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.”

FREDERICKSBURG -- A historic slave auction block at the corner of Charles and William Street is being relocated to the Fredericksburg Area Museum, after more than two years of an intensive dialogue between city councilmembers and citizens on the block’s future.

At the July 9 city council meeting, councilmembers and representatives of the Fredericksburg Area Museum agreed that the block would be moved to the museum, contingent on the city and the museum coming to a mutually satisfying plan for the block’s funding and future.

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STAFFORD -- Amazon’s move to Crystal City will have far-reaching effects to the Northern Virginia metro area’s households. Even Stafford County, which is fairly removed from the D.C. corridor, should be considering how dynamics will change.

“Stafford should be thinking very proactively about the fact that we are a growing metropolitan area in the long-term,” Jeannette Chapman, deputy director and senior research associate for the Stephen S. Fuller Institute, told Potomac Local. “There are always going to be hard periods of adjustment as the region grows.”

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PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — Affordable housing’s future in Prince William County unclear amidst predicted federal funding cuts.

Federal subsidies for affordable housing are predicted to decline in the coming years. In Prince William County’s 2020 budget proposal, the county’s affordable housing needs are spelled out, but it remains unclear how demand will be met amidst rapid growth and change in the area.

“As federal lawmakers continue to find solutions to balance the federal budget, all indications are that funding for affordable housing will decline or at best remain level,” the Prince William County 2020 budget proposal noted.

“The largest impact from decreased funding levels is anticipated with the HCVP [Housing Choice Voucher Program] that provides rental assistance for low-income families, many of whom are elderly and/or disabled,” the proposal continued.

The HCVP is the primary means by which the county helps families in need of rental assistance or trying to afford first homes. It contains a Rental Assistance Unit and is overseen by the county’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

Currently, the HCVP receives roughly $35 million from federal funds. Additionally, the county’s general fund transfers $11,414 each year into the HCVP.

But President Trump and his administration have proposed drastic cuts to housing benefits in the 2020 fiscal year budget request, slashing funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by $9.8 billion, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The cuts are concerning because the majority of Prince William County’s housing support comes from HUD. “Further funding cuts would be detrimental to local affordable housing opportunities,” the county’s 2020 proposal noted.

The vast majority of the county’s housing funds are put toward rental assistance. In 2018 $28.7 million was spent on rental assistance and in the 2020 proposed budget, $36.7 million is proposed.

A total of $94,602 is designated for affordable housing support.

Families enrolled in the HCVP typically pay 30% of their income towards rent and utilities, with the difference covered by the program. However, and rents in the county and surrounding areas continue to rise. “Increased rents increase program costs, thereby reducing the number of people served,” the 2020 proposal noted.

There are approximately 1,500 families currently being served by the HCVP, and 5,012 applicants on the waiting list, according to the 2020 proposal. But that waiting list has been closed since 2010. The goal is to have the waiting list decreased to under 2,000 families by 2020, a decade after the waiting list was closed from further applicants.

“The availability of housing affordable to households all along the income spectrum is critical to supporting sustainable, long-term local and regional economic growth,” Bill Lake, director of the county’s Office of Housing and Community Development, told Potomac Local.

“In high-cost urban areas,” such as much of Northern Virginia, “additional federal subsidies provided through state and local governments in the form of grants or deferred loans in combination with Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) equity are necessary to cover development costs in order to provide rents affordable to low-income individuals and families,” Lake said.

These types of federal subsidies have “declined precipitously” in recent years and are “under threat of elimination altogether,” he said.

Non-profit organizations are doing their share to help, but organization leaders agree that the demand is simply too high to keep up with.

Complicating the issue is a 2016 Virginia proffer law, which altered the county’s ability to ask housing developers for conditional zonings, or proffers. This stymied housing developments within the county, including affordable ones. As of 2018, no new home developments had been approved by county leaders.

Lake confirmed that funds from proffers had decreased since the new legislation was adopted.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – (Press Release) The amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus—which in excess can degrade water quality—have declined dramatically in the Potomac River since the 1980s, and are on track for further reductions, says a new COG report.

The findings of the report, Potomac River Water Quality in Metropolitan Washington, were presented today to the COG Board of Directors. The report analyzes long-term data from 1985 to 2016, rather than relying on a single year or point in time, which can be impacted by weather conditions.

Investments in and actions by the region’s wastewater treatment plants largely account for this significant progress, supporting increases in jobs and population while improving Potomac water quality.

For example, discharges of nitrogen from the region’s wastewater treatment plants have decreased by about 75 percent from their peak in the early 1990s, and phosphorous by about 94 percent from levels in the late 1970s.

“The Potomac River serves as the primary source of our region’s drinking water, but it’s also an important economic driver for our region, so this analysis reveals we have much to celebrate,” said Jon Stehle, COG Chesapeake Bay and Water Resources Policy Committee Vice Chair and City of Fairfax Councilmember. “We’re thrilled to be measuring progress in the river, but we’re also observing it, with development at National Harbor, the Wharf, and Alexandria, and renewed recreation on the water.”

The report notes other key points of progress in the Potomac watershed:

Nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment are lower now in the free-flowing portion of the river upstream above Chain Bridge than in 1985.

The more urban part of the watershed below Chain Bridge is showing improving trends in certain areas for nitrogen—specifically monitoring stations at Northwest Anacostia, Patuxent Bowie, Accotink Creek, Western Branch, and Upper Marlboro. This is likely the result of stormwater management investments.

Data in the Potomac Estuary, where the river is influenced by tides and the Chesapeake Bay, show a mixed picture of progress. Most portions of the estuary show short and long-term improvements in nitrogen and phosphorous levels. However, dissolved oxygen, critical to thriving marine life, is improving upstream but has shown no change or degrading trends downstream.

More visible signs of progress include less algal growth and in turn more acres of underwater grasses—12 different species—particularly in the freshwater portion of the Potomac estuary.

“Despite this great news, these reductions are not yet enough to attain water quality standards,” said Stehle. “Investments by local governments and wastewater utilities in water quality improvements are clearly working, but it will take continued investment by other sectors, particularly agriculture and stormwater, to continue these positive trends and achieve water quality standards.”

The Potomac River is part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The region will celebrate Chesapeake Bay Awareness Week June 1-9.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY – Metrorail is closing six stations south of National Airport for platform repairs this summer, and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) and OmniRide are stepping in with alternative transportation options.

VRE has lowered the cost of a single-ride Amtrak Step-Up ticket from $8 to $4. It will also free up space on its trains for new riders, particularly those boarding at Franconia-Springfield or Alexandria – by giving passengers with multi-ride tickets (monthly, 5-day, 10-ride, and transit link card) the option to use any of 12 Amtrak trains listed on the current VRE schedule.

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WOODBRIDGE — Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center has been approved to add a mobile PET/CT scanner to its services. This brings important cancer detection technology to the area, which had previously involved long commutes for patients.

“By offering this service locally, we are able to reduce travel burdens for patients by offering conveniently located, easily navigated services with ample complimentary parking,” Heather Causseaux, director of oncology services for Sentara, told Potomac Local.

The PET/CT services “will improve the quality of care, geographic and financial access, and continuity of care to cancer patients,” said Causseaux.

A PET/CT (Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography) detects early cancer onset by injecting a radioactive isotope, called a tracer, into the body. Cells absorb the tracer, and cancerous cells absorb more of the tracer because they use more energy than normal cells. The scan reveals which parts of the body absorbed more of the tracer, pinpointing cancerous activity.

These scans are considered effective in detecting cancer in its early stages and an important part of early cancer treatment. When not at its Medical Center in Woodbridge, the mobile scanner can be carted south and used at Sentara’s properties in Hampton Roads.

“This project has strong support from the community including patients, community members, and providers,” Causseaux noted.

Last year, Sentara petitioned the state health department for a certificate of public need to offer the service at a pad site outside their Century Building — a stand-alone, three-story facility on the hospital campus that also houses an ambulatory surgery center and provider offices for primary care physicians, radiation oncologists, general surgeons, gastroenterologists, and medical oncologists.

The petition received some pushback from other medical directors in the area who already provide PET/CT scans, who cited concerns that more scanners would “over-saturate the market.” Prior to Sentara’s bid, patients had to travel to centers in Gainesville, Falls Church, and Arlington to receive PET/CT scans.

An informal fact-finding conference hearing was held in July 2018, and in October the certificate was approved, said Causseaux. The scanner has been purchased, and Sentara is finalizing its pad site permit submission for the Century Building. The scanner will hopefully be ready to use in fall 2019.

Sentara will also be opening a cancer center — the Sentara Cancer Network Resource Center — at the Century Building in June. In addition to the PET/CT scanner and other imaging services, the Center will have supportive services for patients, such as support groups, cancer-related classes and programs, and patient navigation.

Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center is the first system in the state of Virginia to be accredited by the Commission on Cancer as an Integrated Network Cancer Program (INCP). They are also accredited by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC).

Editor’s note: This post is unlocked for 48 hours beginning Sunday, May 12, 2019.

A lot has been happening in Vint Hill over the past five years. Its growth from military ghost town to a thriving entrepreneurial village is impressive, to say the least.

Acres of abandoned barracks buildings and barns have been transformed into a bustling community center, which now includes a brewery, salon, Kombucha store, natural makeup manufacturer, yoga studio, catering company, farm-to-table restaurant, and more.

“[A] strong economic base supports a high quality of life,” Miles Friedman, director of economic development for Fauquier County, told Potomac Local. “Vint Hill is a great example of a community where businesses and residents live side by side, literally as well as figuratively.”

Vint Hill is gaining new tenants at an impressive rate. The Puller Veterans Care Center — a state-run, long-term facility for veterans — is anticipated to open next year. OVH — one of the largest providers of cloud services in the world — will be moving in as well. Nathan’s Dairy Bar, a popular ice cream spot that has served Manassas for years, is opening a second location in Vint Hill this summer.

The Inn at Vint Hill has expanded its operations and will soon be able to accommodate overnight guests, Friedman shared. “The growth of the business park helps to support additional amenities, and to support numerous infrastructure enhancements,” he said.

What sparked such a dramatic transformation? Ike Broaddus, co-owner of Old Bust Head Brewery in Vint Hill and former chairman of the Vint Hill Economic Development Authority (EDA), told Potomac Local that there were three primary catalysts for the town’s growth: road improvement, land sales to enthusiastic developers, and business clustering.

From 2009 to 2012, Vint Hill received $12 million in updating major road infrastructure, bringing accessibility and travel ease to the region that it had lacked.

Situated 15 miles west of Manassas, Vint Hill was originally composed of 700 acres of farmland which the EDA sold and rented to individual builders and developers. In 2014 Broaddus and his wife, Julie Broaddus, bought six acres from the EDA, renovated the buildings, and launched Old Bust Head Brewery.

The brewery went into a 1952 post-and-beam warehouse with no windows that had laid unused for 20 some years. Today it has been completely transformed with seating for 600 people, a beer hall style taproom, and a brewhouse that can brew 10,000 barrels a year.

Other businesses immediately moved into the buildings the Broadduses had renovated. The brewery became a catalyst for a new little “village” of retailers.

“The brewery created a community center,” said Broaddus. He and his wife soon bought more of the abandoned barns and renovated them, being careful to “maintain the original character” while making them modern and energy-efficient.

Their devotion to maintaining authenticity and natural beauty is echoed throughout their county, Broaddus noted. “Fauquier County tends to attract people who care about the environment,” he said. “It’s all the rural beauty here. When you’re surrounded by it, you want to protect it.”

Warrenton-Fauquier Airport’s “green terminal” has also been very successful, made possible in part by a $1 million donation from a local benefactor who owns MTO Kombucha, right next to Old Bust Head Brewery.

Since the brewery opened its doors in 2014, more than 20 businesses have moved into renovated buildings nearby.

“The business park is adding new jobs on a regular basis as more and more businesses locate there,” Friedman said.

Broaddus said that more exciting developments are on the way. He noted that Vint Hill lacks available housing, especially for first-time buyers. A “millennial housing” development project is in the works to fill that need.

The intersection of Route 29 and Vint Hill Road is also in the process of being improved with VDOT’s help, “which will make access to the park easier and safer and enhancements to the internal road structure will make it easier to navigate Vint Hill.”

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — Once a refuge for low and middle-income workers priced out of Alexandria and Arlington, Prince William County is currently struggling to meet its population’s affordable housing needs.

Nonprofit organization directors in the area confirmed that the community is in need of housing assistance beyond the scope of existing support systems. But with fewer affordable communities planned in the county and housing programs that are already filled to capacity, no clear solution is readily available.

Amazon HQ2, the online behemoth’s new headquarters in Crystal City, will have “an impact on housing, if nothing more than the hype that has been created has already affected housing prices,” said Karen DeVito, executive director of Catholics For Housing, a nonprofit in Dumfries that helps families find stable, affordable homes.

“People seem to think there will be no housing available,” DeVito continued. The demand for affordable housing in the county is “increasing daily,” and “the housing costs continue to increase, but the wages do not keep pace.”

Requests for housing assistance with Catholics For Housing began increasing last year, DeVito told Potomac Local, though it cannot be stated for sure whether that was due to Amazon’s announcement.

Amazon has promised 25,000 jobs to the Northern Virginia area. Although some of those jobs are bound to go to local workers, many experts agree that outside hires will also be brought in from across the country, escalating the area’s already sky-high housing rates.

In Northern Virginia, a family of four making $58,000 is considered low-income. That is lower than 50% of Prince William County’s Area Median Income (AMI), a number calculated for all cities by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2018, that number was $117,200.

The average rent for a one-bedroom home in Prince William County is $1,425. For a two-bedroom, it is $1,600. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has generated a report indicating that a minimum wage worker would need to work four full-time jobs to sustain an average two-bedroom apartment in Northern Virginia.

Patricia Johanson, executive director of Good Shepherd Housing Foundation — a nonprofit in Woodbridge that helps low-income families and those with mental illness find homes — told Potomac Local that many of the people who come to them are only making roughly $30,000 to $40,000 when regulations are taken into account.

Good Shepherd has three group homes, ten apartments, and one townhouse that they rent out for much lower rates. For example, a three-bedroom rental with them is $600 to $700 a month — roughly $1,000 less than the county’s average.

“Whenever we have an affordable housing rental open up, we get upwards of 25 applications from families within the first few days alone,” said Johanson. “And it is not a quick application. It’s four or five pages and you have to have supporting documentation.”=

Prince William County offers rental assistance in the form of a housing choice voucher program, but applications to join the program have been closed since December 2010. At that point, they had more than 8,500 families.

“Currently, we are around 1,500 [families],” Billy Lake, director of the county’s Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD), told Potomac Local. “We are only calling people from the waiting list when someone goes off the program and the funding for the voucher is freed for another household.”

As of now, it is unclear when or whether the housing choice voucher program will reopen.

Prince William County’s department of social services also has a coordinated entry system which is designed to ensure fair and equal housing access by identifying specific needs and referring people to different programs. But keeping up with the demand is challenging.

“There’s such a long list of people in need,” Johanson noted. “There just aren’t enough programs to help all of the folks that need help in Prince William County.”

Finding developers who want to build affordable communities is also a challenge, compounding the housing problem.

Many of the new communities coming to Prince William County are high-end or “luxury” and very few look to be affordable housing. Out of 222 planned communities listed on New Home Source, only 33 will offer homes for less than $375,000. More than half of the 222 communities are in the $400,000 to $700,000 range.

“The private market does a good job of meeting demand for housing for higher-income households; however, housing for low-income households is difficult and expensive to provide,” said Lake. “High construction costs and market prices for land, along with costs associated with the development review and approval process and state and local regulations, all contribute to the challenge with making projects with lower rents or prices ‘pencil out.’”

DeVito concurred. “Builders can make more money building ‘McMansions,’” she said.

Federal subsidies — such as grants, deferred loans and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) equity — have “declined precipitously and are now under threat of elimination altogether,” Lake said.

“To increase housing affordability, it is imperative that local governments examine and adopt strategies to replace and expand beyond these lost federal resources,” he continued.

DeVito opined that affordable dwelling unit ordinances were essential to ensuring communities provide for limited-income households.