After months of complaints from Richmond residents that an advisory board for the ongoing zoning overhaul doesn’t adequately represent the community, the Planning Commission is expanding its membership by four seats. 

On Tuesday, the commission voted to increase its Zoning Advisory Council from 17 to 21 members. 

“At the end of the day, this committee is still advisory in nature,” Planning Director Kevin Vonck said. But, he continued, “this may go hopefully further in terms of providing additional opportunities to get wider vetting.” 

The expansion is being backed by Mayor Danny Avula, who said that “by adding new members from underrepresented areas in the community, we’re making sure more perspectives are part of the conversation about how Richmond grows.” 

“People want to know that their voices matter,” he said in a release Wednesday. “The feedback from residents was really important, so the team and I set about adding new representation.”

The ZAC was set up as a subcommittee of the Planning Commission in 2023 to serve as a “demographically, educationally, and geographically diverse advisory body” that would help guide the city’s overhaul of its 1970s-era zoning ordinance and increase awareness of the code refresh. It holds monthly public meetings at City Hall during which members discuss and make recommendations on potential code changes that are being considered by the city’s Planning Department and the consultancy it has hired, Code Studio. 

As the overhaul has continued, the ZAC has drawn increasing ire from residents and neighborhood associations wary about some of the proposals on the table, such as allowing more units on residential parcels by right and encouraging density along particular corridors. Many have complained ZAC membership is too tilted toward development-related interests.

ZAC Chair and Planning Commission Vice Chair Elizabeth Greenfield, whose day job is with the Home Building Association of Richmond, told The Richmonder the expansion was partly intended to address those criticisms. 

“I agree it’s a concern, and it’s one of the reasons why I feel we need additional voices at the table,” she said. “Right now I feel like we are adequately represented by folks with a connection to the development community. I don’t see a need to appoint any additional.”

Both Avula and the Planning Commission’s Tuesday resolution, however, focused more on the need to ensure that ZAC membership represents all nine City Council districts. 

Currently, the ZAC has no members from District 4, in the southwestern part of Richmond, or District 7 in the East End. District 2 centered on the Fan and Districts 8 and 9 in Southside only have one member each. 

Greenfield said some of the gaps were due to several members repeatedly not showing up to meetings and one withdrawing due to work constraints. 

Adding four seats “gives us an opportunity to ensure that there’s adequate representation in each district,” she said. 

UPDATE: Avula's office provided the following breakdown of ZAC members (there are 16 active members at the moment):

• 1st District: Elizabeth Greenfield, Philip Hart, Charles Menges, Damian Pitt, Brian White
• 2nd District: Jennifer Mullen
• 3rd District: Kendra Norrell, Maritza Pechin
• 4th District: none
• 5th District: Dave Johannas, Preston Lloyd, Eric Mai
• 6th District: Casey Overton, Ellen Robertson, Charlie Wilson
• 7th District: none
• 8th District: Wayne Credle
• 9th District: Bennie Gates

Contact Reporter Sarah Vogelsong at svogelsong@richmonder.org