Spanberger unveils Virginia housing affordability plan

Affordability has become the defining test of political electability today. From housing to groceries, voters increasingly judge candidates by their ability to reduce everyday costs.​

Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D) focused on improving affordability during her campaign. To follow through, she rolled out a housing agenda that leans heavily on preservation of existing affordable homes, empowering localities to add more, and rebuilding state-level tools.

She joined a growing group of Democrats who won this year by running directly on addressing the affordability crisis. Mikie Sherrill, who was elected as New Jersey’s governor, and Zohran Mamdani, elected as New York City’s mayor, each made affordability a key campaign message.

Affordability is also emerging as the central fault line of next year’s elections. Polls show the cost of living eclipses other issues as the top concern among voters, and both major political parties are scrambling to frame a credible plan to lower prices on everything, including housing.

Spanberger’s plan would resurrect proposals that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin either vetoed or underfunded last year.​

“It doesn’t matter, either in Northern Virginia or Southside Virginia, starting in January, we will give every locality the option to increase the supply of affordable housing in their community,” she said during a press conference in Richmond.​

What Spanberger proposed

Spanberger’s new “Affordable Virginia” package includes multiple housing bills threaded through a broader 17-bill affordability push on health care, energy and cost of living.​

On housing, she is backing legislation to:

• Give localities a stronger “first look” or first-purchase opportunity when subsidized affordable properties come up for sale, so cities and counties can keep those homes affordable instead of losing them to market-rate conversions.​

• Require each locality to identify concrete options for increasing affordable housing availability, effectively forcing local governments to put pro-housing tools — like zoning changes, preservation strategies or incentives — on the table instead of treating affordability as optional.​

• Create a revolving loan fund to support mixed-income developments, offering below-market financing to builders who include affordable units and easing the capital stack for projects that would otherwise be too thin to pencil out.

• Expand the Virginia Eviction Reduction Program, turning what has been a limited pilot into a larger anti-eviction tool that provides flexible financial assistance to keep vulnerable renters housed.​

• Leverage more of the state’s private activity bond capacity for housing projects by steering additional bonding authority to the Department of Housing and Community Development, with the explicit aim of boosting affordable production.​

Spanberger and Democratic leaders say some pieces — like eviction prevention — would have a quicker impact. Others, like preservation and financing tools, would work over a longer arc.​

“It is clear that we cannot accept the status quo when it comes to the high cost of living,” Spanberger said. “It is hurting the financial security of our economy, our communities and our neighbors, and changing the status quo begins next month.”​

Republicans may get on board

Republican House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore said in a statement that while his members are still reviewing the proposals, at “first blush, they appear focused on the right priorities.”​

But Kilgore noted that Spanberger’s proposals focus on preserving existing housing rather than increasing supply.​ “If you don’t build enough houses, housing gets expensive,” he said.​

Across the country, creating a better environment for building more housing — such as moves to add “missing middle” homes — has been a key tactic in improving affordability.​

In Virginia, however, such efforts have faced significant legal challenges from residents who oppose increased housing density.​

Arlington County took the step two years ago and is still fighting over it in court. Neighboring Alexandria won a two-year battle over its reform that eliminated single-family only zoning.​

In November, Charlottesville settled a lawsuit with homeowners who sued in 2024, arguing that the city didn’t follow proper procedures when passing an ordinance to end single-family exclusive zoning.​

In New Jersey, Sherrill’s platform focused heavily on housing supply, especially missing‑middle housing. She promised to expand missing‑middle production, repurpose underused buildings for housing and offer buyer assistance of up to roughly $22,000, framed explicitly as an affordability strategy.

Mamdani focused on expanding rent stabilization and building additional affordable housing. But his efforts could face a significant hurdle if a federal lawsuit succeeds in its argument stating that part of New York’s 2019 law, which closed a loophole on renovations to rent-stabilized units, is unconstitutional.

Spanberger plan contrasts with Youngkin vetoes

The clearest point of contrast is not that Youngkin opposed every pro-housing idea but that he used both his veto pen and line-item veto power to block or shrink several of the tools Spanberger is now trying to scale up.​

In the state’s 2024–25 budget, Youngkin line-item vetoed funding for a first-time homebuyer grant program and a rental assistance pilot, along with other housing investments, even as rents and home prices were rising faster than in most other states.

Youngkin also rejected at least one major policy bill, H.B. 1398, that would have strengthened preservation of government-subsidized affordable housing — the same space Spanberger is targeting with her new “primary opportunity” proposal for localities to keep properties affordable when ownership changes.

Another 2024 bill to expand an optional affordable dwelling unit program to all localities also died under Youngkin’s veto, limiting the menu of local pro-housing tools Democrats had tried to offer statewide.​

Giving second life to rejected ideas

Spanberger’s package effectively resurrects that line of thinking by making local empowerment, preservation authority and revolving capital central to her first round of bills.​

Youngkin’s final budget decisions last year cut or pared back direct housing supports, like targeted help for first-time buyers and renters. Spanberger is looking to rebuild those supports, and pair them with sticks and carrots for local governments to make more room for housing.​

That contrast sets up a clean narrative going into her first session as governor: Democrats tried to pass and fund more aggressive affordability tools under Youngkin, saw them vetoed or zeroed out, and now return with a governor who is putting these same concepts at the center of an “Affordable Virginia” agenda.