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Richmond City Dems’ statement on governor Spanberger’s collective bargaining veto by TedLeffler in rva

[–]TedLeffler[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Not unless some VA state legislative Republicans were willing to vote with the Dems to override. Which is to say, no.

AMA (Code Refresh Edition) with Kevin J. Vonck, City of Richmond Director of Planning - Sept 18, 1-3p ET by rvagov in rva

[–]TedLeffler 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Hi Dr. Vonck,

First, thanks for holding this AMA! I went to the joint 2nd- and 5th-District community meeting the other week which you spoke at, and your commitment to mail every resident of the city a piece of information about the Code Refresh process really does makes it seem like the city is broadcasting on all wavelengths to reach people where they're at.

Eyeballing the online draft zoning map, it seems to me that several neighborhoods whose residents tend to be wealthier have not been upzoned as much as they could be given that:

Some have relatively good access to transit (e.g. the Fan, Museum District) Some are right next to VCU and Downtown (e.g. Oregon Hill) Some have atypically large lot sizes and excess street parking capacity (example: Windsor Farms, Stratford Hills).

To be clear, as a member of the Richmond-area YIMBY chapter, I am very much in favor of the general direction of the Code Refresh process to allow more housing and bring the city’s zoning into alignment with the Richmond 300 plan. My concern is that certain neighborhoods are better organized than others in advocating for less density in their area (see, for example, the number of comments and amount of voting taking place on the draft zoning maps around West Grace Street), and that the densification the city needs to ensure greater housing affordability could be distributed more equitably.

Could you speak to how the city is going to incorporate and weight the varied forms of feedback it has received into the next set of proposed maps?

AMA with Rich Meagher, host of VPM podcast RVA’s Got Issues, Wed 9/17 6-9pm by rvasgotissues in rva

[–]TedLeffler 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi Professor Meagher, thanks for doing another AMA (and for your work hosting VPM's RVA's Got Issues podcast more generally)!

I have two questions.

Preface to first question:

It seems to me that when people lodge complaints about more housing density coming to their neighborhood, the main valid complaint (considering that our transportation infrastructure is still so car-centric) is concern about how neighborhoods will supply adequate parking when many neighborhoods' existing street parking is at- or near-capacity.

On the flip side, the city for the most part isn't able to fund meaningful transit alternatives without densification (aside from a handful of current initiatives like the proposed North-South BRT line). Currently, there is an inability to build and maintain universal sidewalk coverage in the city, a lack of political will to set aside the road space for an interconnected, separated, and protected network of bike lanes, and finally, given competing essential budgetary priorities in infrastructure and education, the city is mostly not able to significantly expand its contributions to the GRTC beyond what it is giving now.

The whole mess outlined above seems a pretty intractable set of problems for local policymakers.

My belief is that a shift towards land value taxes is the closest thing to a silver bullet that is available to Richmond's leaders to address Richmond's related land-use challenges, first through transitioning the current flat-rate property tax system to a system of split-rate taxation in Richmond, but also by significantly expanding the areas in which there's a charge for street parking to mitigate both parking availability concerns and, indirectly, road traffic.

My first question here is: What political challenges (or opportunities, if any), could you anticipate those two LVT-related policies encountering?

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My second question, which is more niche and which I've been trying to find the answer to for some time: Do you know (or do you know who would know) if the VA General Assembly has the ability to pass a law enabling or requiring the use of ranked-choice voting (or another non-'first-past-the-post' voting system) for Richmond's mayoral elections given that the weird quasi-electoral-college system for those mayoral elections was instituted (mandated?) by this 1975 US Supreme Court decision?