CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — In an effort to try and quell skyrocketing rent and home prices, Chesapeake business leaders are encouraging the city to set a goal of adding 15,000 new homes in the next 10 years.
Earlier this week the Chesapeake Alliance and their workforce housing task force revealed six recommendations they believe City Council can follow to try and reach those goals. They include increasing the amount of land zoned for multifamily housing, developer incentives as well as more dedicated resources for housing affordability.
Task force chair Thaler McCormick warns that, if nothing is done, the whole city could suffer.
“At the end of the day, what we heard from all the business leaders is that housing is impacting their businesses,” McCormick said. “Housing is impacting Chesapeake economically.”
In 2020, Chesapeake surpassed neighboring Norfolk, as the second largest city by population in Virginia.
However, more taxpayers haven’t translated to a lower cost of living. Renting an apartment or home now costs 52% more since 2019, according to the report.
The median monthly rent is just north of $1,860. To be what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development considers affordable, which means rent costing 30% or less of household income, a person would have to make nearly $75,000 per year.
“Chesapeake is well known for their schools, their safety,” said David Ropp, chairman of the Chesapeake Alliance and former Towne Bank executive. “But even our people that are keeping us safe cannot afford to live in the city of Chesapeake.”
The task force finds much of the problem to be supply.
“You know, what we heard loud and clear is that the development process itself is really tough,” McCormick said. “It’s tough in Chesapeake, it’s tough everywhere. The fact that there’s not zoned land means they spend years in the development process, and once they’re spending years in development, it’s just escalating cost. So we need to somehow break the back and shorten and create a more predictable development process. We also have to have the whole community come on board.”
The plan is to continue to educate the public on their recommendations and encourage City Council to implement them.