A coalition of housing nonprofits that has pushed for more density in Richmond’s Code Refresh zoning overhaul is urging City Council to pass the latest draft without making it more restrictive.
Why it matters: Homes for All Our Neighbors says Draft 3 is a big improvement over the city’s zoning rules — but still doesn’t go far enough to open single-family neighborhoods to more types of housing.
State of play: The 24-member coalition released a report card last week grading Draft 3 against the housing priorities it’s pushed since early in the zoning overhaul.
- Its verdict: Draft 3 gets credit for larger ADUs, more mixed-use development and anti-displacement measures, but falls short on broadly opening neighborhoods to duplexes and other lower-cost housing types.
- The report card comes as public comments on the Draft 3 zoning map opened this week. The proposal is expected to head to City Council afterward for final review.
Zoom in: The group analyzed the city’s parcel-level data, compared Draft 3 against existing zoning and measured the changes against its goals. Here’s how they graded Draft 3:
- F — on allowing duplexes on all single-family lots. The group’s analysis found only 2.2% of currently single-family-only parcels would gain duplexes by right.
- D — on allowing at least one step up in housing density in every neighborhood, noting 96% of R-1 land becomes RD-A, the most restrictive new residentialdistrict.
- B+ — on increasing the maximum ADU size to 1,200 square feet.
- B — for new displacement guardrails designed to help keep longtime residents in their homes.
What they’re saying: Richmond’s housing challenge isn’t just about building more units, but about what gets built and where, coalition member and HOME of Virginia policy advocate Annika Schunn told Axios in an earlier interview.
- Schunn said Richmond needs smaller-scale multifamily and “missing middle” housing spread across more neighborhoods, rather than concentrating most new housing in a few areas.
The other side: Mayor Avula said in a statement that the goal with Draft 3 was to balance competing priorities across the city while still advancing housing supply and affordability.
- He added that input from HOME and other housing advocates ultimately helped improve the proposal.
Meanwhile: The newly opened comment map is already drawing objections from some longtime Code Refresh critics, including calls to scale back mixed-use zoning and ADU size and preserve more restrictive residential rules, per an Axios review…