13 Jun Five ways we can build more affordable housing

By Timothy Hullihan
Guest columnist to The Palm Beach Post

With all due respect for our County Commissioners, throwing money at the affordable housing crisis is the wrong approach.

Alternatively, cities and counties across America have adopted policies to address similar problems while targeting multiple related concerns like mental and physical health declines, global warming, pollution’s threat to clear air and water and pedestrian safety.

Here are a few examples of policy shifts that can happen more quickly and more affordably:

Palm Beach County’s Tax Collector is perpetually auctioning foreclosed property that it takes procession of due to non-payment of property taxes. Why not look at the model programs across the country that are steering varying portions of these portfolios toward affordable housing partnerships.

Zoning regulations throughout the county make illegal a form of affordable housing that exists only in older neighborhoods that predate the zoning restriction. Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs, are becoming legal again in many American cities because they are a win-win for affordability. Homeowners can create small affordable rental units on their property while gaining a renter who makes their home more affordable, as well. Let’s look at some of these existing models.

Most of Palm Beach County is a transit desert, where automobile transportation is the only option to get anywhere. Automobile conveyance is the most expensive and least efficient form of local transportation. Communities that are connected to transit systems are more affordable than those that are not. Why not look at how communities across the country have made housing more affordable by increasing transportation options?

Related to an automobile-dominated transportation model are physical and mental health declines, pedestrian and bicyclist casualties and an enormous waste of land. PBC has approximately 100,000 acres of asphalt parking lots – a shocking reality when one images the carbon-sequestering trees and aquifer-recharging wetlands that used to be there. Our typical zoning regulation includes minimum parking requirements based on theoretical peak demands that rarely, if ever, happen. When someone asks, ‘Where can we build affordable housing units?’ I say, ‘On all the unused asphalt within walking distance of stores and employment opportunities that already exist.’ Let’s look at how cities across the country have eliminated parking minimums to improve the environment and improve housing affordability.

End the buy-out option that developers can often use to not include an affordable housing component in a new residential project. Palm Beach Gardens gave Avenir a pass on their affordable housing commitment a few years ago, and they are not alone in accepting a developer’s money so teachers and firemen can be priced out of high-end communities. Let’s end this option forever.

Each of the above is merely a change to business as usual – changes that are already working elsewhere; changes that actually address the problem, instead of throwing money at it; changes that will make PBC better, safer, healthier, cleaner and more affordable at the same time.