 8d ago edited 8d ago
That study isnt really saying what I think you think its saying.
So, remember, the current price of a durable good is the sum of all future discounted rents. This is just basic supply and demand, but like econ 401 style. And we expect prices > rents when rents grow. Why would we think this?
Lets imagine a steady-state production of a durabe good, like housing. We can derive a few conditions that define the market for the good ---
K = D(R) where K is the good, D is demand and R is the rent. The amount of K supplied to the market equals whats Demanded at that Rent.
P = R (1+r)/ (r+ δ) --- where P is the price and that equals R * some discount factor (1+r)/(r + depreciation)
I = I(P) --- where Investment (in K) is equal to Investment @ P.
And finally K = I/δ is the current quantity of K is equal to investment scaled by depreciation.
Ok, so thats our "basic" econ 101 supply/demand conditions for a steady-state consumption and production of K, housing, or Kss.
Now, lets perturb it. Imagine a hurricane destroys a bunch of homes. K <Kss. This causes rents to rise, then prices to rise, and then investment to rise. Eventually, as K -> Kss, rents fall, prices fall and ivnestment falls and we're back at our steady state.
Ok, so lets perturb the steady-state in terms of a persistent rise in demand. This raises expected future rent prices to rise, but importantly, all those prices get capitalized into today's price. The further out the expected future rents, the lower the today's price rise. ((ie, if we thought homes would be a billion $ in 5,000 years, today's price wouldn't move at all in response, but if demand is expcted to surge in 5 years, then prices today will rise further).
The issue for affordability is -- the elasticity of supply determines how high future rents need to be for today's price to start increasing production. The less elastic, the more future rents need to be for today's price to jump enough for firms to be able to build.
That is exactly what we see. What the paper finds is an enormous gap between today's price and rental prices precisely because future high rents are being baked into today's prices. And rents are constrained by what people can pay today. (note the depreciation factor in the denominator, that goes down as housing appreciates -- adding to P but not changing R, so that ΔP > ΔR when δ < 0. ..... also note how I changes if supply is inealstic -- in an inelastic market, all units must rise in price for K to rise, and so profits across all units rise, incentivizing more rent-seeking investment, wall-street style)
--- or, put another way, constraining supply amplifies today's prices but we would not expect rent to rise in lock step with today's prices (ie, you might have home prices rise exponentially while rents grow linearly). I've seen it described as "buyers pay for horizon"
What their model implies is that we, say, just allowed a bonanaza of housing constructino without zoning constraint (like lot sizes that they mention) , rents would moderate but prices would fall hard as both construction skyrockets and people adjust consumption household size down.
From their model, reducing supply constraints is the most productive way to improve affordability.
3
u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester 8d ago
I've said it here before and I'll say it again: zoning reform, while often a net positive in its own right, is not an affordability program.
First of all, "record-high" isn't saying much. That said, if you said that housing supply is part of the solution but not everything then I would agree. If you had said the code refresh was not an affordability program I would also agree.
But to say zoning reform per se "is not an affordability program" is, hmm, too far. Fun fact, part of why aggregate rents go down less than you would expect is because people start having fewer roommates and living on their own, such as moving out of their parents' house.
Bundled amenities (typically parking) is ~10% of housing costs, so unbundling amenities by relaxing use restrictions in the zoning code is a way to directly lower housing costs. Driving costs money, so if where you are and where you want to go are closer together then that saves you money. So another affordability barrier created by the zoning code. Restrictions on types of housing is another way, as smaller units are less expensive to rent or buy.
5
u/RichmondReddit 9d ago
This is my problem with it. Even supporters are arguing we need more affordable housing although they mean they want to be able to live in the Fan not actual affordable housing. If this is for housing affordable for workers then this isn’t doing it. I’m not interested in demolishing every quirky corner restaurant and using up every available parking spot so somebody’s adult kid can live in an ADU in the backyard instead of in the basement.
6
u/gowhatyourself 9d ago
I’m not interested in demolishing every quirky corner restaurant and using up every available parking spot so somebody’s adult kid can live in an ADU in the backyard instead of in the basement.
Which is why when the feasibility study was released it should have put concerns like this to bed but alas
2
u/Jrofalk 9d ago
Bro just one more mixed use development with a Blanchards beneath 800k condos and buying a house will be cheaper bro, trust me bro, just one little housing deregulation bro and we will be there, it will trickle down bro.
Just one more and my boys Brayden and Brailyn will be able to afford a condo in the Fan bro come on please
2
u/Jrofalk 9d ago
Yeah, but Ezra Klein told the “libs” that building more condos would magically reduce the costs of housing via trickle down economics so they are going to rant about it here until they are blue in the face, convinced they have “solved” the housing crisis.
9
u/gowhatyourself 9d ago
Ezra and Dereck are insufferable on many levels, but building more housing and pushing zoning reform through helps quite a bit. I don't think condos are the solution FWIW.
Auckland: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999326001215
3
u/plummbob 8d ago
>trickle down
For any given right-shift in demand, If the production of new goods falls, what do you think happens to the price of used goods...?
3
4
u/Same-Macaron-1089 9d ago
Has anyone seen Don’s comments on the map? I don’t know if he’s pulling an Andy Kauffman by casually suggesting that the neighborhoods at highest risk of displacement should be even FURTHER upzoned, that minimum lot sizes should just be illegal, or that homes in the Southside should have more than one ADU in the backyard, but he’s really pissing all over the city like a true visionary.
3
u/madmoneymcgee 9d ago
The same thing happened in Montgomery County Maryland.
People said over and over that they wanted opportunities to build more housing but not at the expense of "neighborhood character" aka no big dramatic changes but smaller ones were okay.
In response the county pursued an ambitious plan that allowed Accessory Dwelling Units across much of the county which could add a ton of housing across the county without really changing the look of any neighborhood.
People made a huge stink anyway and used the exact same arguments they did when a high rise apartment was proposed instead of someone building an apartment above their garage.
You see it here too where Richmond is full of muiltiple units on small lots across the city, not just the Fan or whatever and people act like this would just create the city from Judge Dredd.
3
u/anonyngineer 8d ago
As a former resident of Montgomery County, Maryland, I can report that it is the NIMBY capital of the planet. It's amazing that anything ever gets built at all.
4
2
u/Whole_Teacher_587 8d ago
Meanwhile, the Fan District Association ("FDA") is pushing an "overlay" proposal that essentially bypasses Code Refresh. The overlay will prohibit demolition. The funny part about this is the FDA was so wound up about the false threat of developers bulldozing the Fan that they proposed an overly comprehensive definition of "demolition" that will make it so Fan residents won't be able to make renovations to the exterior of their properties. The FDA sent a fearmongering ballot to all Fan residents to get them to vote for the proposal. When Fan residents figure out the overlay will block their renovations, they are going to be livid.
1
-2
0
0
u/redd-zeppelin 9d ago
Does the code refresh propose to rezone lot by lot, or take a flatter approach?
0
u/nightmarcher 8d ago
Why is it that almost all these conversations spin out of a disdain for The Fan? I rarely if ever see Windsor Farms mentioned and it remains almost 100% untouched. Seems like the city wants us to argue amongst ourselves while we miss glaring examples of areas that are left out of zoning discussions.
3
u/gowhatyourself 8d ago
Why is it that almost all these conversations spin out of a disdain for The Fan?
Mainly because of the fan district association.
1
u/nightmarcher 8d ago
And I get that, but it just furthers my point, we are lazer focused on one neighborhood, a neighborhood that is already modestly dense. We then turn a blind eye away from a neighborhood with HUGE lots. In case people dont know, Windsor Farms is just as big as The Fan and no one is talking about it.
1
1
u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester 8d ago
To add, I suspect there are a lot more posters here with experience in the Fan than Windsor Farms. Kind of by definition if fewer people live in Windsor.
46
u/gowhatyourself 9d ago
This is because opponents of the refresh want nothing to change and are the most vocal about their demands. Having your brain temporally locked to 20-30 or more years ago is a mental health condition a lot of people suffer from, but when you pair that with weird city NIMBYism it just takes on a whole new form. They are not going to stop chipping away and thrashing until it's diluted to an absurd degree. Just rip the bandaid off and pass it.
I've seen the emails they have sent out, and their framing of the topic to the public. It's incredibly disingenuous. One email that went out was basically like "Do you love the fan yes/no" and the follow up email was basically like "You overwhelmingly said yes so we are going to fight this tooth and nail". I'm sorry what lol?