Tell Council: NO to RentMansion Concrete!

SEE THIS HOUSE? Larger than many of Richmond homes, this ADU in the Fan is 1,100 sf - SMALLER than what Code Refresh will bring BY RIGHT to yards in every neighborhood!

Looking at the ADU's "yard," you see it is now paved in concrete. That too is legal in Code Refresh, which preserves *only* 30% of a residential lot for soil, when today, in residential lots, 80% is not allowed to be built upon.

Tell City Council:

• Zoning is NOT saving trees or soil when Code Refresh allows 70% of a neighborhood lot to be concrete!!!!

• ADUs provide affordable housing opportunity ONLY if they remain small, 1/3 of an existing home floor area or 800 sf, whichever is SMALLER. 

• The ADU bonus that allows less setbacks on a lot must be removed!

• Remove the ADU loophole that allows less setbacks on a lot. 

• Re-mandate the preservation bonus! Otherwise interior ADUs are disguised RENTmansion duplexes with a huge carbon-heavy tear-down incentive.
  
• Remove the loophole that sublots will allow these ADUs to be sold separately!
  

DIGEST: This Fan example, above, is UNDER 55% lot coverage (Code Refresh will allow 60%!), AND UNDER 1,200sf. Under Code Refresh, something BIGGER than this would be OF RIGHT, and could be sold separately.

NO VOTE ON CODE REFRESH UNTIL YOUR COUNCIL AMENDMENTS ARE *IN* CODE REFRESH!

The planning commission should not have the final say when Council acts for neighborhoods.

Think YOUR neighborhood is no longer harmed by Code Refresh? Look closer.

Code Refresh’s lot coverage increases (including lessened setbacks for ADUs) will, by right, allow 12,000 ACRES of Richmond's neighborhood yards to be concreted. (And don't get me started on sublots.)

Only if unbuilt lot percentages are MAINTAINED will Richmond not decimate our natural, critical tree and soil infrastructure where 90% of our city’s tree canopy resides. Look around at your neighborhood and picture the scenarios below if you think that just because duplexes were removed from your neighborhood, you're fine.

Draft 3’s "vegetation space requirements" disguise that today’s R-1 (Single-Family Residential) maximum lot coverage is capped strictly at 20% of the total lot area, leaving 80% for trees, and with lots not less than 20,000 square feet.

The reality, despite the "tree saving" you are being told, is that Draft 3’s RD-A allows 30% concrete (ADUs are by right), and only 30% of a lot for vegetation (versus today’s 80% being yard!!!).

90% of Richmond’s trees are located in residential yards.

Today’s lots have 35-foot front yard setbacks, 10 foot side yard setbacks, a 100' minimum lot width, and a 10' rear yard setback. Code Refresh removes area to no minimum area per lot, and reduces setbacks to 20-foot front setbacks, 9-foot side setbacks, a 9’ rear setback, and lot widths reduced to (RD-A) 90', (RD-B) 50', and (RD-C) 30'! How is that saving trees?!?

Let's do math: Single-family residential neighborhoods are reported as ≈60% of the city's land ≈ 23,800 acres. Today's R-1 residential parcels dictate 80% of a lot must stay unbuilt (20% coverage cap).

Draft 3's RD-A says 30% of a lot must stay unbuilt (a 70% coverage cap!!!).
Swing in guaranteed open/vegetated share: 80% − 30% = 50 percentage points
23,800 acres × 50% ≈ ~12,000 acres of currently-protected yard space that could by right be converted to hardscape.

Do you think Code Refresh allowing 12,000 ACRES of soil to be concreted in Richmond will not have an impact on your health, heat island, flooding, and trees?

Is allowing 12,000 acres of trees and soil to be concreted helpful or hurtful for our City's health, resiliency, and sustainability?

Further, tree wells and newly planted trees can’t compare to what exists in Richmond’s yards. In year one, 15- 30% of urban trees typically die, and unwatered urban sites lose up to 90% of young trees. How many saplings in tree wells have you seen being watered by residents, Richmond? Only about 50-65% of new trees survive past the critical multi-year establishment phase.

Yet the Office of Sustainability is adding a "tree fund” for developers who feel trees are inconvenient. For over 20 years Yale, carbon offsets/Verra, Society for Conservation Biology and the world has known that 98% of tree funds don’t work! Yet NOW "sustainability professionals" want tree funds? Richmond must do better.

Think Code Refresh isn't hurting your neighborhoods' tree canopy, soil, and solar, in violation of Richmond 300? Look more closely.

These 500 square foot ADUs in Westwood are much smaller than what Code Refresh will allow by right. Code Refresh will allow almost three times this size! ADUs must be tightened to 500sf to ensure they provide affordable housing and must not be taller than adjacent heights, including in RD-C. On narrow 30-foot lots in RD-C, an accessory building can rise up to 20 feet (2 full stories) with only 3-foot side and rear setbacks. A 1,200 sq ft structure is larger than many existing historic starter homes in Richmond, effectively allowing a second full-scale detached residence on single-family lots under the label of an "accessory" structure.

Why RVA Must Maintain Current Zoning In Unbuilt Lot Percentages, Definition of Family, and Restrict ADUs

Unbuilt lot percentages = resiliency and sustainable opportunity. Further, require they be soil. Richmond can't be resilent or sustainable without soil, trees, and solar!

Unbuilt Lot Percentages

Why maintain today’s code regarding unbuilt lot percentages? Because to lessen any percentage of unbuilt lot space directly devastates Richmond’s remaining tree canopy and urban resiliency. Zoning knows residential yards are where 90% of the City’s trees reside. Zoning knows permeable soil and plants are critical to combating concrete’s heat islands, flooding, carbonization, and damaged air quality. Zoning knows unbuilt lot percentages affect solar envelope/shadow modeling to ensure all residents can be net-zero.

Richmond's tree canopy and soil have already alarmingly, critically declined; yards are where 90% of our trees reside: we must protect every inch!

Only IF unbuilt lot percentages are MAINTAINED will Richmond not decimate our natural, critical infrastructure! 

Tree wells and newly planted trees can’t compare. In year one, 15- 30% of urban trees typically die, and unwatered urban sites lose up to 90% of young trees. How many saplings in tree wells have you seen being watered by residents, Richmond? Only about 50-65% of new trees survive past the critical multi-year establishment phase.

Don't even mention the words "tree fund" to us - for 20 years the world has known that 98% of tree funds don’t work! Yet NOW you want to talk tree funds? C'mon, RVA, do better!

ADUs

Maintaining ADUs to 500sf (and removing the 1/3 of floor area, which residents mistakenly thought meant the footprint, thus remaining in scale, not the total volume!) protects tree canopy, soil, neighbors’ solar opportunities and ensures affordability.

Further, ADUs should be restricted to lots of primary RESIDENCES. 

ADUs must conform to existing code’s lot coverage, height limits, and property line setbacks. 

Further, ADUs must not overshadow neighbors' solar access to maintain food garden and solar resilience.

The reason ADUs were approved was that council envisioned little granny flats, not entire full-scale homes next to an existing house, sandwiched between neighbors, blocking their solar!

This Fan ADU is less than the size Code Refresh wants to expand to on every lot, by right! Note how it completely fills the yard compared to its neighbor (the ADU belongs to the brick house, second from the end).

In Westwood, Randolph, and across the City neighbors are already horribly impacted by what is allowed before Code Refresh. ADUs must not take solar from existing communities and harm neighbors! Zoning must TIGHTEN, not loosen, ADU requirements!

You see why other localities require the following:

• A lease term for the rental of an ADU of 30 consecutive days or longer; NO SHORT TERM RENTALS!
• Replacement of a primary dwelling's required parking if the construction of the ADU eliminates such parking;
• Dedicated parking for the ADU;
• Limits on floor area, lot coverage, and impervious area of an ADU of no less than (i) 350 square feet on lots less than 2,500 square feet and (ii) 500 square feet on lots 2,500 square feet or greater;
• Compliance with (i) building codes, including the requirements of the Uniform Statewide Building Code (§ 36-97 et seq.), for an accessory dwelling unit if the ADU is attached or for a dwelling unit if the ADU is detached; (ii) water, sewer, septic, emergency access, flood zone, and stormwater requirements; (iii) historic and architectural districts and corridor protection restrictions; and (iv) Air Installations Compatible Use Zone restrictions;
• Owner occupancy of the ADU or the primary dwelling, but not both, only at the time an application is submitted to construct or convert an accessory dwelling unit;
• That the ADU shall be no more than 500 feet from the primary dwelling;
• No ADUs on a residential lot that has more than one dwelling unit; and
• No ADUs sold separately or subdivided from the primary dwelling.

Definition of Family

Richmond's code currently limits occupancy of a dwelling unit to no more than 3 unrelated people. Dwelling units contain sleeping, cooking, and bathrooms for one household. This standard has stood for decades, and courts have repeatedly upheld a municipality's authority to define "family" this way for zoning purposes, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas. Virginia law treats violations seriously enough to carry escalating fines up to $7,500 per ten-day period for uncorrected overcrowding.

Before letting Code Refresh expand the definition of family in blanket zoning, how many properties actually rent with more than 3 unrelated people? 

The average Richmonders’ household size is 2.14 people - well under the current cap! If most Richmond households are already quite smaller than three unrelated people, the three-person limit isn't the constraint on housing choice that Code Refresh's supporters suggest it is. 

Well-documented research shows the negative impacts of crowding. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sets the threshold for overcrowding at homes with more than one person per habitable room, excluding functional spaces like the kitchen and any bathrooms. The threshold for severe overcrowding is 1.5 people per room. Once a home crosses this threshold, sanitation and air quality suffer, and fire, pathogen, and violence risks accelerate.

A blanket change is the wrong tool for a very narrow problem. Other Virginia and Virginia-adjacent localities handle this exact situation through a conditional or special-use-permit pathway rather than a blanket rezoning: Williamsburg allows a single-family home to go from three to four unrelated occupants only with administrative approval, a minimum 2,000 square feet of living space, and additional required parking. 

Richmond can continue to allow this via the SUP process: case-by-case, with inspection conditions attached for the specific blocks where the demand is real, instead of loosening the standard citywide with Code Refresh.

Critics say that to allow more roommates by filing a Special Use Permit (SUP) would inundate, absolutely clog City Hall! A simple query can answer that: how many SUPs have been filed in the last 5-20 years to expand a home's occupancy?

The properties where the cap possibly "limits" are concentrated in a few pockets: VCU/the Fan, Church Hill/Union Hill/Fulton/Shockoe Bottom, Barton Heights, Brookland Park/Battery/Highland Park, and parts of Southside, where a mix of larger old houses and student/young-professional demand. You know what DOES shove hordes of multiple couples/crowds into rentals? Illegal Airbnbs. Student party houses.

It's a narrow, geographically specific issue, not a citywide housing-supply crisis that justifies rewriting the standard for every neighborhood in Richmond. 

Keep the three-unrelated-persons standard as the default and route the small number of properties that need more capacity through an SUP process, not a citywide rewrite.

Don't "fix" code that's not broken. 

Keep our unbuilt lot percentages, definition of family, and reduce the girth of ADUs!

Kale, tomatoes, peppers, okra and herbs grow in a small urban garden.

About the author: Copeland Casati is a native of Richmond who has rented and owned while food gardening in the Fan near Floyd & Meadow, Ginter Park adjacent to Azalea & Chamberlayne, Bellevue's Claremont, and West Grace.

City FOIA records show nearly 14,000 apartments built since 2020, yet rents jumped 62%

We keep hearing the argument that Richmond's current zoning rules make it "almost impossible" to build housing. The city's own records tell a very different story.

13,900 new apartment units (nearly 16,000 housing units total) have been completed or permitted in Richmond since January 1, 2020. 

This data, derived from an internal City Planning memo from June 26 (obtained through a FOIA request), shows the current code is clearly not stopping development.

Similarily, HUD data shows median 1-bedroom rents in Richmond went from $932 a month up to over $1,500. That 62% jump ranks Richmond 19th highest in rent growth across the entire country.

• Building high volumes of market-rate apartments didn't bring prices down. 

• What broad upzoning actually does is drive up underlying land values. 

• That gives commercial developers an incentive to buy up existing, naturally affordable apartments ($1,400–$1,800/mo).

• These 800-1,700 square foot homes (now zoned RD-C and RM) are incentivized to tear down and replace with high-density units charging $2,000+ a month. 

• Richmond loses the affordable housing we already have.

Under state law (Va. Code § 15.2-2284), city zoning updates are required to be based on actual local growth trends and economic data. 

City Hall should release full numbers on how much housing can already be built under our existing code before pushing Draft 3 forward.

About the Author
I live in a historically Black neighborhood south of the James River with my wife and kids, where the sound of the river rapids and the 19th century train trestles are our daily backdrop. We walk our dog, Lucy, past the brick building of the old Dunbar School and through the streets of Blackwell, while our cat, Tobi, stays home in our historic house. As a member of the Richmond Civic League, I value the preservation of these actual blocks over the abstract models used to justify citywide rezoning. I remain anonymous to keep the focus on the data, but I am a neighbor who sees the consequences of city planning every time I cross the T-Pott bridge.

Code Refresh RD-C and RM ties to neighborhood destruction.

Last week I headed to Highland Terrace / North Highland Park to drop off "Concerned About Code Refresh" signs and mused on the clear destruction that would happen in these neighborhoods if Code Refresh passes. 

Look at these neighborhoods on the Code Refresh map: these cottages and foursquares are now zoned mostly RD-C.

RD-C is Code Refresh's brand-new, high-density residential category that overlaps (targeting?) historically lower-income areas. If you look at Code Refresh's current zoning map, it is easy to see RD-C in neighborhoods noted for cottages and two-story homes, with yards large enough for food gardens like in Highland Terrace, Maymont, Oakgrove, City Stadium, Blackwell, Randolph, Fonticello, Westwood, Swansboro, Church Hill, Frederick Douglas Court, Barton Heights, Oakwood, Montrose, North Barton Heights, Manchester, Highland Park... 

RD-C lots, whose blocks are currently often composed of 50-foot lot widths, now have a minimum width of just 25 feet, compared to the 50 feet maintained for RD-B and 90 feet for RD-A, making them far more exploitable by developers seeking to squeeze in new units.

The concentration of RD-C follows the redlining map

These new lots designated RD-C are often in neighborhoods previously redlined. This is perhaps the most damning structural problem: Council member Robertson observed that many of the areas designated for denser zoning, RD-C and RM, correspond closely to neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s as "least desirable," which served as shorthand for areas with large numbers of Black and immigrant residents. 

These previously mentioned neighborhoods fit squarely into this pattern: a historically Black/immigrant/working class neighborhoods now being targeted for the smallest minimum lot sizes.

RD-C creates a developer incentive to buy and demolish affordable homes

ZAC member Philip Hart (also a real estate attorney) admits that RD-C "does create an incentive for developers to purchase less expensive lots to convert them into much denser uses." In the aforementioned neighborhoods, where land is still relatively affordable, this is precisely the dynamic most likely to play out — acquisition, demolition, and replacement with market-rate duplexes or triplexes.

Planning director Kevin Vonck acknowledges the risk: he noted concerns about "physical displacement in certain neighborhoods, where people may look and say, 'the ratio of improvement value to land value, you've got a small house and a decent-size lot; if I can get two plus one out of there, this might be right for redevelopment.'" He said the city shifted to requiring preservation of existing units in part to address displacement in lower-income areas, but that is not enough.

The "preservation bonus" rule doesn't protect renters or homeowners

Draft 2 attempted to address displacement by requiring that a new duplex unit can only be added if the existing home is preserved. But Laura Dobbs of Housing Opportunities Made Equal warned that this requirement may in many cases limit or prevent the creation of genuinely affordable new homes. But she's not talking about OWNERSHIP- duplexing means she wants RENTAL units in neighborhoods that traditionally contain existing affordable home ownership.

Further, the preservation bonus does NOT protect lots zoned RM. Look for RM in your neighborhood - now, by right, there's no home, but 6-12 units of rental concrete on what used to be yards with trees.

Many of these RM parcels are 2 story homes. How will they cram in 6 or 12 units without allowing SINGLE ROOM OCCUPANCIES? There is no way they can fit a kitchen in with every unit within that square footage.

RENTmansionization is as bad as McMansionizing.

Ms. Dobbs argues the draft allows single-family homes to be demolished and replaced with larger, pricier "McMansions," creating a perverse outcome where existing affordable stock disappears without being replaced by anything more affordable. This is valid! (Which is another reason we must maintain current zoning's unbuilt yard percentages and setbacks!!!)

In further destruction, RD-C INCREASES THE CONCRETING OF A LOT from today's maximum of 35% to 75% concrete!!!! Where are the protections for food gardens, tree canopy, and permeable soil, critical to neighborhood resiliency?

This increased concreting more plausibly fosters RENTmansionization: the concreting of lots to create "mere" duplexes containing two 1,500+ square foot units in neighborhoods whose average home is 800-1,200 square feet, removing home ownership where traditional accessible homeownership opportunities once stood, to flip a neighborhood to RENTmansionization from what used to be filled with small home ownership. 

Don't kid yourself, Laura: these RENTmansion duplexes will be leased at market rate or flip to illegal short-term rentals!

No parking minimums amplify pressure on narrow streets

Community commenters flagged that there is no requirement to provide on-site parking under the new code, meaning excess cars would need to park on the street. In neighborhoods with drainage ditches and narrow roads, this could effectively reduce streets to single-lane usage, making it difficult for fire and ambulance services to respond to emergencies!

New buildings can be significantly taller than existing homes

Height restrictions in the new code allow new buildings to be up to 14 feet taller than the existing buildings around them, to a maximum of 35 feet. In a neighborhood of one- and two-story bungalows and modest post-war homes, this means new market-rate development could loom over the existing fabric, changing the neighborhood's character, reducing the community's solar health and energy cost benefits, and impacting land value trajectory in ways that further accelerate displacement pressure. 

Lot subdivision without meaningful limits

Under the new code, owners can subdivide lots into three smaller parcels, with no requirement for on-site parking on the divided lots. On blocks of modest lots in Highland Terrace, Maymont, Oakgrove, City Stadium, Blackwell, Randolph, Fonticello, Westwood, Swansboro, Church Hill, Frederick Douglas Court, Barton Heights, Oakwood, Montrose, North Barton Heights, Manchester, Highland Park and more, already small by historic standards, this opens the door to rapid parcel fragmentation and cascading redevelopment.

Absence of anti-displacement tools in the code itself

The city acknowledged that a zoning ordinance on its own cannot solve the affordable housing crisis, and that policy interventions and direct investments (subsidies, social services, homebuyer credits) must come from outside the code. 

Code Refresh contains no inclusionary zoning requirement, no community benefit agreements, and no rent stabilization mechanism. Upzoning to RD-C lands in neighborhoods like those mentioned, without any binding mechanism to ensure the resulting development serves existing residents. 

If Code Refresh can't meet the basic criteria required in today's Special Use Permits, requiring zoning to benefit existing residents, why should it go through?!?

Are YOU Concerned about Code Refresh? 

DON'T MISS the July 21 Code Refresh RALLY! Bring your neighbors!

(Want a SIGN? We have "Concerned About Code Refresh" signs to help spread the word on the negative impacts of Code Refresh!)

DOES new construction lower rents? THEY say so... let's look! 👀 Austin & Minneapolis.

Let’s Talk About Austin and Minneapolis:

DOES New Construction Lower Rent?

And Why Would Richmond Allow Zoning That Wouldn’t Pass as an SUP?

Richmond is trying to eliminate onerous Special Use Permits (SUPs). I get it: I too hate paperwork! But I value more and respect the community voices that determine if something is a benefit… or a detriment to them.

That is why SUPs are important.

In Richmond, all of the following six SUP criteria must be met to pass:

𝟙 It won’t be detrimental to the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the community involved.

𝟚 It won’t create congestion in the streets, roads, alleys, and other public ways and places in the area involved.

𝟛 It won’t create hazards from fire, panic, or other dangers.

𝟜 It won’t cause overcrowding of land and undo and an undue concentration of population.

𝟝 It won’t adversely affect or interfere with the public or private schools, parks, playgrounds, water supplies, sewage, disposal, transportation, or other public requirements, conveniences, and improvements, or

𝟞 It won’t interfere with adequate light and air.

“And if any one of them is not met, the special use permit is not permitted,” confirms Rodney Poole, chair of the Planning Commission.

Code Refresh must maintain these same protections of our existing communities… or be rejected.

IF CODE REFRESH DOESN'T EVEN PASS AS A SPECIAL USE PERMIT (which allows more than the baseline of zoning) why would Richmond pass it as zoning?

Always evaluate the benefits or negative impacts to your community when making decisions on change!

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Similarly, policyswayers are loudly holding up Austin & Minneapolis as examples where increasing housing supply lowered rent. So let’s look at them!

Policyswayers tell us that if we build a bunch of housing, prices will fall. In Richmond WE observe prices and taxes jump up in newly labeled premium districts that USED to be affordable housing, displacing residents. They cite Austin and Minneapolis as success stories.

I looked into it, and they’re right! Overall, prices fell! Let’s see how these two cities are bucking the trend of skyrocketing rents and displacement near luxury development, and instead became beacons of success.

Austin

In Austin, home prices are down 26% in the last 3 years, dropping 6x more in this crash than in the 2008 crash. See, in 2022, the collapsing rental bubble became a crash market with 40-50% discounts. In short, developers overbuilt condos & apartments by mistake. It peaked, was 50% overvalued, and locals couldn’t afford to buy houses. Then slowed migration and higher mortgages created another Austin crash.

That crash, which is bad enough, permanently scarred the city’s local ownership and attractiveness: over 3,500 homes (including single-family and multi-family) were demolished between 2019 and 2024 to make way for Austin’s “better” denser, Anywhere USA development. 

Austin’s Black population declined to 7.5% by 2024–2026, down from over 12% in the 1980s - almost half of what Austin used to vibrantly be!

Is this the healthy density you want for Richmond?

Minneapolis

Minnesota recently experienced a net loss of native residents to other states. Between 2020 and 2022, the state lost over 37,000 people to domestic migration due to high income taxes, crime, and weather, with notable outflows in middle-to-high income brackets to Florida and Texas.

A new report from the Minneapolis Fed shows the Twin Cities came up short on all three of its annual affordable housing goals, raising concerns about the region’s progress in building homes and closing the homeownership gap.

With institutional investors purchasing increasing shares of single-family homes, Black homeownership rates continued to drop. Experts say high costs and interest rates are major challenges. The Twin Cities region has one of the largest gaps between Black and White homeownership rates in the country, with white households at 77% and Black households at 29% in 2024. The goal had been to increase Black homeownership to 45% by 2030, but after years of improvement, the share of homes with Black owners dropped from 34.3% to just over 29%.

In 2026, migration had a significant, traumatic contraction following "Operation Metro Surge," the largest federal immigration enforcement operation in the agency's history. See, like Richmond, Minneapolis was drawing newcomers from elsewhere, in this case California, newcomers who were attracted to the lower cost of homes. Immigrant communities now have a significant footprint in the Twin Cities, including roughly 9,000 business owners, accounting for 12% of all business owners in the region.

While overall Minneapolis rents went down, it is important to note WHICH rents dropped. Similar to Richmond, new apartment units are usually studios to 2 bedrooms (in an extraordinarily decreasing amount of square footage). Only 8% of new apartments built in the Midwest (not just Minneapolis) were three-bedroom units as of 2024.

3-Bedroom Units, which I assume are mostly in existing, older housing stock (if only 8% of new builds have them), saw a 8% price increase in the past year. 

4-Bedroom prices increased by a significant 32%.

While Minneapolis increased its housing stock significantly between 2017 and 2022, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve reports in 2026 that rent prices are still rising in the Twin Cities, and that slowed rent growth is often linked to demand weakness rather than just housing supply increases.

Downtown Minneapolis has lagged with occupancy rates forecasted at 92.1% by late 2025, even with new buildings offering 1–2 months of free rent to attract residents. 

Its office vacancy rate is 30% in 2026, suggesting fewer people want to live or work in the city. 

Declining birth rates and an aging population have led to fewer new households. The region's population grew by only 2.7% between 2020 and 2024, with annual growth rates in the 2020s considerably lower than in previous decades.

Is Austin or Minneapolis the model we want to emulate in Richmond? The policyswayers think so...

Communities respond: “Thank you, but NO thank you.”

Code Refresh Neighborhood Position Statements, Signs, and Neighborhood Conversations.

Neighbors joined for a neighborhood-association-led program to answer community questions in May.

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The latest neighborhood positions on Code Refresh have been published!

(If YOUR neighborhood has taken a position on Code Refresh, please send them to me!)

Historic West Grace Street

The Board of the Historic West Grace Street Association fully endorses the positions of the Fan District Association and Warsaw Condominium's concerns about Code Refresh.

Position of Historic West Grace Street Association: 

 

Historic West Grace Street is an integral part of the Fan District, containing numerous fine homes that have been carefully restored and maintained by their owners. In addition, West Grace has many properties that provide housing to renters, including families, retirees, and college students. The Historic West Grace Street Association (HWGSA) is closely tracking the City of Richmond’s Zoning Code Refresh (Code Refresh) initiative as it relates to Historic West Grace Street and the City of Richmond at large. As a neighborhood association, we fully endorse the position of the Fan District Association (FDA) that the first and second version of Code Refresh does not support the Richmond 300 as approved.

As Historic West Grace Street is a border of the Fan District AND a designated historic neighborhood, Historic West Grace Street merits additional consideration.

1. HWGSA supports additional housing opportunities but allowing SIX units per original home in addition to an ADU by right returns West Grace Street to the rooming house neighborhood of the 1970’s and 1980’s, which negatively impacted our neighborhood (for reference, review the plethora of city zoning complaints still on record during that time that clearly document rooming house transgressions).

Currently, approximately 40% of our neighborhood are buildings with rental units. The average home has approximately 8 rooms. Allowing 6 units per home fosters locked single rooms along hallways with one bathroom. After World War II, many of West Grace Street’s properties were divided up to accommodate increased demographic growth and, in the 1970s, a growing number of VCU students. With single room occupancy, crime grew along the street in the form of illegal sex work and drug sales. Residents worked hard to eradicate the criminal activities while lobbying successfully to convert West Grace into a quiet, cobblestoned two-way street with stop signs. As a result of this extraordinary advocacy by West Grace Street residents, today we are one of the city’s most vibrant and heterogeneous neighborhoods.

Historic West Grace Street adamantly opposes any removal or change to the definition of family, and that only three unrelated people may reside in a home. 

2. Mandatory shadow modeling must occur for any 3+ story new builds adjacent to existing communities to ensure the city does not violate solar net zero opportunities, the Richmond 300, Climate Equity Action Plan, and Net Zero 2030 commitments. “Balcony solar” or “plug in” solar panels received approval by the Virginia legislature and was signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger in April 2026, to allow renters and homeowners affordable opportunities to lower utility bills and embrace greener energy. These benefits to residents must be protected. 

Code Refresh proposes building heights from five to thirteen stories along the south side of W. Broad Street from Lombardy Street to Arthur Ashe Blvd. The construction of towering buildings across the narrow alleys of West Grace would compromise decades of progress in making West Grace a vibrant, inclusive, and distinctive neighborhood. Further, the 4-story building limit on West Broad from Lombardy to Strawberry, and the 5-story limit on West Broad buildings from Strawberry to Arthur Ashe that HWGSA negotiated with the city during the PULSE Corridor Plan MUST be honored. 

3. RM-A and RM-B are inappropriate for quiet West Grace Street and should be zoned RA like the rest of the Fan. Current zoning minimum lot sizes, building coverage percentages, heights, stepbacks, and setbacks must be maintained to ensure resiliency for our community. 

11% of adults and 8% of children have food allergies, often undiagnosed and life-threatening, so it is further inappropriate to zone residential Grace Street RM, especially when Broad offers food/business opportunities one street over but far enough away to not harm residents.

HWGSA looks forward to the opportunity to work with the City’s elected leaders to ensure that thoughtful, targeted goals of Code Refresh are achieved while supporting the Richmond 300.

Signed, Historic West Grace Street Association

Read the positions of the Fan District Association, Ginter Park, and Warsaw Condominiums communities here:

• FDA Position
• Ginter Park Position
• Warsaw Condominiums Position

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Want to order a Code Refresh yard sign? You can do so, here!

What the New York Times celebrates, Code Refresh will decimate.

Carolers in Church Hill.

What the New York Times celebrates, Code Refresh will decimate. Tourism is drawn to our neighborhoods’ old architecture, gardens, local businesses, and irreplaceable natural resources, setting Richmond apart from tenement-filled, sun-blocked cities, creating almost 24,000 jobs and lowering taxes by over $500 per household a year. Yet our iconic architecture has sparse demolition protection. If Code Refresh has its way with Richmond, revenue-generating historic architecture, local business, and gardens disappear for high-rent concrete towers anchored by chains… or worse, ground floors barren of any activity.

Affordable rentals, homeownership, and Richmond’s entrepreneurs disappear with Code Refresh’s RM zoning of 6-12 units crammed onto any lot, trampling the unique charm that drew the New York Times to our city. Want to see your Code Refresh future? Drive by the Publix area of Carytown and the new builds on Broad and look for any local entrepreneurs or tourism draws.

More than 16 million visitors enjoy the Richmond region each year, contributing nearly $2.9 billion to the local economy. Zoning will cram 3 houses on every lot: our homes, many starter homes and rented (and remember: 1 in 3 standalone homes are rented), disappear. Existing affordable housing is vaporized for new multi-units.

Gardens, our infrastructure that cleanses, absorbs, and are celebrated in tours that draw people from states away, will be concreted to 80% per lot, our trees chopped, our homes razed for luxury rentals. Where are the food plots?

Westwood and other neighborhoods value trees, soil, and water... and our homes.

The New York Times admires “stunning” views from Legends Brewery to Church Hill, but Richmond planners envision boxes obliterating our skyline. Code Refresh will deeply hurt the James: no one kayaks in or hikes by sewage, which Code Refresh will bring. Infrastructure or schools are not mentioned once in Code Refresh.

Parts of iconic Shockoe, Jackson Ward, Church Hill, most of the Fan, and all of Bellevue, Uptown, Highland Park, Forest Hill, Brookland Park, Westover Hills and Heights, Maymont, Byrd Park, Oregon Hill, Randolph, Ginter Park, Stratford Hills, Monroe Ward, the Museum District, our river views, trees and soil: GONE. Richmond won’t protect them; Code Refresh zoning will foster their destruction. 

Richmond’s sustainability and zoning staff admire Singapore and Oregon, but the Richmonders I speak with do NOT want to be a tower-filled tenement city. By protecting existing homes, soil, tree canopy, and the James, Richmond remains a vibrant city where tourism and locals can thrive.

Why would Code Refresh destroy our homes?

Neighbors ask: "Why would Code Refresh destroy our homes?"

In Jackson Ward, the average home is 1,800 square feet. In Randolph and Westwood, 1,300 - 1,400 square feet. Maymont's average home is 1,100 - 1,500 square feet, and in Swansboro, 1,300 - 1,550 square feet.

Church Hill 's average homes span 1,500 - 2,500 square feet; Carver's, 1,600 - 1,660.
The City Stadium neighborhood typically averages around 1,200 to 1,400 square feet. 
Bellevue ranges between roughly 950 to 3,500 square feet.

Does Code Refresh intend to demolish average/smaller Richmond homes to build LARGER duplexes that fill these lots?

Does Code Refresh intend to destroy our existing small ownership opportunities for permanent rentals?

Today, renting a 1,500 sq ft apartment falls between $1,700 - $2,400+ per month.

If Code Refresh *really* cares about AFFORDABLE HOUSING (or the environment!) it would keep additional units small, 500-800 square feet, and focus on RETROFITS.

About 60% of Richmond's housing is rentals. Shouldn't Richmond protect home ownership opportunities so families can achieve home ownership to pass on to future generations?

86% of renters WANT TO OWN A HOME.

Demolishing homes to create permanent rentals keeps the next generation from building wealth, weighing them down with permanent leases. Single-family rental households in Richmond grew 31% over the last 20 years, outpacing owner-occupied homes.

We already allow second units on every lot with ADUs, don't forget. We know the first thing developers are going to do, including the non-profit "affordable housing" developers, is knock down existing cottages (don't forget many neighborhoods' average homes are about 1,500 ft.) to build footprints twice as large just with two units. 

So the insults "green" and "affordable" YIMBYs hurl out as McMansionizing is actually what they intend to do: RentMcMansionize.

A new member added another layer of insight: by allowing duplexes, developers are tapping in to existing pipes without a mandatory infrastructure plan that would otherwise be required on new lots without infrastructure.

Is Code Refresh anti-ownership, anti-environmental? 
It's certainly not following Richmond 300.

Code Refresh must maintain today's unbuilt yard percentages to protect affordable housing and save Richmond's living, irreplaceable trees.

Code Refresh must maintain today's unbuilt yard percentages to protect affordable housing and save our living, irreplaceable trees.

Retrofits are Richmond's most powerful affordable housing tool - and they save trees.

Retrofits affordably modernize aging structures, keeping longtime residents in place instead of displacing them. They cut energy bills by 30% or more, directly lowering costs for low-income families. They improve health through better insulation and air quality. They cost far less than new construction. Retrofits don't destroy Richmond's irreplaceable trees.

Retrofits overwhelmingly preserve affordable housing AND our tree canopy. That's not a coincidence. That's smart, humane city-building.

WE NEED TREES EVERY SINGLE DAY, not just for Earth Month.

It's refreshing to hear planning and sustainability staff talk about trees, sunlight, and soil. (Last year, sustainability staff told us tall concrete was great because it puts neighbors in permanent shade and brings wind shear!)

But our lungs don't work on a calendar: Richmond needs every inch of tree canopy shading us in brutal summers, opening us to winter light, filtering our air, absorbing our stormwater 365 days a year.

Here's what's at stake:
- 2008: Richmond's tree canopy covered 42% of our land.
- 2018: 32%.
- Today: The average Richmond neighborhood has just 23% coverage.

Picture your block from above, only 23% trees. The rest? Concrete. No air filtration. No heat relief. No stormwater absorption. No food gardens. Just heat, flooding, and pollution.

We cannot afford to lose another inch.

Why do yards matter so much?
Because 85% of Richmond's trees are on private residential lots.

Not in parks. Not in tree wells along sidewalks. In yards, that Code Refresh is about to diminish.

Planners talk often about public tree wells, but they don't replace yard trees, and they can't. Public trees serve public space. They do not fulfill a private lot's obligation to its neighbors, just as a public park cannot substitute for private green space. That's not a technicality. That's the difference between a livable block and a heat island.

Tree funds don't work. Up to 50% of newly planted urban trees die within the first year. Ninety percent of tree funds fail. A mature, thriving tree is not a line item you can budget for. It took decades to grow. It cannot be replaced.

Reducing unbuilt lot percentages in Code Refresh is a direct attack on Richmond's health.

Eighty-five percent of our trees are in yards. 

Reduce those yard requirements, and you are choosing - in writing, in city code - to sacrifice the air quality, heat resilience, and livability of our neighborhoods. You are telling low-income residents that their block doesn't deserve shade. That their children don't deserve clean air. That their flooding doesn't matter.

Unacceptable.
Code Refresh must not only maintain today's unbuilt lot percentages, it must strengthen them. Every lot, including apartment buildings, should be required to support soil-based habitat, food-growing gardens, and tree canopy. Resilience isn't a luxury. It belongs to every neighbor, on every block.

Protect the trees we still have. Grow more. Code Refresh must protect Richmond, not destroy it.

Photos: Irreplaceable trees in Richmond's irreplaceable Bellevue and Frederick Douglass Court.