Crisis In Affordable Housing > Rising Rents // Inclusionary Zoning

The Affordable-Housing Crisis Moves Inland

Rents are up and pay is the same, prompting cities across America to explore inclusionary zoning as a solution.

Article by Patrick Clark / April 15, 2016 — 4:00 AM MST

Inclusionary housing emerged from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in the early 1970s to meet two goals:
Create affordable housing at low cost to local governments and mix/integrate housing reserved for low- and moderate-income residents with higher-priced market rate rentals and for-sale units [condominiums, for example]

Phoenix is rated tenth highest for rising rents as you can see in the accompanying image from the today's whole article in BloombergThe particulars vary, but the main idea was to tie the construction of housing for working-class households to market-rate projects. That often means granting a variance to build more units than zoning codes typically allow or offering tax abatements and other incentives.About 500 local jurisdictions, from New York City to West Palm Beach County, Fla., have adopted these kinds of policies over the years. But now, as developers rush to build new, market-rate apartments in cities big and small, some local officials are considering inclusionary zoning for the first time, while others seek to add teeth to existing programs, said Erika Poethig, director of urban policy initiatives at the Urban Institute. Other useful visuals with information are provided in the images and links below

MAPPING AMERICA'S RENTAL HOUSING CRISIS
Many households struggle to afford a decent, safe place to live. Over the past five years, rents have risen while the number of renters needing affordable housing has increased. These two pressures make finding affordable housing even tougher for America’s poorest households.
Readers can see the map and other details here

ABOUT THIS MAP

The figures in this analysis represent a best estimate of the affordable rental housing gap and federal assistance for extremely low-income (ELI) renter households by county in the United States. The data analyzed come from multiple sources: the American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample from the Census Bureau (via the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series from the Minnesota Population Center), the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Public and Indian Housing Information Center and Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System, the HUD Section 8 income limits, and ACS pretabulated data from the Census Bureau.
The data on HUD-assisted housing represent a best estimate of the total number of HUD-subsidized ELI households. We include only those programs for which we can obtain data from HUD—public housing, Housing Choice vouchers, moderate rehabilitation, and Section 8 new construction and substantial rehabilitation—and only those recipients who are not rent-burdened. Because we were unable to obtain county-level data on rental housing programs funded through the US Department of Agriculture, federal assistance to ELI renter households in rural counties is undercounted.