Virginia legislators eye anti-rent gouging, zoning changes to address housing challenges

With studies showing Virginia short thousands of units, legislators and advocates hope to find common ground to address the state’s ongoing housing challenges.

The fight to address Virginia’s housing challenges will continue in the upcoming General Assembly session as lawmakers try to find common ground on the shortage of affordable homes, rising rents, and exclusionary zoning. 

Like other states in the US, Virginia has a shortage of affordable housing options, especially for households living well below the federal poverty line. The lack of affordable housing has led to rising rents and rising home prices. 

Virginia has been in a “housing crisis” for decades during which landlords have been able to raise rents on struggling tenants with few options, according to Christie Marra of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit focused on issues faced by low-income Virginians. In the aftermath of the pandemic and its upending of supply chains, issues like the lack of housing supply has gotten so bad that it’s impacting families and people with higher incomes.  

“It is affecting a larger percentage of our community than it was, say, 15 years ago,” Marra said of Virginia’s housing crisis. “Because it is affecting so many more people, it has become an issue that is front and center on everybody’s mind.” 

Anti-rent gouging

Some advocates want to see more done to limit how much landlords can raise their rents. Anti-rent gouging legislation was introduced in the previous General Assembly session but never made it to a floor vote in either the Senate or the House.

Marra of the Virginia Poverty Law Center said she expects anti-rent gouging legislation will again be introduced in the upcoming General Assembly session. The legislation would not require localities to set limits on increases to residential rents. The anti-rent gouging legislation would give localities the flexibility to figure out what works best for their communities. 

“The number one thing that we are hearing from tenants across the state is that rent is going up every year,” Marra said. “Sometimes rent is going up during the year because there are landlords who are including in their leases a right for them to raise the rent anytime without the tenant agreeing to it. This is a huge problem.” 

Zoning flexibility

Another way legislators have tried to address the lack of affordable housing is to give localities more flexibility with their zoning laws, which determine what developers are allowed to build. 

Virginia state Senator Jeremy McPike introduced a bill in the last General Assembly session that would have given localities the option to enact ordinances that would generate more affordable housing units. The bill would have created a framework through which localities could work with experts to come up with the best approaches for their particular communities.

“We have kind of restrictive zoning,” McPike said in an interview with The Dogwood. “We need to figure out a way to be more nimble to create more affordable housing.”

Gov. Glenn Youngkin appears to disagree. After McPike’s bill passed out of the House and Senate, Youngkin vetoed the legislation, saying in a brief statement at the time that it was “unnecessary” and noting that some localities already have the ability to enact the kinds of zoning changes covered by McPike’s bill. Youngkin did not respond to a request for comment for this story. 

McPike thinks every locality in Virginia should be empowered to make zoning changes to help them address the state’s housing crisis. But given Youngkin’s willingness to, as McPike sees it, facilitate and fuel the housing crisis by not allowing for more flexible zoning across Virginia, McPike will not be re-introducing his bill. 

“We’re behind the ball,” McPike said. “We’ve got to figure out different ways and a different pathway forward.”

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