Hampton City Council Adopts 5-year Consolidated Housing Plan
Plan sets strategy for affordable housing, community services, and neighborhood investment
Hampton City Council unanimously adopted the city’s 2025–2029 Consolidated Plan and 2025 Annual Action Plan, a blueprint that will guide the use of federal housing and community development funds over the next five years.
The vote came during council’s August 13 meeting after a public hearing in which no residents spoke. The plan, developed by the city’s Community Development Department with assistance from Mosaic Community Planning, will be submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a requirement for continued funding through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships programs.
For 2025, Hampton will receive nearly $1.54 million in HUD funding, including $997,489 for CDBG programs and $539,145 for HOME projects. Planned uses include rental code enforcement, housing rehabilitation, homebuyer assistance, accessibility improvements, and support for community-based housing organizations.
Consolidated Plan goals and priorities
The Consolidated Plan identifies community priorities based on data analysis, public forums, focus groups, stakeholder interviews, and more than 250 resident surveys conducted earlier this year. Key priorities include:
Preserving affordable housing through rehabilitation, redevelopment, and accessibility improvements for seniors and people with disabilities.
Supporting public services such as youth enrichment, childcare, job training, mental health services, and senior programming.
Investing in infrastructure like sidewalks, ADA improvements, recreation facilities, and neighborhood revitalization in eligible areas.
Promoting economic development by strengthening local businesses, workforce training, and job placement programs.
Fair housing education for residents, landlords, and housing professionals.
The plan also evaluates the city’s recent performance. In the 2023–2024 program year, Hampton exceeded several goals, rehabilitating 43 homes compared to the goal of 10, and conducting more than 12,000 code enforcement inspections.
The Hampton Redevelopment & Housing Authority manages 261 public housing units and 3,259 vouchers, with properties in good condition and programs to support self-sufficiency. Regional partners provide 199 emergency shelter beds, 18 transitional beds, and 960 permanent housing beds, with additional services for the homeless and special needs populations.
Common issues with affordable housing
According to the City’s report, barriers to affordable housing include rising rents, limited home buyer opportunities, aging housing stock, and voucher discrimination. For example, seventeen census tracts have high concentrations of housing problems, including racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty.
The City states that the needs in these communities include workforce development, job creation, broadband access, and infrastructure investment. Officials also note that Hampton also faces flooding and storm risks, addressed through resilience planning initiatives. Other findings include:
City’s mix of owner-occupied and rental housing: The City of Hampton’s 2025–2029 Five-Year Consolidated Plan finds that the city has 62,503 housing units, most of them single-family homes, with 55.6% owner-occupied and 47.4% renter-occupied.
Shortage of affordable options: While there are enough units overall, extremely low-income renters face a shortage of affordable options, and about 1,115 tax credit units could convert to market-rate by 2035.
Low-income households are cost-burdened: Home values rose to $269,104 in April 2025, a 50.5% increase since 2020, and rents climbed to $1,588, a 51.9% increase in the same period. Most very low-income households are cost-burdened, and the average two-bedroom rental requires an annual income of $59,720 to be affordable.
Dangerous conditions: About half of rental units and 26% of owner units have housing problems, and many older homes pose lead-based paint risks.
City officials emphasized that resident input played a major role in shaping the plan. Between February and July, the city held nine public meetings and focus groups, consulted with local agencies, and gathered community feedback through online and in-person surveys.
With adoption now complete, the plan will be sent to HUD by August 15 for final approval. Funding allocations for the coming year will then be released to support housing and community development initiatives across Hampton.
A Hampton Daily contributor used AI tools and these sources: