A BILL to amend and reenact § 2.2-3704 of the Code of Virginia, relating to Virginia Freedom of Information Act; public records to be open to inspection; non-citizen property owners.
HB313 amends Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provision governing who may inspect public records. Under current law, public records are open to citizens of the Commonwealth, certain media representatives, and non-citizens who own property in Virginia. The bill keeps that framework in place and updates the operative section of the Code of Virginia, § 2.2-3704, without making a broad change to the class of eligible requesters.
The bill also restates and reorganizes the procedural rules for responding to records requests. It preserves the five-working-day response deadline, the available written responses when records are withheld, unavailable, or cannot be produced in time, and the ability of a public body to seek additional time from a court for unusually large or burdensome requests. It likewise retains existing rules on fees, deposits, electronic records, database production, and custody of records that have been transferred for storage or archiving. The measure appears to be a technical or clarifying FOIA bill focused on the access rights of non-citizen property owners rather than a major policy overhaul.
HB313 would amend § 2.2-3704 of the Code of Virginia, the core FOIA provision governing public access to records. Its practical effect is to preserve and reaffirm the existing access category for non-citizen property owners while leaving the broader FOIA response, fee, and records-production rules intact. It would continue to govern which requesters may inspect records, how agencies must respond, what charges may be imposed, and who is responsible for producing records that have been transferred to another entity for storage or archiving.
There is little recorded committee or floor discussion in the available materials, and no votes are listed. Based on the bill’s status of being left in the House Committee on General Laws, the apparent sentiment is neutral to uncertain rather than strongly supportive or opposed. The bill reads as a targeted FOIA amendment, but its subject matter suggests it could draw attention because it concerns access rights for non-citizen property owners.
The main point of potential contention is the bill’s treatment of non-citizen property owners as eligible FOIA requesters, which may raise questions about whether access to public records should be tied to property ownership rather than citizenship or residency. Another possible area of debate is that the bill touches a broad public-records statute, so even a narrow change can be viewed as part of a larger conversation about transparency, eligibility, and administrative burden. No specific objections or supporters are identified in the provided transcripts or voting history.