FFx County as landlord?
Date: March 26, 2008 10:45AM
I have mixed feelings about this. Anyone care to comment on this one?
Local
Fairfax surpasses private owners as largest landlord, county data show
William C. Flook, The Examiner
2008-03-26 07:00:00.0
Current rank: # 22 of 8,077
WASHINGTON -
Fairfax County’s push to maintain its affordable housing stock has propelled it past the private sector as the largest landlord in the county, a revelation that has led critics to call for the multimillion-dollar programs to be reined in.
The local government owns and operates nearly 3,800 dwellings, according to county figures, part of which were acquired as concessions from developers or through other housing initiatives. The figure also includes units for seniors and 234 “beds” in transitional housing or assisted-living facilities.
The steady expansion of the county’s affordable housing inventory has invited new scrutiny of the program, which opponents on the Board of Supervisors call flawed in how it selects occupants and measures success.
Springfield Supervisor Pat Herrity, a newly elected Republican, told The Examiner he wants to reroute the $23 million “1-penny fund” for affordable housing into other budget needs, a proposal sure to ignite a feud with the board’s Democratic chairman, Gerry Connolly.
“At what point is enough enough?” Herrity said.
Connolly called Herrity’s idea “ill-conceived” and said it doesn’t have the support of the board. The fund, he said, “has been doing what we wanted it to do, which is to preserve affordable housing.”
The fund, created in 2005, helps pay for the county to buy units outright or partner with nonprofits to keep their rents down.
Housing officials prominently tout the 2,200 units preserved since April 2004 as a measure of success, though there is no indication that the waiting lists for affordable dwellings have diminished substantially as a result. This is because the county tends to target already occupied apartments.
“Our goal ought to be getting citizens into affordable housing, not building our inventory of rental units,” Herrity said.
The county has drawn fire for, in some cases, allowing families with high incomes to qualify for the units. As of last spring, about 11 percent of the units under the “1-penny fund” went to households making 120 percent the area median income — more than $100,000 for a family of four. Updated statistics were not immediately available.
The original justification for establishing the fund — that it would prevent developers from converting reasonably priced living space into unaffordable, high-end projects during the recent building boom — has disintegrated with the cooling market, argues Michael Frey, a Republican who represents the Sully District.
“We don’t need to do that today,” he said.
Examiner