I’ve been thinking about the relationship between affordable housing and political polarization. I live in Williamsburg, Virginia, a truly beautiful small city known for the College of William and Mary and historic Colonial Williamsburg. Like many communities, it does not have enough affordable housing. Affordable housing for who? Just about anybody in the lower income tiers, including entry-level professionals.
Visitors are struck by the beauty of the community’s landscaping. It changes from season to season almost overnight. It requires an army of landscapers toiling at odd hours. Its many shops and restaurants depend on retail clerks, servers, cooks, and cleaners. Colonial Williamsburg and William and Mary require another army of workers to maintain facilities. The schools and two large hospitals need to be staffed at every level, as do the many doctors’ offices throughout the region. All of these people need a place to live, and for most of them, it’s not possible in Williamsburg. With a few exceptions, it’s not in the nearby suburbs as most of them now are country club estate residences. So where do the workers live? A great many have been shoveled into communities 15 or 20 miles away that are dominated by lower income people working hard to make ends meet.
There’s really no room for them in Williamsburg. Their labor is needed, but preferably not at the expense as them living too close. It doesn’t surprise me that some of the workers’ communities are plastered with Trump lawn signs. I don’t for a moment believe they favor the policies of Trump or a person like him, but it’s a way of expressing a degree of indignation at being perceived as a servant class who are kept separate from the elites they serve.
I imagine many Williamsburg residents would be stunned that anyone could think workers would not be welcomed in their neighborhoods. They would point to little pockets of affordable housing and to the local housing Authority and its scattering of low income apartments. They would note that the Chamber of Commerce and city Council frequently talk about the need for more affordable housing. They would point out that most of the buildable land in this small city has already been developed. All of that is true, but it doesn’t mitigate the problem.
Williamsburg has its own unique setting and set of problems. Nevertheless, similar problems in other unique settings are prevalent throughout the country in cities, large and small. The need for more affordable housing is a central subject in every community. State and federal candidates promise to address the issue, but the primary solution lies in the local community. Any community that wants more affordable housing must be open to a more economically diverse population. The common practice has been to segregate neighborhoods into the right and wrong side of the tracks. On one side are portions of neighborhoods allocated to middle and upper income home owners. The other is allocated to noxious land usages and more or less unregulated housing. To encourage more affordable housing would be one way to eliminate whatever regulations tend to realize these kinds of divisions.
Zoning intended to assure orderly development is often the biggest obstacle to encouraging more affordable housing. The general pattern is to establish separate zones for low density, single-family, medium density, single-family, and some rental, and high density rental. Cities more willing to disestablish these zones see that a variety of housing can be built in any place zoned residential and have shown considerable success in creating neighborhoods with more access to affordable housing. Some fear that more open zoning practices will jeopardize property values but it is a fear worth confronting.
Major developers sometimes propose a new development or new apartment building holding out the promised inclusion of a few affordable units if the city will give them a tax break. It’s a form of corporate bribery. Why not simply require any major new development to include a broad mix of affordable and less affordable units? No tax break offered. If they walk away, they walk away, and probably that is better for everybody. On the other hand, nobody is helped when the permitting process becomes adversarial. Building codes are important and can be enforced with the intent of helping builders meet them rather than forcing builders to jump through hoops. The same goes for all subordinate permitting and inspection requirements.
A well managed housing Authority can be a vital source of low income housing. In most states housing authorities have special abilities to access tax credit financing in the private market that enables them to build and maintain high-quality low income housing. It works best when the housing Authority creates projects that are integrated into the community and not segregated into separate ghettos. Managing the offer and possibility of housing for sale with stipulations that the housing cannot be resold for more than a certain amount related to cost-of-living increases can be a boon to a community. The usual practice is for restrictions on resale to expire after15 or so years.
Federal government programs can stimulate affordable housing solutions through loans, loan guarantees, tax breaks, and grants, but the initiative begins at the local level. It requires overcoming fears of economic integration of housing types, setting limits on VRBO units, and guarding against corporate monopolization of the rental market.