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Planning staff reviews five‑year progress on Richmond 300 master plan; highlights housing targets, code refresh and community concerns
Summary
Planning Department staff presented the annual implementation report on Richmond 300, highlighting community engagement, housing production data and forthcoming code‑refresh work; commissioners and a resident speaker raised concerns about infrastructure, funding and inclusivity of neighborhood plans.
Mary Anne Pitts, a member of the Planning Department’s Richmond 300 implementation team, presented the commission’s annual update on the citywide master plan at the Feb. 26 meeting.
Pitts said the planning and policy team — including planners Bridal Mercer, Samantha Lewis, Lola Neal and recently promoted GIS planner Erica Banks — conducted more than 51 public meetings and engaged an estimated 1,585 Richmond residents over the past year. The report summarized the plan’s vision for 2037 and the maps that guide implementation: nodes (current and future activity centers), priority neighborhoods (including public housing sites managed by the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority), future land use and future connections.
On housing, Pitts reported development activity the city identifies as involving Planning Department interaction: 107 affordable rental, homeownership or permanent supportive‑housing units with certificates of occupancy in 2023 and 43 such units in 2024. Fiscal‑year goals on the slide shown to the commission set a target of 500 units for FY2025 and 800 units for FY2026. Pitts said the totals reported reflect only projects in which the city had some involvement; they are not a comprehensive count of all housing activity in Richmond.
Pitts outlined funding sources that have supported recent housing activity, including American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocations, a rising performance‑grant tax‑rebate program and a $10 million bond for equitable affordable housing noted in the presentation. She warned that the planned decline of one‑time ARPA monies will reduce capacity for some operating programs: the number of households receiving housing services and critical‑repair assistance shown in the department’s figures declines in later fiscal years as ARPA funding drops off.
The presentation covered several implementation projects and plans in progress: a code‑refresh (zoning rewrite) with draft districts posted online and a target of adoption by early 2026; the Jackson Ward community plan (work paused to address north‑vs‑south‑of‑the‑highway concerns and to add more strategies for Second Street); redevelopment work on RRHA properties including Gilpin and Mosby South; the Reconnect Jackson Ward project (federal grant executed; goal is 30% construction drawings); Fall Line Trail Bryant Park segment and James River Park branch trail under construction; the parks master plan (target adoption May 2025); an urban forestry master plan in procurement; and transit planning with GRTC for the North‑South Bus Rapid Transit corridor.
Commissioners asked several questions about metrics and implementation. Pitts said the city is updating its metrics and noted some measurement limits: the ‘‘walk score’’ cited is a national metric that may not reflect local changes; sidewalk mileage for 2024 was reported as 880 miles after recalculations with Public Works; the city reported 85 miles of bikeway lanes in its internal counts. Pitts said the zoning code refresh will be phased — districts, uses, development standards and administrative rules — with additional outreach and a goal of presenting mapped draft districts in advance of final adoption.
During public comment, Preston Lloyd, a resident of the Fifth District and a former member of the Richmond 300 advisory committee, urged the commission to build flexibility into the master plan to allow infrastructure investments to unlock under‑invested areas of Southside. Lloyd said market pressures have concentrated development and land costs in nodes where infrastructure already exists, and he recommended allowing applicants to demonstrate accompanying infrastructure investments as part of proposals for higher density in areas that currently lack capacity.
Pitts said staff will return information on specific topics — for example, tracking where the city is relative to the total development‑cost performance target and which projects are most dependent on ARPA or other at‑risk funding — and that staff will bring proposed master‑plan amendments to the commission during the 2025 five‑year review process.
No formal votes were taken on the Richmond 300 update; the item was presented for information and discussion.
