Improving the Quality of Housing

1. Improving the Quality of Housing

2. What do we mean by improving the quality of housing? • Improving the quality of housing refers to increasing the quality and quantity of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income community members, as well as encouraging environmentally responsible construction. • Quality housing should be affordable, livable, well-designed, environmentally friendly, and socially responsible

3. Affordable housing should cost no more than 30% of household income. • Livable housing should be: • Decent • Big enough • Free of hazardous materials and other threats to health • Safe • Accessible for all residents • In appropriate locations • Convenient to transportation and services

4. Housing should be well-designed so that: • It meets the needs of its users • It responds to its context • It enhances its neighborhood • It is built to last • Housing itself and its construction and site should be environmentally responsible by conserving energy and making as little impact as possible • Housing should be built with its social effects in mind (mixed income, mixed use, etc.) • Improving the quality of housing takes a concerted and collaborative effort, resources, and the use of incentives and regulations.

5. Why improve the quality of housing? • It adds to the physical and social attractiveness of the area. • It increases property values. • Improved housing increases pride in the neighborhood for everyone. • Well-built housing is kinder to the environment. • Improving the quality of housing is cheaper for both the developer and the community in the long run. • Improved housing can increase the potential or actual workforce in the area. • It can preserve open space and/or reuse unused, previously-built space. • It can replace or restore an aging housing stock. • Improving the quality of housing can be part of a plan for anticipating the growth of the community. • Improving the quality of housing is the right thing to do.

6. When should you try to improve the quality of housing? • When there’s a community planning or development effort in progress. • When there’s an outcry about the lack of decent housing. • When there’s a crisis. • When there’s funding available from a federal, state, or foundation initiative.

7. Who should be involved in improving the quality of housing? • The developer • The business community, particularly lenders • Local and state officials • Funders • Neighbors • Potential renters or buyers

8. How do you improve the quality of housing? • As an individual, you can learn all you can about housing issues and construction, get to know policy makers, take appropriate actions to highlight the issue (letters to the Editor, for example), and join a group that’s addressing housing in the community. As a group, your steps can be more structured: • Assess community housing assets and needs • Encourage participation in efforts to improve housing • Consider diversity -- encourage and support a diverse population of residents

9. Strive for equity -- plan, design and build as if all construction were upscale housing • Address the impact, especially of a large development, on its area • Plan, design, and build around the needs of residents • Plan for recruiting tenants or buyers • Offer incentives for developers -- tax incentives, subsidies, help with grants and permits, land offers, waivers of regulations, and enterprise zones can all encourage community-friendly development

10. Expect and specify the returns for those incentives -- affordable units in an otherwise market-rate development, open space, environmentally responsible construction, improvements to the area, etc. • Be creative -- don’t be limited by conventional ideas of housing • Enact regulations and limits on development -- density, environmental regulations, payment for increased community responsibility, etc. • Use public financing or building where it’s appropriate and will be well-managed

11. Engage banks and work with low-income renters and buyers -- encourage responsible loans to low-income homebuyers, educate consumers • Use a collaborative development process -- involve everyone who has a stake in the development of quality housing • Advocate • Continue working indefinitely to improve the quality of housing