Alexandria and regional partners will be getting $3.5 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to “identify and implement” new affordable housing strategies.
The $3.5 million is provided through HUD’s Pathways to the Removal of Obstacles grant. The funding will go to Alexandria and other localities in Maryland and D.C. as part of the Metropolitan Council of Governments.
A release from the City of Alexandria said the grant offers funding to communities “that have been actively taking steps and demonstrating progress in addressing local housing barriers.” The City of Alexandria has been at the forefront of affordable housing policy discussions in recent years — from an extensive zoning overhaul approved last fall to codifying the density-for-housing trade.
Alexandria and its neighbors celebrated the funding at an event on Monday at the Spire Apartments in the West End, a affordable housing development funded in part by low-income housing tax credits and City housing loans.
“Every policy issue we take on as a region… everything we do as a community comes from housing,” Mayor Justin Wilson said at the event. “That’s why getting housing policy right is going to help us be successful in so many other ways. This is not a problem we can solve as Alexandria, not a problem we can solve as any one jurisdiction. But together, all of us working together, we can make some pretty impressive accomplishments.”
The release said the funding will go to continued work on studying and implementing recommendations in the recently completed Regional Fair Housing Plan
“This is a first of its kind grant funding to further develop, evaluate, and implement housing policy plans, improving housing strategies, and facilitate affordable housing production and preservation,” HUD Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Marion McFadden said at the event. “This funding will allow (jurisdictions) like Alexandria to build on the work the Council has already done to advance housing supply through land-use reform, development financing, assistance to low-income homebuyers, and tax incentives for transit-oriented development.”
