Thread by @socialistdogmom

four candidates for charlottesville city council are participating in a candidate forum hosted by habitat for humanity at UVA this afternoon - brian pinkston, sena magill, bob fenwick, and michael payne. the focus is affordable housing.

pinkston starts off by saying affordable housing is important because people like “police and firefighters” need to be able to afford to live here 😒
sena says she got into the race because her husband was hurt in august 2017 and the time to get involved is now.

fenwick, who has previously served on council, says he’s the only candidate with experience actually building housing (he has a contracting business).
michael payne works for habitat for humanity, cofounded the local chapter of indivisible, and is a community organizer with CLIHC

payne says he grew up in charlottesville and feels the pressure of the housing crisis himself, paying more than half his income in rent.
“platitudes don’t pay the rent” and we need real solutions to this crisis.

(having some trouble with the twitter app today? hopefully i’m able to tweet through this event!)

fenwick asks if people are afraid of the word “subsidized,” that people “get defensive” when that conversation is had.
he says businesses have no qualms about getting subsidies, citing the dewberry hotel specifically.

payne says we can’t just provide public housing without also providing opportunities for people to become homeowners, building equity and generational wealth.
he says zoning reform and strengthening neighborhood development services are critical.

sena says we need a housing strike fund. residents of belmont apartments are currently being forced out. she says we should’ve been able to purchase that property to make the repairs without forcing people about of affordable housing.

“i don’t think anybody right now says our zoning code is easy to work with” or that it allows for the density we need to allow our landlocked city to grow - sena magill

brian pinkston agrees with what’s been said already. “we have an ethical obligation” to take care of existing public housing and places like friendship court.
he also mentions the need for zoning reform.

pinkston says university housing policy is a critical piece of the housing problem in charlottesville, noting that may be a dangerous thing to say here (at UVA, as a UVA employee).
“it affects the neighborhoods,” he says.

sena: “i definitely support changing our existing zoning laws.”
in her work at region 10, she worked with many low & fixed income individuals. she’s worked at PACEM, with houseless individuals.
“it stops you from dreaming,” she says about the inaccessibility of home ownership

anybody know why lloyd snook isn’t participating in the forum? he’s the only democratic candidate on the ballot not in attendance today. (also absent are the independent candidates paul long, john hall, and bellamy brown)

fenwick says we have the tools, policies, and studies... what people want is housing.
“i will not support layering on the bureaucracy until we use the tools we have.”

fenwick says in his 4 years on council he never saw a special use permit where a developer was held to the number of units requires by the current law.

payne says the history of zoning in charlottesville is explicitly tied to the history of racial covenants, which excluded african americans from home ownership.
over half the city is zoned for R1, despite the biggest need being for one bedroom rentals.

payne says zoning hasn’t been updated since 2003 & a lot has changed since then.
he also says we must find a permanent revenue stream for the affordable housing fund. “every year we have a battle” over that funding.

payne: “affordable” housing is often defined at 80% AMI, which in charlottesville is $65k annually. we need to define what is affordable.

payne brings up the belmont apartments, currently in the news because residents are being displaced. he’s working with residents as an organizer with CLIHC to organize a tenants’ association

cvilletomorrow.org/articles/commu…

payne: “by the time we hear about gentrification and displacement, it’s probably too late,” we need proactive solutions.

sena thanks michael for his work with the residents in belmont apartments, saying she has worked with residents of those units in her time at region 10. maybe of those residents are elderly and disabled.

sena says the first step is going into communities and talking to people - why are they moving out? is it affordability? she says young african americans in her community don’t feel that there is “anything for them to do” there.

sena lives in a neighborhood that is being rapidly gentrified, mostly by people flipping houses.

pinkston again says michael’s work is important & we need more of it.

pinkston on gentrification: “these communities are under enormous pressure to gentrify,” pressure from outside developers “who are basically just following the market’s lead.”

pinkston says we need to focus on “raising the quality of life and the standard of living” of families in these communities via methods like investing in schools.

fenwick says habitat for humanity is consistently on the forefront on matters of affordable housing.
partnerships between the city & university are important.

fenwick warns that a national recession is coming - “we are long overdue for the next one” and he is very concerned.
of recent federal tax cuts - “that did not add one more affordable house or unit in this country”

fenwick says cuts to federal housing funding put enormous pressure on local government.
he again emphasizes the importance of holding developers to the law - make them provide the # of units the law requires.

fenwick says bodies like council & the HAC must represent the demographic makeup of the people they serve in order to serve the city well.

on the question of city/university relations:
pinkston cites a recent report from UVA, saying a key piece is “institutional accountability”

pinkston is the only one of the four i don’t know personally & i am not familiar with him or his positions - he’s speaking in generalities and it’s making it hard to summarize.

“it’s not rocket science,” says payne. we know what the solutions are, we just need to implement them.
the university pays no property taxes on property it owns - if they did, it would be over $10mil/yr.

uva is starting to take action toward a living wage, which payne applauds. “15 is a great start,” but living wage in charlottesville is closer to $20/hr.
he says the university should partner with the city to build workforce housing.

sena: UVA has increased student population by nearly 5000 since 1992, but had only added ~600 student units, which has flooded the local rental market with students.

signal is awful in this building. maybe it’s the rainy weather? i’ve missed a few things while my phone considers whether or not it would like to post the previous tweet...

everyone but fenwick has specifically mentioned UVA leasing rather than purchasing property in the city to keep those properties in the city’s tax base.

pinkston says we need to think about infrastructure - this will be more important as climate change worsens.

sena says we have to stop thinking of ourselves in silos - we have to work not only with UVA but with albemarle county. working in nonprofits, she’s familiar with the danger of siloing.

sena says we could work with the county to build parking & transit options on the property they own downtown (the albemarle county office building, which is in the city)

fenwick: “keep it simple,” “keep the experts, paid consultants, and facilitators out,” let the people do it. “don’t think you’re gonna solve this problem all at once.”

payne says he considers the city & county one community. “that’s just an arbitrary line,” that many people live and work on opposite sides of. “we’re seeing undirected sprawl” because of lack of coordination between localities.

payne: “we need stronger public transportation” for both environmental and cost of living reasons.
“it’s going to harm everyone” if we can’t build stronger regional partnerships.

payne: one in four cville residents can’t afford basic necessities. average home price is $350k. we need “bold decisive action” to solve this crisis before we become SF, NOVA, or Austin in terms of displacement. “it doesn’t have to be this way.”

payne: we need to partner with and support nonprofits, community land trusts, and residents.

fenwick: “before we embark on any new grandiose plans” we need to understand all the tools we already have. he again emphasizes community involvement at council meetings, particularly when developers are asking for special use permits.

sena: affordable housing is a crisis nationwide & we need action now. focus on: improving the zoning code to allow greater density, funding for land strike funds, creating & maintaining affordable housing, building with climate change in mind.

sena: “you don’t want to go to a hospital in a snowstorm and find that the entire nursing staff lives in buckingham and can’t get there.”

pinkston thanks the audience for their concern and empathy for those who need affordable housing... this underscores the divide between the city and university. his assumption is that everyone in this room is a UVA student (and a wealthy one).

pinkston has largely repeated & underscored points made by other candidates. they are good points, but they don’t feel like his own? it will take me a few more forums to nail down his angle, i guess.

well that was quick and painless. there wasn’t a real distinct difference between the stances of sena, michael, and brian. fenwick said several times we need to use the tools we already have, holding developers to the existing code.

remember that there are THREE open seats on council for the november election. three of the five democratic candidates will be chosen in the june primary.