By. Neil Williamson, President
As Major League Baseball’s opening day approaches, we are reminded of the movie Field of Dreams where Kevin Costner’s character hears a voice telling him “If You Build It, They Will Come”. Is Albemarle County’s antiquated growth management policy counting on the corollary?
As you can see from data released today, in 2023 Albemarle County produced the lowest number of housing units since 2015.
To make matters worse, the production of Single Family Units were 111, a mere 19.1 % of the total units. Of those Single Family units a mere 35 units (31%) were located in the “Development Areas” where Albemarle seeks to locate new residential uses.
While some of this data reflects market choices, the market can only respond to the product that is available.
The Free Enterprise Forum believes Albemarle’s highly restrictive “Development Area” policies, coupled with increased land prices are forcing developers to abandon highly desired single family units in the development areas. This government created scarcity creates pressure on the existing inventory of Single Family Homes in the development areas and pushes prices for both new and existing homes higher.
As a community, we should examine the chart above and see if the 1979 directive to restrict growth to less than 5% of our land mass continues to make sense.
As we wrote in our Housing Red Sky post earlier this month, where will new workers live?
Perhaps hitting closer to home, where will our children and grandchildren live?
The housing shortage is real and it is now.
If Albemarle chooses not to create new housing, gentrification will explode, workers will be forced to live in outlying counties and commute into Albemarle to work. This impact will clearly be more pronounced on low to middle income workers and their families.
The trends in the chart above are clear, housing starts, of all kinds, are down significantly.
The question is what, if anything, does Albemarle want to do about it.
#MoreHousingEverywhereForEverybody
Respectfully Submitted,
Neil Williamson
Since 2003, Neil Williamson has served as the President of The Free Enterprise Forum, a privately funded non partisan public policy organization covering the City of Charlottesville as well as Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna, Louisa and Nelson County. For more information and to donate to support this work, visit the website www.freeenterpriseforum.org
Photo Credit: Albemarle County
Free Enterprise Forum 