The Shortline 6-28-24
Harrisonburg population decreases, ALICE population grows • Winchester is VA's fastest-growing metro area • Redeveloping commercial corridors into mixed-use urban places to solve the housing crisis
I skipped last week’s roundup. I’ve been intending to do more longer-form analysis like the one about festivals I published yesterday (as opposed to just a smattering of headlines). I may end up publishing less frequent Shortline round-ups (maybe twice a month) so that I can make room for the local policy and analysis stuff.
The Citizen reported about the ALICE update given to Harrisonburg City Council by the United Way of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.
“Although Harrisonburg’s total population decreased by 278 people from 2023 to 2024, the number of households in poverty increased by 356, or 2% of the city’s population.”
That’s right. Harrisonburg’s population has been decreasing.
And yet some still hold on to the narrative that Harrisonburg is “full.” For comparison, here’s the chart for the same period in Rockingham County.
“Currently, 6,358 households fall below the ALICE threshold and 3,942 households live in poverty in Harrisonburg, according to 2024 CENSUS data collected by the United Way of Harrisonburg & Rockingham County. The number of households both in poverty and that fall below the ALICE threshold increased by 2% each from 2023 … Harrisonburg’s increase in low-income households is partially due to the decrease in stimulus payments from the government.”
There are no easy short-term solutions to address this. Long-term, Harrisonburg needs a community land trust. The best thing the city can do to address both the climate crisis and economic inequality is to focus on ways to make housing more abundant and affordable in the city. That means reforming our zoning ordinance to legalize types of affordable housing that are not currently legal to build by-right (multiplexes, basement apartments, backyard cottages/casitas, manufactured housing, and single-room occupancy units).
A few other local headlines:
Harrisonburg City Council approved a proposal for the city’s Transit Strategic Plan. The strategic plan will be implemented over the next 10 years pending approval from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation. (Rocktown Now)
The Harrisonburg Parks and Recreation Department has unveiled the design of the spraygrounds project at Ralph Sampson Park. (Rocktown Now)
Virginia
Since 2013, Virginia has consistently seen more people move out than move in. We don’t really know why. Perhaps it is time for the commission that oversees JLARC to authorize a study to find out. (Cardinal News)
Since 2020, Winchester has gained traction as Virginia’s fastest-growing metro area due to an outflow of remote workers from the Washington, D.C., region to the exurbs. That’s squeezing the local housing market and boosting prices — as well as causing worry among the region’s leaders. (Virginia Business)
Hampton Roads is less affordable than places like Richmond or the Washington, D.C., suburbs, primarily due to a mismatch between wages and housing costs. A new housing advocacy group, YIMBY Hampton Roads invites development where it sees need and pushes local governments to do their part to make housing more affordable. (VPM)
Richmond set aside $3 million in the next fiscal cycle for residents to decide how to spend. The process, called participatory budgeting and dubbed "the people's budget," started gaining traction in U.S. cities in 2019. (Axios Richmond)
Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, which has been working with nonprofits Girls For A Change and Happily Natural Day on the proposed Bensley Agrihood project, issued a statement that it had withdrawn the group’s rezoning application after multiple deferrals by the Chesterfield Planning Commission to hear the case. (Richmond BizSense)
A new state law that will take effect on July 1 gives local jurisdictions the authority to set speed limits on state roads no lower than 15 miles per hour. Will they? (WUSA 9)
The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on a case that will determine whether localities across the country can criminalize sleeping in public — even when shelters are unavailable and homeless individuals have nowhere else to go.
Advocates who work with the local homeless population are anxiously awaiting a decision, concerned about the potential reverberating effects. (The Virginian-Pilot)
The Washington County Planning Commission voted to deny a more than 2,000 acre solar farm project proposed by Catalyst Energy Partners. (WCYB)
The Caroline County Board of Supervisors again voted down a proposed 900-acre data center project. Supervisors said there is plenty of land zoned industrial that can accommodate data centers without adding that location, which is west of Interstate 95 and along the North Anna River. (Fredericksburg Free Press)
Elsewhere
Low-density, use-separated suburban sprawl makes no environmental sense in an era of climate change and extreme wildfires. The Post fire burning near the site of 20,000 future homes ought to make frighteningly clear why it’s important to increase housing density within Los Angeles. (Los Angeles Times)
Redeveloping commercial corridors into mixed-use urban places could solve the housing crisis, according to CNU cofounder Peter Calthorpe. The “grand boulevard” strategy could be implemented with a basic form-based code with zero parking requirements. (CNU)
The mayor of Maui County in Hawaii wants to halt vacation properties from renting to visitors via businesses like Airbnb and VRBO. Instead, he wants the units rented long-term to people who live on Maui to address a chronic housing shortage that intensified after last August’s deadly wildfires in Lahaina. (CBS News)
What if we could build houses in the same way the automotive industry produces cars? The U.S. once looked to modular construction as an efficient way to build lots of housing at scale, but Sweden picked up the idea and put it into practice. (The New York Times)
Costco's unlikely entry into California's prefab modular unit housing market demonstrates how land use regulations restrict supply in the face of demand. Secondly, it shows how land use regulations shape the form in which supply manifests. (Urban Proxima)
New research from the University of Kansas finds that most of the nation’s markets have ample housing in total, but nearly all lack enough units affordable to very low-income households. (KU News)
The housing deficit is the root cause of the housing affordability crisis: The housing shortage grew to 4.5 million homes in 2022, up from 4.3 million the year before. A new analysis from Zillow shows that the nation's housing deficit is deepening. (WPEC)
On 1 July, there will be unprecedented new curbs on the power and excesses of HOAs in Florida. It could prompt a sea change in how Florida’s 50,000 HOAs are run. (The Guardian)
The takings clause of the Fifth Amendment requires that, when the government takes “private property,” it must pay “just compensation." As Joshua Braver and Ilya Somin argue in a forthcoming Texas Law Review article, because exclusionary zoning severely restricts property owners’ right to use their land, they believe that it qualifies as such a taking, and is therefore unconstitutional unless the government pays compensation. (The Atlantic)
Two Wisconsin towns are being sued over wind ordinances they passed that are stricter than state regulations on renewable energy developments. It’s a case that could have ramifications for the state’s clean energy transition. (WPR)
Scientists from the UW-led Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center mapped millions of acres of abandoned farmland across the U.S. over several decades in a new study. Some of this abandoned farmland is could be put into use for renewable energy production. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
The Duke Street Cottages in Granite Falls, N.C. are built to the Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home standards, all priced below $270,000. DOE zero energy-ready homes are meant to be at least 20 percent more efficient than the typical new home built to code. Energy Star Homes are at least 10 percent more efficient. The developer expects the homes will rarely if ever see a monthly energy bill over $100. (WSOC)
Montreal is the latest city to entirely eliminate mandatory parking minimums, and the largest North American city to have done so. The global climate and housing crises has moved many municipal governments worldwide to do the same. (Cult MTL)
Vancouver city councillors have voted to eliminate minimum vehicle parking requirements for all types of land use in the city. Developing a parking spot can cost between $110,000 to $150,00 per unit. The cost is typically then passed down to the buyer or tenant. (CTV News)
And here’s an interesting video on Helsinki’s transportation system for the transit nerds: