This story was reported and written by Radio IQ.
Faith communities own 74,000 acres of land in the Commonwealth, an area twice the size of Richmond City. That’s according to a report by Housing Forward Virginia and Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.
Sheila Herlihy Hennessee is with Virginia Interfaith: “A lot of faith communities are looking at their land as an incredibly valuable resource and want to use it to benefit the community.”
To that end her group and some Virginia legislators are looking to improve on past failed efforts that could help faith communities develop their land into affordable housing. Herlihy Hennessee said there’s 15 such projects completed, mostly in Northern Virginia, and another 40 or so in the pipeline. But as these congregations shrink or look to exercise their faith in a more physical way, the legislature could make the process easier. She also said faith groups are among those seeing wait times of up to five years, if not more than ten, for projects to be completed.
“Both from an organizational standpoint and also a financial standpoint, moving the process along faster and giving congregations the support they need are two important steps that can help,” Herlihy Hennessee said.
Senator Ghazala Hashmi had an effort last year that would have given faith communities the ability to build affordable housing by right, but it failed to get out of committee. This year she’s back with an effort that asks localities to incorporate strategies into their comprehensive plans that would aid congregations.
“To be able to provide housing that’s affordable, that’s meeting the needs of so many different localities where we see housing shortages, that’s very much a part of the effort here,” Hashmi told Radio IQ.
Inclusion during the comprehensive planning process would help develop clearer pathways on issues like zoning, residential density, and streamlining the processes to get approval.
“So many times the barriers we have in place are bureaucratic, it takes a while to get through those and the legal process,” Hashmi said. “Streamlining the process will help these organizations to move forward.”
Delegate Betsy Carr plans to bring a matching effort in the House. And Delegate David Bulova plans to offer a budget amendment that would start a pilot program offering funds to localities and organizations to aid in the administrative process.
"A lot of these organizations are interested in providing affordable housing, but the upfront cost of navigating the permitting process, getting preliminary engineering plans, they make it hard to get a project started," he told Radio IQ. "I hope this program will help provide some of those up-front costs and move the needle on faith-based housing."
Expanding housing in faith-linked spaces may cause some eyebrows to raise - they already don’t pay property taxes, but clarifying what would be owed to localities isn’t part of her effort, Hashmi said.
“This would, you know, presumably help to keep the cost of the housing development down for the residents, for being able to ensure that people can afford in areas where issues such as property taxes do impact the cost of either Home ownership or rent and so forth,” she said. “But that is something that this bill does not seek to address right now.”
Herlihy Hennessee said concerns about faith groups profiting from tax except housing schemes are overblown.
“You’re not making bank on affordable housing,” she said, noting some churches might make a little bit of a profit but that would be used to shore up reserves, help members, go back into ministry in the community or rebuild their worship space.
“Generally, you’re not ending up with a luxury congregation out of this,” she added.
Herlihy Hennessee also said shrinking faith communities are already looking towards private development to use land they no longer need, “selling it to the highest bidder.”
“Some want to use their land for mission-oriented work,” she hypothesized. “We might as well make it easier to do and to benefit the community as a whole.”
Neither Hashmi, Carr nor Herlihy Hennessee said they’d spoken to Governor Glenn Youngkin, armed with a veto pen, about the effort. But Hashmi hopes this is the year it can get over the finish line.
“This is something that, regardless of political affiliation, is an extension of faith,” she said. “And the efforts that a lot of people would want to do based on their guidelines, by their faith.”
Whether or not such an effort will succeed in a short session ahead of a state-wide election remains to be seen.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
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