The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (Sept. 9) adopted a package of new guidelines for relocating tenants when affordable apartments are slated for redevelopment, acquisition or condominium conversion.
“The overarching goal is to assist displaced tenants in moving to safe and affordable replacement housing convenient to their employment or school, while facilitating tenants’ return to preserved affordable units to the greatest extent possible,” county staff said in the report’s overview.
The new guidelines supplant original guidance set in the 1993, which was updated in 2012.
The latest incarnation is “the result of a collaborative process where we engaged with a number of stakeholders in the community,” said Tom Fleetwood, director of the county’s Department of Housing and Community Development.
While acknowledging that different situations may require flexibility, the report lays out a seven-step process for property owners to follow when development is expected to displace tenants in affordable housing — whether the units are market-rate or committed-affordable:
- Notifying county staff and existing tenants “as early as possible”
- Conducting a survey of tenant needs and preferences
- Developing a relocation plan
- Providing tenants with a copy of the plan, required notices and available relocation resources
- Providing relocation assistance in the form of payments and/or services
- Keeping tenants and county staff updated regularly on the project status
- Providing tenants information on returning to the property and offering move-in assistance
Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik said the revisions were not designed to toss out what was working, but rather “clarify some of our expectations” of developers.
Under questioning from Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, Fleetwood acknowledged “these are guidelines, not requirements” for the development community.
“Each of these [developments] will be different,” he said, calling the new guidelines “a framework for negotiations with developers.”
Herrity asked Fleetwood if the county government had attempted to gauge the financial impact of the requirements on the final cost of providing housing. The answer was no, which didn’t please Herrity.
“If you’d gone to industry and asked for a cost, they’d have helped you,” he said.
Even so, Herrity, the board’s lone Republican, ended up voting with his nine Democratic colleagues to approve the revised policy.
