by Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury
April 10, 2025
Chesterfield County is among the fastest-growing localities in Virginia, and demand for affordable homes continues to rise there. But its local zoning ordinance has gone largely unchanged since the early 1970s — when some of its current residents weren’t yet alive.
By 2019, the county decided to begin work on its zoning ordinance modernization project — colloquially called ZOMod — and it is likely to be adopted this year. But first, county leaders want to hear how residents feel about the plan, so community outreach and feedback opportunities are on the horizon.
Over the next month, the county is hosting pop-up events around town to present the latest ZOMod draft and request comments on it (which will typically begin around 5:30 p.m.). The Planning Commission is expected to vote on the draft this summer and it could come before the Board of Supervisors by the fall.
Laura Dobbs, policy director at Housing Opportunities Made Equal, stressed that passage of the new zoning draft is a crucial step in longer-range planning and housing needs for the urban-yet-rural county that wraps around the city of Richmond.
“The biggest danger is that status quo isn’t working,” Dobbs said.
Housing costs to buy or rent in Virginia have been rising, driven by a shortage of about 105,000 homes, according to recent Pew research. For renters, nearly half of American households nationwide are spending at least 30% of their income on rent, and the majority of low-income households spend at least 50%.
Dobbs stressed that increased density in some areas can help with housing affordability for buyers and renters. For instance, Chesterfield’s current rules require that single-family homes must be built on 12,000 square-foot lots — which contributes to driving up prices for people looking for starter homes.
HOME of VA staff have commended localities like Charlottesville for how they handled their own zoning and comprehensive plan updates — a process that entailed robust community engagement that resulted in the allowance of more types of housing to help with broader affordability.
The updated zoning plan will also correct parts of Chesterfield’s local housing policy that was historically exclusionary, Dobbs said.
When much of its current rules were last updated in the early 1970s, it was a time of “white flight” following the Civil Rights Movement, when white families were flocking to suburban areas. Local governments adopted land use laws that all but sequestered affluent and white families from other communities by creating barriers for lower-income and often minority families from moving in.
Governments had a role to play in that racial inequity, but they also have a role in undoing it too, Dobbs said.
“There’s an opportunity here,” Dobbs said, “to right past wrongs, by making more housing available.”
The current document is “race-neutral but taking the steps” to rectify past wrongs, Dobbs added.
For instance, the current draft allows for denser housing types like apartments and duplexes and development on smaller lot sizes. This helps with affordability more broadly because more homes can then come into an area with less suburban sprawl, which helps conserve the more rural parts of the county, too.
For residents who may be wary of the new zoning in Chesterfield or other localities, Finn Pollard with the Partnership for Smarter Growth said new zoning doesn’t mean new developments will drastically alter a neighborhood overnight. New zoning and the county’s comprehensive plan will, however, offer guidance for what different parcels of land could someday become if they are sold or redeveloped.
While housing affordability issues are rooted and experienced locally, it has become a focus for lawmakers at the state and federal levels as well. Virginia lawmakers from both political parties submitted related proposals this legislative session, ranging from measures to strengthen renter protections to ones that encourage localities to address affordability and develop along certain corridors.
During a meeting last fall where Sen. Glenn Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, unveiled a proposal to stop investment firms from outbidding locals on homes, a woman named Holly Dougherty explained how her adult children have been losing out on homebuying opportunities.
“There needs to be a way to keep young families in the community,” she said.
The latest draft of Chesterfield’s ZOMod is available online and residents are encouraged to submit comments until May 3. They can also attend the variety of local community meetings happening throughout April.
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Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.
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