Affordable Housing Institute : US

Although I’ve snickered at suburban snobbery –

 

“You nattering nabob of negativism.”

 

– neighborhood sensitivity (one might say anxiety) around affordable housing is just as common in urban neighborhoods, as in this good Washington DC example [hat tip: reader Andrew Trueblood] via the Washington Post:

 

St. Martin’s Catholic Church is proud that for more than a century it has worked to save souls, battle crime and build up those who have the least.

So with rents and housing prices rising everywhere, church leaders thought it was only natural that they replace its aging convent, now populated by the formerly homeless, with something that many agree is a pressing need: affordable housing.

But their proposal to build a 184-unit apartment building has met stiff resistance. Neighbors closest to the project question its size, the income limits for families that would live there and whether such a project would be better someplace else.

 

Even accepting that, in general, affordable housing is good for communities, are the neighbors’ concerns valid? (We will choose not to plumb their motivations, just consider their arguments on their own merits.)

 

“Well, who’s right here? Can we say that in a blog”

We need to examine the evidence.

 

“I’m a doctor, not a housing finance specialist!”

 

The project, at 116 T St. NE, is a joint venture between St. Martin’s, which is providing the land [and therefore the affordability — Ed.], and Catholic Community Services. The two-acre property is across the street from McKinley Technology High School. Plans call for the aging structure to be demolished and replaced with a 184-unit apartment building. The proposed structure, opponents said, would dwarf what’s on the site now.

 

The proposed site: 116 T Street NE, Washington, DC 20002

 

As a result, neighborhoods including Bates, Bloomingdale and Eckington, where the new apartments are planned, are awash with charges of hypocrisy, classism and racism — the result of a continuing rift over gentrification. It’s playing out on neighborhood listservs, at civic meetings and at St. Martin’s, where the pastor, the Rev. Michael Kelly, has an acerbic tongue and a chastening tone for some of his neighbors.

“The opposition is being led by new whites who think they can take control of the neighborhood,” said Kelly, who is white. “It’s about class and money and fear.”

One demerit for the housing advocates: he who first flings rhetorical gasoline is docked one point.

 

St. Martin’s, which touts its working-class roots, is near the intersection of North Capitol Street and Rhode Island Avenue, an area once filled with rooming houses that has undergone significant transformation in recent years. Housing prices have escalated [Stimulated by the Washington DC homeowner’s tax credit? — Ed.], and homes in the $400,000 and $500,000 range are standard.

 

From St. Martin’s to the proposed site — just around the corner.

 

When an action has multiple potential motivations, ascribing the action to only one of them is a slander. And urban residential property is socioeconomically multidimensional — at once combining location, use, density, configuration, tenure, income mix, and racial mix. Although these correlate, they are nevertheless distinguishable:

 

Opponents bristle at his characterizations. Some of those opponents are black. Some have lived in the community a few months or a few years, others for decades. All contend that no matter how long they’ve lived in the community, their views are relevant.

“Those who label us as anti-affordable housing are not listening to our concerns,” said Joe Lilavois, a four-year District resident who lives next to the site and has organized several of his neighbors to get the plans changed. “We’re anti-big, big development. This project is huge for this neighborhood.”

 

How do we tease these elements apart? Can we distinguish the type of development from the scale of development?

 

Are these critters alike, or different?

 

Then there’s the issue of housing prices, which were viewed with glee when homes nearby were selling for higher and higher amounts and with nervousness in recent weeks and months as houses stayed on the market longer.

The developer who has partnered with St. Martin’s, Neal Dobrenare, said that concern is at the root of the controversy.

“A lot of people paid too much for their houses, and they’re worried about any and everything,” said Dobrenare, a former chief operating officer for the District’s Department of Housing and Community Development. “But this is a $28 million investment. This is affordable housing. It’s not cheap housing.”

 

At $152,000 apiece for the apartments, probably more than $200 per square foot (with land contributed by the church, probably at zero), these will certainly be quality apartments: a clear point for its proponents. Additionally, there is an implicit financial endorsement from all the resource providers of the substantial soft debt and soft equity (probably tax credits) needed because the property’s gap between cost and value is large:

 

There would be 134 one- and two-bedroom apartments renting to families earning $30,000 to $54,000, depending on family size. Fifty “junior one-bedroom” apartments, according to St. Martin’s, would rent to the formerly homeless with an income of roughly $18,000 a year. Rents would range from $500 to $1,039 a month, amounts aimed at working families and retirees, church officials said.

 

Those rents are affordable to households earning $20,000 to $41,600 annually, or 22% to 46% of the Washington DC metropolitan median income ($90,300 for a family of four): very affordable. What then is the neighbors’ basis for concern?

 

One of the major sticking points for critics is that all of the units will have below-market rents. They’re pushing for 30% of the units to be market rate. Even though houses are selling for half a million dollars, Eartha Isaac, who has lived in Eckington for several years, said the neighborhood has been unable to attract businesses to support those houses because the latest census numbers show the area’s median income is $43,000.

 

“Here, bizzy, bizzy.”

 

“We’re not there yet,” she said, noting that the community needs to continue attracting people with higher incomes as well as those who need affordable housing. “We want the same things that other communities have.”

 

So Ms. Isaac’s stated argument is not anti-affordable housing, but rather pro-­up-market housing. She wants to gentrify her neighborhood because she sees that as the route to a healthier community.

Is that legitimate?

[Continued in Part 2.]

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