More than $11.5 million in affordable housing funding in Charlottesville’s FY27 budget

We’re in a new fiscal year now which serves as a resource of sorts for a locality’s financial clock. Elected bodies adopt a budget in the spring that guides spending based on the amount of revenue expected to be collected.

When City Manager Sam Sanders introduced a budget in early March, he proposed a two-cent increase on the real property tax rate in order to provide additional revenue to fill a revenue gap fueled in part by the ongoing impact of collective bargaining.

In April, Council agreed to limit that increase to one cent for a real property tax rate of $0.99 per $100 of assessed value.

“This increase produces an additional $1.2 million,” Sanders wrote in the budget summary. “The revised proposed General Fund revenue and expenditure estimates both total $279,414,659 which represents a total increase of 5.43 percent or $14.4 million over the FY26 Budget.”

No other rates changed this year but residential assessments were up 4.74 percent and commercial assessments were up 2.29 percent. That worked out to an average increase of 3.72 percent.

The city will receive $21.88 million in revenue-sharing funds from Albemarle County based on a 1982 referendum agreed to by voters in both localities. There are no specific requirements for how the city uses this money.

For instance, none of that funding is earmarked to pay for services operated by Charlottesville Area Transit, wholly-owned by the city government. A campaign from advocacy groups has led to Council agreeing to a plan to hire ten drivers a year for four years to provide enough drivers to fully implement a transit strategic plan. Council learned about that plan at a December 1 work session as I reported.

“This budget reflects a significant new investment in transit with the addition of 10 additional drivers, 5 support staff for enhanced operations, and the absorption of the collective bargaining contract increase and offset for zero-fare continuing,” Sanders wrote in the summary. “This is a $2.2 million additional investment in CAT for FY27, with the county contributing its share of $3.1 million and the city contributing $6.1 million towards the total FY27 CAT budget of $16.77 million.”

To try to hire those drivers, CAT will hold an open house and a job fair July 11 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at CAT’s headquarters at 1545 Avon Street Extended.

Housing in FY2027

In March 2021, Charlottesville City Council adopted an Affordable Housing Plan that called for $10 million a year in spending for at least ten years. This budget continues to meet that level.

“This budget includes $11.5 million in FY2027, and over $41 million in the five-year capital program for multiple affordable housing initiatives,” Sanders wrote.

The budget released in March has no specific mention about the city’s $6.2 million purchase of 2000 Holiday Drive to serve as a low-barrier shelter and service center for people who don’t have a home. But the document does set aside money for that purpose, as did the FY2026 budget.

“An annual subsidy of $500,000 is allocated in this budget to support the operations of a low barrier shelter,” Sanders said. “In FY26, the funds were redistributed to support other sheltering priorities while the work to vision a one stop shelter facility was being developed.”

That work remains under development with three agencies in the Continuum of Care working to produce an operations plan for the facility.

Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders said on June 15 that the groups are still working on an operational plan.

“They asked for six months and I gave them three months,” Sanders said. “So end of August for the plan that we discussed.”

Those groups are the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, the Haven, and Peoples and Congregations Engaged in Ministry.

• Charlottesville City Council briefed on low-barrier shelter by groups that provide the programming, March 27, 2026
• Many details remain to be worked out for how three groups will work together at Charlottesville’s future low-barrier shelter, May 15, 2026

The $500,000 for the low-barrier shelter is underneath Housing Programs in the Contributions section of the budget. The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority will receive $300,000 in funding for general operations, the first of what is expected to be an ongoing payment to provide “services to public housing residents of the City of Charlottesville to promote upward mobility and self-sufficiency.”

The Public Housing Association of Residents will receive $125,000 for operational funding.

“As the duly recognized federal mandated representative of all residents in public housing, we work closely with (but are separate from) the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA),” reads a description provided by PHAR.

Both PHAR and CRHA are now considered “fundamental” organizations which include the Charlottesville Free Clinic, the Child Health Partnership, and the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

The Blue Ridge Coalition for the Homeless will receive $250,000 to “to support the lead agency in its efforts to interrupt homelessness and serve the critical needs of the unhoused residing in Charlottesville city limits.”

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