Does the cost of housing in Virginia Beach match the wages of its residents?
That’s a main question city officials hope to answer with a $90,000 Housing Needs and Market Analysis Study that launches this month. The city signed a contract with Virginia Tech this week for a study that will use data on things such as rent, income, construction trends and housing stock conditions to inform development over the next 20 years.
The Virginia Housing Development Authority contributed a $20,000 grant toward the study, cutting the city’s portion to $75,000. The last city housing needs and market analysis study was completed more than 10 years ago, according to Andy Friedman, director of the city’s Department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation.
“Over the next 10 years we’ll spend a quarter of a billion on housing, so the study is going to help us direct how that spending goes,” Friedman said, referring to his department’s budget, which is about $26 million annually.
The City Council has a goal to provide an array of housing choices to meet the needs of current and future residents, Friedman said. The study will show gaps between income levels and available housing and determine the relationship between residents’ income and housing costs.
The analysis is intended to help the City Council make informed decisions on new neighborhood and housing developments. For example, the Council could request that developers add more accessible units for people with disabilities, to meet such a need, Friedman said.
Understanding income levels and housing inventories in the city could also influence how city, state and federal funding for affordable housing is used. One current international trend Friedman expects to come up in the study is renters spending a large portion of their paychecks on rent.
City data from 2013 showed half of Virginia Beach renter households used more than 30 percent of their income for rent.
The study will be done by Virginia Tech’s Virginia Center for Housing Research and will begin with initial data collection. That will be followed by community meetings with stakeholders, residents and industry experts, according to the project summary. The last two steps will be a draft report and review, and a final report.
The study is expected to be finished by late fall.
“We want to make the best decision possible based on the best available information,” Friedman said. “And having the Center for Housing Research do this work for us is going to give us a very good and definite set of information that helps us make the best possible decision.”
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