City Regs Killing Affordable Housing
Advocates for affordable housing claim pricey development regulations are hurting their cause.
A controversial set of development guidelines on schedule to become law later this year, along with some equally controversial regulations and ordinances already being enforced, drew heat at Monday night’s city council meeting. And it wasn’t the stereotypical, much-maligned, money-grubbing, big, bad developer who was breathing fire.
It was advocates for affordable housing, or more specifically members of a group called the Affordable Charlotte Cabinet and their message was clear: In a growing number of cases, development regulations are driving up the price of affordable, workforce housing stock in Charlotte.
In particular, the group focused on the city’s post-construction controls ordinance, which was implemented in 2008, and the city’s set of urban street design guidelines, which were adopted as policy in 2007 and are slated to be implemented as an enforceable ordinance later this year.
The post-construction controls ordinance requires the use of rain gardens, detention ponds and natural buffers on construction sites to help mitigate soil erosion and downstream flooding risks. The ordinance was federally mandated, but Charlotte’s version goes beyond the regulatory minimum. The urban street design guidelines set development parameters for everything from block length and lot size to bicycle lanes and sidewalks.
Mayor Anthony Foxx, a Democrat, had called for an update on the regulatory controls after hearing what he called “horror stories” from developers trying to adhere to their requirements. Foxx wanted to know if city officials were being flexible enough in meting out enforcement of the controls, to the extent that they aren’t hampering development efforts.
While city staff conceded that the regulations did add cost to development, they assured councilmembers it was a short-term hit that provided a long-term benefit. The post-construction controls and urban street design guidelines, staff members said, can tack anywhere from $1,900 to $2,900 to the price of a new home. Complaints from developers about the regulations, they said, were few and far between.
“We aren’t hearing horror stories,” City Manager Curt Walton said. “We’re hearing horror rhetoric.”
Affordable housing advocates begged to differ.
Merritt Card, land acquisition manager for Habitat for Humanity-Charlotte, said the city’s post-construction control ordinance had driven the cost of housing through the roof for one of their developments. Originally planned with 60 housing units, it had to be scaled back to 50; the total land and development cost per lot jumped by nearly 45 percent, from $18,732 to $27,063.
Home prices in the Habitat for Humanity project, Card said, must be increased from $84,372 to $93,000 to cover the cost of compliance with the post-construction controls ordinance. That added expense, he said, will make up 9 percent of the cost of a home in the neighborhood.
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