Over the past seven years, Dan Cohen has led Chesterfield County’s Community Enhancement Department with a focus on increasing affordable housing options for residents with low and moderate incomes. Through partnerships with local nonprofits and collaboration across county departments, Cohen’s team has worked to make home ownership more accessible.
On November 17, during his final week before retirement, Cohen attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Ettrick Landing. The new 10-unit single-family subdivision was built on surplus county property and aims to provide affordable home ownership opportunities. Cohen said, “It proves that you can even build owner-occupied, single-family housing that’s affordable for people – not just multifamily rentals – when certain things come together: when the land is donated, when you have a land trust, when you have some federal funds to put toward a project, you can stitch those things together and get a great result. What you really hope is it becomes a model for doing other things.”
The Community Enhancement Department supports neighborhoods through revitalization efforts, anti-litter initiatives, license inspection, code enforcement, and administration of federally funded housing grant programs. During Cohen’s tenure, code enforcement and grant administration have played key roles in expanding affordable housing.
One notable project was the acquisition of Bermuda Estates mobile home community by Project:HOMES in 2020. This initiative seeks to replace most of the site’s aging trailers with energy-efficient manufactured homes that meet federal standards. “Bermuda Estates is probably one of the most important projects I’ve ever done because it married code enforcement with avoiding displacement of residents, allowing people who were there to stay, and over time all of them are going to get new manufactured housing units,” Cohen said.
Another significant effort involved redeveloping the former Colbrook motel site on Route 1. After using code enforcement authority to address health and safety concerns at the property, the county facilitated its sale to Better Housing Coalition. Construction is ongoing for a $60 million project that will bring 144 affordable multifamily units to southeastern Chesterfield. Greta Harris, CEO of Better Housing Coalition stated: “It’s sometimes rare to find a public servant who cuts through the bureaucracy to find innovative solutions. We have enjoyed a long and successful partnership with Dan to make miracles happen that positively impact families in need of good places to call home.”
Cohen described both Bermuda Estates and Colbrook as examples of serendipity in public service work: “For me, changing people’s lives for the better is all that matters,” he said. “There’s housing policy and there are policy wonks, but policy isn’t any good unless you implement something tangible on the ground to prove that the policy works.”
Reflecting on his career path from New York City through several major cities before arriving in Richmond and joining Chesterfield County in 2018 as community enhancement director, Cohen noted: “I think it starts with having a vision and a strategy. I had the opportunity here to create something. I’ve been given a lot of latitude to make decisions and adjustments,” he added. “I’ve also been fortunate to work for a county where you’re allowed to take some risks. Government in general tends to be a little bit risk-averse, but one of the board members when I got here said, ‘If you try something and it doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to change it.’ That really sums up how we work.”
As he retires back to Atlanta after more than seven years leading Community Enhancement efforts in Chesterfield County, Cohen credited his staff for their dedication: “It’s easy to be successful when you have people who know what they’re doing. I’ve worked for private sector firms that weren’t as organized and competent as the people we have here. We’ve also got folks who care deeply about improving people’s lives and you can’t teach that,” he said. “It’s never been about me. There were certain ideas I brought, but the execution never could have happened without the staff. That’s the truth.”
