2022 Summer Issue - 28

From left: moderator Christopher Ptomey, executive director, ULI
Terwilliger Center for Housing; Silvia Urrutia, founder, U Developing LLC;
Nihar Shah, vice president of development, Perseus TDC; Ali Mooney,
senior consultant, Guidehouse; and Gregory Heller, director, Guidehouse,
discuss affordable housing development challenges as well as progress
being made at the ULI district council level.
established a Multifamily, Affordable, and
Senior Housing Council.
Washington, D.C., area: Washington and its
surrounding suburbs are among the nation's
most expensive housing markets. The population
is climbing, but construction has lagged,
so " rents are soaring, " said Nihar Shah, vice
president of development for Perseus TDC and
a member of the management committee of
ULI Washington.
There is just not enough housing available,
Shah said. He cited a recent regional
study that found that to meet demand, the
region needs to add 320,000 housing units
by 2030-some 75,000 more than are forecast
to be built by that year. He highlighted three
case studies of local Perseus projects that
relied on creative paths to build new units.
At the Foundry Apartments in Alexandria,
Virginia, adaptive use of a vacant office building
created 520 units. When adapting a 1970s
office building, " you just don't know what's in
there, " he said. Large, dark areas, the result
of office floor plans, became tenant amenities
such as a pet run.
28
URBAN LAND
SUMMER 2022
In Hyattsville, Maryland, the developers
leveraged federal and local incentives to build
what will be 316 units on what is now a surface
parking lot. The land is in an Opportunity
Zone, which allows use of federal tax incentives,
and part of a local government revitalization
plan.
In Washington itself, Perseus worked with
a longtime landowner, a Masonic temple, to
develop an acre of land in an already dense
neighborhood near downtown to provide a
158-unit apartment building with a 99-year
ground lease.
Philadelphia: Preserving existing affordable
housing, rather than creating more, is the
challenge for Philadelphia, according to Gregory
Heller, director, and Ali Mooney, senior
consultant, both with Guidehouse and both
of whom until recently worked at the Philadelphia
Housing Development Corporation.
A significant part of the city's housing stock
is composed of naturally occurring affordable
housing, dubbed NOAH. These rental units are
typically unsubsidized, owned by small landlords,
and affordable to families making 30 to
80 percent of the area median income.
The housing development corporation conducted
an inventory of NOAH units, down to
the address level, and found about 76,000.
Almost 38,000 are vulnerable to being lost
because they are in poor condition or are in
neighborhoods that might be gentrified soon.
A ULI technical assistance panel, with the
support of the Terwilliger Center, examined the
issue, interviewing more than 30 community
leaders, city planning staff, and others. Among
the panel's recommendations were to treat
small landlords like other small businesses
that receive government support; reach out to
those landlords to help them navigate permitting
and access capital; make repairs easier;
and strengthen existing city programs. Heller
noted that the city has two landlord loan programs
that aim to help preserve these units,
as well as the Philadelphia Accelerator Fund
to support development of affordable housing
and provide loans to historically disadvantaged
developers.
MARYANN HAGGERTY is a Washington, D.C.-based
freelance journalist who writes about business, economics, and
finance.
2022 Summer Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2022 Summer Issue
