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Affordable Living Policy draft: work group lays out 24 goals, urges focus on rentals, preservation and funding
Summary
Consultants and the Affordable Living Policy work group presented a draft comp-plan amendment with 24 goals to address Falls Church's housing needs, prioritizing rental affordability, preserving committed affordable units and securing dedicated funding; council asked for sequencing and action plans and sent the draft to commissions for further review.
City staff and consultants from the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance gave council a high-level briefing on a draft Affordable Living Policy (ALP) that is being developed as an amendment to the city's comprehensive plan. The ALP work group identified 24 goals and highlighted a set of priority items: increasing the share of affordable dwelling units captured in development (work-group priority suggested increasing from 6% to 12% in some documents), adopting land-use and regulatory policies to support a housing continuum, preserving committed affordable housing (goal of zero net loss), expanding family-sized and accessible units, and securing dedicated funding to support an affordable-housing program.
Consultants Jill Norcross and Michelle Crocker summarized data that shows renters are disproportionately cost-burdened in Falls Church: median homeowner income in the city is about $212,000 while median renter income is about $116,000; a real-time jobs analysis showed many local occupations cannot afford fair-market rents. The work group also identified potential strategies that do not always require city funds (for example, zoning and partnership actions) and emphasized the need for an action plan with financing to follow council review.
Council members asked for sequencing (which goals to prioritize), clearer discussion of funding consequences, and assurance that the housing commission and other advisory bodies would review the draft; staff confirmed the housing commission, HSAC and the work group will review and provide feedback at scheduled meetings before the document returns to council for further action.
