Prince William leaders balk at building more affordable housing

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors was briefed on how the county could meet the growing demand for affordable housing over the next 10 years. Several supervisors took umbrage, arguing that the region did not have the resources or necessity to plan for more affordable homes.

Paul DesJardin, director of community planning services for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG), and Rebecca Horner, director of planning for Prince William County, presented housing “aspirations” for the county based on estimates of public need and demand.

DesJardin recounted a recent COG leadership retreat, where Seattle’s director of transportation gave an address. “His concern [for our region] was less about transportation and more the housing impacts of growth and how we can be better prepared for that,” said DesJardin.

The county is already planning on building an estimated 23,000 housing units over the next 10 years. To meet projected housing demand COG listed a goal of adding 7,000 affordable units, bringing the total to 30,000 new homes. This would be spread out to roughly 700 additional new homes per year.

Some of the board members challenged COG’s numbers and the practicality of building more homes in a county already dealing with population concerns.

“Our schools are overcrowded,” said Maureen Caddigan, Potomac district supervisor. “We’re not really excited about putting a whole bunch of houses in until we get caught up.”

“You have plans for the next ten years, but we are strapped,” she added.

“It’s easy for you to say,” Pete Candland, Gainesville district supervisor, said to DesJardin. “It’s hard for us to think about adding more homes – regardless of price point – when I-66 is a parking lot, when there’s a new fatal accident on 66 every other week.”

COG’s suggestions focused on placing 75% of the additional units in “activity centers and high-capacity transit stations,” with easy access to amenities and a variety of transportation options.

This kind of housing will be available to a large swathe of working citizens, DesJardin projected. “It’s housing for [people like] my kids. My daughter, who is going to be a school teacher and wants to come back to Northern Virginia; my other daughter who wants to be an architect,” he said. “The types of folks that we want to bring back to our region.”

“I hope we take this with a grain of salt,” chairman at large Corey Stewart said in response to the presentation.

Stewart cited concerns that Prince William County would become similar to China by focusing on affordable builds in high-density areas. “The Chinese government… decided that they wanted all of their citizens… to live in these atrocious, high-rise apartment buildings surrounding factories,” said Stewart. “You see these seas of massive sky-rises, and they’re abandoned. They were never occupied because the government had them built, but people didn’t want them.”

Instead, Stewart opined that the county’s future will see increased demands for “higher-end housing” and suburban, single-family homes – not affordable units near mass transit.

More than 5,000 applicants are currently on the waiting list for rental assistance with the county’s Housing Choice Voucher Program, which has been closed indefinitely following budget slashes. Non-profit organizations in the area agree that the list of families in need continues to lengthen.

Many housing experts are concerned about the future of Prince William County’s housing availability, particularly with the impending arrival of economic changes like Micron’s expansion and Amazon’s HQ2. These changes will likely bring more jobs to the region, but also price families out of the D.C. area and into places like Prince William County.

“We can’t support more and more people coming in from areas far outside this region,” DesJardin told supervisors.

Horner pointed to Fairfax County as an example where affordable housing policies had been successful. Fairfax implemented new policies during rezoning negotiations and followed specific housing goals in comprehensive plans. More than two-thirds of housing in Fairfax is reportedly targeted towards working-class families.

“I think it’s unrealistic,” said Stewart at the end of the discussion. “The most important thing that we have to do is to get out of the way to allow those who are providing the housing to supply the types of housing that people are demanding.”