Del. Kaye Kory

Commending Gerald R. Rubin.

Commending Ilryong Moon.

Virginia Fair Housing Law; unlawful discriminatory housing practices. Provides that it is an unlawful discriminatory housing practice for any political jurisdiction or its employees or appointed commissions to discriminate in the application of local land use ordinances or guidelines, or in the permitting of housing developments, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status, or handicap. The bill also provides that it is an unlawful discriminatory housing practice for any political jurisdiction or its employees or appointed commissions to discriminate in the application of local land use ordinances or guidelines, or in the permitting of housing developments, because a housing development contains or is expected to contain affordable housing units occupied or intended for occupancy by families or individuals with incomes at or below 80 percent of the median income of the area where the housing development is located or is proposed to be located, unless the location of a development or proposed development is, at the time of municipal decision, within a census tract wherein more than 50 percent of the residential units house families or individuals at or below 80 percent of the area median income. The provisions of the bill are contingent on funding in a general appropriation act.

Commending the Screen at 23 campaign.

Commending Robert Eugene Foster, Jr.

Celebrating the life of Alan Arnold Diamonstein.

Reading diagnostic tests; intervention. Requireseach student in kindergarten and grade one to participate in readingdiagnostic tests that include a rapid automatized naming test andone or more rapid alternating stimulus tests as follows: (i) forstudents in kindergarten, a rapid automatized naming test and a rapidalternating stimulus test that each include colors and objects and(ii) for students in grade one, a rapid automatized naming test andtwo rapid alternating stimulus tests that each include colors, objects,letters, and numbers. The bill requires any student who enrolls ina public elementary school in the Commonwealth for the first timein grade two or grade three to participate in the reading diagnostic tests required for students in grade one. The bill specifies thatsuch diagnostic tests shall consist of the RAN/RAS tests developedand published by Maryanne Wolf and Martha Bridge Denckla or a substantiallysimilar reading diagnostic tool that is evidence-based, normed, andapproved by the Department of Education. The bill requires, beginningJuly 1, 2021, each local school division to provide evidence-based,structured literacy instruction to students in kindergarten throughgrade three who fall below the benchmark on any such reading diagnostictest and requires that such structured literacy instruction be overseenand monitored by the local school division's advisor on dyslexiaand related disorders, when applicable.

Transit funding. Raises the existing regional transportation fee, a grantor's tax, from $0.15 per $100 to $0.20 per $100 for localities in the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority that are also members of the Northern Virginia Transportation District. The bill requires half of the revenues to be deposited in the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority Fund and half to be deposited in the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Capital Fund. The rate of tax in the other localities will remain at $0.15 per $100, with one-third of the revenues to be retained by the locality to be used for transportation purposes and the other two-thirds to be deposited in the Northern Virginia Transportation District Fund. The bill also raises the existing transient occupancy tax in the localities located in the Northern Virginia Transportation District from $2 to $3, with all of the revenues from the tax being used to support WMATA. This bill incorporates HB 977.

Libraries; assessment for costs in civil actions; disbursement for law libraries. Increases from $4 to $7 the maximumassessment a county, city, or town may make as part of the costsincident to each civil action filed in the courts located within itsboundaries. Such funds are disbursed by a locality's governing bodyfor the establishment, use, and maintenance of its law library.

Chesapeake Bay; Resource Protection Areas; treeremoval. Directs the State Water Control Board, when developingcriteria for use by localities in addressing Resource ProtectionAreas (RPAs) under the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, to requirethat any local ordinance addressing permitted modifications of thebuffer area include specific penalties for the removal of trees froman RPA without the prior approval of the locality.