Mr. Connolly wrote:
> Well then how about the number 1,984 units demolished
> in the decade from 1989-99? Admittedly it ain't 6000
> but then again it's not Ms Becker implication that
> there was no loss and that in fact there was a
> whopping increase of 342 units over 6 or 7 years.
According to the 1990 State of the City, which is based on 1989 data, there
were 172,678 housing units in Minneapolis. In the 1999 State of the City,
there were 177,569 units, an increase of 4,891 units from 1990 to 1999 or
approximately 2.7%. The implication that the City, overall, has been losing
housing units is inaccurate. A statement that the City has been causing or
exacerbating the affordable housing problem based on the assumption that the
City has been losing housing is thus also inaccurate. I would note that
Minneapolis has about 15% of the region's population and housing units.
As Minneapolis was almost completely built by 1950, one would not expect a
large scale change in the number of housing units and this is what the data
shows. The earliest data I have laying around my house is from the 1978
State of the City, which shows 165,000 housing units. The text notes that
this is almost exactly the same number of housing units in the City in 1950.
So net, there has been about a 9% growth in the number of housing units from
1950 to 2000 in the City.
The affordable housing crisis is not being created by City policy or city
actions. It is being created by several macro-level things coming together.
Quickly:
- Changes in the federal tax code taking away incentives to build
affordable housing, resulting in a lack of production of new housing and
conversion of existing low income housing to market rates.
- A growing region which has developing suburban/ex-urban communities
perceiving that single family homes on large lots provide a better quality
of life, and thus being resistant to low income housing.
- Cuts in funds for public housing at the federal level.
- A strong economy which has increased employment and increased wages,
allowing persons who formerly could not afford to buy a home to enter into
the home buying market, creating a large demand for starter homes and thus
increasing home values at the lower end of the range. This is also driving
rental property rents up.
- At the same time that demand for starter homes is up, we have a
metropolitan area where land prices for un-built on property within
reasonable driving distance of the rest of the region are approaching
$100,000 per acre. You can put suburban style homes about 3 houses per
acre. The rule of thumb is that the house should be about four times the
value of the property, making the house already in the $170,000 range plus
maybe $25,000 for utilities etc, and profit of 10% for the builder which
means you have a single family house in the $200,000 range at minimum.
- A growing region where private development housing growth is not
occurring as rapidly as population growth.
- A development philosophy which frowns on smaller, more diverse, more
compact development.
A fabulous book (I am shilling here Mr. Connolly - just thought I would
point it out) which everyone who is interested in this issue should read is
"Suburban Nation : The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream"
by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck. This book is much too
rich for me to paraphrase here but it talks about the things suburban-type
development does to make housing and life more costly. Someone noted that
carriage houses, grandma apartments, and duplexes are not allowed in many
suburbs. This book talks about those things and more, how cul-de-sacs
increase traffic congestion, how wide suburban streets reduce the land
available for housing, how a lack of a mix of development forces increased
automobile travel, how a lack of transit access reduces incentives to
develop more efficiently. Basically how the type of housing and development
we have in the City is illegal in most suburbs and the implications of this.
The book is available at the Library but the link below will take you to
Amazon.com to view the review of the book. I highly recommend it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865476063/o/qid=990160115/sr=8-1/ref
=aps_sr_b_1_1/104-8644214-1521504
Carol Becker
Longfellow
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