Tag Archives: affordable housing

Fair housing news from all over

August 3, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, Chapter 40B, fair housing, Massachusetts, Mount Pleasant, Post and Courier, Salem News, Vermont, workforce housingTed Wimpey

We begin the week with bulletins from unlikely places that nevertheless bear on what this here website is all about…

First, an editorial out of Charleston, S.C., about a “housing affordability crisis” in a town called Mount Pleasant:

It seems that lots of people who work in Mount Pleasant (population 75,000) can’t afford to live there. (Sound familiar?) The town has something called a “workforce housing” plan, intended to encourage development of housing that people who make 80-120 percent of the area’s median income can afford, but the plan hasn’t produced much. And now, there’s talk of eliminating the plan’s density bonuses so that even less affordable housing would result.

And this is a region where about half the residents already spend more than half their income on housing. The good news, we suppose, is that the town has a workforce housing plan and density bonuses to begin with. That’s more than can be said for some communities. The challenge – in Mount Pleasant and elsewhere — is to ensure that they actually come to something.

The editorial comes to a conclusion that sounds rather familiar: “The town needs a healthy mix of residents to remain vibrant and prosperous in the future, and those residents – of all income levels – will need a place to live.”

(By the way the Post and Courier won the public-service Pulitzer this year for a series on domestic violence against women – a prize citation that the newspaper reminds us of on its masthead – so, as newspapers go, it’s fairly reputable.)

Next up is a letter to the Salem (Mass.) News from a “Witch City” resident decrying Massachusetts’ “shameful housing demographics.”

Since 1969 Massachusetts, to its credit, has had an affordable housing program called Chapter 40B. Chapter 40B permits the overriding of local zoning bylaws to allow affordable housing development in towns where less than 10 percent of the housing stock is affordable.

More than 50,000 units have been developed over the years, statewide. The problem noted by the letter-writer is that some recent projects have been targeted to urban areas that already have their share of affordable housing, rather than to the “leafy suburbs.” The takeaway point here is that a good measure of new affordable housing units should be located in middle-income and upper-middle income areas, not just in the same old places.

Lastly, an update on what appears to be the longest-running fair housing case in the country.

Back in 1971, Hamtramck, Mich., was found to have violated civil rights of black residents by razing their neighborhoods as part of urban renewal. The remedy was supposed to be provision of 200 family housing units and 150 senior housing units, we learn from an Associated Press account. Well, it seems that Hamtramck still hasn’t made good, and the judge who presided over the case originally is still determined, at age 93, to see it through.

Here’s hoping that protracted case in Westchester County, N.Y., is resolved sooner.

A small step in the right direction

July 31, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, Burlington, Hinesburg, housing burden, inclusionary zoning, VermontTed Wimpey

Inclusionary zoning is getting more and more attention as a planning tool to increase the stock of affordable housing. This is a policy that requires, or encourages, various percentages of housing units in new developments to be “affordable.” The standard of affordability varies, but is typically targeted to people earning 80 percent or less of an area’s median income.

While inclusionary zoning has proliferated nationwide – a study last year counted more than 500 programs across the country – it hasn’t exactly taken off in Vermont.

True, inclusionary zoning is typically found in urban areas and larger cities, not in rural expanses. Most of the literature on inclusionary zoning, indeed, focuses on metropolitan settings. A recent example is this one from the National Housing Conference on how inclusionary policies can be made more flexible – with examples from urban settings.

The example routine cited in Vermont is Burlington, which adopted inclusionary zoning in 1990 and which happens to be the state’s largest city.

But in fact, small towns can’t make use of it, too – Davidson, N.C. (population 11,000) and Park City, Utah (8,000) are examples.

And closer to home, there’s Hinesburg (4,400). Hinesburg’s regulations apply to developments of 10 or more units in the village growth area, and call for 10 percent of those units to be affordable. Hinesburg also offers density bonuses, expedited review and other development incentives for projects that include affordable housing.

Now, while inclusionary zoning might seem to be a sensible way to address the affordable housing shortage, it’s hardly a cure-all. In Burlington’s case, for example, inclusionary zoning has resulted in just 200-plus affordable units (rentals and sales) over a quarter-century. That’s barely scratching the surface in a city with nearly 10,000 renting households – more than one-third of whom are severely cost-burdened, that is, spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing and utilities.

Inclusionary zoning does serve the purpose of ensuring that new development isn’t entirely upscale and out of reach for people of average means. But it’s just one tool in the affordable-housing planner’s proverbial toolkit. One of the most effective tools of all — in Vermont and everywhere else — would take the form of substantially bigger public appropriations for housing subsidies.

Do you suppose we’ll be hearing anything about that, or about how to address the affordable housing crisis, in the coming presidential campaign? Don’t all speak at once.

New Jersey’s inspiration

July 30, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, Mount Laurel Doctrine, New Jersey, VermontTed Wimpey

People in these parts can often be heard mocking New Jersey as some sort of cultural and environmental antithesis to Vermont. But they should be aware that New Jersey gave rise to a landmark civil rights doctrine – in housing – that resonates here.

That’s the so-called Mount Laurel Doctrine, as set out in two New Jersey Supreme Court rulings in 1975 and 1983, banning economic discrimination against the poor by municipalities in their land-use and zoning decisions. The rulings came after members of the black community in Burlington County’s Mount Laurel Township sued over a housing development plan that would have uprooted them in favor of middle-class and upper-middle-class families. (The town’s zoning effectively mandated homes that low-income families could not afford.)

The Fair Share Housing Center, which was among the litigants, has called Mount Laurel “one of the most significant civil rights cases in the United States since Brown v. Board of Education.” That might sound like a self-serving characterization, and of course, the rulings applied only to New Jersey, but the court’s reasoning echoes across the country. The court pointed out in its 1975 ruling that zoning regulations, “like any police power” exercised by a public entity, must promote general welfare. The decision went on to say:

“It is plain beyond dispute that proper provision for adequate housing of all categories of people is certainly an absolute essential in promotion of the general welfare required in all local land use regulation. Further the universal and constant need for such housing is so important and of such broad public interest that the general welfare which developing municipalities like Mount Laurel must consider extends beyond their boundaries and cannot be parochially confined to the claimed good of that particular community. It has to follow that, broadly speaking, the presumptive obligation arises for each municipality affirmatively to plan and provide, by its land use regulations, the reasonable opportunity for an appropriate variety and choice of housing, including, of course, low and moderate cost housing, to meet the needs, desires and resources of all categories of people who may desire to live within its boundaries.”

The court declared that Mount Laurel “must permit multi-family housing, without bedroom or similar restrictions, as well as small dwellings on very small lots, low cost housing of other types, and, in general, high density zoning, without artificial and unjustifiable minimum requirements as to lot size, building size and the like…”

More than 60,000 affordable units have been built in New Jersey as a result of the Mount Laurel decisions. That’s nowhere near the need, and there has been plenty of pushback, which continues to this day.

Nevertheless, the principle – that land-use regulations must accommodate people of all incomes – has been adopted by other states, including Vermont. Vermont’s zoning statute states, among other things, that:

“No bylaw nor its application by an appropriate municipal panel under this chapter shall have the effect of excluding housing that meets the needs of the population as determined in the housing element of its municipal plan as required…”

Among those requirements is “addressing low and moderate income persons’ housing needs.”

Affordable housing in ski areas, or not

July 17, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, employment, ski areas, VermontTed Wimpey

When Vermont’s “Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice” was completed in 2012, it listed as one of Vermont’s “fair housing achievements” the designation of ski areas as possible sites of affordable housing development.

The analysis noted that ski areas are “generally rural, more affluent, and predominantly White areas with high cost housing.” Locating affordable housing in these areas would help spread such housing around the state and avert concentration in urban centers. Moreover, some resorts promote themselves as year-round destinations, so the housing needs of their employees aren’t necessarily seasonal.

In fact, the Vermont’s Allocation Plan for federal and state affordable housing tax credits explicitly mentions, as one of the possible qualifications for receiving such credits, providing “workforce housing in ski areas” – particularly when locating such housing in the nearest town center is not feasible and when the community’s need for affordable housing is underserved.

Fine. How much affordable housing has been developed in ski-area towns under those criteria over the last three years?

None. This fair housing “achievement” is in the vision, not the doing.

OK, so how do ski areas stack up when it comes to providing affordable housing?

Again, we can look at these areas as employment centers (how many jobs they offered in 2014, from the Labor Department’s site)

and total their subsidized housing units, if any, from the Directory of Affordable Housing on the Housing Data website. As you might expect, the results vary widely.

Killington, for example, had 1,735 jobs in 2014, but no subsidized housing units.

Here are two others that come up empty…

Jay: 2014 job total “confidential,” 0 subsidized units.

Stratton: 887 jobs, 0 subsidized units.

Ski-area towns that are at least on the board for affordable housing:

Stowe: 4,155 jobs, 95 subsidized units

Ludlow: 1,554 jobs, 85 subsidized units.

Waitsfield: 1,355 jobs, 42 subsidized units

Jeffersonville/Cambridge: 1,390 jobs, 39 subsidized units

Dover: 1,161 jobs, 33 subsidized units.

Woodstock: 2,115 jobs, 26 subsidized units.

Warren: 1,029 jobs, 18 subsidized units.

Jobs and affordable housing, Part 3

July 14, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, employment centers, subsidized housing, Vermont, workforce housingTed Wimpey

A while back, we introduced the workforce housing index – namely, the number of subsidized housing units for each 100 jobs in a community.

And we listed Vermont municipalities with 2,000 jobs or more — we called them “major employment centers” — with their respective indices. Winooski topped them all, followed by Barre City and Springfield.

Well, what about the rest of the state – especially the municipalities with 500 to 2,000 jobs, which we’ll call “medium employment centers”? How do they rate?

Let’s start with the municipalities that have zero subsidized units — that is, places that are fairly strong on employment opportunity but weak on housing affordability. Here they are, with their 2014 jobs from a Department Labor database in parentheses:

Cambridge (1,390 jobs in 2014), Charlotte (524), Clarendon (1,292), East Montpelier (685), Fairlee (540), Ferrisburgh (547), Highgate (616), Hyde Park (690), Jay (730 jobs in third quarter), Killington (1,735), New Haven (641), Shaftsbury (530), Stratton (529) and Thetford (621).

On the other end, the “medium employment center” with the most subsidized units per 100 workers is Brandon. Brandon had 1,374 jobs and 156 subsidized units, for a workforce housing index of 11.4 — that is, 11.4 units for every 100 workers employed in the town.

Going down the list of municipalities that had between 500 and 1,999 jobs):

Williamstown: 11.3 (subsidized housing units per 100 workers)

Enosburg: 10.1

Townshend: 9.7

Windsor: 9.4

Chester: 9.0

Fair Haven: 8.5

Vernon: 8.5 (note: data preceded Vermont Yankee closing)

Richford: 7.3

West Rutland: 6.9

Ludlow: 5.5

Hardwick: 5.2

Johnson: 5.2

Bradford Town: 5.2

Northfield: 4.9

Poultney: 4.8

Swanton: 4.8

Barton: 4.4

Londonderry: 4.3

Arlington: 4.0

Pittsford: 3.8

Castleton: 3.7

Jericho: 3.3

Putney: 3.2

Waitsfield: 3.1

Dorset: 3.0

Dover: 2.8

Barre Town: 2.8

Norwich: 2.5

Fairfax: 2.4

Bristol: 2.4

Richmond: 2.2

Hinesburg: 2.1

Warren: 1.7

Waterbury: 1.6

Derby: 1.5

Royalton: 1.4

Westminster: 1.1

Georgia: 0.9

Wilmington: 0.6

Rockingham: 0.6

Now, when we bring income data into the mix, we find that there’s a rough, inverse correlation between median family income and the number of subsidized housing units. That’s not surprising. One might expect richer towns to have less housing for low-income people. The pattern doesn’t always hold, though.

Of the 14 municipalities that have no subsidized housing units, 10 have median family incomes above the state average, and four below.

And in the list above, four of the first five municipalities — the ones with the most subsidized units relative to their numbers of employees — are above average in median family income.

Nevertheless, it’s clear that there’s plenty of room to grow affordable housing in the more well-to-do municipalities. After all, shouldn’t lower-paid employees who work in those towns be able to live there? That’s in keeping with the goal of promoting fair housing choice for everyone in low-poverty, high-opportunity locations — places with ready access to good services, schools and transportation.

Where is Vermont’s biggest multi-family housing gap?

July 10, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, Caledonia, Franklin, Grand Isle, low moderate income, multi-family housing, Orleans, VermontTed Wimpey

When housing advocates talk about increasing the stock of affordable housing, they’re typically referring to multi-family rental housing. Not that programs to expand home-ownership for lower income people aren’t important — they are. But it’s generally agreed that the most cost-effective way to alleviate the affordable housing shortage is by developing multi-family complexes.

Vermont is a rural state, of course, and multi-family housing tends to be concentrated in urban and semi-urban areas, such as Chittenden County. Nevertheless, it makes sense to think about other parts of the state where there’s a clear but unfilled need for multifamily housing.

Consider these two maps from the 2012 Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice, which the state Department of Housing and Community Development filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The first map shows 14 census tracts identified as areas where low and moderate income persons (LMI) are concentrated:

The second map shows where multi-family housing is located, as a percentage of all housing. This map also outlines the LMI areas:

So, which counties with concentrations of lower- and middle-income people are short on multi-family housing, and which counties could clearly accommodate more multi-family housing than they have?

Grand Isle, Franklin, Orleans and Caledonia.

New push for integration

July 9, 2015UncategorizedAFFH, affordable housing, Boston, Ed Brook, Fair Housing Act, integration, LBJ, segregation, Vermont, Walter MondaleTed Wimpey

When the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its AFFH rule yesterday, it was the second cause for celebration among fair housing advocates in the last two weeks.

The first was the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the disparate impact doctrine — a key civil rights enforcement mechanism, under which housing policies can be found discriminatory on the basis of their effects, not merely their intent.

The second was the long-awaited AFFH rule. AFFH stands for “affirmatively furthering fair housing,” language contained in the Fair Housing Act of 1968 but not fully elucidated until yesterday.

Essentially, as HUD summarizes it, the rule is a means of overcoming segregation and fostering inclusive communities. This is entirely in keeping with the intent of the Fair Housing Act’s original sponsors – chief among them Sens. Walter Mondale and Ed Brook, who can be seen flanking LBJ as the president signs the legislation into law on April 11, 1968.

The main point of the Act according to Mondale, “was to replace the segregated living patterns with ‘truly integrated and balanced living patterns.’” To Brooke, the act was meant to break the “dreary cycle of the middle-class exodus to the suburbs and the rapid deterioration of the central city.” (They said as much in their amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the disparate impact case.)

Their vision hasn’t exactly played out over the last half-century, as most major metropolitan areas remain highly segregated. Consider Boston, for example, which has a white/black dissimilarity index of 68. On a scale of 0 to 100, 0 represents total integration and 100, total segregation. Any place that registers over 60 is considered highly segregated. (The State of Vermont, by contrast, came in at 38.8, according to a 2012 report.)

In this map of the Boston area, based on 2010 Census data by Eric Fischer, red dots represent white people; blue dots, black people; orange, Hispanics; and green, Asians.

Similar maps, some even starker in the depiction of racial separation, can be seen for most major U.S. cities. The AFFH rule, which makes operational the Fair Housing Act’s intent, is seen as a tool that will help overcome these longstanding segregated patterns.

Even though Vermont is 95 percent white, AFFH will have broad application here. After all, a major thrust is to break up pockets of poverty and promote inclusive settlement patterns that give people in protected classes – among them, racial minorities and disabled people – the choice to live in low-poverty areas with access to transit and good services. Vermont has plenty of room for more housing development in keeping with AFFH standards.

Side trip to Seattle

July 8, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, Burlington, housing density, multi-family housing, Seattle, Seattle Times, single-family zoning, Vermont, zoningTed Wimpey

While our “Thriving Communities” campaign focuses on Vermont, we’re not going to wallow in the parochial. An interesting public dialogue on zoning, affordability and housing density is going on in Seattle, and who knows, maybe there’s a takeaway for us.

What does big-city Seattle have in common with small-town Vermont, besides a foliage season?

Well, much of Seattle is zoned for single-family residences, as are many Vermont municipalities. The news is that a housing advisory panel is poised to recommend scrapping single-family for zoning that allows duplex, triplexes and so forth. Part of the rationale is that single-family districts are perceived to have had an exclusionary effect, by race and socioeconomic class.

The housing advisory panel reportedly wants to forestall Seattle’s becoming a haven for the rich, and one approach is to promote more density — not just in single-family neighborhoods, but also in zones where multifamily housing now limited to four stories could be redrawn to allow six.

If there’s a lesson in this for Vermont, it’s certainly not in the particulars. Seattle’s population exceeds Vermont’s, after all, and Vermont’s largest city, Burlington, could be fit into one of Seattle’s neighborhoods. (Below is an overview photo of two storied Seattle neighborhoods — Queen Anne and Magnolia — that are laced with single-family residences.

No, the Vermont takeway is that people here, too, should be thinking about making their zoning and town planning more accommodating of greater residential density near municipal centers. Not high rises, of course, but affordable multi-family housing on a Vermont scale.

Burlington’s housing-wage gap

July 7, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, Burlington, housing, jobs, workforce housingTed Wimpey

Burlington needs more affordable housing, lots of it. Affordable rentals, especially. After all, renting households far outnumber owner households in this city, and by any measure, they’re financially stressed. On average, according to a city report last year, Burlington’s renters pay 44 percent of their income on housing. More than one-third of Burlington’s renters pay more than half their income on housing. That’s what’s known among housing specialists as a severe burden.

Because of inclusionary zoning, we can be fairly confident that new, affordable rental units will be made available wherever big new developments go in. The hope here, at the Fair Housing Project, is that such developments be spread around the city. Not all the new affordable units have to go in the Old North End!

The South End would seem to be prime candidate for more subsidized, multi-family housing, and as far as we’re concerned, the Hill should be another possibility. Granted, there’s a trade-off between the price of land and the number of units that can be developed on a given tract; but still, we support the idea of locating a decent share of new affordable housing in low-poverty areas.

Here’s an interesting perspective on Burlington’s unaffordability from the point of view of low-wage workers. Consider five occupational categories that lead the state in numbers of workers: cashiers, personal care aids, retail salespeople, food prep workers and wait staff. Look at this graphic (courtesy of the National Housing Conference’s “Paycheck to Paycheck” that shows what annual income is needed to rent an apartment in Burlington without being burdened; and how their incomes compare:

Incidentally, personal care aide is one of the state’s fastest growing occupations. That’s a testament to the greying of Vermont, because personal care aides assist elderly or disabled adults. Is it too much to ask that personal care aides be able to find affordable housing in the same communities where they serve their clients?

What about home ownership in Burlington for these workers? Similarly out of reach:

Jobs and affordable housing, Part 2

July 6, 2015Uncategorizedaffordable housing, employment centers, jobs, subsidized housing, Vermont, workforce housingTed Wimpey

It’s not uncommon to hear Vermont employers complain that the high cost of housing is a deterrent to recruiting employees. Everyone knows Vermont needs more affordable housing. The question is, where should new affordable housing best be located?

The Fair Housing Project contends that it should be located near town centers, in mixed income areas that have good access to employment, transit and other services.

Some municipalities offer more affordable housing than others. In an effort to throw some light on where the needs are, we introduced the workforce housing index in our last post. This is the number of subsidized housing units for every 100 jobs in a town. Subsidized units are affordable, by definition, to people earning up to 80 percent the region’s median income, including workers in relatively low paying jobs. (Granted, affordable housing is also in short supply for middle-income workers – teachers or police officers, for example. A more comprehensive workforce housing index would take their needs into account, too.)

Without further ado, here’s how Vermont’s “major employment centers” rank in providing affordable housing. Again, the index is the number of subsidized housing units per 100 jobs:

Winooski: 24.5

Barre City: 9.9

Springfield: 7.5

Brattleboro: 6.9

Burlington: 6.8

Randolph: 6.3

Vergennes: 6.3

Rutland City: 6.1

St. Johnsbury: 5.9

St. Albans Town: 5.7

Bennington: 5.5

St. Albans City: 4.1

Manchester: 4.0

Montpelier: 3.9

Colchester: 3.7

Middlebury: 3.3

Newport: 3.2

South Burlington: 3.2

Lyndon: 2.9

Rutland Town: 2.7

Essex: 2.5

Stowe: 2.2

Morristown: 2.2

Hartford: 2.0

Williston: 1.7

Shelburne: 1.6

Waterbury: 1.6

Derby: 1.5

Milton: 1.4

Woodstock: 1.2

Rockingham: 0.6

A couple of observations: Municipalities with public housing authorities tend to rank high on the list, as might be expected. As for other towns that don’t have public housing authorities, well, some are clearly pulling their weight more than others.

In Chittenden County, Burlington and Winooski have the great majority of subsidized units, but they account for less than half the jobs. (The jobs total of Williston, South Burlington and Essex alone exceeds that of Burlington-Winooski.) Clearly, other Chittenden County towns have a ways to go in meeting the affordable housing needs of their workforces.