Category: Affordable Housing

CSG Testimony on DC FY2020 Budget for Department of Housing & Community Development

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

CSG Testimony FY20 Budget Hearing for DHCD

Testimony before the Hon. Anita Bonds, Chair, Committee on Housing & Neighborhood Revitalization, Council of the District of Columbia

RE: FY2020 Budget Oversight Hearing for the Department of Housing and Community Development and Housing Production Trust Fund

By Cheryl Cort, Policy Director

April 23, 2019

Good afternoon, my name is Cheryl Cort and I am the policy director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG). The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization working locally in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Our mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish.

We want to commend the Mayor for proposing a substantial increase to the Housing Production Trust Fund to $130 million and an increase in the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund to $15 million. D.C. continues to lead the country in its commitment to local funding for affordable housing, along with its use of important policy tools like TOPA and DOPA, and the administration’s innovations in the New Communities Initiative. These investments, policies, and programs are critical, but much more is needed to preserve and build affordable housing in a city that is rapidly becoming unaffordable to its low-paid workforce and many long-time residents.

The District continues to experience strong demand to live here, which drives up housing prices. In addition, the city’s economy has a large and growing gap between wages earned at white-collar jobs and the earnings of workers who provide essential services to many of the businesses upon which the high-paid professionals rely for day to day needs. To address the needs of low income residents, including the workers who fill 8 of the top 20 occupations in the city, we need deeper and more strategic investments. And we need stronger policies. The FY2020 budget can be more a part of the solution.

Workforce housing – make strategic investments for low wage workers to live in the city

We appreciate the administration’s attention to the housing needs of D.C.’s workforce. Helping workers live near their work has many family, community and environmental benefits. We are disappointed, however, that the income targeting proposed for the new $20 million “workforce” housing program, from 60% to 120% AMI, will miss providing assistance to the working households who most need it to stay in the city. The need starts at 50% AMI, and goes down from there.

Last month, we released a study on D.C.’s workforce housing needs (see attachment). We found:

  • 8 of the most common 20 occupations pay less than $48,000 a year (e.g. administrative assistants);
  • 5 of the top 20 jobs pay below $30,000 per year, which is considered extremely low income for a two-person household (e.g. janitors and cleaners);
  • Not a single one of the most common 20 occupations in the District was between 50% and 80% AMI.

Many of the fastest growing service jobs in the District, such as home health aides, food preparation, and waiters/waitresses, earn extremely low incomes. At these income levels, most working households face severe housing cost burdens, paying more than half of their income to housing. In contrast, rarely does a household earning 80% AMI or more face severe housing cost burdens.

These data show that the District’s critical workforce housing needs are with those earning well below 80% AMI, let alone 120% AMI. But the income targeting for the Mayor’s workforce housing fund would target assistance for earners at 60% to 120% AMI, or $112,500 per year for a 2-person household. For higher earners at this range, we should focus on policies that make the housing market work better, to produce more moderately-priced homes in more neighborhoods. For the expenditure of scarce funds, we must be strategic. Based on our research, we recommend the follow to address affordable workforce housing needs:

  1. Establish a workforce housing policy for income targeting based on need using earnings data and severe cost burdens. We ask the Council to approve funding for the new workforce housing program using income targeting no higher than 60% AMI for rental and 80% AMI for ownership. In fact, based on our research, we recommend that the focus for workforce housing go to rental assistance at 30% and 50% AMI.
  2. Recommit the city (especially through DHCD and Office of Planning) to its obligation to comply with the Fair Housing Act’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. The D.C. Council can address this in part through the Comprehensive Plan update bill. The Comprehensive Plan should be revised to unlock the potential for less costly, mixed-income housing throughout the city. This is an important way to better address workforce housing needs up the income scale. The Comprehensive Plan should significantly expand the potential for creating new housing, including inclusionary zoning units, especially in high opportunity neighborhoods. The Comprehensive Plan must also ease restrictions on building housing, especially affordable and public housing, like the Park Morton/Bruce Monroe plan to replace deteriorated public housing.
  3. Greatly expand the Local Rent Supplement Program (LRSP) to provide rental assistance to help low-paid workers, especially through tenant-based LRSP. The FY20 budget proposes modest increased support for targeted affordable housing and project-based rental assistance. However, the budget proposed no additional tenant-based rental assistance. We urge the Council to add funding to tenant-based LRSP. In the long term, we should greatly expand LRSP and pair it with our fair housing efforts to bring more deeply affordable housing to high opportunity neighborhoods. These actions are a key way to address our workforce housing needs, and breakdown a legacy of discrimination which cuts off access to opportunity and choice.

 Thank you for your consideration.

_________________________________

Attachment: Making Workforce Housing Work, a new report by Coalition for Smarter Growth, March 2019

CSG Testimony re Amazon & Affordable Housing

Posted on by Stewart Schwartz

Coalition for Smarter Growth

March 14, 2019

Arlington County Board

Suite #300

2100 Clarendon Blvd

Arlington, VA 22201

 

Re:  Amazon incentive package and community needs

Dear Chair Dorsey and members of the Board:

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading non-profit in the DC region advocating a network of livable communities – walkable, mixed-income, mixed-use, transit-oriented centers and corridors linked by an expanded transit network including Metrorail, bus, bus rapid transit, light-rail, and street-car as appropriate. Our partnerships span the region’s leading conservation, affordable housing, bicycle/pedestrian, and transit advocacy organizations, as well as progressive architecture, planning and development firms. We are proud that this web of partnerships enabled us to collectively win the first-ever dedicated funding for Metro.

We support Amazon’s decision to locate in Crystal City/Pentagon City. Their decision is a vindication of Arlington’s long-time leadership and implementation of smart growth and transit-oriented development (TOD). It is a vindication as well of our regional advocacy for TOD and of the Council of Governments’ Region Forwardvision and Visualize2045transportation plan commitments to TOD. Amazon is also teaming with one of the region’s most successful transit-oriented developers, JBGSmith, who have a record of good design and placemaking, and recently started a workforce housing fund.

Turning now to the proposed incentives program. We join others in the long-standing concerns about the nationwide use of incentives to attract major corporate entities – particularly given so many socio-economic needs in our communities. But we also recognize that both Arlington and the State of Virginia incentives are performance based. Arlington’s incentives are also being drawn from the growth in revenue from the Transient Occupancy Tax, of which 15% will go to Amazon for performance but the remainder to schools, housing and transportation in Arlington. We are pleased that the state transportation investments are among the most progressive seen in the U.S. in that they are focused on transit, bicycle/pedestrian and safe street design investments.

A new area of concern raised by Megan Rhyne of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government must be addressed – that the proposed agreement includes a provision allowing Amazon “at least two-business days to refute, redact or file a lawsuit when someone seeks records of its interaction with the county” (P. Sullivan, Washington Post, 3/15/19). At CSG we have always placed transparency in government at the core of community planning and engagement and strongly support ever greater transparency in FOIA standards and fewer exemptions. Therefore, this provision which Ms. Rhyne says is unusual, should be removed from the agreement.

While we are supporting the Amazon transit-oriented project, we share the significant concerns about housing affordability in Arlington and the region – an issue which admittedly predates Amazon. While Arlington and Alexandria are pledging $150 million toward affordable housing needs over ten years, our understanding is that these are not new, additional funds. It is good that the Virginia Housing Development Authority will be allocating $15 million per year over five years in low interest loans for affordable housing and added $3 million to the statewide Virginia Housing Trust Fund. But this level of investment is also far short of the need. Since Arlington notes that increased revenues will result from Amazon’s investment and associated development and economic activity, we urge the use of a significant portion of those revenues for affordable housing – to double or more the current annual commitments. We urge the same for Alexandria, Fairfax, and the state.

As for the state commitment to affordable housing, we need to point out the discrepancy between $750 million in incentives for Amazon and $50 million for Micron, while only adding $3 million to the state housing trust fund and the five-year, $15 million per year loan program for Northern Virginia. Similarly, the comparison between the billions we spend on highways and interchanges is stunning when compared to how little we are investing in affordable housing. In fact, housing close to jobs and transit IS a transportation solution, reducing vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled. Investing in affordable housing in smart growth locations creates far more benefits than do our massive highway expenditures, providing family stability, improved health, improved educational outcomes, improved access to jobs and affordable transportation, and reduced air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, we need both much more public funding support from the state and local governments, but also innovative private sector investment in long-term committed affordable housing for 60 percent of area median income and below.

Beyond funding, we concur with many other groups that we need effective preservation strategies for market-rate affordable housing in our diverse neighborhoods that are potentially impacted by the economic development that will come with Amazon. Arlington, DC, Alexandria and advocates at CSG and the member groups of the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance have many ideas for effective tools for both preservation and inclusion of affordable housing, and we need a stronger commitment and an accelerated approach to implementation in each jurisdiction with the full participation of local residents.

Turning back to transportation, and Amazon’s role, we are pleased that Amazon has achieved about a 50% mode share for non-auto commutes in Seattle and has promised that they want to do even better here. We recommend a goal of 65% non-auto mode share. To achieve this, we recommend that Amazon provide transit passes to all employees, and that they minimize on-site parking (as they have discussed) — and price it OR offer equal non-parking benefits to any employee who might be eligible for or offered a parking space but wishes to take transit, walk or bike to work. Include secure bicycle parking, along with showers and lockers for bike commuters.

In addition, the state, Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, and local jurisdictions should add other projects to the package of transportation investments including:

  • Connecting Metroway through Alexandria to Fairfax’ Embark Richmond Highway BRT
  • Accelerating the Long Bridge rail project and building the separated bike bridge
  • In the I-395 Corridor provide TOD node-to-node bus rapid transit connections between Fort Belvoir, Springfield, Landmark, Mark Center, Shirlington, Pentagon City/Crystal City and Pentagon (and a Kingstown to Van Dorn to Landmark connection).
  • Expansion of Capital Bikeshare
  • Expansion of dedicated bike lane infrastructure

In conclusion, we support Amazon’s location decision, but we urge you to fix the FOIA issue, to advance these additional transportation projects in partnership with other jurisdictions, AND commit to increasing funding for affordable housing, adopting new tools for preservation and inclusion, and including the community in the development of these strategies and programs.

Thank you.

Stewart Schwartz

Executive Director

Making Workforce Housing Work for D.C.

Making Workforce Housing Work for D.C.

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

Making Workforce Housing Work: Understanding Housing Needs for D.C.’s Changing Workforce

D.C.’s workforce is growing and changing. After years of decline, the city is now a leading jurisdiction in population and job growth.  Increasingly, more people working in D.C. want to live in D.C., though the city still has a net influx of commuters to fill jobs each workday. This growth dynamic offers the District new opportunities, but also continued housing affordability challenges that must be addressed strategically to make the lives of working households better, and foster a healthy economy.  D.C. can and should affordably house more of its workforce.  To accomplish this, the District must deploy two broad strategies:

  • Make the housing market work better by changing land use policies to provide the housing supply necessary to keep pace with demand from working households who could pay for housing if it were more available and less costly.
  • Use subsidies and a full set of public policy tools to bridge the remaining gap where housing costs are too high and wages too low. The District should dramatically increase funding for the Local Rent Supplement Program and Housing Production Trust Fund. It should also leverage Inclusionary Zoning, Planned Unit Developments and other zoning tools to produce more housing that is affordable. These investments and policy tools must make homes affordable for workers who are filling common occupations but face severe housing cost burdens. This essential part of the workforce earns half or less of the region’s median household income.

This paper focuses on the latter issue: specifically, the need to target public resources and policies to addressing the needs of the large share of the workforce that earns 50 percent or less of area median income. These workers represent 8 of the 20 most common occupations in the District of Columbia, and 5 of those 8 occupations pay wages that amount to 30 percent or less of area median income.

View full report at: Making Workforce Housing Work

Accessory dwelling units are part of Montgomery County’s housing solution. Support them today!

Posted on by Alex Baca


Tell the County Council that we need rules that make accessory dwellings feasible in Montgomery County!

It’s no secret that Montgomery residents face daunting housing challenges. Prices are high, and the right home can be hard to find, especially for an aging parent, returning adult child, or young family just starting out. One solution that can help is accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. But the County’s current rules are too onerous, and prevent many homeowners from creating an accessory unit on their property.

Accessory dwelling units offer a range of benefits, they help adult children have a place to stay close to parents, and they enable aging parents to live close to family members. They offer an aging-in-place solution for retirees, and help make housing more affordable for young families.

Tell the Montgomery County Council that you support flexible solutions like accessory dwelling units, and the zoning amendment to set more reasonable rules for homeowners.

Communities across the country are embracing accessory dwelling units as an innovative way to give homeowners and renters more housing choices, especially where housing prices are high.

Montgomery County has made steps to reform its highly restrictive rules that permit a homeowner to build an accessory apartment but many rules still discourage homeowners from reaching for this solution. Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 19-01 is legislation that will address some of the most onerous, and unnecessary restrictions. By enacting these bold reforms, the county can offer many more homeowners the opportunity to take advantage of underutilized space to house a family member, or age in place.

Specifically, the bill would:

  • Allow detached ADUs in small lot single family zones and removes the 1 acre minimum lot size limit (think garage apartment or tiny house)
  • Allows ADUs in basements (think English basements)
  • Remove prohibition on ADUs in houses less than 5 years old
  • Remove minimum distance restrictions from other ADUs.
  • Requires 2 off-street parking spaces rather than 3, or provides a waiver process.
  • Keeps own-occupancy requirement
  • Keeps the restriction that no more than 2 unrelated individuals can reside in the ADU
  • Maintains all residential construction requirements like setbacks and lot coverage.
  • Permits only one ADU per property.
  • Maintains ban on short term rentals (AirBnB) for ADUs

Let the county council know that you support these reforms and want to see the county as a leader in innovative housing solutions.

Want more information? Check out this helpful fact sheet by At-Large County Councilmember Hans Riemer, and read this Greater Greater Washington post by Tracy Loh.

Don’t want to use our form? You can email County.Council@montgomerycountymd.gov.

Statement of support for inclusionary zoning by DC Campaign for Inclusionary Zoning

Posted on by acustis

This statement is submitted on behalf of the Campaign for Inclusionary Zoning regarding Zoning Case 04-33G. We want to thank the Commission for its interest in this case. The District is experiencing an affordable housing crisis of historic significance. As DC’s economy and population grows, housing prices rise, and low-income DC residents with stagnant wages are left struggling to pay for housing. In this environment, the District must take action to sharpen each tool in the city’s affordable housing toolbox, especially inclusionary zoning, the only tool that by design creates affordable homes in high-cost neighborhoods.

TESTIMONY to DC Council RE: Support for PR21-307 (McMillan Sand Filtration Site)

Posted on by acustis

We wish to express our support for the resolution to extend the Land Development Agreement given the scale and difficulty of this undertaking. It’s not uncommon for complex projects to take more time to walk through the process. Of course we wish that the whole process could be expedited, but we recognize that a significant project like this is large and complex.

Campaign to Strengthen DC’s Inclusionary Zoning Affordable Housing Program Briefing

Posted on by Will Reckley

Event Materials:

Supporting Materials:

Event Description:
October 22, 2015 | held at DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI)

Speakers:

David Bowers, Enterprise Community Partners

Claire Zippel, DC Fiscal Policy Institute

Cheryl Cort, Coalition for Smarter Growth

DC Affordable Housing Alliance and the Campaign for Inclusionary Zoning convened a briefing for affordable housing and social justice advocates to learn how the city’s newer affordable housing programs, Inclusionary Zoning, can better serve the people it was intended to help.

The briefing covered how DC’s Inclusionary Zoning regulations are working, and how they can be improved to offer more affordable housing for lower income DC residents. The advocates briefing was in preparation for the January 28, 2016 public hearing by the DC Zoning Commission to consider changes to the IZ regulations to better serve low income people.

Testimony to Alexandria City Council on demolition of Ramsey Homes

Posted on by acustis

I am a also a strong historic preservationist, which is what attracted me to Alexandria in 1988. The rich African-American history Parker-Gray and our city, and the bravery of the residents who fought for freedom and equality resonates deeply with me and should continue to be documented, promoted and honored — as is done so well by the Alexandria Black History Museum.

Testimony on partial offsite Inclusionary Zoning and affordable housing benefit in the Highline development project

Posted on by Winstina Hughes

We are enthusiastic about this project because it takes full advantage of the site’s proximity to Metro and bus lines, employment, services and burgeoning new commercial districts. I will spend the rest of my time discussing our qualified support for the proposed partial off-site compliance for Inclusionary Zoning regulations (IZ), and an affordable housing proffer.

AS I SEE IT: In Princeton, think small for affordable housing

Posted on by Winstina Hughes

On Sunday, May 17, Princeton’s Community Democratic Organization (PCDO) hosted a symposium on what many residents feel is Princeton’s central issue: how to keep — or, depending on your perspective, how to make — Princeton affordable.

What are some of the barriers to affordability in Princeton? Our property taxes, for one thing. We learned, from estimates prepared by Councilman Patrick Simon, that the 2015 property tax on an average Princeton home, which is assessed at just over $800,000, will probably be just under $17,700.

Where will that money go? Some 48 percent of our property taxes will go to the schools, 22 percent to the municipality, and 30 percent to the county. Startlingly, 50 percent of the county’s budget is spent on corrections. If everyone in Mercer County behaved themselves, in other words, our taxes would drop by 15 percent.

Our taxes could drop even more depending on the outcome of a lawsuit brought by attorney Bruce Afran on behalf of local taxpayers who challenge Princeton University’s tax-exempt, nonprofit status. At the May 17 meeting, Mr. Afran stressed that the university has done nothing illegal or immoral. But the university shares profits with many of its science faculty and undertakes other commercial activities. It cannot be deemed a nonprofit according to New Jersey law. The university has agreed to non-binding mediation in the case.

Meanwhile, the May 17 meeting addressed not just legally defined affordable housing but what some Princetonians call “housing that’s affordable.” By “housing that’s affordable,” I mean me and maybe you, or anyone who’s ever wondered whether they can afford to stay in Princeton.

How can Princeton — or any town — supply enough housing that’s affordable for middle- and low-income residents? Let me discuss rental housing, but similar arguments would apply to housing for sale rather than for rent.

According to Cheryl Cort, policy director for Coalition for Smarter Growth in Washington, D.C., conservatives and liberals offer different solutions to providing rental housing that’s affordable. Republicans argue that zoning and other building regulations constrict supply and drive up costs, so we should eliminate regulations. Then the free market will build housing for both high- and low-income households.

The argument that market supply-and-demand applies to housing is partly correct, Ms. Cort writes: “If there’s not enough housing on the market to meet demand, higher-income people will bid up prices and out-compete lower-income people.” This is already happening in Princeton.

And, yes, regulations do increase development costs and risks. Projects may be denied, delayed, or decreased. Developers need to make a return for investors. Housing won’t get built if the return isn’t high enough.

Ms. Cort calculates (these figures are from March 2015) that the baseline cost of building a one-bedroom apartment in D.C. requires a rental of “$2,000 a month to meet the level of return [an investor] demands.” Your income must be about $38 per hour, or $80,000 annually, for $2,000 to be only 30 percent of monthly income, which is the generally-recommended level of spending on housing. People who earn $15 an hour, or $32,000 a year, the new minimum wage in some states, can afford only $800 apartments.

One “solution” is for lower-income people to live in older housing, and this is what usually happens — except in places like Greenwich Village, Hodge Road, or Georgetown.

Meanwhile, Democrats, who argue correctly that new development mostly provides high-end housing, may oppose any new market-rate development. Perhaps they mistakenly ignore the law of supply and demand because they remember when local governments could supply below-market-rate or public housing. Those days are largely gone — although, as Bruce Afran implied, they may come again for Princeton.

Nevertheless, another, modest way to increase rental housing that’s affordable is by means of Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs.

ADUs — sometimes called granny flats or in-law apartments — are smaller, secondary dwellings on the same lot as a primary dwelling. They offer shelter, bathrooms, and cooking facilities. ADUs may be completely new construction, like a new addition or a garden cottage. Or they might be existing garages, basements, or attics converted into living space, maybe just by adding a hotplate and a microwave.

ADUs offer new housing units while respecting the look and scale of single-dwelling neighborhoods. They can be added to cottages or mansions. They use existing housing and infrastructure more efficiently, providing smaller housing for today’s smaller households (in Princeton, think retirees or the university’s post-docs). They free up larger apartments for families with children. And — most important — in return for some amount of investment, they offer the homeowner income. That is, they let two families find housing that’s affordable.

Our zoning should not only permit but actually encourage them. In particular, zoning should relax the parking requirement for new dwelling units since many young Princeton residents rely on bicycles or buses. ADUs should be allowed to homeowners as of right, and lot-size requirements should also be relaxed.

As I’ve written in this space before, my favorite kind of ADUs are tiny houses — as in “Tiny House Movement” — structures built like houses but perhaps only 250 or even 150 square feet, the size of a very small trailer. In fact, tiny houses are often built on wheels so they’re movable. If you could build a tiny house for $15,000, you could probably recoup your cost with one year’s rental. Here’s how easily zoning could encourage housing that’s affordable: make it legal to park tiny houses in Princeton’s driveways.

But let me mention that it’s already legal in Princeton to rent as many as two rooms in your home to two people per room, without adding extra kitchens or bathrooms. Rooms with shared facilities seem to rent for $750 to 1,000 monthly in Princeton. If you’re seriously worrying whether you can continue living in Princeton, please consider this option. We don’t want to lose you! 

Read original article here.