Legalize Affordable Housing

To me one of the oddest aspects of endless discussions about affordable housing is how little emphasis there is on the fact that many areas have straightforward rules in place that just make it illegal for housing to be affordable. For example, in Arlington County Virginia you might own a nice big house. And maybe you're an empty nester who doesn't need as much space in the home anymore now that the kids are out of the house. So maybe you want to modify the structure somewhat to create a so-called "accessory dwelling" in the garage or the basement that you can rent out to people looking for a cheap place to live.

Well, you can't. It's illegal. But there's a proposal on the table to make it legal as long as no more than two people live in your accessory dwelling. That'd be a good idea, though of course families need affordable housing, too, so I wouldn't favor that kind of arbitrary restriction. Still, babies steps, babies steps.

Comments

The usual dead metaphor is "baby steps." "baby" is an adjective and, in English, adjectives do not have a plural and a singular form. Adjectified Nouns are identical to the singular of the noun (sorry to be pedantic but I advise Italians writing PhD dissertations in English and write this in margins all the time).

Now "babies steps" is perfect for the next steps. Arlington has made the single adults and couples steps and you can hope that they will make the babies steps soon (even hope that it won't be 1 baby allowed then 2 then 3 etc. which would make for the very odd mixed metaphorical question of whether families with the allowed 1 baby where the mom just gave birth are to be grandfathered).

But I think this is a 2 word homonym. Baby steps sounds like babysteps like babyssteps like babys steps like babies steps. I too find myself typing homonyms. I agree it is the effect of instant spell checking (I keep the stupid grammar checker off but did just notice that grammar is not spelled grammer and might eventually learn how to spell the word).

Posted by Robert Waldmann | July 19, 2008 11:21 AM

Los Angeles has lots and lots of experience with people living in garages. Trust me, Arlington doesn't want to go down LA's route.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 19, 2008 4:33 PM

While working the public planning counter at a small Southern California city's city hall, I once had a woman come in to complain simultaneously about two things:

1. She wanted to build a second dwelling on her property, and

2. There were too many cars parked on her street and it was difficult to find street parking.

Now, don't you think that maybe, just maybe, the two things she was asking about may have been linked?

Posted by Adam Villani | July 19, 2008 7:00 PM

As both an Arlington resident and an affordable housing financier, I have a couple of things to add here.

1. Accessory dwelling units are not the answer for affordable housing. They are a help, but the only way to address Arlington's dire need for affordable housing is through initiatives like inclusionary zoning.

2. The folks in your example are likely North Arlington residents who will not be cluttering their backyard with any sort of structure short of one for live-in help. The folks who will make use of this (only 28 per year!) will most likely live in areas that already have a higher density.

3. As transportation begins to take more and more of one's income, the definition of affordable housing is changing. In Northern Virginia affordable development is hampered by many things. Two of the biggest issues are the cost of land and real estate taxes. Land near mass transit or Metro is of course the most expensive, which means the best returns are not achieved via affordable housing but by building market rate rental or for sale housing. If you do build affordable housing (via LIHTC), the real estate assessments will kill you. All of the NoVa jurisdictions claim to promote affordable housing, but they do nothing to preserve it once built. I'm looking straight at you, Fairfax County.

To participate in the LIHTC (Low Income Housing Tax Credit) program, rents are capped to be affordable for folks making no more than 60% of the area median income. If the AMI doesn't increase, rents do not increase. The problem is that expenses, in the form of personnel, insurance, utilities, maintenance, and real estate taxes, do increase, and frequently at a greater rate than rents. At some point, it is simply not sustainable for a developer and they switch their development efforts toward market rate deals.

Methods of dealing with this problem would be to include an affordability requirement in all multi-family developments, provide density bonuses for projects incorporating affordable units, or increasing density in areas with sufficient transportation systems.

By the way, it passed:
http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Communications/PressReleases/64952.aspx

Posted by REObserver | July 20, 2008 2:08 AM

As both an Arlington resident and an affordable housing financier, I have a couple of things to add here.

1. Accessory dwelling units are not the answer for affordable housing. They are a help, but the only way to address Arlington's dire need for affordable housing is through initiatives like inclusionary zoning.

2. The folks in your example are likely North Arlington residents who will not be cluttering their backyard with any sort of structure short of one for live-in help. The folks who will make use of this (only 28 per year!) will most likely live in areas that already have a higher density.

3. As transportation begins to take more and more of one's income, the definition of affordable housing is changing. In Northern Virginia affordable development is hampered by many things. Two of the biggest issues are the cost of land and real estate taxes. Land near mass transit or Metro is of course the most expensive, which means the best returns are not achieved via affordable housing but by building market rate rental or for sale housing. If you do build affordable housing (via LIHTC), the real estate assessments will kill you. All of the NoVa jurisdictions claim to promote affordable housing, but they do nothing to preserve it once built. I'm looking straight at you, Fairfax County.

To participate in the LIHTC (Low Income Housing Tax Credit) program, rents are capped to be affordable for folks making no more than 60% of the area median income. If the AMI doesn't increase, rents do not increase. The problem is that expenses, in the form of personnel, insurance, utilities, maintenance, and real estate taxes, do increase, and frequently at a greater rate than rents. At some point, it is simply not sustainable for a developer and they switch their development efforts toward market rate deals.

Methods of dealing with this problem would be to include an affordability requirement in all multi-family developments, provide density bonuses for projects incorporating affordable units, or increasing density in areas with sufficient transportation systems.

By the way, it passed:
http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Communications/PressReleases/64952.aspx

Posted by REObserver | July 20, 2008 2:11 AM

Another factor in the lack of affordable housing is the McMansioning going on in older neighborhoods with smaller houses. In Northern Virginia, this is particularly true in the City of Falls Church, the Town of Vienna, and the Mason district of Fairfax County. For instance, on Cherry Dr. in Falls Church between Hillwood and Rt. 7, three small houses were torn down and replaced by three large McMansions. The problem is that, from the local authorities point of view, this is to their advantage because the tax revenue from the replacement houses is substantially greater then the tax revenue from their predecessors.

Posted by SLC | July 20, 2008 9:19 AM