What is Westwood?
Westwood Village was established by former slaves in 1872. In 1874, the community founded a Church on deeded land. In 1876, they transferred land to plots for individual housing units. Outside city limits, Westwood thrived as a vibrant, self-sustaining community. In 1942, Westwood was annexed by the City of Richmond. Ever since, the neighborhood has faced constant threats of displacement, cultural erasure, and unwelcome development.
What is the problem?
Westwood’s edges have eroded due to lack of protection, demolishing homes and surrounding the community with high traffic thoroughfares and parking lots. The neighborhood needs defense from persistent speculation and now, the urgent threat posed by Code Refresh which will remove basic safeguards and further incentivize developers. Westwood has been identified as one of the most lucrative locations for development and density.
What can we do?
Learn about Westwood’s history through this website and linked resources. Advocate for Westwood’s exemption from high-density zoning in Code Refresh and for the creation of an overlay and other tools to preserve Westwood, at meetings, on social media, among neighbors, in the news, and by contacting representatives, including Councilmember Andrew Breton.
Formerly enslaved African Americans established Westwood Village in Henrico County in 1872 following the Civil War. In 1874 they founded Westwood Baptist Church on deeded land. In 1876, land was transferred from the Church “for benefit use & disposal only of the members of the congregation,” and subdivided into housing plots. The Church has remained as the nucleus and central driving force of the quiet, thriving Historic Westwood neighborhood for over 150 years.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, small-frame vernacular dwellings developed around Westwood Baptist Church. Examples of Westwood’s earliest structures still stand, as do those from other significant periods in the neighborhood’s history.
Westwood’s isolated location outside the city limits fostered a strong sense of community. The neighborhood became largely self-sustaining, with a school, store, and shared green spaces.
By the early 20th Century, affluent white residential areas began to develop around Westwood in what is today Richmond’s West End. In 1942, Westwood was annexed by the city and became the target of a campaign to displace its black residents and demolish their homes.
Westwood’s residents were denied essential city services despite increased taxes. After a review found Westwood’s wells polluted, the Board of Aldermen rejected without comment a measure to extend sanitary service to the neighborhood.
For years, the city proposed various plans to demolish Westwood to create a park. Public hearings were held with support from neighboring white communities.
An editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch prompted letters of support from readers. The City Council passed a resolution in 1947 to extend water and sewer mains to Westwood.
At this time, 40 World War II servicemen and women had returned and sought to build homes. This chapter in architectural development is evident in the large number of postwar homes that survive.
Westwood’s residents have included several historic figures. For example, in 1961, following Warden v. Richmond School Board, Daisy Jane Cooper, a 12-year-old resident of Westwood, became the first black student to integrate Westhampton. A year later, she became the first to integrate Thomas Jefferson High School.
Arthur Ashe, the professional tennis champion and Civil Rights activist, spoke fondly of Westwood. His grandmother was a deaconess at Westwood Baptist Church and lived in a bungalow on Glenburnie Road.
Historic Westwood’s boundaries have already been encroached upon repeatedly (losing most of Patterson Avenue, parts of Glenburnie, and Snowden). The neighborhood is now surrounded on all four sides by major traffic thoroughfares, and both the north and south sides are additionally framed by large asphalt parking lots.
Still, today, while many historically black neighborhoods in Richmond have been red-lined, fractured, and overdeveloped, reinforcing significant health and quality of life disparities, the heart of Westwood remains a cohesive, walkable, green, and neighborly community, with a unique enclave of small single-family homes owned by generations of African Americans.
It is a rare surviving settlement founded by black Virginians after emancipation, a bastion of resilience, and the only predominantly black neighborhood in the City of Richmond’s First District, thanks to residents who have fought for its preservation over more than 150 years, including descendants of the original freedmen who founded Westwood and still attend the Church.
Westwood’s History
The City of Richmond’s new Code Refresh, in Phase 2, is the latest manifestation of the City of Richmond’s threats against Westwood, in the name of the “public good.” Refresh has stated goals to “increase housing affordability,” but also to“reinforce” the “unique character” of neighborhoods, and “protect against encroachment upon historic areas.” As much as any neighborhood in the city, Westwood meets these criteria.
Mayor Avula and others, including Laura Dobbs, have cited Richmond’s racist history of segregation, annexation, and displacement among reasons for the rezoning. But the Refresh is designed to expand displacement and erasure by incentivizing high-density construction and parcel splits throughout the neighborhood.
According to Phase 2 of the Refresh, any single-family plot in Westwood 50 feet or more (dozens of single-family lots) can host three housing units (or a duplex and an accessory dwelling unit). In addition, single-family plots of 100 feet or more can be subdivided, with three housing units on each parcel of the split.
All of Patterson, historic Westwood Baptist Church, and the cemetery will be zoned “mixed-use,” incentivizing commercial development. Developers are also considering additional housing units in the neighborhood on the far side of Dunbar Street, which, if erected, could create precedent for further development, where residents currently park and walk.
Planning has already identified Westwood (Area 4, RD-B) as one of the areas most lucrative for developers to purchase and outbid individual homebuyers. Currently, nearby RD-A neighborhoods are estimated to see at most 4 developer conversions a year, while RD-B, particularly in Areas 4 and 5, could see up to 110-132 conversions annually by the City’s own estimates.
Proposed building scales for new zoning do not match the existing structures of our single-family homes, specifically regarding height, density, and lot coverage. Increased density, expanded roadways, and additional connections to main roads will encroach further on green space, reduce the essential walkability that connects our neighbors and allows for informal street life, and the tree canopy that cushions our community. More impervious surfaces will reflect heat, fail to absorb water, and increase noise and air pollution. Higher density will also inevitably mean higher property taxes, greater pressure on current residents and their quality of life, and further displacement.
In 2021, state historical markers sponsored by the Friends of Westwood Playground and issued by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources were installed at the intersection of Dunbar Street and Willow Lawn Drive, as well as one on Glenburnie Road.
In 2026, the Westwood Civic League nominated Historic Westwood for Preservation Virginia’s Most Endangered List with support from Historic Richmond and the endorsement of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The community has appealed to the Office of the Mayor, Councilmember Andrew Breton, and City Planners, seeking an exemption from Code Refresh and a collaborative approach, with input and consensus from a majority of residents, to create a modified design overlay.
The community specifically seeks an overlay similar to those explored in the City of Richmond’s Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan, those offered in Charlottesville, and also to the Historic designations the City already has in place, to protect the original scale, character, cohesiveness, and cultural heritage of Westwood and combat the displacement of existing residents, while also being flexible enough to welcome growth and innovation that complements and preserves the historic treasure of Westwood.
Richmond’s Code Refresh
