(RECAP: As the price of housing in Charlottesville continues to climb, city officials are weighing several options to ensure that some homes remain affordable for those with lower incomes. City Council was presented Monday with a list of 35 policy recommendations made by the Housing Advisory Committee (HAC), which has spent the past year reviewing a report made by the firm RCLCO that examined housing trends in the community. Some of the changes would require the zoning code to be amended, some can be implemented by staff and others would require permission from the General Assembly. The HAC has also suggested Charlottesville emulate a program from Montgomery County, Maryland, that requires developers to build “moderately-priced dwelling units.” If a builder constructs more than 20 units, up to 15 percent of those new homes must be priced for moderate and low-income units.)

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(RECAP: HUD officials refuse to clarify why they haven’t fixed poor accounting practices and useless financial books their inspector general (IG) has been exposing for four years. It’s not clear whether HUD officials know what they’re doing is incorrect because, their spokesman, Brian Sullivan, told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group that “HUD does apply generally accepted accounting standards.” Not so, said the IG, whose most recent audit found 11 “material weaknesses,” seven “significant deficiencies” in internal controls, and five instances of “noncompliance with applicable laws and regulations.” The department’s financial books are something the next HUD secretary will confront after succeeding current HUD Julian Castro. The department has a history of failing to comply with IG recommendations on financial management, ignoring 63 of them since 2012.)

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(RECAP: City staff will pitch to Newport News City Council on Tuesday the thought of turning the Marine Reserve Center on Warwick Boulevard into the city’s first homeless day center. With council members’ approval, the city would submit a letter of interest to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to use the building as a place where those who are homeless can take showers, transition to stable housing and potentially seek out help from city agencies, according to City Manager Jim Bourey. The Marine Reserve Center, which has been vacant for about two and a half years, was placed on the Federal Register this August as a place that can be flipped to accommodate the homeless. It’s the only federal property in the state identified by HUD that is suitable to help the homeless.)

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