An illustration of the complexity of urban construction of new housing from San Francisco

Affordable housing issues and "subsidy of market rate construction" housing are issues always in the news.

Tax abatements/subsidy of market rate housing.  WRT the latter, some elected officials are looking to end the 10-year tax abatement on newly produced housing ("Councilwoman Bass proposes eliminating 10-year tax abatement," Philadelphia Business Journal) and want to redirect the monies to affordable housing production.

But while it's looked upon as a subsidy, it's also a "residential recruitment device," and in a situation where Philadelphia continues to lose population even as other cities like Boston, DC, and NYC gain population, that's important.  Although there is no question that maybe a 10-year full tax abatement is overly sweet ("Philadelphia 10-Year Tax Abatement Here to Stay, for Now," NBC10) and perhaps the program needs some readjustment.

A similar debate is happening in Richmond ("Richmond's tax incentive program is promoting housing inequity," Richmond Times-Dispatch), unless you have a digital subscription, you'll need to access the article via a library-based articles database).  Also see:

-- "Stoney administration pitching council on tax break for Manchester developer; Richmond assessor: 'Why do you need to incentivize somewhere that's so hot?'"
-- "In reversal, developers pledge affordable units in Manchester project up for taxbreak"

It's tricky because people don't understand that generally the cost of construction of new housing, even rented at market rates, might not "pencil out" at least in the intermediate run.  And that the cost of construction (and land) is high and therefore renting it to other segments of the market isn't efficacious.

"Lifetime customer value" of a new resident.  And when you look at the total value of new housing in terms of resident income and sales taxes and other elements, just like how in direct marketing, you "buy" customers losing money in the short run, but making money on the "back end" in terms of purchasing over time and consideration of the total "lifetime value of the customer," the same goes for cities and adding new residents, especially those of high income.

Workforce housing production.  There is a great piece in Multihousing News about workforce housing production.  And I was surprised to see that MassHousing, a state government instrumentality, is happy to provide subsidies to projects that end up providing a "discount" to market rental rates of 10% to 20% tops.

-- "Work It!—Financing Solutions to the Middle-Market Housing Affordability Gap"

New Housing Construction in San Francisco.  Jim Dyer is an community advocate and I subscribe to his Flickr photo feed (we met once at a conference years ago, he is a biking advocate too), and I saw this photo, displayed at a meeting in his San Francisco Council District held by the elected official, Supervisor. Vallie Brown ("Community meeting aims to overcome impasse on new Divisadero housing construction," Hoodlline).

The projects are controversial because they propose a density that is greater than that which exists currently, in an area that is predominated by low height industrial type buildings.



When so many of the discussions on new housing focus on only one element, the fact that this slide lists six basic elements:

• financing
• affordability levels
• community benefits
• land ownership
• transit access
• housing types

plus whether the project is:

• public
• private
• or a mix

along with 

• "notes to consider"

is pretty incredible.