2023 Spring Issue - 52

" Now businesses are starting to invest in housing development. Hospitals in many
areas of the country began doing this and, increasingly, large technology companies
are, too. Amazon has made some big splashes in some of their housing work. "
-CHRISTOPHER PTOMEY, ULI TERWILLIGER CENTER FOR HOUSING
starting to see engineered timber as an option
for high-rise construction, and there's some great
potential there.
PTOMEY: Businesses are seeing how the lack of
housing production and the increased costs of
housing are impacting their ability to hire and retain
employees and build the customer base that they
need. Now businesses are starting to invest in housing
development. Hospitals in many areas of the
country began doing this and, increasingly, large
technology companies are, too. Amazon has made
some big splashes in some of their housing work.
DWORKIN: In addition to implementing more
employer-assisted housing, which is a great way
for employers to reduce turnover, we need to do
a better job of focusing our industry's resources
on first-generation homebuyers. That will help us
narrow the racial homeownership gap. Lenders need
to do a better job of incentivizing loan officers to
make smaller loans by having them work on salary
rather than on commission. Homebuilders need
to direct more investment to starter homes. That's
where the market is. If you're building homes on
spec in the single-family market, there can be a
lot of volatility, but the market for building moderately
priced homes for first-time homebuyers is not
going anywhere.
DUCKER: Private investors and institutional investors
would be very open to investing in strategies
like this. The constraint on the private-sector side
is not one of capital, it's about capacity. It's hard to
buy land, entitle it, work with contractors, and interact
with consumers for every single house. If you
build an $800,000 house and there's a 10 percent
margin, that's $80,000. With a $250,000 house,
10 percent would only be $25,000. So there's a
perverse incentive to build more expensive housing,
and there's just not enough execution capacity
in the industry. We need to increase the supply of
people who are producing housing.
52
URBAN LAND SPRING 2023
How can the industry encourage
community members to accept more
new housing construction in their area?
DWORKIN: We need to take zoning and permitting
out of the political process and make it part of a
professional decision-making process. Californians
have the option of overruling a city or county council
or zoning commission through a ballot initiative,
and there are many cases where ballot initiatives
are successful in killing affordable housing deals.
Communities are charging impact fees that can
exceed $100,000 per unit. This is a huge disincentive
for attainable housing.
McFADDEN: All of us doing affordable and attainable
housing work know that there's a chronic
NIMBY issue that is rooted in white supremacy. We
need to be better at communicating the benefits
that housing can bring to a neighborhood. There's
an opportunity for companies in the attainable
housing sector to work together to build a marketing
strategy to combat outdated ideas that are often
racially biased. Let's give people the facts about
housing and what benefits it can bring to a
community.
DUCKER: As an industry, we've done a good job
trying to reframe the discussion around housing the
workforce. But it hasn't changed the discussion.
Maybe the intransigence of human nature not wanting
change is too strong. The impact of increasing
density on vehicular traffic or school systems has
been noticeable to people, and it's given cover for
what might otherwise be an ugly decision. Nobody
wants to say, " I don't want housing for firefighters
and teachers and nurses, " but nobody has any
misgivings about saying, " The traffic is terrible, " or
" Schools are bursting at the seams. " I had expected
that we would have made more progress against
NIMBYism than we have.
PTOMEY: In some cities with a higher cost of living,
you're seeing a countermovement to NIMBYism
rise up-YIMBYism, or " Yes in My Back Yard. " The
2023 Spring Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2023 Spring Issue
