Growing thyme in austin12/12/2023 ![]() ![]() The project would be financed by a federal low-income housing tax credit that would offset some of the costs and enable the developer to offer below-market rents. There is a lot of pressure and angst from local advocates and leaders, because while unaffordability has been an issue for a while, we’ve just never seen this level of crisis in the way we’re seeing it now.”Ĭity officials supporting the development said it could help provide housing to workers essential to the community, like teachers making an average salary of $42,000. Affordability is truly a United States crisis. ![]() ![]() has a shortage of more than 4 million homes.Īwais Azhar, a housing advocate in Austin, Texas, who is a member of the city’s Planning Commission, said: “That cost pressure that was being felt by coastal cities has now traveled to our suburbs. The debates have also taken on new urgency as surging home prices drive out middle-class workers and lead to an uptick in homelessness, affordable housing advocates said.įor the past 15 years, the rate at which new homes and apartments are being built has failed to keep up with the demand, in part because of the lingering effects of the 2008 housing market crash, said Jeff Tucker, a senior economist at Zillow, which estimates the U.S. Homeowners have long put up fights against new developments - the acronym NIMBY, or "not in my backyard," has been in use for decades - but the battles have grown louder in recent years amid a wave of apartment construction stretching outside of city centers. “It’s not everywhere, but there seems to be this growing warfare against renters.” Some are more veiled than others as far as whether they will flat-out say that renters are second-class citizens,” said Owen Metz, a senior vice president at Dominium, an affordable housing developer that is working on the proposed apartment complex in Surprise. ![]() “It’s the same buzzwords no matter where you are. Increasingly, they are fighting back with lawsuits, referendums, appeals to state representatives and recall elections in a battle to stave off multifamily housing in their largely suburban neighborhoods. Vocal groups of homeowners say they are fearful of what the changes could mean for their communities. They’re going to build and build and build, and it’s no longer going to be the last place I live.” “The City Council and city management have not listened effectively. It’s going to really change the look and feel of where we are, and people aren’t happy about it,” Pomeroy said. “It’s just going to turn this into a very high-density area. The heated debate in Surprise, population 150,000, is being echoed in large and small communities across the country as local officials have pushed to increase the housing supply with small backyard bungalows to subsidized apartment complexes in response to surging rents and home prices since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. He worries the apartment complex will increase traffic and change the character of the area, which is made up of sprawling subdivisions of Spanish-style homes selling for $500,000 to $700,000. ![]()
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