A surviving oak in North Albany’s Pheasant Run, a 147-lot development where Hayden Homes lists new houses as starting above $400,000.
Albany is joining all the talk about affordable housing with the creation of a task force on this topic. To which the kindhearted reaction is: Good luck!
The city council this week confirmed the 14 members of this task force. They include the mayor as well as representatives from the planning commission, the development business, and aid organizations, plus one appointment each by the mayor and the six council members.
One of the task force members is Sharon Konopa, the former mayor whose nomination to the planning commission was blocked by four council members last month. Councilor Ray Kopczynski named her to the affordability task force, and this time no one objected.
Albany got a grant of $85,000 from the state Department of Land Conservation and Development, and the city plans to spend the money on a consultant to help write a “Housing Implementation Plan.” What’s that?
A staff memo to the council says the plan “will provide an equitable and actionable plan to address the very real housing needs of our diverse residents.”
So the plan will address the needs, right. But how?
Councilman Dick Olsen wanted to know if the task force meetings would be public. Well, they will seek “public input” from time to time, but the impression left by the staff was that the discussions would be private for the most part. Olsen didn’t like it.
If you’re not part of the government policy-making establishment, you would think the answer to the affordability question is pretty straightforward. If you want housing that everybody can afford, some of the housing you build has to be so cheap that people with even a very low income can live there. But can you force or encourage the private sector to build ultra-cheap housing?
The Hub City Village group is trying to provide one answer in Albany with tiny houses. But its project will help only two dozen people or households. More tiny-house villages after that?
The only other approach is to increase government housing assistance, which the city government is in no position to do.
So it’s hard to see what the affordability task force can come up with that’s different and new. Olsen has the right idea. It would be interesting to listen in and see if any practical ideas pop up. (hh)
Do whatever it takes to undermine the destructive assumption/prejudice that “bigger is better.”
The biggest housing mistake is the mismatch between increasing house size and decreasing household size, including lots of singles — many of whom don’t want or need cars, or can’t really afford them.
A couple of my less-radical ideas:
1 – Full-featured, full-cost (relative to size) tiny, semi-tiny, or moderately small houses in some kind of arrangement other than the usual houses-on-a-street. Here’s one type of neighborhood (in an expensive location):
http://pocket-neighborhoods.net/whatisaPN.html
Keep cars outside the cluster.
2 – Apartments dedicated to non-car-owners, with an enforceable contract to prevent neighborhood conflicts over on-street parking. This would allow more units to be built without increasing the perception of crowding or adding to traffic congestion. Or you could have more open space, acting as a fallback to placate those who don’t think the concept will work — but then there is no cost reduction.
The Banks would have been the ideal location for #2.
Interesting suggestions. The “smaller” houses like shown in the link you provided, are reminiscent of similar units built in the 1930’s. Many still exist as small apartment complexes.
Strongly agree about small, detached cluster housing. Unfortunately, investors love buying up smaller single family units, and it’s hard for people to compete. Most of the housing in Albany being developed in Albany are rentals. Part of the affordable housing problem is that any wage increases are sucked by rent increases. Enabling people to purchase homes would allow people to lock in their housing costs with a fixed rate mortgage and start building equity. It was extremely disappointing to see Edgewater Village stay majority developer-owned given their generous CARA funding and extensions. The townhouses would have been great starter homes for many people. Instead, the starting rent is equivalent to the PITI for an FHA mortgage with 3.5% down on a $275k home.
A connection with Habitat for Humanity seems like a good place to start. The’ve been at this task for a long time and have successfully provided housing for dozens of families in the area. What about a partnership between the City and Habitat as an idea?
Another commission to create blather is my goodhearted contribution.
Good luck with this folks, the vast majority of the things that make building expensive come from demands from government, streets used to be made by the city, now they are made by the developer and that is passed on to the end user. You want to fix this, start by lowering the regulations, Fees and the requirements, do not have government make it so you do not have to pay “prevailing wage” which means Union Scale….. and then there is NIMBY, you know like demanding that single family homes are sacrosanct. Go to Government and ask what they are willing to forgo…………. good luck with that , ask Sharon if she is willing to have apartments next door if she can help it…
When reducing or eliminating government regulation, please first seriously consider the reasons why those regulations were enacted in the first place, what real-life problems the regulations were intended to solve, rather than just automatically ending a regulation and thus returning to the problems that were there in the first place. Of course the people who profited from the previous problems will always advocate to get rid of the regulations that stopped them from doing what caused problems! They want things to go back to the “good old days” when they were able to do things to profit themselves by walking over others.
tell you what. don’t allow ANY housing development unless half the housing is for low income or very low income people. rentals included.
….and i mean, a developer must provide those kind of ultra cheap and modestly priced units in order to build bigger or more expensive ones. They must be big enough for humans to live in, with all their belongings, and spare room for family, not just tiny home size. In other words much less profitable. But required in order to profit AT ALL, off of their more expensive other units.
that’s what i would like to see.
The builders would have to contribute to society in order to get the right to build, since we have such a problem with their self serving greed so far.
If i were a builder i would just do it anyway without being asked. in fact you could do like McDonald’s and just build a lot of cheap units with a small margin and it’s the large volume that makes the money. Including apartments that are CHEEEEAP, or moderate and SUBSIDIZED. . It’s not like they would sit empty.
AFTER ALL THERE’S NEW GOVERNMENT MONEY INTHE PIPE, AND ALSO TAX INCENTIVES. Hear that you money grubbing developers?
( i wish i could edit my other comment above but can’t)
No, city government cannot force the private sector to build “ultra-cheap housing.”
But the city can dangle a carrot or two.
First, recognize the obvious. Market-rate housing will never be affordable to the lowest-income household.
The solution? A subsidy, of course.
And the subsidy must ultimately benefit the private developer and property owner. Think CARA.
How? Amend the development code by decreasing the land cost per unit. And annex more land into the city’s urban growth boundary.
Or, as some would say, socialize the risk and privatize the profit. A private developer’s dream solution.
If this won’t get the Mayor and Councilors re-elected, then find a Federal or State trough to dip into.
The city doesn’t have the cash, so a direct payment to every low-income household will have to come from somewhere else. Good luck finding that trough.
I’m betting the CARA -style carrot wins the day.
Most of the taxpayers won’t understand how it works, or care enough to find out, so that works in the city’s favor.
People do not realize the costs the developers have in a lot before the house is even built. I build subdivisions and not including the cost of the land the typical development cost is close to $100k per lot. Currently prices for asphalt, rock and pipe are skyrocketing. On one job our cost to buy sewer, water and storm drain pipe prices went up over $2000 per lot since June. The cost increase on building materials is skyrocketing too. Yes maybe they could build smaller houses on these lots but it isn’t going to drop prices below $300k per house unless you build tiny houses. Then you have to look at who is going to be able to come up with the 20% down to buy one.
Thank you @Jason for the insight regarding construction costs. I have selfie in front of a stack of $66/sheet 7/16″ OSB. I’m sure the end times are nigh.
+1 for @HowlingCicada’s apartment proposal.
Think of those small spaces in IKEA showrooms and check out this site that has significant IKEA backing.
https://www.urbanvillageproject.com/
Note, tiny (single level) houses aren’t in the mix In most cases, it will be 4 stories (the 3+1 golden formula of property development- 3 levels of living space over either parking or retail/commercial ground floor)
Darn, I’m going to spend hours on that website and the stuff it links to ;-). I’m a big fan of most things related to IKEA.
Seems like a lot of negative talk, for the last 6 years we in the building community I mean the builders that live here , and give back to the community have been wanting a task force to look at housing. And the former mayor would not form the task force. Now that we have one let’s stay positive ( that means you to hasso). And hopefully we can come up with some solutions. Probably better stop there for now.
Here is a different idea: Zone neighborhoods for people to buy very small lots to put up a manufactured home that they buy . Home ownership is the start of financial stability, building up equity and ultimately paying off the mortgage entirely to own the home outright instead of paying rent for the lot as they would in a manufactured home park. If you own both the home and the lot, then you have a freedom that renters will never have – not only freedom from paying ever-increasing rent, but also freedom to adopt a pet without having to pay a nonrefundable pet deposit and get permission from your landlord, freedom to bring family members to live with you instead of having to pay additional rent and to get permission from your landlord. Currently there are many affordable and liveable new manufactured homes (made in Albany!) available for purchase, but the residents have to either buy land far out in the country and pay for wells and septic systems, or rent a tiny lot in a “park” where they will not own the land they live on. Create neighborhoods for OWNERS of manufactured homes to live.
Absolutely, yes, on the small lots and ownership stuff … and everything else you say.
But I wish that most manufactured houses weren’t stuck in a rut of trying, and not quite succeeding, to look like “conventional” houses (which I mostly dislike, but that’s another story).
Here’s an outfit in Salem seeming to escape that rut, without being radically “different.” Both modular and manufactured (they describe the differences). Seem expensive? I don’t know, nor do I know anything about them.
https://www.ideabox.us/