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Affordable Housing Plan
Plan Introduction
Like many cities around the country, Charlottesville is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. Though the City has made repeated investments in developing and preserving affordable housing, Charlottesville still faces a significant affordable housing gap. At the same time, historical patterns of segregation persist throughout the City, and continue to contribute to racial disparities in income and opportunity.
The Charlottesville Affordable Housing Plan builds on past work done by the City and its partners, including a 2018 Housing Needs Assessment, to identify a framework to guide affordable housing policy and investments to increase the impacts of the City’s policies and programs, remove barriers to access, and advance racial equity in housing in Charlottesville.
On this page, we will walk through the main components of the draft Affordable Housing Plan, including the vision, guiding principles, and recommendations. If you would like to view more details, please view or download the full draft Affordable Housing Plan.
Draft Affordable Housing Plan
Affordable Housing Plan Vision
The City of Charlottesville will work to achieve a local housing market that is healthy, high quality, affordable, and above all, equitable.
Affordable Housing Plan Guiding Principles
The recommendations within the Affordable Housing Plan are built with three guiding principles in mind: racial equity, regional collaboration, and a focus on a comprehensive approach.
Aligning the City’s affordable housing policies, programs, and investments with these guiding principles will help the city to more effectively address existing and future affordable housing needs.
Principle | Details |
---|---|
Racial Equity | Housing policies and programs in Charlottesville must be intentionally designed to overcome the City’s history of racial segregation and its ongoing inequities. |
Regional Collaboration |
Charlottesville must collaborate with Albemarle County and other regional jurisdictions, as well as UVA and other prominent regional institutions, to address housing affordability challenges. |
Comprehensive Approach |
Charlottesville needs to implement a combination of subsidy, land use, and tenants’ rights policies to meaningfully impact housing affordability and provide a ladder of housing opportunity. |
Affordable Housing Plan Recommendations
The Affordable Housing Plan Recommendations are provided within five topics. Overall recommendations are shown below, along with a brief explanation of each topic.
Topic | Description of Topic | Overall Recommendation |
---|---|---|
Funding | Funding guidelines can ensure that consistent funding is provided, with clear and transparent requirements for how that money should be spent. | Make a strong and recurring financial commitment to address housing needs in Charlottesville. |
Governance | Governance structures can shape the equitability of decision-making, which ultimately determines housing program implementation and community outcomes. | Build governance structures that institutionalize an equitable and efficient implementation of the Affordable Housing Plan. |
Land Use | Land use policies shape where housing is located, what housing looks like, and how much housing is built. | Revise regulations and development approval processes to increase the supply of housing and slow the increase in housing cost, while protecting lower income and other marginalized communities. |
Tenants’ Rights | Tenants’ rights tools help low-income renters hold power over their lives and counter predatory and unjust practices. | Change local policy and advocate at the state level to expand Charlottesville’s ability to support tenants’ rights. |
Subsidy | Public subsidy is necessary to make the development of units affordable to low-income households feasible. | Focus and align subsidy programs with community-defined priorities and make changes to increase impacts. |
To view detailed recommendations for each topic, as well as example issues/concerns addressed by the recommendations, expand the titles below by clicking on “+”.