Beyond Building

By Anne Wyatt

Planners may be trying to come to terms with possible deregulation and reduced funding for planning and affordable housing programs under the Trump administration. "I think we can expect decreases in public funds," says Joanna Balsamo-Lilien, a planner specializing in property management at the nonprofit Family Care Network, Inc. in San Luis Obispo, California.

On January 12, during Ben Carson's confirmation hearing for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) asked, "What is the best thing we can do for people on public assistance?" Carson's response — "Get them off it" — left some wondering what will happen to millions of low-income seniors and disabled persons with limited options.

Still, Balsamo-Lilien adds, there is cause for optimism. "Hopefully, it will encourage affordable housing developers to band together and identify new and innovative ways to fund development."

In many cities, solutions often seem equated exclusively with new construction. But affordable housing provision is more than just building houses.

Sure, new construction is exciting, but it also brings a multitude of hurdles — from design and permitting, financing, infrastructure, seeking middle ground on density, and reconciling needs for housing with extra air pollution and traffic. It's also expensive and comes with a need to weigh social equity concerns with environmental impacts, all while staying mindful of political and economic realities.

Planners' contributions to affordable housing policy help make a stronger America. Yet, when planners and policy makers frame success on the affordable housing front in terms of number of new housing units built — "bricks and mortar" solutions — we limit our possibilities. Further examination of options, primarily more effective use of existing resources, will enable planners to help communities build more diverse and robust housing solutions using resources within reach.

Fortunately, "There is widespread awareness of the housing crisis and more support for affordable housing policies and projects," suggests Martha Miller, aicp, a zoning specialist at RRM in San Luis Obispo, California, which does planning, architecture, and engineering work. But challenges ahead dictate revisiting how we do things. "We are in such a hole that it will be hard to dig ourselves out without some major changes," she says.

Using a slightly different approach — one that goes beyond new construction — planners can take the lead in making that change. But first, we have to acknowledge new realities and misconceptions.

Hurdles

In addition to the biggest, clearest issue — there isn't enough affordable housing to meet the demand in most places — there are other factors to consider.

Definition of Affordable

"Affordable" is too broad a term. Affordable housing runs the gamut, and depends on the different people it serves and local housing markets. For example, for extremely low-income people making a minimal Social Security income of just under $900 per month, affordable might mean under $300 in rent a month (if capped at 30 percent of income for housing costs). Meanwhile, "workforce" families in San Luis Obispo (pop. 46,377), where I live, may earn more than $10,000 per month, up to 160 percent of county median income. For them, affordable is defined at over 10 times more — $3,000 per month.

Tenure options factor in, too. While both rental and for-sale housing can be considered affordable for different populations, in many markets, for-sale housing is only available to residents in the moderate category and higher. When focus and resources are placed on home ownership subsidies for these earners, who could rent homes without subsidy, unassisted lower income persons remain at risk of being locked out, with virtually no housing options.

Renters As Second-Class Citizens

How many times in public hearings or meetings have you heard speakers proudly announce, "I am a home owner" before launching into their comment? Less often, a renter may say something along the lines of, "I'm a renter, but ..." as if he needs to excuse himself for being a second-class citizen.

One's home ownership status shouldn't influence what someone else thinks about that person, but sometimes it does. Such prejudicial thinking is a stumbling block and hinders solutions. We call out racial, gender, religious, and other prejudices. Planners should recognize and call out housing tenure prejudice.

Small, efficient, well-designed, well-managed affordable rental units can be assets to tenants and communities at large — and can allow people to get on with other dreams. Why should anyone have to apologize for living in them?

Cost of Production Versus Sales Price

In public hearings, builders association representatives claim they have to charge more for the homes they sell because of the steep costs of production, including jurisdictional building fees. Curious, I asked the head of the home builders association in my area why, if it costs one of his members $400,000 (including a modest 12 percent return) to build a typical house, so few sell for that? (Zillow lists the median home in San Luis Obispo as about $639,000.) He declined to comment.

Homes, of course, are not sold for what they cost to make; they are sold for what the market will pay.

Changing Demographics

A large factor, often little considered, is shifting population trends. Major changes in household composition, particularly when it comes to the number and age of householders, require planners and policy makers to rethink whom they are serving.

Non-family households make up one in three American households. More than a quarter of households consist of just one person, and one in 10 households is a single senior. Further, Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies predicts formation of 13 million new households between 2015 and 2025, with almost all of the household growth in the 65+ age group category.

Single-person households, in particular, are likely to have different housing needs than their family counterparts — including increased flexibility in term of occupancy and less need for space, particularly in bedroom counts. Even if housing preferences remained the same for single-person households as for traditional family households, income and ability to maintain housing are likely to fall short of the costs of traditional housing — especially in the case of the growing number of single senior women, who had only $1,096 per month in Social Security income, on average, in 2014.

Solutions

Effective, solutions-based thinking means taking advantage of existing resources. Combined with new construction of "demand-targeted" housing, which meets needs of singles and, in particular, single senior women, creative use of current assets can better help us meet the housing needs of our diverse and changing communities. Employing them will require flexible mindsets, as well as new systems, tools, and funding.

So what do we have that we can already work with? More than you might think.

Vacant Houses

Housing units characterized as "vacant other" and "seasonal, recreational and occasional use," by the 2010 Census comprise over six percent of American housing stock. These more than 8.3 million housing units are opportunities staring us in the face. They are sometimes hard to find, but Morro Bay, California, (pop. 10,461) looked to its water records: Units with low or no water use were deemed likely vacant. The city is considering following up with letters to property owners to gauge interest in an optional program to provide managed rentals of empty units.

Commercial Conversions and Live-Work Units

Churches, offices, malls, cinemas, stores, and motels all offer opportunities as housing and mixed use or live-work conversions, particularly as worship habits and the business climate change over time. Reintegrating such places as housing wouldn't be new, as it was once typical for pastors, innkeepers, and shopkeepers to live alongside their workplaces.

Tiny Houses, Junior Accessory Dwelling Units, and Home Shares

There have been some big wins in the small housing scene lately. In 2015, responding to calls from tiny home advocates, the International Code Council modified the minimum habitable room area in the International Residential Code from 120 square feet to 70. In describing the changes on its website, the ICC states: "Proponents of this change reasoned that consumers make a purposeful and informed decision as to the appropriateness of the housing they choose to live in and that the code should not place arbitrary restrictions on room size that have no demonstrable life-safety benefit."

With the change, the ICC recognized its own previous arbitrary restriction on size. Such admissions may lead some planners to wonder and more closely examine what other arbitrary and possibly counterproductive limitations remain in their codes.

And then there is the junior accessory dwelling unit, a new housing category just recently permitted by law in California. AB 2406, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September 2016, allows jurisdictions the option of creating a new type of unit in single-family residential zones, and in fact, within existing homes.

A junior ADU is basically a tiny house within a larger one. The new law defines them as, among other things: being not more than 500 square feet; using existing walls and an existing bedroom; and having a separate outside entry and an interior entry to the main living area and an efficiency kitchen. Bathing facilities may be shared.

Addressing a common density challenge — parking — the law further states that a local "ordinance shall not require additional parking as a condition to grant a permit." The junior ADUs do require owner occupancy in either the existing housing unit or the new one.

Formalizing junior ADUs could cause California policy makers to recognize a related solution: home shares. According to the National Shared Housing Resource Center, more than 60 home-share organizations nationwide have been working within this framework — where one home is shared or is separated into two or more separate units — for decades. These groups facilitate matches between housing providers (people who have an extra room) and housing seekers. Depending upon privacy needs of participants and home layouts, home spaces range from all private to all shared.

There is an upfront cost — national statistics from Affordable Living for the Aging's Shared Housing Best Practices, Challenges and Recommendations suggest it costs between $660 and $2,000 to facilitate a home-share match (recruitment, security screening and processing, training and household agreements, ongoing assistance and monitoring). For new organizations, the initial match costs may start higher and are often split between fees for service and government and private funding sources.

In addition to creating needed affordable housing, home-share matches can bring housing providers substantial extra income, with program organized matches lasting, on average, from one-and- a-half to four years. For seniors who want to age in place — or anybody, really — it can also bring security, independence, and community connection.

RV Campgrounds

Mobile lifestyles and shared common spaces may not be for everyone. For some, simple living on the move is a dream. For others, long-term camping that is safe and affordable is simply a pragmatic choice. Inexpensive recreational vehicles can come fully equipped with living, plumbing, and cooking facilities for as little as a few thousand dollars. In San Luis Obispo, the nonprofit program Rvs for Veterans has given over 60 donated RVs to veterans in need of housing.

Tiny homes, individually designed or factory-built, can roll in similarly outfitted with full amenities. Both RVs (with their own propulsion) and tiny homes (towed by truck) require safe, amenable, legal places to park. While it is possible to outfit either with independent power and water and wastewater systems for off-grid living, called "boondocking," these can prove deficient. Given this, affordable hook-up options make living safer and more pleasant and can minimize potential community impacts, such as unprocessed, improperly dumped sewage.

Under urgency or certain ordinances, existing public campgrounds, which generally limit long-term stays, could allow extended stays and make use of existing campground infrastructure. And a number of cities, such as Fresno, California, have rewritten ordinances to allow tiny homes and RVs on wheels as second units in residential zones.

Mobile Home Parks

In my town, where the claim that nobody can afford a house is an exceedingly common one, Zillow lists several mobile homes for sale for not too much more than a 6 Series BMW — between $74,000 and $189,000. Although space rents ranging from $500 to $1,000 monthly (for the land the home sits on) must be added to the purchase price, the cost of these homes is substantially less than the median. These homes often have common facilities, such as parks and swimming pools.

A stumbling block for lower income residents — who may aspire to purchase these homes — is that acquiring loans can be difficult and possibly expensive. Further, the "trailer trash" stigma means many won't even consider such housing. As a result, mobile homes in many areas are purchased as second homes by persons with cash or sit empty, which only exacerbates the gap in residential opportunities for those in need.

The way forward

With changing populations, other types of housing can take form in existing stock, including residential hotels and boarding houses. Other arrangements, too, also play a role — shared living or co-living residences, as well as supportive housing and group homes and independent and assisted senior living.

Effective, inclusive planning requires planners to better understand changing demographics and diverse housing options — as well as build capacity to inform the public and policy makers about options.

Planners must stretch their comfort zones and call out economic fallacies, changing American household demographics, and the need for housing options to push builders, policy makers, and others to think outside traditional boxes.

Anne Wyatt is a housing and housing policy planner, former County of San Luis Obispo planning commissioner, and program coordinator for HomeShareSLO.

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Resources

As part of the Summit on Livable Communities, AARP is sponsoring Planners & Aging Network Professionals Working Together to Plan Livable Communities for All Ages, an interactive discussion on the intersection of aging and livable communities. tinyurl.com/zstc38l

Planning professor Karen Chapple knew of the benefits of backyard cottages as urban infill in theory, but then she built her own ADU to bring in additional income. Its footprint is just 250 square feet, and her first tenants were a family with a toddler. youtu.be/VMAAWABynns

National Shared Housing Resource Center: nationalsharedhousing.org.

Housing options presentation from Homeless Services Oversight Council of San Luis Obispo: homeshareslo.org.

"What is Livable? Community Preferences of Older Adults," AARP: tinyurl.com/grcy5tt.

California Department of Housing and Community Development, Where Foundations Begin, Accessory Dwelling Unit Memorandum, December 2016: tinyurl.com/h7qxez5.