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Facing a severe shortage of affordable housing, the City of Alexandria Housing Department retained RKG for the preparation of a Housing Master Plan.  The housing difficulties were seen as largely due to sharply increasing real estate costs and regional development pressures that had increased over the previous decade. Since 2000, the area had seen dramatic declines in market affordable rental units, as well as in opportunities for affordable home ownership for individuals and families earning between 60 and 80 percent of median income.

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The lack of affordable choice in Alexandria’s housing market threatened the community’s diversity, as well as its long term economic sustainability.  As such, the RKG-led Housing Master Plan aimed to establish a comprehensive vision that would guide future development.  The plan was created with the goals of preserving and enhancing affordable housing opportunities, community diversity, and economic sustainability.

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RKG's analysis included a market supply and demand assessment for the City as a whole, as well as for fifteen individual neighborhoods within the City. RKG then created a model which allowed the City to test various iterations of developer-proposed programs in order to determine the financial feasibility of the developers’ claims, as well as the potential impact to the City’s bottom line.

 

RKG identified gaps in the Alexandria housing market and created a detailed implementation plan for how the City could help close these gaps by providing affordable housing for its residents.  RKG also provided the City with a highly customizable tool for assessing the financial feasibility of future development proposals.