- Portland, Ore., has come up with a new funding source for affordable housing: tourists!
The city council has voted to dedicate a share of the tax on Airbnb-type rentals to the city’s Housing Investment Fund — $1.2 million a year. That’s a drop in the bucket in a city where the affordable housing shortfall amounts to about 24,000 units, but it’s better than nothing. - Jackson Hole officialdom has agreed to consider a plan that would dial back commercial growth in favor of housing, with density bonuses offered for workforce housing. A citizen campaign bearing slogans like “Housing not hotels” apparently got a receptive hearing.
- The Republican leadership of Howell, N.J., is backing an affordable housing project despite, and in the face of, some unusually ugly civic opposition — in a state where support for affordable housing is typically associated with Democrats.
This profile of courage, in the Atlantic, includes a fine summary of the tortuous (and torturous) fate of affordable housing in New Jersey after the landmark Mount Laurel decisions. Another example of how good intentions and a supportive legal infrastructure are not enough. - The “recapitalization” of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as proposed by two economists, would direct a flood of new money to the states for affordable housing via the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund.
Vermont would get $4.6 million a year for affordable housing for 20 years under this scheme. Sounds great, but whether this proposal has any legs is an open question. Some members of Congress would just as soon do away with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae altogether. - A community of 15 tiny houses is scheduled to open later this month in Seattle to provide transitional quarters for homeless people. Granted, this isn’t exactly cheerful news, but at least it’s different.
Tag Archives: Seattle
Side trip to Seattle
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.