Editor’s note: This is an op-ed. The views belong to the author and not necessarily RVA Magazine. We publish opinion pieces to spark conversation, share perspectives, and give space to voices in our community.
Richmond’s zoning code, the policies which govern what buildings can be built and where, is being rewritten as per a recommendation of the Master Plan passed in 2020. At its best, the Richmond Code Refresh can give more people places to live at varying price points, reduce the amount we need to drive, reduce resident displacement, and even improve our water infrastructure.
No one is questioning that Richmond’s water system is struggling. There are certainly oversight issues within the Department of Public Utilities; Mayor Avula acknowledged that it would take years to solve those cultural issues. However, that’s only part of the puzzle. The other issue is that the water system, specifically the pipes that bring water to your home, are facing deep financial issues. This often manifests as old infrastructure negatively affecting the City.
For years, residents, businesses, and most importantly, dollars have left the City in favor of the surrounding counties. This exodus manifested not only in January’s water crisis, where a water treatment system failure in the City reverberated across the region, but also in issues with the expensive and sprawling water distribution system.
Overhauling Richmond’s zoning code will bring sorely needed infrastructure investment back into the City, and is a piece of the financial puzzle necessary to provide residents with the level of service that we deserve. Currently, much of the network is in dire need of investment, as has been acknowledged by the city, and even the properly functioning portions of the water system will eventually need attention. Scott Morris, the City’s Director of Public Utilities, confirmed at a Public Utilities and Services Commission meeting on September 18th that our water system can handle the new growth brought by the Code Refresh, and that the proposed density will help our utility take advantage of better economies of scale. Without allowing for denser inward development to bring more utility customers, each served by fewer miles of pipes, we accelerate outward growth and guarantee further disinvestment from the City and higher rates for everyone.
Historically, this was less of an issue since Richmond grew and developed via incremental, dense development. This practice created mature and productive neighborhoods, like the Fan, partly because infrastructure costs scale much more closely with distance than they do with population. The net result was a City that could invest in itself, and its infrastructure, sustainably.
That changed during the 20th century, especially because of the rise of the personal automobile, when developments were built less densely and further from the city center. Building infrastructure to support a new, sprawling, development seems like a good investment because the upfront costs are relatively low. However, because infrastructure is more expensive over time in these less dense areas, the customer base is unable to pay for the infrastructure that it uses when repairs become necessary.
Maintaining the existing system begins to require the financial backing of new growth even further out, and our region has come to rely far too much on this growth. In Richmond, the bill is coming due now because the counties, and no longer the City, are now the ones mainly responsible for sprawl. The fragility of this practice is already showing as our water rates skyrocket while the infrastructure continues to fail around us.
The great thing about the Code Refresh is that upzoning an area, making it so that taller, higher-density structures can be built there, does not mean that those structures will be built there immediately. If passed, the building-by-building change to our City will be incremental. Strong Towns, an organization that advocates for financially resilient cities, argues that incremental development invites reinvestment in infrastructure. In Richmond’s case, as our population increases and its utility customer base grows, it becomes more feasible to improve the infrastructure here. This is in contrast to cities that are prevented from growing any further, they must raise prices for everyone to pay for infrastructure repairs. When we prohibit density, we all pay more.
As the Code Refresh process nears completion, we will have two choices: either we can welcome more dense development in Richmond, allowing more residents to contribute towards the rehabilitation and improvement of our infrastructure and keeping our utility rates steady; or we can prevent density and reinvestment, and continue paying ever-increasing utility rates while watching our infrastructure continue to fail. While concerns about Richmond’s water system are certainly common, the counterintuitive truth is that the density brought by the Code Refresh can serve as a financial remedy for an ailing system. Supporting the Code Refresh will not make development exceed the capacity of our water system, but rather allow us to sustain it for generations to come.
Jacob Sherrod is the Strong Towns RVA Community Coordinator and the author of the series of Wikipedia articles about Richmond’s water system. He can be reached at sherrod.jacob05@gmail.com.
Photo by Skyler Gerald
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