Virginia’s average home price has increased 6% over the last year, bringing it up to nearly $400,000 dollars. Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Abigail Spanberger offered ideas to address the problem at an event in Henrico County Friday morning.
“We have people that are gainfully employed that now cannot afford to live in the localities in which they work because of a lack of supply,” said Martin Johnson with the Virginia Realtors association, discussing the state’s housing woes.
He was one of the people who came to hear Democratic gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger push ideas for increasing Virginia’s housing supply. With townhomes under construction in the background, the candidate said she’d work with the legislature to address the supply issue Johnson mentioned.
“A one size fits all solution isn’t the right one for Virginia. So, it isn’t about creating mandates, it's about ensuring all communities have both the tools they need to facilitate additional housing and any hurdles that exist at the state level are ones we are working quickly and expediently to level,” Spanberger said.
More details include streamlining permitting, financial investments from both the executive and legislative branches and giving localities the ability to leverage bonds to invest in development.
Her disinterest in mandates, forcing localities to green-light more housing, may run in conflict with those who want a heavy legislative hand pushing localities towards housing targets.
Henrico County Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg, also in attendance Friday, has pushed a carrot and stick approach— create tools to incentivize new home construction, set benchmarks and use the stick if localities fail to meet those benchmarks. But he said Spanberger’s vision lines up with his in the end.
“They can hit their targets however they want, and they don’t technically have to make any changes to hit that target," VanValkenburg said. "If they want to be inoculated from any punishment they have to make some changes, but those changes can be the types of changes they want to make.”
For more on Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears' ideas on housing, check out my larger coverage here.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
