In most cities, the problem with building affordable housing is that land costs too much. Norfolk has a different problem. They own 73 acres — and they don't know what to do with it.
You probably know that housing is broken. Rent is too high, ownership is out of reach, the new buildings going up are for people who already have money. The cities that try to fix it usually run into the same wall: land costs a fortune.
Before you can build a single affordable unit, you're already half a million dollars in the hole. So developers build for the market. Cities subsidize a handful of "affordable" units in otherwise expensive buildings. And the problem gets worse.
Norfolk, Virginia has a different problem. The city owns 73 acres of prime, flood-safe, centrally located land — sitting at the intersection of two interstates, served by transit, at the highest elevation in a coastal city sinking into the sea.
They bought it for ten dollars.
The Norfolk Economic Development Authority acquired the Military Circle Mall site in 2022 for $10. Seventy-three acres. The highest ground in a city facing permanent flooding.
Since then: three developer proposals — Pharrell Williams, Emmitt Smith, Bruce Thompson — each shelved. The city's current plan is a library and a fitness center. A placeholder, not a vision.
"Downtown Tunnel Vision 2.0. Another round of resources flowing toward downtown while the Eastside gets managed decline dressed up as investment."
— Rosemont / Forest Shores / EP Civic League, letter to Norfolk City Council, March 2025
The residents already know what's happening. The question is whether the city will listen — or wait until another developer shows up with a proposal to buy the land, extract value for 50 years, and leave.
The proposal — developed from real GIS parcel data and real financial models — is called Eastside Commons. The core idea is one rule: the city doesn't sell the land. It transfers it to a Community Land Trust that holds it permanently. Small developers build under ground leases. Residents own condos at cost. Local businesses lease storefronts at 43% below market rate.
Because land is the biggest cost in any development, removing it from the capital stack makes everything else work. No ongoing city subsidy. No master developer taking a 50-year lease. No extraction. Three federal funding programs — LIHTC, VHDA, and CDFI financing — are specifically designed for exactly this kind of project.
This isn't a utopian thought experiment. The Champlain Housing Trust in Burlington, Vermont has been doing this for 30 years — 2,500 permanently affordable homes, resold at affordable prices through five ownership cycles. The model works. What's missing is political will.
Norfolk's city council has to make one vote: rezone Military Circle and charter a Community Land Trust. One vote that could lock 5,118 homes into permanent affordability. Against a placeholder library.
The flooding that's already happening in the low-lying neighborhoods — Chesterfield Heights, parts of Larchmont, the areas that go underwater in a bad storm — gets worse every decade. The people displaced by it will need somewhere to go. Military Circle sits at 8–12 feet elevation. Flood Zone X. The highest, most resilient ground in the city.
The commons argument and the climate argument are the same argument. The highest ground in a flooding city should be where people live — permanently, affordably, under community control — not where a mall operator waits out a lease.
What's missing is the political pressure. The Eastside Civic League named the problem. The commons plan names the solution. The city needs to hear from people who care.