Affordable housing advocates see victory in Prince William

Preserving Prince William County’s affordable housing may be a bit easier now, thanks to the efforts of a local activist coalition and some 11th-hour changes to the housing chapter of its comprehensive plan by a county supervisor.

On Tuesday night, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors approved the housing chapter of its comprehensive plan — a strategic document meant to map the future of the county for the next 20 years.

The most contentious issue of the document was affordable housing, and language taken out of the document that many thought was necessary to retain.

More than 100 people attended Tuesday’s vote, many of them from Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement — a non-partisan collection of area religious institutions in Northern Virginia.

Several of the group members spoke about the need for this language, much of which was put back into the document through suggested changes presented by Supervisor Martin E. Nohe, R-Coles.

Those changes included language addressing proffers for affordable housing and deed restrictions that would keep a ceiling on property prices when those properties are re-sold.

These issues and other language were modified or struck out altogether by Chairman Corey A. Stewart, R-at large, after a work session on the comprehensive plan on Jan. 13.

Supervisor John Jenkins, D-Neabsco, said he first saw the changes proposed by Stewart during a staff presentation Feb. 3 in which the supervisors were scheduled to vote to approve the plan. During that meeting, Jenkins made a successful motion to table the issue until Tuesday.

The decision to do so allowed the public to speak out more against Stewart’s proposed changes, something that VOICE was clamoring for.

Keith A. Savage, a VOICE organizer and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Manassas, said the vote to approve the latest version of the housing plan was a step in the right direction.

“We did not get everything we wanted but to get half of what we were looking for is a victory for us,” said Savage, who thundered a sermon-like speech earlier in the evening in front of a standing-room-only crowd in council chambers. “The followup is holding them to their word.”

Before Tuesday’s vote, Stewart said he believed there were some who incorrectly believed that all references to affordable housing were being eliminated in his version of the housing plan.

“Some people clearly misconstrued that we were deleting affordable housing from the comprehensive plan,” Stewart said. “The board is not doing that, we are adjusting the comprehensive plan recognizing that we have a surplus of housing. We are not going to contemplate the construction of more [housing] but we are going to clarify that if circumstances change, the board will reevaluate that.”

But many who spoke against Stewart’s changes pointed to what they believed was a short-sighted plan that focused too much on the current foreclosure market and too little on the long-term future of the county’s housing market.

Nohe said the comprehensive housing plan needs to be for people of all income levels and should look as far into the future as possible. Jenkins agreed, citing his own grandchildren and their struggles to find affordable property as an example of why the county should look past the foreclosure crisis.

“I think some of the board members misunderstood the need [for affordable housing],” Jenkins said. “Sometimes our board members forget that we have almost 400,000 people here in the county.”

Only Supervisor Wally S. Covington, R-Brentsville, voted no, crediting his lack of support to failures in the plan to address issues like preservation of historic buildings and sewer-related issues.

Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-878-8062.