Category: Workforce housing

Anti-black or anti-green? Part 2, what did we win?

25 August, 2009 (09:55) | Chapter 40B, Desegregation, False Claims Act, Inclusionary zoning, Local issues, Westchester County, Workforce housing, Zoning | No comments

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1].
 
Yesterday we delved into Westchester County’s recent settlement, as reported in the New York Times, of a desegregation lawsuit.  Via a clever legal end run, it was brought against the county by the Anti-Discrimination Center, using the False Claims Act:
 
The case was litigated by Mr. Gurian and the center’s lawyer, John [...]

Anti-black or anti-green? Part 1, we won … didn’t we?

24 August, 2009 (12:36) | Chapter 40B, Desegregation, False Claims Act, Inclusionary zoning, Local issues, Westchester County, Workforce housing, Zoning | No comments

Forty years after Operation Breakthrough, the question remains: is exclusionary zoning (de jure or de facto in high land prices) racist, or merely elitist?

Racial discrimination, or economic?
Westchester County house values

Only one is illegal, and in the case of Westchester County, as reported in the New York Times, it took a curious private-citizen [...]

Employer-assisted housing: Part 2, the why

10 July, 2009 (11:08) | Employer-assisted, Innovations, Local issues, Tenure, Workforce housing | No comments

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
 
Yesterday we explored how employer-assisted housing payments work, at least in the specific case of Chicago homeownership, via a Chicago Tribune article. 
 
With the inversion in housing policy innovation, advances in workforce housing finance are being led by employers who cannot find employees willing to work for what the employer wants [...]

Employer-assisted housing: Part 1, the how

9 July, 2009 (11:46) | Employer-assisted, Innovations, Local issues, Tenure, Workforce housing | No comments

Start with three facts:
 
1. People want to own homes. 
2. Owning a home decreases labor mobility. 
3. Employers value loyalty and longevity of service. 
 

The simplest formulas can yield the most complex results
 
Mix them together and you have the formula for a cluster of initiatives known broadly as employer-assisted housing – which, in part because [...]

When money moves in

8 July, 2008 (08:07) | Cities, Demographics, Inclusionary zoning, Local issues, US News, Workforce housing | No comments

Not only is the world urbanizing, so too is America, and as we do, The value of urban land will continue to rise, with consequences that are both logically predictable – Every silver lining has a cloud – and utterly astonishing to those experiencing them, as detailed in this article from The San Francisco Chronicle:
 
It’s [...]