Norfolk studies housing needs
City Council seeks ways to assist with affordable homes
Norfolk’s affordable housing stock was a main topic during the City Council’s work session Tuesday afternoon.
Housing experts from HR&A Advisors visited City Hall to give a preliminary report from their most recent assessment ahead of the council’s planned retreat in April. In the larger study, analysts are looking to answer what the current housing needs are and how the city can create policies that address them. “The real intent here is to tee off a conversation with council members and the staff at our retreat in April regarding actual policies that the council may want to adopt to try and assist with affordable housing,” City Manager Chip Filer said.
According to the preliminary report, about a third of households in the city make less than $35,000 per year, and Norfolk holds a “disproportionate” share of poverty in Hampton Roads.
Within city limits, poverty is further concentrated in certain areas and neighborhoods. Phillip Kash, a partner with HR&A, said that may be because Norfolk has the most federally subsidized housing in the region, and subsidized housing is highly concentrated in larger multifamily buildings.
“(Norfolk has) a lot of areas of higher poverty, and you have a limited number of areas that were multifamily housing (that) can be built and those two tend to overlap,” Kash said. “Deconcentrating (poverty) within Norfolk is challenging because of the poverty but also because of the land use. That said, (the city has) been building more of the recent affordable housing in areas of less poverty.”
Most of the city’s single-family new construction and new multifamily units are concentrated in East Ocean View, neighborhoods near Old Dominion University and downtown due to stagnant population growth. Kash said this could influence market-driven de-investment and decline.
However, Norfolk also has the most diverse housing stock in Hampton Roads: 43% are homes owned by single-family homeowners, 21% are rented single-family homes, 11% are rentals that contain 2-4 units and 21% are rentals with more than five units. In many other cities, Kash said, zoning has prevented such a diverse stock, meaning Norfolk has an advantage.
“(Other cities are) now looking for that level of density and the ability to attract younger households. This is actually good housing stock and actually can be really important for supporting economic growth. It’s playing a valuable role in your city right now. It’s actually the majority of your affordable housing is not subsidized,” Kash said. “It’s actually market-rate housing that’s not been as well maintained in areas that are ‘not as desirable.’ It’s (naturally occurring affordable housing). We’re talking about older small multifamily rental properties. These same properties can be invested in both to provide affordable housing but also to attract people into and create more urban, vibrant neighborhoods.”
Filer said the city has multiple options when it comes to next steps council members can begin to consider. One could be a housing trust. If a developer was not interested in allowing some units in new buildings to be designated as affordable, he or she would have to contribute a certain amount of funding into a designated trust for housing. Another option would require developers to build affordable units in another part of the city if they did not want to include it in their own building.
“We do have budgetary capacity to do affordable housing initiatives,” Filer said. “But we really have got to put this money to programs and grant funds, whatever it looks like, that are going to work. Because we just don’t have the budget capacity (to spend funds) on what we hope would work.”