It is the major finding of the Virginia Housing Study Comission that the high cost and unavailability of housing is one of the most serious problems confronting citizens of the Commonwealth.

Characteristics of the high cost of housing are:

• Because of restrictive monetary policies, rates on conventional home mortgages, when obtainable, are in excess of the highest levels recorded in the last century in America.

• Mortgages on essentially all federally subsidized housing are unobtainable.

• Despite an eighteen (18) month freeze ending in January, 1973, rental rates have risen an average of 20% since 1970.

• Housing construction costs have risen ten percent (10%) annually since 1970 and are projected to rise thirteen percent (13%) in the next ten (10) months.

Characteristics of the unavailability of housing are:

• The several area-wide sewer and water moratoriums which will limit increases in the supply of housing almost to replacement levels only.

• The share of new construction which is high cost housing has been rising as a result of political, legal and environmental pressures; these pressures are squeezing low and moderate income families out of the housing market, and include:

l. An unwillingness by many suburban localities to accept a modest amount of low and moderately priced housing for core city inhabitants.

2. Legal road blocks to those few local ordinances which provide for scattered low and moderately priced housing in suburban localities.

3. Restrictive zoning practices establishing arbitrary new house-lot sizes, some as large as two (2) to five (5) acres, to satisfy sewerage disposal considerations.

The results of high and increasing housing costs due to tight money and inflation, and the reduction in housing construction and housing availability due to political, legal and environmental pressures are:

• The near absence anywhere in Virginia of new or old single family (except core-city) housing available for less than $22,000.

• A sharp reduction in the accessibility to any owneroccupied or rental housing unit by families with median or below median incomes. This is the continuation of a trend starting in 1960; between 1960 and 1970, the Virginia housing stock accessible by families with median incomes or less fell by 128,000 units while the housing stock accessible by above-median income families rose by 401,000 units.

• The absence of replacement housing for substandard housing which Virginia contains at twice the national average:

a. In 1970, 21.4% of all owner-occupied housing was valued at less than $10,000.

b. 22% of all rental units in Virginia in 1970 carried a monthly rent rate of $60 or less - an amount approximately equal to the maximum welfare shelter allowance excluding utilities.

• The growing utilization of mobile housing as the only financially manageable housing for families with median incomes or less. The number of mobile homes in use in Virginia grew eleven-fold between 1950 and 1970.

The State Housing Goal of "the Opportunity for Safe, Decent and Sanitary Housing, in an Environment Conducive to Pleasant Living for Every Virginian" is not being met due to the above factors. Constraints to the provision of plentiful, low cost housing imposed by high costs can be removed at the local, State and Federal levels. Constraints to the provision of plentiful, low cost housing imposed by political, legal and environmental considerations should be treated, foremost, at the local level.

It is the sentiment of the commission that planning districts and local Virginia governments bear the major planning and administrative burden of removing political, legal and environmental constraints to further increases in the supply of housing. These constraints should be removed with the legislative and financial assistance of both the state and federal government.

It is not in the public interest for local governments to utilize political, legal and environmental constraints as a rationale for slow growth, when the continued existence of these constraints is the result pf their own conscious inaction.