Affordable Housing and Housing Affordability

[John]

Campbell? Santa Clara? Sunnyvale? Cupertino?

[ExSF]

Born in Sunnyvale and grew up mostly in Palo Alto with some stints abroad during that span. But I lived in the Bay Area until 2005 when I moved here (SF, Berkeley, Oakland).

[colbyjd3]

Question: can someone who understands city code explain to me what exactly the recently-adopted Tiny House text change does? I’m having trouble understanding why it’s different from ADUs and what about it wasn’t already legal. Thanks!

[Alan]

I believe before tiny houses could only be accessory to a main dwelling. This allows them to be totally separate houses and the lot sizes they are placed on can be smaller.

[ADUsSomeday]

My next door neighbor asked me the same thing when he saw about Tiny Homes on the news.

[keita]

Tiny homes no longer being dependent on a main lot is like the biggest change -and it’s what ABC11 and WRAL’s articles on this mainly focus on. Surprisingly, this passed unanimously, too. But that’s not all. If you cross-check the text of the ordinance that got passed and the N&O article on this, you’ll also see that:

• Tiny homes are now its own, separate legal category of houses. This means it has some requirements that are different from ADUs. For example, tiny homes’ total floor areas are limited compared to “regular” ADUs in denser-zoned lots.

• Tiny homes can be a part of a cottage court. Developers will also be eligible for density bonuses as a result.

• Manufactured homes can be considered tiny homes, too, if it meets certain criteria. It’s also worded specifically so the words “manufactured home” is no longer based on the state’s standards on trailer homes, and instead cover a broader definition than before.

[Vatnos]

100 x 0 is still 0

[Christopher]

Durham Housing Authority planning to build at least 1,700 new residential units near Downtown Durham, about 900 of which are reserved for those making 30-80% of AMI. This includes the vacant Fayette Place site. The total cost of the new development is over $470m.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article257183472.html#storylink=mainstage_card6

Are there any similar efforts underway in Raleigh?

[keita]

Heritage Park’s renovation is the first thing that comes to mind, but it looks like there’s others. The 89 out of 149 units planned in the East College Park neighborhood near St. Aug’s, as well as the 162 family and 72 senior units in Washington Terrace seem to be some of the more developed projects.

It’s helpful to keep this in context, though: this new project in the historic Hayti district is taking up a bigger chunk of Durham’s overall investments into affordable housing. Raleigh’s affordable housing investments, on the other hand, are more spread out on a map.

Here’s how the two cities’ affordable housing investment plans stack up against each other. Units are in households unless indicated otherwise:

Type of Affordable Housing Investment	Durham	Raleigh
Housing bond amount	$95M (2019)	$80M (2020)
Total expected investment	$160M	$143M
Affordable rental units, to build	1,600	2,850
Affordable rental units, to preserve	800	?
Housing for the homeless	1,700	6,300
First-time homebuyer support	400	250
Help homeowners remain in/improve home	3,000	250
Workforce development	?	$400k
Homebuyer counseling	?	$350k

In case I did the math or analysis wrong, here’s Durham’s webpage on their housing bond, and here’s Raleigh’s. For Raleigh, you might find this spending plan summary helpful, too.

By the way... (click me!)

As you may have noticed above, I didn’t do an apples-to-apples comparison of affordable housing investments in Raleigh vs Durham. This is because the data available from the two cities were pretty different, and I only had so much time and patience to harmonize them.

Durham’s website on its housing plan (see above) quickly summarizes what their investments will accomplish, but their paper trail is harder to follow. The data it does show, though, is a healthy mix between the dollar amounts to spend and the number of people it will help.

Raleigh’s counterpart webpage, on the other hand, goes straight to the cost of the investment, and take you straight to the slide decks behind key decisions. But it’s also clear that the city is making up its targets as it goes: that site doesn’t have key details like the number of AHUs advertised as clearly. Durham has more defined objectives, but Raleigh has easier-to-find justifications of their decisions.

Raleigh’s jargon-y transparency actually reveals more interesting data, too, if you dig deep enough.

• Only about 30% of new Section 8 voucher holders in Raleigh actually find available units

• 8,843 households are on public housing and/or Section 8 waiting lists

• To create a subsidized unit for a household making 30% AMI, the city or county needs to spend “more than double the amount [that is] needed to create a 60% AMI unit”. This, of course, means “fewer total units can be created with same amount of funding”.

[keita]

The editor-in-chief of the Triangle Business Journal wrote an interesting piece on how the state of North Carolina might be the only one who could solve Triangle’s housing affordability crisis.

But first, click here for an interesting statistic.

@The op-ed - formatting mine

One of the most recent reports from the National Association of Realtors caught me by surprise. In the Raleigh MSA, the overall affordability quotient for housing dropped to 0.8 by the end of 2021. The report notes a quotient of 1 is the ideal condition in terms of affordability.

The affordability quotient is calculated in an interesting way that takes into account the distribution of income levels in a city. It also puts a number to what we all know in our guts: houses are getting more unaffordable in Raleigh and the Triangle, especially if your parents or grandparents were raised in a society that kept them in such dire straits.

Anyways, the idea (if you’re too lazy to read the article or you don’t know the workaround) is that one reason why we’re struggling could be because inclusionary zoning is illegal in North Carolina. There’s certain parts of it that are legal, but the distinctions are complicated and attempts to rely on them can get super messy (as Chapel Hill has showed us several years ago). But:

@TBJ article

If North Carolina allowed inclusionary zoning, municipalities could work with developers to chart a comprehensive plan for every piece of development around the city that would include workforce housing [among other policies]. They are called home-rule states – states that give local governments complete authority have their own local charters or basic laws that describe the structure, powers, procedures and services of the municipality.

But, like the debate on the Bathroom Bill or the partisan chokehold of the UNC System, the state loves to hold control over local government and makes that illegal.

What do y’all think? Should Raleigh have the power to make stronger requirements and/or incentives to build workforce and other below-market housing?

[colbyjd3]

I’m of the opinion that local governments should have near full-control over growth and development. Most (not all, but most) of the barriers to smart growth in Raleigh occur at the state level (NCDOT is a great example of this). So yes, Raleigh should have that power, and it’s ridiculous to me that a bunch of old dudes living in rural counties have the authority to block things that people here both want and need.

[softfurrykitty]

This article could very well be written for Raleigh. It seems that external pressure can overrun your grand plan of affordability very fast. Raleigh is no different. The next affordable city is already too expensive

Maybe it’s the plan anyway.

[keita]

I’m not surprised since, like the article points out, it’s a nationwide problem and very obviously not unique to the Triangle. I don’t think it’s “the plan” of any nefarious power, though, but because Americans have insisted on single-family homes and entitled NIMBYism for decades and we’re dealing with their consequences. The sum of individual decisions can have really shitty collective consequences.

Here’s more fuel for the fire, 'cuz why not:

Viral video: Huge crowd shows up to see Raleigh home listed at under $300,000...

Investors are buying 1 in 4 homes in Raleigh, 1 in 5 in Durham | WRAL TechWire

[softfurrykitty]

Lol, I was not indicating it’s some evil plan, I was thinking more that this area is targeted because it’s possibilities of growth, talent, weather and expertise in science and tech. With the infusion of peeps with cash who can outgun existing owners that will take a huge profit and move to Garner is going to continue to cause the market to sky rocket and be out of reach. Going to need much more dense builds, huge builds of apartments and condos. ADU builds will have minimal impact on helping shortages and stabilizing costs. We are growing up like it or not. It’s ok, I was in Miami last week, when you compare, we are a pimple on a globe compared to the incredible density of people they have consolidated in 30 to 60 story buildings. We are still in diapers in that respect. It will come.

[keita]

Ohh, gotcha, thanks for clarifying. Yeah, I agree that ADUs are just band-aids for a bullet wound in terms of the housing supply shortage we have now, and I really hope that changes with denser builds…

One big challenge to that, though: what does it take to change the average American’s perception so that they don’t feel like they have to live in SFHs or else?

[softfurrykitty]

I feel that most people move through different modes of housing depending a lot on age, location and income.

When young you live in what you can afford, then you get into your 30’s you try and procure something more permanent, then when you marry you look for more privacy, good schools and such. Then 50’s you downsize to a smaller house. 60’s you head back to apartment or condo until the grim reaper comes.

I have lived in it all around the globe. I’ll admit that I hated apartment buildings and tenements due to the noise and craziness that went on, I did not have money so I took what I could get.

Some people enjoy it.

We should have all these options. Ever notice when you fly across the country and the world. There is a ton of land. I don’t think it is a space issue, it’s more of a funding issue and what will bring developers the most money.

When I was young I grew up my first 16 years in a ghetto ass area. It was a mass of poor people piled on top of each other. I look back now and I appreciate certain aspects of that time but mostly it sucked. I wanted out, I wanted space, room, safety, peace of mind. When I exited that environment I thrived. So even though the housing was were my parents worked in the city it still was not satisfactory. Thank god today the housing is much better by default.

So in the housing aspect there is a lot of wood to chop.

We have a lot of room here, not everyone can live downtown nor do they want to. Some will and then move, more will come and go. But it looks like the developers are starting to mass up.

Not sure that the amenities and employment is going to be good enough for people to be satisfied with Raleigh city life.

But we will see. Raleigh will do very well.

[ADUsSomeday]

Update one 100 deeply affordable units in Raleigh. City of Raleigh CASA Kings Ridge - YouTube

[919raised]

This thread on twitter talks about the effects of at large vs district elections on affordable housing and how district elections actually cause far less multi family housing
to be built, but the multi family housing that is built tends to be more equally distributed throughout the city.

[ADUsSomeday]

They were just on this podcast if you would like to listen to them. https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/?af_dp=stitcher://episode/201878670&af_web_dp=https://www.stitcher.com/episode/201878670&deep_link_value=stitcher://episode/201878670

[trueurbanist]

Coby

Coby