RD440 - Virginia Housing Commission 2013 Annual Report


Executive Summary:
The Virginia Housing Commission (VHC), a state legislative commission since 2004, has eight legislative members and three Governor's appointees; throughout the legislative interim the Commission meets for in-depth study of housing based issues. The Commission crafts and recommends housing-related legislation for passage by the Virginia General Assembly as well as presenting non-legislatively based options to create solutions for a wide variety of topics including but not limited to those of the affordable and workforce housing needs, neighborhood stabilization and revitalization, building codes changes, mortgage industry regulations, and property owner association concerns.

The Commission was created by the 1970 Session of the General Assembly "to study the ways and means best designed to utilize existing resources and develop facilities that will provide the Commonwealth's growing population with adequate housing." The Commission works to fulfill its initial mandate while also expanding its scope of topics to incorporate the ever changing housing and housing- related needs of the Commonwealth.

Under the strong leadership of Senator Mamie Locke, who served as Commission Chair, and Delegate Danny Marshal, who served as Vice-Chair the Virginia Housing Commission had a productive interim for 2013. The four permanent workgroups and one sub-workgroup tackled the issues pertaining to each topic area. Stakeholders, who apply to be workgroup members, provide varied perspectives to the workgroup members" legislators. Workgroup chairs were as follows: Senator John Watkins, Housing and the Environmental Standards; Delegate Rosalyn Dance, Neighborhood Transitions and Residential Land Use; Delegate Danny Marshall, Affordability, Real Estate Law and Mortgages; and Delegate David Bulova, Common Interest Communities. (The former delegate, John Cosgrove, chaired this group until his special election this summer where he became a senator and therefore no longer a member of the Virginia Housing Commission.) Elizabeth Palen continued to serve as the Commission's executive director.

Topics are chosen for the Commission's study by the Commission chair with the input of workgroup chairs. Additionally bills are referred by Committee during the General Assembly Session. In addition to the topics usually studied by the Commission, the Housing and Environmental Standards Workgroup discussed sea rise and its implications to coastal Virginia and throughout the Commonwealth. The sea rise effect upon planning, zoning, and building codes and insurance was studied. Familiar topics, such as the construction of the Fair Housing Law, and revitalization of existing structures were also discussed at length.

There were four full Commission meetings, and eleven workgroup and sub-workgroup meetings throughout the interim. The Affordability, Real Estate Law and Mortgages Workgroup and the Housing and the Environment Workgroup were most active; each recommended legislation to be endorsed during the up-coming 2014 Legislative Session. The First Time Home Buyer's Savings Account was recommended by the Affordability, Real Estate and Mortgages Workgroup, and the workgroup proposed a bill concerning the death or disability of a real estate broker. The Housing and the Environment Workgroup recommended an Adaptive Flooding resolution, and the Neighborhood Transitions group recommended a piece of legislation establishing the Building Revitalization Grant Fund. The entire Commission gave their endorsement to these pieces of legislation at the final Commission meeting on December 11, 2013. All details concerning these bills are outlined in the meeting summaries and materials that are available online under the Virginia Housing Commission ( http://dls.virginia.gov/commissions/vhc.htm).

This interim the Commission also toured sites in Norfolk and Portsmouth where the Commission viewed former Section 8 housing and an SRO (Single Room Occupancy) for the formerly homeless.

Sonya Wadell from the Federal Reserve spoke at the first Commission meeting in April and at the closing Commission meeting for 2013. She presented the most current housing and mortgage numbers for the Commonwealth to give the members a market overview and direction for housing topics to be studied and housing bills presented during the legislative session.

The Commission had Maurice Jones from HUD give a federal perspective on housing as well as Bob Sledd, from the Governor's office who spoke about the great strides made in combatting homelessness in the Commonwealth.

The Commission members work during the legislative session to assure that the recommended legislation becomes law and will meet again as a Commission in April of 2014.