Fairfax County voters have been hearing a lot about affordable housing in the run-up to Tuesday’s election: Democrats argue that one of Virginia’s wealthiest suburbs should devote resources to affordable housing, while Republicans say the average taxpayer can no longer afford to pay for it.
In a recent debate between candidates for the Board of Supervisors’ Braddock District seat, Supervisor John C. Cook (R) raised the issue when asked which single policy he would change.
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“I think we need to reform our housing policies to do more to help the homeless,” said Cook, 48. “Instead, we spend millions of dollars a year subsidizing housing for people making over $50,000 a year.”
Cook criticized the board’s purchase of the 672-unit Wedgewood Apartments in Annandale four years ago for more than $107 million, saying its price tag rivaled the cost of a school renovation.
Carey C. Campbell, 55, chairman of the Independent Greens of Virginia who is running for Braddock supervisor as an independent, said police officers tell him often they would like to live where they serve but can’t afford to. Noting that the $50,000 household figure Cook cited was for a four-person household, he said Cook’s remarks were a “cheap shot at the poor folks by the borrow-and-spend incumbent.”
The issue of subsidizing housing has divided the 10-member Board of Supervisors and the community. The nonpartisan Fairfax County League of Women Voters has publicly defended affordable housing, noting that Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) has encouraged such programs.
Democrats argue that affordable housing programs are not only the right thing to do but are the practical thing to do. Businesses are reluctant to move to a place employees can’t afford, and local roads cannot handle more commuters driving between their jobs in Fairfax and their homes farther away. They note that the board, in the face of the recession, scaled back affordable housing by halving the Penny for Affordable Housing Fund, which used 1 cent of the real-estate tax rate to preserve affordable housing.
“No longer are we purchasing apartment complexes that are on the block for sale. That’s just not where we are right now,” board Chairman Sharon S. Bulova (D) said.
Republicans have hammered affordable housing on the campaign trail, especially since the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy put out a report this year called “Subsidized Luxury in Fairfax County.”
The report said the county’s affordable housing program was paying as much as $4,700 a year in condo fees for some families. The report said taxpayers make up the difference when a $860,000 townhouse set aside by a developer as affordable housing must be sold for $145,000.
Michael J. “Spike” Williams, a Republican challenging Bulova for chairman, has raised affordable housing as a key difference between their views. In an interview, he acknowledged that as a child he lived in rent-subsidized housing in Herndon when things were “hand-to-mouth.”
“It’s not like we had a flat-screen TV hanging on the wall,” said Williams, 43.
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