City of Alexandria, Virginia
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MEMORANDUM
DATE: SEPTEMBER 4, 2019
TO: THE HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL
FROM: MARK B. JINKS, CITY MANAGER /s/
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A Discussion of Regional Housing Initiatives and the Need to Increase the Production of All Housing, Including Affordable Housing, Over the Next Decade.
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ISSUE: Regional initiative to increase housing production, with aspirational goals for both market rate and affordable housing over the next decade.
RECOMMENDATION: That the City Council accept the staff report and direct staff to continue to work on strategies which could result in the City working towards meeting the 2030 aspirational goals identified in the COG Regional Housing Initiatives process.
BACKGROUND: In the decade since the 2008 housing-led recession, housing production in the Washington Metropolitan Area has only reached about two-thirds of its pre-recession levels. A year ago, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) Board of Directors, composed of elected officials in the region, recognized that forecast housing production for the next several decades is insufficient to provide enough housing for workers for forecasted job growth, potentially placing even greater pressure on housing costs and availability and therefore limiting the region's economic competitiveness. The COG Board of Directors directed the region's Housing Directors and Planning Directors to investigate the issue and make recommendations. Overall, if job forecasts are met, there would need to be 75,000 additional housing units produced by 2030 (over current forecasts) to supply sufficient workers for those jobs.
Over the course of the past year, staff from the Office of Housing and the Department of Planning and Zoning have been collaborating with their counterparts across the region to explore both the barriers to, and the opportunities ...
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