City Passes Affordable Housing Amendment to Comprehensive Plan

The City of Fairfax has taken a clear step toward attempting to increase the availability of affordable housing within its borders.

At its most recent meeting, the City Council unanimously passed an amendment to the City's Comprehensive Plan that makes it clear that having a mix of different housing types to match many different ages and economic statuses is a priority.

READ: City Council Mulls Over Comprehensive Plan Amendment to Encourage More Developers to Offer Affordable Housing Units

The challenge in making this happen was finding the right balance between encouraging that more developers offer affordable housing within their proposed city projects, while also not scaring developers away.

After debating and revising the language a few times, City staff, members of the City-appointed housing affordability work group, and the Mayor and City Council unanimously passed an amendment to the City's Comprehensive Plan last week.

The amendment adds language to the Comprehensive Plan that shows that affordable housing is a priority and offers incentives to developers that offer it, while also staying generic enough that they hope developers won't feel trapped into offering anything specific that may cause them to hesitate before applying to build in the city.

In working on the proposed amendment, City Council members were provided with some facts about city housing to help put things in perspective. Statistics show that the area median income (AMI) for Fairfax City is around $111,000 per year, which should mean that the majority of residents can reasonably afford the average owner-occupied property. However, there are still a percentage of residents that don't even quite make 50 percent of AMI. And, in recent years, housing prices have been steadily increasing in Fairfax City.

Therefore, the proposed added language to the Comprehensive Plan spells out that the City recognizes the need for a broad mix of housing types that are desirable and affordable to several income groups, and that they strongly encourage developers to offer provisions as such, including potentially agreeing to set aside units for residents who make less than the AMI.

The amendment also suggests that the City is open to other options that increase the availability of affordable housing, such as monitoring and maintaining existing affordable housing stock, continuing to look out for new affordable housing opportunities, potentially forming a housing trust fund, and crafting an official affordable housing strategy.

A handful of audience members spoke during the public hearing at the City Council meeting last week, applauding the City's efforts to make progress on this issue and expressing the desire to see the Council pass the amendment.

Rachel Gregory, who lives in the existing Layton Hall apartments—that were recently approved for redevelopment, at a loss of roughly 100 affordable housing units—said she sees firsthand on a regular basis how the difficulty in finding affordable housing affects a lot of people such as her neighbors, co-workers and fellow church-goers.

"What you’re doing here tonight, in changing the Comprehensive Plan, is just a first step. It’s a statement of purpose," she said. "You’re saying to people like me, we matter. Our community is your community too."

She said the City's efforts have not gone unnoticed, particularly in a time of political turmoil in the country, and said she thought the passing of the amendment would go a long way in restoring some people's faith in government.

"I want to be able to go back to my co-workers, to my building, and to my church, and say, politics worked for once," she added. "That a group of politicians with very different viewpoints got together and made a choice."

Rev. Scott Sammler-Michael of the nonprofit group VOICE, which is a multi-congregational group that helps advocate for affordable housing in the region, said they knocked on 150 doors recently to ask locals how challenges of housing affordability affect them.

Rev. Sammler-Michael said after doing so, the need is even more apparent to their group, as they talked to business owners who say they have a tough time holding on to employees in some of their lower-wage positions; seniors who want to age in place; and other lower-income workers.

Literature distributed by VOICE indicates that, according to their calculations, there are more than 1,300 families in Fairfax City who make less than $50,000 per year, yet there are currently only around 400 "affordable" housing units in the city—and after redevelopment projects currently in the works are completed, that number of units will only be around 200.

One example Rev. Sammler-Michael gave as he addressed the Council was of a woman who works as a supervisor of more than 300 employees at the Fairfax Nursing Center, yet makes only $45,000 per year, and therefore has a hard time being able to afford to live near where she works.

"She could not even qualify for the proposed 'affordable housing' that developers like [the one who will be redeveloping Layton Hall] so generously set aside at 60-percent AMI," he said.

"We all want to see Fairfax remain a place for people of all ages, incomes, backgrounds, and [economic status]," he continued. "So we applaud your courage here tonight and your diligence on the issue."

Rev. Sammler-Michael took a moment to praise how accessible and open to input and ideas he said the City has been throughout the process of working on the proposed amendment and broader challenge of affordable housing.

After tinkering with a bit of the language the Council, in the end, passed the proposed amendment unanimously, with a vote of 6-0.

Many of the councilmembers touched upon the fact that their work did not end there, and pledged to continue to work on additional strategies to increase the availability of a broad mix of housing types and price levels in the city.

"Setting aside units in a new development is just one tool in the tool kit," said Councilmember Michael DeMarco. "In my mind, it alone is not going to solve the broader affordability issue."

"I don’t think the issue of affordable housing, or even economic development in general, is an issue that can be quote-unquote ‘solved,'" said Councilmember David Meyer. "It’s a challenge, and we can either manage it well, or we can manage it poorly. I believe making these changes to the plan will be one important step as we move into the future."

Councilmember Ellie Schmidt agreed.

"We still have a lot of work to do. This doesn’t end tonight, and we’ve talked about that," she said. "And I think it’s important, as we move forward in the process, that we solicit input from a lot of stakeholders."

Councilmembers Steve Stombres and Dan Drummond touched upon the need to be as flexible as possible so as to continue to attract developers to the city, while also setting access to affordable housing as a priority.

"We want to strike that balance between that critical need to provide for affordable housing in the city, and the very real desire to encourage and provide incentive for developers to continue to invest in the City of Fairfax. And I think that’s a balance we can achieve," Stombres said.

"I want a policy that shows that we do care about the people. We’re talking about families and real people that live here, and their lives. People that are just trying to make ends meet and have a job and get their kids educated. And that’s not lost on me," Stombres added. "But it’s a process that has to be fair for everybody. That’s what I hope this project will be."

"We’re trying to find an overarching, broad goal; we’re not getting into the nitty-gritty of specifics," Drummond said. "It’s a framework that’s broad and offers flexibility."      

One man who represents one of the city's biggest landowners, Combined Properties, did come to address the Council during the meeting—and he praised the amendment, to the delight of Mayor Scott Silverthorne, who had been told by City staff that several had spoken out against it in a recent Planning Commission meeting, calling it too strict.

The man from Combined Properties said it would only benefit his company's centers throughout the city if the city continued to flourish and attract people of all different income levels and professions, who want a variety of different types of housing.

"We have a deep and vested interest in seeing the city continue to grow and thrive. If the city thrives, our centers thrive. If the city dwindles, our centers dwindle," he said. "So I am here to speak in favor of this amendment."

The Council and City staff agreed that one of the next steps it should take would be to invite back developers that have spoken out against the amendment and encourage them to be a part of the process moving forward, in identifying strategies that work to the benefit of all.

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