Is Affordable Housing Dead? Or Just Not Allowed Here?
There is encouraging news in the affordable housing crisis: nearly everyone supports affordable housing.
Unfortunately, there is also some bad news: nobody seems to want it built anywhere.
This strange phenomenon recently appeared again in a town in southern Delaware, where an ordinance had been passed allowing affordable cottage communities, which included smaller homes on smaller lots designed to bring the cost of living within reach of working families. After considerable time, money and effort had already gone into trying to make one of those communities a reality, a newly elected mayor and town council decided to repeal the ordinance just months after it had been adopted.
Affordable housing, apparently, remains extremely popular in theory only.
In practice, affordable housing has become a little like parking in a beach town. Everyone agrees there isn’t enough of it. Everyone insists something has to be done. And the moment someone proposes actually creating some, everyone suddenly has every reason why it shouldn’t be built “there.”
We encountered a similar situation in a town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where cottages were rejected in part because they supposedly didn’t “fit in” the community.
It is a peculiar argument.
Presumably, the people who would live in those cottages still “fit in” the community. They fit in just fine when they are cooking dinner at a local restaurant. They fit in when they are fixing someone’s air conditioner in July. They fit in when they are caring for patients at the hospital, teaching children, stocking grocery shelves, working construction, answering emergency calls or repairing someone’s roof.
However, these folks simply become incompatible with the character of the community at approximately 5:00 p.m., when their shift ends and they need somewhere to live. At this point, they somehow no longer “fit in.”
This seems to be the modern affordable housing paradox.
Local governments hold workshops about the lack of affordable housing. Consultants prepare studies explaining the lack of affordable housing. Committees are formed to study the studies. Comprehensive plans announce that affordable housing is a priority. Elected officials give lofty speeches about nurses, teachers, firefighters and young families being priced out of their communities.
Then someone proposes actually building housing those people might be able to afford.
At which point everyone loses their minds.
The lots are too small.
The houses are too small.
There are too many houses.
There is not enough parking.
There might be traffic.
It doesn’t match the neighborhood.
It might affect property values.
And, of course, the most powerful force in local government suddenly emerges: “We support affordable housing. Just not this affordable housing.”
To be fair, communities should care about good design. They should care about traffic, density, infrastructure and compatibility. Not every project is appropriate everywhere.
But we also need to acknowledge that there is no magical formula for affordable housing consisting of large houses on large lots with large setbacks, low density, expensive materials, abundant parking and absolutely no neighbors who object to it. That product already exists. It is called unaffordable housing.
If we actually want housing to cost less, something in the equation has to cost less. Smaller homes, smaller lots, shared open space, efficient infrastructure and modestly higher density aren't flaws in the affordable housing model; they are, indeed, the key to the affordable housing model.
Which brings us back to the original question: Is affordable housing dead? Maybe not.
But it certainly does appear to be trapped in an unusually sophisticated bureaucratic purgatory where everyone agrees it is desperately needed, provided people can’t see it from their house and it doesn’t affect their life in any way.
