Legislative Bulletin February 7, 2023
Tuesday, February 07, 2023 - 04:31pm
In this issue:
Budget
Budget amendments posted!
All the budget amendments approved House Appropriations and Senate Finance & Appropriations Committees on Sunday are now posted on the General Assembly’s website here >.
What happens next?
On Thursday, Feb. 9, the House and Senate will separately take up for adoption their revised budget. This discussion can often be lengthy, with individual amendments pulled out of the block for discussion, debate, or attempted amendment; it’s exceedingly rare for anything to change from what is proposed.
After each chamber approves its budget, it moves to the other chamber where it is rejected. At that time each chamber appoints conferees to work out the differences between the two budgets. The conference lasts for several days, with resolution hopefully coming before the scheduled adjournment date (Feb. 25).
VML staff will review the budget amendments proposed by each chamber and provide more detail on amendments of interest to local governments later this week.
VML Contact: Janet Areson, jareson@vml.org
Housing
Housing bills that live on
Below are several housing bills that are still alive and working through the process; you will not that many of them have specific reporting requirements for local governments and vary widely in these reporting requirements. VML continues to talk with the patrons about trying to streamline these reporting requirements and determine which may affect local governments the most. Any comments that you have on the reporting requirements would be most welcome.
HB2494 (Ware) Counties, cities, or towns, certain; powers & duties, report. Applies to localities over a population of 3,500 and requires annual reports to the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). These reports shall include: adoption or amendments of any local policies or ordinances affecting the development and construction of housing, any proffer policy changes, changes to zoning/subdivision ordinances, comprehensive plan revisions, and changes to accessory dwelling units and/or fees. DHCD will work with relevant stakeholders to create a reporting form.
HB2046 (Carr) Housing and Community Development, Department of; adds to powers and duties of Director. Adds to the Duties of the DHCD Director the gathering of affordable housing data along with creating a statewide affordable housing plan.
SB839 (Locke) VHDA; report or spending, powers of Director of DHCD. Requires the Virginia Housing Development Authority to report to the Governor and the Chairs of the Finance Committees reports dealing with the spending of funds and outcomes. It also adds responsibilities to the DHCD Director related to comprehensive statewide housing needs every 5 years.
SB1114 (Stanley) Housing and Community Development, Department of; powers and duties of Director. Directs the DHCD Director to develop and operate a Virginia Residential Sites and Structures Locator database which will show suitable residential or mixed-use development or redevelopment sites that are under public ownership, public and private ownership or private ownership if there is permission to market. Note – This bill is contingent upon funding in the budget.
SB1151 (Edwards) / HB2161 (Williams) Local government; standardization of public notice requirements for certain intended actions. VML strongly supports this bill which came out of a Code Commission study over the summer. This bill standardizes the frequency of advertisements in the newspaper and pares down several zoning notice requirements for the newspapers.
HB1671 (Wyatt) Residential land development and construction; fee transparency, annual report. Requires every locality with a population greater than 3,500 shall submit an annual report to the Department of Housing and Community Development containing the total fee revenue collected by the locality for residential land use development and construction activities.
SB1141 (McPike) Affordable housing; local zoning ordinance authority; comprehensive plan. If a locality has passed an ordinance to provide for an affordable housing dwelling unit program; this bill offers implementation tools and measures that can be included along with increases in density. This legislation has a delayed enactment until July 1, 2024. Note – The House version has been sent to the Housing Commission
VML Contact: Michelle Gowdy, mgowdy@vml.org
Bills sent to the Housing Commission
The Virginia Housing Commission will be busy next summer dealing with all the issues listed below. As you can see, they are very local issues. VML will report on the progress that the Housing Commission makes with these issues via our Legislative Bulletin newsletter.
HB1413 (Marshall) Industrial development authorities; safe and affordable housing. Would have allowed industrial development authorities the ability to assist with facilities for multifamily residences.
HB2047 (Carr) Affordable housing; amending local ordinance authority. Purported to expand the localities that could create an affordable dwelling unit program.
HB2100 (Hudson) Accessory dwelling units; establishes authority & requirements for localities in development & use. Would have established authority and requirements for localities in the development and use of accessory dwelling units (ADUs). There was a substitute that was rejected but asked the DHCD to convene an advisory panel to develop a local model ordinance related to accessory dwelling units.
HB2271 (Marshall) / SB1391 (Lewis) Short-term rental property; locality’s ability to restrict property managed by a Virginia realtor. Stated that short term rental properties that are managed by a Virginia realtor do not have to comply with the following short term rental ordinance provisions:
- a prohibition on short term rentals
- limitations on occupancy in a short-term rental property to less than what is allowed under the building code or a local zoning ordinance.
- a limitation on the number of days for which a short-term rental property can be rented.
- a requirement that an owner shall occupy the property as his primary residence for any number of days.
- a requirement for the installation of any type of remote monitoring device on the short-term rental property, including decibel, audio, or video.
- exterior or interior inspections of the short-term rental property pertaining to any items defined under the building code more frequently than 3 years, unless a complaint has been filed.
- required repairs, renovations, or updates to the structure of the short-term rental property that are greater than those required under the applicable building code.
- requirement for an owner to add additional or otherwise alter existing parking spaces for the short-term rental property.
HJ507 (Marshall) Affordable and workforce housing; Va. Housing Commission, et. al., to study local regulation. This study shall develop revisions to Chapter 22 of Title 15.2 of the Code of Virginia to streamline and enhance predictability in local development review and alleviate the effects of local policies or ordinances that contribute to increased housing costs and constrain supplies of affordable and workforce housing. In addition, it shall identify state funding sources and other incentives to encourage the adoption of local policies that would expand the supply of affordable and workforce housing and recommend actions to administer such funds.
VML Contact: Michelle Gowdy, mgowdy@vml.org
Education
Education legislation at Crossover – what remains?
The first half of the 2023 session has been incredibly busy for education legislation with several major policy changes introduced in both the House and the Senate. After weeks of testimony, opposition, support, (and a bit of heartbreak) we have reached Crossover. Fortunately, the troublesome bills that appeared before House and Senate were killed before making it to the floor. However, a few good bills met the same fate, hence the heartbreak!
Below are the education bills of note that remain in play.
Supporting
HB1423 (Coyner) Creation of Commission on Early Childhood Care and Education. Renames the current School Readiness Committee as the Commission on Early Childhood Care and Education, adjusts the powers given to the commission, and specifically includes VML as a member of the commission.
SB1408 (McClellan) Additional local sales and use tax to support schools; referendum. Authorizes all counties and cities to impose an additional one percent local sales and use tax to be used solely for school construction and renovation if approved by a referendum.
HB1574 (Walker) School board selection; referendum on direct election of school board members by voters; authorization by local governing body. Allows local governing bodies to file a petition with the circuit court to have the ability to ask via referendum if school board members should be elected or appointed. Currently, the petition must come directly from the people.
Monitoring
SB1124 (Stanley) Board of Education; standards for the maintenance and operations, renovation, and new construction of public elementary and secondary school buildings. Requires the Board of Education to propose amendments to the Standards of Quality on how best to add standards for the maintenance and operation of public-school buildings.
SB1287 (Deeds) Additional local sales and use tax to support schools. Authorizes the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County to impose an additional one percent local sales and use tax to be used solely for school construction and renovation if approved by a referendum.
SB1045 (McPike) School boards; school building maintenance capital target. Requires every local school board to establish and include in any multiyear capital improvement or similar document that it adopts a school building maintenance capital target of at least 1.5 percent replacement value of buildings. The identical version of this bill in the House failed in the subcommittee.
HB2490 (Davis) Division laboratory schools; application and establishment; Laboratory School Fund established. Establishes guidelines and regulations for laboratory schools to be established division-wide if approved by the local school board and superintendents.
VML Contact: Josette Bulova, jbulova@vml.org
