No, because Portland’s inclusionary zoning is publicly funded. That’s the point I was making. Developers are required to include the units in their projects, but the city pays for them through tax abatements. More about how this works here.
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I think you’re missing my point here. In funded inclusionary zoning, the developer does not pay for the affordable units. Highly recommend reading this article about how it works in Portland. Here’s another lesson learned:
If you do the math to calculate the public’s cost per home, the below-market housing created via fully funded inclusionary housing is less expensive than a comparable home created by a local housing bond. That’s presumably because the affordable homes hitch a ride on a project that was already being financed.
So, in other words: if the city were to contribute funds to build affordable units within an existing project, it’s a way more efficient use of funds than them spending that money on their own stand-alone project. The $1.5 million would be far better spent on RUSBUS, and would result in guaranteed units being built in the next few years that have access to transit and jobs, as opposed to the city maybe being able to find land, funds, and project management capacity to build them elsewhere, years down the line, in a much worse location. To me, that would be the real drop in the bucket.
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I agree. I’m fine if a developer wants to include some AH units in a project, but 20 apartments isn’t going to solve the housing crisis. The city could help a lot more people by building affordable housing on property that isn’t some of the most expensive in the city, using funds from developers.
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but 20 apartments isn’t going to solve the housing crisis.
neither will $1.5 million, which will not build 20 units elsewhere.
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Forgot to reply to this.
Almost feel like them including 20 affordable units instead of 39 would still be better than the $1.5 million.
100% agree.
Or, letting them cap the total at 40 affordable units but allowing the developer add more floors and market rate units to try to make the math work
I don’t think the zoning is the limiting factor here though? The developer clearly doesn’t think the market can support the number of units they were previously proposing, hence shrinking the project. So I don’t see why allowing 40 floors would change anything.
My thought was that they could build like 550+ market rate and 40 affordable units instead of just the 385 market rate. No idea how many market rate units are needed to subsidize 40 affordable units, but the thought was that they have the zoning capacity if they elected to go that route and didn’t have to meet the 10% affordable units condition.
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yeah I totally understand what you’re getting at in using more market rate units to fund the affordable component. But if they’re already reducing the number of market rate units below allowable zoning, my guess is that’s a response to lower market demand.
Oh it definitely can. City uses funds to buy land, turns it over to an AH developer for $1 contingent on all units being affordable. Attractive to developer bc the land is free, then they can afford to build AH. If you’ve heard of this before, it’s because the city has done it in East Raleigh. At $250k per empty lot (avg value in East Raleigh), that’s 6 lots the city can assume control of and leverage to entice private developers to build AH. We know the city doesn’t build AH directly, but they can absolutely facilitate it.
Best part about this strategy is it keeps folks in East Raleigh. I like the idea of AH in Union West, it’s just not a dealbreaker for me because no one in the immediate vicinity is being pushed out of the “neighborhood.” The projects the city sponsored on New Bern along the BRT corridor and in South Park are more of what I’d like to see. Fully affordable and keep people in their current neighborhood. These neighborhoods are organically mixed income, so I’m ok with 100% affordable developments flanked by separate market rate housing. Even the project John recently posted in Miami: existing residents are guaranteed housing and will not pay higher rent when they return. That’s actually affordable housing, not the 80% AMI lip service.
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Another use case for funds: subsidize down payments to encourage homeownership and build generational wealth. We all know the success story from East College Park which I believe started this way. I’m all for more of that. This time around, it would be great to subsidize smaller, denser units instead of SFHs to make the funds go further.
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High rises are a poor way to provide AH as it is the most expensive type of housing to build. New construction of any sort is also not great, as it is also quite expensive.
A potentially good solution for AH could be to buy up larger, older complexes (30 years or so) that would otherwise be targets for redevelopment, and refurbish them. It’s not great for affordability when an old 200 unit complex with mixed unit sizes gets torn down, and a new 350 unit complex of mostly one-bedrooms gets built in its place.
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I would really love to see the city rent out or purchase apts/condos/townhomes/whatever interspersed throughout the city. A lot of studies have shown how useful that is particularly in childhood development. It doesn’t really benefit the parents so much, but it has a much higher success rate of breaking the cycle of poverty for the next generation.
I’m sure there is a great reason that we don’t do that (so if someone wants to educate me I’m all ears) but I would think it would be great for the city to say “ok build your high rise, but we are going to retain x number of apts to rent for subsidized housing” and intersperse it throughout the city.
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When you try to combine affordability, density and walkability, that’s where the real challenge begins.
A lot of the older affordable apartments are sitting on gigantic plots of land in car dependent locations. It’s going to take funding and creative strategies to make progress in all 3 categories at once.
Miami, and frankly Florida in general have a challenge with affordability because you can’t build the cheap 5 over 1 construction type because of windstorm code requirements. You have to build more expensive construction types and include very expensive impact resistant doors and windows. Raleigh’s barriers to affordability pale in comparison.
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If comparing a standalone high-rise of affordable housing to low-rise wood frame construction – the latter would come out ahead in cost for sure. But do you think this still applies to a 200 unit building where an additional 20 affordable units are added?
I’d be interested in a cost analysis of this versus a dedicated building that has its own sitework, permitting, design, and development costs.
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I’ve always heard that each additional floor on a high rise gets progressively more expensive. In other words, there are no economies of scale to be found in construction by building higher. Economies of scale can be achieved by spreading the cost of land acquisition across more units, but this only lowers the cost per unit if the land is very valuable.
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I’m no expert, but my understanding is that cost per floor generally decreases until you cross certain thresholds. For example:
- 1-4 floors – light frame wood (type V) construction
- 5-7 floors – have to add a fire separated concrete podium (type I) under either Type V or Type III construction
- 75’ above the level of fire access – triggers IBC classification as a high rise, which has a ton of additional fire protection/life safety requirements
- 8+ floors – requires noncombustible construction, so no more wood unless it’s mass timber
- 15ish?? floors – at some point you’ll hit the maximum floor area allowed by type 1B construction and will have to move to type 1A construction. the main distinction is that floor slabs need a 2 hour fire rating.
- Then somewhere around 30-35ish floors lateral bracing will become significantly more expensive, vertical transportation of materials during construction becomes more complicated, elevator design becomes more complex. Foundations also get more expensive
- 420’ building height triggers a few more requirements that were added after 9/11, like adding a third fire stair and a second riser for each sprinkler zone
So, yeah, it’s definitely not a linear cost increase, and there’s a sweet spot in there once you hit type 1A construction – where RUSBUS happens to sit – in which I feel like adding floors should decrease cost per unit. At least in theory. 
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“I’m no expert…”
…said with a lot of expertise!
Thanks for this post.
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Great write-up on the factors influencing vertical construction! I would just like to add that cold-formed steel (CFS) can typically be used for buildings up to 10 stories. For instance, if a site doesn’t require a two-level podium for parking and has zoning approval for 7 stories, it could utilize 6 stories of CFS above ground-level parking. Furthermore, if parking isn’t needed, the structure could consist entirely of 7 stories of CFS.
Another point worth highlighting, which you mentioned briefly, is the movement and installation of construction materials. For low-rise buildings (1-3 stories), equipment like pump jacks can be used for exterior siding, while a telehandler can transport materials to the roof. However, when buildings exceed 50 feet in height, tools such as suspended scaffolds or mast climbers become necessary, along with equipment like tower cranes and construction elevators to facilitate material handling effectively.
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lol well I’ve never worked on super tall buildings and I’m not a cost estimator so I can only make an educated guess on the factors at play!
Many of my projects are on the cusp of high rise classification and that’s one we generally do everything we can to avoid because it’s a significant impact for code and cost (currently designing a renovation of a library in DC that is 1’ taller than the limit, which could have multi-million dollar implications). In my experience, once you’ve crossed the threshold of a big cost impact, might as well go taller until you approach the next one.
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In Raleigh, the 75’ limit is based on the finished floor height. I agree with you that if zoning restrictions prevent us from exceeding that height, we’ll explore options like reducing ceiling heights, using thinner trusses, or other strategies to remain below the high-rise classification.
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Yup, IBC uses the occupied floor height so it’s the same in DC. We’ve been studying adding an event pavilion on the roof a brutalist building that has amazing views of the Potomac, but literally just realized today that the slab height is 76’ above fire access. It’s killing me lol
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