What do we want to look like in 2035?
By: TOM SILVESTRI | tsilvestri@timesdispatch.com
Published: February 26, 2012
Leave it to Richmond's fickle weather to deliver a pointed editorial comment on the day 200 brains gathered to grasp the
region's changing housing needs: It was unusually foggy.
Not the pea-soup version that stops forward movement, but a fog thick enough on the morning of Feb. 17 to inject wariness
about what's ahead, even while traveling a familiar route.
The needed caution that morning added time to an extended commute, which forced the driver to balance a firm start time for
the program with minimal confidence that other drivers knew what they were doing — especially the ones who wanted to drive
faster and others whose comfort zone was a snail's pace. Then again, you could have listened to the weather forecast the
night before and planned to leave earlier.
Yes, the housing picture in the Richmond Region is nervously fuzzy.
That's a conclusion from the excellent first of three grant-funded discussions being organized by the Richmond chapter of the
Urban Land Institute to break down "planning and development silos through regional dialogue," reports and research. The
ULI conversation is just one of several productive efforts to move the region ahead with serious participation from broad
sectors of our community.
The fog isn't because our planners can't find sensible paths forward.
Rather, the big questions are how we're going to grow in ways that win community approval — and where we're going to add
housing while keeping it affordable for a region whose household income has yet to recover from the Great Recession.
And then there are the large proverbial time bombs ticking louder and louder. How we defuse challenges will define our
region's successes and failures, speakers agreed at the program hosted by the law firm of Williams Mullen at its downtown
headquarters.
*****
Consider these emerging realities discussed by the planning directors representing the city of Richmond and the counties of
Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico, along with moderator John W. Martin, whose Richmond-based Southeastern Institute of
Research adroitly crunched the numbers that reveal the provocative trends we face:

Growth is coming. As a region, the population is increasing so that as many as 5,642 new housing units — houses,
apartments, condos, etc. — will be required each year for next two decades. The overall total is an increase of 112,842
units by 2030, Martin said. This is another reason for regional solutions.

In metropolitan Richmond, the population will increase from 1.25 million in 2010 to an estimated 1.6 million in 2030, Martin
said. In the past 10 years, a good chunk of the region's population growth occurred in the outer ring, or "exurbs" — New
Kent (+38 percent), Powhatan (+28 percent) and Goochland (+26 percent), Martin reported. Will we concentrate new
housing or will the shift to exurbia living continue?

Our region will skew older. The Richmond region will gray from the age-wave retirements of baby boomers. With 20 percent
age 65 or older, the demands for smaller, amenity-rich housing will create additional demands for urban living but will
require the counties to further consider urban-like villages that rely less on using a car. Where will older Richmonders age in
place?

"Digital natives" will reshape the region. Maybe Gen X and Y, which are less car-centric than the boomers, can advance
regional transit and telecommuting to a larger degree than what's stuck in place now. They certainly have the numbers to
reshape demand that will trigger different results. Same goes for "green" solutions that are more environmentally sound.
How will the housing policies of localities address the next generation of households?

Density discomfort endangers. We are blessed to have such a large region that allows urban, suburban and rural living to
co-exist. At the Feb. 17 program, no one bought the possibility the exurbs would push further out. But rethinking comfort
levels on density — packing more people into a designated area — is a certainty for our localities.
In the city, for example, it's trading public housing for mixed-income developments so higher-income and poverty-level
households are neighbors. In the counties, it's getting used to more townhome-type communities and further building out
urban villages, while being pressed to finance any expansion of water, sewer and other infrastructure upgrades.
On the back of the Urban Land Institute's program agenda, a map showed the growth pattern for the region in 2035 (which is
reproduced on this page) and 14 "regional development centers" — downtown, Mechanicsville, Innsbrook/Short Pump and
Midlothian, for example — where more households could concentrate without eroding rural or traditional suburban living.
Still, the push-and-pull between rural and suburban will be intense. David Maloney, Hanover's acting planning director,
summed it up best for all: "What do we want to look like?" Density will be a prime topic.

No easy answers exist. Unlocking smart housing opportunities isn't going to be easy. You could tell from the four municipal
planners that the best plans in the world that confront the big trends may not secure community approval.
In Chesterfield, for example: the county population is aging; 40,000 to 50,000 approved lots are undeveloped; areas near the
city are becoming urban-like; and "stale zoning" exists, Chesterfield Director of Planning Kirk Turner said. Changing counties
like Chesterfield stay friendly to families who want single-family houses and the neighborhoods that exude suburban lifestyles.
Add this: Right now, tough economies and distrust of government combine to create an at times toxic environment to test civil
debate. Do residents understand the trends, and what do they support in the way of changes?
*****
While the analysis was appropriately on the future, the current backdrop is that builders don't have enough work to boost the
local economy, which thrives when the investment push to construct houses creates jobs that pay for local goods and
services.
"Simply put, in the past five years, the loss of income to local governments due to the anemic new-home construction market
is staggering," wrote Laura Lafayette, chief executive officer of the Richmond Association of Realtors, in a Commentary
column last Sunday. "Couple this with a decline in the income generated from real estate taxes on existing homes — it all adds
up to present-day budgetary challenges that might make local officials nostalgic for the good old days when they fretted about
growth."
I'm glad to see housing return to a front burner.
The Urban Land Institute has two other upcoming discussions that link to housing: infrastructure and transportation on April 3,
and land use on June 5. All three tee-up an eventual one-day planning exercise called Reality Check that other chapters have
completed in such metropolitan areas as Charleston, S.C., Baltimore, Jacksonville, Fla., and Los Angeles.
Given the challenges, trends and no easy solutions, reality is a welcomed friend. So is connecting this exercise to others on
the same track.
Tom Silvestri heads the Richmond Media Group, which includes the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Times-Dispatch.com,
Richmond Suburban Newspapers, Richmond.com, Work It, Richmond, PolitiFact Virginia and Gotcha! He appeared as a
kickoff speaker at the Urban Land Institute's program in which he advocated regional solutions for the next generation of
vexing problems. The meeting room was packed. It proved once again that if you want a big crowd, don't charge admission.