Thread by @socialistdogmom

local affordable housing groups CHAAHC & CLIHC are hosting a city council candidate forum tonight at the jefferson school & have helpfully provided definitions of commonly used acronyms & notecards & pencils for audience submitted questions!

i’m so glad the election is next week because i don’t know how many more candidate forums i can be expected to bear, and i actually missed several this year.

tonight’s forum is specifically focused on affordable housing, a particularly hot issue around here!

the election is on november 5. there are three seats up for grabs and 6 candidates (repeat candidate john hall isn’t here tonight, which is probably better for everyone)
paul long (I), bellamy brown (I), sena magill (D), michael payne (D), and lloyd snook (D) are here.

first Q: recent housing assessment says we need 4000 additional affordable units.
all five candidates raised their hand to indicate they would vote to sustain council’s current funding commitment to affordable housing.

snook and brown did not raise their hands to indicate support for raising taxes to increase funding for affordable housing (the other three did). snook says there are other ways to raise revenue without raising taxes.

“i’m not prepared to say yes i’m going to raise taxes because who knows what the budget is going to look like in april,” snook says.

brown says “if we’re raising taxes on one end, we’re essentially robbing peter to pay paul.” he, too, says there are other ways to raise revenue but also doesn’t elaborate on what those would be.

paul long says “i believe everybody in this country is entitled to housing. it’s a right.” he doesn’t know which taxes specifically he would raise, but says UVA is the area’s largest employer & a big contributor to the local housing crisis.

long says UVA should donate from the alumni endowment fund to the city’s affordable housing fund. “the university of virginia has a moral obligation” to help solve the affordable housing crisis.

sena magill says she won’t take raising taxes off the table, but would want that to be a last option, specifically citing the burden on homeowners. we need to make sure “if we do raise taxes, we’re doing it carefully.”

michael payne: “you never want to raise taxes. it’s not ideal.” but we’re facing austerity at the federal & state level and our community is worth investing in. “i’m willing to invest in our community.”

payne: we need to pressure the general assembly to allow the city to implement more progressive taxes.
also, if UVA paid taxes on just the land it owns within the city, it would be almost $9mil per year.

we are moving quickly! i missed the question but it’s about prioritizing funding.

snook: cites his work with various nonprofits & commitments to those causes.

payne: “i definitely support funding all those different priorities.” a robust affordable housing strategy provides for people at all levels, from home ownership to getting people who don’t have housing at all off the streets.

magill: “it wasn’t just the people that we served that were struggling, it was also the staff,” about her time working with the homeless at PACEM.

brown: “we’re perpetuating this cycle of poverty.” brown has previously said he doesn’t support the existence of public housing at all.

long: “i believe there is a great need for another year round facility for the homeless.” he says if the faith community can’t fill this need, the city should step in and do that.

current zoning is a significant hurdle to increasing affordable housing. moderator is reading a list of possible interventions and asking them to raise their hands if they support them.

- allow higher density development by right as long as the purpose is affordable housing (all 5)
- limit historic preservation overlays to make building rehab more affordable (brown, magill, payne)
- eliminate things like minimum lot sizes (long, magill, payne, i think?)

that was hard to catch. i missed one of the items listed.

payne: the city is still struggling with outdated zoning, supports duplexes and triplexes, reminds us that the market will never provide for extremely low income people

magill: “this is not my area of expertise,” she admits (which is ok! council doesn’t have to be the subject matter expert, they just have to be willing to learn and listen to experts). we need a long range planner, she says.

magill: other ideas to explore - make it easier to get accessory dwelling units.

brown: cites the minneapolis study that found single family zoning is not great!
like payne, he says we have to take a neighborhood by neighborhood approach to these changes.

long: affordable housing should not be concentrated all in one place, it should be spread throughout the city.

snook says he didn’t raise his hand for the historic overlay question because old homes are affordable homes (??). i think the question was about restrictions and burdens about rehabbing historic buildings? his answer seemed to contradict itself.

next question is about pushback in the community from neighborhoods with single family zoning & large lot sizes. what strategies would you use to create buy in for these changes? are you willing to take the heat & stick by your commitments?

paul long says he’s willing to take the heat (of course!). he cites the pushback to the rachel’s haven project - “sometimes you just have to get a backbone”

brown again cites the minneapolis study. it’s clear he did some homework and maybe that was the only thing he read.

magill says she is always willing to take the heat for the decisions she makes. as far as bringing people on board, she says she grew up in an intentional community and consensus building is something she has experience with.

payne: “i didn’t just start paying attention and advocating for these issues when i decided to run for council.” (it’s true - he’s spoken on issues related to housing before council over 30 times!!)

payne has a community organizing background and says he believes change always comes from the bottom up, from a community organizing for change.
education about these reforms can help with buy in.

snook also says he’s prepared to take the heat for his commitments, “that’s one of the reasons i don’t make commitments easily”
(he’s not kidding - when cville dsa sent him a candidate questionnaire, he wouldn’t commit to a solid answer on any single question)

Q: affordable housing... affordable for whom???what will you do to meet the needs of people at 40% AMI?

snook starts by mansplaining to the moderator that 40% isn’t a marker that people use to talk about this? talking instead about other percentages and then not answering the question at all.

payne: this is a problem because HUD defines affordability as 80% of AMI
he says this is one place where long term familiarity with this issue is really important, citing the resident led redevelopment that south 1st street residents presented to the planning commission yesterday

magill: cville has the highest housing & childcare costs in the region. she is in favor of a land strike fund. developers will never be the solution for truly affordable housing.

brown: “i don’t have an issue with public housing for elderly and disabled people. it’s par for the course,” but doesn’t think anyone else should be in public housing.

long says while it’s good UVA raised the wages of contract employees to $15/hr, that’s still only $31k per year, not enough to afford to live here. he again emphasizes that the federal & state government have to step in and offer solutions.

the moderator asks brown about his previous statements about public housing perpetuating the cycle of poverty. she says many residents not in public housing pay more than 50% of their income in rent. she asks him to explain his comment.

brown says the comment comes from his own experience. he says if someone can show him that it’s possible to move up the ladder out of public housing, it will change his mind. he doesn’t seem to understand the alternative could be homelessness?

brown also says the local african american population has gone from 50% to 19% but neglects to mention that the local black population hasn’t been 50% since the 1890 census.

payne is asked about his previous comments about community land trusts. “it’s taking the value of the land out of the purchase price,” it gives people the opportunity to become homeowners who might otherwise only rent, creating the possibility to build generational wealth

snook is asked about his previous comments about housing low income residents out in the county - does he still think the city doesn’t have enough room for more low income housing?

snook: “it is a regional problem,” even if cville added 3000 units, if albemarle is still 10000 units short, we haven’t solved the problem.
he says instead of looking at just housing costs, we should look at housing + transportation costs.

people have lower housing costs in louisa, but higher transportation costs commuting to work in the city. snook says we need apartment complexes served by reliable bus service.

“it’s not a question of busing poor people out to the county,” snook says (i think that might be a direct quote from one of my tweets 👀)

missed magill’s question! whew we are moving fast tonight.

magill says we need to make sure we are investing in making not just affordable housing but GOOD housing. places where people can live comfortably and with dignity.

moderator asks paul about the relationship between public transit and the affordable housing crisis.

long says more routes and service every 15 minutes are necessary to make it work. without frequent reliable service, you won’t be able to convince car owners to switch to the bus.

asked about funding priorities, magill lists several big spending items, including our $18mil annual police budget. “we need to examine everything” and make sure we’re getting what we want out of where we are spending money.

paul long advocating rent control 💪

brown: “i don’t foresee the rents not continuing to rise,” citing increasing demand & influx of capital. he keeps saying creating jobs will solve the problem... how does that keep rent from skyrocketing?

brown finished his comment by saying “those are two options that i’ve thought about and would be feasible” but he didn’t actually say anything in the form of an idea to solve the problem of rising rents???? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

magill says the university keeping students in on grounds housing would free up a significant number of units in the city. “if our stock is higher, hopefully our rents will start stabilizing.”

payne says housing is a human right. we have to make our goal to have housing for everyone in charlottesville. if we don’t have the policy tools we need to do that, we scale up our organizing and go to the general assembly to get things like rent control.

snook: “I’ve tried to talk during this campaign about things that we can do within the four year term that we’ve got.” (neoliberals love to kill dreams. never ask for more.)

snook: increasing housing stock means building where we can build. he doesn’t think massive zoning reform is feasible within the next few years.

if elected, will you support the initial CRB’s proposals, rather than the rewritten version from the city attorney?

snook: he does favor the version as it is coming before council right now. he answered “yes” but i think technically that means “no” to the question as it was asked.

everyone seems to agree that we have to prioritize affordable housing over other capital improvement projects.

next question is about form based code. i know michael is the only person up there who doesn’t feel overwhelmed and confused by those words.

payne says he does not support passage of a form based code at this time. brown needs to do more research. long also passes.

snook says “we’re getting so jammed up with all these proposals. we need to go ahead and move on one of them. i don’t even care which one it is.”

magill says we need a long range planner and a long range plan before we think about form based code.

bellamy brown is asked about his support for elliot harding for state senate over creigh deeds. brown says he applauded harding’s representation of a low income black man & he stands by that. he doesn’t say whether he supports either candidate for office.

short term rentals like air bnb have been proven to decrease available affordable housing stock. what would you do in office?

brown says increasing enforcement of the tax on these rentals will help. he says he would lean on the side of making those units available as housing.

magill says we should use incentives to encourage property owners to make units housing rather than short term rentals.

payne says we’ve lost over 200 units to air bnb. he agrees with magill that incentive programs can encourage property owners to use those units for housing.

snook says he is more in favor of incentivizing than penalizing. he doubts that all of the appropriate lodging tax is being collected (the city has insisted that this is being done appropriately)

brown says the idea that public housing causes the cycle of poverty is “well documented, and i’m gonna rely on facts for that,” but doesn’t cite any facts or offer any solutions.

magill says breaking the cycle of poverty is a much bigger conversation about everything from transportation to after school programs.

payne says he does support the new south first street development as long as its consistent with the vision of the residents of south first street.

payne: public housing doesn’t cause poverty - systemic racism, racial covenants, redlining, lack of healthcare, laws that make it difficult to unionize... these things cause poverty.

payne: investing strategically in making beds available for homeless people, investing in region 10 and PACEM. ultimately, the city has to pressure the state for housing as a human right, citing utah’s housing first approach.

magill is also a big supporter of housing first, recounting an anecdote from her time at PACEM helping a man who struggled for years to get the documentation he needed to get housed. (it’s hard to hang onto your birth certificate if you’re on the streets)

brown says we need to focus on getting homeless people jobs “to transition them to another state of empowerment.” i swear i thought i saw sena’s eye twitch.

last question is about the possible effect on the local housing market of UVA’s raising their minimum wage to $15/hr. long says he doesn’t think it will change anything & brown agrees.

$31,000 is still 40% AMI, magill says. local minimum wage ought to be closer to $25/hr.
payne says to afford a market rate one bedroom and spend 1/3 of your income, you need to be making at least $17/hr and supports pushing the state to allow a citywide minimum wage.

one minute closing statements.
paul long says this is his 4th run for council. he calls most local politicians “corporate democrats” and applauds magill & payne’s progressive politics.

bellamy brown says he was “born and raised here.” (he’s been away a long time and only very recently moved back) “i believe i can add value across the board”

sena magill says working at region 10 and pacem, she saw the affordable housing crisis grow over the years. she thought maybe she would run for council when her daughter was older, but after her husband was nearly killed on august 11, 2017, she realized the time is now.

michael payne says we rank in the bottom third nationally for economic mobility. “platitudes won’t pay the rent.”
we’re seeing unprecedented movement on affordable housing and racial equity & he wants to continue that momentum.

lloyd snook says this campaign is the first time in his life he’s ever been called a conservative, saying he’s been a liberal since the 60s.

oh my god is lloyd gonna make it through a whole forum without talking about civility? i’m impressed!