The Virginia Counties, Cities and Towns Committee advanced more than a dozen Senate bills, with the most contested action on SB388 (the 'Faith and Housing' bill), which passed 13-8 after amendments and a reenactment clause were added over objections from local government representatives who argued the by-right zoning provision and 20-unit-per-acre density threshold were inappropriate statewide mandates. Several bills were carried over for further work, including SB717 (transit-oriented housing overlay districts), which the subcommittee continued to the 2027 session.
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Joe Lurch (Vaco) argued 'you're writing a zoning code for the whole state, and we just don't think that fits. And that buy right component still creates a lot of problems,' while supporters including Barrett Hardeman (Commonwealth Housing Coalition) and Sheila Hurley Hennessey (Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy) testified in favor of the bill's approach.
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“In Virginia Beach, the vast majority of these churches are right in the middle of our neighborhood. And we believe that the density requirement for 20 units per acre is far, far too extreme for many of our neighborhoods. And just as an example, my neighborhood alone, this piece of legislation would allow for anywhere between 600 and 900 new units to be added to my two mile neighborhood. That's incredibly impactful.”
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Sign in to subscribeCommittee will come to order. The committee will be at ease. Committee will come to order. Welcome to this week's counties, cities and towns. Our lovely committee of shires and spires, where you can plan it, dream it, build it. I just wanted to take a moment to recognize that we do have an empty space seat today and to pass on our best to Delegate Knight's family. It's a very challenging time. I have never served in a General assembly where Delegate Knight isn't a part of it, so. Well, I don't expect to get choked up. So with that, we're going to go through our docket. I do know we have not very many patrons in the room today. We're going to go ahead and take attendance. So the clerk shall open the roll, The clerk shall close the roll. A quorum is present. All right, so with that, we're going to. We're going to go a little bit out of order. Senator, we have an exact cognate for your. For your bill. I don't think you. Unless you really have something you would like to do, you can feel that we are going to treat your bill…
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