The Virginia Beach City Council held a special session on September 22, 2026, beginning at approximately 2 p.m. The meeting included briefings from the Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation (VBCDC), Public Utilities, and the Civic Leaders Academy pilot program, followed by a preview of upcoming planning items for October 2026. Council members also made announcements about community events and initiatives. The session concluded with a motion to recess into closed session for real estate and personnel matters.
Welcome all. We're going to start our meeting today. The first order of business is to wish our city city manager a happy birthday. All right. All right. So Mr. Mayor, members of council, the first briefing will be provided by Quincy White, who is a president and CEO of BBCDC. He's going to brief City Council on update on the CDC and also their fundraising campaign. So Quincy, come on up. Good afternoon. Okay. All right. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, Mr. Manager, and members of City Council. Again, my name is Quincy White. I'm the president and CEO of the Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation. And uh we thank you for the opportunity to bring us here this afternoon. Hold on a second, one second, please gotta read the cool. Since we're doing a little bit of a special thing today, we're gonna go ahead and I have to read this ahead of time. In accordance with Virginia Beach City Code two-21 and by the authority that's it in me, uh mayor uh of the city of Virginia Beach, I hereby call for a special session of the Virginia Beach City Council on Tuesday uh twenty September twenty-second, two oh two six at two uh p.m. Council uh conference room two road three for building one through two, two four oh one courthouse drive. Special uh session to allow council following its regular special former session as listed to the attached agenda to convene into a closed session to consider for uh the following reasons. Um publicly held property district two personnel matters at council appoints 40 minutes, commissions, committees, authorities, etc. We will convene into an open session for the purpose of certifying at the closed session. Special for uh session will be broadcast on uh a formal session will be uh broadcast on cable tv, uh and Facebook wide, Bobby Geyer, thank you very much. I apologize for the oversight. Okay, sorry about the interruption. Oh no, no issue. Um so I'm joined today by members of our executive team, our chief strategic officer Ashley Jarvis, our Chief Financial Officer Doug Wilburn, our Chief Program Officer, Tanisha Davis, our Chief Housing Officer, uh Susan Sotera, and our controller Hampton Miller. I'm also joined uh today with members of our board, our board chair, Gary Sharp, our board treasurer Jessica Lynn, as well as Kay Ashby. Uh we're also pleased to have our partners from Nami, Coastal Virginia with us today. Uh, board president Max Wiley, uh development director, Katie Roseman, as well as Martha McCurry, the affiliate director. So lastly, I didn't want to forget Virginia Thumb, who's assisting us with our capital campaign for Solar Springs. There we go. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Commander. Okay. All right. So we're going to discuss a few things at a high level. Impact and progress, home ownership and development, preservation and financial sustainability, and of course, the future direction and partnership of the organization. So from high level, as you know, 40 years ago, the city of Virginia Beach founded the Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation. Since that time, we've been able to grow our portfolio to have 500 plus units, making us the largest owner of affordable housing in the city of Virginia Beach. Also during that time, we've been able to we've been able to serve and house nearly 10,000 people through our housing department as well as our programs and services division. So building on momentum, you can see that we've had some we've seen some improvements over the last year or so. Our occupancy within our portfolio has grown from 90 to 92 percent. We've also seen uh within our SSVF programs, we've exceeded our goal by far by serving today at least 214 households. Um we we're creating the foundation of a first-time homebuyer program, and we've already sold six homes as part of that program, and we're seeing stronger financial oversight in regards to our operations. So, again, um, in regards to our programs and services division, um, housing support and stability, um, we provide housing assistance, case management, financial uh capable uh well, financial capability, budgeting and financial coaching, as well as uh resource connections.