Sunday Housing News: The Lottery

Buying a home is a roll of the dice in even the flattest seller's market. There are so many variables that can turn the locked deal into a nightmare in less than an instant. And in today's market, with extreme prices at one end and declining consumer power at the other, there's more of a need for assistance and building mixed markets than ever before.

The New York metro area is taking a number of novel approaches to the "workforce housing" conundrum--building units affordable enough for middle-income families to live in, but not branded with the stigma of "subsidized welfare" projects that have plagued the issue in the past. The struggle that Long Island is going through is a welcome illustration of how hard a project like this can be--you have to negotiate everything from water rights to NIMBY exurbanites. This requires a lot of horse-trading and delicate negotiation:

Mr. Elkowitz of the housing partnership said making affordable housing profitable for a builder requires creative financing using public funds, often garnered by the housing partnership, and the cooperation of several forces: town zoning boards, mortgage banks and county spending on infrastructure.

Mixed housing isn't just great from a cultural and infrastructural process, but it's good for business as well. Getting the rich and poor to live together can build new markets, new communities, and hopefully more business. Naive, I know, but it's not beyond the realm of the possible. After all, no one thought that Chicago's Cabrini Green could be rehabbed:

He and Peterson are convinced – along with many scholars of the culture of poverty – that people learn by example. Living among people who go to work every day and seek to improve their families' lives rubs off on welfare mothers.

Let's hope that NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg's big affordable housing gamble reaps equally positive returns and doesn't come up snake eyes. :)

Posted at August 6, 2006 03:21 PM

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Buying a home is a roll of the dice in even the flattest seller's market. There are so many variables that can turn the locked deal into a nightmare in less than an instant. And in today's market, with extreme prices at one end and declining consumer power at the other, there's more of a need for assistance and building mixed markets than ever before. The New York metro area is taking a number of novel approaches to the "workforce housing" conundrum--building units affordable enough for middle-income families to live in, but not branded with the stigma of "subsidized welfare" projects that have plagued the issue in the past. The struggle that Long Island is going through is a welcome illustration of how hard a project like this can be--you have to negotiate everything from water rights to NIMBY exurbanites. This requires a lot of horse-trading and delicate negotiation: Mr. Elkowitz of the housing partnership said making affordable housing profitable for a builder requires creative financing using public funds, often garnered by the housing partnership, and the cooperation of several forces: town zoning boards, mortgage banks and county spending on infrastructure. Mixed housing isn't just great from a cultural and infrastructural process, but it's good for business as well. Getting the rich and poor to live together can build new markets, new communities, and hopefully more business. Naive, I know, but it's not beyond the realm of the possible. After all, no one thought that Chicago's Cabrini Green could be rehabbed: He and Peterson are convinced – along with many scholars of the culture of poverty – that people learn by example. Living among people who go to work every day and seek to improve their families' lives rubs off on welfare mothers. Let's hope that NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg's big affordable housing gamble reaps equally positive returns and doesn't come up snake eyes. :)