Southern Virginia Housing Unaffordable For Many Workers

During February, 45 new single-family homes were on the market in northern Isle of Wight, Va., with prices as high as $1.25 million.

The average price was nearly $550,000.

Not one county employee - not even the Isle of Wight County administrator, who makes $124,323 a year - could afford to buy an average priced house, if he or she were the household’s sole wage earner, a recent report suggests.

“Certainly, we’ve identified there’s a deficiency of affordable housing,” said Beverly Walkup, the county’s director of planning and zoning.

A shortage of affordable homes is a growing concern in many parts of the Virginia housing market, but especially in places like Isle of Wight, York and James City counties, where high-income families are now coming to live.

The Isle of Wight figures come from a report by David Rusk of the Innovative Housing Institute in Baltimore.

Rusk is working with the county’s affordable housing task force, which will come up with a policy that the county can use in evaluating affordable housing in new developments. The group will meet on Friday.

Of the 309 houses on the market throughout Isle of Wight as of February 1, only 11 percent - or 35 homes - could be obtained with a Virginia mortgage with a family possessing the median income of $60,300. In Isle of Wight, median home prices have risen nearly 16 percent from 2005-2006.

The out-of-county workers average a 44-mile round trip, and 337 of them drive from North Carolina. Commuters spend about $1,100 a year on gas, “money better invested in an home equity-creating property rather than going out the tailpipe,” the report stated.

The report includes these affordable housing recommendations:

• Enact an affordable housing law which would allow developers to build more mixed-use projects if some of them were considered affordable housing.
• Encourage the development of mobile home parks that meet high standards for upkeep.
• Allow families in a single-family home to rent out a room as an apartment, which isn’t generally permitted in residential neighborhoods in Smithfield and Windsor.
• Waive fees developers would pay for zoning permits and site development plans on affordable houses and apartments, allowing the savings to be passed down to prospective home mortgage applicants.
• Save existing homes from being demolished. This is the least expensive way to provide affordable housing. A county housing officer could look for a home improvement loan or grants to fix up run-down homes and rentals.

SOURCE: Hampton Roads Daily Press