For at least 25 years, City Hall has offered a tax abatement program that has spurred improvements and upgrades to at least 7,500 aging homes and apartment buildings in exchange for seven years of reduced real estate taxes.

Now that program is proposed to become a key source of revenue to spur development of lower-cost housing for families with a total income of less than $68,000 a year and individuals with annual incomes below $50,000 a year.

Mayor Levar M. Stoney on Monday submitted legislation to City Council that would allow the higher property taxes that owners of residential properties graduating from the abatement program start to pay after seven years to be used to promote development of affordable housing that could rent or sell at lower cost.

City Council President Cynthia I. Newbille, 7th District, and Councilwoman Ellen F. Robertson, 6th District, already are on board with the plan to steer those dollars into the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund that provides loans and grants to developers willing to include such housing.

The mayor’s administration stated that approval of this dedicated stream of dollars would cumulatively raise $110 million over 10 years to help the city reach its new goal of developing 10,000 new units of affordable housing by 2031 without raising taxes or borrowing money.

That could be a big help in a city where 45 percent of households are housing cost-burdened because they spend more than 30 percent of income on rent or mortgage payments. It is unclear, however, how much of the funding would go to house the 25 percent of city’s families that survive on $25,000 or less in annual income.

As a companion piece, Mayor Stoney also called on the council to allow the donation of 53 parcels of city-owned property to the Maggie L. Walker Community Land Trust and other nonprofits as building sites for affordable housing, including homes and apartments. The trust would get 32 parcels and other nonprofits would get 21, the plan states.

The parcels comprise 40 acres mostly located in North Side, and include parcels the city acquired in 2005 after the flooding of Battery Park. The acquisition of that land once was envisioned as a way to expand the park.

Now running for re-election, Mayor Stoney said that if City Council approves the new use of tax dollars from properties leaving the abatement program, the shift would begin in the 2021-22 budget year.

He said $2 million initially would be earmarked from that source and increase annually to reach a minimum of $10 million a year by the 2025-26 budget year.

That’s the amount the mayor recently promised a faith-based lobbying group, Richmond Involved to Strengthen our Communities, to invest in affordable housing so that working people could rent or own in Richmond without busting household budgets.

By boosting the housing trust fund, the mayor said the city could achieve the goal of 10,000 affordable units, or five times the nearly 2,000 units that have come online since he took office in 2017.

The mayor previously vowed to create 1,500 new units of affordable housing by 2023. He expects to reach 1,900 by the end of this year.

Recent studies have indicated that the Richmond region is short about 25,000 units of affordable housing and needs to start adding at least 1,000 affordable homes and apartments annually to help meet the growing demand from families and individuals whose incomes are trailing inflation in housing costs.

City Council already has revamped the residential tax abatement program, effective Jan. 1, to limit it to developers whose projects include 30 percent affordable housing.

Ms. Robertson, who has championed affordable housing, has long advocated using the rising tax dollars from previously abated properties as a source for the trust fund, but had been rebuffed by those who wanted the money to go directly to the general fund, including previous mayors.

She’s pleased that Mayor Stoney is now seeking to use the funds as she has proposed, but she wants Richmond to move faster. On Monday, City Council passed a resolution Ms.

Robertson patroned calling on the mayor to include $10 million for the trust fund in the 2021-22 budget.

“We are already facing an overwhelming need, and we can’t afford to put this off for five years. We need to fund this now,” Ms. Robertson said.

She noted that the current 2020-21 budget provided nearly $3 million for the trust fund and that the additional $2 million in taxes from abatement properties that the mayor proposes to add means “we would just need to find another $5 million in the new budget to reach $10 million. I believe that is eminently doable if the mayor and council are serious about making affordable housing a top priority.”

Ms. Robertson said past studies suggest the city receives more than $2 million a year from abated properties, and “I will be seeking to have every dollar redirected to the trust fund.”

Mayor Stoney noted the money is part of the city’s overall housing plan that calls for zoning changes to make it easier to develop affordable housing across the city and tax rebates for builders creating affordable units.

Also, the plan calls for creation of a grant program to enable longtime residents to afford the city taxes on their homes and for establishment of a permanent rental assistance program for participants in the city’s workforce development program.