That's it. That's the whole blog post.
Well-documented research shows the negative impacts of crowding. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sets the threshold for overcrowding in homes as more than one person per habitable room (excluding functional spaces like the kitchen and any bathrooms).
Other Virginia and Virginia-adjacent localities handle this exact situation through conditional or special-use-permit pathways rather than a blanket rezoning.
So why is zoning so insistent we need to cram so many people into a unit? Let's look at their data.
The most common rental and housing size in Richmond is 2 bedrooms, which accounts for roughly 38% to 50% of the rental and apartment market. To avoid severe overcrowding (more than 1.5 people per room) three people, today's current zoning, prevents the many ill effects of overcrowding on neighborhoods.
Much larger units could apply for a special use permit (SUP) to allow more people, but overwhelmingly, three unrelated people are fine for the majority of Richmond homes if the most common rental is 2 bedrooms.
Code Refresh's own chart shows how Richmond households have changed. Look closely to compare the 1970s to today:
Ask your Councilperson today, and share this chart!
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!!!).
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?!?
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.
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.
You see why other localities require the following:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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.
