New Housing Policy Likely To Spark Controversy
Such development, for example, is currently prohibited if homeownership is less than 50 percent in a specified area, or if the area meets two of three other criteria, including median income levels and the percentage of existing subsidized housing units.
“You can’t have a housing policy that’s supposed to address the issue of affordable housing, but says you can’t do it here for all these reasons, these technical hurdles,” Mumford said. “There are a lot of conflicting interests and goals that needed to be resolved.”
There are currently 108 subsidized, multi-family developments in Charlotte, dispersed across the city by the following percentages as a part of the total number, along with each district’s councilmember: District 1 (Patsy Kinsey), 28 percent with 30 subsidized developments; District 2 (James Mitchell), 25 percent with 27 developments; District 3 (Warren Turner), 19 percent with 19 developments; District 4 (Michael Barnes), 4 percent with six developments; District 5 (Nancy Carter), 12 percent with 15 developments; District 6 (Andy Dulin), 11 percent with 10 developments; and District 7 (Warren Cooksey), 1 percent with one development.
Interestingly, changes included in the new locational policy would have had no impact on two recent and controversial affordable housing cases. One in Ballantyne, where the developer ultimately withdrew his petition after community backlash and zoning problems, is located in an area where both the existing and revised policy permit new subsidized housing developments to be built. The other, near Ayrsley, requires a waiver under both existing and revised policy, because it’s slated for construction within a half mile of a similar development. The council is scheduled to consider the Ayrsley waiver this month.
As part of the process of implementing a new locational policy, the Housing Trust Fund (HTF), an agency that studies affordable-housing developments that have been proposed and recommends funding levels to the city council, would be dissolved. The HTF would be morphed into a newly created community review board, part of the city’s recently updated 10-Year Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, that would make funding recommendations for proposed affordable housing developments.
The new community review board also takes the place of A Way Home, which has acted as the lead agency for coordinating different initiatives that provide social and economic support for low-income residents. In its new capacity, the community review board would recommend similar support services to serve subsidized multi-family housing developments that are rehabbed under the mandates of the new locational policy.
The policy, in fact, is meant in part to encourage rehabbing existing multi-family developments that have fallen into disrepair, instead of building new ones.
“We have a need for about 17,000 affordable units,” Mumford said. “There’s no way we can provide that by just building new.”
After a round of community hearings to vet the proposed new policy, it will head back to the HAND committee for further review and possible changes and then be forwarded to the full city council for approval.
The whole timeline is expected to wrap by early fall, ahead of what is certain to be a strong advocacy push for voters to approve a $15-million affordable housing bond on November’s ballot.
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