There are many people who would like to get out from under rent payments
that have been heading ever upward but who have really ordinary incomes
that aren't going to rise that much. Translated: many 30% MMI wage
earners and anybody on a fixed income. We don't all zoom up to $40,000
annual income even if some more prosperous people prefer that we did
(the lowered expectations crowd, if you like).
We don't all have two-income households and some of us don't want to buy
into the domestic costs - child care, "home-alone" kids - that come with
both parents gone much of the time (less property cost, more family
cohesiveness).
We might be interested in co-housing as a variation on the land trust
approach. We might want to have some communal greenspace come with the
deal as happened in the Troy Gardens housing/community gardens land
trust in Madison, WI.
Why not have MPHA take a good look at the potential for new public
housing here? One wonders what MCDA land in inventory might be made
available as a work-around on the initial capital cost for land
acquisition. There are examples to be found of MCDA's parcel assembly
and land cost write-down approach to for-profit developments. How about
a helping hand to a fellow agency? Would MPHA have to remain in
ownership? Could MPHA develop a contract property management role to
lend stability to fledgling land trust coops/condos/cohousing? The mind
reels! Certainly MPHA need not eat its own young by overbuilding
existing complexes!
One more: might not work/live housing scenarios fit within the land
trust rubric? This would provide a stable launching pad for new arrival
communities who sometimes prefer closely integrated settlements early
on. This is one variation on an income-stabilizing theme that will have
to be explored more thoroughly (moving away from permanent
post-construction operating subsidies).
It seems that flexibility is the recipe for success. Straightforward
market-rate activity will always be the dominant presence in real estate
but there is small civic virtue in a captive marketplace that creates
bidding wars for single-family housing, that generates tenant
"underhousing" - a euphemism for overcrowding, other substandard living
conditions and a rising percentage of the city's population that is not
housed at all, and that has no economic incentive to invest in
low-income housing.
This is why we have government. Not the only reason, obviously, but a
major purpose of government: promoting the general welfare. Land trusts
will prove to be an important tool and a possible partial solution to
the decentralization challenges (overconcentrations of supportive
housing, income ghettoes) that market mechanisms alone do not resolve.
Fred Markus Horn Terrace Ward Ten
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