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STRATEGIES: 7 STRATEGIES FOR DOWNTOWN

CHAPTER 4

ADDRESS HOUS I NG AFFORDAB I L I TY

Several parallel approaches are needed to mitigate the high costs of housing in Downtown. These approaches include: allowing for greater density in new residential development; improving the affordability of existing housing by exploring University-Town partnerships; a Housing Trust Fund and a Community Land Trust; and encouraging developers to target non-students for a portion of the new housing development downtown.

Allow for Greater Density

Improve Affordability of Existing Housing

Establish a University-Town Housing Partnership:  Explore an Employer Assisted Housing Program (EAP) between the town and Virginia Tech. This type of program has been used in several university cities and towns across the United States to encourage employees to live closer to where they work by assisting with the financing of housing in designated areas or across the community. Such a program may include down payment assistance, low -interest loan programs in cooperation with local banks, or forgivable loans from Virginia Tech to assist faculty and staff in buying homes in targeted neighborhoods. Continue and expand the town’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program , which acquires and rehabilitates homes in target neighborhoods in order to increase the supply of affordable decent homes for sale and to stabilize neighborhoods. The town could accelerate these efforts by examining funding a local Housing Trust Fund to support property acquisition, rehabilitation, and other initiatives to increase both the supply and overall quality of affordable workforce housing. The town should also continue exploring Community Land Trusts (CLT) to create permanently affordable homeownership opportunities. The following page provides additional information about CLTs and their benefit. 

As discussed in Chapter 2, the cost of housing is impacted in large part by supply and demand. Blacksburg today has high demand for housing, from students and non-students, but limited supply, especially Downtown. The cost of housing is additionally impacted by development economics. There are certain costs of developing a site, such as land costs and preparation, which are the same no matter how many units are developed. Therefore, the fewer units that can be built on a site, the more a developer has to charge for each unit to cover these base costs. Given these forces, the town can help mitigate the cost of housing by allowing housing to be built at greater densities in desirable neighborhoods such as Downtown, specifically targeting non-students in most locations. Current zoning in some parts of Downtown allows for 48 beds per acre, which in a typical non-student housing development would translate into 25 to 30 units per acre. It is recommended that the town double that allowance on targeted redevelopment sites, with the option to increase it even further as a density bonus. A density of 60 units per acre for multifamily housing is not uncommon in many downtowns, and this density would help relieve current pressures on both housing supply and costs.

69 Downtown Blacksburg Strategic Plan STRONG LINK

LINK STRATEGY CONNECTIONS