HB 1973 Virginia House of Delegates · 2025 Regular Session

Affordable housing; preservation, definitions, civil penalty.

Summary
Preservation of affordable housing; definitions; civil penalty. Creates a framework for localities to preserve affordable housing by exercising a right of first refusal on publicly supported housing, defined in the bill. The bill authorizes localities to implement an ordinance that requires an owner to accept a right of first refusal offer by the locality or qualified designee, defined in the bill, in order to preserve affordable housing for at least 15 years. The bill requires that any locality adopting such an ordinance to preserve affordable housing submit an annual report to the Department of Housing and Community Development pursuant to existing law.
Bill status vetoed 4 of 5 stages cleared
Introduction
Jan 2025
Committee Review
Feb 2025
House of Delegates Passage
Mar 2025
Senate Passage
Mar 2025
Vetoed
Mar 2025
Introduced Jan 7, 2025 Vetoed Mar 24, 2025
Maddy AI version diff · 4 comparisons

What changed between versions

General Laws Subcommittee Substitute General Laws Substitute · 1 edit
MINOR
The bill text was reformatted from a standard legislative document layout to a more structured, numbered format with line numbers and page breaks. The substantive policy content, including definitions, notice requirements, right of first refusal provisions, and enforcement mechanisms, remains unchanged.
TECHNICAL

The document was restructured from a plain text format with hyphenated lines to a numbered format with line numbers and page breaks, but all substantive legislative text remains identical.

Floor votes · Senate Feb 14, 2025 · House of Delegates Feb 4, 2025

How they voted

360
Passed · 4 other
Total votes 40
Feb 14, 2025
D Democratic21
21 Yea
100% Yea
R Republican19
15 Yea 4
78% Yea
Vote distribution
All Yea All Nay Mixed No data
Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
31
Key actions
9
Committee
5
Apr 2, 2025
Vetoed
House sustained Governor's veto
lower
Mar 24, 2025
Vetoed
Vetoed by Governor
executive
Mar 10, 2025
Upper · Passed
Signed by President
upper
Mar 7, 2025
Lower · Passed
Signed by Speaker
lower
Mar 7, 2025
Lower · Passed
Bill text as passed House and Senate (HB1973ER)
lower
Feb 18, 2025
Upper · Passed
Passed Senate (21-Y 19-N)
upper
Feb 17, 2025
Upper · Passed
Passed by for the day
upper
Feb 14, 2025
Upper · Passed
Passed by for the day
upper
Feb 12, 2025
Upper · Passed
Reported from General Laws and Technology (9-Y 6-N)
upper
Feb 5, 2025
Committee
Referred to Committee on General Laws and Technology
upper
Feb 4, 2025
Lower · Passed
Read third time and passed House (50-Y 47-N)
lower
Jan 30, 2025
Lower · Passed
Reported from General Laws with substitute (12-Y 9-N)
lower
Jan 20, 2025
Committee
Assigned GL sub: Housing/Consumer Protection
lower
Jan 7, 2025
Committee
Referred to Committee on General Laws
lower
1 primary · 31 co-sponsors

Sponsors