2022 General Assembly Bills
Please find a summary of the 2022 VAHCDO General Assembly bills:
All four bills introduced by members of the House of Delegates on behalf of VAHCDO passed in 2022 and were signed into law by the Governor. These went into effect July 1, 2022. The bills are as follows:
· HB 214 Housing Authority Renaming Bill - Sponsored by Delegate Roxann Robinson: This bill allows housing authorities to rename and rebrand their respective local authorities to a name other than the previous requirement one-size-fits-all "local name" followed by "redevelopment and housing authority." This new law does require that the new name has the consent of the locality in which the authority operates.
· HB 400 RAD Addition to VA Tax Assessment Guidelines - Sponsored by Delegate Rodney Willet: This bill added the federal Rental Assistance Definition (RAD) to the Virginia tax assessment guidelines. Tax assessors must use an income-based approach that accounts for reduced rental streams when determining the taxable value of real property.
· HB 402 Communities of Opportunity Tax Credit Expansion - Sponsored by Delegate Rodney Willet: This law expands the Communities of Opportunity (COO) tax credit for participating landlords to all census tracts in Virginia. Under this program, a participating landlord renting a qualified housing unit is eligible for a credit of 10 percent of the fair market rent for the unit, computed for that portion of the taxable year in which a landlord rented the unit to a tenant participating in a housing choice voucher program. Prior to this bill, the tax credit was only available to Richmond, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, and the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News metropolitan statistical areas.
· HB 1286 Notice of Intent to Dispose of Housing Project - Sponsored by Delegate Sally Hudson: Under this law, the notice required before submitting a demolition application has changed from 12 months to 6 months. However, backstop provisions require 12 months after the required notice before the demolition can take place. The law also contains technical changes to the existing code section. It eliminates redundancies, including requiring a housing authority to notify itself of the intent to apply for disposal. In 2020, the General Assembly approved legislation to ensure that tenants get timely notice well before a redevelopment and housing authority applies to demolish public housing units and ample time before they are required to move. Since then, the experience has been that HUD has taken longer than expected to process demolition applications, creating uncertainty for potential investors working with redevelopment and housing authorities redeveloping neighborhoods across Virginia. This law helps address those issues.
In addition to the successful passage of all of the VAHCDO bills, we were also able to stop bills that would have damaged or hindered the ability of housing authorities to operate effectively and efficiently.
All four bills introduced by members of the House of Delegates on behalf of VAHCDO passed in 2022 and were signed into law by the Governor. These went into effect July 1, 2022. The bills are as follows:
· HB 214 Housing Authority Renaming Bill - Sponsored by Delegate Roxann Robinson: This bill allows housing authorities to rename and rebrand their respective local authorities to a name other than the previous requirement one-size-fits-all "local name" followed by "redevelopment and housing authority." This new law does require that the new name has the consent of the locality in which the authority operates.
· HB 400 RAD Addition to VA Tax Assessment Guidelines - Sponsored by Delegate Rodney Willet: This bill added the federal Rental Assistance Definition (RAD) to the Virginia tax assessment guidelines. Tax assessors must use an income-based approach that accounts for reduced rental streams when determining the taxable value of real property.
· HB 402 Communities of Opportunity Tax Credit Expansion - Sponsored by Delegate Rodney Willet: This law expands the Communities of Opportunity (COO) tax credit for participating landlords to all census tracts in Virginia. Under this program, a participating landlord renting a qualified housing unit is eligible for a credit of 10 percent of the fair market rent for the unit, computed for that portion of the taxable year in which a landlord rented the unit to a tenant participating in a housing choice voucher program. Prior to this bill, the tax credit was only available to Richmond, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, and the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News metropolitan statistical areas.
· HB 1286 Notice of Intent to Dispose of Housing Project - Sponsored by Delegate Sally Hudson: Under this law, the notice required before submitting a demolition application has changed from 12 months to 6 months. However, backstop provisions require 12 months after the required notice before the demolition can take place. The law also contains technical changes to the existing code section. It eliminates redundancies, including requiring a housing authority to notify itself of the intent to apply for disposal. In 2020, the General Assembly approved legislation to ensure that tenants get timely notice well before a redevelopment and housing authority applies to demolish public housing units and ample time before they are required to move. Since then, the experience has been that HUD has taken longer than expected to process demolition applications, creating uncertainty for potential investors working with redevelopment and housing authorities redeveloping neighborhoods across Virginia. This law helps address those issues.
In addition to the successful passage of all of the VAHCDO bills, we were also able to stop bills that would have damaged or hindered the ability of housing authorities to operate effectively and efficiently.
