If you have a job, you can afford a car. Even making minimum wage with kids. Time consuming? Really? Time is a luxury. And seriously, 15 mins from downtown is commuting long distances? Garner is a 15 min drive. I live in Fuquay, it’s a 20 min drive in rush hour.
I’m sorry but living walking distance to work if your work is in a high end part of town, which downtown obviously is, is a luxury.
You’re never going to have people making $10 an hour in the same building as people making $50. Same as you are never going to get rid of cars in downtown. In fact, the more populated we get, the more cars you’ll end up having, even with a better transportation system. Might have a lower percent of cars vs population on the road, but overall will end up with more cars.
I am not against affordable housing, but I’m against stifling growth for it, or forcing it on developers. Incentives for developers to make smaller units or lower priced units makes sense, but I’m not for direct subsidizing except in certain extreme circumstances, which we already have programs for.
Except many people were forced into these areas that they are now being priced out of due to anything but a free market. The cities and states and banks created these market forces that prevented many people from being able to buy in any place but the worst areas and prevented families from being able to build up generational wealth. To just throw up one’s hands and say “oh well that’s the free market” is to ignore even the most basic of American housing history.
Exactly. These issues go a little deeper than any specific rezoning project. Cities need to address it comprehensively rather than with a piecemeal approach. There can’t be a moving standard every time a new development comes in for approval.
This issue was created over the course of a century. You’re not going to fix it by suddenly deciding in 2019 that a couple of your large zoning cases are the ones to resolve it. Especially when it seems to matter most when an election season is coming up.
I saw this map of where Raleigh’s government funded affordable housing is and is not at the Equitable Development around Transit event last week. . Really interesting.
Would it help? People here seem to be calling for them to double the density. I may sound like a NIMBY but why does so much affordable housing need to be located here? Are the residents working downtown? Maybe some. If you have a car, then I don’t see why you would need/get to live downtown and commute elsewhere. I have a ton of friends who work downtown that will never be able to afford a house nearby.
I also feel like these larger developments bring more crime. Maybe a mixed-income model would reduce that. Is there any data on this?
Either way, I hope they do something better that Washington Terrace whenever they do update this land. If it were me, sell the street facing land to a private developer and use the proceeds to fund affordable housing in the southeast corner.
@Drew, this isn’t directed at you. Just a rambling rant
I think you are right. My little brother from Big Brother Big Sister lives in a 4-plex that is owned by the city which I see on there as a dot. I also see Washington terrace as maybe three dots (with its 300 something units).
IMO the big thing on location for Affordable housing is that it really needs to be near public transit. Not being able to afford close in housing and moving further out gets negated by then needing to pay for a car. I take the bus past Washington Terrace and lots of the restaurants in town have workers (they wear their restaurants t-shirt) who commute in via the bus.This is a big reason they are looking at BRT lines for affordable housing as well.
The numbers I have heard on “need” for affordable housing is that we lose(flipped, redeveloped, sold, etc.)/ need grows by about 1000 units a year in the general market, and the current affordable house efforts are building 500. So maybe double is the right term. I generally think they should be spread out (along transit lines), so you don’t end up with one area where there are no grocery stores or other amenities because it is all the people with less income.
Absolutely right about public transportation. It’s not realistic to think that affordable housing needs to be downtown - where property values are the highest. Affordable housing can be spread out if accompanied by public transit.
I think there’s a lot of conflation between subsidized housing and affordable housing when the two are often separate and distinct. One way to help create affordable housing is to allow for more apt buildings, duplexes, quads etc to be built within existing neighborhoods. These are ways that can allow for more density and a greater diversity of housing options throughout the city.
Having more specific language around “affordable” is definitely important. If you call something affordable because it is below the average price of stuff around it you will most likely have someone get onto you because it is not affordable to people at the bottom end of the spectrum. I saw this posted on the District C facebook page and thought it was a good description of wording for different situations.
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Affordable housing has a very specific definition but it’s rather detailed so many officials have gotten away with using it as a convenient political buzzword.
HUD defines housing as “affordable” if it’s less than 30% of household income. Anything above that and the household becomes “housing burdened”.
Low income affordable housing projects has rental/ownership rates at that 30% of household income metric for those who are at 80% of the area’s median income as identified by the census. For high income areas like DC or New York “low income affordable housing” can hit over $2,000/month.
Raleigh isn’t as bad but if I remember correctly last time I checked units that checked in at $1050/month still classified as affordable.
There are HUD Grants and tax credits for the development of affordable housing at the low income (80% of AMI, also known as workforce housing) very low income (50% of AMI) and extremely low income (30% of AMI). No developer just develops low income housing. Doesn’t make financial sense.
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Developers don’t have to develop affordable housing per se but if people are allowed to build duplexes, smaller scale apartment building etc that can help to bring more affordable and non subsidized housing into the market. Would some people try to make money by creating rental units instead of flipping single family homes if the basic zoning allowed for it city wide? I’m sure they would.
Minneapolis just overhauled their zoning in an attempt to allow for more varied and equitable housing.
I wish I could find the article but there was a developer that wanted to build more affordable apartments somewhere in North Raleigh( almost wake Forest) for teachers, civil servants, etc and it was shouted down by local residents so the developer was going to give up.
Granted this was a little bit bigger than just a quad or small apartment building but the fact that it wasn’t able to get built really hurts in developing more affordable options.
I do thank you for your reply back, I had thought about living in Garner quite a bit as finding affordable place to live and still be within at least 10 minutes to DTR or even 15 to 30 to RTP depending on traffic conditions. A far Cry from New York City where the rent is. $$$$$ which is why I live in Raleigh now.
Oh yeah, I am very aware and onboard with all that. People call me Raleigh’s biggest 4-plex fan. Just saying that there are different levels of “affordable” and people can get grumpy when you talk about one type and they feel like another type is being ignored. lol.
And honestly that is a big a question that should be answered. What is affordable housing? For one person, they may consider $1200 a month very affordable, but for another $200/mo. The term really needs defined more clearly. I get the feeling that “anything below market rate” would be considered affordable by the city, but affordable to whom?
Personally, I consider about $600/mo affordable because someone making $8-$10/hr with full time hours can afford that. Essentially what can be afforded a little higher than minimum wage, without overly pushing a budget.
I’m assuming you deleted your post because you added nothing to the conversation, but that’s now two shootings at Heritage Park in a week which deserves mention when discussing expanding housing here.
It was flagged by the community…
I was only trying to relay a news article from WRAL about Heritage Park.
I guess their article was inappropriate, Sorry.
Shootings seem to be up in general around the city/county/state. Are you trying to imply that subsidized housing leads to more shootings? Do you have anything other than anecdotal evidence that subsidized housing is linked to shootings?
Or are there other factors at play? Maybe there should be a crime/public safety thread.
