Virginia Beach Housing Roundtable

The Housing Roundtable is a group of dedicated professionals from the public, private, and non-profit sectors, including Tidewater Builders Association, Empower Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach Community Development Corp., Faith Works Coalitions, the City of Virginia Beach Department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, and many other organizations.

The Housing Roundtable's guiding purpose is to encourage and help implement the development of workforce and affordable housing throughout the City of Virginia Beach. The Roundtable is a non-profit organization that has been in existence for 3 years and has conducted several public and stakeholder awareness campaign on affordable housing.

The Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation provides staffing resources to the Roundtable and they have a well organized group that meets monthly to discuss affordable housing issues and plan activities to expand the availability of workforce and affordable housing.

The Roundtable has adopted 5 goals. One of those goals is to conduct an ongoing "Public Awareness Campaign" on workforce housing. The Roundtable members hope the campaign will educate the general public and community leaders about the need for workforce housing and who it will serve. To achieve this goal Roundtable members have held several events which have been well attended by businesses, private citizens, public officials and other housing related organizations. So far, The Roundtable has held two breakfast meetings where more than 90 people attended each meeting. A bus tour was recently held of the James City County New Town development to see the implementation of mixed-income housing as a part of a major mixed-use project. There were more than 50 people attending this event.

The Roundtable desires to continue its Public Awareness Campaign through additional informational events such as speaking engagements, breakfast meetings, civic league meetings, and tours of local workforce housing developments. The Housing Roundtable believes this effort is critical to making the general public and the elected officials knowledgeable about workforce housing, who it serves, why it is needed, and how it benefits the community at large.

The Housing Roundtable will hold breakfast meetings where influential community leaders (members of local businesses, elected officials, non-profit organizations and public officials) are invited to attend and learn about workforce housing and mixed-income housing as a benefit to the City, local businesses, the workforce community, and all members of the community.

The Roundtable will also conduct tours of successful residential workforce development projects to provide a visual image of what workforce communities can look like. By hosting these tours the community can witness first hand that workforce housing can offer very attractive developments while providing housing that is affordable to all members of the community.

The Roundtable also plans to be an active participant in the research on the impact of mixed-income housing on local property values being proposed by the Richmond Partnership for Affordable Housing.

Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission

The Charlottesville Regional HOME Consortium is operated by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission and has been a leader in affordable housing in both the region and state since 1993. It provides close to a million dollars a year for housing rehabilitation or new construction for qualifying families in the Charlottesville area. The Consortium is currently engaged in a year-long cross organization joint marketing campaign aimed at decision makers and businesses to create a more favorable environment to develop and maintain affordable housing.

In March 2008 the HOME Consortium and other partners sponsored the Regional Housing Conference: “Finding Common Ground.” Prompted by the 2006 State of Housing Report's evaluation housing trends and needs and projection of a particular future demand for affordable housing, the conference addressed ways to provide housing for segments of the populations whose needs are not being satisfied by the conventional homes in today’s marketplace. The Finding Common Ground Conference produced a Regional Action Agenda for Housing which evolved into four categories of working groups. The Education and Advocacy category established a goal of developing and implementing a comprehensive marketing strategy to inform the public and officials about the need for and benefit of sufficient affordable housing in the region, as well as currently available resources. Housing Virginia was identified as the lead partner and has begun working with other groups in the region, including the Thomas Jefferson HOME Consortium.

The Thomas Jefferson Regional HOME Consortium will create graphics and materials conveying the message "community prosperity begins with an investment in affordable housing."  This material will tie in Housing Virginia’s new marketing materials around “There’s more to Affordable Housing than you think”.  The Consortium will enlist local organization to join the campaign as community partners and embed this message in their materials and presentations. They will also further education and advocacy efforts by hosting public events, making presentations to area groups and elected bodies, and using the media to convey the message through news articles and public service announcements.

Through these efforts the Consortium hopes to produce new ordinances facilitating the development of affordable housing and maintenance of affordability over time. The marketing strategy also aims to create increased funding support for affordable housing from localities as well as increased foundation and donor support of affordable housing.

Preliminary Data for Affordable Housing Marketing Campaign

Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance
   
NVAHA will put on a series of workshops for developers, featuring financial and legal housing experts, to discuss the array of tools that can be used to finance mixed-use development with an affordable housing component in high cost, high density areas in Northern Virginia. A tour of affordable housing developments in the area will be included. Workshop participants will visit affordable housing projects in high cost, high density areas, such as Arlington in the Rosslyn-Ballston Metro corridor and the City of Alexandria.

The first session, held in June 2009, focused on potential residential developers currently located in Tysons Corner.  Additional sessions are planned for the fall, examining budgets and pro formas of actual deals to discuss financially feasible development strategies that include affordable units. Planning and zoning considerations will be discussed as well.  Developers will assist in determining the agenda to insure that workshops are addressing their concerns.

These workshops will create a better understanding by market rate developers of the financial and regulatory tools that support the development of affordable housing in high cost/high density areas, better understanding by local government agencies for the need for flexibility in planning strategies to support these outcomes.
   
The Alliance will work in partnership on these workshops with the Innovative Housing Institute, a national affordable housing development consultant, and the Urban Land Institute's Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing. 

The Partnership for Housing Affordability

The Partnership for Housing Affordability was founded in 2004 in order to create awareness about affordable housing issues and to help to provide solutions with the support of concerned citizens and community and business leaders. The Partnership envisions a coordinated, regional approach to affordable housing that is supported by the citizens and elected leadership of the jurisdictions that make up the Richmond metropolitan area. With the commitment of needed resources and the adoption of necessary policies by local leaders, Richmond residents can live in vibrant and sustainable communities, characterized by a breadth of diversity among the residents, a variety of affordable housing choices, the integration of needed services, efficient use of the public infrastructure, and strategic preservation of natural resources.

The objective of the Partnership’s Affordable Housing Awareness Week (AHAW) is to increase awareness of the challenges related to housing affordability in the Richmond area with educational programs and events attended by the public, local business and government leaders and the media, and to directly assist those in need of affordable housing by providing large numbers of volunteers to work directly with local housing non-profits.

This year’s AHAW will begin with an educational symposium held at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond on Monday morning, April 19th. During this time, the Partnership will introduce its local study on mixed income/mixed housing type communities and their potential environmental, planning and economic benefits to the area. Following the symposium, a bus tour will leave from the University of Richmond that will show some of the sites included in the study, and will preview worksites that will be included in Affordable Housing Awareness Week. From April 20th-April 24th, volunteers will serve at work sites organized by AHAW’s housing non-profit partners, performing duties related to the construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing units in the greater Richmond area. An additional feature during AHAW in 2010 will be a “Homeless Simulation” program organized by Homeward, where leaders in the community will attempt to access area services for the homeless, and report on their experiences. The “Homeless Simulation” is scheduled for Thursday, April 22nd.