Governor Abigail Spanberger held the first meeting of her Commission on Unlocking Housing Production Thursday. The effort aims to increase housing supply across the Commonwealth as home prices continue to rise.
“This isn’t really an abstract problem; it’s real life for so many people,” Spanberger said to a room packed with agency members, nonprofit groups and other housing stakeholders with the hopes of quote “unlocking housing production.”
“We are here to ensure that we are better equipping you all with the resources, the coordination, the follow through and, importantly, the listening ears, so that you may do more than what you already do,” the Governor added.
Reporters were allowed to stay for only the governor’s opening remarks. After the meeting Danielle Arigoni with the housing nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners, who presented Thursday, shared some of her insights.
“Flexible funds that affordable housing developers can use to acquire property when it comes for sale," Arigoni told Radio IQ. "We talked about the opportunity for a whole homes repairs program that would be helpful for both single-family homeowners, but also owners of small multi-family buildings to do the required maintenance.”
She said Pennsylvania had such a program and backed it to the tune of $250 million with as much as $50,000 going to homeowners in need of repairs.
"It benefits not just current residents but also perseveres housing stock that will serve future residents as well," she said.
Many of those programs would require elected officials to make legislation for such changes, and there were no such members in the room. Spanberger had a record number of vetoes on her own party members' bills in 2026, a factor officials blamed on a lack of communication between the executive and legislative branches.
But a Spanberger spokesperson told Radio IQ Friday morning she, "remains in close contact with General Assembly members and knows they share the same priorities to lower housing costs for all Virginians."
More to the point, Andrew Clark with the Virginia Homebuilders Association, a member of the commission, said regulatory work could be done without elected officials. And while former governor Glenn Youngkin championed regulatory reform, Clark said Spanberger’s new effort was different.
“This one’s really narrowing in on key, critical agencies like Dept. of Environmental Quality, Department of Historic Resources, Department of Transportation, Virginia Housing," he said. "All those entities that come together to help finance a project or approve a project.”
It’s unclear when Spanberger’s Housing Production commission will meet next, but the legislature’s Housing Commission meets September 22.
